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INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Herewith I am sending you for publication in The Golden Age the first of Dr. Len G. Brough
ton’s Wednesday evening popular Sermon-Lectures on the International Sunday School Lesson,
and will furnish one of these Lecture Sermons week by week, as they are delivered.
They are given to a great popular audience in Christ Church, London and reported exclu
sively for The Golden Age in the states leaving out the special analytical work which, before the
Sermon-Lecture is delivered, is put upon a huge blackboard, specially lighted by a system of
light that brings clearly in view the analysis.
The Sermon-Lecture is arranged for The Golden Age without the blackboard analysis,
and it will take the space of Dr. Broughton’s usual sermon, and so far as your readers are con
cerned it will be a sermon.
Readers will undoubtedly appreciate Dr. Broughton in this new role. Doubtless f®w in
America, where his labors were so diversified, properly realized his ability in Bible analysis and
exposition; and we are now seeing this side of him, along with the sides we have already seen.
Dr. Broughton proposes going through the Bible in this way with the thousands through
out the world.
It is not expected that these Lectures will aid teachers in the preparation of the lesson;
it comes too late for that; indeed it is not for this that Dr. Broughton is specially concerned. He
is simply making the Sunday School Lesson series, the basis of his week-day expository ser
mon, and it is given to our readers with that in view.
Dr. Len G. Broughton’s Wednesday Night
Bible Lecture on ‘ ‘ Closing Scenes in the Life of
Christ,” Following the Course of the Interna
tional Lesson —Scripture: Mark 7:1-23.
UR Scripture lesson tonight divides
itself into two parts: First, the
rebuke of Christ to the Pharisees
and Scribes, Vs. 1-13. In the next
part we have the application of this
rebuke to spiritual life. Vs. 14-23.
Taken together we get our subject:
Commandments Vs. Traditions:
I want us first to see the rebuke
O
of Christ. “Vs. 1-13.
“Then came together unto Him the
Pharisees and certain of the Scribes, which
came from Jerusalem.
“And when they saw some of His disci
ples eat bread with defiled, that is to say,
unwashen hands, they found fault.
“For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, ex
cept they wash their hands oft, eat not,
holding the tradition of the elders.
“And when they come from the market,
except they they eat not. And many
other things there be, which they have
received to hold, as the washing of cups
and pots, brassen, vessels, and of tables.
“Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked
Him, Why walk not Thy disciples accord
ing to the tradition of the Elders, but eat
bread with unwashen hands?
“He answered and said unto them, Well
hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites,
as it is written, This people honoreth Me
with their lips, but their heart is far from
Me.
“Howbeit in vain do they worship Me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men.
“For, laying aside the commandment of
God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the
washing of pots and cups; and many other
such like things ye do.
“And He said unto them, Full well ye
reject the commandments of God, that ye
may keep your own tradition.
“For Moses said honor thy father and
thy mother; and whoso curseth father and
mother, let him die the death;,
“But ye say, If a man shall say to his
father or mother, It is corban, that is to
say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest
be profited by Me; he shall be free.
“And ye suffer him no more to do ought
for his father or his mother.
“Making the word of God of none effect
through your tradition, which ye have de
livered; and many such like things do ye.”
This follows immediately on the last lesson,
where we had Jesus walking upon the sea. Fol-
COMMANDMENTS vs. TRADITIONS
Preached at Christ Church, Westminster Bridge-road, by Dr. Len G. Broughton, M.D., D.D.
The Golden Age for November 7, 1012.
Reported for The Golden Age by M. I. H.—Copyright Applied for.
lowing this was a short but remarkable minis
try of healing in the villages round about, and
so many as were even privileged to touch the
border of His garments were healed.
Then came certain of the Pharisees and
Scribes to Jesus. The Pharisees were the
stric', religious traditionalists of the time; the
Scribes were the writers and custodians of
public documents, religious and otherwise.
Sometimes they were interpreters. These two
great sticklers for the Jewish order, had heard
of the teachings and work of Jesus in Jerusa
lem and came to investigate Him; doubtless
they were sent by a council. Soon after their
arrival, they observed some of His disciples
eating bread with unwashed hands, and imme
diately they began to find fault. The wash
ing of hands before eating, under any and every
circumstance was a most rigid requirement of
the Jews. It had a twofold meaning: In the
first place it was sanitary. In the second place,
it was spiritual. Pollution was a type of sin.
