In this sermon, the preacher begins by posing a hypothetical scenario of a man being sentenced to death for murder. He then transitions to describing the beauty of nature and how man's actions have marred it. The preacher then focuses on the first and second verses of a Bible passage about Jesus being surrounded by a great multitude. He emphasizes that Jesus was often found among the people, except for rare occasions when he sought solitude to pray. The preacher concludes by expressing the difficulty of adequately describing the holiness and glory of Jesus.

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. 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.