Classic Sermon Outlines
SNexander Maclaren
SERMON TWENTY-THREE
WHAT LASTS
Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away... And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three... —I CORINTHIANS 13:8, 13
WE discern the apostle's thought best by omitting the intervening verses and connecting these two. When we thus unite them there is disclosed the apostle's intention of contrasting two sets of things, three in each. 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. THE THINGS THAT ARE TRANSIENT.
A. Present Modes of Apprehension.
1. They shall cease because the imperfect shall be absorbed into the per_ fect. "Knowledge, it shall cease,' and as the apostle goes on to explain, in the verses which I have passed over for my present purpose, it shall cease because the perfect will absorb into itself the imperfect, as the inrushing tide will obliterate the little pools in the rocks on the seashore.
2. They shall cease because they are indirect and there it shall be immediate. For another reason, the knowledge, the mode of apprehension belonging to the present will pass—because here it is indirect and there it will be immediate. "We shall know face to face," which is what philosophers call intuition.
Zo)