 |
The Great Attraction
by R. A. Torrey
"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to
myself." John 12:32 In a recent advertisement of a Sunday evening
service in one of our American cities it was stated that there would be
three attractions: a high-class movie show, a popular gospel pianist and
his wife, and a melody from the opera, "Madame Butterfly," rendered
by a well-known prima donna. It is somewhat startling when an unusually
gifted and popular preacher, or his advertising committee, thinks of the
Gospel of the Son of God as having so lost its power to draw that it must
be bolstered up by putting on a selection from a very questionable opera,
rendered by a professional opera singer, as an additional attraction to
help out our once-crucified and now-glorified Savior and Lord.
This advertisement set me to thinking as to what really was the great
attraction to men in this day as well as in former days. At once there
came to my mind the words of our text containing God's answer to this
question: "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all
men to myself." There is nothing else that draws like the uplifted
Christ. Movies may get a crowd of empty-headed and empty-hearted young
men and maidens, and even middle-aged folks without brains or moral earnestness,
for a time, but nothing really draws and holds the men and women who are
worthwhile like Jesus Christ lifted up. Nineteen centuries of Christian
history prove the drawing power of Jesus when He is properly presented
to men. I have seen some wonderful verifications of the assertion of our
text as to the marvelous drawing power of the uplifted Christ.
In London, for two continuous months, six afternoons and evenings each
week, I saw the great Royal Albert Hall filled and even jammed, and sometimes
as many turned away as got in, though it would seat ten thousand people
by actual count and provide standing room for two thousand more in the
dome. On the opening night of these meetings a leading reporter of the
city of London came to me before the service began and said, "You
have rented this building for two consecutive months?" "Yes."
"And you expect to fill it every day?" "Yes." "Why,"
he said, "no one has ever attempted to hold two weeks consecutive
meetings here of any kind. Gladstone himself could not fill it for two
weeks. And you really expect to fill it for two months?" I replied,
"Come and see." He came and he saw.
On the last night, when the place was jammed to its utmost capacity andthousands
outside clamored for admission, he came to me again, and I said, "Has
it been filled?" He smiled and said, "It has." But what
filled it? No show on earth could have filled it once a day for many consecutive
days. The preacher was no remarkable orator. He had no gift of wit and
humor, and would not have exercised it if he had. The newspapers constantly
called attention to the fact that he was no orator, but the crowds came
and came and came; rainy days, and fine days they crowded in or stood
outside, oftentimes in a downpour of rain, in the vain hope of getting
in. What drew them? The uplifted Christ preached and sung in the power
of the Holy Spirit, given in answer to the daily prayers of forty thousand
people scattered throughout the earth.
In Liverpool, the Tournament Hall, that was said to seat twenty thousand
people, and that by actual count seated 12,500 comfortably, located in
a very out-of-the-way part of the city, several blocks from the nearest
street-car line, and perhaps half a mile from all the regular street-car
lines, was filled night after night for three months, and on the last
night they crowded fifteen thousand people into the building at seven
o'clock, and then emptied it, and crowded another fifteen thousand in
who had been patiently waiting outside--30,000 people drawn in a single
night! By what? By whom? Not by the preacher, not by the singer, but by
Him who had said nearly nineteen hundred years before, "But I, when
I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
I. The Exact Meaning of the Text
Let us now look at the exact meaning of the text.
1. First, notice who is the speaker, and what were the circumstances under
which He spoke? The Speaker was our Lord Jesus. Not the Christ of men's
imaginations, but the Christ of reality, the Christ of actual historic
fact. Not the Christ of Mary Baker Eddy's foolish fancy, or of Madam Besant's
mystical imaginings, but the Christ of actuality, who lived here among
men and was seen, heard, and handled by men, and who was seen to die a
real death to save real sinners from a real hell for a real heaven.
