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THE ASSENT DISCIPLE
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. Broughton, D. D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
Test, “But Thomas was not with them when
Jesus came.’’—John 20:24.
WANT to say before beginning to
speak of “The Absent Disciple” that
he, in my judgment, has not received
as much attention as he deserves. And
that is because he is so much in evi
dence.
Thomas in this text simply stands out
as a type of a great body of people who
are saved, so far as we know, but peo-
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pie that are habitually and perpetually noted for
being absent when the Lord comes around. Some
time ago I was talking with Mr. Marion Lawrance,
the head of the Sunday school movement in this
country, and he said to me. “The greatest problem
we have today is the absentee problem. It is the
men and the women in the church that do not come,
and somehow cannot be induced to come, who give
us most trouble. For,” said he, “you can get
up a campaign, and work with all the power that
God gives you; you may saturate the community
with workers and use every facility that the world
knows anything about for reaching absentees and
inducing them to come, and when you have done
it all, and succeeded, perhaps, to a great extent,
you are confronted still with the fact that right
there where you have expected most support you
have found none.”
THE ABSENTEE.
I feel sure that Mr. Lawrance stated a fact in
the experience of Sunday school workers, and I feel
sure further that he stated a fact in the experience
of all Christian work; certainly he stated a fact
in my experience. The people who have given me
most trouble in my heart, that have caused me most
personal pain and concern as a pastor, are the peo
ple who are in the absentee class. We are so dis
posed to take things for granted that we fail to
look after the man who is not there. We fail to
send a tracer after him. The railroad companies
could teach us a great lesson at that point. When
ever they find that a piece of freight is absent they
send at once a tracer after that absent article,
and every man in the whole official corps, from the
head of the road down to the smallest man in it,
is held responsible until that thing is found and re
stored. A railroad man told me that he was made
to search for one box car eighteen months, and he
was told that if he did not find that car he would
lose his job—not because it was so valuable, but
there was not in that great organization a place
for a man who was not careful and painstaking.
Now it is just exactly that way with us in our
church work. If we could hold and utilize and
keep our hands upon every man and woman that
comes into the w T ork of Jesus Christ, that comes in
voluntarily, it would not take us any time to scat
ter the knowledge of Jesus all over this world. So
I think we can well afford to stop and consider the
question of the absentee.
Thomas, as I said, simply stands out as a type
of a great body of people. You remember his his
tory. You remember the circumstances under which
we find our text. Jesus had been crucified and
buried. On the first day of the week Mary Magda
lene went to the sepulchre. She went there to pay
her tribute of love. It was not the first time she
had gone to Him for that purpose, and I am glad
that it was not. She had gone to pay her respects
and her tribute of love to Him many d time before
He died. She never waited until He was dead and
buried to come and put upon His grave the tribute
of her affections. So she could very consistently
come now that He is dead and laid away.
Looking down into the sepulchre she discovered
that the stones had been rolled away from the
door and that led her to believe that his body had
been stolen, and post haste she ran to the disciples,
and two of them, Peter and John, came with her to
investigate for themselves. Doubtless they were
afraid to take her testimony. Doubtless they
The Golden Age for December 5, 1907.
thought that she was perhaps frightened or a bit
beside herself from grief. Peter and John came
and looked down into the sepulchre themselves and
saw that it was so —that Jesus was gone. There
were the linen garments lying in the sepulchre
just as Jesus had left them. When they found that
He was gone they left and went to their homes;
but Mary, womanlike, remained at the sepulchre
weeping—weeping the more because they had stolen
Him, as she thought. It was enough for Him to bo
dead; it was w T orse that he was dead and His body
stolen, and perhaps torn into fragments by the ene
mies that despised Him.
While she stood there weeping she looked into the
sepulchre and saw two angels, one sitting at the
head and one at the foot. Seeing that she was trou
bled, the angels spoke to her. One of them said,
“Woman, why weepest thou?” She said, “Be
cause they have taken away my Lord and I know
not where they have laid Him.”
Just at that time Jesus spoke. I think that He
spoke from behind a curtain. He was not yet fully
revealed Himself or else she would have known
Him, and I must think His voice was not yet natur
al because she would have recognized Him.
WOMAN’S COMMISSION.
He, taking up the same question asked by the
angel, said, “Woman, why weepest thou?” She
said, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and
I know not where they have laid Him. Tell me
tvhere he is, and I will take Him away.” She
thought He was the gardener. Then Jesus pulled
aside that curtain that separates the other world
from this and revealed Himself, and taking upon
Himself His natural voice, spoke so tenderly and
affectionately, “Mary,” and the very sound of His
zoice, the mention of her name, brought to her
the consciousness of His presence. She rushed to
zlim as if to put her arms about Him, but He said,
“Don’t touch me, I have not as yet ascended to my
Father, but go, tell my disciples, and Peter.”
