2 Thessalonians 3:13

2 Thessalonians 3:13

Perseverance.

I. There is a very great inclination in certain stages of society, and certain periods of our life, to feel a kind of contempt for perseverance. Mere patient labour is thought but meanly of for the most part; we give it all sorts of bad names. We sneer at a plodder.We are inclined to fancy when we start in life that great talent that indefinable power which we call genius will be sure to bear all before it, and mustcarry the world by storm. By-and-by we get to find that the world is very much larger than we fancied, and that there is a great deal of talent, nay, a great many geniuses in it, and that eminence is not to be obtained at a bound, but only by long and patient climbing.

II. Even in religion and in the building up of a Christian character, it is perseverance that is of the most vital and essential importance; and that, indeed, without a persevering continuance in the painful practice of what our conscience sanctions and commands, there can be no real godliness, no true religion. If there be one thing more than another which marks the man of genius, it is his courageous steadfastness. They say that the tiger, once baulked in its first spring, will not again renew the charge, but skulks back into the jungle cowed and ashamed. We know that it is ever so with the craven spirits in the world: the first check or discouragement crushes them; they have no heart to recover from a fall. God asks for patience in welldoing; He will have long trial of His wisdom and truth; but they who trust in Him shall not lose their reward.

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons,p, 75.

References: 2 Thessalonians 3:13. W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 136; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. iii., p. 95.