Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. - Isa. lv:
6.
Isaiah stands head and shoulders above
the other Old Testament authors in vivid descriptiveness
of Christ. Other prophets give an outline of
our Saviour’s features. Some of them present,
as it were, the side face of Christ; others a bust
of Christ; but Isaiah gives us the full-length portrait
of Christ. Other Scripture writers excel in some
things. Ezekiel more weird, David more pathetic,
Solomon more epigrammatic, Habakkuk more sublime;
but when you want to see Christ coming out from the
gates of prophecy in all His grandeur and glory, you
involuntarily turn to Isaiah. So that if the prophecies
in regard to Christ might be called the “Oratorio
of the Messiah,” the writing of Isaiah is the
“Hallelujah Chorus,” where all the batons
wave and all the trumpets come in. Isaiah was
not a man picked up out of insignificance by inspiration.
He was known and honored. Josephus, and Philo,
and Sirach extolled him in their writings. What
Paul was among the apostles, Isaiah was among the
prophets.
My text finds him standing on a mountain
of inspiration, looking out into the future, beholding
Christ advancing and anxious that all men might know
Him; his voice rings down the ages: “Seek
ye the Lord while He may be found.” “Oh,”
says some one: “that was for olden times.”
No, my hearer. If you have traveled in other lands
you have taken a circular letter of credit from some
banking-house in New York, and in St. Petersburg,
or Venice, or Rome, or Antwerp, or Brussels, or Paris;
you presented that letter and got financial help immediately.
And I want you to understand that the text, instead
of being appropriate for one age, or for one land,
is a circular letter for all ages and for all lands,
and wherever it is presented for help, the help comes:
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.”
I come, to-day, with no hair-spun
theories of religion, with no nice distinctions, with
no elaborate disquisition; but with a plain talk on
the matters of personal religion. I feel that
the sermon I preach this morning will be the savor
of life unto life, or of death unto death. In
other words, the Gospel of Christ is a powerful medicine:
it either kills or cures. There are those who
say: “I would like to become a Christian,
I have been waiting a good while for the right kind
of influences to come;” and still you are waiting.
You are wiser in worldly things than you are in religious
things. If you want to get to Albany, you go
to the Grand Central Depot, or to the steam-boat wharf,
and, having got your ticket, you do not sit down on
the wharf or sit in the depot; you get aboard the
boat or train. And yet there are men who say
they are waiting to get to heaven waiting,
waiting, but not with intelligent waiting, or they
would get on board the line of Christian influences
that would bear them into the kingdom of God.
Now you know very well that to seek
a thing is to search for it with earnest endeavor.
If you want to see a certain man in New York, and
there is a matter of $10,000 connected with your seeing
him, and you can not at first find him, you do not
give up the search. You look in the directory,
but can not find the name; you go in circles where
you think, perhaps, he may mingle, and, having found
the part of the city where he lives, but perhaps not
knowing the street, you go through street after street,
and from block to block, and you keep on searching
for weeks and for months.
You say: “It is a matter
of $10,000 whether I see him or not.” Oh,
that men were as persistent in seeking for Christ!
Had you one half that persistence you would long ago
have found Him who is the joy of the forgiven spirit.
We may pay our debts, we may attend church, we may
relieve the poor, we may be public benefactors, and
yet all our life disobey the text, never seek God,
never gain heaven. Oh, that the Spirit of God
would help this morning while I try to show you, in
carrying out the idea of my text, first, how to seek
the Lord, and in the next place, when to seek Him.
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.”
I remark, in the first place, you
are to seek the Lord through earnest and believing
prayer. God is not an autocrat or a despot seated
on a throne, with His arms resting on brazen lions,
and a sentinel pacing up and down at the foot of the
throne. God is a father seated in a bower, waiting
for His children to come and climb on His knee, and
get His kiss and His benediction. Prayer is the
cup with which we go to the “fountain of living
water,” and dip up refreshment for our thirsty
soul. Grace does not come to the heart as we set
a cask at the corner of the house to catch the rain
in the shower. It is a pulley fastened to the
throne of God, which we pull, bringing the blessing.
I do not care so much what posture
you take in prayer, nor how large an amount of voice
you use. You might get down on your face before
God, if you did not pray right inwardly, and there
would be no response. You might cry at the top
of your voice, and unless you had a believing spirit
within, your cry would not go further up than the
shout of a plow-boy to his oxen. Prayer must be
believing, earnest, loving. You are in your house
some summer day, and a shower comes up, and a bird,
affrighted, darts into the window, and wheels about
the room. You seize it. You smooth its ruffled
plumage. You feel its fluttering heart.
