O That I Knew Where I Might Find Him!
Among all the various kinds and orders of God’s intellectual creation, there is not one that uses this language besides a mourning saint in this lower world. As for all other spirits, whether dwelling in flesh or not, their wishes are expressed in a very different manner, nor do they seek and long to find out an absent God.
If we ascend up to heaven and enquire there what are the wishes of those blessed spirits, we shall find that their enjoyments are so
* Job XA’iii. 3.
glorious and their satisfactions rise so high in the immediate presence of God amongst tliera, that they have nothing of this nature left to wish for: They know that their God is with them,^and all their wish is, what they are assured to enjoy, that this God will be with them for ever.
If we descend to the regions of hell where God reigns, in vengeance, we shall heat those unhappy spirits groaning out many a fruitless wish, “O that I knew where I might avoid him, that I might get out of his sight, out of his notice and reach for ever. T feel his dreadful presence, and O that it were possible for me to be utterly absent from him and to find a place where God is not!”
If we take the wings of the morning, and fly to the utmost parts of the eastern or the western world, we shall find the lano’uage of those ignorant heathens, “O that I knew where I might find food, and plenty, and all sensual delights!” But they send not a wish after the great God, though he has been so many ages absent from them and their fathers. He is unknown to them, and they have no desires working in them after an unknown God.
If we tarry at home and survey the bulk of mankind around us, the voice of their wishes sounds much the same as that of the heathen world, “0 that I knew where I might find trade and merchandise, riches and honors, corn, wine, and oil, the necessaries or the superfluous luxuries of life!” But God is not in all their thoughts. If they frequent the temples, and attend the seasons of worship, they are well enough satisfied with outward forms without the sight of God in them. There is no natural man that with a sincere lonfrino: of soul cries out, “0 that I knew where to find him!”
As for the children of God that live in the light of their Father’s countenance, they walk with him daily and hourly, they behold him near them by the eye of faith, and they feel the sweet influences of his gracious presence; their highest ambition and their dearest wishes are, “O that he might abide for ever with me, and keep me for ever near to himself!”
The words of this Scripture therefore can only b.e the language of a saint on earth in distress and darkness, when God who was wont to visit him with divine communications, and to meet him in his addresses to the throne of grace, has withdrawn himself for a season, and left the soul to grapple with many difficulties alone.
This was the case of that holy man whose sorrows and complaints have furnished out almost a whole book of Scripture, and supplied the saints in all succeeding ages with the forms and speeches of pious mourning. It is the voice of a sacred impatience that Job here utters, “O that I knew where I might find him!” And by a plain paraphrase we may learn both the meaning and the reason of such language, and be taught by his example to lament after an absent God.
Let us suppose the saint therefore pouring out his soul in such sort of expressions as these, in which I shall not entirely confine myself to the darkness of the patriarchal dispensation under which Job lived, but indulge the language of the New Testament and personate a mourning Christian.
Time was when I had a God near me, and upon every new distress and difficulty I made him my present refuge; I was wont to call upon him in an hour of darkness, and he shone upon my path with divine light. He has often taught me to read my duty in his providences, or in his word, or by some secret hints of his own Spirit, even while I have been kneeling at the throne of grace; but now I find not my usual signs and tokens. My Guide and my Counsellor is withdrawn; “0 that I knew where I might find him!”
He was once my kind assistant in every duty, and my support under every burden: I have found the grace of my Lord sufficient for me in my sharpest conflicts, his strength has appeared in my weakness. When my spiritual enemies have beset me round, he has scattered them before me, or subdued them under me; and being held up by his everlasting arms I have stood my ground, and borne up my head under the weight of heavy sorrows; but now I am attacked on all sides, my soul wrestles hard with sins and temptations, and I find no assistance no victory: I sink under my present sorrows; for my God, my strength, and my comforter is absent, and afer off”; “O that I knew where I might find him!”
My God was wont to deal with me as a compassionate friend; when Satan accused, he has justified. He has shewn me the all-sufficient sacrifice of his Son, and that spotless righteousness of his which has answered all the demands of his own holy law, and cancelled all the charges of guilt that the devil or my own conscience could bring against me. He has taught me by fiuth to put my soul under the sprinklings of this sacred blood, and to wrap around me the robe of tins divine righteousness; he himself has arrayed me in garments of salvation. But now the army of my sins rises up before me, and overwhelms my spirit with many terrors; Satan the accuser urges on the charge, and my Saviour an(J his nghteousness are as it were hidden from me. “0 that I knew where I might find him!”
