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"from Tai th Unto Tai th —Triday Nights With Romans
By Reb, Len G. Broughton
Perhaps a word of explanation just here is nec
essary. These Friday night lectures by Dr. Brough
ton to his large, popular Bible class at the Taber
nacle were so rich and strong, that the stenograph
er’s notes have been worked out and carefully
revised by Dr. Broughton for The Golden Age.
There are sixteen of them, and The Golden Age
will be glad to furnish back numbers to new sub
scribers. It. is confidently expected that they will
be eagerly received as they contain the best work
of Dr. Broughton’s life and will greatly aid the
busy Bible student. Editor.
LECTURE XIH.
Israel's 'Restoration,
Chapter 11.
N the first twelve verses of the eleventh
chapter the apostle is reviewing the
teaching concerning the rejection. In
the first place, we have Israel’s con
dition in the rejection as is found in
the first six verses of the chapter. Here
are two things that stand out very
clearly. First, that not all of Israel
is rejected. You must understand that
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the apostle was dealing with the nation and not the
individual in the nation. There is much of the
teaching concerning Israel that if we are not care
ful to get we will be misled.
Paul is dealing with the great nation of Israel,
and the nation was rejected, but not the individual,
for there are many among Israel that are saved.
The Apostle Paul is referred to by himself} as an
illustration of that fact.
God always deals with nations in the same way
that He deals with individuals. He is dealing with
the nations of the earth today just as surely and
clearly as He dealt with Israel. Nations do not
realize that fact, but it would be well for them to
realize it and to look intoi His face and tremble,
because the judgment of God is today being visited
on the nations of the earth as clearly as it was
visited upon Israel. I wish our own nation would
realize that fact. There would be a change in the
nation’s affairs. I wish our own city would realize
that fact. Just as He deals with the nations He
deals with the city. If we would realize that God
deals with the State in the same w r ay that He does
with the individual, there would be a change in
the state of affairs. God is going to visit His judg
ment upon the community that does not keep His
law. Just how long He is going to wait and beg
and plead vith the people, He alone knows, and
history bears me out in stating that that day of
retribution is certainly coming, and w 7 hy it is that
men can not see that, I do not know.
I am perfectly frank to say that no man can be a
statesman who is not a Christian. He may love
his country; he may even give his life for ft; he
may stand before an army, as brave as any soldier
even to the point of death, but unless he is a
Christian he can not be a statesman, because no
service rendered to the State or to the nation can
have in the end its preservation at stake that is not
based upon the principles of Jesus Christ, and just
as certain as God lives in heaven that day of retri
bution is coming to that people that disregards
the law of God. To act upon that if I were a
member of the city government or the national gov
ernment as a Christian man having vowed my al
legiance to God through Jesus Christ, I would take
my stand. I would not sign any bill that I thought
in the slightest conflicted with the Book, no mat
ter how many statesmen might argue in favor of
it, and T believe that the Christian church needs
to pray as it has never prayed for the power to
stand in high places for the plain, clear, unvarnish
ed application of the principles of the Word of
God to the things of the daily life.
Then you will find that there is another thing
taught in this section which we have just read,
and that is that this remnant which was not re
jected was prevented from being rejected by the
The Golden Age for October 31, 1907.
election of grace. That is to say, they were saved and
are saved today, that remnant of Israel that is not
thrown aside, by the election of grace just as we
are saved by the election of grace. Paul was a
Jew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, saved as I was
saved, as you were saved through and by the
merits of Jesus Christ in His atoning work on the
cross, the only way to be saved. That is what is
meant here by the election of grace.
Therefore we have the right to hold up to the
Jew the hope of salvation, the hope of not being
cast aside, of coming out of his state of bondage,
but only as we hold up to the rest of the world the
hope of salvation, through Jesus Christ.
Some of our Jewish friends think that we are
narrow because, though they make splendid citi
zens and do good service and are kind and con
siderate of the poor and the orphan, and the out
cast, we insist that without Christ they are lost.
Some of our Christian friends, some ministers, as
far as that is concerned, do not think that we have
any right to make that statement. They say that
it is narrow and unkind. My only answer is this,
if we ought not to do that, we ought to throw
our Bibles aside and quit business. There is no
use in wasting money in building churches that
stand for Jesus Christ, that preach the New Tes
tament, that accept its teaching, unless it is a fact
that the world, without all this, is lost, absolutely
lost, forever lost.
One of two things is true: Either the Jews are
right and we ought to be Jews and deny the New
Testament, or else we are right, wholly right, in as
serting that without Christ the Jew, as every other
man on the face of! the earth, is lost. If that is
narrow it is because the New Testament is narrow.
