If these things are true of me,
am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I really weary and heavy laden? Have I heard about this everlasting
covenant that God made with his beloved son on behalf of the
people? Have I heard that? This sure mercies of David, not
the King of Israel, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Have
I heard about those sure mercies of the Son of David, the Holy
One of Israel? Well, if I have, if I have, and if these things
are true of me, Then verse 6 is addressed to me and to you. And here the prophet says, seek
ye the Lord then if you're hungry and thirsty and weary and heavy
laden. If you've heard about this covenant
of grace and mercies of a covenant God and the sheer mercies of
the Lord Jesus and seek the Lord. But you've got to seek him while
he can be found. He says, seek ye the Lord while
he may be found. Call ye upon him while he's near.
Now, God will always be everywhere, won't he? That's what David said,
if I send him to heaven after hell. If I make my bed in the
grave, you're there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, you're there. What's
this mean, while he may be found? Well, what it's really saying,
he's everywhere, but I'm not going to be everywhere too much
longer. That's what he's saying. Seek ye the Lord while you are
alive, while you're still here. While you may be found, he'll
always be found. As long as there's a heaven on
earth, he will be found. But I'll not always be where
I can find him. That's what he said. He'll always be everywhere. Paul
said he's not far from any of us. In him we live and move and
have our being as long as we're here. But the day's coming very
shortly now that he'll not be found by me. And then he says, call upon him
while he's near. Well, he's always near his creation,
always near. But there'll be a day when I
won't be able to hear him when he speaks. God's eternal,
but I'm not. God's always found, God's always
near, but I'm passing through. So if I'm going to find him,
I'm going to have to seek him while I can, while I'm living,
while he may be found with me. You see, God is eternal, but
we're creatures of time. The book of Ecclesiastes says
there's a time and a season for every purpose under heaven. regarding
you and me. There's a time for us to be born.
There's a time for us to die. There's a time to plant and there's
a time to pluck up that which is planted. There's a time to get and there's
a time to lose. There's a time when I can hear him. And there's
a time when I won't be able to hear him. Swift to its close ebbs out life's
little day. Earth's joys grow dim and they
fade away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O thou that changest not, abide
with me. So seek ye the Lord while he
may be proud of me and you. Call upon him while he's near
to us, while we can hear his voice. He that heareth my word
and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life. What
is it to seek the Lord? I want to dwell on that just
a little while this morning. I want you to listen to me now.
These are things that I've learned through the through the years,
what is it to seek the Lord? The Bible doesn't say we can't
seek the Lord. The Bible says about natural
men they won't seek the Lord. There's none that seek it after
God. But if a man finds it in his heart to seek the Lord, he
can seek the Lord. So here's the first thing in
seeking the Lord. It is to discover. It is to discover. And this has got to be true.
There won't be any seeking of the Lord till this becomes a
reality to us. It's to discover that my sins
have separated me and God. Now today's religion gives the
impression that God's with everybody, that God's on hold waiting to
hear from everybody, but our sins have separated us from God.
That's what it says over here in Isaiah 59. Turn back over
there and listen to what he says in Isaiah chapter 59. He says this, verse 1, Behold,
the Lord's hand is not short, that it cannot save. His ear
is not heavy, it cannot hear. But here's our problem. Your
sins have separated you and your God. Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and His face is hid from you. That's
the problem. He will not hear. His face is
hid from us. And that's the first thing. I've
got to come to this understanding. And anyone who seeks the Lord
has got to come to this understanding. We need Him. We've been separated
from God because of our sins. When Paul described those Those
Gentiles over in Ephesians 2, he said, you're without God,
without Christ, without hope in this world. So I need Him. Now here's the second thing about
seeking the Lord, number two. It's to desire Him, to desire
Him, His grace and His mercy more than anything else. He said,
seek ye the Lord. with all your heart. You'll search
for me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." And
it's to come to this situation, like David said in Psalm 27,
one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after,
that I may behold his face in righteousness and dwell in his
presence all the days of my life. That one thing have I desired
of the Lord. one thing, and I'll succumb to
it. And it's to want him above all.
That's what the scripture says when it says, seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness. And these other things will be
added to you, but you've got to settle this relationship with
him first. That's what Paul said when he
lost his religion, his false religion. He said, I count it
but done that I may win Christ and be found in Him. Oh, that
I may win Christ and be found in Him. That's first and foremost. I count everything else but lost. Nothing. All right, thirdly,
in seeking the Lord, I discovered first that I don't have Him. I do not by nature have God.
