The True Way to Do When Christ Is Lost

Here again we are indebted to this wonderful text; the true way is shown in the conduct of Joseph and Mary: “they turned back again… seeking him.” There is nothing else to do if we would find Christ. If we went away from Him we must return to Him.

Necessarily it is a sorrowful seeking. The thought is quite a bitter one that through our own carelessness and neglect of duty the separation was brought about, that we let trifles come in between us; yes, that we let anything thrust itself between the soul and its highest joy. Some of the saddest utterances I ever heard fall from human lips are those that proceed from seekers after a lost Christ. It is a melancholy band, and even where God is willing to forgive them, it seems almost impossible for them to forgive themselves.

I have noticed also in many instances that it takes longer to recover the Savior than to lose Him. Joseph and Mary lost Him in a few minutes or hours, but it was three days before they got Him back. This is not compelled to be the case, but through the heart-sadness and mental bewilderment arising from the separation, the soul loses much time in finding the way of return.

It will be a glad seeking, for with all the pain of recollected unfaithfulness and all the sorrow of the separation, the thought that he now is going back to Christ can of itself be an inspiring and glad thought to the wanderer. Sad as his heart may be, his case is unspeakably better than the man who remains wallowing in his sins far from the Savior. Better far to turn back with tears, like Joseph and Mary, than to go on with laughter and chatter like the caravan.

Moreover it is to be remembered that Christ is not far away. The Scripture is authority for saying He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27). And in the case before us, when Joseph and Mary turned back to seek Christ, they were separated then from Him by only eight miles, the distance from Beeroth to Jerusalem.1 In other words, they were about two hours’ journey from the Lord, and I cannot help but think that most people are even less widely separated from Jesus than this. I believe that two hours spent on the face before God in repentance, faith, and prayer, would in the case of the majority of spiritual wanderers restore them to the loving embrace of the Son of God.

Christ is not far off from the saddest, hardest, and worst. He walked in the midst of publicans and sinners while on earth, and is near them today in His great mercy. He is oftentimes much closer than some dream. He walked by the side of two heartsick disciples for several hours before they knew Him, and He stood before the weeping Mary in the garden before she recognized His voice and form. The very burden on the heart is His own begun work. The heart sadness that so discourages is the result of the light that He has poured in, while the pain of soul shows life and godly sorrow. The dead do not grieve nor feel pain. The living do that. The very shadow that you feel may come from His blessed form bending over you.

It is remarkable how utterly unable one is to judge and understand these phases of feeling and all the phenomena of the soul’s return to God, while personally separated from Jesus. The sinner who is convicted does not know what is the matter, and the backslider returning to God fails to realize that the sorrow which weighs him down is one of the drawings of heaven, is a direct work of the Holy Ghost, and is no occasion of despair, but of confidence and gladness.

I recall a hymn which shows this very darkness and despair of the soul just before its salvation or recovery. In one verse is the line,

“There’s no hope for a sinner like me.”

In the next verse the Divine voice is heard speaking; then salvation bursts on the penitent, and rapturous joy overflows his lips in the words,

“No longer in darkness I’m walking,
For the light is now shining on me.”*

Just so I saw a man sink with a groan on the carpet before the altar, saying, “There is no hope”—when the very next instant with face blazing, hands clapping, and body flying around the room, he was shouting the praises of God over the full and blessed salvation that had come. Remember that according to David his “rejoicing” followed a “broken bones” experience (Psalm 51:7-8). The breaking comes first, the gladness next.

Still another feature of the recovery of Christ is that you will find Him where you left Him. It was in Jerusalem they became separated from Jesus, and it was in Jerusalem they recovered Him. It is right where you left Christ you will find Him. Certain things were done or left undone, and right there today you must return. You dropped certain duties, and there is Christ waiting for you to resume them. The burden laid upon you by the Providence of God you cast off; the cross of Christ you laid aside for awhile and so the glory faded out of your life. The thing to do is to go back where you threw off the cross and burden, and patiently take them up again. You will find Christ there at that place and at that moment. He is waiting for you.

