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THE SPIRIT OF L0VE 12-11-55 I
CORINTHIANS 13:4-8 Last Sunday
night we left off at the 3rd Verse of the 13th Chapter of the I Corinthian letter.
And in your Bible, if you will turn to it, we begin at the 4th Verse of
the 13th Chapter of I Corinthians and go through the 8th Verse. Now, that
we might have its context, I'll read starting at the 1st Verse. I Corinthians 13:1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and
of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a clanging
cymbal. And though
I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and
though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I
am nothing. And though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love
suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up. Doth not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth
not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never
faileth. Whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether there be
tongues they shall cease. Whether there
be knowledge, it shall vanish away. But there
abideth faith, hope, love, these three.
And the greatest of these is love. In the 2nd
Chapter of the book of Revelation, John wrote an epistle to the church at
Ephesus. And he wrote it as the amanuenses
of our Savior. And the
Lord said to John, writing to the church at Ephesus: For thou hast left thy first love. The church
at Ephesus had lost that glow of tenderness, of care, and concern. Religion had become to them a matter of
creed, or barren and sterile duty. But
its warmth, its response, its sympathy, its glow, its concern, its care, its
full-orbed meaning had been lost. Paul writes
to the church at Corinth, and the church at Corinth was wonderfully
gifted. They had the gifts of miracles. They had the gifts of tongues. They had the gifts of ecstatic praise and
adoration. They had the gifts of
interpretation. They had the gifts of
prophecy. They were
rich and endowed with all the multitudinous gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were also filled with divisiveness
and strife and variances and difficulties of every kind. So Paul in
writing the letter to the church at Corinth, after he commends them and thanks
God for them, and their seeking after the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the endowments
of Heaven. Then in
turning to their spirit of variance and of difficulty and of divisiveness, he
pours out his heart to them. For this
greater gift, what he calls the more excellent way, the spirit of love and of
charity, the spirit of kindness and forbearance. And that's
the reason you find this 13th Chapter in the heart of the letter. However, eloquent we may be, however gifted,
however wonderfully blessed of God with nine and ten talents, if our spirit is
crude and rude and rough, if our heart is not filled with the milk of human
kindness, if we're not actuated and motivated by a wonderful care and concern
for God's fellow creatures, our eloquence is like sounding brass and clanging
cymbal. Our gifts of the spirit are
nothing and our very philanthropies fall to the ground. So I say,
that's the reason for the appeal of the Apostle to the church in powering out
this effusive appeal in behalf of the love that ought to move one's heart by
doing what one does. Now, that
is a very beautiful and eloquent word that he says. I suppose there's nothing like it in all the language of all the
literature, of all the world. Where there
is an abundance of love, housekeeping goes easily. Whether it's in a little cottage or whether it's in a great palace
or whether it is in a vast, comprehensive church like this, with its
multitudinous of characters and opinions and forces. Where there
is not love, you have to get along by compromise. By a policy of give and take.
By concession. And always you
sit down together knowing that on the other side of the table is one seeking an
opportunity for advantage to spring up on the prey. But where
there is genuine love and affection, however we may differ and however
diversified our opinion or our outlook or our persuasion may be, and however
God shall make us in different ways and after different patterns, if this is in
us and the spirit of love and charity is upon us, the thing is easily done and
beautifully done and gloriously done. This
morning, I've chosen four of the things that he has written here in this text
to speak of and the first one concerns love and personal ambition. In the 4th
and the 5th Verses: Love vaunteth not
itself. Love seeketh not her own. There
hasn't been any curse known to the human family, like the curse that goes with
personal aggrandizement. The
furtherance of self. That thing of
ambition mis-direction has brought on, oh, how many of the great
national calamities that has thrown this world into a bath of blood? From the days
of Genghis Kahn through Tamerlane through the Caesars, the Sargons, the
Sennacheribs, through Napoleon Bismarck, through Hitler, these men of great
personal ambition. And the
whole world is as nothing before their feet, as they, on mountains of bodies
and skulls and dead bones, seek to rise up and up and up to be like God
himself. Personal ambition. The thing
has been a curse, not only nationally, in national calamity and tragedy, but
the thing has been an unending tragedy as the drama of human life itself has
unfolded. I don't
suppose that in English history, there was a man more wonderfully gifted, a man
