Love is indispensable and its worth is indescribable, as demonstrated by Paul's discourse in 1 Corinthians 13. The sermon emphasizes that without love, even extraordinary spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues, prophecy, or immense faith are meaningless and profit nothing. True love, exemplified by Christ, is not weak but possesses strength and conviction, as seen in Moses and Paul's willingness to discipline for the good of others. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a genuine, God-centered love that motivates all actions, from giving possessions to sacrificing one's life, as the core of Christian experience.
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I want to speak on the subject of love possibly in the next two Sunday mornings as well as this morning because we have in verses one to three the way of love is indispensable and the worth of love is indescribable and the wealth of love is inexhaustible. So this morning we'll be speaking upon the indispensability of love. Now, we've mentioned before that man is responsible for dividing up the Bible into chapters, and it's a good thing. He wouldn't want to sit down and read one parchment right through, not knowing where to stop or not knowing where to find the text.
But when we give out the text of chapter thirteen, you can turn to it. But if you were to take what Paul did when he wrote this, he wrote this official right through from beginning to end. But then you find some chapters and they seem to be glued together. And that's true with chapter twelve, thirteen, and forty. He comes to the subject of spiritual gift. He's been taking up inconsistencies in the church at Corinth. Now he's coming to a very important part of the book of First Corinthians, something that was needed in Corinth to be corrected.
And it's a subject of the exercise of gifts. Now, you get the exercise of those gifts, or rather the bringing in of the gifts and the naming of the gifts, the introduction of the gifts in chapter twelve. He tells you what the gifts are. But when you come over to chapter fourteen, you see the exercise or the use of those gifts. And a better word would be the abuse of those gifts. The church at Corinth was in an awful mess about the use of these gifts. They were misusing it, and especially that one gift that counts.
Now it is the apostle right at the very heart of these three chapters, and if you put them together, there are eighty-four verses. If you were to read through those eighty-four verses, he starts out with telling you what the gifts are. And then he comes into the very heart of the exercise of those gifts. If you're going to use those gifts to edification and profit, you'll need to know something of the greatest of all gifts, love. If you don't, you get into the confusion of chapter fourteen, the misuse of those gifts presented in chapter twelve.
and simply because of the turmoil, the confusion that you have in chapter fourteen. The Apostle Paul starts out by enumerating the various gifts, and then how indispensable it is that those gifts be used by what you have in chapter thirteen loud. Otherwise your gifts mean nothing. No one will be profited. God will not be glorified, and no one will be edified, and you won't be satisfied. A man can have a gift, and if he doesn't, or a woman may have a gift. And if that gift is not exercised in the energy and atmosphere of love, as given in chapter thirteen, your gift will profit nothing.
Now that's what the Bible says. And we'll be taking this up. Tonight we'll be speaking on the subject of tongues, and possibly the next two of these Sunday nights, so we trust you'll come along. So in verses, in this first chapter, you have the doctrine of gifts, and the chapter we've read this morning. You have the very heart behind the use of those gifts and that love. And then in chapter fourteen, the practical side of the use of these gifts in edifying others. Now you'll notice the three things, three verses we read, and there are some things in these three verses that are very important.
Seven things, in fact, you'll find in these verses. These gifts of first three words, you have a burden. You have words. And you'll find here that God is not impressed with just words, just a lot of talk. God says, I want some power, some energy to those words. And if you don't have the love of God in your heart to present those words, I care not how fluent or flowery they may be, no one's going to be venisoned. God says, I'm not impressed by words.
I'm impressed by what is behind those words. I'm impressed with the inner man of the heart. You know, love is not a slack, easy-going state of sitting back, indifferent to weakness and indifferent to false doctrine, indifferent to practice, and indifferent to conduct. No. Love with meekness. In other words, if love has meekness about it, it's really not weak. There's a big difference. Love is meekness.
