May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the
book of Psalms and Psalm 27, and we'll read the eighth verse. Psalm 27, and reading verse eight. When thou saidst, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. The previous verse, the seventh
verse, David says, Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. And what he is really doing here,
he is praying unto his God. And he was concerned that his
prayer might be heard. And how important it is for us
today as we come before God, whenever we come before God in
prayer, to come believing That we come to a God who does hear. That we don't just come in a
form of prayers. And we may not perhaps say, well,
I don't read my prayers, but you may not. Nothing against
reading prayers really. But the great important thing
is to whether we do come and we pray, believing and seeking
that God will hear. our prayers. Not to just have
a mere form of words which really don't speak from our heart, they're
just from our mind. And how vital it is that you
and I are blessed with the true spirit of prayer. It is vital
really, it is so important. Prayer is what we might term the breath
of our soul. Naturally, you and I need breath
to live, don't we? We breathe. Without any breathing,
without any breath, well, we're dead, aren't we? There's no life.
And that is so true with regard to our spiritual life. No prayer,
no life. When I say that, I mean no true
prayer, no life. And so what a blessing it is
if the Holy Spirit has granted us a real concern like we have
here in this desire by the Apostle, by David rather, when he comes
and says, hear my prayer. We read together that psalm in
the 13th psalm which speaks to us and David here was concerned
that his prayers were not being heard. I wonder if you and I are concerned
about our prayers not being heard. Or that it doesn't worry us very
much. What have we prayed for today? What have we prayed for this
morning? Have you prayed? I hope you have. And are you expecting Answers
to those prayers? Perhaps you're like David here.
When he says, how long would thou forget me? Now David wasn't
satisfied with that. He wasn't content with praying
and no answers. Oh Lord forever? He wonders whether
his prayers will ever be answered. How long would thou hide thy
face from me? How long should I take counsel
in my soul? having sorrow in my heart daily."
See, he was concerned about prayer being answered. And it is a good
thing in our lives when we are concerned about prayer being
answered. And it's not just a form of words. It's just really a mere repetition. It's very easy to come into a
situation where prayer becomes Just a mere repetition. Just a mere form of words. Well, David wasn't like that,
and he tells us, he had sorrow in his heart daily. How long
shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord
my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death. Lest mine enemy say I prevailed
against him. Do we fear perhaps the enemy,
enemy of our souls, the devil, prevailing against us? And that
means defeating us? And that means we don't pray?
Or that means we don't pray in truth, in earnestness? We don't
pray from our heart? But then he says, but I have
trusted in thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. Now there we have a humble confidence
in God. And as we come to God in prayer,
what a blessing it is if we have a humble confidence to believe
the great God, the almighty God, hears our prayers and will answer
our prayers. That we may come trusting in
God, trusting our prayers will be heard and not turned away
from. Now, this eighth verse in this
27th Psalm, we read, when thou saids, now David here is speaking
about God speaking to him. And we should remember that in
reality, God always has the initiative. God always comes and speaks first. to our hearts. We don't speak
to God first ourself. And when I say that, I mean in
reality, in true prayer, not just a form of words. And so
David here is saying, when thou saidst, seek ye my face. What
was his response? What was his response? We're
told, my heart That means it wasn't just an assent with his
mind. It emanated from his very soul.
And he says, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I
seek. Now, these are very two simple
statements, aren't they? The Lord says, seek ye my face. What's our response from our
heart? Is it like this? Has it been
like this? Thy face Lord will I seek. Now this really is a word that
separates between those who are believers and those who are not
believers. Because we're told here in response
to that prompting from God in our hearts. What a wonderful
blessing if the Holy Spirit has prompted us to seek the Lord. Seek ye my face. Well we need
to, all of us don't we, to ask the question whether God has
spoken to us in this way and said, seek ye my face. And that means to pray to God. There's suddenly been a movement
within us which has produced this response. Thy face, Lord,
will I seek. Well, this morning, only you
know whether God has spoken to your heart like this. and directed
you to seek his face, to pray to him, to read his word. Both of these
things are seeking his face, praying to God and reading the
word of God. And reading it because we have
a concern about the health of our soul. We have a concern to
know whether We are right with God. We have a concern to know
where we shall spend eternity. What a wonderful thing if the
Holy Spirit has blessed us with such a concern that whereas we
were carrying on content with the vanities of life, content
with the things of this world, pleased with what we were doing,
And never really concerned about the condition of our soul, but
just somehow carried on day by day and just vaguely assumed
that, well, one day it would be all right. Well, one day it
won't be all right, unless God has prompted us to seek his face. And the response has been, my
heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Well, this
morning, has the Lord prompted you? Has the Lord spoken to you? And has the response been that
you are seeking the Lord? Thy face, Lord, will I seek. If that is so, what would have
occurred is this. There would have been a change.