My sins have separated me from God. hit his face, and I want
him above everything else. I don't have him, I don't have
anything. I've got to seek him first with all my heart. And
thirdly, is to seek him in the place where he may be found. I know God in his power, and
God in his majesty, and God in his glory is found everywhere.
Let me say that again. God in his power, and God in
his majesty, and God in his glory is found everywhere. The heavens
declare the glory of God. God is seen by the things that
are made, so that we're without excuse.
But God's mercy to sinners, and God's grace in the forgiveness
of sin, and God's salvation is found only in that place where
he puts it. You see what I'm saying now?
Let me tell you, have you turned to Exodus chapter 25? Exodus
chapter 25. Now, a lot of countries all over the
world, when Israel was in the land of Canaan, But upon
Israel, God gave a priesthood and a tabernacle. And when he
gave Moses the dimensions of that tabernacle and how to build
that tabernacle and what to do, he told him, says, you build
a tabernacle, build a courtyard, then build a tabernacle and separate
the holy place from the unholy, from the holy of holies, the
holy place and the holy of holies. And in that holy of holies, you
put a an art. And in that art you put the broken
law. And over that art you put a mercy
seat. And between the chair beams, I'll be there. This is the kind
of glory of God. And that's where I'll meet you.
When the high priest brings the blood, puts it on the mercy seat,
that's where I'll be. Now let's look at that in Exodus
25, verse 20. Start with verse 20, Exodus 25,
20. And the cherubim shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings.
And their faces shall look one toward another. Toward the mercy
seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And I shall put the mercy
seat above upon the ark, and in the ark you put the testimony,
the Ten Commandments that I shall give you. And there, there I'll
meet you and I'll commune with thee from above the mercy seat,
from between the cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony
of all things which I will give thee in commandment to the children
of Israel. That's where I'll meet you. And it wasn't any use anybody
going out in the middle of the desert and by the river and different
places looking for God. He's right here. He's right here. And that mercy seat covers that
broken law, and that high priest brings the blood of the Lamb
and puts it upon that mercy seat, covering the broken law with
the blood. God says, I'll beat you there. That's where... And
the same thing is true of us. We have a mercy seat, it's Christ. We have a high place, it's Christ.
We have an atonement, it's Christ. We have an altar, it's Christ.
We have a tabernacle where we meet God, Christ's tabernacle
among us. We have an atonement, and that's
where we meet Him. Now you turn to 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5, and I'll read
it to you here. 2 Corinthians 5, and seek him
where he's found. In 2 Corinthians 5, beginning
with verse 18. 2 Corinthians 5. I know people
got that. It's like I heard a man talking
on television last night. He said, now, as far as this
thing about Christians and Muslims and whoever, he said, if you
live the best you can, taking care of your neighbor and taking
care of your family, keep yourself from evil, you'll go to heaven
when you die. Now that's it. What did he say?
That's what God said. We seek him, Israel, they had
to come to the mercy seat. There had to be an atonement,
a sacrifice. That's where God's mercy is.
God's power is everywhere. God's greatness and glory is
everywhere. But God's mercy and grace and
salvation is in the blood of the Lamb. It's in Christ. Now listen to this, 2 Corinthians
5, verse 18. And all things are God. who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and given us the ministry
of reconciliation. To wit, that word to wit means
namely, that is to say, that is to say, that God was in Christ. Seek ye the Lord while ye may
be found. Where is he? He's in Christ. God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself. not including their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed to us this word of reconciliation. That's what I'm preaching, this
word of reconciliation. Listen, verse 20. Now then, we
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
us. We pray you in Christ's name,
be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who do no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. That's where you find God. Where
he told us to look for him. It's to realize that something
happened in the garden, and we're separated from God. Our sins
have separated us from God. He's hid his face. But I want
to know God. With all my heart I want to know
God. I want to know God more than anything in all this world.
If I have Him, I have everything. If I don't have Him, I have nothing.