The circumstances were these. Certain Greeks among those who went up to
worship at the Jewish feast came to one of the apostles, Philip, and said,
"We would like to see Jesus." And Philip went to Andrew and
told Andrew what these Greeks had said. Andrew and Philip together came
andtold Jesus. In the heart-cry of these Greeks, "We would like to
see Jesus," our Lord recognized the yearning of the universal heart,
the heart of Greek, as well as of Jew, for a satisfying Savior. The Greeks
had their philosophers and sages, their would-be satisfiers and saviors,
the greatest the world has ever known, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Epictetus,
Epimenides, and many others; but they did not save, and they did not satisfy,
and the Greeks cried, "We would like to see Jesus"; and in their
eagerness to see Him Jesus foresaw the millions of all nations who would
flock to Him when He had been crucified as the universal Savior, meeting
all the needs of all mankind, and so He cried, "But I, when I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
2. In the second place, notice the words, "When I am lifted up."
To what does Jesus refer? The next verse answers the question. "He
said this to show the kind of death he was going to die." Jesus referred
to His lifting up on the cross, to die as an atoning Savior for all mankind.
This verse is often quoted as if it meant that, if we lifted up Christ
in our preaching, He would draw men. That is true, and it is a crying
shame that we do not more often hold up only Him in our preaching, for
we would draw far more people if we did. But that is not our Lord's meaning.
The lifting up clearly referred, not to Him not being lifted up in our
preaching, but to His being lifted up on the cross by His enemies to expose
Him to awful shame and to an agonizing death. It is Christ crucified who
draws, it is Christ crucified who meets the deepest needs of the heart
of all mankind; it is an atoning Savior, a Savior who atones for the sins
of men by His death, and thus saves from the holy wrath of an infinitely
holy God, who meets the needs of men, and thus draws all men, for all
men are sinners. Preach any Christ but a crucified Christ, and you will
not draw men for long. Preach any gospel but a gospel of atoning blood,
and it will not draw for long.
Unitarianism does not draw men. Unitarian churches are born only to die.
Their corpses strew New England today. Many of their ministers have been
intellectually among the most brilliant our country has ever known, but
their churches even under scholarly and brilliant ministers die, die,
die! Why? Because Unitarianism presents a gospel without atoning blood,
and Jesus has said and history has proven it true, "But I, when I
am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." "Christian
Science," strangely so called, for, as has been often truly said,
"it is neither Christian nor scientific," draws crowds of men
and women of a certaintype, men and women who have or imagine that they
have physical ailments, and who will follow anything, no matter how absurd,
that promises them a little release from their real or imagined pains.
It also draws crowds who wish to fancy that they have some religion without
paying the price of true religion, genuine love, real self-sacrifice,
and costly sympathy.
But Christian Science does not draw all men, that is, all kinds and conditions
and ranks of men. In fact, for the most part, it does not draw men at
all, but women, and the alleged men it draws are for the most part women
in trousers, and men who see an easy way to make a living by preying on
the vulnerability of luckless females. No, a bloodless gospel, a gospel
with a Christ but not a Christ lifted up on a cross, does not meet the
universal needs of men, and so does not draw all men.
Congregationalism of the past years has been sadly tinctured with Unitarianism.
In spite of the fact that it has been an eyewitness to Unitarianism's
steady decay and death, Congregationalism has largely dropped the atoning
blood out of its theology, and consequently it is rapidly going to the
wall. Its once-great Andover Seminary, still great in the size of its
endowment given for the teaching of Bible orthodoxy, but which the conscienceless
teachers of a bloodless theology have deliberately taken for the exploitation
of their "damnable heresies" (2 Peter 2:1), and which is still
great in the number of its professors, graduated at their annual exercises
last spring just three men, one a Japanese, one a Hindu, and one an American.
A theology without a crucified Savior, without the atoning blood, won't
draw. It does not meet the need. No, no, the words of our Lord are still
true, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
to myself."
