Love and the Gifts by Smith Wigglesworth

Love and the Gifts

Thank God for the Word that comes to us afresh! Early this morning I was thinking and wondering if the Lord would speak through me, and I was strongly impressed that I should read to you 1 Corinthians 13.

I am so thankful to God that He has dovetailed this thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians between the twelfth and the fourteenth. The twelfth chapter deals expressly with the gifts of the Spirit, and the fourteenth chapter is on the lines of the manifestations and the gifts of the Spirit; the thirteenth chapter functions similarly to the governor balls that control a steam engine. If you ever see this type of engine working, you will find that right over the main valve that lets in the steam, there are two little balls that go around. Often they go as fast as they can, though sometimes they go slowly. They open and shut the valve that sends the steam to the pistons. These are constructed so that the engine does not get out of control.

I find that God, the Holy Spirit, in His remarkable wisdom, has placed the thirteenth chapter right between these wonderful chapters on the gifts that we love to dwell upon so much. How wonderful, how magnificent they are! God has given them to us so that we may be useful, not ornamental, and prove in every case and under every circumstance that we might be available at the right time with these gifts. They are enduement for power; they are expressive of His love; they are for the edification and comfort of so many weary souls.

We find that God brings these gifts in perfect order so that the church may receive blessings. Yet how many people, how many of us, have failed to come to the summit of perfection because the governor balls were not working well, because we were more taken up with the gift than the power that moved the gift, because we were more frequently delighted in the gift than the Giver of the gift! Then the gift became fruitless and helpless, and we were sorry. Sometimes it brought on rebuke, and sometimes we suffered, suffered more or suffered less.

The love that constrains, the grace that adorns, the power that sustains, the gift that remains may be in excellence, when He is the Governor, the Controller, the Worker.

I do thank God for tongues and interpretation, because they introduce new vision; they open the larger avenue. Let it please You today, Lord, to show us how to work and how to walk and not stumble.

The Gifts

Now, beloved, the topic of love and the gifts is a very large one. However, I will do all I can, by the grace of God, so that I may say things that will live after I have gone away. For it is very necessary that we receive the Holy Spirit in the first place; after receiving the Holy Spirit, we must earnestly desire the gifts. Then, after receiving the gifts, we must never forget that the gift is entrusted to us for bringing the blessings of God to the people. For instance, divine healing is a gift for ministering to the needs of the people. The gift of wisdom is a word in season at the moment of need, to show you just what to do. The gift of knowledge, or the word of knowledge, is to inspire you because of the consecutiveness of the Word of God, to bring you life and joy. This is what God intends. Then there is the gift of discernment. We are not to discern one another, but to discern evil powers and deal with them and command them back to the pit from which they came. Regarding the gift of miracles, God intends for us to come to the place where we will see miracles worked. God also wants us to understand that tongues are profitable only when they exalt and glorify the Lord. And oh, that we might really know what it means when interpretation is given! It is not merely to have beautiful sensations and think that is interpretation, but it is such that the man who has it does not know what is coming, for if he did, it would not be interpretation. Interpretation is not knowing what you are going to say, but it is being in the place where you say exactly what God says. So when I have to interpret a message, I purposely keep my mind from anything that would hinder, and I sometimes say “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” so that everything will be a word through the Spirit, and not my word, but the word of the Lord!

Now I understand that we can have these divine gifts so perfectly balanced by divine love that they will be a blessing all the time. However, there is sometimes such a desire in the flesh to do something attention-getting. How the people listen and long for divine prophecy, just as interpretation comes forth. How it thrills! There is nothing wrong with it; it is beautiful. We thank God for the office and the purpose that has caused it to come, but let us be careful to finish when we are through and not continue on our own. That is how prophecy is spoiled. If you continue on your own, at the end of the anointing, you are using false fire; at the end of the message, you will try to continue. Don’t fail, beloved, because the people know the difference. They know what is full of life, what is the real thing.