But I've got to seek Him where He reveals Himself, where He
told me to come to Christ. And here's the fourth thing,
and it's to be willing to be saved on His terms. Now, look
at my text again. It says here in verse 7, that
the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
And don't be offended by the word wicked. That's what we are. Don't be offended by the word
unrighteous and ungodly when God talks about that. There's
no nice way to describe sin. There's no nice way to describe
iniquity. Sin is against God, and sin is
exceedingly sinful. And the Word of God tells us
that sin is an abomination of God to God. So when he says here,
let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
he's talking to us. And then he would turn unto the
Lord, and the Lord have mercy upon him. To our God he abundantly
pardoned, because his thoughts are not my thoughts, and his
And our ways are not his ways, saith the Lord. And this is the
problem with many people in our country today. They're rejecting
God's way of redemption. God's way of salvation. There's
a way, Solomon used this in Proverbs over and over, there's a way
that seems right to men and the end is destruction. There's a
way that seems right unto men and the end is destruction. And
it all started with Cain. Cain came. He came to worship
God. And he built an altar. And he
brought a sacrifice that seemed right to him. But he had no lamb. And he had no blood. And he had
no death. And he had no substitute. God
turned him away. And his brother brought the lamb. As God told me, it's the lamb
that makes atonement for the soul. It's the blood of Christ
that puts away our sin. And his brother bought a lamb
and sacrificed that lamb. And God had respect to Abel and
to his offering. He had respect to Abel because
he had respect to his offering. And that's why I have to come.
I have to come that way. That's the way. Let's turn to
John chapter 14. Our Lord tells us the way. In
John chapter 14, here's the way. In John chapter 14, verse 4. John 14, verse 4. And the Lord is speaking to his
disciples. These are the twelve apostles. And he said, And whither I go,
ye know, and the way ye know. And Thomas said, We don't know
where you're going, how can we know the way? And Jesus said,
Thomas, I'm the way, I'm the truth, and I'm the life. No man
cometh to the Father but my name. Whatever my way is, God says
forsake your way. You've got to be saved on his
terms. It's got to be, this is the, it's something everybody
in this This world needs to hear what I'm about to say here. My friend, it's not only God's
love and mercy and kindness that's involved in our salvation. That's
all you hear. God loves everybody and God's
kind to everybody and God wants to save everybody and all these
things. But that's not the only thing
involved in redeeming a sinner. God's love and mercy and grace. God's truth is involved in this
thing. And God's holiness is involved
in this thing. And God's justice is involved
in this thing. God cannot show his love without
being true to his truth. God cannot show his mercy and
not be true to his holiness. God cannot show kindness and
offend his justice. Righteousness. Righteousness
says this, without holiness, no man will see the Lord. That's
what righteousness says. Regardless of what love says
and mercy and grace, righteousness says without holiness, no man
will see the Lord. Well, where are we going to get
hold of this? Only in Christ. Truth says if the soul has sinned
it will die. Do you know what truth says?
Regardless of what justice says, And regardless of what love says
or mercy says, truth says, the soul that's in it, it'll die.
But somebody's got to die for my sins. Either I have or Christ
has. God will by no means kill the
guilty. That's what truth says. And justice
says without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission. That's
what justice says. God's got to deal with sin. So
the character of God, His love and His holiness, His mercy and
His truth, His forgiveness and His justice, they've got to meet
somewhere. Well, I'll tell you where they
met. They met at Calvary on Christ. That's where they met. That's
where mercy and truth kissed each other at Calvary. That's
where righteousness and peace kiss each other. That's where
God let the whole universe know how he can be just and justify
you and me. Now you miss that, you miss God. That's just all there is to it
now. You come like Cain, you can get
all the things you want to put on your altar and God will have
to turn you down because it's truth. His holiness, His justice
can't accept you without blood, death, obedience and righteousness. Can't do it? Every attribute
of God, His mercy and His truth, His love and His justice, His
forgiveness and His righteousness, all that
accomplish. That's where everything God reveals
himself to the whole universe of Calvary. That's how he saves
us. Let me tell you this. If God
could pardon the guilty without justice being satisfied, he may
one day condemn that same person without reason. Think about it
now. If somebody were to slip into
heaven without justice being satisfied, He's going to slip
out one of these days. That's right. If God Almighty
can set aside his truth and holiness and embrace me, he may one day
set aside his grace and reject me. I couldn't have any assurance.