of greater and tremendous talents than Cardinal Woolsey, who lived with King
Henry the VIII. But he was
a man of inordinate ambition, a lust for power, a pride of place, and a greed
for domination and for rule. And in
Shakespeare's great play of Henry the VIII, he places in his mouth these
significant words as the great prelate, so high and so ambitious for so much,
as he sees the inevitable end. He says, as
Shakespeare places the words in his mouth, "Fling away ambition, fling it
away. By that sin fell the angels. How can man in the image of his Maker hope
to achieve thereby, by love thyself, last?" And then
again those final words of despair in the Shakespearian play, "Had I, but
served my God with half the zeal I served my king, I would not in mine age have
been left naked and alone." In the 45th
Chapter of Jeremiah, Jeremiah says to Baruch, the son of Neriah, his
amanuensis. He says to him, remember in seekest thou great things for thyself,
seek them not. Jesus, when
the two brothers, James and John said in the kingdom that is to be: Let one of us sit on the right hand and the
other on the left hand. When the
ten heard it, they were filled with all kinds of confusion and talk and
agitation. And the
Lord called them around him and said: That’s the way the Gentiles, that's the
way the heathen do. They aspire for
rule and for domination and they exercise lordship over one another. That's the heathen, that's the Gentile,
that's the world. But it
shall not be so among you. But he that
is greatest among you, let him be your servant. And he that is to be the master let him be the least of all. That's the
spirit of Christ and it is the spirit of the Christian follower of the Lord
Jesus. Love vaunteth not itself, and is
not looking for any preeminence. If
there's any honor, let Him have it. Let
Him have it. If there's any place of
elected pride, let it go to Him, somebody other than yourself. Love
vaunteth not itself, seeketh not her own.
I'll be the doorkeeper. I'll be
the slave. I'll be the servant. I'll wash feet. That is the spirit of our Master and of us who are His true
disciples if God shall help us so to be. What is he
saying? Love thinketh no evil. I stumble at that. Thinketh no evil. But when you read it in the Greek language, it just looks so
different. What it actually says is
this. It doesn't brood over evil. Oh, suppose
you have a fault. Suppose you have
fallen into a misfortune. What does love do?
Does it gloat over your misfortune? And does it roll under its tongue as
a sweet morsel, this evil that had overtaken you? Does love
do that? Love thinketh no evil, that
is love doesn't call it to mind. Love
doesn't brood upon it. How many
times, are we like this, we put two and two together by the shadows that you
leave behind, and out of those shadows we try to construct a house of heap by
which to imprison you. Your faults and
your misfortunes, but love doesn't remember it. Now, you
say, "Yes, I had forgotten about it.” “Oh, you
remind me. Yes, but I have put it
behind. Well, seems like I do remember
that back there he fell into thus and so, but I have covered it over.” Not
brooding over one's faults. Not
triumphing personally over somebody else's fall or misfortune. Thinketh no evil doesn't call it to mind,
cannot even remember it. Wouldn't
that be something? If you were able to
walk among your fellow men and however they had fallen or whatever they were,
loving God and them so much, you never thought about it. Didn't call it to mind. It was buried and covered out of sight. I read one
time in a book, about an artist who had been called to paint the portrait of
Alexander the Great. Alexander the
Great was almost like the Lord Jesus in his ableness to get men to love him and
follow him unto death. At an age
in his twenties, he had conquered the whole world and men followed him to death
and gladly fought by his side. And this
artist was asked to paint the picture of the great Alexander. Now, in one
of those battles, Alexander had received a terrible sword wound across his
forehead. And it had left a deep and
livid scar across his forehead. And the
artist, wanting to do the great and magnificent thing by their greatest Greek
chieftain, thought and pondered, but how shall I draw my commander and make it
like him? And yet that terrible scar
across his forehead. But he did
it. And this is the way he drew
Alexander the Great. Leaning upon his
elbow and his hand casually on his forehead.
And just as if by sheerest accident, one of his fingers covered the deep
scar on his forehead. It just
happened to be that way. I just
happened to forget. I just ‑‑
I just somehow didn't remember it.
Covered out of sight. Thinketh
no evil. Not looking for it. Not interested in it. Some tell -- thinketh no evil. That's love. That's love. Then this
next one was the strangest thing that I ever tried to find and found a gold
mine. I found a diamond. This beareth all things. Believeth all things. Hopeth all things. Endureth all things. Well, I
could easily see beareth all things, endureth all things. But love hopeth all things. Love hopeth all things. When love dies, hope dies. For love believes. And love trusts. And love
is buoyant. And love hopes. And the way it came to my heart was
this. Love hopeth all things. When we are
overwhelmed by a terrible tragedy, a colossal misfortune has overwhelmed our
souls. In the
words of the 42nd Psalm: All thy waves
and all of thy billows have swept over me.
