"WHAT SEEK YE"

“WHAT SEEK YE”

Isaiah 55: 6, 7; Luke 19: 10; John 4: 19-28

In John 1: 38 the Lord Jesus asked the two disciples who were following Him, “What seek ye?” I would like to ask you earnestly the same question. What are you seeking, dear friend? — for you surely have some objective before you. You are not like a cow or a sheep leading an aimless existence; if you would disclose your heart and mind you would admit that you are following something. What is it? — the Lord asks. You are not satisfied, though you may get up in the morning and go about your business, eat and drink and sleep, yet you know there is something more in life than to live just as an animal. Everyone is really seeking something, and the question the Lord would raise with you, as He did with these two men in John 1, is, “What seek ye?” What is your objective? What are you seeking? Many a man is after money. Do you think that if you could get all you want, you would be really satisfied? Suppose you reach your objective on that line and become a millionaire, do you think you would be happy? Do you think your heart would be satisfied? It is not many years since a wealthy man in S — committed suicide because he felt life was not worth living. Ask those who are rich in this world, if they are really satisfied? Some would admit they are disappointed. Then again, if you reach your objective, how long will you keep it? You might not keep it even as long as you live, for Scripture says, “riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away,” Proverbs 23: 5. If your wealth does not fly away, death is very near, and you cannot take your riches beyond death. Whether you are seventy years of age, or thirty, or but a child, yet you may die; death may be only a step away — as David said, “There is but a step between me and death.” It may be as near as that, and you have spent your life in getting money which you cannot take with you.

Another person may say, I am not very interested in money, my objective is fame. What would I not give for a name! How many a man is in that position, and many a woman too. To have a place in the world of science, or of music, or in the business world, or in sport, or even in the world of religion. Dear friend, supposing you get what you thus seek, what is it worth? I sometimes walk past a monument on which is inscribed, ‘Their name lives for ever,’ and I say to myself. How false! How many persons on earth today have thought of the Duke of Wellington? It is not so very long since he was one of the greatest generals of the British army, but who today has thought of him? How many hearts have been warmed as they thought of him? Does his name live for evermore, when even a hundred years or so after his death he is largely forgotten. I question whether many have really thought seriously of Marconi today, though his death is so recent. But, dear friends, millions have thought of the name of Jesus today!

Millions have thought of His fame and have rejoiced in His greatness! It lives in millions of hearts, as if He had only died yesterday instead of nearly two thousand years ago. His name indeed lives for evermore — but not Wellington’s, or Marconi’s, or Napoleon’s. You may get all the fame this world can give you, and it is but a bubble. What is the fame of the fastest airman worth? It may last a week or two and then people forget all about him; or he may be dashed to pieces, and his name passes into oblivion with all its so-called fame.

So the Lord says to each one, “What seek ye?” One of the Lord’s names is “Counsellor.” He would counsel men: “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.” There is nothing more important for men than to seek the Lord, and to seek Him while He may be found. Do you think He cannot be found? Even men can communicate with one another across the globe; in a very short time they will be able to see one another across the globe, and do you think the Lord cannot put Himself in touch with men at any time? Scripture tells us He is “very readily found,” and that He is “not far from every one of us.” That you cannot see Him with your natural eyes, does not alter the truth. The greatest things in the material universe are invisible; God is the invisible God; but He is very near you, and the word is, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.”

The prophet Amos says, “Seek him that... turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night.” Man’s works are exceedingly small when you consider God and His works. Think of the wonder of a morning! The night passes and the morning breaks; it is a marvellous act of power and glory to bring about morning, when the sun rises and brings the light and warmth and gladness of another day. The prophet says, “Seek him.”

I would commend this word to you, my friend, seek the Lord now when He may be found. Today is the time of salvation. Perhaps you say, I have a few years before I need do so. Are you sure? There is a place beyond death where you cannot find Him, where He is not near. Beyond death there is a great gulf fixed, and one side of that none can find God. Now is the time to find Him while He is near. He is watching you to see whether you want Him, as Paul said, “if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.” If you have a feeling that you want God, God observes that, but then you cannot find God and go on with your wicked ways, the two things are morally impossible. “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” You must give up your wicked way, and the unrighteous thoughts, if you want to find God. The publican was far from God, but he condemned himself and forsook his wicked way and his unrighteous thoughts, and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and we are told he “went down to his house justified.” He had found God. I earnestly commend his course to you. If you want to find God, you cannot go on with your wickedness and unrighteousness, but if you are prepared on your side to forsake them, you will find God. “Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him.” He will abundantly pardon a repenting and returning sinner.

You may well be a seeker, and the Lord says to such, “Seek and ye shall find.” You may seek money, but you may not find it; you may seek fame, but it may elude you; you may seek pleasure, but it is not found; or rest and you cannot obtain it. Rest is one of the most difficult things to find in this world, but it is of all importance that you should find it. If you have not soul rest — rest of heart, you will sink deeper and deeper into evil until it completely controls you. But the Lord Jesus says, “Seek and ye shall find” — I would urge you to be a seeker after God and after Christ; He is at hand to be found. If you seek for “glory and honour and immortality,” you will find eternal life in the knowledge of God.