A change. A wonderful change. Because naturally,
we don't really seek the Lord. Many people perhaps think they
do. But the difference is, as David
tells us here, my heart said, his innermost being He had a
real urgency, a real concern that he would be blessed by God. And he really goes on in the
rest of this psalm to spell out really what he meant. And he's
asking, he says, hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy
servant away in anger. And that's a real concern, isn't
it? Because when the Holy Spirit works in our heart, we may realise
how we have offended God, how we may have mocked God, how we
may have been hypocritical before God, how we pretended to be a
Christian when in actual fact we're not. When we've been following the
things of the world, the things of time, and we haven't really
been in that right way. And so we may fear the anger
of God against us. We may fear that God is turned
against us. We realise we deserve God to
turn against us. Well, when the Holy Spirit is
working in our heart and touching our hearts, We'll have some realisation
of what this means. And then he comes and he tells
us then, thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake
me, O God of my salvation. What a wonderful testimony that
is. If we have the evidence that we can say yes, God has been
my help. And if he has been our help then,
Our prayer will be, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God
of my salvation. It wasn't a situation where he
didn't want to be just not left, he didn't want to be forsaken.
And he tells us, O God of my salvation. And he goes on, when
my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me
up. We may find sometimes that people
don't always understand us. What a blessing it is to have
a confidence in our God. To believe that if we are seeking
the Lord, Thy face Lord will I seek. And that won't be something
which is just abstract. We'd have a real need. We'd have
a real concern. We want God to hear us. It'll
be a real prayer. Bless God when the day comes,
or the day has come, when we've really prayed. Really prayed. And often think that the first
prayer, true prayer from the heart of a believer is very simple. And often it's couched in these
words. The words that the Lord Jesus spoke with regard to the
publican when he came and he said, God, be merciful to me,
a sinner. That means he recognised his
condition. He didn't think he was righteous,
he didn't think he was good. Indeed, he smote upon his breast
and he looked down and he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And what was he doing? He was
seeking the Lord. Thy face, Lord, will I seek. He was seeking urgently for that,
wasn't he? Oh Lord, be merciful. Oh God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. Well, if God has put that in
your heart, and I mean that in your heart, not in your head.
You see, when we've been brought up in religion, when we've been
brought up to go to church or chapel, then there are many things
which are familiar to us, and many phrases. which are familiar
to us. And we may be resting in just
the words which we've heard others speak. And we realise that they
were right words, but yet they haven't really penetrated into
our own heart. We haven't really had this prayer
that David tells us here, Thy face, Lord, will I see. He was
truly seeking the Lord. And he wanted the Lord to appear.
He wanted the Lord to come and to reveal himself unto him. And he tells us, teach me thy
way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. If we are seeking in the face
of our God, we will want the Lord to lead us. We've only left
to our own devices We won't want to go in the wrong path. We won't
want to be found in that broad way that leads to destruction.
And the broad way is a very easy way. It's a very place where
you and I can live a so-called religion without any problem.
It's easy. We carry on. You see, when the
Holy Ghost comes and speaks to our heart and tells us Seek ye
my face. There's a difference. There's
a reality in our religion. Our prayers change. We now seek
God earnestly and we pray that he will teach us, teach me. Again, don't forget religion
is always personal. It comes down to individuals.
Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because
of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the
wit of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. David
here was blessed with faith to believe that his seeking would
have a good result. And you know, when we come in
prayer, we should come believing. Believing in God. We don't come
to a God who does not know, a God who does not hear. We come to
the true God. And then he finally speaks, wait
on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say on the Lord. And the important aspect here
is again, It's in the heart. It's heart religion. It's that
which is within us. It's not that which just goes
through our mind and our head. It does go through our mind and
our head. It comes down into our very heart. Well, when thou
saidst, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord,
will I speak? And so the truth is the Lord
speaks first, the believer answers. Well, bless God this morning
and let's all look into our hearts. Let's all examine ourselves.
