Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
13. It's good to see the green leaves
with us this evening. 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 8, we
read, Charity never faileth. Now when one of Christ's redeemed
is born again, by the Spirit of God. The Scriptures tell us
that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto us. And that's what we're talking
about here. That's why charity never fails. The love of God
is shed abroad in the heart. the love of God. And once the
divine love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts, the love
of God will abide with us forever. It will abide forever. There
will be no changing of God's love towards His people or in
His people. His love will be in His people
forever. Charity, therefore, never fails. Now verse 13 says, but whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues,
they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it
shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. And we don't have the gifts they
had in the early church, but we do have some spiritual gifts. But when we have these gifts
given to us, we have them in part. We have them in part. No man has any gift of God perfectly. We speak in part. We know in
part. But, he says here, verse 10,
when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as
a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish things." Right now, we're children. I'm talking
about saints, believers. We're children. The maturest
saint right now, in the parable, the way this parable is used,
in the context of what he's talking about here, the most mature believer
is just a child. We speak as children, we think
as children, we know as children, we're just children right now.
And what we're engaging in even now, as important as this is,
these are the childish things. And one day we're going to put
away childish things and we'll be fully, perfectly mature in
Christ, in glory. He says, verse 12, for now we
see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know
in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And
now abide of faith, hope, charity. These three. But the greatest
of these is charity. Now, above all gifts that we
possess right now, these three are the greatest. Faith, hope,
and charity. But of these three, the greatest
is charity because it'll never end. It'll never change. It'll
never diminish. It'll never fail. Love will never
fail. Now, first of all, let's consider
our sight. Our sight will change. It says
in verse 12, for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face
to face. By God's grace we do see. For
now we see, he said. There was a time we did not see.
There was a time we were blind and we couldn't do a thing about
that. We couldn't give ourselves spiritual sight. We were blind.
The glory for giving us sight goes to Christ. He gets all the
glory for giving us sight. In Isaiah 42.7, it says, He shall
open the blind eyes. He shall open the blind eyes.
In Isaiah 42.16, He said, I will bring the blind by way that they
know not, and I will lead them in paths that they have not known,
and I will make darkness light before them. and crooked things
straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them." And then in Isaiah 43, 7, that's that
scripture where he said, everyone that's called by my name, he
said, I've created him for my glory. God did the creating and
God's going to get the glory. I created him for my glory. I
formed him, yea, I made him. And he says, now bring forth
the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears.
He says, you in your religion, in your man-made religion, in
your man-made ways, you want to bring forth some witnesses?
Show me one blind man that has sight. Show me one deaf man that
has hearing. He said, these are my witnesses.
These that I've given sight and I've given hearing, they're my
witnesses. They're my witnesses. Now be
sure to get this now, the sight, the sight with which we see is
faith. It's God-given faith. That's
the sight with which we see. That's important. Our sight is
faith. It's faith. 2 Corinthians 5,
7 says, we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith, not
by sight. Now, by God's gift of faith,
we can sing now, Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see. And this sight is faith. Now,
we see and we believe by faith. What do we believe? We can see
now. We can see Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, That's God, the second person in the Trinity. We see
Him by faith. And we see that He came down
and He took flesh. He's the God-man. The perfect
God-man. So that He could die and accomplish
eternal redemption. Eternal redemption. That doesn't
have to be done again. Because He's God and He's man. And we see He was made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law and that's what
He accomplished. We don't preach that He tried, we preach He accomplished
it because we see this by faith. We believe this by faith. We
know that by faith now He's risen and He's reigning over every
power that exists. Every power that exists is under
His power. He rules everything. And He fills
all in all as the head of the church. And so through Him, by
Him, we're made the righteousness of God. And we have all acceptance
and completion in Christ. This is what we see by faith.
We didn't see this before we had faith. We didn't see that. When we read the Scriptures now,
this is what we're looking for. Because we got eyes to see it.
We didn't have eyes to see it before. This is what we see.
But in God's wisdom now, because God purposed this in His wisdom,
We see by faith, but for now we see through a glass darkly.
We see through a glass darkly. We see as in a mirror. We see
as in a glass. That's what he's talking about,
as in a mirror. The gospel that's preached is like a mirror. The
Word, the Scriptures we look into is like a mirror. The ordinances
of baptism in the Lord's table is like a mirror. We have all
these ways God's ordained that we can see and get glimpses of
Christ as in a mirror. But darkly means it's a riddle.
