Morning “I sought him, but I found him not.” / Song of Solomon 3:1
Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most
likely place to find him. Have you lost Christ in the closet by restraining
prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find him. Did you lose Christ by
sin? You will find Christ in no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and
seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell.
Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Christ in the
Scriptures. It is a true proverb, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, it
is there.” So look for Christ where you lost him, for he has not gone away.
But it is hard work to go back for Christ. Bunyan tells us, the pilgrim found
the piece of the road back to the Arbour of Ease, where he lost his roll, the
hardest he had ever travelled. Twenty miles onward is easier than to go one
mile back for the lost evidence.

Take care, then, when you find your Master, to cling close to him. But how is
it you have lost him? One would have thought you would never have parted with
such a precious friend, whose presence is so sweet, whose words are so
comforting, and whose company is so dear to you! How is it that you did not
watch him every moment for fear of losing sight of him? Yet, since you have
let him go, what a mercy that you are seeking him, even though you mournfully
groan, “O that I knew where I might find him!” Go on seeking, for it is
dangerous to be without thy Lord. Without Christ you are like a sheep without
its shepherd; like a tree without water at its roots; like a sere leaf in the
tempest–not bound to the tree of life. With thine whole heart seek him, and
he will be found of thee: only give thyself thoroughly up to the search, and
verily, thou shalt yet discover him to thy joy and gladness.

Evening “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures.” / Luke 24:45

He whom we viewed last evening as opening Scripture, we here perceive opening
the understanding. In the first work he has many fellow-labourers, but in the
second he stands alone; many can bring the Scriptures to the mind, but the
Lord alone can prepare the mind to receive the Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus
differs from all other teachers; they reach the ear, but he instructs the
heart; they deal with the outward letter, but he imparts an inward taste for
the truth, by which we perceive its savour and spirit. The most unlearned of
men become ripe scholars in the school of grace when the Lord Jesus by his
Holy Spirit unfolds the mysteries of the kingdom to them, and grants the
divine anointing by which they are enabled to behold the invisible. Happy are
we if we have had our understandings cleared and strengthened by the Master!
How many men of profound learning are ignorant of eternal things! They know
the killing letter of revelation, but its killing spirit they cannot discern;
they have a veil upon their hearts which the eyes of carnal reason cannot
penetrate. Such was our case a little time ago; we who now see were once
utterly blind; truth was to us as beauty in the dark, a thing unnoticed and
neglected. Had it not been for the love of Jesus we should have remained to
this moment in utter ignorance, for without his gracious opening of our
understanding, we could no more have attained to spiritual knowledge than an
infant can climb the Pyramids, or an ostrich fly up to the stars. Jesus’
College is the only one in which God’s truth can be really learned; other
schools may teach us what is to be believed, but Christ’s alone can show us
how to believe it. Let us sit at the feet of Jesus, and by earnest prayer call
in his blessed aid that our dull wits may grow brighter, and our feeble
understandings may receive heavenly things.