In this episode, we delve into a profound exploration of 1 Corinthians 13, examining the vital role of love in spiritual life. David Hawking provides insight into how the absence of love renders even the most spiritual acts meaningless. Through this discussion, we reflect on the myriad attributes of love that surpass mere knowledge and spiritual gifts, showcasing how true love is manifested through action and understanding. The episode features a poignant story about a Jehovah Witness leader, illustrating the transformative power of genuine love and compassion. David emphasizes that love, rather than debate or argument, holds the true
Look, folks, I don’t care what you know. If you don’t have the love of God, if you’re not doing anything for people, you’ve missed it. You’ve missed it your whole life. But it’s never too late, as long as you’re still breathing, to get it straight.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Hope for Today. On our last broadcast, we opened up 1 Corinthians 13 and saw how the passage takes dead aim at everything that looks spiritual but is empty at the core. Why is it empty at the core? Well, no love means no value, no matter how impressive the gift, no matter how sacrificial the act, and no matter how loud the claim. Paul doesn’t soften the blow. He pulls away the cover and shows what remains when love is missing. What do you have? Well, noise, pride, motion without meaning, a form of godliness with none of the heart of Christ in it. Today, Bible teacher David Hawking continues his message called When Love Is Not There as we come face to face with the kind of love God demands and the kind of life that proves whether it’s really there. We’ll get back into the passage in just a moment. First, you can get our current Love is the Greatest radio series on MP3 CD for just $5 or on traditional audio CDs, and that’s $20. Again, this is the complete radio series that you’re currently hearing on Hope for Today. You can also add David’s book commentary on 1 Corinthians 13. That is also titled Love is the Greatest. In the book, it includes extra material that we won’t have time to include altogether. on radio. And Love is the Greatest, the book commentary, just $15. This is a strong, encouraging study and a great gift for someone you care about, someone you love. Call 875-BIBLE in the U.S., 875-242-53. In Canada, call 888-75-BIBLE, 888-75-242-53. to get these resources, or go to our website, davidhawking.org. Let’s get back to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 now, and here’s David with day three of his message, when love is not there.
SPEAKER 03 :
In verse two, we have some serious problems here, but let’s once again look at the unrealistic claim. The unrealistic claim of verse 1 is you can speak with the tongues of men and angels. No, you can’t. That’s a hypothetical case. It’s unrealistic. The unrealistic claim here is a multifaceted claim. Though I have the gift of prophecy. I don’t know what translation you have. I’m reading the old King James. And would you look at verse 2, the words the gift of are in italics. Are they in your Bible in italics? That means they’re not in the text. All it says is, if I have prophecy. Prophecy is dealing with the content of God’s word. It’s marvelous. If you have it, he’s going to exalt that gift and say it’s more important than anything for the church of Jesus Christ. And he will exalt it in chapter 14. Well, if you have it even. Keep reading. And understand all mysteries. Not something that’s mysterious. Mysterion in Greek means something that was hidden in the past is now revealed. And there are a lot of them in the body of Christ. For instance, the mystery of God in human flesh. That’s a mystery. 1 Timothy 3.16 says, great is the mystery of godliness that God was manifest in the flesh. What a mystery that is. How could the God who fills the universe localize himself in a physical body, in the person of Jesus? What a mystery that is. We have also the mystery of the body of Christ, that God would put Jews and Gentiles together. Now because Gentiles dominate today, they don’t see the difficulty of that. But Jewish people do. They always do. They see it right away. Because the Gentiles control how church is done, how it’s run, what they think about things. And so Jews learn to adapt. They don’t like some of the things, but they adapt. Just so we can have fellowship in the body of Christ. Things often get turned around. It’s a mystery, Paul said, how God will bring Jew and Gentile together. What happens is that we often miss what makes us one. What makes us one is in our differences in lifestyle and traditional backgrounds. What makes us one is the life of the Lord himself and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We are one in the Lord. And it is a mystery, is it not? The Bible says that in Jesus Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2.3. He’s the only one about whom we can say that. You and I will never have all knowledge. God does. We grow, says 2 Peter 3.18, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But we don’t have all knowledge. But this one is really unbelievable in terms of an unrealistic claim. Verse 2. Though I have all faith… so that I could remove mountains. What’s he talking about? Again, it’s hypothetical. No one does. But what’s he talking about? We know that faith is necessary in order to become a Christian. For by grace are you saved through faith. We also know that all of us can grow in faith, that faith can be strengthened in our lives. What does he mean, faith? The Bible says, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in him. We receive him by faith. We’re to walk by faith. So that’s common to everybody. What makes this unusual? Though I have all faith, so I can remove mountains. Take your Bibles and go back to Matthew 17. Let’s