The Greatest Of These

“And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” —1 Corinthians 13:13, RV

I used to wonder how a chapter could be ended up in such a way as this. I remember that as a boy, I used to read it, and it struck me as an awfully weak climax. After Paul had talked about prophecies, and tongues, and knowledge, and wonderful gifts, it seemed an awful come-down to say that without love they were nothing.

A carnal mind will never exalt love above a hard task well done. It cheapens the medals men love to polish and exhibit.

One day, I went into a certain town, intending to go to a certain building and talk to a certain man, but found that progress was made impossible by crowds that were on the street. Ropes were stretched along the street and the officers were holding the people back as they pushed against the barriers.

I asked some men what was going on, and they said they did not know. They were in the same predicament I was, coming down the street and running against this crowd. I asked another man, and he did not know, and I could not find out, and simply had to stand still with the rest.

Finally, a little dirty-faced newsboy, with his shirt half off his back, who was up on a telegraph pole, began to yell, and said, “Here they come! I can see the elephant from here.”

He had the attention of everybody at once. He was not much of an orator, he wasn’t much for looks, and did not have much in the way of clothes. I could see his bare, dirty legs curled around the pole, holding on like a monkey on the top, and looking down the street over the heads of the crowd. He could see the circus parade coming, and he announced the attractions one by one and told the crowd ahead of time what was coming.

John The Baptist

So God’s prophets and teachers have been like the newsboy on the pole. They were not much for looks. When the crowd took a look at John the Baptist it said, “He is not much for looks. I wouldn’t like to wear his duds, or eat what he is eating—locusts and wild honey.” He had the attention of the crowd and cried from his high seat in God, “The kingdom of God is at hand—now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” John announced to them that God in His coming kingdom is going to take all the rough edges off of life, going to take the bite out of the serpent, and the roar out of the lion, so he will eat straw like the ox. God, with His great axe is going to lay it at the root of men’s government and lay it low.

John the Baptist made men tremble at his utterances, and although men tried their best not to give him attention, he spoke from such a height that men had to say, “This man knows what he is talking about, for he is speaking a message from God.”

“Sure Things”

John talk of sure things,—things that he saw. The prophets have all be “sure thing” men. They understood what they were talking about. They saw afar off, for they were “seers.” God lifted them up in spirit. John said in his vision at Patmos, he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and was transported clear through the centuries of Gentile government to that great consummation day, and saw things that have been, things that are, and are to come. He saw the revelation of Jesus Christ in His coming glory, and all that he was planning for men: a review of His glorious program. So John was a “seer,” caught up into an elevated place, in the Spirit, until he could see sure things, things that were bound to come to pass.

Paul here, in a high place spiritually,—way up in the Spirit of God, bathed in the fullness and the glory of the Holy Ghost, cries out, and says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels (you folks that have all these gifts and speak with the tongues of men and of angels, listen to this), and have not love I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”

Hear him from the heights, in the Holy Ghost, cry: “Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.” These abide when your lips cannot taste grapes any more, love will be delicious to your soul; when you cannot even swallow a spoonful of water from the hand of the nurse, love will fill your soul; when your tongue is dumb, and your eyes are getting glassy, love will be your comfort. Hallelujah, it will abide, abide!

Faith

Faith seems an unimportant thing, but faith is able to run back through material things to the very foundation of life. It is a splendid thing for faith to run out toward God and lay hold on God. There must be a channel through which to lay hold on God. My fingers can lay hold of these flowers, and lay hold of this watch, and there must be an attribute of my soul that can run out past material things.

Even a man who has no Christian faith is built so that he might have faith. He looks at a grain of corn, and he sees that inside of that grain of corn, wrapped up in it, is the principle of life, a manifestation of life. It possesses the given process in itself. Grain life is life wrapped up in that grain.

I do not understand where a grain of corn went to college and learned mathematics, so that it could produce so many mathematically equal rows on the ears of that stalk of corn, but it does it. That mathematical life force is wrapped up inside of a grain of corn. You cannot see it, and yet the process of life is there and will produce results. Plant it and see. Count the rows in each ear. Men know if they will take a little bare piece of corn and throw it into the soil and cover it with dirt, and spend a little time keeping the ground in shape, it will burst through the soil and raise a crop of corn. That is the process of life. It does not appear from the grain. You cannot see it, or feel it, observe it under the microscope; but it is there, and its mathematical certainty is all wrapped up within.