That's true. One of the attributes or outgrowth of love is meekness. The Lord Jesus Christ was meek and lonely. But meekness does not mean weakness. Love has muscle in it. Remember, Brother Remy, having meetings here a few years ago on this chapter, one feels hesitant to take it up after listening to what he had to say. I have it all on tape, but I didn't play them through because I didn't want to retreat. But, if one thing I remember did stick to my mind, he said, love has muscle in it. Love is not a wishy-washy sentimental emotional thing.
Most real love, the love of God especially, is something that's soft, something that's genuine. Take the case of Moses. Now, the Bible says that Moses was the meekest man in all the world, yet he found a man he didn't agree with and didn't like and he killed him and buried him in the sand. Was that meekness? No, it was not. If you read over Numbers twelve, But although Moses was weak, yet he used a rod time and time again. So seeing love, full of love, exercising love, you manifest meekness.
But don't think for a moment the love of God is weak. It is. You have the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the personification of love. You know what he did when he saw them. abusing the temple, he made a rip of small cords, and he's going to defend the holiness of God in the temple, and he used that rip, and he drove them all out of the temple. My, he used that rip just like he was after a bunch of cattle or something. He drove them out, and then he threw all the tables and money and everything else out of the temple after them. Oh, is that love? Yes, that love.
defending the holiness of God. Love has muscle and it has might. It's not a weak thing, a sickly thing. Love is solid. You've discouraged on that, okay? And you know the Apostle Paul was a lovable man. He penned this chapter. Yet was he wish ye washi? Or was he firm and stern when occasion required it? Listen to what he says, First Corinthians four, twenty-one.
What will ye, shall I come unto you with a rod, for in love and in the spirit of meekness? How do you want me to come unto you? I'm up to you. I'm so meek a mile. I'll let you have your way. I won't discipline you. I won't punish you. I won't be harsh. I won't raise my voice. I'll just let you have your way. That sickly love. The parent who lets his child have his own way doesn't love the child. But that child is going to reap an awful harvest by being spoiled and having his own way.
A lot of parents did that before the war, and all wars, I presume, just let the child have their way. They learned the story the way he wanted. I don't want to cough. Yes, they were sports. A lot of them were feminine in character, boys, until Uncle Frank got a hold of them, and he had some discipline. Boy, it was rough. If the parents had done their duty, it wouldn't have been so rough. And the Apostle Paul knew something of two loves. And he mentions this in chapter, the last chapter, I think of I Corinthians sixteen.
My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Also in II Corinthians two, four. But out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears. Not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly toward you. Paul said, if I correct you, if I discipline you, it's my love for you. And that's where love comes in. Love is not weak. Leakness is not weakness, not for the most. Real weakness is strength.
And that's the boy. Some people talk about a man we do, shedding tears. That's not a sign of femininity or weakness. The greatest, strongest character that ever lived, wept for Jesus. You see, let's understand love. This thing comes out of Hollywood and out of love. That's a lot of slush. that something has no depth to it. They have more divorces than anywhere else. If they really love their mates, they'd be no divorce. But that's all superfluous.
Real love is solid. It's steadfast. That's what Paul is getting at in these books. He says, though, I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. Now, they're not referring only to himself, the general term. All of us. It applies to all of us. Love in this chapter is God's love. The love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has given us us. Now those who come to the chapel have been taught from time to time the meaning of love. There are three kinds of love. Eros. A human attachment between man and wife.
and then Filioque, that stronger love, a real affection for someone else, a real devotion to a person. But then there's a Gatti. That's the love of God, God love. And that's what he's talking about here. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not the love of God, It profiteth me nothing, and it profits no one else. This is the remarkable thing. There are seven things we'll be noticing in these verses, if you have time.
In these three verses, seven things, and you'll notice them if you want to read them. Tongues, tongues of men and of angels, that's the first thing. Prophecy, in verse two. Mystery. There you have tongues, prophecy, mystery. All knowledge, that's the fourth thing. All faith, that's the fifth thing. And philanthropy, or giving everything you've got away, that's the sixth thing. Duty, giving your light to be burned. Isn't that the fourth? Seventh thing.
