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A Message to Busy Men and Busy
Women.
Text: “Then Jesus said unto his disciples,, ‘lf
any man will come after me, let him deny himself,
and take up my cross, and follow me.’.”
My message this morning is to busy men and to
busy women . I believe that God w T ants that there
shall be a change in the method and in the manner
of our preaching. This is a busy age. I won’t say
a business man’s age, for it is just as much a busi
ness woman’s age as a business man’s age. It
seems to me, from all that I can see, as I try to sur
vey the world, that there is a call today from God,
for the pulpit to address itself more than ever to
the busy people in this business age.
I suppose that one reason why I have been so
thoroughly convinced of this, is a remark that was
made to me recently by one of the best of business
men. He is a church member, but he said to me,
“The one great trouble with the work of the church,
as I see it, is that it does not address itself to the
business age in which w T e live.” He said, “Every
thing has its day, and it seems to me that this day
calls for a practical, sane, sensible application of
spiritual principles to the business life.”
I have always tried to be practical in my preach
ing, but I am sure that I have not been half as
practical as I am going to be, by the help of God.
My text is found in the twenty-fourth verse of
the sixteenth chapter of Matthew. “If any man
would come after me, let him deny himself, take up
his cross and follow me.”
What Jesus is teaching here, is this: First, He
is trying to impress His disciples, with the genuine
ness of discipleship. Jesus never countenanced
anything that was not genuine. The world has ever
had a contempt for anything that is not genuine.
If w T e are not genuine, I will tell you, there is very
little comfort for us in this world. The world wants
a genuine business man, It makes no particular
difference whether he has money or not, if he has
the other qualities—the qualities that go to make
up a genuine man. That is the man that the world
is hunting for today. The same thing is true in
every other department of life. Never has there
been such a premium upon the genuine man as there
is now. And when we get over into the realm of
the church, here, above every other place in this
world, is where genuineness is at a premium. There
is no respect upon the part of the world for the
church that is not genuine and true. Whenever we
get to the place where our religion as a whole, so
impresses the world, then we are going to have lit
tle trouble in getting men to accept Christ and come
into the church. But just so long as in the church
people are allowed to think they can live this wishy
washy, namby-pamby, jelly-fish kind of life, just so
long will the church be impaired in its great work of
reaching lost souls. And so Jesus here is outlining
to His disciples, just before He takes His departure,
something of what it takes to make a genuine, out
and out, true disciple. And, you will observe that
there are two main divisions in the text.
First, There is the nature of this discipleship,
and second, the obligations that it lays upon us.
Jesus said, “If any man will be my disciple, let
Tn^)S-
him deny himself, and take up his cross,” etc. “If
any man.” What did He mean? He meant ex
actly what He said. That it is the privilege of any
man in this world to be a true manly, out and out
disciple of Jesus Christ. It is not simply the
privilege of the church, or the deacon, but that it is
the universal privilege of the world of mankind—
“if any man”—That is just how much of an elec
tionist I am. I believe that any man can come to
Jesus and be saved and become a genuine disciple.
And then again, you will observe that—lt is a con
tinuous service, Luke, in giving us his testimony,
add the word “daily”—“let him deny himself,
and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Now
there is too much spasm in our religious life to com
mend itself to thinking people. What Jesus wants,
and what this world appreciates, is a constant ser
vice on the part of the Christian. That he shall be
just as faithful in the summer as in the winter; that
he be just as faithful when the revival is off, as
when the revival is on; that he be just as full of re
ligious fire and energy one time as another. Os
course, that is not argued against periodic revivals.
But Jesus Christ puts a premium upon the man or
woman in His service who is constant, unfailing,
who stands right up to the high notch and never
flickers.
I like the testimony of that congressman from
Georgia some years ago. When he was at home
spending his vacation, he was visited one night by
an old college friend, and after supper, although
they had been together a very little while, the con
gressman said, “Now, my friend, you will pardon
me. I am a member of the church, and this is my
prayer-meeting night, and I want you to come and
go with me to prayer-meeting.” “Why,” he re
plied, “I have never been a member of the church,
and I haven’t been to proyer-meeting in so long, I
should not know how to behave myself.” “But I
think it will do you good to go,” he said, “I don’t
want to go, you go on and I will stay here.” “Very
w r ell, you excuse me, and I will go,” said he.