Still again, I notice that the text says that the sorrowing parents found Jesus “in the temple.” So it will be with you. “The house of God, which is the church of the living God,”* (1 Timothy 3:15) is the best of places to find Christ, for it is none other than His own body indwelt by His spirit. That spiritual house is His earthly residence, and it is there that His ministry of reconciliation is most powerfully made known.

Even the chapels consecrated by the assembly of His body hold a special place in our hearts because of His recollected presence. How dear to us all are the memories of the many spiritual refreshings and uplifts we have there received, but above all is it precious to a great number because there they first found or recovered Christ.

A lady friend of mine was riding in a buggy with her husband when they passed the old country church house where she had been converted as a girl. Requesting him to stop and wait on her awhile, she went up to the old weather-stained house in the clump of trees, pushed open the door and knelt down at the altar, where, when as a girl, her heart had opened to receive Jesus as her Savior. It was an humble looking building, with plain pulpit and altar. The dust was on the floor and the spider web on the window, but a spiritual beauty and glory invested all because of Him whom she had found there. For an half hour she knelt alone in the shadowy old church house weeping and rejoicing. Finally she arose and went back to her husband who been patiently awaiting her in the buggy. No word passed, for he saw from the tear-stained cheek and the holy light in her face that she had met the Lord in the old meeting house by the road.

Once a brother minister and myself were entertained at the home of a devoted Methodist woman, who sent us in her carriage to the country chapel where church services were to be held. The lady accompanied us in the carriage. Twenty years before she had been converted in that chapel, but after a few years of church service had lost Christ. She had become both bitter and melancholy. Her determination to go with us that morning was sudden, and on the way out I observed that she dropped her veil and scarcely uttered a word. The old church house stood in a grassy plot, surrounded by a rustic graveyard, and with a few old trees sighing solemnly about it. The fellow minister was one of the godliest men I ever knew, and that morning he preached with great tenderness and unction. At the conclusion of the sermon he invited penitents to the altar, and our hostess, who had sat through the entire sermon with her veil down, was the first to respond. I noticed that instead of kneeling at the part of the altar which was nearest to her, she crossed over to the other side and knelt at a certain corner. It was the spot where she had found Christ twenty years before. She had come back to the temple with a sorrowing heart to recover Him whom her soul had loved and lost. It was a most pathetic spectacle, the lonely black-robed figure, the long sweeping veil, the bowed head and form. But in less than ten minutes she found Him. I felt the fact before she with a gush of tears announced it. When she had dropped the veil over her face two hours before we had seen a sad-faced woman; when she swept it aside now with trembling and beautiful joy, what a face of holy light and love she turned upon us. She only lived two years after this, and is today sleeping in the old graveyard by the side of the church house where she first found, and then afterwards refound, her Savior.

Blessed temples of God all over the land! Thank God for the chapels where the church of God meets; for their open doors, for the voices of hymn and prayer. Thank God for the shining-faced preachers in the pulpit, and the godly pillars in the pew. And thank God for the public altar, where kneeling down in the loneliness and bitterness of repentance, we listened to the cries and shouts around us while the battle was pressed, and struggled on in the darkness after Christ. Thank God for the loving hands laid on the bowed head, and the words of cheer and direction whispered or spoken into the attentive ear. And above all, thank God that at last, suddenly, through the gloom and storm Jesus appeared to our souls the fairest among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. Some of you may have shouted, others laughed, others of you wept as if your heart would break, and still others simply sat motionless and voiceless with the great peace that had come to you. Nevertheless, in spite of these different manifestations, you all knew this, that you had found Jesus and found Him in the temple. This was the glorious crowning fact that changed this world to you, and made the house of God the fairest of buildings to your eyes (Ephesians 2:19-22).2

“I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
The place of Thine abode,
The church our blest Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood.

“Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heav’nly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows,
Her hymns of love and praise.

“For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be giv’n,
Till toils and cares shall end.”*