In this episode, we delve into the profound truth that love is not just a virtue but the very foundation of a fulfilled spiritual life. Inspired by David Hawking’s teachings on 1 Corinthians 13, we discover how spiritual activities, no matter how grand, fall short without the essence of love. Through historical and biblical insights, we explore how love, often misunderstood or undervalued, serves as the ultimate measure of spiritual maturity and the transformative effect it can have on personal relationships and communities.
God wants to drill it into our hearts that you cannot live the Christian life without his love. You can’t do it. And there’s so many of us that are into a lot of things that we think are important, but we’ve missed what is most important of all. And though you be the most brilliant person in the world, if you don’t love anybody, there’s something wrong. And the Bible says so. No matter what you say and no matter what you’ve accomplished. And that’s hard to live with, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 03 :
This is Hope for Today, the Bible teaching ministry of David Hawking. Today we’re continuing with our series called Love is the Greatest. It’s taken from 1 Corinthians chapter 13. As we go back to the chapter, we’re going to see further the sobering reality that spiritual activity is not the same as spiritual maturity. The church at Corinth, they had gifts, they had zeal, they had influence. But when love was absent, everything else lost its value. Today, we’re going to look more closely at what God calls love and why it is the measure of true spiritual life. Stay tuned as David Hawking continues when love is not there. Our first message in 1 Corinthians 13. First, we want to encourage you to get David’s book, Love is the Greatest. This is the print version of his study through 1 Corinthians 13. You can have this along with you as you listen to the program, our series on 1 Corinthians 13. It’ll help you to not just listen and walk away, but to dig in and apply what we’re learning in this series. And the book even includes extra material that we won’t have time to include here on radio. Love is the Greatest gives you a clear print record of every lesson we’ll cover in 1 Corinthians 13, and it’s just $15. Call us at 800-75-BIBLE in the U.S. to order, or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada, Bible by the numbers 24253. Or order online at davidhawking.org. And as promised, here’s David with day two of When Love Is Not There, our text, 1 Corinthians 13.
SPEAKER 01 :
You need God’s love. Amen? We all need that, desperately. And I think it’s fascinating that when you start to study it in 1 Corinthians 13, he begins with what it’s like without it. That’s how he does it. Now, as we look at life without love in the first three verses where God’s love is essential, let me tell you that you cannot produce this love on your own without God’s help. It’s impossible. Well, I can almost guarantee you’re going to fall flat on your face the first time you try. No, it’s much more than that. It’s deeper than that. The love we’re talking about, according to the Bible, comes from God. It is God’s nature, and he must pour that love, as the Bible describes it, through you, through the presence of his Holy Spirit. And we’ll get into the details of that, but I needed to warn you as we start. We need the help of God Almighty, or we’re not going to love in this way. That love is needed between husbands and wives, according to Ephesians 5, Colossians 3. That love is needed between parents and children, between employers and employees, right? Wow, there’s a rough one. The business world, the marketplace seemingly will step over anybody to get what they want to achieve. But we need God’s love that life might be what God intended it to be for every one of us. So let’s get into the heart of these first three verses. While you have your Bible open, I just want you to notice a couple of things before I break this down for you. Notice that one phrase is repeated three times. Look at this, verse one. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and here’s the phrase, have not charity or love. In verse 2, if I have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries, all knowledge, all faith, so I can remove mountains, and here it is again, and have not charity or love. And in verse 3, if I bestow all my gifts to feed the poor, give my body to be burned, here it is again, have not love. It profits me nothing. Now, another word to just open up our minds a little bit, why does the old King James use charity? That is a good argument. It’s a good discussion. And you can’t write it off by saying, oh, that’s an archaic word that they would have used back in those days. No, it’s still used today. But when we use charity, we think of charitable contributions, donations, and so forth. Did you know that charity may be the correct English translation of the Greek word agape? I’ll tell you why. Because this love of God has one outstanding quality to it. It continues to give and never needs anything in return. Put it another way, what God does in our hearts is a charitable contribution for which he doesn’t need a tax deduction receipt for the IRS. Amen? God’s wonderful love just keeps giving. So don’t write off charity and the old King Jimmy here and think your translation is better. Love is so nebulous in English, we may really have the correct word. Because this agape is that which gives and gives and gives and never thinks about stopping. Or quitting. Or shutting down. Or having to have a little feedback first. It just keeps giving all the time. Pretty good word, I think. Another little problem we have here is the word though. Look at verse 1. Though I speak. Verse 2. And though I have. And verse 3. And though I bestow. Now, the word in Greek is simply the word in English, if. And the primary point here of all of this is that all three of these verses are hypothetical. They’re not true of anybody. Remember, God’s love is more excellent, a hyperbole, an exaggeration. So what he’s saying is, even if you could, which you cannot, the reason why I point this out, it almost amuses me to hear some of the teaching in this chapter. That I’ve heard where people actually are concentrating on how to speak with the tongues of men. Or how to speak with the tongues of angels. Or you know to really get all the mysteries of God down. So you really understand it. They’ve totally missed it. Grammatically, it’s telling us it’s hypothetical. It’s not true of anybody. There’s no one that knows all knowledge except our blessed Lord. There’s no one who knows all mysteries except God himself. None of us are in his category. And there are people out there trying to have the faith to remove mountains. And we’ll talk about that, how Jesus encouraged it. But the point is it’s a hyperbole. Now, Jewish people love this. It’s very common in Jewish literature. It’s called exaggeration for effect. It’s not lying, but a lot of us might think so. Well, what is it? Can you do it or not? But Jews love to make a point by making the contrast tremendous, big in size. Let me give an example. 