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(Continuation of series in Life and Teachings
of Jesus.)
TEXT, Mark 3:7-8: “When they had heard
what great things he did, they came unto
Him.”
WANT to call your attention to the
fact that Jesus Christ in a marvel
ous degree blended in His life both
popularity and unpopularity. He
was perhaps the most popular man
that the world has ever known;
yet He was as unpopular a man
as the world has ever known.
Reading carefully the history of
I
religions, we find that this world has had sev
en great religions; she has them today, but
at some periods in the history of the world
they have been of greater significance than
today. Some of these religions have almost
compassed the world; others have flourished to
a greater extent in their local communities.
These religions are Brahmanism, the early re
ligion of India; Zoroastrianism, the early re
ligion of Persia; Confucianism, the religion of
China; Buddhism, the later religion of India;
Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity.
These make up the seven great religions that
have swayed to a greater or less extent the
entire world and had to do with the shaping of
the thought and conduct of the world. The
first two of these, Brahmanism and Z'oroaster
ism, began in the early stages of the world s
history. The date of the beginning of those
two religions is not known, and no one knows
anything of the length of time given by the
teachers and promoters of these two great re
ligions in their propagation. But it is not so
with reference to the others. Confucius lived
and taught forty-seven years in founding his
religion. The supposed founder of Buddhism
lived and taught forty years before he had fin
ished the foundation of his religion. Moham
med, we are told, began his teaching at the age
of forty and spent twenty-three years of his
life in laying the foundations of Mohammedan
ism. Moses taught Israel for forty years and
laid the foundations for Judaism. Luther was
engaged in sowing the seed of the reformation
twenty-seven years, and these twenty-seven
years were strenuous years in his life, perhaps
more strenuous than was ever spent by any
other great reformer. Wesley spent seventeen
years expounding the doctrines of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church.
Now, it is a striking fact that Jesus Christ,
the founder of the greatest religion that the
world has ever known, spent only three years
of His life in laying the foundations of His re
ligion. For thirty years no single, solitary ref
erence, so far as I know, dropped from His
lips as to His plans and purposes and doc
trines. At the age of thirty He began to ex
pound the fundamental principles of His reli
gion, and during those three years He finished
His foundations. It is also a striking fact that
during those three years He reached the very
zenith of popular favor. No religious teacher
before or since ever reached anything like the
altitude that Jesus reached in popular favor
and applause, and yet all this was done in
three years’ time. No wonder, therefore, as
we come to study the life and teaching of Jesus
we are confronted with the question, how can
we account for the great popular favor with
which Jesus was received by the people of the
earth at that time? Os course, we can say in
the cutset that Jesus was God, therefore that
accounts for His popularity; but we can not ac
count for His popularity in this wav. Jesus
was God, all God. and Jesus was all man: in
His personality. He combined these two ele
ments, elements that no other ever comprised.
And at times in His life He divested Him-
POPULARITY OF JESUS
Tabernacle Sermon by Rev. Len G. Broughton, D.D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
The Golden Age for July 20, 1911.
self of His Godship and acted as man; at other
times He divested Himself of His humanity
and acted as God ; and yet as God He mani
fested His characteristics through Jesus as
man, and so when we come to state the ele
ments of the popularity of Jesus we are stat
ing them as they are expressed to us through
the ordinary natural characteristics of man.
And so I say to you, in the first place, that
the popularity of Jesus is to be accounted for
by the fact that His was a most natural life.
If you study the life that Jesus has revealed to
us in the gospels, confined just to what they
say, and not to what men say about Him, you
will be impressed, as I have been, with the ex
ceeding naturalness of Jesus; how very natu
ral He was under all circumstances! And there
is nothing so attractive to the mass of men as
naturalness. Some time ago I was taken by a
friend of mine in a fast speeding automobile
through the country to one of our mountain
schools, a distance of about seventy-five miles
from here. When I got there I was impressed
from the very outset with the exceeding natu
ralness of the place; the naturalness of
the forests, of the soil, the natural
ness of the building, a building in keeping
with the surroundings; and the log cabins,
grouped about the main building. And then I
was impressed with the natural manner of the
students as I saw them walking about the
campus and heard them talk and saw them
play. Then I was impressed with the natural
ness of their demeanor when it came to their
public exercises, when they had recitations
and debates and music; there was no affecta
tion; they were so very natural, even when
they walked out on the platform with their
graceful bow that we have seen all in the coun
try; I also noticed the naturalness of their
voices. They may have elocution teachers,
but they have not affected their natural tone
and their natural gestures. The thing that im
pressed me most was the naturalness of their
gestures; perfectly graceful, no artificiality
about it; sometimes, perhaps, they made the
wrong gesture, but it was done with such nat
uralness and as the result of a spontaneous
outburst of enthusiasm that you were impress
ed with the fact that they were far more con
cerned about what they were saying than what
they were doing. And then their dress, espe
cially that of the young ladies ;how natural they
were; none of this tomfoolery that is a dis
grace to civilization; they had plenty of room
in their clothes to expand -their lungs and
their voices; they had plenty of cloth in their
skirts to allow them to walk; they were natu
ral in their features; there was no artificial
ism on their cheeks; their cheeks were painted,
but by the hands of the greatest artist that
ever touched a brush; the mountain sun and
the mountain dew had kissed their cheeks and
made them red and rosy and beautiful. And
thus coming in contact with nature was very
pleasant to me. I do not know any college
commencement I ever attended anywhere that
so impressed me as that one; lam sure I never
enjoyed one as I enjoyed that.
