In verse 35, one of them which
was a lawyer. Sometimes every one of us try to be lawyers. You ever picture
yourself as a lawyer? We are, we're always hollering,
there ought to be a law against that. or call the law. If a man doesn't do so-and-so,
we'll call the law. This lawyer came to Christ and
asked him a question, Master, which is the great commandment
in the law. We say we believe grace. We say
that we practice grace. We say that we're people of grace,
but basically and deep down, all of us are great defenders
of the law. We defend ourselves. We go to
great ends to justify ourselves in the eyes of men. We prosecute
others. We are very critical of the behavior,
of the attitude, of the actions of other people. We criticize,
we condemn, and we find fault. Not with ourselves. And not many
of us who can pray the prayer of Psalm 51, I have sinned against
thee. My sins are ever before me. I was shapen in iniquity. I was born in sin. We criticize
and prosecute and condemn and find fault with everyone but
ourselves. We argue the law. Which is the
greatest sin? I may do this, but it's not as
bad as that. I may have made this mistake
or that mistake, but it's not as bad as somebody else's mistake. I was member of a church one
time years ago when I was growing up. And every year in September,
we elected Sunday school teachers and officers. And the pastor,
who was a great, what we call, separationist and fundamentalist,
put out rules, five rules, for Sunday
school teachers and officers. A person could not be a Sunday
school teacher if they did five things. You could not be a Sunday school
teacher if you smoked. You could not be a Sunday school
teacher if you drank. You could not be a Sunday school
teacher if you played cards. You could not be a Sunday school
teacher if you attended movies. You could not be a Sunday school
teacher if you danced. Those were the five things that
Sunday school teachers could not do. Now what is this more
than judgment, judges of the law? doing the same thing that
this lawyer did when he came to Christ. He was a man who was
a lawyer, a student of the law. And he asked Christ, which is
the greatest commandment of the law? He was interested in that
which carried the most punishment, that which was the most serious
if we're offended, that which he felt that wanted to know what
the Lord felt like would be the greatest sin that a man could
commit. And aren't we guilty of a lot
of that ourselves? I believe that today's ignorance
of righteousness and holiness and ignorance of the law is appalling. I really do. I believe that in
this day that we've reduced God to a silly, sissified sentimentalist
like ourselves. I believe the God of present-day
churches is a silly, sentimental, sissified, nothing. That's my own personal opinion.
That's the reason that people today have the idea that religion's
for old women and little children. Because the God of present-day
religion is like an old woman or a little child. Sentimentalist,
emotionalist. David said in Psalm 50, turn
over there a moment, Psalm 50, verse 21, "...these things hast
thou done." And I kept silent. This is what you've done, God
said, and I've kept silent. You thought I was altogether
such a one as yourself. That's what you thought, and
I didn't correct you. I left you alone in your ignorance. All you part-time lawyers, God
said, I left you alone. I just left you in your ignorance.
This is what you did, and I kept silent. You thought I was altogether
such a one as yourself. Now I will reprove you. I'm going
to set things in order one of these days. But right now, God
just let you roam down the road. You don't go to the shows, and
you don't dance, and you don't drink, and you don't smoke, and
you don't play cards, and you are holy. Bless your heart, you're
so pure. You're just so good. that God
ought to look with awe upon you with great favor. Now everybody
else is bad, everybody else is wrong. We reduce Christianity. We got her down now, we've got
it simplified. We've got it so that we can meet
the rules, we can keep the laws, we can pacify God, we can get
along. We reduce Christianity to a system
of do's and don'ts. We run upon a little problem
once in a while, We run into a man like David, who was a man
after God's own heart, who, when he encountered a bunch of folks
who wouldn't feed his soldiers, he was going down and kill every
blessed one of them. We run into something like that,
and it upsets us for a little while, but David was a bad boy. But we're good boys, you see.
present-day God is not the same God of the Old Testament. He's
a different God. We've reduced salvation to denominational
doctrine. We believe that a man called
Jesus lived on the earth. We believe that a man called
Jesus died on the cross. We believe a man called Jesus
was buried. We believe a man called Jesus
rose. We believe a man called Jesus
ascended. We believe that one of these
days he's coming back and we're saved. We've got it all reduced. We've got it simplified. We've
got it all fixed up. We've got Christianity down to
our denominational doctrine. Now, Joe Brown doesn't believe
there's a man called Jesus, and he's going to hell, and I'm going
to heaven because I do. See, I've got it all fixed up.