It's a good position to be in and we're encouraged to examine
ourselves as to whether we are in the faith or not. Let's not
presume, let us not assume that we are in the faith. Let us examine
ourselves. To see whether we have the wonderful
evidence that the Lord has come and spoken to us and instructed
us and said to us, seek ye my face. And there's been that response
from our heart. Thy face, Lord, will I speak. It's a great blessing, you know,
to be able to do that. many encouraging statements in
the word of God's to seek unto him and Isaiah has a number of
words to encourage us and he says this in the 55th of Isaiah
verse 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye
upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way
and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord
and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly
pardon. That's a wonderful truth, that's
a wonderful promise to those who seek the Lord. Remember,
seek ye the Lord while he may be found. While he may be found,
call ye upon him while he is near. My friends, let us not
turn our back upon God. We have the picture in the Song
of Solomon where the bride of Christ turned her back upon the
Lord. Now we know of course that the
Lord did indeed come to her again, but the situation was when the
Lord came to her, and we read it in the fifth chapter of the
Song of Solomon, where the Lord comes and says, I'm coming to
my garden, my sister, my spouse, I've gathered my myrrh with my
spice, I've eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I've drunk my
wine with my milk, yea, eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved." Now, what that is, it's setting forth
really the truth of the Word of God and the wonderful blessings
that are to be found in the Gospel. And what is the response? And
this is the sad response. I sleep. I sleep. But my heart waketh, it is the
voice of my beloved, that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister,
my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew,
and my locks with the drops of the night." It was a gracious
invitation. Again we have it here in these
words on this 8th verse, Seek ye my face. Now here was the
statement by the Lord speaking to the bride. And what does she respond? She
says, I've put off my coat. How shall I put it on? I wash
my feet. How shall I defile them? You
see, she was comfortable in the situation in her bed. And it's
very easy, my friends, for us today to be comfortable in just
an outward form of religion. It's very easy to come and go
from the house of God and to have what we might think a very
comfortable existence. And yet you see there's little
life and we find we're settled down and we really are far off
from God. Here she was then, in this condition. And the Lord has given us such
words to direct us and to speak to us so that we might recognize
the great truth we have contained in these words. I, when thou said, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek?
And not therefore to be like the person we refer to here,
the bride of Christ. And then we're told, my beloved,
put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bounds were
moved for him. And then, in her timetable, to
suit her position, she then thought, well, I'll rise up and open to
my beloved. And my hands dropped with myrrh,
and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the
lock. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn
himself and was gone." That's a very sad truth, isn't it? Seek ye my face, now. Today. Not when it's convenient. Not when you think, well, I've
just got to carry on, I want to just get involved in this
position, it may be some worldly thing. And you don't want to
get involved in the things of God because it might cross these
things out. And so you just continue. Seek ye my face. My heart is underneath thy face,
Lord, will I seek? Now. not in the days ahead. Again, in this case, of course,
the Lord had withdrawn himself. The reality is, you and I are
blessed today with the word of God. You and I are blessed today
with the truth of God. And may it be indeed a word to
our souls. May it be the truth of God to
our souls. May we be concerned about it. not put these things off. Because
what is it? If God is speaking to us, it
is because of his goodness and his mercy toward us and his love
toward us. My friends, we don't want to
turn away from it. Because you don't know, none of us know,
how long we have to live. We don't know whether we will
still be alive tomorrow morning. And here we have such words,
seek ye my face. May our heart respond, thy face
Lord will I seek. And may that be in urgency and
true desire that Lord will be gracious to us and indeed will
bless us indeed. Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Well, you and I must respond
before God in this situation. How do we respond? It's so important, isn't it,
in the day and age in which we live, when there are so many
things to turn us away. But what a mercy it is. You know, in the 10th Psalm,
an earlier Psalm, the Psalm of David, We read in the verse 16,
the Lord is king forever and ever. The heathen are perished
out of the land. Lord, thou hast heard the desire
of the humble. Thou will prepare their heart.
