Charles Stanley - Seeking the Lord
We are a nation in pursuit. We pursue just about everything you could imagine, not only wealth and relationships, clothing, gadgets. Just think about all the things that we pursue: sports, all kind of situations and circumstances that crop up in our life. We're after this and after that and after the other, that's who we are. And somehow, amidst all of these things that are out there in front of us that so distract us, I wonder sometimes where God fits in the way we position things in our life. Is He first and foremost, or is He an afterthought? Is He the most important person in our life, or is He just one of the many people in our life? Where does God fit? And when I think about that, I think about where people's interest lies.
And you say, "Well, how do you know what people think"? Well, listen to their conversations, the subject of their conversations. What are they talking about? Find out where people spend their money. Where do they spend their time? Who are their friends? What do they read? What do they believe? How do they act in secret as well as in public? The truth is, people are pursuing this and pursuing that and pursuing the other, and somewhere along the way, I think God probably gets left behind, except when there's an emergency. And then all of a sudden, He's number one. So I'd ask you this question: Where is He in your life? Where is God in your life? When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you think about? When you go through half the day, has God been in your vocabulary? Has He been in your mind? Or have you just been going about doing things, responsibilities and obligations that you have, taking care of your family or whatever it might be. But where's God in all that?
And so if I ask you: Well, why do you pursue so vigorously this occupation or this search for wealth or whatever it might be, or this relationship? Then there has to be some reason. Well, how vigorously do you pursue your relationship to God? Is He an afterthought, except in an emergency, or is He the number one person in your life? Well, all through the Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, we're admonished to seek the Lord. So what in the world does it mean to seek Him? Somebody says, "Well, why should I be seeking Him? I've been a Christian a pretty good while, and I don't know why I would have to be seeking something I already have". Well, I want you to listen carefully. And I want you to turn to the hundred and fifth Psalm for a moment, and I want us to look at this passage. Hundred and fifth Psalm and just a few verses, it's a psalm of real action. And of course, look to see what is the object of this and who it's all about.
Listen to what He says beginning in verse one, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him, speak of all of His wonders. Glory in His holy name, let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually". So notice, it's a Psalm of action. Giving thanks, calling, making known, singing, speaking, glorying, seeking, all of these things have to do with what? With who God is, what He's all about. So I'd ask you this. If somebody said to you, "Do you ever seek the Lord"? what would you say? Would you have to say, "Well, what do you mean by seek? And why should I seek somebody I already have"? But it's interesting in the Scriptures that many times we're admonished to seek.
You go back in what Moses was saying to Israel about seeking the Lord, what David was saying to Israel about seeking the Lord, and Isaiah and Jeremiah. And all through the Old Testament we're admonished to seek Him. And when we come to that eleventh chapter of Hebrews, that whole biographical sketch of people whose faith was so outstanding. And the Scripture says, "When we come to Him, we must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him". So when we think about seeking Him, what are we thinking about? So, when I think about that, I think about it in this light. If I'm already a believer and I'm seeking the Lord, it means that I want to go further in my relationship, not just to be saved. And you probably trusted Jesus as your Savior some time ago, and you said, "Well, you know, when He forgave me of my sins, wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life, came to indwell me with the Holy Spirit, what else is there"? That is just the beginning, only the beginning.
When we are admonished to seek the Lord, that means we're to come to Him, asking for direction, seeking to build a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him, because that's what He's up to. He said He predestined that you and I would be conformed to the image of His Son, and that would involve our having an intimate relationship with Him. So when I seek Him, I want to know more about Him. I want to have a more intimate relationship. I want to talk to Him. I want to listen to Him. I want to have a conversation with Him. I want to be able to observe Him working in my life in some fashion. If I'm seeking Him, I want to know Him better, more deeply, more intimately than ever before. For example, if you got married and you had this wonderful wedding, and then starting the next day, you didn't talk to each other much, you'd say, "I have made a horrible mistake". Because it appears that your husband or wife wasn't interested in anything but just having the wedding and wasn't interested in getting to know you and to love you so they could genuinely adore each other.
