1. There is no fact like the Cross of Christ. It stands alone in the world’s history.
MEN draw their fellow-men after themselves by strength and victory: thousands follow a great conqueror to the battlefield to perish for his name and glory: God draws men to Himself by His Son dying for them, and the myriads who have been attracted to God have had their hearts knit to Him by the shame and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does our reader say with those men of old whose desires cheered the heart of the Lord, “We would see Jesus”? Then repair to Calvary. “Behold the Lamb of God!” “Look on Him whom they pierced,” who “suffered for sin, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God”: for “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” By nature we are enemies to God, and love to live apart and afar from Him. His holiness we hate, but there is a constraining power in the Cross. Thence come the words from the heart of the Crucified One:— “I will draw all men unto Me.”
2. There is irresistible power in the Cross.
We come to Christ with our sins, self—all that we are—just as we are; yet closer to Him as we see Him made sin for us. “The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Christ died for me. He gave Himself for me. He bore my sins in His own body upon the tree. Those sufferings, those wounds, that blood, that being forsaken of God, was for me! This is the great attraction: “AND I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME,” and looking upon Him, the sins are forgiven, the doubts vanish, the fears cease.
3. God’s holiness and righteousness and love are seen in the Cross.
The more we look at Him there, the easier, the sweeter is coming to Him. Away are flung the hindrances—the rags of religion in which we wrapped ourselves, the love of sin in which we reveled: while the old, hard, bitter, bad thoughts of God are completely burned out of our breasts by the matchless love of the Son of God dying in the stead of His enemies.
4. Millions have been drawn to God by this great love wherewith He loved us.