All right, folks, thank you so much for joining us here yet again at the Everlasting Truth broadcast where we give you everlasting truth for this ever-changing world. I want to pick up today in our series that we've been going through on charity. We've spent several weeks right here. We've got multiple broadcasts invested in this subject at this point. And I don't regret it for one minute. And as a matter of fact, we may finish this today, we may not, or not today, but rather in the next series of broadcasts is what I mean by that, both today and tomorrow, but we will see. But this has been a much needed subject. This is one that needs to be covered, one that really needs to be dealt with. And I'll be honest, as I have been studying this and I've been striving to try to apply it in my own life and striving to try to live it out, I have realized how needful this passage is to be one of those at the top of our list for memorization. There's a lot of passages in your Bible you should know. Ideally, you should know all of it, but I also understand that that's a bit extreme for most of us. we should have some passages that we absolutely run to frequently that are commonly used to be a help to us, and I think this is one of those passages. I think 1 Corinthians 13 qualifies in a very high-ranking way to be one of those that we should commit to memory and commit to heart and commit to living out, and you ought to be committed to this passage, and if you're not, I'd like to ask you make a commitment to it. because it matters. As a matter of fact, as we read the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 13, we realize how much charity matters. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 13, 1, he said, Paul said, I can have spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and speaking in great miraculous languages. He said, but if I don't have charity, if I don't have love, if I don't have agape in the Greek, sacrificial love, if I don't have that, he said, I'm really just making a bunch of spiritual racket. I'm just making a bunch of noise. I'm becoming a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. In verse number two, Paul said, and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. Paul said, I could have that great kind of power by faith. I could move mountains by faith. And he said, as wonderful, magnificent, as mighty as that is, he said, if I don't have charity, if I don't have love, if I don't have agape, I'm nothing. I'm a nobody. Verse number three, he said, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Paul said, I can do a lot of really good things. I can give to the poor. I can give my life for people. I can give my body to be burned, was the language he used. I can give in tithes and offerings. I can give alms. I can give to the poor. I can give whatever I want to give. He said, but here's the bottom line. If I do all that, but I don't really have charity in my heart, I don't really have love in my heart. He said, it profits me nothing. It means nothing. And so, even chiefly above our spiritual actions, there ought to be this spiritual attribute of this kind of love and this charity. And Paul says, without it, we're nothing. Well, not Paul, but rather God said that. We're nothing without this love, and so we need to examine our hearts and make sure we have that kind of love And we've been talking these last few broadcasts about what that love looks like, and I keep recapping this, but I think it's needful to do that. That way we know where we're at contextually. But we're going to pick up somewhere today around verse number 5, I think. We didn't quite finish verse 5 in the last broadcast. We got close, but we didn't finish it, so we'll pick up there. But let's go ahead and continue to read the rest of the context here, and then we'll come back to verse number 5 and begin to unpack it. Let's look at verse number four. Paul begins to lay out, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost of God, a definition of what biblical love is. Not world's idea of love, but God's idea of love. Verse four, charity suffereth long. and is kind. Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Now, let's back up to verse number five, and I want to pick up right here in the last descriptor of love. He gives in verse number five where he says that love, by definition, thinketh no evil. Love thinketh no evil. And so, we've been examining this text trying to find out, is our idea of love a biblical idea of love? If God was to look at the way we care for the people that we call our loved ones, and we care for the people who we claim we love, would God say it qualifies as His idea of love as outlined in the Scriptures? And so we need to be asking ourselves these questions in light of the text, how does my love stack up to what God wrote here? And one of those examinations is we need to ask ourselves, does our love think no evil? think no evil, because God said in the last line of verse 5 in 1 Corinthians 13, charity thinketh no evil. Now, what that means ultimately is it doesn't, you could look at this a couple different ways, one of which is that it doesn't think evil thoughts of other people. And I want you to understand all evil actions begin with evil thoughts. Jesus said ultimately that murder came from hatred in the heart, and that's why he said, even if you don't murder somebody, he said, if you hate your brother, you are a murderer, because it begins in the heart. It is that evil thinking of hatred that ultimately leads to murder. And what he says here is that love does not do that. It does not think evil. It does not devise evil plans and corrupt desires for other people. If you love people, then that means you don't will for bad things to happen to them. The proverb speaks of this idea that a righteous man does not rejoice in the calamity of others. And so love, by definition, doesn't think evil. Now, not only that, but I also believe that it means this. When it says that love thinketh no evil, I think one thing he's saying here is that love does not only focus on the worst part and the bad parts of other people. It doesn't think of them in that evil, wrong, bad mindset. In other words, love doesn't always assume the worst of the individual that it loves. That means if you're to love your spouse, when you view your spouse, you're not to view them through the lens of everything that is wrong with them. You're not to always assume the worst of them in any given situation, but rather love looks at it with hope. And it gives