“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of
these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV).
Gladys found a book in her library called “The World’s Greatest Sermons,” which she shared with me. It dates back to 1903, and she is not sure how she and Jerry came to have it (like many books I have). This happens to be the 10th volume; G. Kleiser compiled the volumes for posterity. One of the sermons was entitled “The Greatest Thing in the World” by Henry Drummond. I have included a portion of it for this week’s article. I hope you enjoy it.
“Everyone had asked himself the great question of antiquity as of
the modern world: what is the summum bonum—the supreme
good? You have life before you. Once only can you live it. What is
the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet?
We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the
religious world is faith. The great word has been the key-note for
centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look
upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If
we have been told that, we may miss the mark. I have taken you,
in the chapter which I have just read (1 Corinthians 13, JLO), to
Christianity at its source: and there we have seen, “The greatest of
these is love.” It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just
a moment before. He says, “If I have all faith, so that I can remove
mountains and have not love, I am nothing.” So far from forgetting,
he deliberately contrasts them, “Now abideth faith, hope, and love,”
and without a moment’s hesitation the decision falls, “the greatest
of these is love.”
And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to
others his own strong point. Love was not Paul’s strong point. The
observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and
ripening all through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote
“The greatest of these is love,” when we first meet it, is stained with blood.
Nor is the letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love as the
summum bonum. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about it.
Peter says, “Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.”
Above all things. And John goes further, “God is love.” And you remember
the profound remark with Paul makes elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the
law.” Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were
working their passage to heaven by keeping the ten commandments, and the
hundred and ten other commandments they had manufactured out of them.
Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will
do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you
love, you will unconsciously fulfill the wholelaw....It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the
new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one
secret of the Christian life.
Eternal life is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ’s own definition.
Ponder it. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom that hast sent.” Love must be eternal. It
is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never
faileth, and life never faileth, so long as there is love. That is the
philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason why in the nature
of things love should be the supreme thing—because it is going to
last; because in the nature of things it is an eternal life. It is a thing
we are living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have
a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now.
No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow
old all alone, unloving, and unloved. To be lost is to live in an
unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved
is to love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God;
for God is love.”
—John Ostic
Comments