"Where Is He?"

Jesus went to the feast in secret, and the Jews sought him.

From differing motives they inquired for him, but they did inquire.

No man, having once heard of Jesus, can any longer remain indifferent to him: he must take some sort of interest in the Lord Jesus.

From many quarters comes the question, “Where is he?”

We will at this time—

I. CONSIDER THE WAYS IN WHICH THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED.

1. Hate, ferociously desiring to slay him, and overthrow his cause. Herod was the type of this school.

2. Infidelity, sneeringly denying his existence, taunting his followers because his cause does not make progress: 2 Peter 3:4.

3. Timorous fear, sadly doubting his presence, power, and prevalence “Where is he who trod the sea?” Job 23:8, 9.

4. Penitence, humbly seeking him that she may confess her sin, trust her Lord, and show her gratitude to him. Job 23:3.

5. Love, heartily pining for communion with him, and for an opportunity to serve him. Solomon’s Song 3:3.

6. Fear, bitterly lamenting his absence, and craving his return.

7. Desire, ardently aspiring to meet him in his second advent, and to behold his glory. Revelation 22:20.

II. GIVE THE SAINTS’ EXPERIMENTAL ANSWER.

1. He is at the mercy-seat when we cry in secret.

2. He is in the Word as we search the sacred page.

3. He is in the assemblies of his people, even with two or three.

4. He is at his table, known in the breaking of bread.

5. He is in the field of service, aiding, sympathizing, guiding, and prospering. In all things glorified before the eyes of faith.

6. He is in the furnace of trial, revealing himself, sanctifying the trial, bearing us through.

7. He is near us, yes, with us, and in us.

III. RETURN THE QUESTION TO YOU.

1. Is he at the bottom of your trust?

2. Is he at the root of your joys?

3. Is he on the throne of your heart?

4. Is he near you by constant converse?

5. Is his presence manifested in your spirit, your words, your actions?

6. Is he before you, the end of your journey, the terminus towards which you are daily hastening?

IV. ASK IT OF THE ANGELS.

They with one voice reply that the Lord Jesus Christ is—

1. In the bosom of the Father

2. In the center of glory.

3. On the throne of government.

4. In the place of representation.

5. In the almonry of mercy.

6. Within reach of you, and of all needy sinners, who will now seek his face.

   • O come, let us go and find him!
   • We will hold no feast until he is among us.

—ANA

Many years ago, there was a young man in Birmingham whom dissipation and excess had brought into a condition from which he endeavored to extricate himself by crime. The fear of detection, exposure, and ruin goaded him on to such a pitch of desperation, that he left his father’s house resolutely bent on self-destruction. God’s good providence led him through Bond Street; and, under some inexplicable impulse, he found himself sitting in the Baptist Chapel almost before he was aware. The minister, a Mr. Edmonds, was reading from the book of Job, occasionally throwing in some shrewd parenthetic remark. Coming to the following passage, the young man’s attention was irresistibly arrested: “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he does work, but I cannot behold him: he hides himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him”: Job 23:8, 9. “Job, Job,” the preacher cried entreatingly, “why don’t you look upward?” These words were as nails fastened in a sure place, and the young man ever thanked God for the belief that he was unconsciously drawn by the Holy Spirit to enter that place, and that the preacher was impelled to the use of those words, to the end that his life might be redeemed from destruction, and crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercy.

“It befell me,” says Henry Ward Beecher, “once to visit a friend, and to spend the night with him, in a manufacturing village in New England. I had never been in the place. I supposed that, when I arrived at the station, I should find a hack that could take me directly to the clergyman’s residence. But it was an unusual train that I was on, and there were no hacks there; so I had to walk. The distance to the village was three miles; but before I reached it I had walked at least thirteen miles. I got there at a time of night when all sensible people were in bed. I knew nothing about the place, and did not know where to go. I could not see any church, or store, or hotel. I wandered about for nearly half-an-hour, and at the end of that time I knew no better where I was than I did when I began my search. I never felt so helpless as I did then. I realized what it was for a man, in his own country, and speaking his own language, to be utterly lost. I knocked at three or four houses, and received no response. I went to a house where I saw a light, and found the inhabitants quarreling. A minister seemed to be the last thing they knew anything about. I began to think I should be obliged to sleep out of doors. But, as I was shooting down a certain street, almost aimless, I saw a light; and on going to the house from which it proceeded, and ringing the bell, I found that it was the very house which I was seeking. I thought a great many profitable things that night. Among the rest, I thought that I was, for all the world, like men that I had seen trying to go about the streets of Jerusalem at night, with nobody to tell them the way, and with no chart of the city, who would turn first to the right, and then to the left, without seeming to have any object except that of finding a place where their souls could put up and rest. It is pitiful to see a man, whose mind is troubled, whose conscience is against him, and who yearns for spiritual rest, going hither and thither, up and down, saying, ‘Have you seen my Lord and Master? Can you tell me where he tarries, whom my soul delights in?’ ”

Our glorious Master is always at home, but does not always hold his receptions in the same chamber. One while he will see us in his closet, and anon in his great hall. Today he meets us in the porch, and tomorrow in the innermost room. In reading the Bible I meet him in his library, in working for him I commune with him in the garden. When full of hope I walk with him on the housetop, at another time I wait for him in the secret places of the stairs. It is well to be in the parlor where he talks in sermons, or in his drawing-room where he converses in holy fellowship; but the best room of the house is that wherein he spreads his table, and makes himself to be our bread and wine. In any case, the one desire of our heart is to find him, and live upon him.

C. H. S.