And in a
sea of trouble and misfortune, we have found ourselves. Then we
say, "I don't love God anymore.
And I don't love Christ anymore.
And I don't love this book, God's book anymore. “In this
world of misfortune and in the sea of trial and sorrow, I don't love God. And I don't love Christ. And I don't love the book. And I don't love my church. And speak to me
none of it, I have lost my love.” Then, you
have lost your hope, for love hopeth all things. It is love that believes.
It is love that clings. It is
love that stays. It is love that bears
and endures. And if we've lost our love, we have lost our hope. Blind,
blind, blind, blind. How many times
have I heard that, especially in the Orient?
Blind, blind, blind, blind. But
in blindness, if we love Christ, then we love God, someday we believe we'll see
again. Love hopeth
all things. Cripple, cripple, dragging
with us a withered and a tortured limb.
But love God and love Christ and someday we believe we'll be strong and
well again. Ah, hurt, in suffering and
in pain, but in the love of God, in the promise of Jesus, someday we'll be well
again. In death
and in sorrow and in bereavement, separated, but loving God and loving Christ
and trusting an unfathomable, unknowable, infinite wisdom and choice of God,
someday we will see one another again.
Love hopeth all things. In ages and
senility and an impending and soon and certain death, love hopeth all things,
clinging to God in a land of promise where we'll never grow old and be young
forever and live in his sight. Love hopeth
all things, but if we lose it, hope dies when love dies. I do not think there's a more meaningful
little poem than the one by the poet: When he
likened that to the thousand eyes of the stars, and the one eye of the
soul. When he wrote: The
night had a thousand eyes And the day, but one. Yet
the light of a whole world Dies with the setting sun. The
mind has a thousand eyes. The heart, but one. Yet
the light of a whole life Dies when love is done. I would not
think there was anyone who ever lived, who lived under such certain and
impending death as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet, no man ever lived who hoped like that Man. He never doubted of the glory that was yet
to be. As He lived
his life, He knew that somewhere a tree was growing upon which He would hang in
agony. He knew that somewhere molten
iron was being poured, that would be beat into nails and a spear that would
tear his flesh and his life. But He
hoped in God. And He trusted in the
Lord. And His life was upward and
buoyant and filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. And it showed in His
own marvelous and incomparable face.
The hope in Christ and that hope is engendered in us. Any man who
believes in Jesus, any man who will love Christ and give himself to the
hopefulness of our Lord, whatever the billows and the waves and whatever the
tragedy and the sorrow, there is in it an inexplicable and an unfathomable and
an infinite holy divine help and courage.
There's a
refuge. There's a promise in the love
of the Lord Jesus. I think of that at
this season of the year, especially in this poem: That
night, that night When over the newborn babe, The tender Mary rose to lean. A lonesome leper Smiled in sleep and dreamed That he was clean. That night when To the mother's breast The little king was held secure, A harlot slept a happy sleep And dreamed that she was pure. That night when in the manger Lay the sanctified Who came to save, A man moved in the sleep Of death and dreamed There was no grave. That night when in Judean skies The mystic star dispensed its life, A blind man moved in his sleep And dreamed that he had sight. That night when shepherds Heard the song of Host angelic choiring ear, A deaf man stirred In slumber spell And dreamed that He could hear. That night when In the cattle stall Slept child and mother Cheek by jowl, A cripple turned His twisted limbs and Dreamed that he was whole. Love hopeth
all things. If we lose it, we've lost
our hope. But in sickness and in
illness and in agony and in suffering and in age and in death, if we can cling
in love, we abound in hope. And the
last; that love never fails. Prophecies fail.