It's a riddle. Now, let me try to illustrate
this the best I can. Do you remember when Paul was
saying how Moses, when he came down out of the mount, he had
to put a veil on his face. and his face was shining, you
know, and he had to put a veil on his face. And he said, and
just like that veil was on his face, he said, the Old Covenant,
all through that Old Covenant time, while they were under that
legal covenant, they saw as if they were looking through a veil.
They saw with very dim vision like they were looking through
a veil. Saved by faith, saved by grace, saved by the Spirit
of God, but the sight was like looking through a veil, it was
very dim. And what he's saying here is, is compared to that,
we see, remember he said, we see with open face. He said in
2 Corinthians 3.8, we are with open face, beholding as in a
glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from
glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. But you see, the
comparison he's making in our text is just like they saw like
through a veil, whereas we now see like with an open face. Well,
in comparison to how we shall see in glory, we see through
a glass darkly now, like they saw through a veil. There's a
better sight that's coming. Right now we see through a glass
darkly. And that was ordained by God. He said in verse 12,
now we see through a glass darkly, but then we are going to see
face to face. Then we will see face to face.
Now let me first give a word of warning. Everybody is going
to see God face to face. And this will be a time of terror
for the unbeliever. For the man who believes this
world not believing on Christ, this will be terror. The Scripture
says, in that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and
his idols of gold which they have made to worship. He's going to cast them to the
moles and to the bats. And he'll go into the cliffs
of the rocks and to the tops of the ragged rocks for fear
of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty when He ariseth
to shake the earth terribly. Men are going to be afraid. But
at the name of Jesus, Paul said, every knee is going to bow and
every tongue shall confess that He is the Lord of lords and King
of kings to the praise and the glory of God. We're going to,
every knee is going to say that. The rocks won't be able to hide
you. There's one rock that can hide you. That's Christ the rock. Any other rocks that you try
to hide under, God's going to He's going to make you come and
bow to Christ and confess Christ. Don't leave this world not believing
on Christ. Don't even give it another night
not believing on Him. Seek Him while He may be found. Don't know when Christ is coming
or when your life is over. Seek Him while He may be found.
But now those who bow to Him now, this is going to be a time
of great joy. A time of great joy. Job said,
though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I
shall see God. Think about that. In my flesh
I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself. Mine eyes shall
behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.
We're going to see God face to face. Ask me what that's going to be.
I don't know. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be. But we do know this, when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him. Because we're going to see
Him as He is. You and I have never seen God
in Christ at all. We've seen Him by faith, but
I mean like face-to-face. We've never seen Him. These pictures
they have, that's not Him. That's not Him. We don't have
any idea what He looks like. We're going to see Him face-to-face
with our own eyes. Face-to-face. And there won't
be anything between us and God. The mediator, when we see Him
face to face, Christ will have finished the work. He will have
brought us to God. And there will be the triune
God in Christ. And we won't have to have a mediator. We're going to see Christ. God
in Christ. The Godhead in Christ. We'll
see Him. We'll see Him. There won't be
anything to interrupt this vision we're going to have. We won't
need anybody to to teach us or speak to us or we'll have clear,
open, perfect, full communion with God. With nothing to interrupt
it. Nothing to interrupt it. Now, by faith, we do see in part
now. And by faith, we do see through
a glass darkly. But when that which is perfect
is come, we shall see Christ face to face. And so that which
is in part shall be done away. The faith is going to be done
away. The sight that we have now, faith, will be done away.
We're going to see Him face to face. So what He's teaching us
is one of the greatest gifts we have right now is faith. It's
how we can see God. It's how we know God. It's through
faith. We don't look at things that
are seen. The things that are seen are temporal. The things
that are eternal is what we're looking at through faith, by
faith. So it's one of the greatest gifts
there is. But as great as that gift is, brethren, it's going
to pass away. We're going to see Christ face
to face. Face to face. Now that ought
to make us to see that all lesser gifts are lesser gifts. They're
all lesser gifts. Faith is important. Faith is
a great gift God's given us. And all others are lesser. But
I tell you, it also ought to humble us and make us depend
entirely upon Christ to give us that faith and grow us in
that faith and keep us by that faith because we want one day
to see Him. I want to see Him as He is. And only Christ can keep us.
Now let me show you this second thing here, our knowledge. It's
going to change too. He says there verse 12, Now I
know in part, then shall I know even as also I am known. Now,
by the Spirit right now, we're born of God, we're taught of
God, and we know God, our Savior, the Lord Jesus, we know Him.
We know God our Father and our Savior, the Lord Jesus, His Son.