1 John, five chapters, easy to read. Whenever you go to learn Greek, that’s usually the first book they put you into because the Greek grammar is so simple. Simple words, love, life, death, hate, etc. Nothing difficult about it. But the thought is difficult. What it is, is teaching by contrast. You either love your brother or you hate your brother. And John doesn’t give you any middle ground. You either continue to be righteous or you continue to be sinful. You’re either a children of light or you’re a children of darkness. You see, that’s teaching by contrast to emphasize the importance that there is a difference between a true believer and one is not. And so to make sure you’ve got the difference, we use hyperbole exaggeration for effect. That’s what we have in the first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13. God wants to drill it into our hearts that you cannot live the Christian life without his love. You can’t do it. And there’s so many of us that are into a lot of things that we think are important, but we’ve missed what is most important of all. And though you be the most brilliant person in the world, if you don’t love anybody, there’s something wrong. And the Bible says so. No matter what you say and no matter what you’ve accomplished. And that’s hard to live with, isn’t it? Well, there’s a lot here. But I want you to notice something else. That the conclusions in each case are different. Did you notice that? You would think they would be the same since the same phrase was repeated, have not charity, but the conclusions in each verse are different. Look at verse 1, I am become. Verse 2, I am nothing. Verse 3, it profiteth me nothing. And each one of those has an impact that we need to understand. In the first verse when he says, I have become, he’s talking about your impact being weakened in life. Even if you could really communicate, if you don’t have God’s love, the impact that you have on people is totally weakened by the fact there’s no love there. Secondly, when he said, I am nothing, your importance is diminished. You may think you’re really important because of what you know or what you’ve said or what you’ve done in life, what you’ve accomplished. But without love, it’s nothing. Zilch. Zero. And that’s hard to take. And third, when he says it profits me nothing, your involvement is unprofitable. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Give all your goods to feed the poor. Oh, let’s give him a hand. Let’s put his name on a plaque so everybody remembers him. And God says your involvement is totally unprofitable. It’s not accomplishing what you think without the love of God. So this whole deal here in three verses is almost overwhelming in showing us that you can’t live without God’s love. It is essential. Now, we’re going to look at three things here on the three verses that we have. And under each one of them, just to help you follow this, we have the same three points under each one. Here are the three points. First, we’ll look at the unrealistic claim. There’s one in verse 1, there’s one in verse 2, and there’s one in verse 3. Unrealistic claim. And you might see yourself before we’re done. Secondly, we’re going to look at the actual condition. It is the same in all three cases. They have not loved. Doesn’t say they have a little bit. Doesn’t say they’re trying hard. It says you don’t have it at all. And then third, we’ll look at the obvious conclusion. There’s a different conclusion in each one. Now, what are these three things we’re talking about? Let’s start with verse one. You read it just like I read it. If I could speak with the tongues of men and angels, what are we talking about? We’re talking about communication. So let’s start, number one, without God’s love, our communication is ineffective. My communication is ineffective without God’s love. And did you know that when we talk, we couldn’t possibly be learning anything? Is everybody, I love this pun, is everybody listening? Do you know that the Proverbs are filled with advice about how we talk, what we say? In anybody’s marriage book, what’s one of the first things they always discuss? Communication. They always talk about, you’ve got to learn to talk to each other. You say, well, we talk. In fact, you should be married to her. She talks all the time. You know, I mean, we don’t get it. We don’t understand it. Talk without love doesn’t accomplish anything. Listen, God’s in charge of this. And sometimes when you speak and you don’t love and you don’t care and you don’t have the Lord controlling you, the truth of the matter is the people are hearing good content maybe, but they are not doing anything with it because there is no love from the Lord there. None whatsoever. You know, it’s easy to listen to somebody and think that you know better. You know better. Ah, he missed it on that point. I know that passage. I heard brother so-and-so. When I was first in the ministry, they used to bring me Dr. McGee all the time. All the time. I was preaching on a passage in one of the most colossal airs I made in the ministry. And after church service, the lady came up. She had it in her Bible, had McGee’s name there with the date. She said, do you know this morning you disagreed with Dr. McGee on this passage? I said, well, he was wrong. That’s the worst thing I ever said. It took me a