Although this message will cover male and female relationships, marriages, and churches, the important point is your ability to analyze love. As you read through this, think about the word “attraction” or “attractiveness.”
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need any one to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man. John 2:23–25.
In our walk with the Lord, we have certain problems which come with maturity. As children, we spent much of our lives in a world of fantasy and illusion. Notice the stories little children like to hear. Children are attracted by fantasy, but when they become mature, they face their greatest tests. This is true spiritually, as well as in our natural lives.
When we reach maturity we find that our love will be tested by disillusion. Disillusionment comes with the deeper perception that comes with maturity. To a new convert, everyone seems to be perfect; they can do no wrong. The new believer thinks everything is wonderful. The pastor has no faults; no one has any faults. He loves everyone in the church. He continues to grow in a kind of strange, protected world that belongs to spiritual infancy, just like a child does. Then comes the day the little child must be taught that he does not run across the street because he might be killed. The time comes when he first sees a little bird that fell out of the tree, and he starts to cry because it is dead. Then he is taught, “Don’t take candy from strangers; don’t talk to people you do not know.” Suddenly, a fearful world opens up to him. Now he must be exposed to things from which he has been protected.
As we grow and mature, we come into spiritual warfare. Suddenly, the illusions about our walk with God disappear. “Why, I thought this was simple, that we were going to sing in the spirit all day long. It was like a lollipop that would last a year. We had everything going. Instead, I now wake up fighting principalities and powers. I’m right in the middle of the resolution of the conflict of the ages. Not only that, I thought I was so thoroughly saved, but someone took the lid off and I saw what was still in me.” Disillusionment comes. It is not that God has not done a thorough work, because He has. But the greatest test of love is to come into a deep perception of a thing and still love.
Jesus did this. Coming into the world to love people, He loved Judas and chose him along with the others. Yet Christ knew who would betray Him. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? John 6:70. And still He gave him authority and commissioned him to go and cast out devils and heal the sick (Matthew 10). It takes more grace than you and I have, but Jesus did it. Our blessed Lord ministered with that mature, perfect love, but He knew better than to trust immaturity. For this reason He did not trust Himself to man; He knew what was in man.
This same principle applies to starting a church. When a church is being formed, the mature brother who is preaching the Word finds that most of the responsibility and authority rests on him. Then someone comes along and suggests, “Why don’t you raise up several elders here?” If the overseeing elder turned everything over to them, it would be the end of the church, because this cannot be done with immature people. He must not do it. Someone has to be a responsible shepherd and watch over the flock. There has to be someone who says, “The buck stops here. I take the responsibility before God. I take the authority and commission.” In fact, there is a certain wisdom in the way he goes about it.
As a church starts to mature, the pastor should set aside, not one, but if possible, six or seven for eldership to go through the preparation and dealings together. They develop a humble, reasonable attitude toward themselves. He should never set aside only one or two, because they will be so lifted up with their own self-importance that he will have trouble with them. This is using wisdom. The pastor is delegating, but he is also drawing them out. As they mature, the realistic delegation with responsibility can be given. This will be a real test on the brothers, as much as they feel they are mature. It will be the test of their lives. In the first place, they will have to mature a little for the job, and as they mature their perception will increase. As their perception increases they will enter into a period of disillusionment. The more discernment a man has, the more he sees people’s problems. He must decide how he is going to meet them. It is one of the greatest tests of love.
When a man stands before me, I read the thoughts of his heart and see what is in that man. Then I will either find myself judging him, or because I see the depth of his need I will find so much love in my heart that I will set about to help him. Not many Christians are mature enough to see another’s faults and pray, “God, how can I help this one through his problem?” It is the biggest test of all. When you move into this situation, you will find it is a test of your love.
If you see the people’s need do you beat them? Or do you love them and draw them forth? The sheep have to hear the voice of love in the shepherd; they will always follow it. You cannot be harsh with them. You cannot see their need and then tear them apart. I hope you are grasping this, for it is a problem of maturity. The great test of love comes with it.
God always magnifies the need, even before He magnifies His provision for that need. Therefore, a church is continually finding itself in a period of revelation, of being exposed to its own need.
When children go through school, it is a wonder any of them build confidence. The teachers are constantly putting before them new material which they must learn and be tested on. They do not get a chance to glory over the things that are past, because every time they go to school they are confronted with their ignorance and with their need.
