What does it mean to "seek the Lord while He may be found" (Isaiah 55:6)?

Verse 6 follows this by offering what we may call a word of advice, followed in verse 7 by a word of assurance. There is a time when God is near and may be found in grace, and a time when He retires from the scene to act in judgment. How often are these words uttered when the Gospel is preached, for the day of salvation is NOW. The assurance is that if any, however wicked they may be, turn to the Lord in repentance, there is mercy for him. The forsaking of one's thoughts and way is just what genuine repentance involves. Faith, we know, is needed too, but when Isaiah wrote Christ the great Object of faith, though predicted, was not actually revealed. Consequently faith is not brought to the fore in the Old Testament as it is in the New.

(Vv. 6, 7). Seeing there is grace for all, an appeal is made to men to seek the Lord in a day of grace – “while He may be found,” and to call “upon Him while He is near.” Men may have their “way,” and their “thoughts,” as to the way of obtaining blessing. But the wicked man is urged to “forsake his way” and “his thoughts,” and return to the LORD to receive abundance of blessing on the ground of grace.

(vv. 6-7) The results of knowing God as a forgiving God follow. For that reason — because God is a forgiving God — the godly can ever turn to God in confidence, in a time when He can be found. There is a time coming when men will seek God but He will not be found. Today is the acceptable time when, on the ground of Christ's work, He may be found. But grace rejected will lead to judgment, when God will be no longer found of men, but men will be found out by God.

Reader, do you know anything of the force and value of this most blessed answer? Do you know God? Does He fill the entire range of your soul's vision? Is He the answer to your every question? the solution of your every difficulty? Do you know the reality of walking, day by day, with the living God? Do you know the tranquillising power of leaning upon Him, "through all the changes and chances of this mortal life?" If not, let me entreat of you not to go on for one hour in your present state. The way is open. God has revealed Himself in the face of Jesus Christ, as the relief, the resource, and the refuge of every needy soul. Look to Him now — even now, "while he may be found; call upon him while he is near." "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved;" and "He that believes shall never be confounded."

Thus at the interesting age of sixteen Josiah began to seek after the God of David his father. Man being a lost sinner, having by his love of sin strayed from his Maker into hopeless darkness, is always under responsibility to return to God, who has a righteous claim upon the love and obedience of all His creatures, as He has Himself expressed it in the law of Sinai. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found," is His command to the wayward. His forbearance with sinners will not continue indefinitely. Some day men may wish to "find" Him, and will discover that He is no longer "near" (Isa. 15:6). Paul, when addressing the wise men of Athens, told them that men should seek after God, and he added "though He be not far from everyone of us" (Acts 17:27). Precious words, when rightly understood! The many shrines which met the Apostle's eyes in the Greek capital suggested to him that one god was as good as another in the minds of the people there. Therefore he preached to them the one true God and Jesus whom He raised from the dead.

The appeal in verse 6 carries our minds back to the time when we first sought the Lord. "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found" would remind us of the words in 2 Cor. 6:2, "behold, now is the accepted time"; while "call ye upon Him while He is near" would remind us of Romans 10:13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." We sought Him and we found Him; we called upon Him and He heard our cry, and the result is we have received abundant pardon through the mercy of God. Furthermore, in accord with the appeal in verse 7, we did forsake our way (called by the prophet in Isa. 53 our "own way") and we did judge our unrighteous thoughts when we turned in true repentance towards God and in faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. As a result we know that our sins are forgiven, and we are conscious of being in right relations with God.

But there is a kind of desire that never comes to anything: "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing." I have known people who had great desires, but who still never came to anything. There was no bottom, as it were, to the soul, no foundation so to say. There was no saying, I will make this the one simple purpose of my life. I think the reason that we know so little, of the Lord is because there is so little purpose to know Him. If a man of the world purposes to have a future here, do you think he dreams his life away? In proportion to the earnestness of his desire to attain his object, is the earnestness of his pursuit of it. Why, it is wonderful what a man of the world will do and suffer to attain the object of his heart. And yet the saint, who has a far higher object set before him, an object passing anything that the natural mind can conceive, is too often found lazy, idle, purposeless in his soul. "Seek the Lord while he may be found," we often say to sinners, but I believe we ought rather to say it to ourselves. I long to have deeper acquaintance with Him — to seek Him. As the Psalmist says, "One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek, after."

This evil man, whose counsel caused Israel to trespass against the Lord (Num. 31:16), did not repent of his sin, and his death is given in this same chapter which tells of his wicked counsel (verse 8). He lived the life of the unrighteous, and died the death of the unrighteous, perishing with the kings of Midian, against whom Israel warred by the commandment of the Lord. It is possible for an unrighteous man to turn from his unrighteousness at the end of his days, like the thief on the cross, and to die the death of the righteous, but such cases are exceptional. Wisdom calls upon the sinner to seek the Lord while He may be found; and we are told that, "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

63 This revelation of God awakens the thought and feeling of all the upright and gracious - minded to look to God in the time when He reveals Himself as the forgiving God, when He can be found. So for Christ Himself, in Isaiah 49, it was the accepted time. When He had been perfect, when perfectly proved before God, then He was heard, for He had been made sin; and the apostle cites it thus, "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." The revelation of forgiveness and the joy of such relationship with God awakens the desire after and delight in such a God in gracious souls, and they seek unto Him. Supposing they have not the sense of sin at the moment, they know they are sinners, and God is so revealed - has a character which is their delight, and their soul links itself with Him. They seek to Him, not simply for forgiveness. It is in their character of graciousness they are spoken of here, but it is such a God - a God of this character, and of these ways - who draws their heart; and note, God so acting, so revealed, makes the time the finding time. This connection of the graciousness of the heart with the graciousness of God, and the power of attraction it has, is very beautiful; and it is very deep in the gracious mind. There must be the sense of need, of dependence, and in us of the need of grace as such in the whole character of our relationship with God. But it is withal a deep realisation in proportion to godliness, when the conscience is not bad, of the perfect and divine grace, of the loveliness yet the sovereign goodness of God's ways in this. Happy in goodness, we feel that this grace suits us and suits God; it draws us, as godly, to God. Hence we are there sheltered, come what will.

(V. 1). Encouragement for the godly. In the preceding chapter we have heard the call of grace to every needy soul to seek the Lord while He may be found, with the promise of blessing to all that respond to the call. In the opening verses of this chapter, the godly remnant in Israel, who have responded to the call, are exhorted to walk in consistency with the grace that has blessed them. Let such act righteously having in view God’s salvation for the nation of Israel that is “near to come,” and the righteousness of God in judgment upon the wicked, which is about to be revealed.