3. Note, in the third place, the words, "Draw all men." Does
"all men" mean all individuals or men of all races? Did Jesus
mean that every man and woman who lived on this earth would be drawn to
Him, or did He mean that men of all races would be drawn to Him? The context
answers the question. The Greeks, as we have seen, came to one of the
apostles, Philip, and said, "We would like to see Jesus," and
Philip had gone and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip had gone and told
Jesus. Our Lord's ministry during His earthly life was to Jews only, and
in the coming of these Greeks so soon before His death our Lord saw the
sign of the coming days when by His death on the cross the barrier between
Jews andGentiles would be broken down and all nations would have their
opportunity equally with the Jews, when by His atoning death on the cross
men of all nations would be drawn to Him. He did not say that He would
draw every individual, but all races of men, Greeks as well as Jews, Romans,
Scythians, French, English, Germans, Japanese, Americans, and men of all
nations.
He is a universal Savior, and true Christianity is a universal religion.
Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and all religions but Christianity,
are religions of a restricted application. Christianity, with a crucified
Christ as its center, is a universal religion and meets the needs of all
mankind. It meets the needs of the European as well as the needs of the
Asiatic, the needs of the Occident as well as the needs of the Orient,
the needs of the American Indian and the needs of the African Negro; and
so our Lord said, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men to myself."
No race has ever been found anywhere on this earth to which the Gospel
did not appeal and whose deepest need the crucified Christ did not meet.
Many years ago, when Charles Darwin, the eminent English scientist, came
in contact with the Terre del Fuegans in their gross degradation, he publicly
declared that here was a people to whom it was vain to send missionaries,
as the Gospel could not do anything for them. But brave men of God went
there and took the Gospel to them in the power of the Holy Spirit and
demonstrated that it met the need of the Terre del Fuegans, with such
great results that Charles Darwin publicly admitted his mistake and became
a regular subscriber to the work.
The Gospel, with a crucified Christ as its center, meets the needs of
all conditions and classes of men as well as of all races. It meets the
need of the millionaire and the need of the pauper; it meets the need
of great men of science like James D. Dana and Lord Kelvin, and the need
of the man or woman who cannot read or write; it meets the need of the
king on the throne and the need of the laborer in the ditch. I myself
have seen with my own eyes noblemen and servant girls, university deans
and men who could scarcely read, prisoners in penitentiaries and leaders
in moral uplift, brilliant lawyers and dull, plodding workingmen, come
under its attraction, and be saved byits power. But it was only because
I made "Christ crucified," His atoning work, the center of my
preaching.
4. Notice, in the fourth place, the words, "to myself." "I
will draw all men to myself." It is not to a creed or a system of
doctrine that Jesus draws men, but to a Person, to Himself. That is what
we need, a Person, Jesus Himself. As He Himself once said, "Come
to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"
(Matthew 11:28). Creeds and confessions of faith are all right in their
place, they are of great value; the organized church is of great value,
it is indispensable, and it is the most important institution in the world
today. Society would soon go to rack and ruin without it; we are all under
solemn obligation to God and to our fellow man to support it and belong
to it; but creeds and confessions of faith cannot save; the church cannot
save; a Divine Person can save, Jesus Christ, and He alone. So He says,
"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to
myself."
II. Why Christ Lifted Up on the Cross Draws All Men to Himself
But why does Christ lifted up on the cross, the crucified Christ, draw
all men unto Himself? There are two reasons why Christ lifted up, and
Christ crucified, draws all men unto Himself.
1. First of all, Christ crucified draws all men to Himself because Christ
crucified meets the first, the deepest, the greatest and most fundamental
need of man. What is man's first, greatest, deepest, most fundamental
need? A Savior? A Savior from what? First of all, and underlying all else,
a Savior from the guilt of sin. Every man of every race has sinned. As
Paul put it in Romans 3:23, "There is no difference, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile at this point, nor is there
any difference between English and German at this point; there is no difference
between American and Japanese at this point, no difference between European
and Asiatic, no difference between the American and the African. "There
is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Every man of every race is a sinner; "there is no difference"
at this point. And every man will have to answer for his sin to the infinitely
holy God who rules this universe. Therefore, all men need an atoning Savior,
who can by His atoning death make propitiation for, and so cover up, our
sins, and thus reconcile us to this holy God, and deliver us from His
awful wrath, and bring us out into the glorioussunlight of His favor.