God has put us in a school also, and we are constantly finding our own need emphasized to us. So, as we walk on with maturity, this can cause a heaviness upon us. We never see how we have been blessed and how we have grown. We are continually finding our need emphasized. For example, we never see the unity God has worked. We are always saying, “We have to get with it. We have to be one; we’re not one like we ought to be. We are supposed to be the family of the Lord. What’s wrong with us?” We are growing up; that is what seems wrong, for we are constantly being exposed to our need. We are further down the road than we realize, but the need of the moment is being emphasized to us. We may wonder if we have any real brothers or sisters. We do, but God will continually expose the areas in which brothers and sisters are falling short. It is our shortcomings that we see.
With maturity you come into another problem which tests your love. The things that come against you as you mature are long sustained, and they are not merely brief or for the moment. When you are young in Christ, it seems that the Lord allows you to be tested for only brief periods. But when you become older in the Lord, you think, “Is this never going to end? I’ve been in this warfare for so long. God threw me into this battle months ago, and here I am still in it. Will I always be afflicted?”
Then you remember the Lord. He saved others; himself he cannot save. Matthew 27:42a. You have to go through the work of the cross; no one can save you from that. When Jesus hung on the cross, the people said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. Likewise, when all hell is breaking loose against you, you will bless and heal others. And after you minister to them, you will go home, muttering, “Physician, heal thyself. Himself he cannot save,” because there is no answer to the work of the cross. You are not put on the cross for a temporary exhibit over the weekend. You are put there for a long sustained work of the cross, for death to be worked in you. What comes out of it is fantastic.
We must come into some new standards for the Kingdom, into the true standards of love, real love. The Lord tells us, By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35. He is talking about God’s love in our hearts. Real love is tested with the coming of maturity, and with that testing the concept of love and attractiveness changes.
As you read the following passage from I Peter 3:1–9, remember the words which are the basis for a concept that may astonish you.
In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. And let not your adornment be external only—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, and putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.
You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.
We will compare the concept of love as given in I Peter 3 with that which exists in the world. It is important that we grasp this, for sometimes problems arise within the Body because people revert to the old worldly concept of love and attractiveness. The man must be arrogant and aggressive; the stronger his approach, the more likely he is to seduce the woman he has in mind. He must also be selfish, a little bit irresponsible, and have the rogue in him to the extent that a woman is aware that he takes what he wants. This is the thinking of the world.
It bothers me that both men and women can be so stupid about real values. A woman will be attracted to a man, and after she marries him she becomes a nag, because the very things she had been attracted to are now the things she does not like. She does not want that arrogance and aggressiveness. She does not want that selfishness in a man who thinks only of himself and takes but never gives. Suddenly she finds that the man who seemed to be so attractive is nothing.
What does the Bible tell us? Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. Ephesians 5:25. The unselfishness must be there. But this does not excite most people. We have to come into a new idea of what is right. Some of our young men are not even able to see a good woman in the church. They are still moved by the wrong standards.
The woman of the world has to be a bit suggestive and exude a certain sexiness. It can be put on with perfume, cosmetics, or the way she dresses. There must be a pride that lets others know this woman is completely unpossessed, and she has to dominate the situation. She must emit something that says, “I’m available, men.” Because she has to be more physical than anything else, she creates an illusion. Most women’s garments are designed to create some illusion or to flatter her.
Suppose a man marries such a woman. The women who advertise themselves as being sexy do not produce after they are married. They end up having hang-ups of some sort. A young husband comes to the conclusion, “What am I married to?” She is not a woman who can stand by his side. She had a great deal of promise, but he married a house of cards which collapsed when he touched it.
What should our attitude be? If we are to be mature on the human plane or spiritual plane then we need a different set of values, a different way of evaluating what is good and right.
What is a man thinking about after he has been married one year? You may think that in this modern age it is not true, but by the time he has tried to possess his wife for a year and make her an extension of himself, he has one thing in mind: he wants her pure. And he wants to reach back into her past, if it is necessary, and pull up by the roots everything she has ever been to anyone else. His attitudes are changing completely. He looks for the same thing that is talked about in I Peter 3: chaste behavior, coupled with godly fear, the adorning not to be outward, and a meek and a quiet spirit. There is a gentleness which always makes him feel great and never belittles him.
