NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
8 February 1844, evening
[Ste.01_028,01] ‘After this many of His disciples went back and no longer walked with Him.’
[Ste.01_028,02] This passage fits our subject, as you say, to a hair in every respect.
[Ste.01_028,03] Why did many of My disciples go away from Me and no longer wish to walk with Me when I gave them the teaching about partaking of My flesh and blood? The cause lay first in the disciples' idleness and, immediately after it, in their pride.
[Ste.01_028,04] It lay in idleness because they would not make even so much effort as to ask Me, as My brothers did afterwards, how such teaching was to be understood.
[Ste.01_028,05] Pride followed in this way. Since the disciples were at first too idle to strive after higher understanding, yet were My pupils, they were annoyed that I gave a teaching beyond the horizon of their understanding. They felt ashamed before the rest of the people for not having understood Me either. But because of this little prick of pride they would not ask Me before the people, lest they thereby testify that, though My pupils, they had not understood Me.
[Ste.01_028,06] For usually, after I gave a teaching, the people often asked My disciples how this or that was to be understood. There were then generally many explanations on the side from My disciples, and their ambition often relished praise for an intelligent explanation of some teaching the people found difficult to understand.
[Ste.01_028,07] On this occasion too, many of the disciples were asked about the meaning of the teaching. This time they could offer no explanation, for they had not understood it themselves. So they slipped out of the trap in another way this time. They accused Me of giving a hard teaching no one could understand. Since it did them no honour before the people, they preferred to speak ill of Me, declared all My former teaching to be of the same kind, ceased to believe in Me and left Me.
[Ste.01_028,08] From this account drawn most faithfully from life at the time, anyone can readily see that nothing was to blame for this unhappy incident but first the idleness and then the pride of My disciples. Idleness, because they were always about Me and thought they understood as much as I did. Why should they take any trouble to penetrate more deeply into the spirit of My teaching? Pride was stirred when I tested how much they understood and showed them plainly that the disciple is not above the master.
[Ste.01_028,09] And see, these two root causes are also the main supports of most of the corruption of the human race! First a person is idle and stands about all day. When asked, ‘Why do you stand idle all day?’, he will say, ‘No one has hired me!’
[Ste.01_028,10] And when I say to him, ‘Then go now at least, in the evening, and work an hour, and I will give you what is right,’ he will say, ‘Lord, how can You put me to this shame and make me a laughing stock to those who worked all day? If You wish to give me something, give it to me outright, but do not expose me as an idler before the workers!’
[Ste.01_028,11] See, here the idle man at first will not work. In the end he is ashamed to work before the diligent. Why? Because it does not flatter his hidden pride. He would gladly have the same wages as the diligent to gratify his pride. But at first he is too idle to work, and soon afterwards too proud.
[Ste.01_028,12] The Lord will not be so unwise as to put idleness and pride on a level with diligence and reward them like it.
[Ste.01_028,13] To show you how entirely true all this is, I will give you several little examples.
[Ste.01_028,14] Suppose there are two students, one diligent from the beginning and the other idle. The diligent one will reap the fruits of his trouble in the end. What pretext and plea in favour of his idleness will the idle one produce in the end? He will say:
[Ste.01_028,15] ‘The diligent one was a stupid fellow and did not see that he was stuffing nothing but nonsense into his skull. I saw how terribly silly the subjects of instruction were and thought at first sight that it was beneath me to stuff my far loftier head with such folly. And since nothing else was taught, I found this first insight of mine much higher and better than all the rubbish I was meant to learn!’
[Ste.01_028,16] See, pride plainly proceeds from idleness here! Whoever wishes to find this out in practice need only have a confidential conversation with such people, and will find it all confirmed point by point.
[Ste.01_028,17] But take two musicians. One through diligence has achieved great skill in practice and in theory. The other, a son of idleness, through taking little trouble has remained at the lowest amateurish mediocrity. Ask him now why he has not got as far as his fellow student. He will say:
[Ste.01_028,18] ‘Because I did not set my mind on it as that penniless poor devil did. I am already rich. Why should I put myself to such trouble? Such diligence is only for poor devils. What does it matter whether one can play such difficult musical rubbish oneself? It is enough to understand it, and that does not take much. Those poor devils will play it, so that they can earn themselves a bit of bread. Besides, all such difficult music comes from poor devils. It would be a downright disgrace for a rich man to concern himself with such fruits of poverty.’
[Ste.01_028,19] See another example drawn from life. From it you will see again why My disciples left Me. But let us go further.
[Ste.01_028,20] Thus someone, asked why he does not apply himself more earnestly to knowing the principles of the pure Christian religion, says, ‘I do not understand these things and have never troubled myself with them. First, I consider them a trifle with little in it. Second, through such religious brooding one can at best become a fool in the end.’
[Ste.01_028,21] See, with this man first idleness and then the pride that grew out of it were the reason he says, like those disciples, ‘Who can hold such a teaching to be true and heed it? So it is better to leave the Lord in the lurch like those disciples.’
[Ste.01_028,22] A man who has squandered his means says much the same when asked, ‘Why did you come to such poverty? You had an opportunity, such as few others have, to save a good many pennies.’ His defence runs, ‘In keeping with my lofty nature I found such saving too beggarly and paltry, and now it is a matter of honour for me to go about in want.’
[Ste.01_028,23] See another example, in which a person is first idle and cannot deny himself so far as to put any check on his ways in order to build up a fortune. In the end, when it is clear to him that he has nothing, he grows proud and makes a boast of his wretched state into the bargain.
[Ste.01_028,24] I think we have enough examples to see most clearly in how many ways My disciples leave Me at every opportunity when it is said, ‘From now on the kingdom of heaven suffers violence!’
[Ste.01_028,25] So too a host of travellers set out for a high mountain range. As long as the going is easy they all go along briskly. But when the steep slopes of the high mountains come and it is said, ‘From here on the ascent takes force and strength,’ they turn back, and only very few manage to climb the peaks.
[Ste.01_028,26] The same meaning applies here: as long as a person seeks My kingdom at his reading desk, all goes well. But when it is said, ‘Reading does not suffice. The crown belongs to action alone. For the flesh is of no avail. The letter kills, and only the spirit gives life!’, the Lord is usually left by His disciples too, as the passage shows.
[Ste.01_028,27] Heed this explanation in deed, then, and you will not leave your Lord as the disciples did! Amen.