The same thing is true in the Christian life. When you and I say, "That's just getting in the door". Our name's written in the Lambs Book of Life, we're on our way to living it out. But the truth is, in the mind of God, that is just the beginning. He wants us to get to know Him, why? Because He desires that you and I seek Him. That is, He does not want us ever be, watch this carefully, He does not ever want us to be satisfied where we are in our Christian life. There is a sense of satisfaction and peace and contentment and joy. At the same time, here's the paradox. The more satisfied I become with Him, the more dissatisfied I become. The more satisfied I am with Him, with what I learn in my relationship with Him, then all that does is just create more hunger, more yearning, more desire to know Him because when will you and I ever, ever fathom all that God is? We never will. And that's the wonderful thing.
For example, if I gave you a thimble, like you sew with, a thimble, and said, "Okay, here's the Atlantic Ocean, be my guest". That's the way God is. He's fathomless. You and I will never know Him to the fullest, but He desires that you and I begin the moment we are saved. So to seek Him is to pray to Him, to listen to Him, to talk to Him, to grow with Him and to have a more intimate relationship with Him. And many people, sadly to say, are very satisfied trusting Jesus as Savior, join the church, getting baptized, living out the Christian life casually with no sense of real purpose, no sense of direction. And, listen, and willing to live it out as if it's a casual acquaintance with Almighty God. That's not what the Christian life's all about. The Christian life is serious business about having a serious relationship with the God who created every single one of us, has absolute power over all things, knows all things, and has made us these awesome promises. That's who He is.
And this is why, throughout the Scripture, He says we're to seek Him and we're to seek Him with all of our heart. Now, when I think about how people seek Him and I think about the fact that we should ask ourselves the question here, two things, and that is let's think about it from the point of view of a lost person. So, if a lost person says, "What am I to seek? Why should I be seeking God? I have a nice home. I have a good family". Or, "I have a good car. I have a good job and everything's going fine. Why do I want to seek God? I'm not a Christian. Why do I want to seek Him"? Here's what you tell them. You say, "Well, let me give you some very biblical reasons why you should seek God, beginning in Isaiah chapter fifty-nine," if you want to follow some of these verses. "Isaiah, chapter fifty-nine is a good reason you should seek the Lord".
Well, what is that? Well, here's number one, because the Scripture says, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear you". If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you don't have a relationship with God. And He says, besides that, standing between you and God are all these sins. And you may whisper prayers in your emergencies, but He does not hear you. A second thing He says in Romans chapter one, if you want to turn there for a moment, awesome chapter in the Bible. And here's a second reason I would say to someone who is not a Christian, that you ought to be seeking the Lord because here's what he says, he says in the eighteenth verse of Romans one, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," or women, "who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, and God has made it evident to them".
That is, he says God's wrath, God's wrath exists upon those who have turned away. But a third reason you should seek Him is this. In this first chapter and this twenty-eighth verse, a very serious verse in the Bible, when he says, "And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper". A depraved mind is a mind that cannot form right judgments. When a person lives in sin over and over and over again, refuses the gospel, rejects the gospel, here's what happens. Their heart begins to harden. And he says a depraved mind is a mind that cannot form right judgments. And what they don't realize, and a person says, "Well, you know, I'm not concerned about religion, not concerned about church".
You need to get concerned about God because God's wrath rests upon you. And when you live in sin and deliberately, willfully reject Him, refuse to seek Him, turn a deaf ear to the gospel, what's happening all the time, as He says in Hebrews, and that is the heart begins to harden. When does it harden? How long does it harden? How long does it take? I don't know the answer to that, but this much I do know. It would be like me walking over and touching you today on the cheek and you would feel it, easily. It's a real tender place. But when you're dead, you won't feel it. When you hear the gospel over and over and over and over again, there can come a time when you can't feel it. And that would be the most tragic thing that could happen to anybody, to sin against God to the point that all feeling for God, all desire for God, all sensitivity to God, all interest in God whatsoever is gone and you're walking like a dead man.