He says you can do all those things and not have luck. Is that possible? He says so. And I believe him. You know, when you start to think the tongues of men, it means that natural ability to speak one's mother's tongue or another acquired tongue. Paul, he spoke in Hebrew. Currently that in your Bible, over in Acts twenty-one, I think it is, he spoke also in Greek. We never read of Paul using a language that no one else understood. When he spoke in tongues, he used a language that others could apprehend and understand.
Same thing when you come to angels, the tongues of angels. Not ecstatic language. uttered in a state of emotion. That was not the tongue of angels. Angels always spoke a language that the ones they visited understood. Gabriel went to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and Zechariah understood every word. He went to Mary, The mother of the Lord, she understood every word. The angel undoubtedly used Hebrew language, but that was the language of the Hebrew language.
So the tongues of men of angels, who is referring to, is not something of Spanish, capital terms. Understand the words that you can understand are after them. They use the language of men. different language. And you'll be taking up that more as you go through the... You take Balaam. God used Balaam's answer to get a message across to Balaam. Read that over in the book of Numbers. I don't think for a minute the ask Balaam would have understood that. I believe the ask spoke Hebrew.
For Balaam understood that. He got the message. angel or the ass used of any language that Jalim knew. And I don't think the ass kicked out the tails and rolled all over the ground. I think he just told the message in the Hebrew language. And Jalim dropped. There's something clear and sensible about what the Bible has to say about the use of tongues. That's in Numbers twenty-two, twenty-eight, if you want to read it. Without love, he says, and you have it right here. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not loved, I am become as sounding brass or as a tinkling symbol.
Without love, sounding brass, a tinkling symbol. These have no light. You can get a lot of entertainment out of music. You can take instruments. They have no life attached to them. When I was up in Canada last summer, we went to the big fair in Toronto, big exhibition, and they had something I heard many times when I was a kid. I would look forward to it when a circus came to down. You know what it was. It was a clappy. It was a big machine. It looked like a big truck, but it had all kinds of pipes to it.
And they always played it, and they always enjoyed the old Calappi as it attended the circus. It wasn't a bit of light, was he? A lot of wind. But no light. A lot of entertainment, but no light. Paul says it's a lot of tickling grass and symbols. You can have something that's good to entertain and makes a lot of noise. But no one's going to be anything, edified, or denoted. Just the sound dies away. When that clappy ended, that was it. It left nothing behind.
Sometimes the ringing in your ears if it got too close. But you didn't learn anything. Paul says, though you speak, or I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. In other words, fluently, eloquently. There's no profit. There's no love behind it. If I don't do it out of love, he said, you're not going to be jealous of this. It's profit of me, nothing. I don't profit you nothing. And this is very solemn what he's talking about here, about these tongues and all this entertainment we're so accustomed to today.
And to have... language, ability to speak, without the love of God. It just simply means it's akin to words without power. The Apostle takes this up, because when I come to Corinth, I hear you can do a lot of talking in tongues. But he said, that's a lot of confused. When I come, I'm going to know what you're saying, whether it's of God, And he said, the judgment that I'm going to use is this. I'll know the power, not the words. I'm not interested in your long words and your fanciful expressions.
I'm not interested in your oratory, your rhetoric, your education. I will look for one thing, and that's the power of God. Our power that comes from a heart that in love with God, that has Agape, the love of God in it. The Apostle Paul was absorbed with love. The Apostle Paul, in other words, loved possesses. No man could have done what the Apostle Paul did with just mere human effect, but it was the love of God.
was motivated the Apostle. That's why there was power in Paul's preaching. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, it just means there's a lot of sounding brass and tinkering, maybe sickly ear, maybe entertaining for a little while, but the folks it is no place for entertainment. The Pope is to be used, and we'll be taking some of this up from the future. The tongues were given to communicate a message from God to men and women in a language they could understand.
Now that's the capsule. If what I'm saying, if I'm not able to communicate it to you with a language you know and words you understand, it means nothing. And so he's talking here about all this flanging and all this noise, all this entertainment, and no power. Now he speaks about prophecy. And so I have the gift of prophecy. What's he talking about? He's speaking from Revelation. He's speaking of having the mind of God relative to something pertaining to the future.
