I Will Draw All Men…
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
And when he is come, he will reprove (convict) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:8)
JESUS' DRAWING "ALL MEN" UNTO HIMSELF is to be understood in two ways. He will draw all individuals in the world to Himself and He will draw kinds of men to Himself who are not Jews. No one can come to Him without the Father drawing him. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. (John 6:44-45) (All Jews did not know their God and that is an awesome thought. It’s the same way among all who say they are Christians, but all “Christians” are not Christians.)
SINCE JESUS DIED FOR EVERY SINNER IN THE WORLD, (see 1 John 2:2 below) and none of them can or will come to Him without be drawn to Him, it stands to reason that He draws all men to Himself. He is eternal in the same sense as the Father and Holy Spirit and the sinners of Noah’s day were drawn by Him, although they may not have known about the Trinity of the God-Head. And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)
THE INVISIBLE MAGNETIC FIELD AROUND A BAR MAGNET (pictured above) illustrates the drawing of people to Christ by the Holy Spirit. We continue to read stories of people in Iran and other Muslim countries having dreams about Christ and some of them are responding to the dreams by getting on their knees and surrendering their lives to Christ. It is happening on a scale that is troubling to the authorities and the families where the “dreamers” live.
THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT GOD THE FATHER, DRAWING PEOPLE TO CHRIST through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Preachers and Christian workers can’t save anyone. None! We work with the Holy Spirit who is drawing people.
GOD DREW MOSES TO A BURNING BUSH. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. (Exodus 3:2-4)
WHILE NOAH AND HIS SONS WERE BUILDING THE ARK, HE PREACHED TO THE PEOPLE who came to see him out of curiosity. Noah warned them about a flood that was coming, and God used Noah’s words as a base for striving with the spirits of the people who came to watch him. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (Genesis 6:3)
THE WRITER OF HEBREWS URGED HIS COMPANIONS to draw near to God without faking it: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22)
JAMES IS THE ICON OF PRAYER. HE WAS CALLED "CAMEL-KNEE JAMES." If you type “camel-knee James” into Google, you will get about 16,400,000 hits in 0.66 seconds (less than one second). His knees were calloused from praying so much. We should expect James to know how to advise us about drawing near to God. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. (James 4:8) Jesus is not talking about forcing men to Himself but attracting men to Himself; drawing men to Himself.
OUR TEXT TODAY IS ABOUT A JEWISH SITUATION THAT WAS ABOUT TO CHANGE. To the Jewish mind, their one, true God had always been a Jewish thing. But, now, they are to learn that God’s active program is going to go beyond “Jewish.” Jesus was going to draw “ALL MEN” to Himself; not just Jews. Their new scope of religious activity was going to be: “into all the world, to every creature.” The Jewish Temple and its system of animal sacrifice would be destroyed. But even that would not turn the Jewish mind and heart toward …the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)
IT HAD NOT BEEN THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO EVANGELIZE NON-JEWS. Their responsibility had been to keep separated from their pagan, non-Jewish neighbors. If non-Jews wanted to become Jewish and worship in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, they could do that. But now, Jesus would draw ALL MEN to Himself to be saved. Jesus, the Jewish Messiah would draw Gentiles from all over the world to Himself.
GOD HAD GIVEN HINTS ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP TO THE REST OF THE WORLD through Isaiah and Joel. Isaiah said: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22) Apparently, this invitation was for men to be saved by bowing their knee to God where they were anywhere in the world.
THEY DID NOT HAVE TO MAKE A TRIP TO JERUSALEM TO BE SAVED. They could be saved without bringing a goat or a dove to Jerusalem. It was without becoming a part of the Jewish temple and the Jewish sacrifices. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
THIS EXTENDED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11) The issue was the knee and the tongue that were exercised by the heart. Submission! Surrender! The Philippian jailer would be told: “Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved…(Acts 16:31)
JERUSALEM WAS SPECIAL TO GOD BUT NOT THE GATE TO HEAVEN. The Temple and the city of Jerusalem were where the Lord had chosen to put His name, And the LORD said unto him [Solomon], I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there forever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. (1 Kings 9:3) And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. (1 Kings 11:36)
AGAIN, JERUSALEM WAS NOT THE GATE TO HEAVEN. But… the Jews felt like Jerusalem and the Temple were the gate to Heaven. Jerusalem and the Temple housed the Holy of Holies, which housed the Ark of the Covenant, which housed the tablets of stone carved with the finger of God and Moses brought down off Mount Sinai. (One could not get closer to God than that.)
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. (Joel 2:32)
This was with their faces turned toward Jerusalem where the Jewish messiah would be slain and raised from the dead. As we see in Romans, that salvation was going to be through the Jewish lamb of God who was crucified in Jerusalem and not through the Jewish slaughter of bulls, goats and sheep and doves. The animal sacrifice industry was going to be shut down.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered (saved). (Joel 2) (This is repeated in Romans 10:13)
Read Through the Bible in a Year
AUGUST 20, 2019 – TUESDAY
A.M. Psalm 116-118 P.M. 1 Corinthians 2
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)
Good Verse to Memorize:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
Song for Today:
The Holy Hills of Heaven Call Me (5:49) (Vestal Goodman-Dottie Rambo with Gaither Group)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXrL-Z44KHc
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