We've reduced the law to outward obedience. Our Sunday school
teachers must not do these five things. Now, they can hate people
in their hearts. We can't touch that. We can't
get a pledge from the sign not to hate, because everybody hates. That's just expected. That's
the carnal Christian. That's the natural man. Everybody
hates. You're not supposed to go to
show, but you can hate. You see, we can't get that on
a pledge card. We can't get this thing of jealousy
on a pledge card. We can't get envy on a pledge
card. And we can't get greed on a pledge
card. We can't get selfishness on a
pledge card. And we can't get covetousness
on a pledge card. We can't get idolatry on a pledge
card. But a man can do all of these
things as long as he doesn't dance or play cards or go to
show. which is the greatest law. That's
bad. That's bad. That's serious. You
can't do those things and be a Christian, but you can do all
these other monsters can live in your heart. You can walk with
God as long as you believe the doctrine. I think we're in a
mess. I'll just be honest with you
before God. I sit and think about it. I think
this whole Christian so-called profession of today is in a horrible,
terrible mess that will not be corrected till judgment routes
every one of them out of their refuges of life. God said, you
thought I was like yourself. You've oversimplified in your
desire to simplify Christianity. You haven't studied God. You
haven't studied yourselves in your desire to justify yourselves. You'll not be critical of yourself.
You'll condemn others. You'll condemn their attitude
and their actions and their deeds, but you won't condemn yourselves
in your own attitudes and your own actions. The old Pharisee, the old religious
man, the old Sabbath keeper, stood in the temple and lifted
his eyes to heaven and said, God, I'm sure I'm glad I'm not
like other folks. I tithe, I give alms, I pray,
I go to church. I don't go to show, I don't dance,
I keep the Sabbath day, I don't do this, and I don't do that.
I'm sure glad I'm not like other men. This man down here would not
so much as lift his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast in
humility and contrition with a broken heart and said, Oh God,
I'm a sinner. I wish you'd be merciful to me,
because I'm a sinner." Now, our Lord, present-day religion would
make this Pharisee the student in the Sunday school. Present-day
religion would ordain this Pharisee and put him in the pulpit. Because,
you see, he's a good man, he's a clean man, he's a moral man,
he's a man that believes the doctrine. So you've got to have
in your pulpit a clean, moral, good man who believes the doctrine.
And present-day religion would look at that old publican and
say, now you can't be a deacon or a Sunday school teacher or
a preacher, we can't have you in our fellowship, you see, you're
a bad boy. And we can't do business with
you." But God did business with him, and this fellow up here,
the Lord said, he went down to his house condemned, and that
man went down to his house justified. Now somebody's God's wrong. And
that's what I'm saying, that our God, the God of present-day
religion, is all wrong. He's confused. He's not the God
of the Bible. We've simplified religion. We've
simplified God. We've simplified Christianity.
We've simplified the doctrine. We got it all where we can understand
it, where we can meet the rules and regulation and have no conviction
and no trouble with our consciences. Master, which is the greatest
commandment? I don't want to break the greatest
one. Now, some of these little ones
I might work around a little bit, and I'm just liable to kind
of mess with him a little bit, but I want to know, I want to
know the five important things that a man can't do, and that's
what I'll work on, which is the greatest commandment. Now suppose
the Master came to me and came to you this morning and told
us he was going to tell us two things, two things, on which
the law, obedience, holiness, righteousness. He's going to
tell us the two things on which all these things hinge and build
and hang and abate. The two things. This thing of
knowing God, this thing of being a righteous man, this thing of
being holy, this thing of being acceptable before God. He's going
to tell us the two things this hangs on. I wonder if we'd listen
to it. Or would we go on in our way
of reducing God to a sentimentalist and Christianity to a doctrine
and salvation to a do and a don't, like we've been doing all these
years? Bless their hearts. The holiness people get together
and they sing and shout and pray and testify and talk about their
victories through the week, how they haven't done this and haven't
done that, and God's a hundred and seventy-five miles away from
that place. You know it, and I know it, and
if things was truthful, I think they'd say they know it. And
we Baptists meet together, and we've got our doctrine, our cold,
dead, hard, dry-letter doctrine. We believe certain things, and
it's all fixed up, and we don't need to bother about it. We're
on our way to heaven, and we're going to miss hell, and we don't
have to be bothered about this thing of of inward holiness and
inward righteousness and inward purity of walking with God in
a sweet, precious fellowship. We made a profession of faith,
we had an experience, we joined the church, we learned the doctrine,
and we're Christians. We don't listen to God, we don't
examine our hearts, we don't strive after holiness. Those
people don't have it, I know that, but neither do we. If God came to you this morning
and said, I'll give you two things on which this whole thing of
holiness and loyalty to God and communion with God, two things
on which it's built, would you listen to it? I mean, would you
listen for yourself? No, we'd listen for somebody
else. We'd say, boy, I wish old Joe had been there this morning.