And he said, if I haven't got something from God, And here's the acid test, isn't it according to the book? If you preach anything that's not in this book, God's not going to be glorified and man's not going to be blessed. And so he says, if I were to be able to tell remarkable things, something about the future, prophesies, and I don't have love, he said, that's not it. Don't need a thing. God's not in it. It's just words. And the law or the letter of the word cannot. Why, it has a deadening effect.
An audience, they should listen to a preacher, and it has a deadening, depressing effect upon the earth. And he may say some good things. It's just a letter, the word, without the power. And the first fruit of the Spirit is love. The need for Spirit-filled ministry. Then he says, Mystery. And notice it. He said, And understand all mystery. Such a fantastic experience. All mystery. I took the time yesterday to go through all... The New Testament to find out all the mysteries we find in the New Testament.
There are fifteen minutes of mystery in the New Testament. Here they are. I'm not going to give you the verses where they are. I could. They're right here. Mystery of faith. The mystery of the gospel. The mystery of the Jew and the Gentile being one body. The mystery of the bride, the church. The mystery of the seven stars. The mystery of the seven churches. The mystery of godliness. The mystery of the kingdom of heaven, given in Matthew thirteen. The mystery of Israel's blindness. The mystery of the rapture, the coming of Christ. The mystery of God will, and the mystery of God. The mystery of the indwelling Christ in the heart of a Christian.
The mystery of iniquity that's going to be personified in the coming man of sin. And the mystery of Babylon, the mystery of the scarlet woman in Revelation, seventy. Paul said, if I understand all fifteen mysteries, complete one. He put the word all in there. If I understand them all, I could defeat them all. And have not loved nothing. Is love important? If Corinthians had lost the knowledge.
said he'd come behind an old gift. He had a lot of knowledge, but he said it popped up. That knowledge is not supported or backed up by L-O-B-E, the love of God. Not the love of self. No, but the love of God and the love of others. For me, expressions are very solemn. Then he speaks, too, of something else. All knowledge, all mystery, and then all knowledge. That's something. Why, the gifts of men, of angels, prophecy, understand the future, understand all mysteries, and understand all knowledge?
Why, a computer has got a lot of knowledge. Machines can come up with a lot of things, almost a human mind can, after him. And there are people who have great knowledge. Men that could dwarf me almost in any subject with a great mind, great powers of perception, great learning, great intelligence. But they don't know Christ. They don't know the love of God. So how is he going to profit me? Though I have all those that have not love, they'll profit us nothing. He says, though I have all faith, there's another, all faith.
In other words, I have the faith. If the Lord refers to it, I could remove a mountain. If a man were to take you to one of the mountains in North Georgia and say, I'm going to demonstrate my faith, and he's able to speak the words on the mountain news, everybody's eyes would pop out. That man wouldn't have any trouble getting followers. Even if I saw that, I'd have one question for that man. Mr. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart and you're willing to lay down your life for him?
You've got faith that you are grateful physically. What about your physical, spiritual? attachment of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have the love of God in us, you'd like me back off. Then what you do, or just did, doesn't impress me a bit. My Bible says over in Matthew seven, in that day, because they say we've done many wonderful works, we prophesied, and I know, He passed our devil, he shall stay depart from me, you worthless of a mystery I never knew.
Christ never knew them, and they never knew him. Marvelous things don't mean to say a person right, unless they go according to this book. Yes, faith that moves mountains, faith that plants a sycamore tree in the middle of the ocean, and it grows. God desires hearts. And he says that men don't give me their heart, heart love. He says, these souls would cry out their human hearts don't give me the love, the respect that I deserve.
God would command creation to honor him. Isn't it something? Though I have all knowledge... has not loved it, proffered at me nothing. Notice verse three. Two things. And go I bestow all my good to feed the poor. Now this is something to impart. Here's a man and he did all his good to feed the poor. He took away everything. Is that a sign of love? Remember the rich young ruler.
