The Place for Religious Research
“Canst thou by searching find out God.”
Job xi. 7.
NO; and why? Because I never begin to search for Him until I have found Him; God alone can create the search for God. That is the great difference between things material and things spiritual. In material things the search precedes the finding; in spiritual things the finding precedes the search. When a man goes out to seek for gold you may infer that he is materially poor, but when a man goes out to seek for God you may conclude that he is spiritually rich. In the case of the gold we see the shadow before we touch the substance; in our experience of God we first touch the substance and then see the shadow. When a child stretches out its hand and cries for the moon it is seeking something which it will never find; but when a man stretches out his hand and cries for holiness he is seeking something which he has found already. No man can pray for the Divine Spirit except by the voice of that Spirit. Why is our Father so eager that we should pray for the kingdom? Is it because our prayer for goodness will make us good? No, it is because our prayer for goodness proves us to be good already. When did Abraham begin to search for the land of Canaan? When he got into it. He wandered up and down seeking the promised country; and he was there all the time, folded in her bosom. So is it with us. We long for Canaan when we stand in Canaan. We cry for love when we have learned love. We pray for purity when we have tasted purity. We feel our distance from God when God is at the door.
My brother, have you considered these words, “Behold, He cometh with clouds!” It is not “in clouds.” The idea is that He is to bring the clouds K’ifh Him — that His coming is to create the sense of distance from Him, the search for Him. It was when the Samaritan woman met Jesus that she first began her questionings. I do not think she had ever before troubled herself with matters theological. There is a mist which is the sign, not of rain, but of heat; it is the morning messenger of a coming day of brightness. So is it with the intellectual mists of your spirit; they mean heat. Yesterday, you were indifferent; you neither believed nor disbelieved — you never thought of the matter. Today, you begin to doubt, to search, to enquire; clouds and darkness are to you round about Him. Some will tell you that your today is worse than your yesterday. They are wrong; do not believe them. It is heat that makes your mist; it is light that makes your cloud. “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” asked the scientists of olden times; but why? Because they had seen the star. They sought Christ because His light had come. Even so shall it be with you. You will journey to Jerusalem when you have seen the star; you will seek the manger when you have heard the songs of Bethlehem. Your search will follow your finding. Be not cast down that, in the afternoon of the day, you are only a seeker for God; for the treasure you seek in the field is already in the dwelling, and the spade with which you dig is made of the gold you desire.