After this seeking, we read at first, "I found him not." Sad, but needful disappointment. But this lasts not for ever; we soon come into the region of our text, where everything is bright with sunlight. Three flashes of delight follow each other: "I found him"; "I held him"; "I brought him." May these be our joyous experience! To that end let us muse upon them and pray the Holy Spirit to help us.

• My joy in his society.


• My need of his gracious protection.


• My love to him, which made me hunger for him.


• His love to me, which surely would not let him leave me.

He is willing to be constrained. See how often, in his life on earth, "they constrained him," and he yielded to their will.

The love of Jesus creates in our hearts love to our fellow-believers for their Redeemer's sake.

The church of God is our mother: the holy assembly is her chamber, where we were born unto God, and nurtured in his fear. We are to labor to promote communion with Christ among those who are our brethren, taking Jesus with us whensoever we go up to the gatherings of the faithful.

1. By our own spirit: communing with Jesus before we go to public worship, and going there with him in our company.

• We shall always find him in the church if we take him in our hearts to its hallowed services.

2. By our words: we should so speak as to set forth Jesus, and promote fellowship with him. Alas, how many speak controversially, or without savor, or with carnal oratory wherein is no room for the Beloved! Oh, for a crucified style of speech!

Hold him by not offending him. First, by sloth. When the soul turns sleepy or careless, Christ goes away. Secondly, by idols. You cannot hold two objects. Thirdly, by being unwilling to be sanctified. Fourthly, by an unholy house. "I brought him into my mother's house." Remember to take Christ home with you, and let him rule in your house. If you walk with Christ abroad but never take him home, you will soon part company for ever. — McCheyne

"I found him", I, a man, found the Lord of Glory; I, a slave to sin, found the great Deliverer; I, the child of darkness, found the Light of life; I, the uttermost of the lost, found my Savior and my God; I, widowed and desolate, found my Friend, my Beloved, my Husband. Go and do likewise, sons and daughters of Zion, and he will be found: of you; for "then shall ye find when ye search with all your heart."

But we have another mother, and other brethren, in the human family from which we are sprung. The Church has the first, not the only claim on our affections; the perishing world has its right to a large share of our pity and our prayers. Comparatively, it is not hard for us to bring Jesus into the Church, which is his mother's house as well as ours. But the world hates Christ, has nothing in common with him, is aware that he rightfully claims the dominion, is sensitively jealous of the claim, and lives with its doors barred against him night and day. No criminal keeps so vigilant a watch against the officers of justice, no lonely widow makes her gates so fast against the midnight robber, no miser spurns so haughtily the beggar from his door, as the unrenewed heart keeps watch and ward against the entrance of Jesus, and scornfully sends him away when he asks for a lodging in the soul. To introduce him, therefore, into this home of our mother is a work demanding effort, watchfulness, patience. There is much to provoke him to turn away; we must plead with him, hold him, and not let him go; and with our mother's children we must also plead with "the soft tongue that breaketh the bone;' for they are offended with us as well as with him. So sought and prevailed the Bride of the Lamb, till she brought her own Beloved into the midst of her mother's children, by whom she had been herself so hardly entreated, requiting evil with good. Have you attempted this? Are you engaged in the effort now? If not, rise and commence such a work of faith and labor of love on behalf of the lost. — A. Moody Stuart

It is not to be supposed that there is any opposition in the heavenly Bridegroom, nor any unwillingness to be overcome by his bride: no, it is the loving heart of Jesus which is readily overcome by the love of his chosen one.

1. He left heaven to be one with her. He could not bear to see her ruin, but left his Father that he might share her lot.
2. He died to redeem her: "found guilty of excess of love."
3. His delight is in her now; she is lovely in his sight.
4. His eternal joy is to spring from her: he will see in her the result of his death-agony: "he will rest in his love."

• At first seeking for pardon.


• At times when we pine for restoration from backsliding.


• Whenever we are struggling to maintain fellowship, and mourning our breaches of it.


• Whenever we groan under inbred sin, and would be free from it.

• At first, by a desperate act, daring to glance with feeble hope.


• Afterwards, in simplicity, day by day gazing at his wounds.


• In deep distress still hoping on, and never removing our eyes.

• When in sore trouble, patiently submitting.


• When in humble hope, quietly waiting.


• When under severe tests, firmly believing.


• When in full assurance, joyfully expecting.

• In personal trouble, like Jacob, pleading the promise, and saying, "I will not let thee go." The Lord says, "Let me go."


• In holy compassion pleading for others, like Moses, to whom the Lord said, "Let me alone."

• He is altogether lovely, and all mine: my eyes swim with tears of delight as they gaze on him, and thus they overcome him.


• My heart burns with love to him, and I adore him; and this wins everything from him.

• Pining for a personal revelation of himself to me by his Spirit.


• Most of all, sighing for his speedy coming in the glory of the Second Advent. He replies, "Behold, I come quickly!"

To overcome the Lord is the greater thing, and when this is done, the church may well go forth conquering and to conquer all that is less than her Lord. The eyes of the church should be set on Jesus, and then she would overcome. If we were —

1. Weeping for dishonor done to him, he would see this, and retrieve our defeat.
2. Depending on him for our strength, our faith would give us victory through Jesus' love.
3. Obediently following his commands, he would then feel it right to give honor to his own truth, and to reward obedience to his own precepts.
4. Confidently expectant of victory, Jesus would make bare his arm for us. Faith's eyes calmly watching, or flashing with exultant expectancy, would be as flames of fire to the foe.
5. Eagerly pleading for his interposition, our tearful, earnest eyes would soon succeed with our gracious God.

