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THE MARKS OT THE LORD JESUS
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb, Len G, Broughton, D, *D,
Stenographically reported for The. 'Golden Age. —Copyright applied for
Text: Gal. 6: 17 —“Henceforth let no man trou
ble me; for 1 bear branded on my body the marks
of Jesus.”
HE fact that Paul was an apostle, the
greatest of all the apostles, did not ex
empt him from trouble; and he had to
encounter, too, just such troubles as we
all have to encounter, provided we are
faithful. No man can live the life of
conformity to principle like the Apostle
Paul did and escape it. It is just as
impossible for one to live that kind of
T
a life today and not have afflictions and persecu
tions, as it was in the days of the Apostle himself.
It is true that the character of it may have changed;
the advance of civilization has changed the form of
trouble and persecution through which the righteous
have to pass, but it is nevertheless the same trouble
at heart.
One of the things that gave the Apostle great
trouble at this time was the criticism that was
heaped upon him, not by the world on the outside,
but by the church on the inside. It was the church
to which he was addressing this letter, the very
church where he had put in some of his very best
work. In this church at the time the apostle wrote
this letter there were those who even went so far
as to question his apostleship, declaring that he was
not even an apostle, that he was an impostor, hav
ing a position which he had no right from heaven
to assume. It was largely this criticism and perse
cution that grew out of it that the Apostle is refer
ring to when he says in the words of our text,
Henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I carry
about me the stigma of Jesus Christ. I bear in my
body the brand of Jesus.” In those days it was
the custom for the owners of slaves to brand them
by burning into their flesh some letter or character,
and Paul always represented himself as the slave
of Jesus Christ, and when he refers here to the
marks of the Lord Jesus, he is primarily referring
to the brand of slavery to his Lord that he bears
in his body. This is just as much as to say to his
critics, “You come with your carping criticism of
my sincerity, making me a pretender, charging me
with falsely claiming the sacred position as an
apostle, and I challenge you to witness the fact that
I bear in my body the marks of my sincerity. When
ever you can show in your life and conduct and in
your body the marks of the same character of faith
fulness and fidelity to truth and righteousness that
I bear and that I exhibit to the world, then you can
come talking to me about your criticisms, about your
notions of my inconsistencies, insincerities, and un
til you can, let no man trouble me.”
THE IMPRESS OF CHARACTER.
Now, my brethren, the apostle, in my judgment,
in addressing this letter and this text in particular
to this people, to meet just that condition of things,
is referring not only to the marks that he bears
upon his physical form, the marks left by the appli
cation of the whip and the scars left by the stones
that were hurled at him, the marks of the chains
that bound his wrists and held fast his ankles.
These he had upon his physical body, and these un
questionably he had in mind when he addresses
this text: “those scars of cruel persecution; those
scars upon my back, and upon my wrists and upon
my feet, see them as they stand out, testifying to
the extent to which I have suffered for the very
Christ whom I have preached.”
But I think he was referring also to another kind
of mark. Indeed, in the second letter to the Corin
thians you will see a reference to another form of
suffering other than that which he had in the hands
of his enemies. He speaks there of the suffering
within; to the suffering that is purely of the heart;
to the suffering which, after all, is far harder to
endure than the external suffering that left its
The Golden Age for December 3, 1908.
brand upon his body; for the hardest suffering that
any man ever had to pass through is that suffering
which is within; the suffering oftentimes that can
not be told; the suffering that is oftentimes too
sacred to be talked about, a suffering peculiarly his
own, a. deep sorrow and a deep suffering that lies
hid in his own heart and mind. Paul bore in his
body the marks of that kind of suffering, for let
no man imagine that that kind of suffering can go
on always without leaving its external signs. A
man’s face is the index to his character; and so it
is, a man cannot live piously all his life and not
show signs of piety in his face. A man cannot live
sensuously and sinfully all his life and not show
signs of sensuality and sin upon his face. A man’s
step is oftentimes an index to his character. A
man’s very demeanour in the presence of other
people is an index to his character. man cannot
live an unrighteous, ungodly life and in the pres
ence of pure and holy men not show signs of shame
facedness and cowardice, or a boldness and bravado
which is assumed.
Paul bore in his body a two-fold character of
branding. The brand that was put there by the
hand of his enemy, the brand of the whip-thong and
of the stone, and the brand in his heart that had
at last found its way upon the surface and left
itself as indelibly stamped upon him as if by a red
hot iron.
And so it is with us. Every man and woman and
child in this house stands as an expression to the
world of his relationship to God. If it be the rela
tionship of closeness, a relationship in which God
has taken the initiative in the formation of his
life and his character, it is as utterly impossible
for him to hide it as for him to take wings and fly.