David said of the Lord, …thy gentleness hath made me great. Psalm 18:35. That exalts a man; it brings him up. And that is what he is looking for. Instead of wanting pride in the woman, he is glad to see humility and the submissiveness. Her submission and purity make him want to serve her with all of his heart. He is more concerned about her being a spiritual being than a physical being. Instead of illusions, he begins to glory in the simplicity with which she lives. When I say simplicity, I mean that she is not pursuing after many things. She is not so confused about herself or about her relationship to her husband that she has to have a variety of interests. In that contentment and richness of love she finds a simplicity. These are things which should be the standards of the Kingdom. This is what a man should be looking for in the woman he wants to make his wife.
What should a woman look for in a man? Should he be tall, dark, and handsome? Forget it. If he comes on strong and sweeps her off her feet, the next minute he may dump her. Instead of that male arrogance, she should look for someone who has a humility. A man can even be beaten so low he has to reach up to touch bottom, but God blesses him. If humility is natural to him, watch the Lord bring him up and put him in a place of honor.
We have seen the humility in one young brother who is called to be a pastor. The girl who picked him knew how to read men, yet she had a problem on her hands. After she married him she was continually trying to reassure him, because he had so little confidence in himself. Finally she enabled him to walk with faith. He is a fine husband and father because of the humility and unselfishness with which he walks before the Lord.
A man must have a sense of responsibility, be trustworthy, and he must be a giver (which is contrary to the fallen Adamic nature, for a man is a taker and not a giver). He must not want to live independently or feel strong, without a need of anything: needing no one and walking alone even in the midst of his family. Rather, he must be a man who gives them support and becomes a strength to them.
Love can be many things. Anger can sometimes be constructive as well as destructive; love can also be destructive as well as constructive. Maturity of love in the Body is hard to cope with because it is real, and it is not easy to understand. That is why Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:19 asks that we … know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.… It is something almost incomprehensible in its depth.
We are taught of God about this love as we read in Hebrews 12 about the chastening of the Lord. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Hebrews 12:6. He lays it upon you, because it could be disastrous to feel entirely secure in your walk with God.
It is not good for a child to grow up and never be exposed to any problem. Let him be so totally secure that his parents are taking care of his every need, and he will be a failure in life. The mother who thinks, “I love him so much, I want to protect him,” will smother him. Let him go into the world and get his eye blackened a couple of times. Let him find out what life is all about. Make him work to get the money for the things he wants. Let him begin to feel the hard realities of the life he is facing. And after awhile he will turn and bless. He will stand at his parents’ side like a real man, because they have loved him but have not made him too secure.
In our walk with God, we give a great deal of support to each other, but every man must bear his own pack, as we read in Galatians 6:5. Everyone has to learn there is no such thing as total security in walking with God. There is warfare and conflict. We have to face the fact that the old dragon is at the womb of the woman to swallow up the manchild as fast as he comes forth (Revelation 12:4).
We must face the fact that the rage of Satan is against the inhabitants of the earth and pray to escape all these things that are coming to pass. We are not in a secure time. Only by walking with God in a real diligence will we have any security. The key to this is given in I Thessalonians 3:12–13. And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you; so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
Only love will get you through this so you stand unblamable before the Lord. It will not be by your wisdom or knowledge, but it will be the fact that you increase and abound in love one toward another. It will have to be a mature love; the kind of love we are talking about in this message.
We need a new concept of what is really important in love. He that would be the greatest has to become the servant of all (Matthew 20:26). The meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). It is humility that will get you by. This is true in marriage, in all human relationships, and even more in the Body of Christ.
Peter told the elders, …all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.… I Peter 5:5. We must also walk in a deep love. It is not the one who comes on strong and arrogant that is the greatest in the Kingdom, but the one with humble love. Look for greatness on another basis.
When young people look for a mate, they should not judge after the standards of the world. They will be sorry if they do. They will awaken to the realization that they have to start right at the bottom because the Lord has to work in each of them completely opposite things. The successful marriages in the church are not based on the glamour girl or glamour boy idea, nor on selfishness or jealousy. The relationship does not have so much pride that it cannot forgive someone, nor does it say, “How can you do this to me?” Parents think that sometimes. They excuse their feelings by saying, “The pastor says we should spank them.” But they punish their children because they dared do something that reflected unfavorably on them. Their pride is involved more than the child’s actions.
You cannot look upon a child as an extension of yourself unless you are humble. A husband cannot say that a wife is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone with a sense of pride because he will resent her the minute she does something that displeases him. He must have the same humility that Christ had.
Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it that He might redeem it to Himself, washing it with water (Ephesians 5:25–26). Purity is what He had in mind, but He took the humble attitude. He did not say to the Church, “How dare you Christians be so filthy,” but He took us unselfishly unto Himself. And that is what a husband has to do for his wife. If he approaches his wife in an attitude of arrogance and pride, he may say the woman is an extension of himself, and therefore, she must measure up to his standards so that everyone sees her as a credit to him. But he really means, a credit to his big ego. That is not the way it is to be done. A woman can act the same way.
If a woman is a real woman, according to Bible standards, and wants to be submissive, sometimes a man takes advantage of it and makes her life miserable. She is submitting to him as unto the Lord, yet he uses that submission to dominate and suppress her. Then he looks at her thinking he married a vegetable, but he made her that way by suppressing her; he killed her spirit. It can work another way also. A man may have a desire to be unselfish, to love her like Christ loved the Church. She sees him as an easy mark and takes advantage of it.
Love has to be a two-way street. The husband is to take the authority, but he is to have an unselfishness. The woman has to be submissive, but she has to take the honor given to her in that place too. It is something that has to be in both individuals.
Maturity tests love, for the real test of love is how it stands up. It is like a garment. It may look fine on the rack or even after you have worn it a time or two. But when it has been to the cleaners or in the wash repeatedly, does it still stand up? And that is the way it is with love. Love never fails. I Corinthians 13:8. God puts that love in our hearts, but it will either increase or diminish with the tests maturity puts upon it. Marriages start off with a lot of love, but how does the couple relate to each other after the marriage has endured for several years? How is the love standing up now? Love does not need to diminish, and it is ordinarily up to the couple what happens. That is why I Thessalonians 3:12 says, and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another.… The Lord can stimulate a couple so that the love increases.
Your situation will become intolerable without love. It will become worse day by day. Bring love into it.
You cannot withdraw from a situation. Show love in it. If you love someone, then do something about it. Make it really work or back off from it completely, one of the two. But it cannot stand strong if you are not doing something about it. The relationships between individuals, on a human or a spiritual plane (I wonder if they are really that separate), and the relationships that exist within a church, must be fed. There must be a continual feeding of a relationship. If you do not feed it you will find it diminishing. Hatred thrives on neglect, and love thrives on attention. The more inconsiderate you are of the other person and the more you take him for granted, the less likely that love is to endure.
Would you like to see the Lord flood your heart with His love? What makes the brothers who take responsibilities succeed or fail? By the way they have the love of God in their hearts.
“But I have a great gift, I can speak mysteries.”
Though you have all knowledge, can discern all mysteries, and have not love, you are nothing.
“But I can sure prophesy.”
You can speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and if you have not love, you are sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Read I Corinthians 13 again. The gifts and the ministries will soon become a facade, an empty mechanism, if there is not the love. And it will not last long, because it becomes perverted.
I know of men who had great gifts from God to heal the sick, and it was not long until they went downhill. One man, known internationally, was found dead with drugs stored in his room. Where did he go wrong? It can become a business. A man learns how to run the people through by the thousands. He knows how to publish his paper, send out letters, get money, and buy the things that he wants.
“What’s wrong with that?”
A man may have a gift to heal the sick, yet not love the sick. In the lack of love the ministry breaks down; it is a gift without love. You could do great miracles and signs, but without the motivation of love it would soon start breaking down.
Open up your hearts to love; you have to do it. Body ministry, this principle of the Body coming together and the restoration of the Church, will only be empty doctrines unless you really abound in the love of God.
“What about all these great gifts and ministries?” Ephesians 4 tells how the Church makes increase of itself in love. It still comes back to that function of love. In the church you can have all of the foundation laid and all of the understanding, the doctrines and teaching, but it is only when you love one another that it really counts.
Let us move into this love and back off from being unconcerned about one another. There is one way the Body can survive in future days of tribulation: we will have such love for each other that we will be ready to lay down our lives for the brethren. And when we have that, God will bring us through gloriously. Love is going to be the mark. Men’s hearts will be terrorized by the things which are coming to pass on the earth, and the only people that will be able to stand will be the people who have the love in their hearts. It will be a sustaining love.
By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: any one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Every one who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? This will be a very real rule of action in the days ahead.
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. I John 3:10–23.
Let’s do what it says in I Peter 1:22, …love one another with a pure heart fervently. In the days to come, when you are being tested, realize it is not circumstances that are testing you so much as God driving you into a deeper love. That is the only thing that can bring you through.