the benefit of the doubt to the other person. And this has revolutionized the way that I try to interact with my wife. And I'm still learning at this, but there is a mindset that we're going to have to adopt if we are truly going to love other people in which we do not view them through the worst lens possible, but rather we give them the benefit of the doubt. We view them in the best lens. We don't think evil concerning them. We don't always view them and associate them with something being wrong or the wrong decision. And so, love by definition looks for the best in other people, I believe. Not only that, in verse number five, love thinketh no evil, but verse number six, moving on, says that charity rejoiceth not in iniquity. Rejoiceth not in iniquity. Now here's a big one that we probably need to park on for a minute and think about. Because the homosexual, transgender, LGBTQIA+++, whatever it is they want to label it now, it grows every year, but whatever it's labeled as now, has this saying that they've championed and they go around saying love is love and what they mean by that is our homosexual relationship is validated because we love one another and at the end of the day love is just love no matter what it looks like love is Love. Well, the Bible challenges that thought because God says, no, love is not anything that you want to call love. Love meets my definition. And one of God's definitions for love is verse number six. Love does not rejoice in iniquity. Now, contrary to popular belief, the Bible is abundantly clear that homosexuality is iniquity and it is sin. And it's in the New Testament. You don't even have to borrow from the book of Leviticus in order to prove that here in the New Testament. If you were to go to 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 9 and read on down through there, you would find out that homosexuality is a sin, and people that do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Romans 1 calls it a vile affection. And as a matter of fact, lists it as a trait of a reprobate people. The Bible is clear, not just in the book of Leviticus, not just under the Old Testament law, but in the New Testament, in the words of the apostles, inspired by the Holy Ghost of God, that homosexuality is still iniquity. Don't let anybody tell you that homosexuality is not mentioned in the New Testament. It absolutely is. 1 Corinthians 6, Romans 1, it's there. It is iniquity. And God said that charity does not rejoice in iniquity. So charity does not look at sin and to avoid offending somebody, not say anything, and rather celebrate the sin of somebody else because charity does not rejoice in iniquity. It never supports and it never condones sin. The LGBTQ crowd claims that they have love. And it's not love, it's lust is what it is. But they claim that they have love, and they say love is love. But the problem with that is, if God calls it iniquity, then it isn't really love because God said love does not rejoice in iniquity. They are redefining love. When they go around celebrating things that God condemns and call it love, what they have done is not found some new kind of love, but rather they have redefined and redesigned love from what God intended for it to be. It is not love. It is something completely different. It is a satanic counterfeit. It is not the same kind of love that God prescribes between a husband and a wife. There are no two men or no two women that love one another the way that God enables a husband and a wife in a God-fearing relationship to love one another. It is not the same thing. And so don't let them convince you of that today, because love does not rejoice in iniquity. Now, rather than not rejoicing in iniquity, what does love rejoice in? Let's read on in verse number six. He says here, 1 Corinthians 13, in verse number six, love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. It rejoices in the truth. Now, That is also challenging to our society today. The fact that love rejoices in truth because we have the idea today that if the truth offends somebody, then what love actually is, is withholding that truth to avoid offending the individual. And God says, that's not my definition of love. That might be the world's false definition of love and fake definition of love. He said, but my genuine definition of love, and nobody knows what love is like God does for God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Nobody knows what love is like God does, and God says that love rejoices in the truth. It doesn't hold back truth at the risk of offense. Now, love does not go looking to offend. It does not rejoice in offending other people, but it does rejoice in the truth, and it doesn't hold back truth at the risk of offense. Love tells the truth. Today, people think that if you say anything negative, regardless of how true it may be, then you're not being loving. If you confront somebody about their actions and it's deemed to be negative by the hearer, then people on looking will accuse you of not being loving because you spoke the truth in a way that was not deemed approved of by the person that heard it and therefore You're not being loving. But God said, no, maybe you are, because love rejoices in the truth. If it's true, it's true. And Ephesians 4.15 tells us this, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. You see, sometimes we need to be told the truth, even when it hurts our feelings, because according to Ephesians 4.15, when the truth is spoken in love, it helps us to grow up into all things. You ought to go read that. Speaking the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things. Ephesians 4.15. And so it is by hearing the truth that we are able to grow up. And the reason that the truth offends some people when you bring it and they accuse you of being unloving is because, truth be told, they're not really ready to grow up unto Him in all things. They're enjoying their immaturity. But love confronts it and it rejoices in truth. Now let me make this clear. Love does not rejoice in offense. Love does not rejoice in getting a rise out of people. Love does not have a good time when it offends people. However, love does carry the truth, and love does understand that sometimes the truth will naturally bring offense, and love rejoices in the truth anyways. Now, let's move on. 1 Corinthians 13, verse number 7. Charity, the Bible says, verse 7, beareth all things. Now, this is where it starts getting weighty. This is where it starts getting heavy. I think all of us would agree that a