A Process And A Program

Down underneath that which is material, there is a process, a program in that corn. It is to this kind of life that I want to call your attention. Not only has it life wrapped within but a program in that life, and it will be fulfilled more surely than that program will be fulfilled some night by a band or orchestra.

So, in the grain of corn, faith says, as it looks down at it, “It has a program and a process.” Men wish us to believe that faith is not a practical thing; but faith is the only practical thing. It can look past material things and see that in that manifestation called “life” within can gather to itself seeded elements through this little grain of corn, allowed to decay in the ground. Because of that life process and power in the corn, it gathers to itself the green leaves, it drinks in the water, and works the chemicals through its roots, and pushes its stem up through the soil, and by and by full orbed ears come on that stalk of corn. This all through the process that was there in that little grain of corn. So faith looks past the material thing and sees the life process or program which handles material things.

Now we look past what men call “death,” and what men call “sin,” and what men call the “human failure” of the first Adam, and see that in “the grain of corn,” which was Jesus, “that fell into the earth and died,” there is a life and a process that makes every one of us new creatures in Himself, that He has the ability to gather us into Himself. One grain of corn becomes a thousand grains, and one Christ can produce millions like Himself in glory. “We shall be like Him.”

So faith lays hold. Although the prophet saw Him in the Glory, although he saw Him suffer on the cross and die like men, faith goes past these little things that men bring up, past all their material knowledge, past all their little doubts,—and faith makes its dead-set line straight to Jesus Christ, and sees in Him an eternal person producing His kind. Here is your way into Him, “To as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name.”

We Sow In Hope

In this mighty working of Jesus Christ, we see a process. Now where faith sees a process, faith can have a hope. If the farmer, by faith, sees that the grain will produce its kind, he can put forth the grain with a smile of hope. We sow in hope. Men laugh at us as they see us shouting over the open grave, but oh the farmer rejoices after he has planted his grain and comes into the house saying, “It is all planted,” and then he begins to talk about the harvest. So do we who are in Christ rejoice.

We know that this grain, Jesus Christ, has gone into the soil, and it will not abide alone, but will produce fruit; and so when faith sees this process of the Son of God, faith also has a hope of the harvest, and begins to talk about the resurrection and the life, and the coming of the Lord. Hope shouts, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Men, take that little grain of corn and plant it. Come around next September, I will show you a hundred from this one grain, and in the meantime there will be green leaves, a long stalk, tassel, milk and ears of corn. You might say, “From one grain can you produce all that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand the process?”

“No, but I know that the process exists in that corn.”

I do not know how Jesus Christ is going to produce it, or how one ear of corn can produce a thousand, but I know when it is sown, it will bring forth. Thank God, I live in the momentary hope that the harvest, in a moment, will be before my eyes, and I will have a body like His own, and in a moment, see this resurrection life. When other men are discouraged and when tongues are dumb and men’s governments are going to pieces,—when all the things that men put their hope in have vanished, thank God the Christian because he has faith in the process working in Christ Jesus, has a hope of a harvest; and He has told us ahead of time what it shall be. John the Baptist announced the coming program. John the Apostle describes it.

“Waiting”

Paul says, “The whole creation groaneth and is in agony, waiting until.” What are they waiting for? For just the harvest,—for the redemption of the sons of God into the kingdom, the purpose toward which the process in Jesus Christ is working.

Our cattle, out on the prairie, used to get bony and thin in the winter, and some died in agony. What were they waiting for? Waiting for springtime. When about four or five weeks of that early succulent grass would come, how they would prick up their ears, and the horses would run through the pasture and become fat. What a delightful time it was.

The whole creation now is coming through the winter time, the night season, but the day cometh. Thank God, the day is coming when all the groaning and all the agony of Earth shall be put away, because of the coming of this harvest, this new crop, this new race brought back by Jesus Christ Himself.

