After these things, Jesus went over the Sea
of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.
And Jesus went up into a mountain, and
there he sat with his disciples.
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and
saw a great company come unto him, he
saith unto Philip, When shall we buy bread
that these may eat?
Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread
is not sufficient for them, let every one
of them take a little.
There is a lad here which has five
barley loaves, and two small fishes, but what
are they among so many?
And Jesus took the loaves, and when he
had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples,
and the disciples to them that were set
down, and likewise of the fishes as much
as they would.
Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve
baskets with the fragments of the five barley
loaves, which remained over and above, unto them
that had eaten.
Now I do not intend tonight to attempt
a sermon on the breaking of the bread,
but this passage comes next in order in
our examination of the Gospel of John in
our evening sermon.
I am impressed with the first verse.
I could not get by it when I
was thinking of tonight's message, or the second
verse, the first and second.
After these things, Jesus went over the sea
of Galilee, and a great multitude followed him.
And then for the rest of the story,
he is surrounded by them, except for just
a brief time when he pulled loose and
went with his disciples to a mountain.
This is not unusual in the life of
our Lord.
If you will read with this thought in
mind, the four Gospels, you will find Jesus
always in the midst of the people.
Always he is surrounded by the people.
And the finding him here among the people
is not unusual, but rather in character.
Almost always he was with the people, the
only time being on those rare occasions when
he would pull away from them in order
to get a little bit of rest, and
go off by himself up a mountain to
pray.
Now we have taken this for granted.
So many things we have taken for granted
in the Bible, and don't inquire about them.
We take them for granted as we take
the sunshine for granted.
And we lose, perhaps, or fail to acquire
the help that it would give us if
we were to ask the question, why was
he there?
Why was he constantly with the people?
The question becomes more vivid when we notice
that all logic is against his being with
them.
Now notice who he was, and who they
were.
And you will see that logic, and common
expectation based upon reason, would be over on
the other side.
For this was Jesus, whom John so carefully
pictured for us in his first chapter, as
being the Word made flesh.
Before the beginning, and in the beginning, he
was God, and still is God.
And from eternity he had gazed and gazed
on God.
And he himself had received the worship of
the heavenly powers.
I don't claim to know too much about
the heavenly powers.
I'm a greater believer now than I was
20 years ago in the existence of beings
other than ourselves.
Creatures at present superior to us, destined finally
not to be, but now superior to us,
and many of them, and perhaps in rank
and degree.
I think it is quite proper that we
should so conclude, because if it is true,
and I think it is true, that earth
is a reflection of heaven, it was drummed
in his great book, Natural Law and the
Spiritual World, that said that the spiritual world
was the natural world extended infinitely upward.
But I don't believe that's accurate.
I think he is accurate, except that he's
upside down with it.
I believe that the natural world is the
spiritual world projected down.
That earth is the shadow of heaven, and
that if we knew more about earth, we
would know more about heaven, because the same
God made both.
And while sin has entered and has marred
and polluted the earth and all of its
ways, still there remains yet some similarity, and
the same laws that rule above rule below
in nature at least, and everywhere else except
in the rebellious hearts of men.
So that if God made the creatures below
in various orders, and he did, we read
in the Bible how he did, and the
most casual student of nature will know that
the creatures down here are graded upward from,
let's begin with the the angle worm, that
burrows in the earth and helps the farmer,
unknown to the farmer, to make his ground
mellow and the loam soft.
From the angle worm on up, there flies
the bird and there walks the great main
beast, and then there is man.
So if order follows order upward in the
scale of life here below, in this backyard
of God, then why are we to doubt
that in the front yard of God, in
the lawn of God, or yonder in his
heaven, it should not be pretty much the
same?
Why should we doubt?
If there are gradations of beings in heaven,
if there are watchers and the holy ones,
if there are principalities and powers and mights
and dominions, if there are angels and archangels,
if there are seraphim and cherubim and strange
beasts and living creatures, why should we doubt
it?
Why should we not accept it as not
only a matter of faith but a matter
of common reason, that the same God who
made the heaven above made the earth beneath?
I have claimed that God is an artist,
and that the picture, that the handiwork and
fingers of God are upon everything that he
did.
A friend who sits back here can't escape
his skin.
When you flip over a magazine and you're
just casually observing the pictures in the magazine,
and suddenly, if you've known him as long
as I have, you say, that's chaste.
He can't escape himself.
Nobody can escape himself.
They have their style, and though they'll say,
well, now I'll be different this time.