So, when somebody says, "Well, why should a lost person be seeking God"? I'm answering that question for you right now. And that is simply for the reason it's a dangerous thing not to listen to God and to seek Him. It is a dangerous thing, listen, it isn't just temporarily dangerous. It is eternally dangerous to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ. And of course, most of us know some of these verses, but in First Corinthians chapter two, for example, here's what he says. He says the lost person does not understand the Scripture. The lost person doesn't even have the capacity to understand. You begin to understand when you begin to recognize your need of Christ, and you begin to ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Then all of a sudden, the Spirit of God is working in your life when you come to the realization that you need Him. But he says the lost person, you talk to lost people, they don't understand what you're saying and why you're saying it.
And here's what he says in First Corinthians chapter two, that fourteenth verse, he says they cannot. Because they're spiritually discerned. The lost person doesn't understand. Well, I thought God was a God of love, and I thought He answered prayer and all these things. And of course, you know what Romans says in that sixth chapter and the twenty-third verse. Here's one of the primary reasons you should seek the Lord if you're a lost person. He says, "The wages of sin is death". Three ways: there is physical death, there is spiritual death, and there's eternal death. And a person who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ, refuses to seek Him, here's what you're coming to. You're going to die physically, you don't doubt that part. You're already dead spiritually. And number three, you will suffer eternal death, which is spoken of in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. That's eternal death, and that is what the Bible calls the second death.
I would say if you've never trusted Jesus, there is a very specific, definite set of reasons you should be asking God to speak to you and to surrender your life to Him. Okay, so somebody says, "Well now, wait a minute. I understand that for the lost person. But here I am a Christian, and you have explained that when you trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He comes into your life. The Holy Spirit comes in your life and seals you as a child of God. So why should I be seeking God when I'm already a Christian? What am I looking for? Why am I seeking anything"? Well, let's think about it for a moment. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, the Bible said, Paul puts it this way. He says you're like a babe in Christ. So you're born again, Jesus said. And so, why should you seek the Lord? Because God does not intend for you to remain in babyhood in your Christian life. That is, you can quote John three sixteen, that's the only verse you can quote.
And so, you know that you're a Christian and you say, "Here's what I did and I got baptized. I know that I'm a Christian. What am I looking for in life"? You've missed the whole point. Because, listen, he said He predestined, he predetermined that when you were saved, you'd begin at that moment to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Listen, God knows us. He wants us to know Him. He wants us to know Him intimately. He wants us to know Him personally. He wants us to know Him in a way that just casually knowing, getting some information about Him is not sufficient.
So somebody says, "Well now, looks like to me that's a contradiction that I have Him and at the same time I'm to seek Him". It's not a contradiction at all. Because what He's saying is this, look: I want a relationship with you. I want a relationship with you so that I can reveal to you who I really am. I want you to understand how much I love you. I want you to understand that you can absolutely, comfortably trust Me in every situation. I want you to know that I'm on your side. I want you to know that I have made a promise that I will cause everything to work together for your good if you will follow Me and love Me and obey Me and trust Me. I'll turn everything: difficulties, hardships, trials, suffering, I'll turn it all for your good. I want you to get to know Me. Because, God, listen, He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He's unchangeable. He's truthful. He's holy. He's righteous. He's merciful. He's all of these things.
And most people, if you ask them, "Describe God," they could just use a few adjectives because they've never sought Him. Listen, if you love Him, you will seek to know Him better. And if you're a brand new Christian, you should be seeking to know Him better. And seeking to know Him isn't just getting information and reading the Bible. But it's also listening and watching and observing how does God act? That is, when I think about all the things that I would like to know about God and am beginning to know in my life, one of the things that I treasure most is I love to observe how He works. I want to know how God thinks. I want to know how He works. I want to know why He does this, why He does that, why He does the other. Do I have all the answers? No, I do not. But I have enough to keep me so excited and searching and seeking and listening and observing what He does, not only in my life, but in the lives of other people.
And one of the ways that God shows us what He is like and what He wants to do in our life is He will open your eyes to see what He's doing in other people's lives. We watch how He operates in other people's lives and say, "Well, Lord, You are blessing them, and I certainly want to be obedient to You so You can bless me". He wants us to know Him, and to know Him on a level that most people have no interest or even idea that they can know Him on that level. Listen, we know Him about that thick, and He's fathomless. He's absolutely fathomless. You'll never exhaust who He is. It'll always be that. As we said before, and I say it again, here's what happens when you begin to understand who He is, what He's like. You want more and more and more and more.