see if we can figure this out. What is he talking about? I think you’ll be surprised if you’ve never seen this. Matthew chapter 17. What does he mean when he says somebody’s got all the faith they need so they can remove mountains? There’s the key. In Matthew 17, let’s pick it up at verse 14. It says, And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he’s a lunatic and sore vexed. For oft times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, or the demon, and it departed out of him. And the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, You shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. Boy, that’s interesting. So the very point of removing mountains is the issue of casting out a demon. And it can only be done by prayer. If you had all faith so you could remove mountains anytime, anyplace you wanted to, In this case, it was casting out demons. And why could they not do that? Because they didn’t have the faith. Very, very interesting. All they needed was the faith of a grain of mustard seed. Go over to chapter 21. Here’s the second time it was used in the Bible. And again, he’s talking about a hypothetical case. Yeah, you can’t fool the Lord. But look at Matthew 21, verse 18. Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it and found nothing thereon but leaves only. That’d make a great message, wouldn’t it? Leaves only. A lot of us are like that. No fruit. And said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away? Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If you have faith and doubt not, you shall not only do that which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things… Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. In Matthew 17, it was casting out a demon. In Matthew 21, it was cursing a fig tree and have it withered. And both deal with the power of prayer. Now let’s suppose, obviously the disciples who heard Jesus teach couldn’t do it. But let’s suppose that you could. So you see all the unrealistic claims here in verse 2. You could preach the word of God, prophesy God’s revelation. You also understand all mysteries, and you understand all knowledge, and you have so much faith you can remove mountains. Talk about a hyperbole. If you had somebody who could do that, we’d all be following them and going to their meetings. But he said, if you have not love, which was the actual condition of the person, then here’s the conclusion we draw. You’re nothing. You thought you were so good because of what you knew and could do? You’re nothing. In the first case, we talked about communication being ineffective. Here we’re talking about our understanding being incomplete. Look, people, there’s a lot of us who think that we understand what no one else does. And you know, the older I get, the more intelligent older people are. Anybody notice that? The older you get, the more intelligent older people get. Kind of interesting. Maybe we’re all senile. Who knows? But you understand? It’s interesting. And the older we get, the more we realize what we don’t know. The other day, a guy was asking me about a passage, a pastor, and I told him, you know, I’m just really not sure. There’s two or three views on that, and here’s what they are that I know, and I’m just not sure. He said, I heard a tape by you years ago, and you knew the answer. I said, yeah, I sure did. But I got out of school. I thought there was nothing else to learn. I was one of those professional students. I got all the books. I read everything. I took every course they had. If they had another Greek course, I would have taken it. If they had another Hebrew course, I would have taken it. I took everything that was in the curriculum. I want to learn God’s word. I want to know it. When I left, I thought, man, I know now. And you know what all my ministry has been? Finding out what I don’t know. That’s what it is. I thank God for everything we’ve learned. But you know, after a while, you look at things and you say, you know what? I don’t think I got that right. Something’s wrong. And the older you get, the more you realize that there’s something more than just knowing everything. And if you have all knowledge, you can be very arrogant, puffed up, proud. But it’s only love that will build people up. It’s hard to learn, but the older you get, you realize that people aren’t really impressed with what you know. They really aren’t. Oh, they tell you that because they know you like it. Boy, I wish I had all the training you had. And then their hearts are saying, I want nothing to do with this dude. But they want to say what you like to hear. Our understanding is incomplete. Let’s come to the third thing. Not only is our communication ineffective and our understanding is incomplete, but our giving is insufficient. You know, I love people who are givers. I really do. They’re a lot better than the takers. Amen? And I like people that are generous and who give. But only God knows the motives. And we need to be careful. Here in verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 13, we read again these simple words. If I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor. Notice the poor in italics. The word feed is to feed bit by bit like you would feed a small animal or a little baby. It’s kind of interesting. Though I gave everything I had to feed those who maybe needed my help, is the idea. That’s why they put the word poor in there, though it’s not in the text. And though I give my body to be burned, great sacrifice. Here’s the problem. The manuscripts have a variation. It’s only one letter in Greek. It could be translated boast rather than burn. And most believe it should be boast because the point is bragging. If I gave all my goods to feed and if I gave my body everything I have to boast of all that I have done, it profits me nothing. The motive was totally wrong. I wasn’t blessing people. I was blessing myself. Augustine said that there were two verbs that built two empires. One is to have and one is to be. And he described quite thoroughly in his Confessions of Augustine. You can buy it in the bookstore. It’s an interesting book. As he was pouring out his own soul before God, he said, it seems like life is filled with what we have, what I want to get, what I want to achieve, what do I want to accomplish. And you can build your whole life on that. So what you wind up doing is using people to build your work. And he said the real message of God’s love was turning that around so that you use your work and all that God has given you to build people. It’s exactly reversed of what you think. And it takes so long sometimes to get that in our hearts. Without God’s love, our giving is totally insufficient. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, don’t give stuff to be seen. Giving alms to the poor so everybody notices it. He said, what you do, do in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. The actual condition, again, is they have not love. So the obvious conclusion is it profits me nothing. You thought you achieved it by what you gave? No. We need the love of God. Love divine, all loves excelling, says an old hymn. It’s greater than anything else in life, and we need it. But that love is produced by the Holy Spirit and the believer. The Bible says in Galatians 5, 22, the fruit of the Spirit, you tell me, is what? Love. In Romans 5.5, it says, The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to love with God’s love without the Spirit of God controlling your life. If we are carnal and selfish in it for what we can get out of it, grabbing all the gusto we can get, you’re on the wrong road. You’re going the wrong way. And it leads nowhere, Solomon said, to emptiness. You wake up one day and realize that all you wanted to achieve, all you did in life, all that you thought was important, never accomplished what God intended for your life. God wants you to love people. And they’re not all lovely, are they? They’re going to run into people that are difficult and hard to love. But with God’s love, you can love anybody and you can melt the hardest heart. And the coldest person can turn warm towards the Lord by simply loving them, no matter what. For two solid years, I debated a Jehovah Witness leader. He had started 17 kingdom halls. He was extremely intelligent, knowledgeable in the original languages. And we met about every other week for two solid years. We argued, debated, etc., And you know, I ran out of gas. After about six months, I was done. I was finished. And he was just warming up. I mean, I thought as a Jewish background, I knew how to argue. But this boy, he knows how to argue. He loved the argument. And I remember one day we were sitting, going to have another meeting again. And I was dreading it. I just didn’t want to get involved with it anymore. And I decided to tell him. And I hadn’t planned this. I was just talking to him. And while I was talking to him, it was just like the Holy Spirit just came right in, convicted me, and broke my heart, and I started crying. He said, what are you crying about? I said, you know, I thought I would enjoy all this discussion, argument, but I really don’t. I just want you to go to heaven and not hell. One week later, he called me and asked me to help him To believe that Jesus is all he claimed. And I asked him, I said, I don’t understand. What changed all this? And he said, because you wanted me to go to heaven instead of hell. He said, I don’t even believe that hell that you believe. I don’t even believe that. It’s annihilation to us. But all of a sudden in that moment, I realized that you believed that the Bible was to be taken seriously and that you actually cared about whether I would be there or not. He said, it’s been bothering me all week. I just couldn’t get over it. I wish I could say I care about it all the time. I don’t. But in that one moment, I saw the power of God’s love in that guy’s life. By the way, he’s a pastor of an independent Bible church in case I have to deal with that afterwards. What happened to him? What happened to him? Uh… But let me just tell you that sometimes, folks, not always, we need to stand in there and defend the faith and explain it and all of that. But sometimes we miss what is really needed. And that’s to love people with the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he saw the multitudes, the Bible says he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. I was reading in a Greek class about the word that was translated, have compassion. It deals with the intestines. And it was dealing with a gladiator school in ancient times. And they were trained to, in combat, that the great goal is to get the sword, get the sword right under the rib cage where the heart is, just be able to put it in that fleshly part, jam it in there, and then quickly drop your shield and bring your other hand up and jam it right to the heart for an instant kill. And I was surprised in reading a passage in Greek about that, that the word used to describe it was the same word used in the Bible to be moved with compassion. His heart was ripped apart. He loved people so much. I never got over it. And I think all of us need to sit back, you know, every now and then and say, do we really care about anybody? We need the power of God’s love. And without it, we’re in big trouble.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, that’s David Hawking, and this is Hope for Today. David will be back in a moment to close out our time with a special time of prayer, asking the Lord to take what we’ve learned and build it into our hearts. Stay tuned for that. First, Matt and I have a great resource that may just change your whole outlook on the subject of love.
