Homilist Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you early… There is no work so momentous, me influential, as the work of the soul in the sleepless hours of night. Busy in calling up departed friends and interchanging thoughts again, busy in recalling the past and foreboding the future, busy in reflections concerning itself and its God. In these words we have — I. The soul's religious LONGING in the night. The soul has many instinctive cravings, cravings for knowledge, for beauty, for order, for society.; but its deepest hunger is for God. "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." For what in God does it hunger? 1. For the assurance of His love. We are so formed that we crave the possession of the object of our love. Were all the works of God ours, we should be hungry without Him. He who gives His strongest love to us gives Himself. 2. For revelations of His mind. It yearns for ideas from the great Fountain of intelligence and love. II. The soul's religious SEARCHING in the night. "With my spirit within me will I seek Thee early." The soul seeking for God implies — 1. A consciousness that it has not got Him. All have God's works everywhere, God's influence everywhere, God's presence everywhere; but only a few have Himself, the assurance of His love. Hence the searching. 2. A belief that He may be obtained. We may all have God as our portion by seeking Him in Christ. Men hunger for some things they can never get — wealth, power, social influence, the distinctions of genius, etc. But all who hunger for God obtain Him. Conclusion — God is the great want of the soul. Without Him what are we? Planets detached from the sun, wandering stars for whom are reserved blackness and anarchy. "Whom have I in Heaven but Thee?" etc. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. |
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