You say, "Well, when will I get enough of Him"? Never! And the reason people become a Christian and nothing very exciting happens in their life is because somewhere along the way, they got the idea, "Well, you just get saved and sort of sit down". No, you get saved and get up and get busy, listen, not get busy working, though that's part of it, but busy finding out who is this God to whom you have, listen, here's what you did. Without any proof except the Word of God, when you trusted Him as your Savior, here's what you did. You said, "I believe in this God enough to bet, so to speak, my whole eternity on following Him". You don't have any proof except the promise of the Word of God.
So, if I were you, I'd get to know this God with whom I'm going to spend eternity and this God who controls my eternity, this God who controls my life and death and how long we live, this God who controls every single thing that exists, He wants us to know Him. And if you're not interested in knowing Him, you need to stop and ask yourself the question: Well, what's going on in my life that I don't have that kind of excitement? Now, let's think about it this way also. Somebody says, "Well, isn't God omnipresent, everywhere"? Yeah. "Is He in my heart as a Christian"? Yes, He is. But now watch this. Let's say that you get up tomorrow morning, you don't read your Bible. You're thinking about what you're going to do when you get to work. You don't start the day off praying. You're thinking about what you're going to do when you get to work. You may live till lunch time or dinner time or bedtime and give Him almost no thought, unless you have an accident. Then He's number one.
I think about people who live their lives and they don't spend any time seeking the Lord. When you go to bed at night, what's the last thing you're thinking about? What you've got to do the next day, or that you have somebody to help you do it? Where is God, in other words, in your thinking, in your category, and the minutes and the hours you spend any given day, where is God in your vocabulary? In other words, if I sat down and talked with you for a little while and we just talked about, I wonder if God's name would come up? Well, yeah, it would because I'm a pastor. Okay, chalk that to pastor business and just say one of your friends. How much conversation do you carry on to your friends, you never mention God, you never mention Jesus, never mention the Bible. You never talk about how God works in your life. You never give a testimony. Then where is He in your life? Is He any kind of a priority? He says we're to seek Him and we're to seek Him with all of our heart.
And I think many people somehow in their thinking, it never dawns on them that if I love Him, I'll talk about Him. If I love Him, I will pursue Him. That He'll be my number one pursuit. Watch this. Watch this carefully. Whatever is your number one pursuit other than God, sooner or later, you, listen, you're going to lose it or you're going to hurt it or you're going to be damaged by it. Whatever is number one ahead of God in your life, I can tell you something. He already has His hand on it for the simple reason He loves us too much to let us get by with it. He says we're to seek Him. So, it's a daily challenge in all of our lives and we have to ask ourselves the question: Lord, am I in one of those stages where I'm just sort of casually living the Christian life? Am I serious about following You and being obedient to you. He says we're to seek Him, which leads me to what I want to consider here for a moment, and that is, so we talk about listening to Him, seeking and all this, what's required of me? What's required of us if we're to seek the Lord.
Listen, we're talking about having a relationship with Almighty God. Well, what's required of me? Can I say, "Well, you know, when I decide to pray, I will; and I'll read the Bible, I will; and when I go to church, I will". Or is this serious business? So first of all, let me say we're to seek Him with all of our heart. And I want you to turn to the twenty-ninth chapter of Jeremiah because here's a precious passage of Scripture, and most committed believers understand this passage. We're to seek Him with all of our heart. And that means He's a priority. He's number one. He's first. He's the most important person in our life. Listen to this, Jeremiah twenty-nine, verse eleven, "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare," that's for our good, "not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you". Listen to this now, "I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search Me with all your heart".
Here's what that says to me. It says to me in my seeking Him, it's not a casual thing. If I said to you, "I love you with all my heart," you'd have a right to expect some things. Anybody who says to you, "I love you with all my heart," it's going to affect their attitude toward you, their time with you, what they spend on you, whatever it might be. We're to love Him, He says, with all of our heart. And I think when a person thinks in terms of loving God, what do you think about when you think about loving God? Doing something for Him? Or is there an emotion within you? A deep, abiding, hungering, thirsting, yearning within you, listen, to go deeper and further in your relationship.