The rich young ruler came to the Lord and he asked the Lord, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord quoted the commandment. The young man says, all these have I kept from my youth up. But the Lord didn't quote the commandment where thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. He quoted the six that are applicable to man. And of course the young man said, yes, I keep the Sabbath day. I don't steal. I don't swear. I don't take a false witness. I don't commit adultery. He says, you did all those things. Those six commands the Lord told him.
He said, all these are my gifts. And now he said, the Lord says, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor. That went home. The young man were the ways sorrowful. The Lord cut the sword. But he didn't love. the poor, we loved and spent. But here the Lord said, and these are one of the, this is one of the qualifications, for discipleship, go, sell all that I'll have. I give to the poor. That's in Matthew, Mark and Luke. This is true discipleship. You know you could do this. You could give away every dime you've got.
Give it to the poor. Go practically naked yourself that others might be told. Almost starve yourselves that others might be fed. If you don't have the love of God and Christ in your heart, that means nothing. Now it's right here in the book. Though I give all my good to feed the poor, and have not loved, it profiteth me nothing. As you in the New Testament, the early Christians manifested love, I'm going to show you. You have this in Acts. Or, thirty-four. Neither was there any among them, and there were lots that were saved, that lacked.
For as many as were possessed of lands and houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the Apostle's feet, and the distribution was made unto every man according as he had been. Those early Christians, when they got saved, they brought all that they had, and they laid them down, the rich, and those that had gained, for those that had not. What caused them to do that? The love of God possessed their heart. But I'll tell you there's something else, too, in the human heart. And you remember Ananias and Sophia, a man was white at that very time.
They kept back part of what they were going to give to the Lord. And God struck them dead. They lied. They saw everybody else given all that they had for those who had not. And they said, well, this wife and husband got together. We're going to give ours, too. But then they began thinking, oh, but, you know, we've got to eat. We've got to live. And they kept that part. Peter came to them and said, why has Satan tempted his dying heart to lie? He had lied.
And you know what happened? The man was stricken dead. wife came in and Peter confronted her and she admittedly. They had lied. They kept that pile of life on her. She was tricking dead. Healthy love. The others gave all of them love to Christ. These gave up because they loved death. And so he says, so I give all that I've got. Have not love, it costeth nothing. Remember Judas. Judas, he saw the three hundred pence of that ointment being poured on the feet of the Lord Jesus.
Why, he said, that could have been saved three hundred pence and given to the poor. That's a lot of waste, worshiping the Lord. Three hundred pence worth of precious ointment. My, look what... We could have gotten for that. That's three hundred cents. And we'll put it in the bag. Yes. What does the Bible say? He said that. Not that he cared for the poor, but that he cared for the bag from what was put there. Judas, you're a hypocrite. You were supposing to get that money for that ointment and give it to the poor, but you wanted it yourself.
And you know how Judas ended up. He got so miserable and condemned and convicted he went out and committed suicide. Because the true nature of his heart was manifest. But here comes a the most searching thing of all here. The last one, the seventh thing. And though I give my body to be burned and have not loved, it profiteth, gave nothing. I suppose giving one's life for another is the acid test, the consecration. A person can give his life and have not loved him.
You say, how do you explain that? Well, you can give your life, yes. Firemen give their lives. Soldiers give their lives. Polishman did their life. Out of duty. Out of duty. Many soldier boys were killed in Vietnam. Not because they loved. Some will love their company. But they thought it was their duty. They thought it was their duty. Many a wife is dutiful to her husband. A good housekeeper and a good cook.
And if she told your heart, she wouldn't say, I can't say I'm doing another love. I'm doing another need. Are many a husband should say the same thing? So I give my body to be burned. I should lay down my life. And I have a love, and the love of God is possible if you like that. He couldn't write down to the heart of things, didn't he? Listen to the Apostle Paul. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts, Acts, verse one, verse two. That love for Christ. He says you'd break my heart if you kept me from going to Jerusalem just because I'm going to die. He said, I love the Lord so much that I'm willing to go there and die gladly. That wasn't easy. That was love. He was over these seven days. And if you recall the incident... of the three Hebrew children in the Book of Daniel. Remember the edict from the king?