You say, “Poor thing, poor thing!” Now,
a prayer goes out of the storm of this world into
the window of God’s mercy, and He catches it,
and He feels its fluttering pulse, and He puts it
in His own bosom of affection and safety. Prayer
is a warm, ardent, pulsating exercise. It is
the electric battery which, touched, thrills to the
throne of God! It is the diving-bell in which
we go down into the depths of God’s mercy and
bring up “pearls of great price.”
There was an instance where prayer made the waves
of the Gennesaret solid as Russ pavement. Oh,
how many wonderful things prayer has accomplished!
Have you ever tried it? In the days when the Scotch
Covenanters were persecuted, and the enemies were
after them, one of the head men among the Covenanters
prayed: “Oh, Lord, we be as dead men unless
Thou shalt help us! Oh, Lord, throw the lap of
Thy cloak over these poor things!” And instantly
a Scotch mist enveloped and hid the persecuted from
their persecutors the promise literally
fulfilled: “While they are yet speaking
I will hear.”
Oh, impenitent soul, have you ever
tried the power of prayer? God says: “He
is loving, and faithful, and patient.” Do
you believe that? You are told that Christ came
to save sinners. Do you believe that? You
are told that all you have to do to get the pardon
of the Gospel is to ask for it. Do you believe
that? Then come to Him and say: “Oh,
Lord! I know Thou canst not lie. Thou hast
told me to come for pardon, and I could get it.
I come, Lord. Keep Thy promise, and liberate my
captive soul.”
Oh, that you might have an altar in
the parlor, in the kitchen, in the store, in the barn,
for Christ will be willing to come again to the manger
to hear prayer. He would come in your place of
business, as He confronted Matthew, the tax commissioner.
If a measure should come before Congress that you
thought would ruin the nation, how you would send
in petitions and remonstrances! And yet there
has been enough sin in your heart to ruin it forever,
and you have never remonstrated or petitioned against
it. If your physical health failed, and you had
the means, you would go and spend the summer in Germany,
and the winter in Italy, and you would think it a
very cheap outlay if you had to go all round the earth
to get back your physical health. Have you made
any effort, any expenditure, any exertion for your
immortal and spiritual health? No, you have not
taken one step.
O that you might now begin to seek
after God with earnest prayer. Some of you have
been working for years and years for the support of
your families. Have you given one half day to
the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling?
You came here this morning with an earnest purpose,
I take it, as I have come hither with an earnest purpose,
and we meet face to face, and I tell you, first of
all, if you want to find the Lord, you must pray,
and pray, and pray.
I remark again, you must seek the
Lord through Bible study. The Bible is the newest
book in the world. “Oh,” you say,
“it was made hundreds of years ago, and the
learned men of King James translated it hundreds of
years ago.” I confute that idea by telling
you it is not five minutes old, when God, by His blessed
Spirit, retranslates it into the heart. If you
will, in the seeking of the way of life through Scripture
study, implore God’s light to fall upon the page,
you will find that these promises are not one second
old, and that they drop straight from the throne of
God into your heart.
There are many people to whom the
Bible does not amount to much. If they merely
look at the outside beauty, why it will no more lead
them to Christ than Washington’s farewell address
or the Koran of Mohammed or the Shaster of the Hindoos.
It is the inward light of God’s Word you must
get or die. I went up to the church of the Madeleine,
in Paris, and looked at the doors which were the most
wonderfully constructed I ever saw, and I could have
stayed there for a whole week; but I had only a little
time, so, having glanced at the wonderful carving
on the doors, I passed in and looked at the radiant
altars, and the sculptured dome. Alas, that so
many stop at the outside door of God’s Holy
Word, looking at the rhetorical beauties, instead
of going in and looking at the altars of sacrifice
and the dome of God’s mercy and salvation that
hovers over penitent and believing souls!
O my friends! if you merely want to
study the laws of language, do not go to the Bible.
It was not made for that. Take “Howe’s
Elements of Criticism” it will be
better than the Bible for that. If you want to
study metaphysics, better than the Bible will be the
writings of William Hamilton. But if you want
to know how to have sin pardoned, and at last to gain
the blessedness of Heaven, search the Scriptures,
“for in them ye have eternal life.”
When people are anxious about their
souls and there are some such here to-day there
are those who recommend good books. That is all
right. But I want to tell you that the Bible is
the best book under such circumstances. Baxter
wrote “A Call to the Unconverted,” but
the Bible is the best call to the unconverted.
Philip Doddridge wrote “The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul,” but the Bible is the
best rise and progress. John Angell James wrote
“Advice to the Anxious Inquirer,” but
the Bible is the best advice to the anxious inquirer.
O, the Bible is the very book you
need, anxious and inquiring soul! A dying soldier
said to his mate: “Comrade, give me a drop!”
The comrade shook up the canteen, and said: “There
isn’t a drop of water in the canteen.”