That preacher really did preach the sermon he ought to have heard.
That's more self-justification. We're all right. We're Christians,
you see. We're good people. But my friend,
this is my sermon. This is my need. This is my responsibility. And I ought to be sitting here
looking into this book and into this message and into the Word
of God as if I were the only person here, and the great God
of glory opened heaven and spoke to me myself. Now, I don't exclude
anybody from this service. I need it more than you do, and
you need it as much as I do. Let's put it that way. I mean
everlast one of you folks that are here 70 years old, open your
ears, get the wax out, the wax of prejudice, and the wax of
tradition, and the wax of personal morality, and the wax of your
goody-goody religion. Get it out of your ears and listen
to God speak. And you men and women here who
are busy raising your families and making money and trying to
make a living and meet your bills and get your kids through school,
listen for a few minutes. And you folks who think everybody
else is so wrong and you're so blooming right, get the wax of
prejudice out of your ears and listen for a little while. Listen
to what the Master said. Which is the greatest commandment?
And Jesus said there are two things. There are two things on which
the whole law hangs. There are two things on which
the whole beauty of holiness is built. There are two things.
Thou shalt love God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. No movie theater mention. no
deck of cards dealt with, no whiskey bottle held up and rattled,
no length of sleeves or hair, no jewelry or makeup, no paying
your bills, no stealing, no murder, just plain old L-O-V-E love. That's all he said. He summed
up the whole law. He summed up the whole business.
He summed up the whole thing of holiness. Thou shalt love. Now let's look at them separately
and apart. First of all, our Master said,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Now I've dealt severely
and I've dealt harshly, but I'm not going to apologize. I've
tried to get your attention. I'm like that fellow who had
that old mule, you know, and hit him in the head with a two-by-four.
And a fellow said, what did you do that for? He said, you've
got to get his attention. If he wants you to mind, you
want him to mind you, you've got to get his attention. And
I've said the things I've said to shock you, to get your attention,
mainly, in this introduction. But now listen to it. The first
thing the Master said, and I'm saying that because I know I'm
telling the truth. I may hurt feelings, but it won't
hurt hearts. Because if you'll admit it, if
you'll ever face yourself, you'll be awful ashamed. If you'll ever
come to know yourself, you'll be awful humble. The first thing the Master says,
Thou shalt love God. This is the first commandment.
That's what he said. This is the first commandment. It's the first commandment because
it was written in the heart before the ten commandments were ever
written. It's the first commandment. No use to say to an angel in
heaven before the creation of Adam, Thou shalt not murder.
You can't kill an angel. No use to say to an angel in
heaven, thou shalt not steal. Angels have no use for material
things. But it was this commandment,
the first commandment, the commandment written in the heart, the initial
commandment, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, that's the
one the angels broke. That's the one that Lucifer failed
to keep. That's the one that caused his
descent from heaven. thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart." That's the one Adam and Eve broke. Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other God
before It's the great commandment, for it contains in it all other
commandments. In the bowels of this commandment
are all commandments. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God, and any offense given along any other line is a rebellion
against the great commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God. Somebody said the essence of
sin is not thy will, but my will. And the essence of holiness is,
not my will, but thy will. What does this commandment, this
first commandment, this great commandment say? It says, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God. It's my duty to love God. It's
my duty to love God. Which I'm good as the next fellow,
I wouldn't doubt that, but do you love God? Well, I go to church on Sunday.