And Jesus lifted up is the only atoning Savior in the universe. He who
alone was at the same time God and man, He alone can make atonement for
sin; and He has made it, has made a perfect atonement, and God has accepted
His atonement and testified to His acceptance of His atonement by raising
Him from the dead. The Lord Jesus actually meets our need, He actually
meets every man's first, greatest, deepest, most fundamental need, and
He alone. In all the universe there is no religion but Christianity that
even offers an atoning Savior.
Mohammedanism offers Mohammed, "The Prophet," a teacher, but
not a Savior; Buddhism offers Buddha, supposedly at least a wonderful
teacher, "The Light of Asia," but not an atoning Savior; Confucianism
offers Confucius, a marvelous teacher far ahead of his time, but not an
atoning Savior. No religion but Christianity offers an atoning Savior,
an atonement of any real character. This is the radical point of difference
between Christianity and every other religion in the world, yet some fool
preachers are trying to eliminate from Christianity this supreme fact,
its very point of radical difference from all other religions. But such
an emasculated Christianity will not reach the needs of men and will not
draw men. It never has and it never will. The Bible and history are at
one on this.
Jesus Christ offers Himself lifted up on the cross to redeem us from the
curse of the law by "becoming a curse for us." "Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for
it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree'" (Galatians
3:13). Men know their need; they may try to forget it, they may try to
deny it; they may try to drown their sense of it by drink and indulgence
or by wild pleasure-seeking or wild money-getting, or by listening to
fake preachers in supposedly orthodox pulpits, like one who in this city
declared recently that "the old sense of sin is fast disappearing,"
and added, "The change is for the better, not for the worse."
He spoke also of "imaginary and artificial sins like 'the sin of
unbelief,'" and then went on to say, "In this we agree with
Christ," apparently not knowing enough about the Bible to know that
Jesus Himself was the very one who said in John 16:8-9, "When he
comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness
and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me."
But in spite of all our attempts to drown or stupefy or silence our senseof
sin, our consciousness of guilt before a Holy God, we all have it, and,
it will not disappear. Nothing gives the guilty conscience abiding peace
but the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. And so Christ lifted up draws all
men to Him, and even wicked ministers of Satan, like the preacher I have
just referred to, sometimes come to their senses and flee to the real
Christ, Christ crucified, as I hope this one may. Yes, Jesus, Jesus only,
Jesus lifted up on the cross, Jesus crucified for our sins, making full
atonement for our sins, He and He alone meets the deepest need of us all,
and so His cross draws us all men to Himself. Happy the man or the woman
who yields to that drawing. Woe be to the man or woman who resists that
drawing; final gloom, despondency, and despair are their lot. Oh, how
many men and women who have gotten their eyes opened to see the facts,
to see their awful guilt, and who have been plunged into deepest consequent
despair, have come to me, and I have pointed them to Jesus on the cross,
and have shown them by God's Word all their sins laid upon Him and thus
settled, and they have come to Him, and believed God's testimony about
Him, that He had borne all their sins in His own body on the cross, and
they have found perfect peace and boundless joy. And that is the only
way to find perfect peace and boundless joy.
Will you set out to find peace? If you do not, great gloom, utter despair,
awaits you some day, in this world or in the world to come. In my first
pastorate I tried to get a man to come to Christ lifted up to meet his
need of pardon; but though it was many years ago he held to the theology
that is preached as "new theology" today, and sought to quiet
the voice of conscience, and stupefy his sense of sin by denying his guilt
and his need of an atoning Savior. He did not wish to listen to me nor
to see me. But the hour came when death drew near. A cancer was eating
its way through scalp and skull into his brain; then he cried to those
about his dying bed, "Send for Mr. Torrey." I hurried to his
side. He was in despair. "Oh!" he said, "Dr. Tidhall tells
me that I have only a short time to live, that as soon as this cancer
gets a little farther and cuts through the thin film of skull and touches
the brain I am a dead man. Tell me how to be saved." I sat down beside
him, and told him what to do to be saved. I tried to make as plain as
I knew how the way of salvation through the uplifted Christ, Christ uplifted
on the cross, and I think I know how to make it plain, but he had waited
too long, he could not grasp it. I stayed with him. Night came on. I said
to his family, "You have been up night after night with him, I will
sit with him tonight." They instructed me what to do, how to minister
to him. Time after time during the night Ihad to go to another room to
get some nourishment for him, and as I would come back into the room where
he lay, from his bed in the corner there would rise the constant cry,
"Oh, I wish I were a Christian. Oh, I wish I were a Christian. Oh,
I wish I were a Christian." And thus he died.