“Oh,” said the dying soldier, “that’s
not what I want; feel in my knapsack for my Bible,”
and his comrade found the Bible, and read him a few
of the gracious promises, and the dying soldier said:
“Ah, that’s what I want. There isn’t
anything like the Bible for a dying soldier, is there,
my comrade?” O blessed book while we live!
Blessed book when we die!
I remark, again, we must seek God
through church ordinances. “What,”
say you, “can’t a man be saved without
going to church?” I reply, there are men, I
suppose, in glory, who have never seen a church:
but the church is the ordained means by which we are
to be brought to God; and if truth affects us when
we are alone, it affects us more mightily when we
are in the assembly the feelings of others
emphasizing our own feelings. The great law of
sympathy comes into play, and a truth that would take
hold only with the grasp of a sick man, beats mightily
against the soul with a thousand heart-throbs.
When you come into the religious circle,
come only with one notion, and only for one purpose to
find the way to Christ. When I see people critical
about sermons, and critical about tones of voice, and
critical about sermonic delivery, they make me think
of a man in prison. He is condemned to death,
but an officer of the government brings a pardon and
puts it through the wicket of the prison, and says:
“Here is your pardon. Come and get it.”
“What! Do you expect me to take that pardon
offered with such a voice as you have, with such an
awkward manner as you have? I would rather die
than so compromise my rhetorical notions!” Ah,
the man does not say that; he takes it! It is
his life. He does not care how it is handed to
him. And if, this morning, that pardon from the
throne of God is offered to our souls, should we not
seize it, regardless of all criticism, feeling that
it is a matter of heaven or hell?
But I come now to the last part of
my text. It tells us when we are to seek the
Lord. “While He may be found.”
When is that? Old age? You may not see old
age. To-morrow? You may not see to-morrow.
To-night? You may not see to-night. Now!
O if I could only write on every heart in three capital
letters, that word N-O-W Now!
Sin is an awful disease. I hear
people say with a toss of the head and with a trivial
manner: “Oh, yes, I’m a sinner.”
Sin is an awful disease. It is leprosy.
It is dropsy. It is consumption. It is all
moral disorders in one. Now you know there is
a crisis in a disease. Perhaps you have had some
illustration of it in your family. Sometimes
the physician has called, and he has looked at the
patient and said: “That case was simple
enough; but the crisis has passed. If you had
called me yesterday, or this morning, I could have
cured the patient. It is too late now; the crisis
has passed.” Just so it is in the spiritual
treatment of the soul there is a crisis.
Before that, life! After that, death! O
my dear brother, as you love your soul do not let
the crisis pass unattended to!
There are some here who can remember
instances in life when, if they had bought a certain
property, they would have become very rich. A
few acres that would have cost them almost nothing
were offered them. They refused them. Afterward
a large village or city sprung up on those acres of
ground, and they see what a mistake they made in not
buying the property. There was an opportunity
of getting it. It never came back again.
And so it is in regard to a man’s spiritual and
eternal fortune. There is a chance; if you let
that go, perhaps it never comes back. Certainly,
that one never comes back.
A gentleman told me that at the battle
of Gettysburg he stood upon a height looking off upon
the conflicting armies. He said it was the most
exciting moment of his life; now one army seeming to
triumph, and now the other. After awhile the
host wheeled in such a way that he knew in five minutes
the whole question would be decided. He said the
emotion was almost unbearable. There is just such
a time to-day with you, O impenitent soul! the
forces of light on the one side, and the siege-guns
of hell on the other side, and in a few moments the
matter will be settled for eternity.
There is a time which mercy has set
for leaving port. If you are on board before
that, you will get a passage for heaven. If you
are not on board, you miss your passage for heaven.
As in law courts a case is sometimes adjourned from
term to term, and from year to year till the bill
of costs eats up the entire estate, so there are men
who are adjourning the matter of religion from time
to time, and from year to year, until heavenly bliss
is the bill of costs the man will have to pay for
it.
Why defer this matter, oh, my dear
hearer? Have you any idea that sin will wear
out? that it will evaporate? that it will relax its
grasp? that you may find religion as a man accidentally
finds a lost pocket-book? Ah, no! No man
ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relaxing
of sin. The embarrassments are all the time increasing.
The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer
you postpone this matter the steeper the path will
become. I ask those men who are before me this
morning, whether, in the ten or fifteen years they
have passed in the postponement of these matters,
they have come any nearer God or heaven?
I would not be afraid to challenge
this whole audience, so far as they may not have found
the peace of the Gospel, in regard to the matter.
Your hearts, you are willing frankly to tell me, are
becoming harder and harder, and that if you come to
Christ it will be more of an undertaking now than
it ever would have been before. Oh, fly for refuge!
The avenger of blood is on the track! The throne
of judgment will soon be set; and, if you have anything
to do toward your eternal salvation, you had better
do it now, for the redemption of your soul is precious,
and it ceaseth forever!
