The Cruel Mother—Hypothetical. – Dwight Lyman Moody

Suppose a mother should come in here with a little child, and after she has been here awhile the child begins to cry, and she says, “Keep still,” but the child keeps on crying, and so she turns him over to the police and says, “Take that child, I don’t want him.” What would you say of such a mother as that? Teach a child that God loves him only so long as he is good, and that when he is bad the Lord does not love him, and you will find that when he grows up, if he has a bad temper he will have the idea that God hates him because he thinks God don’t love him when he has got a bad temper, and as he has a bad temper all the time, of course God does not love him at all, but hates him all the time. Now God hates sin, but He loves the sinner, and there is a great difference between the love of God and our love.