We know Him by God-given knowledge. Christ is that wisdom by which
we know. Just like He's the life in His
people, and the light in His people, and the truth in His
people, He's the wisdom in His people. Of God are you in Christ,
who of God is made unto us wisdom. We wouldn't have any if it wasn't
for Christ. He's the wisdom in His people.
And it gives us this knowledge by divine revelation. He said
in 1 Corinthians 2, 9, I have not seen, e'er hath not heard
the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. But God
has revealed them to us by His Spirit, divine revelation. He's
shown us and taught us the mysteries of God. And the Spirit of God
makes us to know all truth. You have an unction from the
Holy One so that you know all things. We know all truth. And by this knowledge, we know
the essentials. We know what we need to know.
We know that salvation is by grace and not by works. And by
that, it begins with God choosing us, not us choosing God. That's
essential to that message Brother Todd preached on the difference
between grace and works. That's essential. That's the
whole difference between believing the true and living God and believing
in self and trusting self. And it begins with God choosing
us, not because of any works in us, but by His grace. We have that knowledge given
us by God. And we have the knowledge that
we totally fell in Adam. It wasn't by our own sin that
God condemned us. It was by the sin of Adam that
God condemned us. And men hate that. Men say, I
don't want to be condemned by another man's sin. I do. I do. And you do too. Because
By the same token that we were condemned by representation,
the only way we're going to be made righteous is by representation. Christ the last Adam making us
the righteousness of God in Him. He's the last head and He's the
representative of all God's elect. That's knowledge you don't have
by this world's teaching. That's knowledge God gives you.
Because it's so against us and so against the flesh, we would
not bow to God unless He gave us that knowledge. That's knowledge
you have in Christ. You see, the reason we say Christ
is wisdom is every bit of this that God teaches us gives Christ
all the glory. And true wisdom is when you want
Christ to have all the glory. and you've made to see that He's
the one who's going to have the glory and you want it that way.
God the Father will have it that way and He makes you to want
it that way. So election is giving Christ
the glory. God chose Him first and chose
His people in Him and gave Him all, put all the work in His
hands and not in ours. And then when Christ came forth,
He came forth to be the head of His people, to be the one
man walking this earth to represent His people and make us righteous
and purge our sin so we could come into God's presence. That
glorifies Christ too. And then lastly, we know this,
when the Spirit of God gives us life, that life He gives us
is Christ formed in you. So that now, you see, He is the
way, the truth, and the life. Everything we have, we have in
Christ. And He purges our conscience so that the access we have to
God is through faith in Christ our High Priest. That's how we
can come in. We got that access. all the time, welcome access
by God into his presence because he's purged our conscience. Now
this is what the Lord teaches us, that he's not going to lose
one. The justice of God's been satisfied
by Christ and the holy character of God demands he bring every
one of his chosen redeemed children to glory. He will not lose one.
He teaches you this in knowledge. So through this knowledge, you
know what we do? We rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. We rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. We're not just... I'm in a bad
habit right now of saying, I hope certain things. I got to quit.
I got to stop that. It's not that kind of hope where
it's just wishful thinking. Now, this hope is a sure hope
because God is holy and just. He won't lose one for whom Christ
died. And when He's put that knowledge
in you, through this knowledge He gives you, through faith in
Christ, we have a sure hope of the glory of God. We're going
to come into God's glory, God's presence, Christ's presence one
day. That's a sure hope. I want you
to connect here knowledge and hope, just like I had you connect
sight and faith connect knowledge and hope because they're connected. Turn over to Colossians 1. I'll
show you that. We wouldn't have this hope if
God didn't make us to know Christ. That's what I'm saying. Look
at Colossians 1 and look at verse 5. For the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven whereof you heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel. See, that's where you got this
hope. You heard the word of the truth
of the gospel which is come unto you as it is in all the world
and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day
you heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth. See, that
hope and this knowledge are connected. Since the day God worked grace
in you and made you to know His grace in the knowledge of Christ,
you've had this hope. You've had this hope of the glory
of God. You see, but here's what He's saying in our text. Even
though we know and we have this hope right now, now I know in
part. Even though I do have this hope,
I do have this knowledge now, through this hope, I still just
know in part. I know in part. There's so much
about God we do not know. There's much more about God that
we do not know than we do know. Now that's not to say, as some
do, that you can't be dogmatic about anything because you don't
know anything. The Spirit of God makes His people know the
truth of God. So you can be dogmatic about
what we do know. But there is a lot we don't know. There's a lot we don't know.
The secret things belong to God. There's a lot we don't know.
To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Think about
that. Think about the love of Christ.