long time to get that one straightened out. I later told Dr. McGee and he just laughed. We became great friends. But you know, it’s true. We’re intimidated sometimes by the knowledge of someone. We sometimes think we’re better because of what we know. How foolish we are. 1 Corinthians 4, 7 said, you haven’t got anything you didn’t get from the Lord. Nothing. You see, speaking with the tongues of men, look how that’s exalted. There’s a gift of tongues. We’re going to talk about it. But look at how people talk about that. How foolish are we? Even if you could teach in every language of the world, you were multilinguistic and never went to school, and God gave you this wonderful, even if that’s possible, which it is not, but even if it was, and you had them all down, if you don’t have love, it’s a waste of time. You’re like a noise in people’s ears. They don’t hear anything that you want them to hear. And the tongues of angels? I have in my library, I read it this afternoon. I took out a book. You know, there were almost 32 pages describing the tongues of angels. And I thought to myself, the guy missed the whole point of the verse trying to figure out what they were. Watch my lips. And I am a Bible teacher and I love the word of God. I don’t care what they are. You heard it. It’s on tape now. I don’t care what they are. I don’t know what they are. I said one day in trying to help people understand the tongues of angels, I said, well, it could be that they speak in Hebrew because I noticed most of the time they speak. It was Hebrew. My people slaughtered me with that. An Hispanic fellow told me the language of heaven was Espanol. I don’t know. I know that they spoke in a language that the people that were listening to them could understand what they were saying. What does it matter with us? And so then some people not happy with that say, it’s a heavenly language that only a certain few of us have. You’re missing the point of the verse. If you had it all, but you don’t have God’s love. He makes it clear. You know what you are? You are sounding brass. And you know, tinkling doesn’t get it, folks. It’s a King James word. Tinkling symbol, like a little bell ringing. Uh-uh. We’re talking about symbols clashing. Some translations know that and put noisy gong in there. I’ll tell you the day I got the impact of this. We had one of these concerts. you know, cantatas or whatever they were. They had a choir, an orchestra, and they wanted me to do some narration. I was sitting on the platform. I didn’t even think where I was sitting. My chair was right in front of the percussion department of the orchestra. As a matter of fact, it was sitting immediately in front of the guy who’s going to hit the cymbals. I did not know that. Have you ever been that close? Have you ever had cymbals crash in your ear? I didn’t hear anything the rest of the meeting. And he did it several times. But you know, I’ve never forgotten it. And I now understand the verse. If you don’t have God’s love, you are noise. You hurt my head. Stop talking. Get out of here. I want to get away from you. People, we need the love of God Almighty to just talk to people. So many of us are so cruel in our remarks. We meet somebody we hardly even know and give a crass, cutting remark. It’s like a little game people play. I watch it out in the restaurants and public places, the business people and how they’re maneuvering. You know, oh, man. What do you understand God wants in your life? He wants to fill us with love, his love, and his love is desperately needed among people. Love is what draws people to the Savior. Love is what builds the believer’s heart up when he can’t hardly take another step and no one knows what hurt and pain he feels. You see, when we say God’s love is essential, God meant it. And without his love, our communication is totally ineffective. And I know that quite well, don’t you? It doesn’t matter how much I know something. If the love of God is in my heart, it’s flat. It’s hurtful. It’s painful. I can cause a lot of trouble. I am very dangerous. How I thank the Lord for his blessed word that tells me what really is important. You’ve got to love people.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s Bible teacher and author David Hawking, and this is Hope for Today. David will be back to close out today’s time in a word, so don’t go away. First, though, Matt’s here, and Matt, we have some very special study resources, two in particular. Let’s talk about them.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Jim, this month we are featuring two special resources. The first, my dad’s book called Love is the Greatest.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the standard for love that he wants us to understand and apply in our lives towards our spouses, our friends, our relatives, the neighbor next door who’s kind of cranky and noisy. Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
It all applies. In a world increasingly marked by division, noise, and self-interest. Oh, yeah. Scripture reminds us that God’s highest priority has never changed. Without love, even the most impressive spiritual activity, it’s empty in God’s sight. Think about all the activities we can be involved with as believers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. If love is not the foundation and infused through it. It’s empty. It’s empty. Yeah. And then in that same passage, 1 Corinthians 13, and your dad develops this so marvelously. It tells us what love isn’t. Right. In the first few verses. Then it tells us what love is.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amen. It bears all things. Believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, I wish I could say after being married for 39 years, I’ve got that down pat, but you know better. I’ve got a lot to work on with this. Now we have grace, too. And grace. Well, there is that, too. But I think about this, Matt. Your dad dives into this passage and then shows us how to put it into action.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, because faith without works is dead, right? That’s it.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s it. Okay, so you can get this book, Love is the Greatest, and the price, Matt? Just $15.
