What is a seeker?

The first thing in the history of the dealings of God with souls is new birth, for without that there would be no seeking after God. This is produced by His Word, and His word of glad tidings. When this takes place the soul becomes a seeker after God. His eyes are opened, and he turns from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan to God, that he may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith (Acts 26:18). There clearly we see a work of grace in the heart previous to the soul coming to God and receiving forgiveness, and I do not think that Scripture speaks of any work done in the soul previous to new birth, indeed, the very term “born again” precludes the idea of anything previous.

Further, the more we examine the Word of God, the more we are led to see and understand that new birth is the sovereign act of God in the history of a soul, sovereign as the wind which comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Some sovereign communication from God is applied by the Holy Ghost in sovereign power, and the subject finds himself possessed of new-born interest he knows not how nor why. He finds sin distasteful where it was tasty before. He discovers a strange drawing after God and a longing for holiness hitherto unknown. He finds a new instinct for prayer, and inquiry after truth, unaccountably real. He may not be able to analyse for himself the aspirations and affections begotten in his soul. He may as yet know nothing of redemption, or justification, or forgiveness of his sins. But the instincts of a new life are asserting themselves, the product of this sovereign act of God. These desires, these movements, can find their only solution in Christ; but as yet it is possible he knows little or nothing of Christ. Like Old Testament believers who in places are seen with cravings and longings unfulfilled, our new-born soul may not yet have met with Christ, in whom every question is answered and every fear removed. He is as yet the seeker, and his seeking — bound as it is to be answered by the grace of God — is not yet ended in rest in Christ.

If you want Christ, dear friend, I have very good news for you; He wants you. You may say to me, But does it not say in Scripture, "There is none that seeks after God." That is quite true; the Word of God does say so. "There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God" (Rom. 3:11). That is what man is by nature, but when light breaks in upon man's soul, it sets him seeking to find out God. When divine light breaks in upon the soul of man — I do not say how it comes, for God has wonderful ways of letting the light into the soul — it makes him feel that there is something wrong with him, that there is a void, a vacancy, an emptiness, a want; that he is not satisfied. That is the first thing. Then, very likely, he will find out that he has to meet God. You have to meet Him; so have I. Every sinner has to meet Him sooner or later. The man finds out that he has to meet God, and the next thing he will discover is, that he is not fit to meet Him. Let me ask you, Has the light ever entered your soul yet? Has light from God entered your soul, the dark chambers of your heart, my friend? Have you found out, that you not only have to meet God, but that you are not fit to meet Him? Ah! I will tell you what it is; the man who gets his heart illuminated, gets earnest, begins to get anxious, and says, How can I meet God, and where can I find Him?

But awakened love is not content without its object. Love makes her a seeker. Hitherto the Bridegroom has been the seeker, but now at last the bride is the one that seeks. As with a hardened sinner, so with a sleeping saint. Christ must first be the seeker. There would be no seeking sinner, if there was not first a seeking Saviour. If the Son of Man had not first come to seek and save the lost, we never should have heard of the poor publican who "sought to see Jesus." If "Jesus Himself" had not drawn nigh to the two sorrowing saints on the road to Emmaus, they never would have returned to Jerusalem, that same night, to find "Jesus Himself" in the midst of His own.

Nor is there anything to stumble the seeking sinner. The very fact that he is seeking indicates that he is being drawn of the Father. The idea that a sinner may be even in an agony of seeking for the Saviour in this day of grace, and yet be unheard because not elected, is a hideous distortion of truth. The words of the Lord Jesus are as true as ever: "Seek and ye shall find" (Matt. 7:7).