If you really love somebody, and you're married to them, for example, or even if you're not married but it's a friend or whatever it might be, then if you really love them, what happens? You want to do something for them. Or you want to be with them. But most of all, listen, most of all, you want to get on the inside of them and find out how they think. And so, if I'm to seek Him with all of my heart, then this is not a casual business. But, if I'm going to do that, here's something I have to remember. In Isaiah, fifty-five, look at one more passage here. Isaiah fifty-five, because this is very, very, very important. If I'm going to seek the Lord with all of my heart, here's something I have to remember. In this fifty-fifth chapter and the sixth verse says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord".
Now, watch this. Watch this carefully. I cannot seek the Lord over here and be living in sin over here. In other words, that doesn't work. I'm either going to live in sin or seek the Lord. I'm not going to do both. There may be a time in your life when you're seeking Him, and maybe there's some weakness in your life, but listen, and you're having to struggle with something, but listen, if you're seeking the Lord and there's a struggle, that's one thing. If you're seeking the Lord and living in sin and not connecting the two, you, listen, you can't seek and find what you're looking for and hold on to some sin in your life because He says your iniquities have separated you from Him. That doesn't mean you're going to be lost if you're a Christian, but you cannot play both sides at the same time. If I love Him, if I'm seeking Him, I'm willing to get rid of all of the stuff and things in my life that don't fit who I am as a follower of Jesus. Then when I seek Him, I'm going to discover, I'm going to find out something. I'm going to have a relationship that is so deep beyond my comprehension. But I must seek Him with all of my heart.
Now, you have to ask yourself this question: What other desires are in your life? Here's a very interesting passage in Deuteronomy chapter four. Look at this fourth chapter and the nineteenth verse. And sometimes Christians get caught up in these things and they should not. And listen to this very clear Word of God. We're talking about if you're going to seek Him, you can't have other stuff in your life. Listen to this, verse nineteen of the fourth chapter, "And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, and all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heavens".
Now, you say, "Well, I'm not worshipping anything up there". Well, let me ask you a question. What is that piece in the paper that has your month of birth on it? What's that piece? The horoscope. That what it is? You say, "Well now, that doesn't mean anything". Why do you read it? Did you know that if you read that seeking guidance, He says don't do that. Because what they're talking about, you know, what's in the heavens and if you're born under this and under that or under the other. You need to be born again, you get out from all of that. What I want you to see, what I want you to see here is this: that from God's perspective, that doesn't fit who we are. He says we're not to be looking at those things. We are to be doing what? With all of our heart, we're to be seeking Him. And you remember what David said? He said, "My heart pants after the Lord God like the deer pants after the water brook".
So I would ask you: What are you the hungriest for today? What is it that really stirs you up? What is it that motivates you? Who is it you want to know? What is it you want to accomplish? What do you want God to do in your life? If God said, "Okay, here's a blank paper, write it out," what would you write down? And after you wrote it down, would it fit His will and purpose and plan for your life? Would it fit the Word of God for your life? Sometime somebody says, "Well, I just don't know how to live". Well, I can tell you how to live. Just decide you're going to be obedient to God. And you say, "Well, how am I going to know what that means"? In the Word of God, He makes it very, very clear. We are to seek Him with all of our heart. Here's what most people do, they say, "Well, I'll tell you what I believe about seeking God. I have a whole list of things I'm seeking God for. Here's what I'm seeking God". You're not interested in God. You're interested in what God can give you or do for you. What He says is: I just want you to be satisfied with Me.
Now, if you're not a Christian, that won't make one bit of sense with you, and I understand that. But most of you are and a lot of you who are watching and listening are. You're believers. Where does He fit in your desire pattern? And if you'll think about it, if He's not number one, then I have an idol in my life. You say, "Oh, my wife's not an idol". Is she number one or is God number one? Are your children number one or is God number one? Is your job number one or is God number one? What do you treasure most? What do you possess that you treasure most? You possess Christ. Do you treasure Him most? Or is there something else in your life that you treasure more? Whatever it is, I can tell you, because He loves you, He's going to knock on your door. So, I'm to seek Him with all of my heart. Secondly, I'm to seek Him diligently.