I know that. I see you every Sunday. But what
I'm asking you this morning is, do you love God? Well, I help support the Church,
and I give to these things that you mentioned, the missionary
fund, the children's fund. I try to help in every way I
can. I know you do appreciate it. But do you love God? I believe Christ died on the
cross. I know you do, but do you love God? I believe a man
can go to church, he can try to be as good as the next fellow,
he can give his tithes and offerings, he can believe Christ died on
the cross and not love God. The Lord Jesus Christ sat down
beside his disciples and looked at them. And then he came around
to the apostle Peter and he said, Peter, do you love me? Peter had given up his home,
his wife, his family, and followed Christ for three and a half years.
And the Master said, Do you love me? Peter had suffered rebuke,
persecution, hatred, abasement, ridicule, harassment, and Christ
said, Do you love me? Well, Peter was the one that
said, I believe you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. But
Peter, do you love me?" Peter was the one who said, while,
while, Master, I'll go with you to death. I'll defend you against
anybody. Do you love me? Brethren, over here in 1 Corinthians,
chapter 13, I want you to listen to what it says. the greatest orator who ever
stood in the pulpit, it's possible for him not to love God. And have not love? Why, a man
may as well stand up there and ring a sounding brass or shake
a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of
prophecy and understand all mysteries and can write like John Owen
and Arthur W. And though I have 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 my goods
to feed the poor, though I am the best giver in the church,
though I give my body to be burned as a martyr with Rutherford,
Latimer, Cranmer, and the rest of them, and have not love, it
profiteth me nothing. The question is, do you love
God? Now, I try to do right, preacher,
I know that. But if you have not love for
God, it'll profit you nothing. Look at 1 Corinthians 16 while
we're over there just a moment. Paul, the apostle, says, Any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. That's God's
curse be upon him. Maranatha, that means, Lord,
come and bring the curse with you. If any man love not our
Lord Jesus Christ, it doesn't say if any man doesn't attend
church, it doesn't say if any man doesn't give, it doesn't
say if any man goes to a movie, it doesn't say if any man doesn't
love Christ, let him be under the curse of God Almighty. The duty of every man is to love
God. And the extent of this love,
look at it, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy mind. Now brethren, it's possible
for us to say we love God and not love Him. I'd like to return
to 1 John chapter 4. If nobody can answer this question
for you this morning, you've got to answer it. Do I love God?
Do I love God? In 1 John 4, verse 20. If a man say, I love God, it's
possible for a man to say that. That's pretty easy to say, isn't
it? Isn't that pretty easy to say? Well, I love God, preacher.
What do you think, I'm a heathen? Well, a Pharisee wasn't a heathen,
but he didn't love God. I love God. If a man say, I love God and
hate his brother, he's a liar. What's he lying about? He's lying
about loving God. He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
If I love God, I'll love that which is God and that which is
of God. If I love the begatter, I'll
love the begotten. Here are some of the statements
of the people of the Bible. I love thy law. If a man loves
God, he'll have to love God's law. I love thy house. I was glad
when they said unto me, Let us go to thy house of the Lord.
If I love God, I love his house. I love thy people. David said,
How sweet and precious it is when brethren dwell together
in unity. I love them that love thee, he
said. The Apostle Peter talked about
the precious promises, the precious faith, the precious blood, the
precious Christ, the precious sacrifice. He loved God, and
he loved the things that were of God. Brethren, here is the first commandment. Here is the great commandment.
Here is the standard by which men's professions ought to be
measured. This is the standard by which
we ought to weigh our so-called religion. Do we love God, that
which is God and that which is of God? Peter, do you love me? For if you love me, you'll feed
my sheep. Now, what's the second commandment? Let's look quickly
at it. Jesus said, this is the first and great commandment,
and the second is likened to it, and on these two commandments
hang all of holiness, all of righteousness, all of religion. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. Now our Savior often preached
upon the duties of human life. He often preached upon the fruits
of the Holy Spirit, which are begotten in us by the Spirit. And it's as much the duty of
God's preacher to preach man's duty as it is to preach Christ's
atonement. And unless the preacher preaches
man's duty, he can never bring man into a position to see the
beauty of the atonement. And this is the command, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And I want to split it into three
parts. First of all, whom am I to love? Secondly, what am I to do? And thirdly, how am I to do it?
