I CORINTHIANS 13:1

1 ¶ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

I CORINTHIANS 13:2

2 And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

I CORINTHIANS 13:3

3 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.

GOD.PROJECTING.HIS.LOVE_ EDMONTON.ALBERTA TUESDAY_ 57-0806, E-4 And I think if one thing is needed in the great universal Church of God tonight is love. We do not need other things as much as we think we do. And all these other things, our emotions and our gifts, they are wonderful, and to God we give praise. But if those gifts are not governed by love, then they are not effective.

GOD.PROJECTING.HIS.LOVE_ EDMONTON.ALBERTA TUESDAY_ 57-0806, E-5 Love should govern the home. Love is the greatest force that was ever put into the power of man. A--a home that's not disciplined by love is not much of a home. If the husband and wife doesn't solemnly love each other, they cannot trust each other. That's why I think that instead of resting our faith upon some emotion (which is all right) or some gift (which is all right), like shouting, speaking with tongues, or with other things that we take for--saying that we have the Holy Spirit when we do this... Those things are all right. But if we would come back to the principle, love first, and then those things, I think our church would progress a lot faster, if we would get God first; and God is love.

BLIND.BARTIMAEUS_ TULSA.OK WEDNESDAY_ 60-0330

E-45 Oh, don't you love Him? Tell me something greater than Love? God is Love. No one will ever be able to express how God is such Love. He is Agapao Love, the greatest Love of all.

POWER.OF.TRANSFORMATION_ PRESCOTT.AZ V-17 N-1 SUNDAY_ 65-1031M, 8 I think there's nothing greater than love. And love... If we can't express it... Now, we can say that we have love; we're just saying that. But when we can really express what we've said that we have, then we show it in ourselves.

Now, we're not a perfect people. We make our mistakes. We do things that's wrong. But, you see, love covers all of that. We're willing, when we see our mistakes, to come back and apologize to one another. That's--that's--that's warriors. That's--that's really men and women that's gallant. Any man can go out to the battlefield, that's got nerve enough to walk out there; but when he gets knocked down, then get up and try it again. See? Used to be a song that a young man and young woman used to sing in the church, "If I fall or if I fail," See? "If I fall or if I..." I forget how it goes. "Let me rise and try again."

Forgive me, Lord, and try me one more time. (See, see?)

If I fall or if I sin, let me rise and try again.

Just forgive me, Lord, and try me one more time.

GOD.PROJECTING.HIS.LOVE_ EDMONTON.ALBERTA TUESDAY_ 57-0806, E-14 Love is a powerful force. It'll run a woman, a mother, right into the flames of fire after her baby, if she knows she's plunging herself to death. There's nothing more strong than love. Love will make you trust. You might go and know that you belong to the greatest church in all the provinces of Canada. You might know that you're the charter member of the greatest church in the nation. And then you would do things that you would not do if you belonged to a little mission somewhere in some corner and had the love of God in your heart.

Love has no fear. Love casts out fear. And I notice in my meetings, so much that when I come into the people... One of the great things I find among them is fear. And what makes fear is lack of confidence. If you lack confidence it'll make you fear. But if you love, it casts away that fear. And that's the way God wants His Church, not so many as charter members; He wants members that's loyal, and loves, and believes, and has confidence in Him.

GOD.PROJECTING.HIS.LOVE_ EDMONTON.ALBERTA TUESDAY_ 57-0806, E-26 If ever I had a time of success of praying for anyone, is when I could enter into the fellowship with them, feel their infirmities, feel their conditions. Then something in you goes down beyond the reasoning and prays the prayer of faith for the sick. You've got to feel for a man. You've got to sympathize with him. You've got to be with him before you can help him. Then you enter into some sort of a deepness; it's the love of God. It's beyond human love.

I'm going to tell you something. You may class me a fanatic after this. But I feel like I want to tell you anyhow. Many things happen like that. Frankly, all my ministry has been wrapped around that one thing. If I can love that, or fall in sympathy with it...