I'm going to be a wrecker, clear-daring,
get clear out of my skin.
The fellow that knows them well will find
their skin.
You can't escape your own personality.
You can't escape your own genius.
And when God made the heaven, he made
the earth the same mark of God is
on the earth that is in the heaven
above.
And the God who made the world above
made the world below, until I admit and
preach that sin entered, and man fell, and
the shadow fell over the earth.
There is still similarity.
There is still some of the fingerprints of
God all over his wonderful world.
Last week, Brother Thomas and I spent, the
week before last, we spent in the great
state of Pennsylvania.
And every time I go back, I come
away convinced that it's the most beautiful state
in the world, in the United States, and
the most beautiful part of the world.
The fact that I was born there might
have prejudiced me slightly in favor of it.
But altogether, apart from the fact that the
native is glad to praise his own country
or his own state, nevertheless, you can't escape
the knowledge that you're looking at a wonderful
paradise, valley and rolling hill and flowing river,
and in the mornings, fog like great, lovely
ribbon hanging above the river to disappear into
the sky later on when the sun comes
up.
All that is beauty, and it has God's
hand upon it.
The only marks of ugliness are man's marks.
For a man has taken his great bulldozers
and gone halfway up the hill and did
what they call strip mining.
Go around with these great bulldozers and dig
the top of the earth off until they've
come to coal.
To get a little cheap coal, they have
marred and chewed up the lovely face of
nature.
It'll take a generation to bring the beauty
back into the hillsides of Pennsylvania, some of
those hills where greedy men have gone in
and marred the face of God's lovely world
for the sake of getting a few extra
dollars.
But God has made it all, and so
it's all lovely in its time.
And the God who made the earth also
made the heaven above.
And so I say again, and repeat for
the fourth or fifth time, that I believe
that there are orders of heaven above, and
that God made those heavens, and that he
made them very much the way he made
the earth, only purely spirit in place of
material, and that when you and I get
there, we're going to feel very much at
home.
Now, our Lord had been there from ancient
times.
How long had he been there?
He'd been there since before they were.
For he was in the beginning with God,
and it was his voice who called out
of the vacuity of nothingness all that loveliness
above yonder.
Before there were any hills or valleys, he
was.
And before there were any archangels and seraphim,
he was.
And before there were any archangels or any
cherub, he was.
Before principalities and powers and mights and dominions
raised their scepters, he was.
And this was the one who now is
among the people.
And he had received the worship of these
heavenly powers.
They had knelt to him and had cried,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
And they had come in great crowds and
knelt at his feet and rendered homage to
him, the son of the Father everlasting.
And he had heard the voice of God
and had gazed upon all the moral beauty
that is in heaven.
I think the voice of God must be
very wonderfully musical.
And this voice of God had sounded in
the ears of the Son of God from
the ancient, before the beginning times, when as
yet there was no creation.
He had heard all this, he had seen
all this, he had filled his eyes with
the beauty of it all.
And he had heard the chant of the
creatures up yonder, crying, Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of hosts.
And he himself was the unspeakably holy one.
There is no exceeding in my description.
I cannot, if I had the voice of
a Demosthenes, or the descriptive power of a
Shakespeare, or the terrible, incisive language of a
Paul, I could not overstate my case in
attempting to describe who he was and is.
Attempting to describe his impeccable holiness, his unsullied
righteousness, his utterly unapproachable, wondrous, glorious person.
This was the one who had walked among
the holy creatures, and had gone from watcher
to holy one, and had heard watchmen cry
from seer, crying, watchmen, watch him tonight.
And now we find him walking among the
people.
And who are these people?
Scripture described them long ago.
God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and every imagination of
the thoughts of each heart was only evil
continually.
Now that's what it says in Genesis 6,
5.
And if I want to read from the
first chapter of Romans, I could carry that
on a bit, and show you what God
says about people.
The word of God has not any very
good thing to say about people.
Even when he grudgingly admits that a man
does something that isn't bad, it says, and
if ye being evil know how to give
good gifts.
If ye being evil, God never forgets that
the imagination and thoughts of the man's heart
is only evil continually.
Let us not imagine that those among whom
Jesus walked were the lovely creatures that men
have painted them to be on canvas.
Let us not think that all the children
had shiny faces, and all the women were
beautiful, and all the men strong and noble
and square-shouldered.
Let us see them for what they were.
Let us be realistic and remember that they
were capable of every sin under the sun,
including murder.
Let us remember that they were filled with
every kind of iniquity, and their sins and
wickednesses were great in the earth, and every
imagination of their continually.
