THE SWEETNESS OF LOVE
"I show unto you a more excellent way." 1 Cor. 12:31.
"Now abideth faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor. 13:13.
The Apostle names three of the most essential things in Christian experience. Namely: Faith, Hope, and Love, but he crowns love as the greatest of the three.
Faith: Without faith we cannot please God. Our faith should be three-fold in its direction. Upward, outward, and inward. The first essential thing in the soul's progress is faith in a living God. Faith is the link which connects us onto omnipotent force.
Our faith should not only be upward, but outward toward our fellowman. There is nothing sadder for a believer than for him to lose confidence in his brethren. There is a danger of becoming sour, and there is nothing more offensive than sour holiness.
Then, we should have faith in ourselves. If we haven't faith in ourselves, how can we ask others to have faith in us. A man without faith in himself is headed for defeat.
The second essential thing is hope. Hope deals with the future. Man is the only creature in this world that has a future. Hope gives the soul a bright outlook on life. It takes the stings out of life. It puts a silver lining beneath every dark cloud, and sweetness in the bitter cup of sorrow. Take hope out of the human breast, the spirit would droop, the heart would break, and life would be worthless. It was hope which hung a lantern on Columbus' ship. It was hope which caused him to utter the famous words that will live as long as time will last. With his face set like a flint, and his eyes fixed on an open sea, he said to the soldiers and sailors, "I, your commander, command you to sail on, and on, and on." Hope puts sunrise in the soul.
But, the greatest of these is love. It is greater than faith, greater than gifts. The reason love is the greatest is because it is the very essence of God's character. Love makes us holy, turns us into lamb-like, dove-like beings. Remember, there is nothing higher in Christian experience than a heart emptied of all sin, and filled with pure, humble love.
The word love here is the term that signifies the "love of God" -- Divine Love. We should make a clear distinction between the love of God and mere human love. The Greek word for human love is (Philos), and is always used in reference to human nature. Every human being has it. It is the greatest force in the natural world. It binds earth relationships, families, nations, kindreds, and people together, but it is in a fallen state. It has no saving power in it. We get natural love from our mother when we are born into the human family. We receive Divine Love from our Heavenly Father when we are born again.
In the next place, we need our hearts purified in order that love may have supremacy. Sanctification is that blessed work which takes out the bitter weeds of inbred sin so that the love of God can expand, spread, and work unhampered in the soul. It is religion made easy. Yes, easy to pray, easy to love, ¢o believe, and mind God in everything.
The Apostle, in order to show us the superiority of Divine love, contrasts it to gifts. The various gifts mentioned by Paul in the 12th chapter of Ist Corinthians are founded, or rooted in the soul, but Divine love has its roots in the immortal spirit, in the hidden man of the heart.
Man is a kind of a little trinity: consisting of spirit, soul and body; the gifts are rooted in the soul, in the mind, or body -- such as gifted voice to sing, a gifted hand to play musical instruments, and in hundreds of ways to be used for the glory of God, but Divine love has its home in the spirit, in the everlasting immortal nature. "Divine love goes down through your body, through your brain, into your conscience, your moral and spiritual nature, so that the love of God is greater than all of the gifts, because it goes deeper down and takes hold upon your spiritual and moral nature."
Gifts are the instruments by which we work. A farmer must have implements with which to work, but the fruit is what he brings in to the table, and gives thanks over. Just so, God endows us with gifts with which to work for Him, such as wisdom, knowledge, a trained mind, but these do not save the soul, nor make us holy. A person may be highly gifted and live in sin and be crooked in heart. A big preacher may be gifted in learning, in language, in eloquence, and not be saved.
Balaam was gifted in prophecy, and said some beautiful things about Israel, God's chosen people; but Balaam is in hell today, his gifts did not save him. You cannot measure a man's piety by his gifts.
Many will say in that day, says Jesus: "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works," and then, "will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity." According to this, here is a people, Jesus declares, that worked miracles in His name, yet were without saving grace.
There are multitudes who will travel thousands of miles to get to a prophetic meeting, to hear the latest on the antiChrist, who wouldn't walk ten steps to get to a holiness meeting.
Preaching on prophecy alone does not save anyone, or make men holy. I had rather have one ounce of pure love in my heart, than tons of gifts.
The Apostle contrasts love to eloquence: Eloquence is the power to play upon the mind, the emotions and the affections, to make people weep or laugh, but when you compare love to eloquence, the silver tongued orator goes down with a crash, but love shines, sparkles, sweetens, and grows more beautiful.
Gifts are temporary. They are like the autumn leaves which pass away, but Divine love abides. Gifts without love are liable to puff up, but Divine love builds one up in the most holy faith. The Apostle uses two words: the word "puff" and the word "build." The word, edify, in the New Testament could be rendered, "build." It means "to make an edifice." Talents and gifts may be like a balloon, but Divine love is like a stone building, which abides for thousands of years. Oh! the divisions and splits over a few talents and gifts. A few gifts puff up some people. If they can out-sing, or out-preach somebody, if they can outshine or surpass somebody in talent or gifts, they become puffed up over it. It is a fearful thing when we become proud or vain over a little learning, or human eloquence. Oh! to be weighted down with perfect love.