Cleanliness a type of holiness. There was
nothing wrong in the insistence of these Phari
sees and Scribes upon the washing of hands.
The fact is, they had a perfect right to expect
that this should be done. It was a law, and
it should have been observed. No wonder they
were surprised when they saw these disciples
eat with unwashed hands.
What is the meaning then of the rebuke of
Jesus, for He did rebuke them terribly. To get
at the secret that underlies this rebuke, w r e have
got to go back and put ourselves exactly in the
attitude of those Pharisees and Scribes, and
understand the conditions that faced them. It
is a very hard (thing to do, but we must do it
ro get exactly at what our Lord meant.
There are three things that impress me about
the practices of these Pharisees and Scribes.
First, they were right. Second, they were in
complete. Third, they were radically wrong.
Let us take these three things now and study
them:
Firs f , they were right. You will please ob
serve that these Pharisees and Scribes had come
to investigate a new religious teacher, and
their eyes first fell upon His disciples, and
there they stopped to study the Teacher, and
it was a wise study, too. They studied the re
sult of His teaching, and of His work upon the
men that He taught, and they went home to
report. And they found these men absolute
ly ignoring the thing that Moses required, and
the thing that the Jews had required through
all these ages. And it was being wholly ig
nored by the disciples of the Great Teacher.
They were amazed, and I don’t wonder, and I
do not blame them, and I do not think our Lord
did. lam quite sure His criticism of them
was not directed to them at this point.
Then, in the next place, there was something
incomplete in what they did. Ceremonialism is
always incomplete. And it was at this point
that our Lord directed His rebuke. As a cere
monial it was incomplete, as all ceremonialism
is incomplete.
Last summer I had the privilege of hearing a
young curate in an Anglican Church, a high
Church; very high. I expected to hear a high
sermon. But I found exactly the opposite. I
heard one of the most practical, searching ser
mons that I have heard in many a day, and
that, too, from a very young man, perhaps just
out of college. I remember two or three
things that he said. He said: “Many of you
have a very great regard for the ritual of the
Church. It is a very beautiful ritual. There
is no more beautiful ceremony, in my judgment
in all the world than our ritual. And many
of you get blessing out of it; it comforts you
every time, but I am afraid after all, that most
of you never learn the secret of that which lies
beneath the ritual. If this is true, the ritual
to you is a blinding thing, and the quicker it is
abolished, the better.”
I was startled, but I said, “This is true, and
we do not have to go to the Anglican Church
to find that ritualism is abused.” We may
not call it ritualism, but it means the same
thing. Take, for example, the question of
baptism. Some of us make a great deal out
of baptism. I hope we do not make any too
much. I hold that it is strictly and positively
commanded of our Lord.
I do not believe that you have any more
right to observe the communion of the Lord
and ignore baptism. For me. I could not claim
ready obedience to the command of Christ
without submitting to baptism. lam quite
sure that many people look too lightly on it.
But, listen, my friends! Whilst that is true,
there are many people that attach to baptism
a meaning that it never had. Many people
hold that in the act of baptism there is a re
generating work of the Holy Ghost of God done
m the heart. Now, as I read the Scriptures,
there is not the first scintilla of suggestion, to
say nothing of direct teaching, of any such
thing. Men are not saved because they are
baptised, baptism is simply an act of obedience
to Christ; not in any sense a door to salvation.
And the man who attaches that kind of mean
ing to his baptism is a man who reads into it
what there is not in it, and he is to that ex
tent following the “traditions of men” rather
than the “commandments of God.”
The same thing may be said about commun
ion. There are people who think that in the
act of communion itself there is a spiritual feel
ing. There is no such thing in it! It is true
that we are commanded to observe the Lord’s
Supper, and how a man can be a Christian and
not do it, I cannot understand. But we must
never allow ourselves to think that because
we submit to the ordinance of the Lord’s Sup
per and get blessing, that it is, in itself, spirit
ual feeding.
The same thing may be said with reference
to rules of discipline. Many people get them
selves to believing that if they subscribe to
certain rules for their lives, they are all right.
There never was a bigger error. No spiritual
life can live by means of such regulation. We
may have ever so much regard for washing.
We may observe the washing of our pots, and
pans, and houses, and tables, and clothes and
everything else we think we ought to wash; it
has its place. But no man can, by so doing,
become spiritually strong. It is this that Jesus
is aiming at; it is a wrong application of a good
thing.
Take the next thought
Continued on Page 14.)