II CORINTHIANS 12:10

10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

115-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4

CONDITIONS OF THE AGE

Revelation 2:9,

"I know thy works and thy tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."

115-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4

The key to this age is most evidently tribulation. If there was tribulation in the first age, there is now predicted an intensified tribulation throughout the second age. There is no doubt but what the following words of Paul applied to the mass of Christians wherever they were in the world and in every age.

Hebrews 10:32-38,

"But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He That shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."

Hebrews 5:8-9,

"Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him."

116-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4

Now the Lord God Almighty says, "I KNOW." There He is walking in the midst of His people. There He is, the Chief Shepherd of the flock. But does He hold back the persecution? Does He stem the tribulation? No, He does not. He simply says, "I KNOW your tribulation--I am not at all unmindful of your suffering." What a stumbling block this is to so many people. Like Israel they wonder if God really loves them. How can God be just and loving if He stands by and watches His people suffer?

That is what they asked in Malachi 1:1-3,

"The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet we say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness."

You see, they could not figure out God's love. They thought that love meant no suffering. They thought that love meant a baby with parental care. But God said that His love was "elective" love. The proof of His love is ELECTION--that no matter what happened, His love was proven truly by the fact they were chosen unto salvation (because God hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth). He may commit you to death as He did Paul. He may commit you to suffering as He did Job. That is His prerogative. He is sovereign. But it is all with a purpose. If He did not have a purpose, then He would be the author of frustration and not of peace. His purpose is that after we have suffered awhile we would be made perfect, be established, strengthened and settled. As Job said, "He puts strength in us." (Job 23:6b) You see He, Himself, suffered. He learned obedience by the things that He suffered. He was actually made perfect by the things that He suffered.

Hebrews 5:8-9,

"Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him."

In plain language, the very character of Jesus was perfected by suffering. And according to Paul He has left His church a measure of suffering that they, too, by their faith in God while suffering for Him, would come to a place of perfection. Why did He want this?

James 1:2-4,

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

II TIMOTHY 2:3

3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

IT.WASN'T.SO.FROM.THE.BEGINNING_ SANTA.MARIA.CA SATURDAY_ 62-0630B, E-71 I've met this little Pentecost group worldwide, way back in those jungles there, where men would dare to go, and there'd be a little unsponsored Pentecostal setting back there holding the candle of light, not underwritten by nobody, some little man or woman standing back there all disfigured up, and eat up with ameba, and clothes ragged, but holding forth the candle of light. As Paul said in Hebrews, "of whom the world is not worthy of, they wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins and destitute and afflicted." God, the great judgment will only reveal it.

How I thank you for men and women like that, and for being associated with such a group, to set in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus. Bless them all, Father. We pray that Your grace and mercy will rest upon them.

STATURE.OF.A.PERFECT.MAN_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-18 SUNDAY_ 62-1014M, 52-2 Isn't that wonderful? And then God, through that, has brought also seven church ages to show the seven steps that He brought building His individual into His image. He's built a complete church in His image. And at the resurrection this complete Body will be raised up to live with Him forever, because it is a Bride. See? So that cuts in every age, every age that comes.

And there's more required, remember. Remember what Paul said over here in Hebrews 11. Let me just read you something 'fore we close here just a minute, and then you... It kind of makes you feel kinda strange when I--always when I read this. I'm going to get Hebrews 11, and I'm going to start at the 32nd verse.

What more... what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell you of Gideon, of Barak, and... Samson, and--and... Jephthae; of David..., and Samuel,... of the prophets:

Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promise, stopped the mouths of lions,

Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned... the armies of the aliens.

Women received their dead raised to life again:... others went through torment--were tormented, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: (Way down in here. See? All right.)

And others had trials... cruel mockings... scourgings, yea, moreover... bonds and imprisonment:

They were stoned, they were sawed asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with swords: they wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins; being destitute, and afflicted, and tormented;

(Of whom the world is not worthy:)... (See, in parenthesis, there you notice in your Bible.)... they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

All these,... having obtained a good report through faith,... (here:)... good report through faith, received not the promise: (See?)