And he who had never had an evil
thought was among men who had never had
a holy thought.
And he who had never gazed upon anything
but moral duty was among men who had
never gazed upon anything but more loveliness.
He who had been with those who worshipped
God in reverence were among those who worshipped
themselves and goods of this world, and all
the toddlery gods that the world has taken
for her own.
Now I say that all logic was against
that.
Why was it?
The first judgment is that he couldn't stand
these people.
The first judgment would be that this holy
one could not stand these unholy ones.
And the offense against his holiness must be
too great.
Reason has a strong case there, ladies and
gentlemen.
So strong is the case of reason that
it has brought in a philosophy called deism.
And the doctrine of deism simply carries my
argument on to its logical conclusion, and says
it cannot be.
And long before the 18th century deists or
17th century deists were ever born, there had
been those called Gnostics.
And the ancient Gnostics against whom Paul aimed
his terrible barrages, those Gnostics said it's impossible
that God should ever touch man.
It's impossible that God should ever touch matter.
It's unthinkable and blasphemous that you should ever
say God created anything.
God never created anything.
God is too holy to touch matter.
God could not possibly touch matter.
Matter was created by demiurges and demigods that
God had thrown out from himself as waves,
that God himself would never stoop to lay
his unspeakably holy hand upon unholy matter.
Well, there were two errors there which we'll
not go into now.
Paul cleaned them up in a hurry in
the book of Colossians, and did a fine
job on them.
John also helped out.
But anyway, that's the argument.
And when we come to the 17th century
and over into the 18th century, we have
such men as, say, Spencer.
And the doctrine was the same.
They said no doubt there's a God, nobody
doubts there's a God.
Men say Voltaire was an atheist.
Voltaire was no more an atheist, and I'm
a Buddhist.
Voltaire was a deist.
He believed that God existed.
And when some priest said an unpleasant thing
about him, because of his so-called atheism,
he turned on him and said, I've said
more good things about God than you ever
did, and I'm not sure about what he
was writing.
But anyway, Voltaire was not an atheist.
Voltaire was a deist.
And the difference between an atheist and a
deist is this.
Oh, I don't want to give you a
lesson.
I know you didn't come here tonight to
get a lesson.
Particularly, you didn't get a lesson in English
definitions.
But an atheist is one.
A meaning not.
And C meaning God, pure.
And an ist is somebody that believes.
So we have it, an atheist is somebody
who says there is no God.
That's simple enough.
And then we come to the word agnostic.
And an agnostic is one that says, I
don't know whether there's a God or not.
And then we have a deist.
And that's what Spencer was.
And that's what, that's what our great Tom
Paine was.
And the rest of the atheists of the
17th and 18th century, they were not atheists,
they were deists.
And yet men called them atheists.
Now what does a deist say?
A deist says, yes, there's a God.
There's a God.
There must be a God.
How otherwise, as Voltaire took his watch from
his pocket and said, you might as well
tell me that that watch made itself, as
to tell me that this vast interlocking system
made itself.
There is a God.
He was hard on the reprieve and hard
on hypocrites, but he was a deist.
And they said God never got close to
mankind.
How could it be?
Why, the great eternal God that made the
heaven and earth, he's too exalted, he's too
high up.
He's too transcendent ever to think that he'd
be interested in you or me.
That's deist.
But you say, what are we then?
Well, we're theists.
Strange how they've taken the word same word
from the Greek and given it to us,
and one took it from the Latin, and
they gave it to the unbelievers.
It's a nice trick if you can get
away with it.
But you and I are theists.
Now a theist is one who believes there
is a God, but doesn't believe God cares
anything about us.
So therefore there's no Savior and no Bible.
A theist is one who believes there is
a God and that God does care something
about us.
And there is a Savior and there is
a Bible.
So always remember you're a theist.
If I were to use the language of
the schools and tell you what you are
tonight, some of you'd go out of your
mad.
You'd say, I'm not that.
Yes, you are.
You're a trinitarian theist with strong pre-millenarian
bent.
I don't run away and say he's called
me names, that's what you are.
Remember down the south, some fellow with a
little education was running against a fellow, another
man in politics, and he knew that some
of the voters down there in the mountains
weren't so much up on definition, so he
started a rumor that his opponent had been
a celibate up until the time he was
married, had been guilty of celibacy.
And the people said, why I never thought
that they ever never dreamed of such a
thing.
That man guilty of celibacy, why he said
that before he was married.