Listen to what he says in Proverbs, chapter eight and verse seventeen, Proverbs eight seventeen, listen to what he says. He says, for example, "I love those who love Me, and those who diligently seek Me will find Me". Now, why does He say diligently? Here's the reason: because we have a thousand things to divide our mind, many things to steal our time. If I'm going to diligently seek Him, it means I'm willing to work at it. I'm willing to set aside other things. Diligently doesn't mean that I just casually think about it once in a while. Diligently means it becomes a priority. I'm willing to work at it. I'm willing to sacrifice other things for it. I'm willing to put other things aside. It becomes number one, it's a priority in my life. I'm going to work at that, that above everything else. He says when we diligently seek Him, because most people do not.
And see, let me just say this. And God knows I love you all. When people just go to church, for example, and they say, "Well, you know, I've sort of done it for this week". What have you done? You've satisfied some sense of guilt you have. If that's all the relationship you have with Jesus Christ, there's something desperately wrong. We're to seek Him diligently. For example, if you have a... you students would know this. But if you were looking for a job, for example, and they give you a test and you're diligently studying, you're not saying, "Oh, my goodness! I'll just read this part and that part, I'm going to skip this part and skip that part. They're not going to ask me any questions". You wouldn't do that. If you knew that your livelihood and your future was determined by how you did well on this exam, what would you do? You would diligently study it. I mean, you'd stay up all night.
And I can remember times in college when they have two exams on the same day, four-hour exams on the same day, staying up all night was not even an issue. I had to. I was forced to. I diligently studied to be sure I passed. What are you diligent about? Are you diligent about anything? You're willing to exert the effort and the time. For example, are you diligent about your children, spending time with them? Are you diligent about your wife or husband? Are you diligent about how you handle your finances? Are you diligent about your health? Do you exercise? Do you eat right? Do you get enough rest? Or do you not care? And we have a lot of sick people because they're not diligent about their health. To be diligent means it's important. And I'm going to give it time. I'm going to study. I'm going to pray. I'm going to seek. How can I do my very, very best? To seek the Lord diligently means I'm not putting something else in front of it. And then we should seek Him continually.
Let me ask you a question: Can you name anything in your life that you should never pray about? Anything. Is there anything that you don't need to pray about at all? You say, "Well, I don't need to pray about how I'm going to dress tomorrow". Well, that depends on who you are and how you dress. Can you name anything of any significance at all that you shouldn't be praying about and asking God about? Living in the society in which you and I live, we should be praying and seeking the Lord. In other words, every time you and I have a decision to make, He is the number one person to consult, number one. You say, "Always"? Always, why? We're to seek Him diligently and we're to seek Him continually. Not sometimes, but all the time. Go back to Isaiah again, and here's a passage that says yes, I should be diligently seeking Him, but I should also, listen, I should also continually do so, and here's the reason why.
Let's say, for example, this week you're going to face some decisions. We may all face decisions this week that we had no plans for whatsoever because we didn't know it was going to crop up. But whatever the issue may be, here's the reason you and I should be seeking Him at all times. Because He says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor My ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts". So if I want to make a, listen, if I want to make the right decision in the situation, I should go to someone who has the highest of thoughts, the highest of ways, who knows every single solitary thing there is to know about this situation or circumstances. For example, you're planning to get married. You think you love somebody, and I would simply say to you, "You need to be very diligent and you need to be continually seeking the mind of God about whether this is the right person or the right time".
You say, "Well, I know it's the right person". Let me just say this. Everybody needs an alarm system. Now, you can buy one real cheap and put it on the table, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about on the inside. And you do have one whether you're listening or not. Now, I can tell you how mine sounds. Mine doesn't have an audible sound, but it sounds like, in my spirit, static. Something's not right. When I get static in my soul, I know I'm heading in the wrong direction, I'm thinking the wrong thing. I need to back off and say, "Okay, God, what are You saying to me"? You say, "Well, God doesn't operate in my life that way". Yes, He will. Your static may not be the same mine is, but what He does, it's that sense of uncertainty, that sense of lack of assurance. Can't put your finger on it, you can't exactly name it, but you know it's static. And every time I have ever violated that, it was the wrong thing to do. 'Cause listen, God has given you a conscience and He's given you knowledge and understanding. And if you have a relationship with Him, listen, if you want your alarm to work every single time, obey God. Commit yourself to live obediently to Him, and you know what He's going to do? Anytime you're heading the wrong direction, static comes on, why? Because He loves you, and because He cares for us, and that's why we're to seek Him continually.