And, my brethren, it is exactly so with the
religious world; the more natural we can keep
our religious work and worship, the more pop
ular it will be. The life of Jesus is an exam
ple of this; there was no artificialism at all in
Him; He lived a perfectly normal, natural life;
there was no pretense, no exaggeration. What
a lesson today to the church! It is the un
naturalness of our worship today that takes
away much of its attractiveness. There is some
thing in the average man that resents an un
natural performance.
Again, Jesus’ popularity was due to the fact
of his humane ministry. The older religions
were not humane. This is seen clearly when
we take Judaism up and study it. Judaism,
the dominant religion of His section, was a re
ligion which had served a great purpose, but
Judaism was lacking in the essential elements
of human consideration. Take, for example,
their attitude toward the sick. Do you know
that the Rabbis told the people to cast stones
at a leper if he approached near them without
giving the accustomed warning ? Fancy in this
day and generation a leper discovered on the
street, perhaps moving in your direction, and
you taking up a stone and hurling it at the
poor man. When Jesus came He found that
state of affairs among so-called religious peo
ple ; He found -the Rabbi, the religious teacher
of the people, teaching that this should be done
Then again you see it in the attitude of those
people to the insane. Do you know that these
same old rabbis taught the people that an in
sane man was to be turned out of doors, not to
be kept in anybody’s house; that he was to
be forced to wander and roam about, sleeping
where they could; we have an example in the
man Christ found among the tombs, beating
himself and gashing himself. This was the at
titude of the religious people at the time of
Jesus. Fancy, if you will, in our own State,
four thousand five hundred lunatics, for that
is the number in our state lunatic asylum—just
fancy these lunatics walking about, up and
down the roads and out in the woods and
through the streets all over our State, doing
all sorts of depredations and nobody allowed
to touch one of them, and nobody allowed to
speak to one of them, and nobody allowed to
minister to one of them. In the time of Jesus
if a lunatic was so insane as not to take care
of himself, then he must die.
That was the state of the world under the
teaching of the existing religions of the times.
Most ox the six religions mentioned were in
existence prior to the time of Jesus, but they
had no regard for human weakness and suffer
ing and need. It remained for Jesus to touch
this note. As one day a leper came through
the streets sounding the note of warning, “Un
clean! Unclean,’’ which the law compelled him
to cry when it was necessary for him to come
in contact with people, so that nobody might
come in contact with him and become con
taminated with his leprosy, Jesus saw him and
heard his despairing cry, and He touched him
with His own hand, His human fingers, and
by His divine power healed him. It was against
the law for any man to touch a leper, but Jesus
was not afraid of contamination, and so gave
expression to His heart of love and sympathy.
It was against the law for any man to speak
to a lunatic, and yet when Jesus found one
groveling among the tombs, beating himself
and cutting himself with stones, He approached
him and healed him and sent him back to his
people.
And so all along through the ministry of
Jesus He was constantly expressing interest,
sympathy and helpfulness for the afflicted.
There was in the day of Jesus no thought that
beat and throbbed in the heart of humanity
that did not beat and throb in the heart of
Jesus. If He walked by the seashore and saw
His disciples having toiled all the night and
they having no fish, He did not consider it an
undignified thing or a thing beneath His posi
tion to stop and give them directions as to
where to guide their boat and on which side to
put the net. If He came to the seashore and
saw His disciples toiling, hungry, without food,
and having nothing with which to prepare a
meal, He did not consider it beneath Him to
make a fire and cook the food neccessary to
feed them. And when in the synagogue a palsied
man came staggering in, Jesus did not consider
it out of place to heal that man then and there.
(Continued on Page 14.)