Seek the LORD

If you're still in Isaiah, we're going to read in chapter 55 tonight, Isaiah 55. And we'll be looking at verse 6 and 7. I'd like to thank you as well for being here for this Gospel meeting. Isaiah 55 and verse 6. This is the message of God to His people through the prophet.

Isaiah 55 verse 6. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him. And to our God for He will abundantly pardon or forgive. Thinking of these words, seek ye the Lord while He may be found.

There are many things that we are seeking for, many things that we are striving for, laboring for, toiling for, things that we are trying to get. There are those that are seeking for fame. Some are seeking for popularity.

Some people are looking for riches, power, possessions. Some people are looking for relationships, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife. Many, many things that people are seeking for, that they are diligently looking for, trying to obtain.

When we read these words, seek ye the Lord. We have just heard about the awfulness of our sin. For people that discover what their sin is in the eyes of God, these are the people that are going to seek the Lord and what He is offering to them.

I don't know what your stance on immigration is. Maybe you have a little bit different viewpoint from some people. But there were a number of people that we talked to recently there in Canada and well and refugees from all of South America.

People that had traveled across ten countries to get to Canada. Why would a person do that? Why would a person trek through the jungles of Panama where there are bandits and thieves and abusive men and murderers and trek across all of Central America to Mexico to be robbed and to be extorted? It was a man that was telling us how he made it to Mexico and they took everything that he had and the only thing he could do was sell water until he had enough money to continue on. And he finally made it halfway through Mexico where they would not let him get on the bus anymore.

So he literally walked across Mexico to get to the U.S. But before he got there, the cartel got a hold of him and they beat him for two days until he thought he was going to die. By the grace of God, they let him go. Why would a person do that? Why would a person risk their life? It's because there are people that are hoping, that are seeking for a better life.

There are people that have lived in poverty that have absolutely no outlook. People that have kids that are sick and they don't have two cents to buy medicine for them. People that have been oppressed and there are people that have suffered violence and these people are seeking for a better life and they are willing to risk everything in hopes of gaining something better.

They are seeking for a better life and many of them don't make it. There are bodies in the jungle. There are bodies in the desert.

People that have disappeared. When we consider what people are willing to do to get in this country, and I've often told these people, you know, it's far easier to get into heaven than it is the U.S. And yet there are people that are willing to risk everything to come here. That is what they are seeking for.

That is a priority that they have set. That is their goal. What they long for, for whatever reason.

What we read here, our desire ought to be this. Not to seek for a better life, or relief from poverty, or even from sickness. The Bible says seek the Lord.

What is being sought after? Well, the Bible tells us here that it is a forgiveness of sins that He is offering. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.

Because there is a God that is willing to show mercy upon the guilty. And there is a God that is willing to forgive you your sins. But if this is not something that interests you, not something that burdens you, you will never have it.

You will never have it. Because the Bible tells us of God's part, God's desire is this. Come now, let us reason together in all that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished on the behalf of sinners, in what is available to men and women, and boys and girls today.

But there are those that never see the value of it. They never see the importance of it. They never even see the urgency of it.

The Bible says, Seek the Lord while He may be found. And there are people that seek and strive and labor for many things. And then life comes to an end.

And what do they discover? They miss out on the most important thing. I was reading the other day of a woman that was suffering. Those that were here last Sunday, we talked a little bit about radium poisoning.

A woman that had suffered for years a very tragic, long, drawn-out, agonizing death. And as she finally succumbed to that and lay there in a casket, her friends would come along and say, she looks so peaceful. You know what I thought when I heard that? If they only knew.

Because that is not her laying there the remains of that person. If she went out of this world never knowing Christ as Savior, she is not at peace. She opened her eyes in hell in a place of torment.

The reality is this, that there is nothing that is more important than the forgiveness of your sins. And there is nothing that is more urgent as life is so fragile. What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

And yet we are so preoccupied with so many things of so little importance. There are people and their only thought is to be entertained. The greatest commodity that we have is time.

And there are people that are so willing to waste it on things that only give pleasure for a very little while. And the clock is ticking down. And eternity lies before each and every one of us.

That is why the forgiveness of sins is a thing that we ought to be seeking for, that we ought to be longing for, that we ought to be looking for. As we travel through this life, I hope we understand, yes, we do need to work. Yes, we do need to study.