And I can't think of anything in my life that's important at all that should leave out of my relationship with Him. Because, listen, He's so willing, He's so willing to accurately guide you in every single decision you make. And this is why people say, "Well, I don't have to pray about that, that's just natural". You know what natural is in the Bible? It's bad news. The natural man is the lost man. And it's our naturalness that gets us in trouble. And so, we're to seek Him continually, and the reason we're to seek Him continually is just what He said. He said, "Seek Me continually because My ways are higher than your ways, My thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And if you're always seeking Me and seeking My direction and My divine guidance, I'm going to protect you from making the wrong decision, which could be a terrible decision in your life". Then of course, we're to seek Him confidently. And you see, this is part of the issue.
Some of you've been sitting here already and saying, "Well, that's what He does in your life, but He won't do that in my life". Yes, He will, because He loves every single one of us. And that's why He says those who come to Him must come to Him believing Him, trusting Him, seeking Him. Let's put it this way: Is He willing to tune up your alarm? Is He willing to tune up your alarm so that there's no question any longer that God says, "Don't do that," or He said, "Yes, I want you to do this". Because living this Christian... listen, think about the society in which you and I live. It has never been more uncertain in the life of this nation. More homes, more people, more trouble, more trial, more heartaches, but more uncertainty for the future than ever before in the history of this nation. We need a personal, intimate relationship with God second to none, seeking Him above everything else there is in life. And when we do, we're going to come out wise. Then, he says we're to seek Him, for example, humbly.
And, Psalm, let's see, Psalm chapter ten for a moment. Listen to this passage. Everything that we need some direction about's in the Word of God. Listen to what he says in the fourth verse of the tenth Psalm. Watch this, "The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, 'There is no God.'" Here's the worst thing that can happen to you. When you get to the place in life you think, "Don't need to go to church. I don't need God". And you think, "Well, people don't say that". Yes, they do. Here's what they'll say. They'll say to me, "Why do I need God? I have my family, I have a nice home, I have a nice car, I've got a good job, I've got income, I've got plenty of money in the bank. Why do I need God"? And I want to say to them, "The only assurance you and I have in this life is Jesus. He is the only assurance we ultimately have. And because He's the Lord, and He's the Lord of our life, whether we acknowledge it or not, we ought to be pursuing that relationship above everything else in life because the truth is, we're totally dependent upon Him. And pride and arrogance is absolutely destructive every single time, no exception". He says we're to seek Him. And that is we're to come to Him because we know we need Him and we desire Him and love Him.
Now, there are lot of other things I could say, but I want to bring this down to when should the unbeliever seek the Lord? I could spend time telling you what God promises to do when we seek Him, and there's a list of things. For example, He says He'll reward us, bless us, be good to us, do good things for us. We won't miss out on any good. In other words, His promises are multiple. But what about the unbeliever? When should the unbeliever seek God? So I want to give you a couple of verses. I want to go back to Isaiah fifty-five for a moment. When should the unbeliever seek God? And here's what he says, read it to you already. There's a key word here. Look at this. The Bible says, watch this, verse six. You listening, say amen. That's a little light. Amen? "Seek the Lord while He may be found". Secondly, "Call upon Him while He is near, while He may be found".
If you sin and sin and sin and sin, and you become hardened to the things of God, what happens is you don't care. It isn't that God ceases to care, you don't care. This is why it's so absolutely dangerous to listen to the gospel. He said, "Seek Him while He may be found". When you listen and you sense something in your heart, it may be conviction, it may questions, doubts, whatever it is, but listen, while He may be found. Oftentimes God is knocking on your heart's door and you don't even realize it. You think it's something somebody else is doing. Seek Him while He may be found. Listen, He says, "Call upon Him while He is near". That is, a sense of the nearness of God. You can't put your fingers on it, you can't explain it. You just know that God's there. You know what that is? That's the Holy Spirit making you aware that you are sitting or standing or lying in the presence of Almighty God and He is ready to do something in your life.