Let us understand, then, that the Jew that has
been saved, was saved according to the teaching of
the Gospel by the election of grace, and not by works,
as we are told further on. Take the fifth and
sixth verses, “Even so, then, at this time, there is
a remnant according to the election of grace. But
if it is by grace, it is no more of works; other
wise grace is no more grace.” How could a thing
be plainer than that? If a man is saved by works,
as the Jewish system holds that he is, then there is
no such thing as grace. Paul is making the same
argument that I used awhile ago. I borrowed mine
from him. Paul is making the argument that if
salvation to this remnant is according to works,
then all this preaching of grace is vain, for there
is no need of it, and if they are saved by grace,
all this talk of salvation by works is vain. Salva
tion by works is of the Jew, and for that they were
condemned and set aside, and the new system came
in, the system of faith in Christ, and works is the
outcome of grace.
Now, I wish again to fix it in your minds that if
you are going to be a New Testament Christian
you have got to eliminate everything like a hope of
salvation through any kind of works whatever.
The man who says, “I hope to be saved because
I do this, and that, and because I do the other.'is
no Christian.” The Jewish system of religion was
tried and failed, and the new system of religion
under Jesus Christ is established upon faith in Him.
When I first began my ministry there was put into
my hands a volume of Henry Ward Beecher’s ser
mons. I was very fond of him. He always im
pressed me as the most wonderfully gifted man in
illustrating in the world. All of his sermons abound
ed in beautiful similes and stories gathered from his
knowledge of the literature of the world. This
volume of sermons was enriched by some of his most
striking illustrations. I remember the very first
sermon in that volume was on Regeneration.
Tn one of his illustrations he was trying to show
the fall of man and his redemption. He says, “Im
agine a beautiful picture hanging upon the wall.
It is in a beautiful frame, absolutely without a
flaw, and the whole thing is perfect. Now, that
picture on the wall illustrates man in his original
perfect stale in the garden of Eden, perfect in
every detail, so far as we can judge. After a time
dust accumulates upon that picture. After awhile
the dust gets so thick that you can not see much
of the original painting. It is not what you first
saw. You can not make it out.
“The condition of that picture illustrates Adam
after sin entered and destroyed the original per
fect man. The framework is still all right.
“Now,” he says, “Regeneration is this. The
housekeeper comes along and takes the picture
down and rubs all the dirt off of the painting and
then polishes up the frame and hangs it on the wall
again, and there is the picture just as pretty as it
ever was. Now,” says Mr. Beecher, “that is
regeneration.”
Well, I thought I had something big. Oh, it was
a fine thing, and like most youngsters in tne pul
pit, I did not stop to see how my illustration
would suit the truth. I got up and preached on
regeneration and used that illustration.
As I went out of doors one of our Sunday school
teachers got me by the arm and said, “I tell you,
that is the finest illustration of regeneration that
I ever heard in my life. I never heard it made so
plain before.”
Well, I had one old deacon in that church that I
just dreaded. He had great heavy eyebrows hang
ing down over his eyes, and he looked at me as
though he thought I did not know much. That after
noon he came to mv house and said, “You have not
been preaching long, and have not gone down into
things very far. You can tell a good story, but
that one you used to illustrate regeneration is
about as falsei as anything I ever heard, and you
will see it some day.”
I said, “How is that? Why, Brother ‘So and So’
met me at the door and said it was the most helpful
thing that he ever heard.”
“He knows Greek and Latin,” said he, “but he
does not know anything about his Bible. He knows
less about it than you do.”
Finally he said, “I have studied it, and if you
will excuse me, I will shew you the fallacy of your
teaching. In the first place, it was all right to rep
resent fallen Adam in the Garden of Eden.”
“Well,” said I, “what is the matter with it?”
“Oh!” said he. “It is in the next place that
it is wrong. I want to tell you that regeneration is
not the mere washing up of the old Adam.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Regeneration is that housekeeper coming in and
taking that picture down and cutting the canvass
all out, leaving nothing but the frame, the mere
external man, and then she unrolls a picture and
puts it in the place of the old canvass, and then
hangs it on the wall again. It is the same frame,
but it is not the washed-over Adam. It is the
brand-new picture of Jesus Christ.”
Well, I hated to acknowledge that I was wrdng.
but any man could see that if the New Testament
is at all true, that man was right. I saw it just as
quick as a flash, but I hated to acknowledge de
feat, and began to offer objections. He began to
quote Scripture. Finally I said, “You need not
quote any more Scripture. I know you are right.”
And the next Sunday morning I got up and told
the whole story right out. I told them wherein I
had been straightened out, and how it came. That
was the best lesson that I ever learned, and I have
never forgotten it, and never will forget it. And
don’t you forget it. If you do not learn anything
else, I want you to remember that whether it is a
Jew or Gentile, if he is saved, he is saved through
Jesus Christ, and net through works, and this is no
apology for bad works, no excuse for sin. Salva
tion, if it is inwrought, lives in a man’s life, and
works come as the result of the new principle, the
new ideal, the new model that has been accepted.
Take the next section. The result of Israel’s re
jection (v. 11, 12). There are three things taught
in that section. First, that by the rejection of the
Jews salvation came to the Gentiles. Now, for what
purpose? First, that they themselves might be
saved, and then that through them, the Gentiles,
this despised people that the Jews had hated, might
come a stirring up of the Jewish people themselves,
by the fact that they got hold of salvation. That is