James Nisbet Commentary - John 1:23 - 1:23

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James Nisbet Commentary - John 1:23 - 1:23


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

A MESSAGE FOR TO-DAY

‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’

Joh_1:23

An old message; yet one for our own day. Lacking now, indeed, the dramatic surroundings of its first delivery: the man from the desert, with the frame of an ascetic, the eye of a seer, the garb of a prophet, with a reputation for sanctity, heightened by his sudden change from solitude of the wild country to nearer approach to men. The interest excited is natural. The inquiry of the Pharisees pardonable. The disclaimer of John leads up to delivery of his own message—‘Make straight … prepare.…’

How is this a message for to-day? Because—

I. There is still a work to be done in many of our hearts.—The way of the Lord to be prepared there, by repentance, by its fruits in a change of life.

II. There is a work to be done in the community, where there is still so much of open defiance of God’s laws, sullen apathy as to them, careless disregard of them. God not honoured in social habits, standards of right and wrong, any more than in the hearts and lives of the individual.

III. Especially is there a work to be done in the non-Christian world.—People hear in a vague way about non-Christian faiths or about Paganism; but do not realise their forces. Can they be content to leave unevangelised millions without a knowledge of God?

IV. John the Baptist was conscious of a mission.—Has not God also commissioned the Church of this day? Has He not made our duty plain? If that duty be neglected, is it not at our peril?