Now first of all, whom am I to love? Thou shalt love thy neighbor.
Comes from two words, I'm told, meaning near me. Them that dwell
near me. Now this person I am to love
may be of a different religion. And we say we have the truth.
And he doesn't have the truth. Here's a man who is my neighbor. Maybe he's in my house. Maybe
he's in my community. Maybe he's in my state. Maybe
he's in my family. But he has a different religion.
I say I have the truth. I believe God's sovereign. I
believe Christ died for sinners. I believe salvation's only in
the blood of the Lamb. I believe that a man is regenerated
by the Spirit and redeemed by the blood. and saved by God's
grace. I believe that. I have the truth.
He doesn't have the truth. I'm God's child. He's not. But I want to ask you a question. If that man is kind to me and
patient with me, and I am not with him, Who's demonstrating
the most grace? I said I believe in grace, and
he said he believes in works. But I'm critical and hard and
cruel, and he's kind. He's working his way to heaven,
and he's kind to me, and he's good to me, and he speaks to
me, but I don't speak to him. I want to know who's really demonstrating,
who really believes in grace, huh? Come on now, who really
believes in grace, me or him? Neither one of us. No, sir, neither
one of us. That's right, neither one believe
in grace. He's practicing grace and doesn't believe it. I say
I believe it, not practicing it. We're both wrong. Neither
one of us believe in grace. The man who believes in grace
is the man who demonstrates grace. Now, you can just take that and
push it down in the pipe and light it up and smoke it, because
that's so. That's the truth. The man who
believes grace, the woman who believes grace, is the individual
who not only has it up here, but has it down here. That's
what 1 Corinthians 13 says. If I say these things and I do
these things, well, if I don't have it down here, I might as
well be ringing a gong, because that's all it's worth. and the
law of that man, though he be of a different religion. Secondly,
he may be of no religion." Now, brethren, Christ was said to
be the friend of sinners, people who had no religion. To be perfectly
honest with you, the Lord Jesus Christ had the hardest words
for the religionists and the tenderest words for the no religionists. Did you know that? You were once
an enemy of God. A man will never be convinced
of our gospel by our hatred. He may not be convinced by our
love. Only the Holy Spirit can convince
a man of Christ. But I'm sure he'll be drawn nearer
to hearing our gospel under love than he will under hatred. Let
me ask you this. A man's walking down the street,
and he has a white cane. He's blind, totally blind. Can't
see a lip. And he stumbles over the curb
and falls down. How many of you walk up to him
and say, well, you're a blind bat, pick up your feet. If you
had any sense, you wouldn't fall over the curb. No, you wouldn't,
would you? You'd reach down and pick him
up, brush him off, and say, oh, buddy, let me help you down the
street a little bit. Wouldn't you? Well, we Calvinists
say that people who do not know Christ and who do not see the
gospel of grace are blind. Isn't that what we say? They
are blinded by the God of this world. Christ said, having eyes,
they see not. But you let a member of our household
question our doctrine, and we'll fly into them like a circle saw. If you had any sense, you could
see it. If you believed anything, you'd
believe it. They stumble and we curse them out. They fall
on their faces, they don't see their need of Christ, they don't
see the gospel, they don't see salvation by grace, and we don't
have any patience with them at all. We don't put our arm under
their arm and say, well, I know you can't see and I know these
things are a stumbling block, but I'll pray for you and I'll
help you. If you need anything, call on
me. Come on now. And then, who is my neighbor? It's a man that has different
religion from me, it's a man that has no religion, and he's
the man that offends me. The common habit of today is
to drive out the offender, banish him from your presence. The attitude
of Christ is, if a brother be overtaken in a fault, if he be
an offender, Don't damn him, don't criticize him, don't chasten
him, don't punish him. This is the Master's command.