If God can compromise his promise, I mean, compromise his commandment,
he may sometimes compromise his promise. But when we have Christ,
our representative, our Redeemer, our Messiah, the God-Man, perfect
obedience, perfect righteousness, dying on the cross as our substitute,
and God's love is shown and His truth is shown, His justice and
His grace his righteousness and his mercy, then it's all taken
care of and put away. And I can come to God. And I
don't have anything to worry about as long as I live on this
earth or when I get to glory. I don't have a thing to worry
about because everything is revealed in Christ. I have a Redeemer. You see, I want you to turn,
I'm going to close this message, but I want you to turn to 2 Kings
chapter 5. 2 Kings chapter 5, just for a
little bit, we'll talk about something here. You know, what I read over there
a while ago, the Lord tells us, now you seek the Lord in Christ,
where he may be found, on his terms, only on his terms to redeem. Know what? And you just forget
your thoughts and your ways, all these things, because your
thoughts aren't his thoughts and your ways aren't his, just
forget it and come his way. Now here's an example of a fellow
that's all messed up like people in our day are. In 2 Kings chapter
5 verse 1, now Naaman, captain of the host of Syria, was a great
man with his master, and he was honorable. because by him the
Lord had given deliverance unto Syrian. He was a mighty man in
valor, but he was a leper. This man Naaman was an unusual
man, a general, a right-hand man to his king. God had used
him to deliver Syria and all these things, but he was a leper. He could cover it with his helmet
and his hat and his scarf and his uniform, all that that was
inside, he was a leper. And that's us, there's people
we know all over this town, fine folks. There's human folks to
go, as far as God's concerned they're not, but as far as they,
they're nice people. Husbands, fathers, mothers, children,
just nice. But they're sinners. And lepers
are dying men. God turned his back and left
her. And the Syrians had gone out,
verse 2, in companies and brought again captives out of the land
of Israel and had a little maid. She weighed on them with a wife.
This general had a wife and had a little maid from Israel in
his home there. In verse 3, she said to her mistress,
she said, Now, would God my Lord was with the prophet, that's
in Samaria, he'd recover him of his leprosy. Now she had the
right idea. If my Lord, Laman, was in Israel
and heard God's prophet and God's preacher, that's a picture of
Christ, our Lord. He's the prophet. He's that prophet.
He heard him. He'd take care of him. He'd make
him well again. Well, he heard about that, and
it says in verse, and one went in and told the Lord, told Laman,
Thus and thus, verse 4, did the maid of Israel. And he went to
his king, verse 5, and the king of Syria said to Naaman, Go to,
go, I'll send a letter to the king of Israel. Now, where's
he going? The little maid didn't say anything
about going to the king of Israel, or to the tabernacle, or to the
temple, or to the folks in charge. She said, a puppet! But there
was something wrong with him. He got leprosy. But he went to
the wrong place. He went to the wrong place. He
was going to the King of Israel. Oh, now notice the next time.
So he departed, and he took the wrong things with him. Listen.
And he took ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold,
and ten changes of raiment. He was going to buy this thing.
It's no good to say anything about buying it. If he was with
the prophet, he would cure him of his leprosy. But he's going
to the wrong place. He's going to the king. And he's
taking the wrong things with him. He's taking all this silver
and gold with him. Isn't that what people do today?
They're going over to the holy man. See if they can get baptized
in the River Jordan. Or visit all the shrines. Or
go to some church somewhere, some preacher. And they take
money with them. Do you think for a minute silver
or gold will buy a redemption? If it can buy you a redemption,
why did he send his son to the cross? He said, if I was hung, I wouldn't
ask you. If I needed bread, I wouldn't ask you. The cattle are a thousand
hills of mine. Oh, poor Naaman. And he started
something. So verse 6, he came to the king
of Israel and said, now this is what the letter says. Now
when this letter come to you, behold, I have sent you my servant
Naaman, that you may recover him of his leprosy." Oh, don't
you know that king, he like had a conniption, that's what we
used to call it. I can't carry leprosy. Nobody on this earth
can do it but God. Nobody can take care of sin but
Christ. And he tore that whole, and the
king said, verse 7, he said, I know what he's doing. The King
of Israel went in his clothes and he said, Am I God to kill,
make alive? That this man does sin to me,
a man with leprosy? Well, I'll tell you what he's
doing. He wants to seek a war. He wants
to start a war. That's what he wants to do. That's
what he's doing. He sent this general here. He
wants to start a war. And that's what we start with
all these things, trying to find salvation somewhere but in Christ. So verse 8, the prophet heard
it. It was so when Elijah, the man
of God, had heard the king of Israel win his cause, he said
to the king, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come
to me. And he arose as a prophet in the land of Israel. That's
what we've got to learn, my friend, as a prophet. Over yonder, we'll
talk about him tonight in my message as a prophet. His name's
Christ. There's a priest. His name's
Christ. There's a king. His name's Christ. There's a
redeemer. His name's Christ. That's what we gotta learn. Gotta
learn as a prophet. So, here comes Naaman. All right,
he went to... he had something wrong. He had
leprosy. He went to the wrong place. And he went to the...