Well, they won't vote for him, so the
other fellow swept in on an easy victory
because the other man had been single up
to the time he's married.
Now don't you go out here and say
I said you were a theist and with
a strong leaning toward pre-millenarianism because that's
what you are.
I don't know how I got over there,
but what I'm trying to say is that
logic says that he couldn't have been among
them.
Logic says being who he was and they
being what they were, he couldn't have been
among them.
That's what reason says.
Strong reason argues he couldn't have been among
them.
It couldn't be that the Lord of high
glory should come down to the men of
low earth.
He who walks among the interstellar spaces should
come down and confine himself and be among
men.
Why did he come?
Bible says he was there.
If you read the gospels you will find
he was there all right.
He was there sleeping among them, eating with
them, sitting down with them, going to their
funerals, breaking them up for the resurrection, going
to their weddings, patting their babies on the
head, helping them up to their feet when
they fell.
He was among them and he was God.
Now why was he among them?
Oh, you know it all.
I'm giving you tonight's repetition, but I sometimes
think that we can endure a little repetition
because it was, who was it that wrote,
tell me the old, old story and those
who know it best seem hungering and thirsting
to hear it like the rest.
Well, why was he among them?
I'll tell you why.
He was there by the awful mystery of
the incarnation.
All that God is had become all that
man is except sin.
Keep that in mind that all that God
is had become all that man is except
sin.
That was the wonderful mystery of the incarnation.
And when he became incarnated he was irrevocably
committed to the human race.
Somebody wrote a book and called it the
point of no return.
The point of no return.
And that's exactly what happened when our Lord
Jesus Christ came to the womb of the
Virgin Mary.
He came to the point of no return.
He committed himself irrevocably while the ages roll
and beat themselves out to nothingness.
World spins after world and millennium follows millennium.
He will be what he was.
All that God was became all that man
is except sin and there is no return
for him.
He came to share man's grief and he
came to share their pain and he came
to share and bear their sins vicariously only
for he himself never personally sinned.
If he had he could not have borne
ours but nevertheless he did bear ours.
Years ago in the 69th psalm I ran
into a passage that I could not get
nor understand.
I knew that the 69th psalm was what
the scholars call a song.
It was a prophecy of Jesus and it
was a prayer of Jesus.
And in the 69th psalm we come to
this passage thou knowest my sin.
And I said now there's confusion somewhere.
If Jesus Christ never sinned according to the
New Testament then how could he pray thou
knowest my sin in the Old Testament?
And then the answer came moving in over
my heart and it's satisfied it ever since.
That when the Bible says he never sinned
it means he never personally sinned.
But when he prayed thou to God thou
knowest my sin he was talking about vicarious
sin.
The sin that he had taken upon himself
and made his own.
Brethren the critics of vicarious atonement have a
lot in their favor.
A lot in their favor.
When they come and say I can't see
this Jesus dying for you.
I can't see this transfer of responsibility from
one personality to another.
And they say by their illustration how would
it be?
How would it be if a man were
brought up before a court of law and
charged with murder?
And he was found guilty of murder.
The judge said stand.
And he stood.
And he said have you anything to say
before sentence is passed upon you?
And he said nothing your honor.
He said you have been found guilty after
in due process of law and after a
fair and just trial.
The jury of your peers have unanimously decided
that you committed premeditated murder.
The laws of the state under which you
live and live require that you die therefore
I sentence this man over here to hang
by the neck until death.
They say how do you get that way?
This man over here commits the murder and
the judge over here sentences this man to
die for.
How do you get that way?
Where is there any heaven justice in heaven?
So they throw out the whole idea of
vicarious atonement.
They say it can't be.
You cannot transfer moral responsibility from one personality
to another personality.
You know the strange part about it is
they're right.
Evangelists and preachers we've taken theology and we've
popularized it and we've explained it as I'm
trying to do tonight and explaining it we've
complicated it and made terrifically complicated what was
very simple.
The simple fact is my brethren that there
never was made a transfer of moral responsibility
from one personality to another in atonement.
But Jesus Christ himself we became part of
him and he became part of us and
he took us up into himself so that
in one sense when he died Paul says
we all died.
And instead of the law putting one man
to death for all it put all men
to death and raised from the dead all
who believe in Jesus Christ.
So that every man dies for his sin.
The sinner dies alone and the Christian dies
in Christ.
But every man dies for his sin.
He either dies by joining his heart to
Jesus Christ and tucked up under the wing
of Jesus dies in the body of Christ
or else he dies alone in his sin.