This is my sermon to restore him. Whom am I to love? Everybody
that dwells near me. Now watch this. What am I to
do? Christ said, Thou shalt love
him. Someone would say, Well, I'm not unkind to people. He
said, Love them. He didn't say just don't be unkind
to them. He said, Love them. Well, I don't
do people about me any harm. I let them alone. Christ didn't
say let them alone. He said, Love them. But I don't meddle in their business.
He didn't say don't meddle in their business. He said, Love
them. But I don't hate him. Christ said, no, that's not what
he said. He said, he doesn't say, thou
shalt not hate. He says, thou shalt love. It's
not a negative command. This isn't a negative command.
This isn't a negative command. That doesn't go far enough to
say, I leave people alone, I don't meddle in their business, I don't
speak unkindly about them. That's not enough. That's negative. Christ isn't giving a negative
command. It's a positive command. Christ's not telling me what
not to do here. He's telling me what to do. Isn't
that right? Thou shalt love. He doesn't say,
Thou shalt not hate, Thou shalt not nettle, Thou shalt not be
unkind. He says, Thou shalt love. And
I tell you, friends, this is the very little point right here
where we're missing it. It doesn't say I'm to keep out
of a man's way. He doesn't say I'm not to strike
him, he says I'm to love him. Now you do what you want to with
it. You shrug it off, you say salvation by grace, you can forget
that stuff preacher, you just shrug it off if you want to,
but what I'm saying here is applicable to me and to you and to every
other person that says he's a Christian. Because you can say you love
God, you can say you believe the doctrines, you can say these
things, anybody can do it. You can teach a manta bird to
do it or a parrot to do it. But for it to get down in the
heart and become a vital, intimate, personal part of me, a relationship
with God, a relationship of real, honest-to-goodness love. and
a relationship with people that springs from a real, honest-to-goodness
compassion and fervent love. That's what I've got to have.
I've just got to have it. Now, how am I to love him? Thou
shalt love thy neighbor how much as thyself. Now, it'd be good if some people
loved their neighbors as much as loved their dogs. It'd be good if some people loved
their neighbors as much as they loved their pocketbooks. That'd
be great. I'd settle for that. It'd be
good if some of us loved our neighbor as much as we love our house and gardens, and our
clothes, and our own luxuries, and our own... But Christ said
we have to love our neighbor as ourselves. How much do we
love ourselves? Well, we seek our own will, we
seek our own way, we provide for our comfort. We want others
to walk our way. We want to have the final say.
Well, if I'm to love my neighbor as myself, I'm also to desire
to desire his way and his will and his comfort and his joy and
his pleasure. Let's turn to Let me read in
Moffat here. You don't turn. You know 1 Corinthians
13. Let me read it from Moffat's
translation again. I read it some time ago. But
Christ talking about this thing of love, and you say, well, that's
under the law. Well, now, Paul repeated it in
1 Corinthians 13. And here he says, I may speak
with the tongues of men and of angels. I have no love. I'm a
noisy gong and a clanging cymbal." And he comes down to a definition
of love. He said, Love is patient. Love
is kind. Now, while I'm reading this,
I want to examine my own attitude toward others. I'm to love God. I claim to love God. I say I
love God. All right. But I'm to love my
neighbor, too. And that love which I have for
him is to be patient, kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love
makes no parade, gives itself no airs. It doesn't parade in
front of the individual you love. You don't parade what you have
and he doesn't have, and parade what you know and he doesn't
know, and make fun of his ignorance. So what's bad about that? Awful bad about that. You don't,
when you love a person, you don't belittle them. Love does not parade itself around,
give itself airs. Love is not rude. When's the
last time you were just plain rude to somebody? Well, you don't
love them if you're rude to them. Love is not selfish. Love is
not irritated. Love is not resentful. You don't
resent their accomplishments and their blessings You're glad. Love is never glad when somebody
goes wrong. Let me ask you a question here.
We hear something derogatory on a person, and we just can't
wait to tell somebody, you know what so-and-so did. Now that's
rejoicing in other people's errors. That's rejoicing in other people's
going wrong. I wonder if you hear something
good that person did. Do you run and tell it as quick
as you do the bad? Now just think for a moment.
