Where Is He?

Jesus went to the feast in secret, and the Jews sought him.

From differing motives they inquired for him, but they did inquire.

No man, having once heard of Jesus, can any longer remain indifferent to him: he must take some sort of interest in the Lord Jesus.

From many quarters comes the question, “Where is he?”

We will at this time —

I. CONSIDER THE WAYS IN WHICH THE QUESTION HAS

BEEN ASKED.

1. Hate, ferociously desiring to slay him, and overthrow his cause. Herod was the type of this school.

2. Infidelity, sneoringly denying his existence,

taunting his followers because his cause
does not make progress: 2 Peter iii. 4.

3. Timorous fear, sadly doubting his presence,

power, and prevalence. “Where is he that trod the sea?” Job xxiii. 8, 9.

4. Penitence, humbly seeking him that she may

confess her sin, trust her Lord, and show her gratitude to him. Job xxiii. 3.

5. Love, heartily pining for communion with him,

and for an opportunity to serve him. Solomon’s Song iii. 3.

6. Fear, bitterly lamenting his absence, and craving his return.

7. Desire, ardently aspiring to meet him in his

second advent, and to behold his glory.
Rev. xxii. 20.

II. GIVE THE SAINTS’ EXPERIMENTAL ANSWER.

1. He is at the mercy-seat when we cry in secret.

2. He is in the Word as we search the sacred page.

3. He is in the assemblies of his people, even with

two or three.

4. He is at his table, known in the breaking of

bread.

5. He is in the field of service, aiding, sympathizing, guiding, and prospering. In all things glorified before the eyes of faith.

6. He is in the furnace of trial, revealing himself,

sanctifying the trial, bearing us through.

7. He is near us, yea, with us, and in us.

£11. RETURN THE QUESTION TO YOU.

1. Is he at the bottom of your trust?

2. Is he at the root of your joys?

3. Is he on the throne of your heart?

4. Is he near you by constant converse?

5. Is his presence manifested in your spirit, your

words, your actions?

“WHERE IS HEf

6. Is he before you, the end of your journey, the terminus towards which you are daily hastening?

IV. ASK IT OF THE ANGELS.

They with one voice reply that the Lord Jesus Christ is —

1. In the bosom of the Father.

2. In the centre of glory.

3. On the throne of government.

4. In the place of representation.

5. In the almonry of mercy.

6. Within reach of you, and of all needy sinners;

who will now seek his face.

0 come, let us go and find him!

We Trill hold no feast till he is among us.

ANA.

Many years ago, there was a young man in Birmingham whom dissipation and excess had brought into a condition from which he endeavored to extricate himself by crime. The fear of detection, exposure, and ruin goaded him on to such a pitch of desperation, that he left his father’s house resolutely bent on self-destruction. God’s good providence led him through Bond Street; and, under some inexplicable impulse, he found himself sitting in the Baptist Chapel almost before he was aware. The minister, a Mr. Edmonds, was reading from the book of Job, occasionally throwing in some shrewd parenthic remark. Coming to the following passage, the young man’s attention was irresistibly arrested: “Be hold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:” Job xxiii. 8, 9. “Job, Job,” the preacher cried entreatingly, “why don’t you look upward?” These words were as nails fastened in a sure place, and the young man ever thanked God for the belief that he was unconsciously drawn by the Holy Spirit to enter that place, and that the preacher was impelled to the use of those words, to the end that his life might be redeemed from destruction, and crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercy.

“It befell me,” says Henry Ward Beecher, “once to visit, a friend, and to spend the night with him in a manufacturing village in New England. I had nev er been in the place. I supposed that, when I arrived at the station, I should find a hack that could take me directly to the clergyman’s residence. But it was an unusual train that I was on, and there were no hacks there; so I had to walk. The distance to the village was three miles; but before I reached it I had walked at least thirteen miles. I got there at a time of night when all sensible people were in bed. I knew nothing about the place, and did not know where to go. I could not eee any church, or store, or hotel. I wandered about for nearly half-an-hour, and at the end of that time I knew no better where I was than I did when I began my search I never felt so helpless as I did u WHERE IS HE?” 261

then. I realized what it was for a man, in his own country, and speaking his own language, to be utterly lost.. I knocked at three or four houses, and received no response. I went to a house where I saw a light, and found the inmates quarrelling. A minister seemed to be the last thing they knew anything about. I began to think I should be obliged to sleep out of doors. But, as I was shooting down a certain street, almost aimless, I saw a light; and on going to the house from which it proceeded, and ringing the bell, I found that it was the very house which I was seeking. I thought a great many profitable things that night. Among the rest, I thought that I was, for all the world, like men that 1 had seen trying to go about the streets of Jerusalem at night, with nobody to tell them the way, and with no chart of the city, who would turn first to the right, and then to the left, without seeming to have any object except that of finding a place when; their souls could put up and rest. It is pitiful to see a man whose mind is troubled, whose conscience is against him, and who yearns for spiritual rest, going hither and thither, up and down, saying, ‘Have ye seen my Lord and Master? Can ye tell me where he tarries, whom my soul delights in?”1

Our glorious Master is always at home, but does not always hold his receptions in the same chamber. One while he will see us in his closet, and anon in his great hall. To-day he meets us in the porch, and to-morrow in the innermost room. In reading the Bible I meet him in his library, in working for him I commune with him in the garden. When full of hope I walk with him on the housetop, at another time I wait for him in the secret places of the stairs. It is well to be in the parlor where he talks in sermons, or in his drawing-room where he converses in holy-fellowship; but the best room of the house is that wherein he spreads his table, and makes him self to be our bread and wine. In any case, the one desire of our heart is to find him, and live upon him. — (7. H. S.