Think how little we know about the love of Christ. It passes
knowledge. He was rich. He was rich. We can't enter into how rich
He was. He was rich. And yet for our sakes, by His
grace, He became poor. And we can't really enter into
how poor He became. We don't understand how He despised
sin because we've only ever lived in sin. That's all we've ever
known is sin. He despised it. And yet he was
made sin and he bore the punishment of his people. He was rejected
of God. He sank. He became poorer than we can
ever understand. He died. And he did it that we
might be made rich. That's love. I could say that
and you can hear it and we all know it. But oh how little we
know of it. how little we know of it. We
just scratched the surface. We just scratched the surface.
If God was to fill us with knowledge, it'd be like trying to put the
sun in a dew drop. It'd be like trying to put the
ocean in a thimble. The infinite God, infinite God,
in these little finite minds of ours. But when Christ comes
and He carries us to glory, look at what He says in verse 12.
Then shall I know even as also I am known. And that day we will
not know in part. We are going to know God even
as God knows us. We'll know God even as God knows
us. Just think about knowing all
the judgments of God. Think about knowing why God predestinated
the things He did and ordered the things He did in providence
and being able to just know everything perfectly that God ever did.
Right now we look at things and we scratch our heads and we don't
know why God's doing what He's doing. We know it's for His glory
and the good of His people, but that's it. But one day, we're
going to know everything. We're going to know God like
He knows us. We're going to be able to know
the depth of Christ's love. We're going to be able to...
I look forward to being able to see these scriptures perfectly. and know what every one of these
scriptures meant. Where I looked at them and I
guarantee you that in that day, if it wasn't for the fact that
we're going to be perfect in that day, we'd be embarrassed
at the things that we thought. And we're going to find out it
was just way off the mark. But there won't be any embarrassment
or shame. We're going to rejoice in Christ
so much we'll be glad that we see it as it is. But there'll
be a lot that we don't know. Oh, it'll be... We're gonna find
out things and know things that we don't even know we don't know.
We're too ignorant to even know of some of the things we don't
know. And we'll know those too. We'll know as we're known. But
then when we do know as we're known, our hope will pass away.
Our hope will pass away. When that knowledge is perfect,
and we know Him and we see Him, that hope is going to pass away.
We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For
what a man seeth, why does he yet hope for? So just like faith
is going to fade away, hope is going to fade away. Hope is going
to be a reality. We are going to realize that
hope one day and have what we have hoped for. And once you
have what you hoped for, you don't hope for it anymore, you
got it. And we are going to have Christ in all His fullness. And so, faith and hope are great,
brethren, but now we see they're both going to fade away. They're
greater than all these other gifts that the Corinthians were
fighting over. And they're greater than anything you and I can fight
over. But there's something even greater than faith and hope,
and that's love. That's love. Look at verse 13. And now abideth faith, hope,
and charity. Did you see there how he talked
about now we see, but then we're going to see perfectly. There's
our faith. Now we know, but then we're going
to know perfectly. That has to do with our hope. When a man hopes, that which
is seen is not hope. So when we have that perfect
knowledge, that perfect sight, we won't hope anymore. But now
here's this third thing, charity. This is number three of these
three great gifts. But he says, we have these three
now, but the greatest of these is charity. Why? Why? Because it's never going to change. It's never going to be taken
away. We're not going to... Our love is going to increase.
but it's never going to be gone. All of these things are going
to get greater as we go through this life, but one day faith
is going to be sight. And you don't need faith when
you have sight. And hope is going to be a reality and you don't
need hope when you have the substance. But charity is going to grow
and grow and grow and grow and never end. And never end. Right now, love is the beginning. That's the new birth. That's
God putting His love in you. We saw that. That's the beginning. That's the foundation. Christ
being formed in you. That perfect love. Christ the
perfect love being formed in you. The one in whom all God's
love is and all God's gifts of His love are is Christ. And when
He's formed in you and you're made one in Christ by Him dwelling
in you and you dwelling in Him, that's the very foundation. That's
the beginning. of faith and hope. And so that
great thing is charity, brethren. And then a man's faith and a
man's hope is only for himself. His faith and his hope is personal.
I can't believe for you and hope for you. You can't believe for
me and hope for me. That's personal. But love, charity,
works towards brethren and helps brethren. So it's the greatest
thing. But most of all, what he's telling
us here is, the same love God shed abroad in our heart the
first moment Christ enters shall remain when we're with Christ
in person and faith and hope are no more. The greatest is
love. Now let's get to the point and
go home with something here. Now here, God has seen fit to
make us see and know in part for good reason. I want to give
you a few things briefly. Here's what he's done it for.