There was something else to do besides merely re
joicing and worshipping; there was something else
to do besides praising God, as good as all of that
is. There was work to be done. There was testi
mony to be borne, and the Lord needed that more
than He needed the other. Oh, my friends, let us
not fail to learn that lesson! Rejoicing and prais
ing God are great things, but the Lord needs work.
Mary rushed to the disciples and told them all
that Jesus said. And I would have you remember
as we pass along that this was the first sermon
that was ever preached on the resurrection, and
that that sermon was preached by a woman; and
that that woman was one who had passed through
the fires of criticism and had stood the test. I
would have the world of critics, those who are for
ever disparaging the public testimony of women,
to bear this fact in mind, that Jesus, the head of the
Church, the Author of salvation, very God —that He
commissioned a woman to bear the first testimony
of the glorious fact of the resurrection, and that this
woman was sent not even to a mixed audience, but
tc a company of men.
Then these disciples, on the occasion of the even
ing hour when they were assembled, doubtless in
that upper chamber for fear of the Jews, as they
talked and conferred one with another, were vis
ited by this risen Christ. He appeared in their
midst within the‘closed room. Now, just how He
got in there the record does not say, nor do we
care, except let me say this, that He got in there
because He was in there already, and He was in
there because he is everywhere. The thing that
confuses us and causes us to wonder is the fact that
He was in there in His physical body, and had not
been admitted through any ordinary channel. My
brethren, Jesus was there before the disciples met.
He was there all the time during their meeting. At
the proper time He simply revealed Himself, just
as He might do at any time. We have never met
that He was not there. We cannot meet that He
is not here. We talk sometimes about the Lord
being where His disciples are assembled. The Lord
is everywhere; where His people are assembled, and
where they are not assembled. He is a great uni
versal Spirit, everywhere, at the same time—God,
and Jesus was God, and it pleased Him at that spe
cial time to reveal in the physical form His presence
with them. Oh, if Jesus this morning should draw
away the curtain we too would see Him! We too,
would see those nail prints in His hands and those
scare upon His forehead. The same Jesus is here.
He is right by me this minute. He knows my mo
tive in speaking and your motive in hearing. He
knows what you are thinking about. He knows
whether you are trying to learn the lesson that will
do your heart and life good. He knows what is
transpiring in this house.
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT.
The next thing that Jesus did in revealing Him
self was to give to them the Holy Ghost. He
breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy
Ghost.” My! That was the thing of all things
that they needed. He was soon to come and they
were to take up the stupendous task of saving this
world, and how could they do it without Him!
There in that little company, scared and trembling
lest the Jews should overcome them and kill them,
Jesus breathed upon them and said, “Receive the
Holy Ghost.” They were saved before that. They
were all saved prior to that, but were not Spirit
endued.
The next thing Jesus did was to give them the
commission, “As my Father hath sent me, even so
send I you.” That is to say, “Now that you are
equipped and ready for the work of the Master’s
kingdom, you are to go with the same purpose that
I came with. As my Father hath sent me on a
mission of salvation to the lost world, so you are
to go.”
What a gracious meeting that was! It seems to
me that they had everything under the sun to thank
God for on that occasion. Jesus had come in the
nick of time. He had come when they needed Him
as they had never needed Him before. But now the
text states that Thomas was not with them when
Jesus came. What Thomas was doing I do not
know. Just why he was not there is not stated.
Perhaps it was just because he had grown discour
aged. Judas had betrayed Jesus. Peter, the most
fearless one of the group, the one upon whom
Jesus had depended more than any of the rest, the
first man in that brotherhood of disciples—had de
nied his Lord and lied and cursed, and so Thomas
had enough to discourage him. Out of the little
company of twelve, selected by the Lord Himself,
in so short a time as three years two, and two of
the most conspicuous, the world regarded head of the
disciples and the treasurer, these two had gone
back on their faith; had denied their Lord, and it
was enough to discourage a philosophic, level headed
business man like Thomas, and, it may be that
because of discouragement Thomas said to himself,
“Well, I will drop out. I won’t be there. Go on
with the meeting and I will be about something else
that is more permanent. I will try to find me a
crowd that has more tar on their heels.”
Or it may have been that Thomas was not there
because he was lacking in courage. It took a great
deal of courage to go there. It meant something
for those disciples to gather together. If they were
discovered it meant death. Thomas knew that the
Jews were after them. He knew that Jesus was
despised and His name hated. He knew the danger
of meeting in His name and it may have been be
cause of that that he stayed away.
It may have been because he was attracted with
other things. Thomas without doubt was a busi
ness man. Everything connected with his history
goes to prove that he was. He was cool-headed,
philosophic, not a thread of sentiment in him. He
was a cool-headed, deliberate business man, and he
might have argued that, “I have other things to