Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1884
“Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.” 1 Chronicles 22:19.
The Pastor’s Return. Three Specially- Selected Sermons to His Church, Congregation, Readers and Friends, Consisting Of
A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT [No. 1883] AND AN EXHORTATION [No. 1884.]
THIS exhortation may be most fitly directed to those who are already saved. It was first given to the elders of Israel and we would gladly hope that they were already good men and true, but, secondly, the language might be very fitly addressed to the unconverted. There may be a little straining in this latter case, for we can hardly call the Lord, their God as yet, but still we shall venture to say to the unconverted who have come up with God’s people, “Set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.”
I. Let us take it, first, in ITS REFERENCE TO GOD’S OWN PEOPLE. You have already found the Lord. There is a sense in which you have not to seek Him, for you already know Him, but, in another sense, you are still to seek Him, for seeking the Lord is a description of the whole of the Believer’s life. After he has found God as his salvation, he has to seek him as his Friend, as his Sanctifier, as his Example. Until they come to that glorious perfection which belongs to the better world, Christian men have something, still, to seek.
Our first enquiry is, “What are they to seek?” Beloved Friends, I say to you, as David said to the princes of Israel, “Seek the Lord your God.” Do it by endeavoring to obey Him in everything. Let it be our study to test everything that we do by God’s Holy Word. Let us not willfully sin, either in commission or in omission. Let us be very particular to seek out the will of the Lord so as to fulfill not only commands which are plain, but those about which there is a question. In the service of God nothing is little and, loyalty to the great Royalty of God comes out in tenderness of conscience concerning little things. He that carelessly offends in trifles, shall fall by little and little. The greatest catastrophes in moral life come not usually all of a sudden, but by slow degrees. The dry rot enters into the timbers of the house of human character—and when it has silently worked its mischief—the house falls with a shock.
It is not the wind of temptation that brings it down—that may be the apparent instrument—but the sly, secret rot that has all the while been going on, is the real destroyer. Therefore let us pledge ourselves unto God to live more and more watchfully, seeking the Lord with our heart and soul in everything—in private, in the family, in business and in the House of God. He that walks hastily without consideration will assuredly err, but he that takes counsel of God and watches to know what the will of the Master may be, shall walk uprightly and surely. O Christian, set your heart to this, that the Lord Jesus is your absolute Lord and Master and that, at every point, you will scrupulously endeavor to do His will, yielding a cheerful obedience as the fruit of the Spirit within your soul!
Seek the Lord, also, as David wanted these princes to do, in the building up of His Temple. He says, “Set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Arise, therefore, and build the sanctuary of the Lord.” Beloved, it ought to be the main business of the life of every Christian to build up the Church! It ought to be mine and I trust that it is. I know that this is the main business of many of my Brothers and Sisters here, since for its sake they forego many an hour of leisure and to it they give the best of their faculties. We are sent here on purpose to build the city of God which is His Church. The foundations have been laid in the fair vermilion of our Savior’s precious blood. Stone upon stone, the walls have risen. It is ours to help with the construction, in quarry or in forest, with saw or with axe. If we cannot do great works, we must weave the hangings, or fashion the pins, or twist the cords. It should be the main objective of our life to seek the Lord by building up His Church. Oh, how I wish that all Christians thought so! Alas, many fancy that the work of the Church is to be left to a dozen or two of us—that the minister is to do his best with a few friends—but the bulk of the people are to be excused the glorious liberty of the service of the blessed God! Come, my Brothers and Sisters, one and all, seek the Lord with all your heart and soul in the building up of His Church! Let nothing be lacking to the Church of God in the Tabernacle which is as a city set upon a hill!