Jesus says, He "came to seek and to save that which was lost." He treats every one as lost who is not already saved by faith in Him. This is the point from which I behold the Gospel. I am lost; but Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; therefore He came to seek and to save me. He came to seek and to save you, will you not let Him? Do I hear you say — 'I am seeking Jesus?' Well, you are sure to find Him, for the Saviour-seeking sinner and the sinner-seeking Saviour are sure to meet. Whenever a soul is really anxious, the moment will come when the Gospel will fall on the ear of that one, and he or she will see Jesus, and get salvation. The soul that is anxious leaves, as it were, no stone unturned to get where it wants to get — to the feet of Jesus. Satan will always try to hinder the anxious soul; but his very devices bring out decision for Christ. Again I say, the soul that is really anxious will always get to Jesus. And where is the spot where you may meet Jesus, the Saviour? That spot, my dear friend, is the small circle of the consciously lost; for He came for the lost and only for the lost. Reader, if you are not lost, I have no Gospel for you.

This is the fact that underlies the solemn statement made in Romans 3:11, that, "there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God." That there should be none righteous (verse 10) is bad: it is worse that none should understand, for that means a state not only of ignorance but insensibility. It is worst of all that none should desire to understand or seek after God, with whom is righteousness and understanding and life. To the natural man there is nothing that is desirable in God. Man is not right: he does not understand that he is not right: he has no desire after God who is right. In one word he is dead towards God.

This being the true condition of things, all would perish in their appalling folly, but for the activity of God in grace. If men do not want Him, He wants them! Immediately after the rebellion in the garden, the voice of God was heard, saying, "Adam, where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9). The Gospel tells us (Oh, blessed thought!) that God is now the Seeker after men. This is the meaning of the coming amongst us of His beloved Son. Accordingly in the New Testament sinners are never charged to seek the Lord although it is still their responsibility to do so; in stead, they are told that God is seeking them. When the Lord Jesus was found fault with for receiving sinners and eating with them, He gave utterance to the delightful parables of Luke 15, wherein He delineated the grace that seeks the lost, and that welcomes the penitent. He likened Himself to a shepherd "going after that which is lost until He find it." When again complained of for entering the house of Zacchaeus the tax-gatherer, He said: "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost" (Luke 19:10). The grace which seeks (oh, so unweariedly!) those whom righteousness might well condemn, is marvellous! What a God is ours! Yet how cruelly misrepresented by Satan to foolish men whom he would fain keep in eternal distance from the God who loves them! It is noticeable that when the Lord Jesus spoke of little ones He omitted the word "seek." All He said was: "the Son of man is come to save that which is lost." (Matt. 18:11). Even the Youngest is lost by nature; but some have not had time enough to wilfully stray from their God. Yet they need to be saved.

The Lord had previously given His disciples instructions as to prayer, but in the verses we now come to they are very blessedly encouraged to pray. "Ask, and it shall be given you" (verse 7). Oh, if we always acted on it! The apostle James says, "Ye have not because ye ask not," and he also adds, "Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (4. z, 3). Now the way to ask rightly is the secret shown in John 15:7. "If ye abide in me" a life of dependence — "and my words abide in you" — they are formative and produce right desires — "ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." And this corresponds with Psalm 37:4, because if I am delighting in the Lord, right desires will be created. Neglect of the word of God would be neglect of the true safeguard. "Ask" implies something I desire to have; "seek" something I have missed, and "knock" wanting an entrance. It means increased importunity. There is more intensity in "seeking" than in "asking;" and again, in "knocking" than in seeking.

The great moral principles of truth are also strictly and fully understood here, though under very delicate and spiritual illustrations. St. James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." In this book we read, "By night upon my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth; I sought Him, but I found Him not." The great moral principle, that there is a seeking which does not find, is equally owned in each of these scriptures; but the one has a much more delicate exhibition of it than the other. Jesus is here sought on the bed, that is, in some listlessness of mind. The bed may be the place of meditation (Psalm 63; Isa. 26), but not of seeking, which demands action. And thus the seeker on the bed, the listless, drowsy inquirer after the Lord, will not, till he pass through discipline, as here (Cant. 3:1-5), find Him.