And if you're willing to ask Him to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you based on what He did at Calvary, He's willing to radically change your life in that given moment. You will have responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and in doing so, He forgives you, cleanses you, writes your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. Your life is changed forever. He says seek Him, listen, seek Him while He's near, while He can be found. Or if you let your heart get hard and you, listen, you walk out of church and you say, "Well, I got some friends I'm meeting with". And you go out tonight and you drink and you carouse around, and you know what happens? You just got a little bit harder. It's dangerous. It's dangerous to hear the gospel and to reject it. The hardness of your heart, you become callous.
"I've heard that for years and years and years and it hasn't made any difference in my life," could be one of the worst things you could ever say. He says we are to seek Him and we're to seek Him with all of our heart. And there's no point, no time in our life when we shouldn't be seeking Him. And when He says when He's near. You say, "Well what do you mean near"? I mean, and if you're a believer, you understand what I'm saying. I'll give you an example in my own heart. There are times, for example, and this is not the only time, especially when I'm studying and I'm sitting there reading the Word and I'm not trying to get something for me. I'm just sitting there reading the Word of God and sometimes I'm just working on a message. All of a sudden, I break out crying. It used to confuse me. And then I began to realize, God, You're just giving me the awareness of Your awesome presence. I have no explanation. I don't have to explain anything. I just know He's there.
And sometimes I just get on my knees and weep and weep and weep and weep, and you know what? When I get up, you ask me, "Well, what happened"? I guess God was just loving me. That's all I can tell you. Watch this, it has nothing to do with being a pastor, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. It has to do with if you and I are available for the Lord to show up sometime and just love on us and remind us how good He is, and realize why we should be seeking Him because He's seeking us. He's seeking to sit on the throne of your heart. He's seeking to be number one in your life. He's seeking you to listen to Him so He can position you, so He can bless you with His best. It's God working.
It would be a shame for you to walk out of here today. It would be a shame for you to listen to this message and just lay it aside. It'd be worse than a shame, because remember this. You and I are responsible for all the truth that we hear. And all you've done is hear the truth. And all I've really said to you is, listen, seek the Lord. Talk to Him, listen to Him, build a relationship. Watch how He works, observe His work in a way that you can profit from it, that you can be drawn closer to Him, more intimately with Him. So He can use you to the maximum, your potential. You don't want to waste your life. You don't get but one trip. And that's my prayer for you.
If you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, here's what you can do. Realizing that you've sinned against God and that your sins, the Bible says and God says, have separated, in other words, between you and God is that sin. And that sin blocks out His blessing. It hinders what He wants to do in your life. He will radically change your life for good. Listen, you will be eternally grateful that He put up with you and was patient with you until the moment you trusted Him as your Savior. If you ask Him to forgive you of your sins, not based on how good you've been, you don't have any goodness, but based on the fact that He went to the cross, laid down His life, paid the price. You say, "What's this price"? God is a just God. Watch this carefully. God is a just God, which means He only does what's right. Here's what He said. "In the day that you eat of the tree of this garden, in this garden, you're going to suffer". What He was saying is simply this. When He said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die". "The wages of sin is death".
Well, how can God forgive you when He says the soul that sinneth, it shall die spiritually, eternally? Here's how He did it. When God the Father, who gave the Law, sent His Son to die on the cross, He was His perfect Son, the perfect sacrifice. He killed His Son on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for your sins, the only sacrifice that could possibly have been acceptable because He was perfect. And it's His death and God's acceptance of His death as payment for the sin of the world, so that any person who comes to Him based on the fact they're accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, you're forgiven of your sins. Your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You're forever a child of God. That's what can happen to you right now, if you'll let Him do it. Surrendering your life to Him, and from this moment on make Him the priority of your life, everything changes.
Father, how grateful we are we don't have to beg. We don't have to plead. We don't have to wonder. We don't have to doubt. We just know that everything You've said is absolutely the truth. And that anyone who is willing to ask You to forgive them of sin and surrender their life to Your Lordship, to Your way, and to Your will, everything changes for all eternity. And we are grateful beyond our ability to express thanksgiving, in Jesus's name, amen.