Again, gifts within themselves never satisfy. You may have the wisdom of Solomon, the eloquence of an angel, and if you have not love, you will not be satisfied. When the heart is flooded with Divine love, every faculty of the soul is completely satisfied; the mind is at rest, conscience has been purged, the affections feel pure, the will has been conquered and subdued, while the heavenly dove nestles within.
"Love furnishes the proper limit and boundary of all other graces. It is in that sense the bond or bandage of perfection rimming them in. If the soul is lacking in other graces, love pieces them out; or if there be abundance or extravagance in the other graces, love curbs them to a proper limit."
It is impossible to be too extreme in our love; but when love is lacking, the other graces may be pushed into extravagance. Every person who becomes a fanatic, is a fanatic for lack of, as Wesley puts it, lowly, humble, patient love.
Divine love is to our spiritual nature what blood is to our physical being. It is the essence of life, the source of health, and strength, the very elixir of our being. "Love gives color, weight, and fruit to all religious actions. Our sermons, and songs, and money-giving, and the church work are valuable, and in the end, fruitful in the ratio to the love there is in them. Love is greater than the other graces because it is in this that we pre-eminently resemble God, and are turned into likeness of His nature; "God is love" and when we are so melted and transformed by His Holy Spirit that all of our thoughts, and al! of our judgments, and opinions of men are conceived, and uttered in a loving spirit, and all of our labors are prompted with love to God, and our neighbor, it is then that we are fitted by perfect similarity to Divine nature, both to do the will of God on earth, and live in everlasting communion in heaven: Thus the greatest of these is love.
Again, love is a drawing power. This is true in the natural world as well as the spiritual. Take a person with a loving disposition; it gives them a winning personality, a power to draw, and make friends. Just so, Divine love gives one a magnetic power to draw men to God. It puts unction in one's voice, until the words that go forth from a heart flooded with Divine love, have a heavenly, electric quiver in them, which penetrates like red-hot bullets shot from a magazine; while on the other hand, a minister may speak with eloquence, but without the Divine warmth which comes from a heart filled with love. Such words are like the moonlight shining on a frozen sea. There may be light, but no melting heat in them.
"Love is the alchemy that transmutes revealed truth into experience. The great doctrines of religious life pervading the word of God are to many, but fleshless skeletons, like the dry bones of Ezekiel's vision; but the love of God raises them from the mere 'letter' and turns them into an exceeding great army of living, moving forms of blessed experience and certainty."
Love is a sweetening power. It purifies the very fountain-head of our moral and spiritual nature. The anger humors, and the quick gun powder like tempers die, when love comes in. The acid fluid is sweetened by a new spirit -- the Spirit of Christ, inter-penetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms every faculty of the soul into a heavenly sweetness. The self-life is slain, and the "old man" is dead, and Christ enthroned within. Such a life is heaven on earth. There is something which belongs to the sanctified life which is a million miles beyond cold, dry, dead theology. There is a fragrance, a sweetness, with the very perfume from the Rose of Sharon, it's the very sweetness and marrow of the Christlike life. This is the "more excellent way."
Divine love puts one at his best for God. It is the soil out of which every fruit and grace of the spirit grow. Just what the sap is to a fruit tree, love is to the soul. When the soul is flooded with perfect love, "what unction in preaching, what sweetness in song, what glowing testimonies, what fervency of prayer, what generosity of giving, what heavenly thinking, what patience in sorrow, what stretches of faith, what heroism of toil, what penetration of vision, what diligence of application, are brought into exercise by the fullness of the Spirit. It is the most fruitful life found in Christian experience. Just as summer sunshine is essential to every variety of fruit that grows on earth, so the summer of pure love is essential to production of every fruit of righteousness, in the highest degree. When God beheld our hearts in the natural state, they were like the stony, sterile, frozen fields in the frigid zone; but when they have been broken by repentance, thawed by regeneration, and every stump and root removed by the sanctifying power, then God plants in us all the mind which was in Christ Jesus, and every grace which grew and flourished in His holy breast is enriched and watered with the crystal streams from the upper Pentecostal skies, and ripened in the summer of His love. Such a life gladdens the heart of God.
But the climax of all is that "LOVE NEVER FAILETH." -- Failure seems to be written on everything that is earthly. Just about the time we grasp something that we think will abide, it seems to melt and vanish away. The pale rider of death knocks at the door, and takes a loved one, and leaves a vacancy which nothing can ever fill. Riches take to themselves wings and fly away. Friends seem to grow cold, but thank God, amidst all the changing circumstances, the Comforter has come to abide. It is like a golden lump of honey, lodged within the heart, dripping sweetness, all through the trying hours of the day. In the words of Dr. B. Carradine, in the "More Excellent Way,"
It "Never Faileth." This is the crowning beauty of sanctification as a blessed experience. It bubbles up in the heart as we awake in the morning, runs steady through the morning hours; does not dry up at noon, but sings, and murmurs, and splashes on its musical way through the afternoon: it has the same volume of power, and gladness at the eventide, and when we awake in the night, it is found to be still an artesian well of gladness, and salvation in soul. It Never Fails -- stands by us through thick and thin. When friends are many, or when they be few, when health is our portion, or when sick-bed is our lot; when men speak kindly to us, and about us, and soon after unkindly -- Hallelujah! No matter who changes or fails, the blessed joy of the indwelling Christ never fails. This is the beauty, sweetness, preciousness, and glory of the experience, and this is the reason that Paul called it "the more excellent way." May every child of God find it, and walk in it.
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