Then again, it is the same with a person praying. We love people to pray in the Holy Spirit; how we love to hear them pray even the first sentences because the fire is there. However, what spoils the most holy person in prayer is when, after the spirit of prayer has gone forth, he continues on and people say, “I wish he would stop,” and the church becomes silent. They say, “I wish that brother would stop. How beautifully he began; now he is dry!” But he doesn’t stop.

A preacher was once having a wonderful time, and the people enjoyed it, but when he was through, he continued. A man came and said to someone at the door, “Has he finished?” “Yes,” said the man, “long since, but he won’t stop!” May God save us from that. People know when you are praying in the Spirit. Why should you take time and spoil everything because the natural side has come into it? God never intended that. God has a supernatural side; that is the true side, and how beautiful it is! People sometimes know better than we do, and we would also know if we were more careful.

May the Lord grant us revelation; we need discernment; we need intuition. It is the life inside. It is salvation inside, cleansing, filling; it is all inside. Revelation is inside. It is for exhibition outside, but always remember that it is inside. God’s Son said as much when He said, “The pure in heart will see God.” (See Matthew 5:8.) There is an inward sight of God, and it is the pure in heart who see God.

Lord, keep us pure so that we will never block the way.

Love

Love is always in the place of revelation. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 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, but have not love, I am nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1–2)

Now, it is a remarkable fact that God intends us to be examples of the truth. These are divine truths, and God intends us to be examples of these truths. Beloved, it is lovely to be in the will of God. Now then, how may we be something? By just being nothing, by receiving the Holy Spirit, by being in the place where you can be operated by God and filled with the power to operate.

What it must be to have speaking ability, to have a beautiful language, as so many men have! There are men who are wonderful in language. I used to like to read Talmadge when he was alive; how his messages used to inspire me. But, oh, this divine power! It is wonderful to have the tongue of an angel so that all the people who hear you are moved by your use of language. Yet how I would weep, how my heart would be broken, if I came to speak before you in beautiful language without the power! If I had an angel’s language and the people were all taken with what I said, but Jesus was not glorified at all, it would all be hopeless, barren, and unfruitful. I myself should be nothing. But if I speak and say, “Lord, let them hear Your voice. Lord, let them be compelled to hear Your truth. Lord, anyhow, any way, hide me today,” then He becomes glorious, and all the people say, “We have seen Jesus!”

When I was in California, I spent many days with our dear Brother Montgomery when I had a chance. During this time, a man wrote to Brother Montgomery. This man had been saved but had lost his joy; he had lost all he had. He wrote, “I am through with everything. I am not going to touch this thing again; I am through.” Brother Montgomery wrote back to him and said, “I will never try to persuade you again if you will hear once. There is a man from England, and if you will only hear him once, I will pay all your expenses.” So he came. He listened, and at the end of the time he said to me, “This is the truth I am telling you. I have seen the Lord standing beside you, and I heard His voice. I never even saw you.

“I have a lot of money,” he continued, “and I have a valley five hundred miles long. If you speak the word to me, I will go on your word, and I will open that valley for the Lord.”

I have preached in several of his places, and God has used him wonderfully to speak throughout that valley. What I would have missed when he came the first day, if I had been trying to say something of my own instead of the Lord being there and speaking His words through me! Never let us do anything to lose this divine love, this close affection in our hearts that says, “Not I, but Christ; not I, but Christ!”

I want to say, “Forget yourself and get lost in Him.” Lose all your identity in the Son of God. Let Him become all in all. Seek only the Lord, and let Him be glorified. You will have gifts; you will have grace and wisdom. God is waiting for the person who will lay all on the altar, fiftytwo weeks in the year, three hundred and sixtyfive days in the year, and then continue perpetually in the Holy Spirit.

I would have liked to have gone on with this topic. I have such joy in this. Beloved, go on for every blessing from the Lord, so that the Lord will be large in you, so that the wood and the hay and the stubble will be burned up (1 Cor. 3:12–13 kjv), and the Lord will bring you to a great harvesttime. Now, beloved, shall we not present ourselves to the Lord so that He may put His hand upon us and say, “My child, my child, be obedient to the message; hear what the Spirit says to you so that you may go on and possess the land”? The Lord will give you a great inheritance.