We have a hope, friends, that is bigger than all the chaos and all the breaking down of all the programs put up by men. Tongues might cease, and all knowledge pass away, but the man who has fixed his faith in Christ Jesus and His process of salvation has hope this morning where everybody else has discouragement.

Besides all that, there is a motive power in this process. To what purpose are men living? What is the motive of their lives? If you go to a trial and see a man being tried for murder, they have to prove a motive. They cannot only say, “This man did such and such a thing.” He may have done it by accident and not be guilty.

The Great Force

Listen, the motive in all God’s creation is love. God made a creature with emotion, will power and intellect, so that he could willingly love Him. He made us with emotion. You can take emotion out of religion if you want to but, thank God, I am not going to take it out. I am going to ask for more love, joy, in mine. The more I have of His love the more I want. I do not want just sensation. I want living motive power. When I read a chapter like this I am not going to leave out emotion, because love is the greatest motive force in all the world, and when you have reduced Christianity to philosophy, it is only fit to be thrown out in the ash can in the alley.

Jesus said, “If the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted. It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” If this motive power is not in your life, then what is your savor in life? What is your motive at death? God’s love said, “Let us make men in our image, after our likeness.” He did not say make a fruit that we can admire, or a bubbling stream, or a star stuck out in the sky, but let us make man like ourselves, let us give him will, emotion and intellect so he can understand God. God’s motive was to make man His love temple as a bridegroom would have his bride.

Man was made, what for? Just fit for God to reach out His arms and press him to His own bosom, and tell him what was in the heart of God. That is what God made him for, and the motive of the heart of God was love itself.

God’s motive in creating Eve was for Adam’s love. He said, “It is not good for man to live alone. I will make him an help-meet,” and the bride was a help-meet unto Adam. So God has made a help-meet for His Son, the Bride, born again folks in Christ Jesus. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, the whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

So the motive behind all of God’s operation is a motive of love. But men have fallen into sin, and try to blame the condition of the world today on God; but Paul says the agony is because men are in sin, and the sons of God have not yet been redeemed. When the redemption of man shall take place, and Jesus Christ’s motive shall come before the eyes of men who have refused his love offer, they will cry for the rocks and hills to fall on them to hide them from the presence of His power. They cannot face this lovely one which they turned down for sin. As it is now, His love is not in men’s hearts, and men are putting God out of their lives. When His love has found its way, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into the hearts of men, they know God, and value His love about all earthly love of possessions. So His love abides. Death cannot cool it, because with faith and hope centered on seeing Him face-to-face, death brings the open door to His loving presence.

We are waiting for the consummation of the love of the bridegroom for His bride. That is the love motive power of our lives. What is the motive power of your life this morning? Oh friends, this morning have you His faith, hope, and love?

“The Fellowship Of Suffering”

Paul wanted to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering, and the power of His resurrection. You cannot know a person in the fellowship of his suffering, unless you know why he suffers. Simply to suffer with a man would not do you any good. If a man is hanging and I say, “Put a noose on my neck, that I might understand,” that is an insane motive.

Here is this Christ, who made the world. Everything was made for Him and by Him, and “without Him was not anything made that was made,” and yet I see Him take the spit and scoffing and contradiction of sinners and the cross.

Now the motive behind that sacrifice, my friends, must be the most colossal power that this world can possibly imagine. All the electricity shot into one bolt, and out into the air, bursting in flames, would only manifest power, but here on the cross is all God’s power laid aside, all His glory, all His creative ability emptied, stripped and Himself hanged as a thing of sin, allowing Himself to be the gazing stock of the world, dying in the dark. Oh what must be the heart of God—the motive power of God, that would let His Son come to the cross and so die for sinful men? Is it any wonder, then, that Paul said, “I want to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering”?

A God who could come to Calvary and empty Himself! What love! Let your soul catch the motive, you will whisper back, “Did you so love me, lost and plunged in sin, my God, that you flew to myself? For me, for me, Lord, you love the shameful cross and carry all my grief?”

“Yes, beloved,” He answers, “for you, for you. That is why.” Blessed Jesus. Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love; His love; Divine love for sinners.