Who has not felt the power of the eye? The beggar looked so imploringly that we gave him alms; the child's eye so darkened with disappointment that we indulged his desire; the sick man gazed so sadly at our departure that we turned back, and lengthened our visit. But the eyes of those we love master us. Does a tear begin to form? We yield at once. We cannot endure that the beloved eyes should weep. Our Lord uses this figure to most encouraging purpose. The weeping eyes of prayer move the loving heart of Jesus. Matthew Henry says, "Christ is pleased to borrow these expressions of a passionate lover to express the tenderness of a compassionate Redeemer, and the delight he tales in his redeemed, and in {he workings of his own grace in them."

We read in Matthew 15 that the Lord Jesus said to the Canaanitish woman, "O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." He seems to surrender at discretion, conquered by that faith which he had himself put into her heart. Now, faith is the eye of the soul, and here is an instance of the eyes overcoming the Lord. We cannot vanquish him with the works of our hands, or the eloquence of our lips; but we can win the victory by the pleadings of our eyes, those eyes, which are as the eyes of doves, seeing afar, the eyes of true faith.

Some devout persons find it a profitable exercise to bow the knee, and to look up. Using few words, they commune through a long, upward, pleading glance. One only cried, "My God," and at another timer "God be merciful to me, a sinner''; and yet he came forth from his closet as one who had bathed in heaven.

"Have you a glimpse of Christ now that you are dying?" was the question asked of an old Scottish saint, who, raising himself, made the emphatic reply, "I'll hae none o' your glimpses now that I am dying, since that I have had a full look at Christ these forty years gone." — Annals of the Early Friends

If they reason, they rather reason against God than together with him; but here the proposal is not to discuss, but to treat with a view to reconciliation.

1. They prefer to attend to ceremonial observances. Outward performances are easier, and do not require thought.
2. Yet the matter is one which demands most serious discussion, and deserves it; for God, the soul, heaven, and hell are involved in it. Never was wise counsel more desirable.
3. No good can come of neglecting to consider it. It is one of those matters which will never drift the right way of itself.
4. It is most gracious on the Lord's part to suggest a conference. Kings do not often invite criminals to reason with them.
5. The invitation is a pledge that he desires peace, is willing to forgive, and anxious to set us right.
6. The appointment of the immediate present as the time for the reasoning together is a proof of generous wisdom. "Just as thou art," come to God in Christ, just as he is. Love invites thee in all thy sin and misery.

l. The one main ground of difference is honestly mentioned, "though your sins be as scarlet." God calls the most glaring sinners to come to him, knowing them to be such.
2. This ground of difference God himself will remove, "they shall be as white as snow." He will forgive, and so end the quarrel.
3. He will remove the offense perfectly, "as snow — as wool."

• He will remove for ever the guilt of sin.


• He will discharge the penalty of sin.


• He will destroy the dominion of sin.


• He will prevent the return of sin.

• Free forgiveness obliterating guilt.


• Full atonement averting punishment.


• Regeneration by the Spirit breaking the power of sin.


• Constant sanctification forbidding its return.

1. The singular greatness of your sins, "red like crimson." This is met by a great atonement, which cleanses from all sin.
2. The long continuance of your sins. Cloth dyed scarlet has lain long in the dye vat. The blood of Jesus cleanses at once.
3. The light against which your sins were committed. This puts a glaring color upon them. But "all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men."
4. The grieving of the Holy Spirit. Even this is removed by Jesus.
5. The failure of your attempts to whiten your soul. Crimson and scarlet cannot be removed by the art of man; but the Lord saith, "I have blotted out thy sins."
6.The despair which your sins create: they are so glaring that they are ever before you, yet they shall be washed out by the blood of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

A husband and wife had parted, and had been for years separated. He on several occasions entreated her to meet him, and talk over their differences with a view to reconciliation. She steadily declined an interview, and would not enter upon the subject of their alienation. Are you surprised when we add that the fault from the beginning lay with her? You cannot doubt that the sin of their continued division was her's alone. The parable is easy to be interpreted.

Certain scarlet cloth is first dyed in the grain, and then dyed in the piece; it is thus double-dyed. And so are we with regard to the guilt of sin; we are dou-ble-dyed, for we are all sinners by birth, and sinners by practice. Our sins are like scarlet, yet by faith in Christ they shall be as white as snow: by an interest in Christ's atonement, though our offences be red like crimson, they shall be as wool; that is they shall be as white as the undyed wool. — "Friendly Greetings"

When a dye enters into the very substance of the stuff, how can it be removed? Our own laundresses, by continually removing common stains, at length destroy the fabric of our linen; but what is to be done where art, and labor, and time have mingled the color and the cloth into one? With man this may be impossible, but not with God. When a man has taken up sin into him, till it is as much himself as his black skin is part and parcel of the Ethiopian, yet the Lord can put the sin away as thoroughly as if the Negro became a fair Caucasian. He takes the spots out of human tigers, and leaves not one of them.

Consider how the Tyrian scarlet was dyed; not superficially dipped, but thoroughly drenched in the liquor that colored it, as thy soul in custom of sinning. Then was it taken out for a time and dried, put in again, soaked and sodden the second time in ,the vat; called therefore twice-dyed; as thou complainest thou hast been by relapsing into the same sin. Yea, the color so incorporated into the cloth, not drawn over, but diving into the very heart of the wool, that, rub a scarlet rag. On what is white, and it will bestow a reddish tincture upon it; as, perchance, thy sinful practice and precedent have also infected those which) were formerly good, by thy badness. Yet such scarlet sins, so solemnly and substantially colored, are easily washed white in the blood of our Savior. — Thomas Fuller