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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: November 28th

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WHAT LASTS!

Whether there be prophecy, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. . . . But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three. - 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

We discern the run of the Apostle’s thought best by thus omitting the intervening verses and connecting these two(v8 and v13). The part omitted is but a buttress of what has been stated in the former of our two verses; and when we thus unite them, there is disclosed plainly the Apostle’s intention of contrasting two sets of things, three in each. The one is prophecies, tongues, knowledge; the other, faith, hope, charity. There also comes out distinctly that the point mainly intended by the contrast is the transiency of the one and the permanence of the other. I ask this question: What will drop away? Paul answers, "Prophecies, tongues, knowledge." Now these three were all extraordinary gifts belonging to the present phase of the Christian life. But inasmuch as these gifts were the heightening of natural capacities and faculties, it is perfectly legitimate to enlarge the declarations and to use these three words in their widest signification. So understood they come to this, that all our present modes of apprehension and of utterance are transient, and will be left behind.

"Knowledge, it shall cease," and it shall cease because the perfect absorbs into itself the imperfect, as the in-rushing tide will obliterate the little pools in the rocks on the sea-shore. "We shall know face to face," which is what philosophers call by intention. Here our knowledge creeps from point to point, painfully amassing facts, and thence, with many hesitations and errors, groping its way towards principles and laws. Here it is imperfect, with many a gap in its circumference; or like the thin red line which shows the traveler’s route across a boundless prairie, or like the spiders thread in the telescope, stretched athwart the blazing disc of the sun - "but then face to face." Incomplete knowledge shall be done away; and so many of its objects will drop, so much of what makes the science of earth will be antiquated and effete. What would the hand-loom weaver’s knowledge of how to throw his shuttle be worth in a weaving-shed with a thousand looms? Just so much will the knowledges of earth be when we get yonder.

Modes of utterance will cease. With new experiences will come new methods of communication; as a man can speak and beasts can only growl or bark, so a man in heaven, with new experiences, will have a new method of communication. The comparison between that mode of utterance which we now have and that which we then possess will be like the difference between the old-fashioned semaphore, that used to wave about clumsy wooden arms, in order to convey intelligence, and the telegraph. Think, then, of a man going into that future life, and saying, " knew more about Sanskrit than anybody that ever lived in Europe"; " sang sweet song"; "was a past master in philology, grammars, and lexicons"; " was a great orator." "Tongues shall cease," and the modes of utterance that belonged to earth will drop away and be of no more use.

If these things are true with regard even to the highest form of these high and noble things, how much more and more solemnly true are they with regard to the aims and objects which most of us have in view! They will all drop away, and we shall be left, stripped of what, for most of us, has made the whole interest and activity of our lives.

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