The first revival meeting I ever preached was in Rock Island, Illinois, back in the early 1970s. The church had another evangelist coming to preach to their adults but wanted someone to hold a children’s crusade in conjunction with that revival. I gladly accepted. That week the workers did a fantastic job of bringing boys and girls. God was at work. Children were being saved nightly, and I was having the time of my life.

One night after I dismissed the children, I was walking across the parking lot to the main building to say goodnight to the pastor when I suddenly felt a tug on my coattail. I turned around, and there stood a little six-year-old boy by the name of Matt Webb. He had ridden one of the buses to the service. His clothes were crumpled, his hair matted, and tears were trickling down his dirty face. He looked up at me and said, “Mister, does God love me too?” I’m sure glad I didn’t have to tell Matt that night that God only loved important people and that Jesus only died for a few. I’m glad that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Scripture doesn’t qualify the lost; it just says in Romans 5:8 that He died for sinners. (I think we all qualify.)

I will admit that to me much of the world is not very lovable. We see people in every culture turning away from God and living in wicked sin. Like Jonah of old, it is easy to develop the attitude that the world deserves God’s wrath and judgment. But the Bible states that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). In fact, right after that wonderful verse, God states, “For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” In 2 Peter 3:9 we read that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Paul agrees in 1 Timothy 2:3–4 when he writes, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Read more »