But that isn't the whole point of living here. Because you can have all of those things, university titles and all kinds of money and wealth and possessions, and die in your sins. And what's it all worth? A few years on earth to an endless eternity in a place of torment because of your sin.

Our sin is taking us farther and farther away from God. And death comes. And then we are going to be eternally banished from the presence of God in any glimmer of His goodness.

That is why it says, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. I was reading a book the other day.

It was about a man in the 1850s, 1840s who left the settlements of the East because he wanted to go to the frontier. And he went to the frontier and beyond, to the rocky mountains, the black hills, and he lived with the Ogallalas. One of the things that he mentioned is all the people that were traveling through the Oregon Trail, the people that were going west.

Again, people that were looking for a better life. And their wagons full of all the things that they thought necessary. But what he said was this, you would not believe all the things that were strewn along the way.

Likely there were dressers and furniture that had come all the way across the Atlantic when their ancestors had immigrated. And now they're going west. They pack it all up.

What they didn't account for was the harshness of the journey. The plains and the desert and the heat and the dangers and the disease. And those priceless pieces of furniture were just heaved out in the desert.

Left abandoned to rot. And all of these things that they thought were so necessary, they come to discover the only thing that matters is getting out of here. Is surviving.

Is being saved. And all of those things that they thought were of such great value became utterly worthless because they could have actually caused their death. And they decided to get rid of it all.

And I hope there are people that in your mind, if you are weighing this up, whether God's salvation is worth it or not, maybe more important than that girlfriend, that boyfriend, that job, that possession, whatever it might be. Let me tell you, it is not worth losing your soul for. It is not worth an eternity in hell.

Sin is something that must be faced. God longs to deal with it. God longs to give you the forgiveness of your sins.

He has done everything necessary that our sin could be eternally removed. And yet there are people that have other things in mind. God says, seek ye the Lord while He may be found.

Call upon Him while He is near. God is pleading, as it were. He is imploring sinners, listen.

The problem is your sin. Come now, let us reason together. Let us get this taken care of.

Forgiveness is available. Forgiveness is being offered. But there are those that are so careless, being distracted with things, with other things.

Things that are only going to last for a little while. Is it not so sad that we can be so taken up with the pleasures of life and the pleasures of sin that are only temporary? That are only going to last for a very little while? The Lord Jesus said this. This is the condemnation that light has come into the world.

But men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. The reality is just that men and women love their sin. But friend, please understand that sin is very deceiving.

Sin is something that brings pleasure for a little while, but something that will bring eternal suffering. Those sins that we have committed against God, those are offenses that are deserving of God's wrath. Those are things that might be so appealing now, but friend, in light of eternity, it's not worth it.

It's not worth losing your soul for those things. The Bible tells us where true pleasure is found. In thy presence there is pleasure forevermore.

What God offers is far better than anything this poor world could ever offer. What the Lord Jesus offers is not only the forgiveness of sins, but something that satisfies the soul. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you, you would have asked of Him living water.

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst. The Lord Jesus said, I am the bread of life.

He that believes on me will never hunger. He that comes to me will never thirst. What is the Lord Jesus offering? He is offering something that satisfies.

In this very same chapter, everyone that thirsts, come let him drink without money and without price. What is God offering? He is offering the forgiveness of sins. He is offering eternity to us in His presence where there is joy forevermore.

And yet people think it's not even important. It's not worth going in for. The Bible says seek the Lord while He may be found.

Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way. The unrighteous man, His thought, is no longer seeking after sin because it is so loved.

What's a recognition is an anguish. So wait, they're taking me down. Away, farther and farther away from God.

Deeper and deeper under the wrath of God ultimately. He says first let the wicked forsake His way. The unrighteous man, His thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord, to our God who will abundantly pardon. He will have mercy upon him and He will abundantly pardon. Friend, can I tell you there's nothing like having peace with God.

What this world does not know is peace. All the conflict, all the sin, all the strife and the turmoil. There's families without peace and cities without peace and nations without peace.

An entire world without peace. And yet that is what God wants to give men and women. That they no longer be an enemy of God.