SPEAKER 01 :
Matt? The world cries out for love, is rather confused about it, and wrestles with the consequences of accepting Satan’s lies about it.
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Matt, the popular song asks the question, what’s love got to do with it?
SPEAKER 01 :
Contemporary culture confuses self-centered lust with love.
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But Matthew, as you know, the Greek language of the New Testament uses four or five terms for love. And many of us are familiar with the great love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.
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And that chapter defines and describes the love of God himself, which we desperately need in our lives.
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And we need to live out through our lives.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let’s cut through the confusion and enjoy the refreshing of love as God defines it and empowers it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. In our book, Love is the Greatest, your dad shares an in-depth analysis of the whole subject of love and bases a study on the authority of God’s word.
SPEAKER 01 :
And what a powerful and crucial study this is for our day and time.
SPEAKER 02 :
Love is the Greatest by David Hawking.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s an outstanding study for every relationship of life. An engaged couple, a marriage of many years. Yeah. Parents, best friends.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. How about anyone who struggles with a difficult relationship? Maybe a cranky coworker. Not you and me, Matt. We’re not cranky, but other workers.
SPEAKER 01 :
Annoying neighbor.
SPEAKER 02 :
An annoying neighbor, rebellious child. I think of so many folks in my circle dealing with rebellious children. And you know something, the help and encouragement and inspiration inside this book, Love is the Greatest by David Hawking, this is going to be so encouraging and helpful to them.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s a study in 1 Corinthians 13, and it’s just $15. And get a copy for yourself. Or someone in your circle who needs it. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 02 :
And consider adding a donation with your order or becoming a regular monthly contributor. Matt, many folks simply send a contribution to help the ministry of Hope for Today, and they do that as long as God directs and supplies. And please pray for Hope for Today. Yeah, start with that. Amen. Start with prayer. Well, Matt, folks can also get our current Love is the Greatest radio series on MP3 CD. As we mentioned at the top of the broadcast, that’s just $5. The whole series, Love is the Greatest, our study in 1 Corinthians 13, just $5. We also have it on traditional audio CDs, and that’s just $20. For all the details, our number, toll-free in the U.S., 875-BIBLE. In Canada, 888-75-BIBLE. Or visit us anytime at DavidHawking.org. And before David returns, let me ask you to stand with us financially. Your support helps keep Hope for Today on this station and reaching lives with the truth of God’s word all around the world on the internet. To give or learn more, call 800-75-BIBLE. Again, that’s in the U.S. In Canada, 888-75-BIBLE. You can also visit us online at davidhawking.org. That’s David, H-O-C-K-I-N-G.org. If you’d like to send a gift by mail, write to Hope for Today.org. Box 3927, Tustin, California, 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO, Seven Oaks, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S, HP1. As promised, here again is David.
SPEAKER 03 :
Lord, thank you for reminding us again of how much we need your love. And Lord, I pray that you would open up our hearts to your love for us. You loved us when we didn’t care anything about you, when we were struggling to find out the meaning of everything. There you were still loving us, caring about us, drawing us to yourself by your love. And I thank you, Lord, for the love that sent Jesus to the cross, because you tell us God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Thank you, Lord. And Lord, as believers, though we have the Holy Spirit in us, sometimes we’re not controlled by him. And we become very carnal and ugly and difficult. Thank you, Lord, that when we confess and forsake our sin, we find your compassion once again. You will fill us with your love once more. Oh, God, help us to love as you want us to love. And I pray for those who are really not sure of their relationship to you. May they know, Lord, what you tell us, that God is love. And he that knoweth God will love. Thank you, Lord. In the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amen. Well, tomorrow we begin a message called How Love Really Works. 1 Corinthians 13 is not sentiment, and it’s not religious decoration. What it is, it’s God’s standard. And David Hawking takes us into what love actually does, how it thinks, and how it responds, and why nothing in the Christian life works right without it. That’s next time on Hope for Today.