If you hear that so-and-so did something good, do you run and
tell it? No, we don't. When we hear they
did something bad, we run and tell it, because love is never
glad when others go wrong. Hatred is glad. They like people
to go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness,
not badness. Love rejoices in goodness, not
badness. Love is always slow to expose. Always slow. Love is always eager
to believe the best, not us. We are eager to believe the worst. Love is always hopeful. Things
will get better. He'll grow up. He'll be all right. It's always hopeful. Always hangs
on. The last thread of life. If it's
just a blink there, if it's just a breath there, if it's just
a heartbeat there, yes, he could come through. Love is always
hopeful. Love never said he'll never make
it. Ain't no use him hanging around. Let's get out. Love is
patient. Love never disappears. Now as
for your preaching, it's going to be superseded. just a temporary
practice. As for your tongues, your gifts
of the Spirit, they're going to cease. As for your knowledge,
what little you know, we're awful ignorant, but what little we
know, we think we're so smart, but that's going to all be realized
just how ignorant we were. For now we know bit by bit, and
we preach bit by bit, when that which is perfect is come, the
imperfect shall be done away with and superseded, just like
a child growing up. When I was a child, I talked
like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child, and I grew
up one day, and I look back on those days of childishness, and
I just laugh at myself. Well, that's the way it's going
to be with our preaching. I preached this morning, I preached last
Sunday, one of these days I'll look back on this and I'll say
that was the babblings of an ignoramus. At present we see only the baffling
reflections in a mirror. One of these days it's going
to be face to face. Right now I'm learning bit by bit. Then
I'm going to know as I have been known and understood as I have
been understood. Thus, faith It's going to be
done away, and there will be no faith in heaven. Faith's going
to give way to sight. No faith in heaven. Faith here,
not in heaven. in heaven, faith is going to
give way to sight. You following me now? That's
what he's saying here. He's saying we prophesy in a
measure, we preach in a measure, we understand in a measure, it's
all going to be done away with because we're going to know perfectly.
And faith's going to give way to sight. Hope, you say, now
about it, faith and hope. Hope, one of these days, not
one minute, hope in heaven. Hope's going to give way to reality.
What do I hope for when I have it? I hope for what I haven't seen,
what I haven't received, what is not mine yet. I'm hoping for
glory. It's not mine yet. I'm hoping
to see Christ. It's not mine yet. But when I
do see Him and when I have the glory, don't have any more hope. But what about love? And how
about faith, hope, and love, these three? But the greatest
of these is love. because love is not going to
be superseded, love is not going to be chained, love is going
to be in glory. Therefore he said, therefore
he said in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 13, watch it now,
therefore make love your aim. That's it. That's the reason
Christ said over here, they said, which is the greatest commandment?
We're interested in law, we're interested in how we ought to
conduct ourselves. He said, all right, here you
go, love God with all your heart, look to the cross, look to the
Christ of the cross, look to the Christ of intersection, love
Him, trust Him, believe on Him, love Him and what is His, and
then you love your neighbors yourselves. You make love your
aim. You want to be pleasing to God.
You want to walk with God. Then you show mercy as you have
received mercy. You be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another. God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. If you want to be like your Master,
you reach down with tenderhearted compassion and lift the fallen. If you want to be like your Master.
May God give us a knowledge of God, and a knowledge of ourselves,
and a knowledge of Christ, and a willingness to know others. Our Father bless the message.
We speak not, we speak not, O God, in haste. For we've looked to
Thee, and waited upon Thee, and earnestly beseech Thee to give
the message. We speak not, O Lord, in condemnation,
for our own hearts condemn us. We speak not, O Lord, critically,
but facing our own failures and false shortcomings. And as one
this morning, as a believer and believers in Christ, we pray
for the grace of love. O help us, O God, to love the
greatness of our God and His worthiness to receive our complete
adoration and awe. And, O God, that we might love
one another, demonstrate the spirit of our Master. By this
shall all men know you're my disciple. By this shall all men
know you've been with me. By this shall all men know that
your doctrine's in your heart and not just in your head, if
you love one another. Give us the Spirit of Christ,
the Spirit of love. As others might say, when they
hear us and see us, they've been with Jesus. The Master lives
within them. They've got some of the grace
of their Lord. In the name of Christ we pray.
Amen.