Tongues cease. Knowledge
vanishes away. But love, love never
faileth. Its method never fails. It always wins and it always works. I don't
think there is a more unusual turn to a story that you could ever read than in
the 6th Chapter of II Kings, which tells the story of Elisha, and the king of
Syria, Ben‑hadad who is warring against Israel. And Elisha,
the man of God, sends word to the King of Israel saying: Don't you go by such
and such place, there's an ambush there set by the King of Syria to destroy you
and your army. And that
didn't happen not once nor twice, but again and again. And so the
king of Syria called in his servants and said: Which one of you is for the King
of Israel? Tell me. And one of
them replied and said: Your Honor, your
Majesty, there's not any one of us for the king of Israel. But over there is a prophet of God. And he can tell the king of Israel what you
say in your bedchamber. And so the
king of Syria got his chariots and his horses and his armies and he surrounded
Elisha on every side. That he was in a
little town named Dothan on the top of a little, bitty hill. And when
the servant of Elisha rose the next morning, why, the hosts of the king of
Syria were on every side. And the
servant of the man of God came and said:
My Lord, my Lord, how shall we do?
We're surrounded on every end, horses and chariots are everywhere. And Elisha
said: Why, that's not to be thought of, that should not matter. Why they that are with us are more than they
that be with them. And Elisha
said: Lord, open the eyes of the young man.
And God
opened the eyes of the young man, and the mountain was filled with horses,
chariots and fire, round about Elisha. So Elisha
said: Lord, blind all of this army. And the
Lord blinded every one of the Syrian soldiers.
Blinded every one of them. And
Elisha came out of the gates of the little city. And he said
to the Syrian army, he said: This isn't where you want to be. And this isn't the man that you're seeking
for. Follow me. And I'll take you where you want to go and
to the man you want to see. And he led
the Syrian army into the city of the Samaria, into the capitol of Israel. And when the army was safely inside and the
gates were barred, why the king of Israel said to Elisha, the man of God, he
said: Now, we've got them. Every man
bear his sword and we'll slay the entire army of Syria. What a day of victory and triumph. And Elisha,
the man of God, said: Not so. Not so.
Not so. And Elisha
prayed: Lord, open their eyes. And the
eyes of the army of Syria were opened. Their eyes were opened and they were in
the gates of Samaria with those soldiers, with drawn swords all around them and
they were getting ready to leave. And Elisha
said: Set meat and drink and provisions before them. And they
fed them in abundance. And they treated
them kindly. And Elisha opened the
gates of the city and sent the army with provisions back home to Damascus in
the love and grace and friendship of the men of God. And the
story closes with a little sentence: And the bands of Syria came no more into
the land of Israel. Isn't that
a war? Isn't that a war? You know, when you go over there to Germany
and you see some of those dear women over there who are widows. And their sons have all been slain. I have just
often thought if the United States of America could live back over again these
last twenty years, I wonder if they'd be so eager to kill those German
boys. Especially now that we're being
fed into the mall of a Soviet Socialistic Republic. I don't
know. But God's book says the method
works. The method wins. I must
close, but skipping over so much. May
I say just one other thing? This is
the kingdom of Christ, and it'll live forever. When you
look back over those history books, there is the kingdom of
Nebuchadnezzar. Where is the kingdom of
Nebuchadnezzar? You have to dig it up
out of old musty books or you'd never know there was such a golden kingdom. This is the
kingdom of Sargon and Sennacherib and Tiglath Pileser. There was a day when their name shook terror
to the world. This is the
kingdom of Alexander the Great. And this is the kingdom of the Caesars. And this is of Tamerlane. And this is of Napoleon. And this is Bismarck. You'd never know it, had it not been that
somebody wrote it down in an old musty book of history. But the
kingdom of the Lord Jesus, look around you.
Look around you. There in the
very heart of Africa, you will find that kingdom growing and building. Over there in the very heart of communist
China today, there are little colonies of that heavenly kingdom, that celestial
hope. Just look
around you. The kingdom of love. The
kingdom of faith and hope of the Lord Jesus. And it's built by a committal of
our lives to Him, and to each other.
And so I wrote down that most meaningful little poem that all of us know
and love. Abu Ben Adam. Abu Ben Adam. May his tribe increase. I woke one night From a dream of peace And saw within the moonlight Of his room Making it rich, And like a Lillian bloom An angel writing In a book of gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adam bold And to the presence In the room, he said: “What writest thou?” The angel raised his head And with a look Made all of sweet accord,
answered: “The names of those Who love the Lord.” “And is mine one?” Said Abu? “Nay, not so,” Replied the angel. Abu spoke more low, But tearily still and said, “I pray thee then write me As one that loves His fellow men.” The angel wrote and vanished. The next night He came again With a great awakening light And showed the names Whom love of God Has blessed. |