I. Observe the order of the steps of grace. You are first to feel after God in your own heart, "if haply you may find Him;" and when this has brought you a little near, then you are to call out then you are to pray; then you are to give up some known sin every wicked way, and every wrong thought. That is an indispensable condition. Then comes the meeting of a pardoned soul with God, and next the appreciation of the Lord as our own covenanted God; and then the sweetness of that perfect love and forgiveness of the Father.
II. Notice, further, that at each step there is an opportunity of finding God, and these opportunities are limited. We are to expect answers to prayer as we give up outward sins, which it is easy to do, and inward sin, which is the more difficult. What is nearness? Is God always near? The Holy Ghost makes nearness. He unites us to God. That presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul is nearness. If the Holy Ghost were to leave you, you would never find God the life in the Spirit would be over. Hence the tremendous emphasis of the words, "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."
III. How can the wicked forsake his way? By prayer, by occupation, by filling the mind with what is good, by having more of the Holy Spirit, by new and better pleasures, higher objects, worthier influences, more fixed motives, by loving constant thoughts of Jesus this leads on to the end.
IV. There are crisesin life. Whatever account you have to settle with God, settle it now. There are two "nows" in the Bible which ought never to be separated. One stands out in the brightest rays, the other retires into the deepest shadows. " Nowis the accepted time." "Nowthey are hid from thine eyes."
J. Vaughan, Sermons,11th series, p. 29.
References: Isaiah 55:6; Isaiah 55:7. Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 38. Isaiah 55:6-9. C. Short, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 158.