Jesus used those terrible words you shall die
in your sins.
To die in your sins.
What language can we borrow that could describe
anything more utterly shocking and horrible than to
say he died in his sins.
The dog dying in his vomit and the
pig in her wow and the man in
his sin.
But the Christian dies too.
It says we were crucified with Christ.
Have you noticed that?
Christ the head gathered us all up into
himself and died as we died.
And because he was God his death for
us could mean atonement and resurrection.
If we had died alone and in ourselves
there'd have been no resurrection into eternal life.
But because we died in him and with
him there's a resurrection unto eternal life and
the new birth and glory to come.
Now he was here this Jesus and all
that was God had become all that was
man except sin.
And he had gathered us up into himself.
The old Athanasian creed explains it very carefully.
It says that he became man not by
the coming down of deity into manhood but
by the taking up of manhood into God.
And the churches believed that all down the
centuries.
That the incarnation was not a degradation.
I once heard a man in attempting to
explain the incarnation.
I once heard him say if you could
imagine a toad, an archangel coming down to
take the body of a toad it still
wouldn't be as ghastly, as frightful, as terrible,
as wonderful as the incarnation.
Don't ever talk that way in my presence.
The deity did not degrade itself.
When Jesus Christ became man he humbled himself
but he didn't degrade himself.
The deity never degraded itself and never will.
And when the Holy Son of God walked
among sinful men it was no degradation.
It was not the body of a toad
he inhabited.
It was the body of a sinless man
he inhabited and there was no degradation there.
Because he took that man up into deity.
And manhood is to be taken up into
God.
And if you will read your epistles of
Paul you will find that teaching strong there.
And in the book of John, this 17th
chapter, which I preached some years ago here,
in that 17th chapter you will find Jesus
Christ praying that they all may be one
as we are one.
And teaching the astonishing doctrine that redeemed mankind
is to be taken up into God, emotionally
at least, and experientially as one with God
as the persons of the Trinity are one
with each other.
I tell you if the whole Church of
Christ could get a hold of that idea
and meditate on it prayerfully for just a
day, it would lift the whole concept of
Christianity up infinitely beyond what it is now.
That the incarnation, in the incarnation Jesus became
all that man is except sin.
But in doing it he took man up
into all that God is except deity.
That's why he was among us.
That's why we're theists and not deists.
That's why we say there is a God
and he is a transcendent God high and
lifted up with his train filling the temple.
And logic would say that he could not
be among us.
But the mystery of the incarnation says he
could be and tells us why.
So he came among us, Jesus among the
people.
And why?
That's the talk tonight.
So I say he took our griefs and
our pains and our sins and took our
future and our destiny.
He carries them all in his heart and
upon his shoulders.
And there was no return.
He left the earth but he did not
leave humanity.
He took humanity with him.
He took his humanhood with him into his
Godhead.
And they are both by the right hand
of God tonight.
The big brother had come to rescue the
little brothers.
Somebody called me on the telephone, breaking me
down good for once saying over the radio
that Jesus was our big brother.
He said, I never ought to talk like
that.
I got out from under him and didn't
argue.
But I haven't quit saying that because the
Bible says that he is the firstborn among
many brethren.
Doesn't it say that in the book of
Hebrews?
He's the firstborn among many brethren.
And the little brethren were lost.
So the firstborn went and found him before
changing the figure.
The shepherd was here for his sheep.
The reason says to the shepherd, why are
you here in the darkness among the bushes?
Why look at your clothing, it's torn.
There's a scratch on your cheek, another on
your hand.
Why are you here?
The night is settling down, there are beasts
out here.
Logic says you shouldn't be here.
Back there two miles is a cottage.
In that cottage, a wife, three children, all
waiting for you to come.
The kettle on the stove, the milk in
the pail, supper waiting.
Why are you here?
He would say, up the hollow here somewhere,
and that's why.
That's all the reason I need.
All the logic.
Philosophers say he couldn't be.
He couldn't be.
He's a man.
And the man belongs back at a house
at night, back where there's a bed and
a table and food and warmth.
Logic said he couldn't be.
But he was.
The reason said, ah, he couldn't be.
This man who walked among them.
But he was.
He was.
Because the shepherd had come for the sheep.
Where would the shepherd find the sheep except
where the sheep were?
If the sheep could get to him, he
wouldn't have had to come.
But because they couldn't come to him, he
came to them.
And the wonder of the Incarnation was more
than a theological proposition.
It was a highly emotional act.
