Newspaper Page Text
2
UNPOPULARITY OF JESUS
Continuation of Series on Life and teachings
of Jesus.
Matt. 10:34.—“Think not that I have come
to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace, but a sword. ’ ’
URING the three years of the min
istry of Christ on earth He swung
from popularity to unpopularity.
At one time they gathered about
Him in great crowds to make Him
king by force; shortly afterward
they gathered about Him in great
crowds, crying: “Crucify him!
Crucify him!” This morning we
D
consider some of the elements of the popularity
of Jesus. There was a class, and the larger
per cent, of humanity is included in that class,
that looked upon Jesus with favor. Tonight 1
want us to consider some of the reasons for the
unpopularity of Jesus. Why was Jesus unpop
ular? 1 ask you to note first in answering that
question the words of our text; Jesus was un
popular because He came to this earth and en
tered upon its public ministry bearing a sword,
and a sw T ord is ever indicative of a division
among people. It is a weapon of warfare; it
signifies a fight; it indicates that there is some
thing or somebody that is about to be attacked;
and this is the thing that Jesus came to bring.
To put the text in another way, Jesus said this:
“I have come to organize and lead in a great
world revolution; I have found things out of
gear, and I have come to reorganize them; to
put things in their right relation.” No man
ever yet led a revolution that did not have en
emies; that he did not encounter opposition;
that he did not render himself immensely un
popular.
It was no exception in the case of Jesus. I
would have those of you who have looked upon
Christ as a sort of weakling, a man always on
the side of compromise, a man of peaceful and
placid temperament and disposition, to remem
ber this text and carry it home with you. In
every congregation when we begin to talk of
Jesus as a fighter, we notice an uneasiness in
the crowd for there are always those of a sen
timental turn of mind who resent any insinua
tion whatever that Jesus was anything but
a man of peace. He was exactly the opposite;
He was in no sense a man of peace save as
peace came as the result of a fight, save as peace
came as the result of conquest and victory and
honor.
I remember once preaching from this plat
form, on Heaven, and I was having a good time
with my subject, and the audience seemed to
be following me with reasonable interest, and
all at once in the congregation about half down
in the crowd I spied sitting together three
members of the City Council. I felt exceeding
ly honored. As I spied them I rememberer that
just a few days prior to that we had a fight in
the City Council. In a certain tenement section
of this city where sanitation had been altogeth
er neglected, there had broken out an epidemic
of typhoid fever and the poor tenement people
were dying at a very rapid rate. Children and
mothers especially were suffering from it. This
was all due to the overlooking of our sanitation
and a proposition had been put up before the
Council providing for some immediate relief;
it was proposed to institute some means by
which sanitation could be furnished those help
less and defenseless people, and they had dis
cussed it and discussed it, and voted and re
voted and voted again as they usually do when
anything of special importance is up. Finally
they killed the measure, refusing to do any
thing whatever for the relief of this people.
So when I saw those three Council members
sitting out in front of me that night I thought
at once of that Council meeting; and these
Tabernacle Sermon by Rev. Len G. Broughton, D.D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
three men were three who had helped to kill it.
I forgot about heaven; every thought I had pre
pared on the subject slipped out of my mind
instantly; and I thought of earth with its sin
and its robbery and its murder. I turned to
those men without calling their names and ad
dressed myself to that Council meeting and
charged those men, with the rest of them, with
having on their hands the blood of their fel
lows. I never got back to my sermon.
When I finished preaching things were pretty
warm in the house, for it was a warm night and
we had a warm theme. But I stood on this
platform and shook hands with hundreds of
people, especially with people who were those
of the helpless and defenseless type, and they
thanked me for my interest in their cause and
their behalf, some with tears in their voices.
But as the crowd passed by there came up a
woman, a beautiful woman, splendidly dressed;
I knew her well; I knew her temperament; I
knew what she was going to say. She said,
‘‘ I wish I’d known you were going to talk poli
tics tonight. ’’ I said, ‘ 1 Why? ” “I would have
stayed at home. I thought you were going to
preach on 'heaven.” I said, “I did, too.”
“Well, why didn’t you do it then? I do
not see why in the world you spend your
time like this; you can preach the dear old
gospel so sweetly; Ido not see why you do not
stick to the gospel. I said, “Don’t you think
I preached the gospel tonight?” “No, Ido not;
I think it was a good political address, but I am
not interested in politics.” I said, “Have you
ever read the 25th chapter of Matthew, how
Jesus said, ‘lnasmuch as ye have done it onto
one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have
done it unto me?’ ” “Yes.” “Don’t you think
that fits this?” “Oh, I don’t know; but I
don’t love to hear you talk politics.”