Thou will cause them, thou will cause thine ear to hear. What a mercy to realize that
the Lord Here's the desire of the humble. Now if we are to
respond to this verse here, seek ye my face and our heart says,
thy face Lord will I seek. We won't think that we are a
righteous person. We won't think that we're an
important person. We will think that we are a very
unimportant person. And we will be concerned that
we don't deserve any answer, which is true of course. But
we shall be pleading for his mercy. As I've read already in
that seventh verse, have mercy upon me and answer me. It'll be reality. It's a good thing you know sometimes
when the power of God comes upon us so we can't even sleep. We need God's mercy. We're seeking his face for his
mercy. We're seeking his face that he
will show to us his love toward us. That he will reveal to us
that we are those whom he has loved in everlasting love. And
you know, the truth is, real religion is not... We should
be concerned about all those around us and those we meet,
but the prime situation will be, how stands the case, my soul,
with thee? For heaven are thy credentials
clear. Is Jesus Christ thy only plea? is he thy great forerunner there? To know the Lord Jesus Christ. This is seeking his face, seeking
my face, the heart, the face of the Saviour. Thy face, Lord,
will I seek. Well, are we today seeking the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we seeking that we might
have the knowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ has died to take
away our sins. Is that what we're seeking for? To know my Jesus, the hymn writer
said, to know my Jesus crucified, dying upon the cross at Calvary,
by far exceeds all things besides. You may think, well, the hymn
writer's a bit excessive in such a statement. But it's a true
statement and it's a wonderful statement to know that it's so
true to know my Jesus crucified by far exceeds all things besides
the knowledge of all terrestrial things, things of this earth,
ne'er to my soul true pleasure brings. Now that sets before
us a great truth. Because if we are seeking the
Lord's face, it will be to know that he has died upon Calvary's
cross to redeem our soul. Nothing less than the confirmation that the
Lord has died for us, the Lord has died for me, will indeed
be satisfactory. And you'll be on the stretch
after him. This word seek in the original
can be translated as to search and also to strive after. Strive after. And that means
what it says. If you're striving, you're in
earnest for something. It won't just be a little. No, your whole heart, your whole
being will be set upon this need, that you may find the Lord. Thy face, Lord, will I seek. What a blessing then, if God
comes and encourages us in the truth of the word of God. Again, just turning to Isaiah
in chapter 45 and verse 19, we read these words. The Lord speaking, I have not
spoken in secret in a dark place of the earth. I said not unto
the seed of Jacob. Seek him in vain. He didn't say
seek in vain. I the Lord speak righteousness. I declare things that are true. In the previous verse, verse
18, we read, for thus saith the Lord that created the heavens,
God himself, that formed the earth and made it, he hath established
it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited,
I am the Lord and there is none else. This is the great God and
we are encouraged therefore that he hasn't spoken in secret, he's
not said, seek ye me in vain. Word tells us, seek and ye shall
find. Seek and ye shall find. Well
this morning the Lord says, seek ye my face. Does our heart respond,
thy face Lord will I seek. And what we need to know is this,
the Lord is looking upon us and that he is mindful of us. He's
not looking away from us. He's not turned his back upon
us. That's really what David was
concerned about, wasn't it? You know, we may be concerned
that we've sinned against God. We've sinned against light and
knowledge. There's no hope for us. Well,
there is hope. The devil would say, there's
no hope. The Word of God says, seek ye
my face. The devil always has been a liar,
he always will be. Don't listen to him. Doesn't
matter how far, perhaps you seem adrift in the things of God.
You may seem perhaps to have wandered away. We have a God
who can bring back. We have a God who speaks to the
heart and says, seek ye my face. Ah, perhaps you've been seeking
other things. Perhaps you've been striving
after the things of the world. They won't get you to glory,
they'll get you to hell. Seek ye my face, these will bring
you to glory. And to have the wonderful evidence
of this truth then, and it can only be by the movement of the
Holy Spirit, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. To have that emanating
from our heart, the movement of the Holy Spirit within, to
seek the face of the Saviour, to have the evidence that He,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious God, yes, the second person in
the Trinity, has condescended to speak to us in this way. Seek ye my face. It is, it is
a most humbling consideration. And what a blessing it is when
God shows us how wonderful it is that the Almighty God