John 1:35-37

A REPEATED EFFORT

‘Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as He walked he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.’

John 1:35

But yesterday the Baptist stood to bear that testimony which contained the whole Gospel for all ages, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world.’ And the Evangelist records no response, none of those eager throngs which wait upon modern revivals, of souls touched, if it be but for the moment, in sudden conviction of generous enthusiasm. His testimony, as we say, fell flat; but the next day he renews it, and, as we are told, no less a person than St. Andrew was the result of the repeated effort. We clergy, to whom God intrusts His message, that we may proclaim it, are peculiarly liable to be disheartened. But this is a difficulty not peculiar to clergy, or to leaders of movements, or to prophets who can see over the heads of their fellow-men. The frequent call in the Gospel to perseverance, the insistence on importunity even, in dealing with God, the frequent appeals to endure, to wait patiently, to look to the end, all show that it is in human nature to be easily disheartened and to give in, and to mistake the want of immediate success for the failure which waits on a bad cause. Is it too much to build up such an inference on the silence of the Evangelist?

I. It is a temptation which has been and is incident to the human race to doubt the efficacy of God’s message in the face of failure. Look at this tendency all down the ages. God’s message is too strict; we must relax it. God’s message is too lax; we must tighten it. The Christian must be strengthened and the basis of Christianity be widened by an admixture of the world’s spirit; and quickly the fabric begins to totter, and the desert is filled with solitaries escaping from the fallen house. The Church is not strict enough, the message is too lax, the tares must be rooted out from the wheat, the Church of Christ must gather in her net only good fish, the wedding invitation must on no account be extended to bad as well as good, and Donatism troubles the Church. Now it is the Renaissance, now it is the Reformation, now it is the revival in modern days of new forms of earnestness; and then the tendency to discard the old and try the new is irresistible. Men have not faith to proclaim once more the old message, to make a repeated effort, and the message of God is lost, His testimony is silenced, because men have attributed it to the failure of human imperfection or the weakness which belongs to its faithless proclamation by unworthy prophets. We do need more and more to feel that the Word of God has not lost its virtue, that the old proclamation of the Gospel has still power to win many a St. Andrew, to attract what is best in the generous minds and aspirations around us.

II. Surely John would call to us all to make a repeated effort, and I would venture to emphasise this fact, that it will be found necessary again and again thus to repeat it. We do not start on a fated course, impelled by heredity and shaped by environment. The very Sacraments themselves, as we know full well, are no charm which acts with mechanical accuracy. Holy Baptism merely puts us into a state of salvation, that is, a state in which we may be saved with perseverance and effort. Again and again the appeal is made to us to work together with God in working out our own salvation. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he keep what he has received. We may never look forward to a time when we can dispense with all this machinery of spiritual help, from a height of unruffled calm, where effort is neither necessary nor desirable.

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Illustrations

(1) ‘It is only by effort, and by repeated effort, that we are going to emerge from the difficulties which beset us. You may have noticed the strange appeal that is made to us by the Church every time we approach the altar: “Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins and intend to lead a new life.” Day by day this is said to us that there should be the constant determination to lead a new life. And it is only those who are in earnest who will be able to justify this language, for they know how it is only by the great rush of grace within, surging and bursting up, the stronger and the fuller for the obstacles which it encounters, that we are able to meet the new difficulties of a new day with the new grace of a renewed strength.’

(2) ‘The Baptist was not afraid to repeat himself, and the Bible is not afraid to repeat itself. People to-day commend “original” preachers, the men who never repeat themselves; but I do not see why a preacher should not repeat the truths of God. It is not the first blow that causes the tree to fall, but the last. Thousands of blows may have intervened, and every one of them was necessary. When a great truth takes possession of a man’s mind he is bound to repeat himself. The story of the Gospel of Christ never gets old, and great truths may be repeated.’