On one occasion when Charles G. Finney, that
great evangelist, was walking through a cotton fac
tory in Lowell, Massachusetts, unannounced and un
known by a single soul in that mill, it was observed
that the workmen began to look at him, occasionally
whispering to each other, a thing entirely unprece
dented among them. One was heard to whisper,
“He looks like a saint.” The reply came, “He
walks like a saint.” Another said, “He is a
saint.” The expression of his face, his eyes, his
walk, his demeanor, made such an impression upon
these men as that many of them left their work and
came to him, begging for his prayers in their behalf.
It is impossible to hide a man’s relationship to God.
Without a single spoken word; without a single
testimony, the closeness or the distance of our walk
with God is a fact that is read by every man with
whom we come in contact. And today the church
and .the world stand arrayed as they stood in the
days of the Apostle. Today the church has in it
men like the church at Galatia in the days of the
Apostle had, and today God is calling upon his
church, as he called upon the Apostle Paul, to come
out in the open and challenge the world to a recog
nition of the marks that stamp us as representa
tives of Jesus.
THE WORLD’S SIN.
What were some of these marks that had their
beginning in the internal man and found their ex
pression in the external? I believe that the first
of these was the mark that came, from the deep
pressure and burden that rested upon him for the
world’s sin. Let no man think that the Apostle’s
closeness to God was one that enabled him to per
petually be upon the mountain peak of triumph and
glory, shouting praises unto God. The closeness of
Paul’s walk with Jesus was such as to send him
down into the valley to grapple with the world’s
sin. There is the place to express our religion more
than upon the mountain peak, shouting and clapping
hands. You remember how it was on that occasion
in the great capital city of Greece where the Apos
tle was staying a few days waiting for his asso
ciates to join him. He had often been there before,
and knew of the conditions of the city, but as now
he is privileged to stop here for a few days he goes
over the city again, moving up and down its wicked
streets, looking upon its idolatrous worship and upon
its humanity, reeking in sin. As he beheld the city
given over to idolatry and sin and wickedness, it is
said that his spirit was stirred within him, and I
believe that it was by the stirring of the spirit of
the Apostle by reason of the fact that he had been
privileged to see for himself and have impressed
first hand the awful wickedness of that city, that
enabled him to stand upon Mars Hill and make such
a noble defense of himself and such a noble procla
mation of Jesus Christ.
The burden of the world’s sin showed itself in
the life of the Apostle, in his face, in his walk, in
his conversation; in every department of his life
there was the manifest burden and pressure that
came from the weight of the souls of men and wo
men on the account of sin.
Have we this mark today to show to the world?
Are we so unthoughtful and frivolous when we
come in contact with the world as never to leave
upon them an impress that our hearts are burdened;
that our souls are stirred by the fact of the enor
mity of the sin we find about us? Surely we do not
have to go to Athens to find it. Surely we do not
have to leave our own country to find it. Surely
at this time as we open our eyes to conditions about
us there is enough of sin in our midst today to bring
every child of God down upon his knees, burdened
on account of the sin that is about us. The world
today is looking to see the evidence of the marks
of the suffering and the sorrow and the burden and
the anguish expressed in the faces and the conduct
of the people of God.
LONGING FOR SALVATION.
Paul also bore in his body the marks that came
from the love and the longing that he had for the
souls of men. In the ninth chapter of the Roman
Epistle, written just- after finishing the eighth chap
ter, that chapter of victory in which he has held
out the victory to the Gentile through Jesus Christ,
he turns his face upon Jerusalem and sees his own
people down in sin with their backs turned upon
God, and cries, “I could see myself anathema —ac-
cursed —from God for my people Israel!” I be
lieve that the Apostle Paul, as he stood there con
fronting his critics not only held up the scars upon
his body and challenged them to see the extent of
his suffering, but he held up also without even re
ferring to it the anguish and heart throb that he
had for the salvation of the world. They saw it;
they could not help it. They felt it; they could
not help it. This message was spoken without be
ing put into words.
When we move among men and the affairs of the
world as we are moving today, environed by sin and
wickedness that is pressing in so closely and so
heavily upon church and home and state, do we im
press the world with the fact that there is an in
describable longing of our souls for the salvation of
souls? If not, there is some bed rock work that
must be done. There is some need for a change in
our lives.
But I do not think that his marks came only
from this. I think that there was also in his very
make-up and demeanor the marks that came from
doing the will and serving the plan of God his
Father. Hear him as he says, “We make it our aim
to do always the ■will of our Father in heaven,” and
in another place, “We make it our aim to do always
the things that please our Father in heaven.” Would
to God this morning that we could exhibit such a
sign to the world as that our first aim, our second
aim, our third aim, our only aim, is to please Him,
our Father in heaven. What a change there would
be in our lives! What a change there would be in
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