Oh, if men could only catch just one
glimpse of Christ, I know they would love Him!
Your heart leaps at the sight of a glorious sunrise
or sunset. Can you be without emotion as the
Sun of Righteousness rises behind Calvary, and sets
behind Joseph’s sepulcher? He is a blessed
Saviour! Every nation has its type of beauty.
There is German beauty, and Swiss beauty, and Italian
beauty, and English beauty; but I care not in what
land a man first looks at Christ, he pronounces Him
“chief among ten thousand, and the One altogether
lovely.” O my blessed Jesus! Light
in darkness! The Rock on which I build! The
Captain of Salvation! My joy! My strength!
How strange it is that men can not love Thee!
The diamond districts of Brazil are
carefully guarded, and a man does not get in there
except by a pass from the government; but the love
of Christ is a diamond district we may all enter,
and pick up treasures for eternity. Oh, cry for
mercy! “To-day, if ye will hear His voice,
harden not your hearts.” There is a way
of opposing the mercy of God too long, and then there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful
looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall
devour the adversary. My friends, my neighbors,
what can I say to induce you to attend to this matter to
attend to it now? Time is flying, flying the
city clock joining my voice this moment, seeming to
say to you, “Now is the time! Now is the
time!” Oh, put it not off!
Why should I stand here and plead,
and you sit there? It is your immortal soul.
It is a soul that shall never die. It is a soul
that must soon appear before God for review.
Why throw away your chance for heaven? Why plunge
off into darkness when all the gates of glory are
open? Why become a castaway from God when you
can sit upon the throne? Why will ye die miserably
when eternal life is offered you, and it will cost
you nothing but just willingness to accept it?
“Come, for all things are now ready.”
Come, Christ is ready, pardon is ready! The Church
is ready. Heaven is ready. You will never
find a more convenient season, if you should live
fifty years more, than this very one. Reject
this, and you may die in your sins. Why do I say
this? Is it to frighten your soul? Oh, no!
It is to persuade you. I show you the peril.
I show you the escape. Would I not be a coward
beyond all excuse, if, believing that this great audience
must soon be launched into the eternal world, and
that all who believe in Christ shall be saved, and
that all who reject Christ will be lost would
I not be the veriest coward on earth to hide that
truth or to stand before you with a cold, or even
a placid manner? My dear brethren, now is the
day of your redemption.
It is very certain that you and I
must soon appear before God in judgment. We can
not escape it. The Bible says: “Every
eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him,
and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because
of Him.” On that day all our advantages
will come up for our glory or for our discomfiture every
prayer, every sermon, every exhortatory remark, every
reproof, every call of grace; and while the heavens
are rolling away like a scroll, and the world is being
destroyed, your destiny and my destiny will be announced.
Alas! alas! if on that day it is found that we have
neglected these matters. We may throw them off
now. We can not then. We will all be in earnest
then. But no pardon then. No offer of salvation
then. No rescue then. Driven away in our
wickedness banished, exiled, forever!
Have you ever imagined what will be
the soliloquy of the soul on that day unpardoned,
as it looks back upon its past life? “Oh,”
says the soul, “I had glorious Sabbaths!
There was one Sabbath in autumn when I was invited
to Christ. There was a Sabbath morning when Jesus
stood and spread out His arm and invited me to His
holy heart. I refused Him. I have destroyed
myself. I have no one else to blame. Ruin
complete! Darkness unpitying, deep, eternal!
I am lost! Notwithstanding all the opportunities
I have had of being saved, I am lost! O Thou
long-suffering Lord God Almighty, I am lost! O
day of judgment, I am lost! O father, mother,
brother, sister, child in glory, I am lost!”
And then as the tide goes out, your soul goes out
with it further from God, further from happiness,
and I hear your voice fainter, and fainter, and fainter:
“Lost! Lost! Lost! Lost!
Lost!” O ye dying, yet immortal men, “seek
the Lord while He may be found.”
But I want you to take the hint of
the text that I have no time to dwell on the
hint that there is a time when He can not be found.
There is a man in New York, eighty years of age, who
said to a clergyman who came in, “Do you think
that a man at eighty years of age can get pardoned?”
“Oh, yes,” said the clergyman. The
old man said: “I can’t; when I was
twenty years of age I am now eighty years the
Spirit of God came to my soul, and I felt the importance
of attending to these things, but I put it off.
I rejected God, and since then I have had no feeling.”
“Well,” said the minister, “wouldn’t
you like to have me pray with you?” “Yes,”
replied the old man, “but it will do no good.
You can pray with me if you like to.” The
minister knelt down and prayed, and commended the
man’s soul to God. It seemed to have no
effect upon him. After awhile the last hour of
the man’s life came, and through his delirium
a spark of intelligence seemed to flash, and with
his last breath he said; “I shall never be forgiven!”
“O seek the Lord while He may be found.”