That they no longer be at a distance separated from Him. Oh, that we might have forgiveness and peace and rejoice in the mercy of God. You think of what it costs God.

The Bible tells us so plainly, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And it comes to the problem of our sin. Sin that separates us from God is taking us away from God.

Sin that deserves the awful wrath of God. And yet God was willing to give His own Son. God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.

Look at the cross. Look at a man who suffered more than any man has ever suffered. A man who was marred more than any man.

A man that knew to the fullest the wrath of God against sin. God's own beloved Son. So pure, so perfect, so holy.

And yet on the cross He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. Punishment that you and I might have that peace with God.

It fell on His own Son. The agony that the Lord Jesus Christ knew in those hours to be exposed to the wrath of God in His fullness, that it was as it were completely unleashed against His own Son. Nothing reserved.

Nothing held back. But everything that sin deserves to be poured out on His own Son. In hours of agony, in hours of darkness, the Son of God, He bore it.

And He bore it and He bore it until He could say, it is finished. What I appreciate about that is the Lord Jesus didn't simply die in the darkness under the burden. Because there could remain that awesome doubt, did He suffer enough? Is there still sin that needs to be dealt with? Is there something that the wrath of God ceased to be poured out on? But the Bible tells us that He could say it is finished.

It is finished! That He has suffered, He had endured the wrath of God until there was no more. That awful burden that was laid upon Him, He could bear it fully, completely, until He could announce there is no more. You know, that is why when we speak of God's offer of forgiveness it is the forgiveness of all your sins.

Not a few sins. Not some of your sins. Not most of your sins.

The Bible tells us the blood of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of God's Son, it cleanses from all sin. From all sin. And if one sin is enough to keep you out of God's heaven, I tell you the Lord Jesus dealt with every single one.

And His work stands in all of its perfection even today, that this man appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He did a work to us to the satisfaction of God. That's why the Bible says He is a propitiation for our sins.

That means God is completely at peace. God is completely satisfied when it comes to your sin. Based on what the Lord Jesus Christ did, there is forgiveness that is being offered.

Forgiveness that is available seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Turn from your wickedness.

Turn from your own thoughts. Turn to the Lord who wants to have mercy upon you. Who wants to forgive you your sins.

It costs God everything. It costs the Lord Jesus His body, His blood, suffering at Calvary so that God could freely extend to each and all the forgiveness of sins. That your sins can be made as white as snow because Christ died.

That you can be freely forgiven without paying, without doing. But you are going to have to receive it for yourself. Because the sad reality is that you can refuse the pardon of God.

I don't know if you've heard of George Wilson or not, but in the early 1800's, 1829, he and his friend decided to rob the mailman. They put his life in danger. George's friend was hanged to death.

But because George had some friends that knew the President Andrew Jackson, Andrew Jackson was willing to issue a pardon. That he could simply serve 20 years and then go free. But as George Wilson is presented with a pardon, he refused it.

And then they stopped and they scratched their head. Well, what are we going to do now? The pardon has been issued. It's been presented and it has been rejected.

And finally, the Supreme Court has to rule that a pardon is not effective unless it is received. Do you understand that God is offering the forgiveness of sins to you right now? All of your dark, ugly sins can be forgiven tonight. Because God sees the value of the work of His Son.

He says that it is enough to take your sins away. But there are people that are rejecting God's offer of forgiveness. And they are going to go out into eternity to suffer the wrath of God in all of us.

And all of us wait. Because they rejected the pardon that God offered. They ignored the call of God as God would plead with men as He pleaded with the nation of Israel.

Your sin is a problem. But I am willing to deal with it. Come now, let us reason together.

Here He says, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. But how many are going to continue on the road that they're traveling farther and farther away from God? God is so gracious in His offer of mercy as being extended, which you know it is only going to be for a while.

Do you notice the urgency of what Isaiah says? Seek the Lord while He may be found. He will not be found in hell or the lake of fire. You cannot call upon Him in that place.

Because those that choose the path that leads farther and farther away from God, that is exactly what God will give them. That's why He says, Seek now. Call upon Him while He is near.

Forsake your sin and flee to the Savior, friend, this evening. There is a pardon that is abundant. There is a pardon that is for you if you will take it for yourself.

Listen again. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Let's pray.