That was when He was down here, a man.  And ever since that fleecy cloud received Him out of sight He has been drawing men of all the world.  And time would as utterly fail me, as it did the writer of the Hebrews, if I tried to tell of the men He has drawn.  Men of every rank, high and low, in every nation, savage and civilized, in every generation of all these centuries have felt the thrill of His power.  And they have followed Him at the cost of all that men hold most dear.

And He is just the same to-day.  He is as available now in all His drawing power wherever men meet, in city slum and savage wild, in college hall and business street, among the philosophical and cultured, and among the ignorant and untrained.  If we will take Him to them, and let Him out through our lips and lives, He will draw men up the heights.  He can draw against any power of downward suction, and He will.  He promised to draw men, if lifted up.  And He has never failed to do it.

Now, it is this drawing Jesus that men need and want.  There is an enormous advantage in taking Jesus to men, because there is a something inside men everywhere that responds to Jesus.  That something may be choked and covered up, crowded down and fought against, as it is.  But it is there.  When you take Jesus to a man you may know that you are taking a supply to a demand.  You are bringing a man the answer to his heart’s questions.  It is as the coming together of two parts that belong together, but have been held apart by some hindrance.

That hindrance is stubborn.  It has to be fought.  It can be overcome.  That’s the chief task.  Then the part in man that answers to Jesus eagerly fits into its place in Him.  That coming together is always blessed, beyond words.  Everywhere men of all sorts and ranks and degrees of savagery and culture eagerly respond to Him.  And they declare that they find in Him the full answer to their deepest longings.

Many Doors, but One Purpose.

It is this marvellous magnet, Jesus, that we are to take to men; not theology, nor education, nor medical skill, nor hospitals, nor industrial helps, except incidentally.  These are the tin cup which one is glad to use to give the thirsty traveller water from the spring.

You will understand at once that I have no thought of criticizing theology or of discrediting it, if I could.  It has its place.  But that place is not out in the thick of the crowd, but back in the quiet hall of study.  There must be thorough study and systematic putting together of the truth.  There needs to be patient plodding and mental drilling.

You have no need to be told of the immeasurable value of the splendid foundation building of Christian scholars.  But this is school work, in the main.  It is to make us better workmen.  So a man gets his bearings and poise.  But the people down in the dust and drive of the crowd don’t want theology.  They want Jesus.  It is striking that everywhere men want to hear about Jesus.