marriage must be built chiefly on a foundation of love. And if there is no love there, the marriage will not hold together. It will fall apart. Here's the issue we have today. We have marriages that fall apart. Divorce ensues, and God does not rejoice in divorce. Divorce is still wrong. It's never really been right. It's wrong. The only reason it was permitted in the Old Testament, Jesus said, for the hardness of your hearts, Moses suffered you to give a writing of divorcement. He said, but from the beginning, it was not so. And then he quoted Genesis 2. And he said, For this cause let a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And then Jesus said, Let not man put asunder what God hath joined together. When God makes two people one, no writing of divorcement that man gives can put that asunder. And so Jesus follows in Matthew 19 in that same thought and he says, if God joins people together and they can never be separated by paper, it doesn't matter if you get a piece of paper that says you're divorced. He says if you move on to somebody else, then you are committing adultery because God still recognizes that initial relationship where he made two one. And you say, well, I'm no longer one with that individual. We've got a writing of divorcement. The piece of paper says we're no longer married. And God said, let not man put asunder what God hath joined together. The paper doesn't change that. Now, the reason that this happens, ultimately, the reason that this happens is because as we've said, marriage must be built upon love. And we agree with that, but then a lot of people will say, well, I did love them when we first got married, but somewhere down the road, we quote unquote fell out of love. And I just don't love them anymore. They just don't love me anymore. Vice versa. Well, or, or they'll say it just got hard and it just, we love each other, but it just got too hard and it was easier to just walk away. Let me challenge you very quickly on that. Do you think it's possible that maybe what you were calling love was not what the Bible defines as love? Because what the Bible says love is doesn't walk away. Look at verse number seven. It says, charity beareth all things. You know what that word beareth means? It means to hold up. It means to shoulder the weight. It means to carry the weight. And what God is saying is that true love will always carry the weight. And if you're in a marriage right now or any kind of relationship. and you're saying, well, I just don't know if I can keep doing this. It's getting heavy. It's getting too hard. It's getting too difficult. I'm thinking about backing out. I'm thinking about just getting a divorce. I'm thinking about just calling it quits. God says, you need to ask yourself, am I really living in charity? Because charity, by definition, bears all things. Yes, it may be getting heavy. Yes, it may be getting hard. Yes, it may be difficult. But love will bear all things. Love will uphold all things. Love will carry the weight. Yes, it's difficult, but if it's biblical love, if it's true love, if it's the kind of love that Jesus Christ has for you and that he calls you to have for other people, if it is in fact that kind of love, then it will bear all things. It will carry the weight and it will continue on. And if it does not bear the weight, if it does not carry on, if it does not continue with the load, then it's not biblical love. and we can't go around saying, well, I love them, it just didn't work out. According to God's word, if that's where we're at, then we're not living in love. We're not living up to love. Now, not only that, moving on in verse number seven, and I know these things are harsh, but they are in the word of God nonetheless. And we remember 1 Corinthians 13 told us that love rejoiceth in truth. And these things in front of us are the truth. It is so confrontational to our mindset today, though, because we have allowed the world to permeate our minds and tell us what love is and what love is not. And we've told people that you can love somebody and still give up on them. It says in verse number seven, moving on, love believeth all things, believeth all things. We talked briefly about this earlier when we were talking to verse number five about love or charity, thinketh no evil. And it gives the benefit of the doubt. I believe that's confirmed here in verse number seven, where he says, charity believeth all things. That word believeth means it is trusting. It gives the benefit of the doubt. Love trusts the individual that that love is being vested in. Love believeth all things. It gives the benefit of the doubt. It does not look at the failure of the individual, but rather it believes for the best out of that person. It trusts that person. Let me just say this. You cannot have a loving relationship without trust. You say, oh, well, I love my spouse. I just don't trust them. The Bible said you don't love them then. Because love, by definition, believeth all things. You say, well, how could I ever trust them? Maybe something happened in the past and I'm therefore unable to trust them. It may feel uncomfortable to trust them, but you can trust them. And love requires that we do so. I know this is difficult. I know it is hard. And this is why the world wants to redefine it. Because biblical love is not some fairy tale scene where it's happy ever after. Sometimes biblical love hurts. And sometimes biblical love costs. And biblical love is a sacrifice. And having to trust when maybe trust has been violated is not easy. It's hard. But so was that cross that he carried. That cross that Jesus took for you was not easy. It was hard. But he did it because of love. He did it because he really cared. And what you and I need to do is we need to ask ourselves, are we not loving based on what's easy, but are we loving based on what's biblical? Now we've run out of time for today. We've got a couple more verses here to examine. I do hope you'll come back tomorrow and you'll join us as we pick up in this study. Should be coming to an end here very soon, but I want to thank you for listening today and I hope it's been a blessing to you. Maybe it's rattled you a little bit and maybe that's good for us sometimes. But examine yourself against the Word of God and find out, am I really loving? And if not, say, God help me to abound in love more and more. That's what the Apostle Paul prayed for his churches. He said, Lord, let them abound in love more and more. And may we do the same. God bless you, friends. We'll see you next time.