2. In the second place, Christ lifted up on the cross, Christ crucified,
draws all men to Him, because lifted up there to die for us He reveals
His wonderful love, and the wondrous love of the Father for us. "This
is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And
we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" (1 John 3:16), and
"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6, 8). There
is nothing that draws men like love. Love draws all men of every region.
But no love draws like the love of God. "For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) that verse has broken
thousands of hard hearts.
One night, preaching in my own church in Minneapolis, the whole choir
stayed for the after-meeting. The leading soprano was an intelligent young
woman but living a worldly life. She remained with the rest. In the after-meeting
her mother arose in the back of the church and said, "I wish you
would pray for the conversion of my daughter." I did not look around
but knew instinctively that the daughter's cheeks were flushing, and her
eyes flashing with anger. As soon as the meeting was dismissed, I hurried
down so that I would meet her before she got out of the church. As she
came toward me I held out my hand to her. She stamped her foot, and with
flashing eyes cried, "Mr. Torrey, my mother knows better than to
do that. She knows it will only make me worse." I said, "Sit
down, Cora." She sat down, and without any argument I opened my Bible
to Isaiah 53:5, and began to read, "He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace
was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." She burst into tears,
and the next night accepted Jesus Christ. I had to go to Duluth for a
few days, and when I returned I found that she was seriously ill. One
morning her brother came hurrying up to my home and said that she was
apparently dying, that she was unconscious, and white from the loss of
blood. I hastened down, and as I entered the room she lay there with her
eyes closed, with the whitest face I ever saw on one who was not actually
dead. She was apparently unconscious, scarcely breathing. I knelt by her
side to pray,more for the sake of the mother who stood beside the bed
than for her, for I supposed that she was beyond help or hearing. But
no sooner had I finished my prayer than in a clear, full, richly musical
tone she began to pray. These were her words, "Heavenly Father, if
it be Your will, raise me up that as I have used my voice for myself and
only to please myself that I may use my voice for Your glory, but if in
Your wisdom You see that it is best for me not to live, I shall be glad
to go to be with Christ," and she went to be with Christ.
Oh, I have seen thousands melted as I have repeated to them and shown
them the picture of Christ on the cross, as told in Isaiah 53:5, "He
was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we
are healed."
A few days ago I received a missionary magazine containing a testimony
from one who was going to Egypt under the Egypt General Mission. This
young missionary said, "When I was twelve years old, during the Torrey-Alexander
meetings, in 1904, I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Torrey
was speaking on the text, Isaiah 53:5, and he asked us to repeat the words
with him, but changing the word 'our' into the word 'my.' While repeating
the text in this way I suddenly realized, as if for the first time, that
Jesus had really suffered all this for me, and there and then I gave my
life to Him."
Oh, men and women, look now! See Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross,
see Him hanging on that awful cross, see Him wounded for your sins, bruised
for your sins, and the punishment due you was given to Him. Oh, men and
women living in sin, men and women rejecting Christ for the world, men
and women who have looked to the lies of other systems that deny His atoning
blood, listen! "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." Won't you yield to that love, won't
you give up your sin, give up your worldly pleasures, give up your willful
errors, and accept the Savior who loves you, and died for you, who was
"pierced for your transgressions; crushed for your iniquities"
and upon whom the punishment that brought us peace was laid? Accept Him
right now!
Transcribed by Tony Capoccia of BIBLE BULLETIN BOARD, BOX 130, SHREVEPORT,
LA 71110
All Scripture references are taken from the HOLY
BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society,
used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Tony Capoccia
|
|