Over at Manhattan last week, a week before
last, a little 18-month-old baby wandered
off into the woods and got lost.
If you've ever been around Manhattan, you will
know there's plenty of places to get lost
around there.
Say nothing of a river, the Susquehanna that
flows down below the road.
18 months he was, and he was lost.
And when you're 18 months old, you can't
come home.
If you get home, somebody has to come
for you.
So they organized a surfing party.
Long toward the evening, the afternoon, and they
combed the countryside, the hills.
And there were rattlesnakes up there known to
be.
I suppose that's the only dangerous animal there,
or dangerous creature.
But it only takes one rattlesnake to finish
off one baby anyhow.
That'd be enough.
Finally, they found the little fella sitting up
there, resignedly bawling his little eyes out.
They brought him back, no harm done, maybe
a few scratches.
But they had to go after him.
I don't know, but I suppose the mother
was in that searching party, wasn't she, Brother
Tom?
I'm sure I'd have been.
I know my wife would have been.
I know there wouldn't have been a member
of the family wasn't in that party.
Little 18-month-old chap.
And somebody had to find him.
He couldn't find himself.
The only thing he knew rightly was he
was lost.
And if that mother, wild-eyed and frantic,
choking back her tears, had been seen poking
with a stick into the brush piles and
up under the fallen limbs and among the
briar patches, anybody would say, what are you
doing here?
Why, your nice skirt that you've dressed so
nicely, why, it's all wrinkled.
And your makeup isn't what it was.
And you, you don't look good.
You don't look good.
She never even asked.
She just said, logic says I ought to
be back at the house, but love says
I ought to be up in the hills.
So don't bother, Jesus, with any of these
deistic arguments.
Reason says why should the most holy be
among the most sinful?
Why should the highest be among the lowest?
Why should the God of glory be among
men of shame?
He never answers.
He says he's lost up here someplace, not
hunting him, that's all.
None of the ransomed ever knew how deep
were the waters crossing, for how dark was
the night that the Lord passed through, where
he found his sheep that was lost.
Up in the mountain he heard his cry,
sick and weary and ready to die.
So wrote Sankey, was it, or Elizabeth, Tiffany.
Sankey sang first.
That's why he came.
Now that's all I wanted to say tonight.
It struck me, what is he doing here
among the people?
That's the answer.
The big brother had come for the little
brothers.
The shepherd had come for the sheep.
God had come for man.
The Savior had come for the lost.
And he's still here, unseen by mortal eye,
yet he's with us ever now.
And if you're one of the lost sheep,
he comes to you.
And if you're a lost man, he comes
to you.
Won't you believe that tonight?
Won't you believe that?
The mystery and wonder of his presence among
men, he'd come for you.
I think the nicest thing he ever said
about himself was, the Son of Man has
come to seek and to save that which
was lost.
That was his explanation.
And that could mean you, if you'll only
believe.
Lord, we love thee tonight.
We confess we do.
We want to be restrained and conservative, but
we want thee to know, and we want
the public to know that we love thee
for loving us.
We love thee for coming for us.
We love thee because thy holiness was not
sullied, and thy character degraded, when thou didst
come down for me.
We love thee for this, Lord Jesus.
We bless thee and worship thee this night.
And truly we can sing that thou art
the one in whose presence our soul is
delighted.
Lord, thou art with thy sheep.
Thou art hunting thy sheep.
Thou art searching them out from their ravines
and gullies, caught between sharp points of rock
or among the spires, finding them here and
finding them there, but finding them.
Lord, we pray for any lost sheep here
this evening.
We pray, Lord Jesus, that thou would find
that sheep.
May that sheep not go out any longer
to be in peril of its life.
May it bleat until it attracts the shepherd's
notice, and he comes and takes it on
his shoulder and carries it home rejoicing.
Blessed be thy name.
We thank thee for thy great flock of
all tongues and tribes and nations everywhere, O
Lord, that have been found, the found ones.
We think a lot of the lost ones,
but we thank thee for the found ones,
which will make any aggregate a group that
nobody can number like the sands of the
seashore.
All lost, but all found.
The found ones.
Blessed be thy name.
Bless every man who's preached in this city
tonight, or is now preaching, who is now
or will be shortly, offering the gospel to
men in invitation.
O Lord, blanket Chicago with the cloud of
the Holy Ghost.
Come down on us, we pray thee, like
the descending chicken.
May many who are out tonight be in
before ten o'clock.
Were lost tonight, be found before this service
closes.
We trust thee to hear us and answer
us through Jesus.