When it comes to pass that this kind of thing
is regarded by the Church as not being the gos
pel, when it comes to pass, that a plea for the
life and happiness of innocent mothers and chil
dren, is regarded by the Church as not being
the gospel, do you know what I am going to do ?
I am going to throw off my preaching robes
and get out of the Church. The trouble with
that good woman is the trouble with the Church
today, and it all comes as the result of a misin
terpretation of the platform of Jesus. Jesus
Himself said, “I came not to bring peace; I
came to bring a sword; I came for a fight,” and
until the Church gets to the place where it is
willing and anxious for a fight, it is never go
ing to gain this world. There has never been
anything worth While that has not been worth
a fight. Why, you men know full well you
would not give a snap of your finger for a
woman that you could get without a struggle.
There is something in man that naturally longs
for a fight and that appreciates that which costs
a struggle.
But, my friends, this is not the only thing to
be said in answer to this question concerning
the unpopularity of Jesus. There are two gen
eral suggestions I want to make other than the
one I have already suggested.
First, Jesus was unpopular because He set
Himself against the popular religion of His
time. The dominant religion in His country
was that of Judaism. Judaism had served a
great purpose, but at the time Jesus came and
began His public ministry, Judaism was declin
ing ; it had lost its standing and it had become
corrupt and its priests were an indolent and im
moral and corrupt lot. I have spoken before
of that picture presented by the prophet Mala
chi concerning the priests. The service of the
synagogue was nothing more nor less than a
sham, a mere form; the temple itself had been
made an idol; they had come to look upon the
temple as an absolutely essential thing in wor
ship. The scope of the religion of the Jews
The Golden Age for July 27,1911.
at the time of Jesus was distinctly racial; they
had no word of hope to offer anybody but the
Jew. Jesus, when He came, flung Himself at
once against all this. Os course, this made Him
unpopular. He denounces the priests and the
other leaders of the Church as hypocrites and
thieves. He describes them as being like
a whited sepulchre, full of rottenness
and dead men’s bones. Now, a man
today that would walk into a community of
religious people and dare to assail its leaders
as hypocrites, thieves, whited sepulchres and
the like would naturally have on his hands a
fight whether what he said was true or not.
He spurned their meaningless ceremonies and
declared that obedience was better than sacri
fice, and He arraigned them for their idolatrous
regard of the temple and the temple service
and all of its teaching.
I want you to observe a contrast between the
teaching of Jesus and the teaching of the men
who represented the synagogue. They thought
they could only render proper worship inside
the temple. Jesus taught that they could wor
ship just as well in one place as another. They
thought it blasphemy to speak of the possibil
ity of the temple being destroyed. He declared
plainly that the temple should be destroyed.
They thought that the Rabbi was master in reli
gion. He declared that no man should be called
master for He alone was Master. They taught
salvation through the law of Moses. He de
clared men had to be regenerated—born again,
and that He was the Regenerator. They taught
that Messiah was to come. He taught that He
Himself was Messiah.
What would be the effect of such teaching, of
such a teacher, at our own present day and time ?
This is a question I naturally have some inter
est in. In the first place you know full well
if a man should come teaching as Jesus did con
cerning religion what the world would say about
it. If a man should come here today in the
South and say one thing that Jesus said, that all
mankind is on one common plane, Jew and Gen
tile, white and black, you know what would be
said. About the first thing that you would
hear would be that he was narrow and out of
harmony with the principles of religious liber
ty. They would say, “He is sectarian in that
he is antagonizing the other sects and other re
ligions and endeavoring to build up a sect of
his own;” they would say, “He is a religious
bigot and fanatic.” He would be ostracised by
the leaders in all the great religious denomina
tions of the present age, and certainly he would
be ostracised as an ignoramus by the great col
leges and universities of the land that are now
teaching so differently.
They said exactly the same things concern
ing Him. He was called a bigot, a fanatic, an
ignoramus, sectarian, and any man that stands
up today in any pulpit of this country and
dares to teach as Jesus taught will be as un
popular as Jesus was. He may expect to have
to give up his life as Jesus gave up His.
But let us take another step. Jesus set Him
self against all the social, political and business
teaching and preaching of His day. What was
the condition of things in the social, business
and political world when Jesus began His work?
The established order at the time was hierarchy
in the Church and aristocracy in state. There
were few rich and many poor; and between
the few rich and many poor there was no sort
of affiliation save that which would give the
rich a chance to grind the poor in their own
grist of avarice. There were few learned and
many ignorant, and between the learned and
the ignorant there was no form of coming to
gether, no sort of affiliation, save that which
would give the learned an advantage over the
ignorant.
(Continued on page 14.)