SPEAKER 1 :
$15.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm. The second resource we’re featuring this month is a bundle, and it is a bundle. Right. Sermon notes of the Old Testament. All 35 message series that your dad has taught through the Old Testament. Yeah. These are his original sermon notes. His personal notes that when he preached, this is what he referenced. So the sermon notes bundle, again, these are David’s original sermon notes and outlines for all 35 series that he has taught through the Old Testament. And the cost?
SPEAKER 1 :
$75. $75.
SPEAKER 03 :
And folks, you can download these and get them right away. Yes. Or you can call us. Same price. We’ll send you a PDF CD.
SPEAKER 1 :
$75.
SPEAKER 03 :
The book, Love is the Greatest, is just $15. And the study notes bundle, again, 35 of David’s series in the Old Testament, his study notes and outlines for those. Just $75. And you can get these materials by calling us at 875-BIBLE in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And Bible is 24253. Or you can order online at DavidHawking.org. That’s David H-O-C-K-I-N-G.org. And just before David returns, we want to speak to those of you who have been helped by your study time here on Hope for Today. If the teaching of God’s Word through Hope for Today has strengthened you, maybe corrected you, or given you clarity and encouragement during a confused time, we ask you to consider joining with us in ministry, first of all, by praying. And secondly, if God moves your heart and provides for you to do so by sending in a special one-time gift or becoming a regular monthly contributor. Listen, we don’t rely on hype or gimmicks. We open up the scriptures and teach them clearly. That commitment continues because listeners like you decide that sound Bible teaching is worth supporting. You can call us in the United States at 800-75-BIBLE to make a donation or maybe to sign up for automatic donations. Give as long as God directs and provides. In Canada, call 888-75-BIBLE. Bible is 242-53. You can also visit davidhawking.org for more information on giving and also available resources. If you prefer to give by mail, write to Hope for Today, Box 3927. Tustin, California, 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO, Seven Oaks, Abbotsford, BC, V2S, 8P1. And thank you for considering a part in helping us continue this ministry. And here’s David.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, thanks for listening to our series on love. Oh, how we need love. And many of you have heard lots of songs about love, and they’re usually played on the radio during Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, by the way, is rooted in a wonderful story. It actually has Christian impact to it. Valentinus, he has a lot to teach all of us. And unfortunately, a lot of paganism has come into the celebration of Valentine’s Day. But when we speak about love, we know that husbands are told to love their wives. Ephesians 5, verse 26. Wives are told to love their husbands in Titus 2, 3 and 4. Yet the word is not agape, but phile. We get the name Philadelphia from it. Adelphos or Adelphia’s brother and phile, friend or companion. It’s a friendship love. But God’s love agape, for God is agape, according to 1 John 4, 8. That doesn’t mean he’s merely the principle of love, but it means everything that he does. He’s a real person. We were made in his image and after his likeness. But he is loving in all that he does. His love is a just and righteous and holy love. It’s not syrupy and wishy-washy and related to simply feeling some vibes toward somebody. God’s love is far deeper and more wonderful. It’s sacrificial, but it’s also unconditional. God will love you even though we don’t deserve it. And that’s why 1 Corinthians 13 is so strategic to our understanding. It’s the greatest chapter on love ever written. The Holy Spirit guided the Apostle Paul, and as he wrote these words, he himself must have been stunned by the beauty and the grace and the love that God says in this chapter. So I hope you can be with us for all of our studies.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, David. You can call us in the U.S. at 800-75-BIBLE or in Canada at 888-75-BIBLE. Or use the contact form at davidhawking.org. We’re grateful for your help and for your faithful listening. Well, next time, more from 2 Corinthians 13. I invite a friend to listen along with you right here on Hope for Today. Hope for Today