I want to say, a word now about the Lord Jesus as a Seeker. It is wonderful that He should be a Seeker. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Think of the Lord linking Himself with mankind as the “Son of man.” He took this title in relation to men, that He might seek men. He who, far above all the heavens, who was with God, and who was God, came to earth and took this title, that He might seek men. Whom will He seek? The lost, no one else. Have you ever thought of being lost? What a terrible word lost is! Man has lost God, and has lost his way. “They have all gone out of the way.” I do not know anything more pitiful than to think of man without God: the God who created, him; the God who shines on him creatorially every day, who sends the rain from heaven and the fruitful seasons. What will man do as lost? Alas, he will make an idol; for man must have a god, he must have an object. There is no race on earth that has not its god, but these vain idols only displace the only true God in man’s heart. The “Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.” Think of all the diligence with which He sought the lost. From the place of the glory of God down to Calvary, is the journey of that Seeker, the great Seeker from heaven, seeking the lost, travelling the road the lost ones have travelled, going on until He finds them.

Where will He find them? Calvary is the terminus, of the journey, and there He finds the lost. The two thieves crucified by the side of Christ are just samples of mankind. Two lost men — two witnesses to man’s lost condition. One is found by the Seeker, but the other despised Him. The terminus to which man’s ways bring him is the place of the curse, and Jesus went there Himself — went to Calvary — seeking the lost. “The Son of man must be lifted up” — I do not know anything more wonderful than that “must” — He must be lifted up. Why “must”? Because He must find the lost, and to do so He must go where they are, and that is under curse — in darkness and woe and death and judgment. Jesus travelled that road to the terminus, to seek and to save the lost. One robber at His side is saved; he discovers the blessed Seeker in Jesus. He is found and saved, but the other despises the Seeker and is lost, and lost for ever. He goes into the outer darkness away from God. Does it not appeal to your heart that Jesus should thus come to seek you? Your side is to seek God, but the other side is, that He seeks you in your ruin and distance. He is seeking you at this moment; He says, “Give me thine heart.” He has knocked at the door of your heart many a time, and I would appeal to you to open to Him, that you may be saved.

In John 4 we read of God — the Father — seeking. Isaiah tells us that we are to seek; the responsibility of every man, woman, and child is to seek God. That stands. As a responsible creature God requires you to seek Him, but then the Lord Jesus became Man that He might seek you, and in John 4 He tells a poor sinful woman that the Father is seeking. God Himself, made known in grace as the Father, is seeking men to worship Him. Do not the myriads of the worlds above satisfy Him? The vast realm of glory above us — the worlds — “were framed by the word of God.” Is that not sufficient for God? The earth with its fulness, its fruitfulness of trees and flowers and herbs, does that not yield satisfaction to the heart of God? Still He seeks. Innumerable angels mighty in strength, doing His commandments; His ministers doing His pleasure, cannot they give Him satisfaction? The Lord tells us He is seeking worshippers. He wants living persons — not only worship, but worshippers. “The Father seeketh such to worship him.” He wants men to whom He is everything, whose hearts are engaged with Him, so that they worship Him in spirit and in truth. He wants your inner being to be moved towards Him, so that you worship Him in spirit. And then there must be truth — no mere form, but truth in the inward parts as you approach Him.

The Lord Jesus was talking to a poor sinful unsatisfied woman. She had turned away from God to many objects, but she was still unsatisfied, and the Lord says to her, “the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” The Lord proposed to satisfy her heart for ever, so that from her heart the Father might have the worship He was seeking. The Lord Jesus says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” He proposed to satisfy her heart for ever.

Supposing you were called to die today — and any of us might be — would the thought of entering into the presence of God bow down your soul in worship? Would you be in fulness of joy? That is what the Lord proposed to this poor woman — that He would so fill her heart as finding in Himself a satisfying Object for her affections, that she would become a worshipper. If Christ is your object, you will be a worshipper of God. The woman goes away, she leaves her water-pot. She says in effect, I have no more need of this, I have found Christ, and He is great enough to fill my heart, and to fill yours. She says to the men of the city, “Come, see a Man that told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” When Christ becomes your Object, you become a worshipper, and the Father finds what He seeks.

The great object of the gospel is not only to bless you and to deliver you from the wrath to come, blessed as that is, but that God might have the love of your heart, so that as knowing Him, and loving Him, you worship Him as satisfied for ever in the knowledge of Himself. God is made known in Jesus; He is “the image of the invisible God” — a most wonderful statement. God has put Himself near to you in one Blessed Person, who is the “express image of his person.” What God is, is expressed in the Person of Christ.

May the Lord help you to seek God for yourself, and you will find that Christ has been all the way to Calvary to seek you, so that you might become one who ministers to the desire of the Father — God known in grace — “for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”