Number one, it humbles us in all before God. The more we see
the limits of our sight and our knowledge, the more we see how
great God is. It humbles us. You know, when
you start studying a passage of Scripture, and you zero in
on it, and you sit there and study it a little while, and
it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I just
have to step away and walk away, and I got to try to get zeroed
back in, and it's just too big for me. And it makes you stand
in awe of who God is. You know, because we're just
so little. We're just so little. It humbles you. Two, it makes
us thankful and makes us value that we do know and that we do
see. There are so many in this world
that don't and I'm very thankful we do see and we do know. We do have faith and we do have
hope. That's God's grace. He alone makes us to differ.
He alone made us to differ. We're thankful. We value those
gifts that He gave us love and faith and hope. We value it.
Three, knowing in part right now makes us want to know Christ
more right now. Doesn't it make you want to know
Him more? When you know Him, you're going to want to know
Him more. And because God just has been seen fit to give you
a part, just a little, and you know it comes from God, it makes
you go to Him for more. You know, in nature the most
valuable treasure is not found on the surface. You don't find
the most valuable treasure on the surface. You've got to dig
for gold. You've got to dig for pearls. And that's how it is
with spiritual things. God shows you some things and
then He makes you dig. He makes you come and hear His
Word and search His Scriptures because you want to know more
of Him. And that's good for us. That's good for us to do. And
then four, by seeing and knowing in part, God keeps us ever dependent
upon Christ in faith. Where else are we going to get
it? Where else are we going to get faith and knowledge and love? We've got to go to Christ. We've
got to go to Christ. He has the words of eternal life.
He keeps you ever looking to Him. He keeps you at the foot
of the tree of knowledge all the time. Five, knowing we shall
know more of Christ in glory makes us hope for more, hope
more for Christ in heavenly glory where we'll enjoy all His perfection.
You don't have full hope now, but it increases your hope. It makes you want more hope.
Dimness makes you look for the day star. That's what an increase
of hope is, is to look more expectantly for Him. When the sun's just
coming up and it's twilight and it's dim, you're expecting that
sun to come up over the horizon and it's going to be bright.
And when you get a glimpse of Christ, you're hoping more assuredly
that day star is going to rise and I'm going to see Him more
perfectly. And it makes you want to see Him more perfectly. And
then above all, knowing in part and knowing charity is the greatest,
the unchanging gift, Let's make earnest, fervent love
our aim. We know in part, we see in part.
Knowing love won't ever change. Make love your aim. You think
about this, love, you see others and you think their knowledge
might be, it comes across as being maybe more limited than
your knowledge that you have of certain doctrine or something.
Just remember this, every one of us are just, we're ignorant
of just how close we are to total ignorance. You got a vast sea
of total ignorance and we're just right on the shore of it.
And over here you got all this giant desert of God's knowledge. And we're right on the edge of
being totally ignorant. We got such little understanding.
So I can't look down my nose at anybody that's got a limited
understanding of God. I'm right there with them. Right
there with them. And knowing in part, and knowing
love is the greatest, makes us want to forbear with one another
in love. Look on the things of others,
not just on the things of ourselves. I want to end with a story. If you've ever heard Brother
Henry Mahan talk about that conference they had in the fifties, there
was some men that he invited to that conference. And those
men differed in a lot of areas of doctrine. They differed in
a lot of areas of doctrine. But they agreed on the three
R's. They agreed on ruin by the fall, redeem by the blood, and
the necessity of regeneration by the Spirit. They agreed on
the particular redemption of God's people in Christ. They
agreed on the gospel. And there were so many enemies
and so few allies that they weren't about to start
splitting and dividing with one another over secondary things. I wish we could get back to that.
I would love to get back to that. I guess you get to a point where
Lord's blessed you enough and you got brethren all around you
and you have to start making brethren enemies. We don't know
enough about anything to boast and become proud and lifted up,
separate ourselves based on our knowledge or our faith or our
hope. And I'll tell you this, where love's reigning, we won't
do that. We won't do that. I pray, God,
increase our love. That's what I want. Make that
our aim. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for the message. We do pray you would make us
value faith and hope and love. Make us see what great gifts
these are you've given us. To believe on you and to know
you, to have a good hope in you, and to love. Lord, increase us in all of these. And above all, make us to love
one another. Faith and hope will be nothing
without love. Make us love one another. Lord,
forgive us our sins. Forgive us our doubting and our
pride and our divisive flesh. Put it down. Put it down. Do it for Christ's honor and
His glory. We ask it in His name. Amen.