Now how many of us have enough religious back
bone to do a thing like that, if we were visited by
some distinguished character like that, on a prayer
morning, how many of us would leave him at the
morning, how many of us, would leave him at the
house and go off to prayer-meeting? But that man
had made up his mind that he had an engagement
with his church on Wednesday nights, and since he
had that engagement, as a true man, he could af
ford no more to break it than to break any engage
ment he had in the world. That is the kind of peo
ple the world appreciates; and that is the kind of
people whose lives count; and that is the disciple
ship that Jesus is asking for in this text.
Then The Obligation.
Every kind of society has an obligation of some
sort. The Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Red Men,
and the like; all have an obligation.
And yet do you know, we have away of thinking
that the service of Jesus Christ imposes no real
binding obligation upon us; that it is a do-as-you
please kind of service; that nobody has anything to
do with it, that we are simply responsible to God,
and have nothing to do with our fellowman, and
their conception of us and our relation to them.
There never w r as a bigger mistake. I want to say
to you this morning, that the service of Jesus Christ
is just as binding in its requirements as any service
under the sun, and more so, because it is dealing
with the most sacred side of our life. When a man
comes into the church, he comes into it, taking upon
himself certain real, fundamental, lasting obliga
tions, and he cannot shirk these obligations at will.
If he does, then he is untrue, he is discounted before
the world and before God.
The Golden Age for July 12, 1906.
Le n G . Broughton
Now what are the obligations? The first is that
of
Denying Himself.
This is very different* from self-denial. Self de
nial may be all right, it may be all wrong. I have
seen the old monks in Italy walking around the
streets, showing that they were torturing them
selves. That kind of self-denial is of the devil.
I have seen the poor Catholic climbing Pilate’s stair
way in Rome; I have seen them actually licking
with their tongues the steps as they climbed up,
in order to make amends for their past sins. That
is self-denial. And self-denial in that spirit is of
the devil. That is not what Jesus is talking about.
He is not talking about the self-denial that we
some times see practiced in fasting. I think there
are circumstances under which fasting is all right,
but never, let me say it with emphasis, Never let
us go into a service of fasting with the thought in
our minds that by the fasting we commend our
selves to God; for if we do, then we are using
works as a means of approaching God, and we shall
be turned away from God.
Whenever a man sees that by denying himself
food or raiment, or anything else that he may feel
like denying himself of, that he can the better bring
himself into a state of spiritual meditation it is all
right and helpful. But woe be unto the man who
holds up fasting in itself as a means of approaching
God.
. What is denying ones self? Why, it is denying
the self life. If I were called upon to analyze self,
I should say that it is nothing more nor less than
the will of a man.
Jesus Christ said, “If any man will be my dis
ciple, let him deny himself”—let him deny his will.
Have you ever seen anybody under the influence
of a hypnotist? Have you ever been there your
self? Have you ever been to the place where your
will was centered in the will of a performer, where
he could just lift his finger and you would move
your person; where he would tell you to get up, and
you would get up; and to sit down, and you would
sit down? Have you ever been there? I have seen
them scores and scores of times in my life. Strong
men and strong women that were just as utterly
helpless for the time being, as when they were in
fants, and more so. I have seen a strong man un
der the control of a hypnotist, and he could just
direct him about at will. I have seen them crawl
under the bed, or walk around the room, and behind
trunks, and lie down on the bed. I have seen a
man shivering with cold sitting by a cold stove for
a long time, supposedly warming himself, when he
was already so hot, the perspiration would be run
ning off of him in great beads.
Some of you say, “Oh, that is all sham. The on
ly reason you say it is a sham is, because there are
shams that sham off things like that, and then also
because you have never been under the influence of
a hypnotist. I have been under the influence of
one. I have been led around and around. I have
had a man to get me under his control. He work
ed with me until finally he broke my will, and when
he got my will centered exactly where he wanted it,
he walked me all around the house, and could have
walked me into the fire. Now Jesus Christ in this
text is talking to us, only in a spiritual sense, about
a thing very closely related to hypnotism. “If any
man would be my disciple, let him deny himself.”
What is it to “deny himself?” It is the denying
of the will. Just let him have it like the hypnotist.
Then it is not a hardship to take up the cross; then
it is not a hardship to follow Him. Your cross
then is a part of your very life.
Now my brethren, the great trouble with us today
is, that we are trying to live up to the standard of