The king had his image set up, representative of himself, the king. And anybody that doesn't bow to that king will be taken and cast into the burning fiery earth. And the edict went forth, and the music began. All the instruments blowing full of brass, throw to this innards, and they all fell on their faces, except three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. It wasn't hard to see them. Why, it was constrictious, wasn't it?
All these thousands down on their faces, three young men likely standing to decide each other. They stood erect. They wouldn't bow. King said, did you hear that he did? Don't you young color realize what this means? Said if you go bow down to my God, that means me, you're going into the first. Yes, we heard it. I'll give you another check. And he commanded the big officer to strike up. And he did. He stood erect.
and they were cast into the fiery burst. But they weren't burnt. The personification of love was with them, and the king was alarmed because he was going to witness this. These are valiant, stubborn young men. We'll see what they're going to do now when they're in that fire. But the king was shocked. He said to those who had thrown them in, Didn't we? The three in there, but I see four. Yes, the fourth person is the son of man, the son of God. He was with them in the fire.
And such a demonstration of devotion to the living God that King says, get him out. Get him out. There wasn't even a smell of fire upon their clothes. Why? Love endures all day. That's God. That's the love of God. How puny, anemic, and sickly is our love for Christ today. The least thing that we suppose, our family comes before Jesus Christ. Paul says, though I am...
able to do all these seven things and i don't have love there's nothing there's me nothing the lord probes at our heart like you did peter silent son of jonas love of sami and the lord of sumno use their turn phileo first of all he used the word agape and agape christ Do you love me, Simon Peter, with this true divine affection and attachment? But Simon Peter had been caught dragging. He didn't want to say that, but he used the word filio.
I love you, Lord. I'm not going to say I go so far to love you the way you love me. So the Lord came down to use that word filio. Well, do you really love me, Simon Peter, even in the sense of filio? affection that's inferior to divine love. Yes, he says, I'll go that far. He probed away at Peter's heart. Is he probing away at George this morning? Is he probing at Mary? We talk so much about being Christian. Yet we shrink from sacrifice. We shrink from self-abnegation.
We shrink from even laying down a line or giving something to the poor, for the namesake and honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're still very much living for number one, and we are not permeated, possessed with the love of God. Oh, read these three verses. the indispensability of love. If love doesn't dominate me, and this is the love of God, if it doesn't dominate me, what I do, I may do it mechanically.
I may do it for self-assertiveness. I'm disappointed. If I do it for Christ, I love him because he first loved me. If I do it for Christ, if I do it for others, if I preach this gospel with love for souls, one to be men and women, pain, and it's the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, then you're happy. You do it out of love for Him, whether men or women appreciate it or not.
You've got your eye on the proper object. You're doing it out of love to do. Once in a time, we refer to the church in Ephesus we went to. They were a very active, energetic church, knew a lot of things, did a lot of things, suffered a lot of things, but, says the Lord, I've got to complain. You've left your first love. You're a housekeeper, says the Lord. Once you were my lovely bride, and you'd have laid down your life, says the Lord. You have left your first life.
And that's a bad thing to me. You lose the joy of your salvation. You lose the joy of serving the Lord. You've come now to be a machine without the heart. those of you who are not saved this morning, where does it leave you? It leaves you with a hottest stone. Boy Haddon, who was here last Sunday morning, but is in heaven this morning. I didn't know this week that when he used to run around with all those firemen, his wife told me they used to call him the Rock.
He is a rough man. That is, he had strong character. I said to his wife, since he told me that, I said, yeah, but the rock cracked. But true it is. It cracked here one Sunday morning. And you know, that's where the light gets in, through a crack. When your heart is groped and under the power and the hammer of the Word of God, and you find how empty it is, that's where the light gets in, the light of the glory of gospel of Christ, which shines unto you and needs to be saved.
Do you know this love, the passive knowledge, if you don't, you're as cold as a stone sitting there, and if you don't crack now, you'll crack now. and a day to come when there's no love available to save you. So we pray. Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come into thy presence. We thank thee for thy word. It's precious.