"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."