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4 ||gl|||| I®l US IM> 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