Many a censure have I borne from men, and had my reputation assaulted and my good name blackened with many a scandal. But when man reproached me God has undertook my cause, and made my righteousness shine as the light, and my innocence as the noon-day; I could then pour out my soul before him, tell him all my sorrows in flowing language, and feel sweet relief; but now, alas! troubles and reproaches are multiplied upon me, and he does not seem to take my part; my spirit is bound and shut up, and I am cut off from that free converse, that humble holy intimacy which I once enjoyed with my God; I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. Will he not help me to pray? Will he not hear my groans and requests? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Yet I would seek his face still, and “O that I knew where I might find him!”
Often have I seen him in his own ordinances in the place of public worship; I have seen his power and his glory in the sanctuary: I have found him in secret corners, and my meditation of him has been exceeding sweet. In dark retirements he has smiled on my soul, and has often given me reviving light. I have found him in his works, and I have had a foirer sight of him in his word; I can name the places, the pleasant lines in ray Bible, and say, “I have seen the face of my God here: But now the Bible itself is like a sealed book, or like a strange language which I cannot understand; I hear not the voice of my God speaking to me there; I go forward to his promises, and read what he will do for his people, but I perceive him not; backward to his past providences or to my own experiences, and review what he has done, but there is a darkness there too: I turn to my left hand amongst his works of nature, but I do not see him; I seek him on my right hand amongst his works of grace, but still he hides himself that I cannot behold him. ver. 8, 9. “I wander in the night and enquire after him, I watch for him more than they that watch for the morning, I say more than they that watch for the morning. O that I knew where I might find him!”
And it is no wonder that I am so impatient under the painful sense of his present distance from me, and so importunate for his return: For I have known the dreadful case of utter distance from him in a state of nature and sin, and I have tasted something of the pleasure of being brought nigh by grace, and now I dread every thing that looks like that old distance, that estrangement; I would fain renew those divine pleasures of a returning and a reconciled God: “0 that I knew where I might find him!”
Besides I bethink myself and say, “What shall I do without a God!” for I find all creatures utterly insuflicient to relieve and help me; and I have known something of God’s all-sufficiency; he has been my helper in six troubles and in seven; he is my only hope: When creatures stand aloof from me, and each of them say, “There is no help in me,” whither should I go then but to my God? “O that I knew where I might find him!”
I have been so much used to live upon him, and found his divine aids and intluences so necessary to my life and my peace, that I siuk and die at his absence. I feel within myself a sort of heavenly instinct that I want his presence, and cannot live without him. I know he stands in no need of me, for he gives to all his creatures life and breath, and being; but 1 need his counsels and his comforts, his strength and his love: My soul is touched with such a divine influence that it cannot rest while God withdraws, as the needle trembles and hunts after the hidden loadstone. If my God retire and hide himself, he will foigive a creature that loves him so well as to follow hard after him without ceasing, and is impatient and restless till he search him out: “0 that I knew where 1 might find him!”
Though God is pleased to depart from me for a season, yet I cannot let go all my hope: he hides himself from my soul, yet I dare not think him an enemy, but only a concealed friend: If I could get near him even to his seat, I know I should find it a mercy-seat, though perhaps judgment may sit there too. It is a throne of grace, says a Christian, because Jesus is there with the blood of atonement; and having such an High-Priest over the house of God, and such a new and living way of access by the blood of Christ, I will seek after him and address myself to him; I will confess mine iniquities before him, and be sorry for my sins, which may have beclouded or eclipsed my heavenly sun, and hid his face from me, I fear I have grieved his blessed Spirit, and provoked him to withdraw his kind influences of light, strength and comfort; nor will I cease grieving for his absence till he return again.
Come, 0 eternal Spirit, come and visit my poor dark and disconsolate sold; come and awaken all my powers to follow hard after my Father and my God. Come, invigorate my faith, and lead me to the Mediator the blessed Jesus; come, open to me the promises and let me into the covenant of his unchangeable love ratified and sealed with blood. If ever I find my God again, it is there I know, I must find him; Christ is the only way to the Father. It is by the interest of Ins Son I shall get near to him, even to his seat; then will I pour out all my woes and my wants in his sight, I will order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments. Will he plead iigainst me with his great power? No, but he will put strength in me, and assist and suffer me to prevail with him.
Then, when I have found him whom my soul loveth, I will hold him fast and not let him go: I will charge all the powers and passions of my nature not to yield to one sinful practice, nor provoke him to depart; for he is my everlasting and my almighty friend.
Then, though I should have a thousand enemies set themselves against me, I would not be afraid: yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have found my God, and my God is with me.