Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1313
“And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13.
LAST Sabbath morning [See Sermon No. 1312, “Good News for Seekers.”] we gave forth words of good cheer to those who seek the Lord, dwelling upon those encouraging words of the Savior upon the Cross, “They shall praise the Lord that seek Him.” We aimed only at the one point of encouraging seekers, for a single objective is always enough for one discourse and the impression made is more likely to be permanent. We had neither time nor desire to qualify our language with discriminating remarks which would help to show who are true seekers and who are not. One cannot reap and winnow with the same machine. I think it is right, therefore, that we should follow up that discourse by another in which we shall discern between those who truly seek and those who only nominally seek the Lord.
Such discrimination will be useful in many ways. Perhaps, dear Friend, after last Lord’s-Day you said, “I do not understand this promise that seekers shall praise God, for I have been seeking for many months but I have not been able to praise Him. Surely the promise cannot be true for me.” Rest assured, dear Friend, that the promise is true for you if you are true to it. The Word of the Lord is sure. There can be no question upon that point—the questions to be raised must deal with yourself and your searching—either you do not seek or else you seek amiss. Always conclude that if a general promise does not turn out to be true in your particular instance, there is something in you that hinders it. You must have fallen short of the character to which the promise is made—the promise, itself, cannot be suspect. “Let God be true and every man a liar.”
You may account for your not obtaining the blessing which you have asked upon any theory which humbles yourself, but you must never suppose that the Lord will break His promise, for that were to dishonor His holy name, deny His faithfulness and pour contempt upon His Truth! If His good Word appears to fail towards you, is there not a cause? Does not sin lie at the door? Is there not some idol in the inner chamber which must be searched for and taken away? “Are the consolations of God small with you? Is there any secret thing with you?” It is a general truth that proper food will build up the human frame, but if food is eaten and yet no nourishment whatever is obtained from it, we conclude that the system is thrown out of order by some inward disease. The meat is good—it must, therefore, be the stomach or some other organ that ails and turns that which is good into evil.
If a fire is kindled and a person is placed close to it, and yet he declares that he is not warmed by the heat, we do not, because of this, entertain any doubt of the power offire to warm the human body! We conclude that the man has a chill or some other malady which prevents his feeling the natural warmth of the fire. The failure of warmth cannot lie in the fire—it must be in the man—for fire must warm any healthy limbs which are held near to it. If a medicine which has been known to produce a cure in hundreds of cases is taken by an individual and it is found to have no result, or to work in a manner contrary to its natural and ordinary effect, we conclude that either the state of the case has been badly judged, or that there is present some other potent drug which neutralizes its effect.
The man, himself, may not be aware that he is eating or imbibing that which acts in an opposite direction to the prescription of his physician and yet it may be so and, therefore, the medicine is not to be distrusted, but the interposing substance must bear all the blame. For this reason we will try, this morning, to discriminate a little, with no wish whatever to grieve any seeking soul, but with a strong desire to indicate any weak point in the seeking, any counteracting habit which may be, at this time, preventing the soul from entering at once into the peace and joy for which it is seeking.
“He that seeks finds” is an indisputable fact. But, as all is not gold that glitters, so all is not seeking which bears the name! We come at once to our point by noticing the quality required in every true seeker. The verse tells us—“You shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart.” Whole-heartedness is the quality required. Sec-
ondly, we shall show the reasons why wholeheartedness is required. And, thirdly, indicate one or two of the main hindrances to it, which we pray the Lord to remove.
I. THE QUALITY REQUIRED IN THE SEEKER is whole-heartedness—he must search for the Lord with all his heart. This means, I take it, three things. First, in order to find the Lord there must be an undivided Object in the seeker’s mind. See how the text runs—“You shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart.” The Object is one and only one. The sinner is at a distance from God and guilt divides him from his God. He longs to draw near to the heavenly Father and to be reconciled—he therefore seeks after God and God, alone. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” “O that I knew where I might find HIM!”