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I saw the proprietor of a garden stand at his fence, and call to his poor neighbour, "Would you like some grapes?" "Yes; and very thankful," was the ready answer. "Then bring your basket." The basket was quickly handed over the fence. The owner took it and disappeared among the vines; and I remarked that he deposited in it rich clusters from the fruitful labyrinth in which he hid himself. The woman stood at the fence quiet and hopeful. At length he reappeared with a well-filled basket, saying, "I have made you wait a good while; but there are all the more grapes." To the soul that seeketh Him. — "How good to those who seek"! — I do not know whether it has ever struck you what a grand man Jeremiah was. It is the prophet Jeremiah, in his Book of Lamentations, who says to you who are seeking the Lord, "The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh Him." You do not need to take any discount off his words of cheer. Depend upon it, what he says is true. If he of the weeping eyes, if he of the sorrowful spirit, yet nevertheless, in all the bitterness of his misery, bears testimony that the Lord is good to the soul that seeketh Him, then, depend upon it, it is so.

I. DESCRIBE A SEEKING SOUL.

1. He is under a sense of need, — a need which he could hardly describe, but which, nevertheless, weighs very heavily upon him. He wants something very great, but he hardly knows what it is. He feels guilty, and He wants pardon. He feels sinful, and he wants renewing. He feels everything that he ought not to be, and he wants to be changed, to be made a new man.

2. This seeker, also, is one who, though he does not know it, has a measure of faith, for he believes, deep down in his heart, that if he could once get to God, all would be well with him.

3. Further, this seeker sometimes seeks very unwisely. When a soul wants God, and wants salvation, it will begin to seek the Lord by its own doings, by its own feelings, by its own strange eccentricities, perhaps. Some of you think that you must have a remarkable dream, others expect an angelic vision, some are waiting to hear a very extraordinary sermon, and to feel very singular emotions. This is the nature of seekers, that they often seek in a very unwise way; but still, they do seek; and it is a mercy that they do seek, for "the Lord is good to the soul that seeketh Him."

4. I will tell you what true seekers do when they act wisely. I notice that they often get alone. When a stag is wounded, it delights to hide in the recesses of the forest, that it may bleed and die alone; and when God has shot His arrow of conviction into a human heart, one of the first signs of the wounding is that the man likes to get alone.

5. I will tell you another thing about the true seeker. You will find that he begins to bring out his Bible, that much-neglected book.

6. And as, perhaps, in his study of the Scriptures he meets with difficulties, you will find that this seeking young man is anxious to go and hear the Word preached; for the Word rightly preached has a warmth about it, and a vividness, which are not always so manifest to the seeker in his reading of the Word.

7. And there is another sign of the true seeker that I always love to see; he 1ikes to get into godly company.

8. There is another mark of a seeker that is better still: "Behold, he prayeth." Possibly, he used to repeat a form of prayer; but he has given that up, and now he talks to God straight out of his heart, and asks for what he really wants; and he not only does that morning and evening, but he is praying during most of the day.

9. I think there will be one more mark that you will see upon a sincere seeker: he will quit all that is evil as much as possible, and he will seek after that which is good, and especially, he will seek after faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You will see him now trying to believe, very much like a little child tries to take his first steps in walking alone. If, poor trembling seeker, your faith should bring you no comfort, because it is so weak, yet keep on trusting to Christ.

II. ASSURE THE SEEKING SOUL THAT THE LORD IS GOOD TO HIM. "The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh Him."

1. It is good of Him to have set you seeking at all. He might have left you in your sins as He has left so many thousands of your fellow men.

2. God is also good to the seeker in giving him some gleams of comfort. Did you say that you had been seeking the Lord for months? Well, how is it that you have kept on seeking! I think it must be because you have sometimes had a few rays of light.

3. I think that He is also good in not letting us rest short of Himself. Often, the surgeon, when he has a bad case, will not let the wound heal. "No, not yet," says he; "if that wound heals too soon, there will be more mischief coming from it." So he lets in his lancet again, and cuts out a bit of proud flesh; and our Lord will not let us close up the wound that sin hath made lest it be but a sorry healing that will end in a worse wound than before.

4. But He is much better to them that seek Him than you have ever imagined, for He has given such rich promises to seekers. Oh, the blessed invitations of Christ!

5. He is also good to seekers because He has made the way of salvation so plain. A man with an intellect not much above that of an idiot may understand this Gospel, and enjoy it, while a man with the greatest mental powers cannot understand it any better; nay, he cannot understand it at all, unless the Spirit of God shall reveal it to him.

6. Then, once more, is it not very good of the Lord in being found of seekers in due time?

III. But, lest I weary any seeker where I want to win him, I shall close by FURTHER CHEERING HIM ON IN HIS SEEKING.

1. Friend, be of good comfort, Christ is seeking you. You are drawing nearer to each other every hour, and it will not be long before your arms are about His neck, and His arms about yours; you will be rejoicing in Him, and He will be rejoicing over you.

2. It may not be long before you find the Saviour; it may, indeed, be so little a while, that, before the clock strikes again, you will have found Him.

3. And mark you this, when the blessing comes, it will be worth waiting for. The joy and peace through believing which come from Christ are a wonderful offset against the tears and sorrows that we have endured while we have been seeking Him.

4. This is my closing thought: thou hast no need to go about seeking Christ any longer. Thou hast no need to wait even five minutes ere thou findest Him, for it is written, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." Dost thou know what it is to believe on Him, to trust Him? Do so now. "It would be a great venture," says one. Then venture on Him. "Would He save me?" Try Him. You have heard, I dare say, of the African who came over to England. Before he came, the missionary told him that sometimes it was so cold in England that the water grew hard, and men could walk on it. Now, the man had heard a great many things that were not true which he had believed; but this, he said, he never would believe. It was "one great big lie; for nobody ever could walk on water." When he woke up, one December morning, and the stream was frozen over, he still said that he would not believe it. Even when his friend went on the ice, and stood there, and said, "Now you can see that what I told you was true; this is water, yet it is hard, and it bears me up," the African would not believe it, till his friend said to him, "Come along," and he gave him a pull, and dragged him on the ice, and then he said, "Yes, it is true, for it bears me up."

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

WEB: Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.