he spoke the wrong thing. Now he's come to the right place,
but he's got the wrong attitude. Listen to this. So Naaman came
with his horse and his chariot and stood at the door of the
house of Elijah. He wouldn't go in. See, he's
too important. He's a general. And I know what
kind of house Elijah was living in. A little hut, you know, like
down in Mexico with a tent over the front of it and a hanging
cloth and thatched roof. Elijah's sitting there, but Naaman's
got one student going to that place. He's going to come after
me. Your thoughts and my thoughts.
So Elijah sent their verse, he had the, in verse 10, Elijah
sent a message and said, go tell Naaman, he sent his servant Gehazi
out there and said, go tell Naaman, go wash in the river Jordan seven
times and his flesh will come and he'll be clean. Now how is
he going to deal with this? God said, your thoughts are my
thoughts, not my thoughts, and your way is not my way. And Naomi
immediately, when this man came out there and told him what to
do, he got angry, so angry. And he was wroth, it says in
verse 11, and he turned and went away. And he said, behold, this
is what I thought. And I tell you, when a natural
man starts telling you what he thinks, just close your mind
right there. It's going to be wrong. Your thoughts aren't my
thoughts. Your ways aren't mine. This is
what I thought. I thought he'd come out and he'd stand. I'm
important. I'm somebody. I thought he'd
come out and stand in front of me and call on his God. Not my
God now. His God. And he'd put his hand
on the place where the leprosy is and he'd cover me. That's
the way I thought he was going to do it. Not on a cross. Not by a substitute. Not by a redeemer. I'm gonna
come down, let the preacher touch me and shake my hand and sprinkle
water on me and wave the things. That's what I, that makes me
feel so good. That's me keep my, my, my position. That's me stay important like
I am, you know. They need me, I don't need them. You know that. You know how that
works. And then he said in verse 12,
Are not Abner and Pharpha the rivers of Damascus better than
all the rivers of Ishmael? They are not washing them, and
be clean. He turned and went away in a
rage. But one of his servants, verse
13, one of his servants came near and said to him, My If the prophet had bid you do
some great thing, would you not have done it? That's what he
came to do, some great thing, by all that money and gold and
silver. He was going to do some great
thing. That's not the way God saved men by doing great things.
He saved men by the one who did the great thing for us on the
cross of Calvary. How much rather then, he says,
wash and be clean. Well, finally, Naaman did what
was right. Everything he's done has been
wrong. And says he went down. And I'll tell you something besides
going down, he took off that hat, took off those clothes,
took off those boots, threw his swagger stick aside, and he stood
there nothing but a leper. One of all those men. A leper. Depending on God. Sovereign grace
of God. Mercy of God. Depending on God. And he went down, down, down.
Humble yourselves unto the mighty hands of God, and he'll exalt
you in due time. Take your place as a sinner at
the feet of Christ. Like that fellow that came to
him one night and said, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. If you don't, I'll be filthy all the rest of my life.
And he went down. And he came up, it says here,
he dipped seven times, and he came up Like the man of God told
him, he came up and his flesh was like that of a little child,
king. He's a different man now. Let's
read verse 15. He returned to the man of God,
he and all his, and what did he do now? He walked right in
that little place and stood before him. He said, Behold, now I know. There's no God in all the earth
but in Israel. I know who God is. There's no
prophet in all the earth but Christ either. There's no redeemer
in all the earth but Christ. There's no sin offerer but Christ.
There's no way of salvation but Christ. You write that down.
And he's in Israel. I'm not talking about Oberonder.
I'm talking about the church of the living God. I'm talking
about spiritual Israel. I'm talking about the Israel
of God. That's where he is. He's in Israel. The Israel of
God. In his word. Now then, would
you take a blessing from me?" Before he was going to buy salvation,
and now he wants to help take it to somebody else. That's what that thing's telling
us. You won't find the Lord. Start where you are. Away from
me. I want him more than I want anything
else. I'm going to look for where he's found in Christ, and I'm
going to come to Christ on his terms. Whatever he has for me,
that's the art by me, coming on his terms.