When the multitude therefore saw that Jesus wasn't there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
If Christ stood with a drawn sword in his hand, you had better run on the point of his sword than perish without him. O come thou to him, driven by desperation itself, if by nothing else, come into his bosom! Thou shalt have peace at once. But all the while thou remainest seeking, I know not in what distracted manner, thou art wasting time, thou art missing comfort, thou art losing opportunities of happiness. Cease thy seeking, for there is the Man whom you seek. He stands revealed before thee. Reach hither thy finger and put it into the print of the nails; or if that be too bold, touch but the hem of his garment, and thou shalt be made whole. Another evil is not only the losing present peace and comfort, but the danger of being driven to despair. I do not doubt that some persons who were once sincere but unrenewed seekers, have now given up all thought of seeking Christ, because they continued to seek when he was near them, to look for him instead of looking to him; and they have waited so long in prayer and Bible reading, and so on, that now they utterly despair, and give all up as hopeless. It is no wonder. If you will try to do a thing in a wrong way, you cannot hope to succeed. If a man will not plough and sow, neither shall he reap. If ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established. A person may be very industrious indeed in what he does, but if he follows a method which never can produce the result he desires, he must not be surprised when he is disappointed. You are a seeker, and I am glad you are; but if you will not put your trust in Jesus, and lay your burden down at the cross where he offered the great sacrifice, it is no marvel if you continue to seek in vain. It will be a great sorrow, but it will not be a great wonder, if you become at last despairing, and are shut up in the iron cage. O man, O woman, break away from this. May God's Holy Spirit come to your rescue now! Give up thine own ideas of how to get peace, take God's method of salvation, and lay hold on eternal life by trusting in the Savior slain. Another danger is that in some cases, seeking at length dies out in indifference. Having sought after a fashion by prayer, and failing to find peace at once, temptations to go back to the world's pleasure attack the soul, and too often it becomes henceforth impervious to exhortations and expostulations. The unbroken, unrenewed heart grows sullen, and declares, "I tried, but I did not succeed. I may as well have what pleasure I can have, for spiritual joys are denied me. If the world to come cannot be mine, I will have this world and take my fill of it." I pray you may never be driven to that, but my fear is that if you tarry long in this border land, seeking but yet halting between two opinions, undecided and unbelieving, at last you will relapse into your former state of spiritual slumber, and your last end will be worse than the first. Another danger is lest you should take up with something short of Jesus Christ. I have known persons who have been content to remain seekers all their days. They have felt comforted by the thought that they are seekers. Now, such comfort is daubing with untempered mortar. A man out of employment has been walking up and down the London streets to find something to do. His family is in need, and he must find a situation. He is quite right to seek, but he will not be satisfied with seeking, he wants to find. Tramping the street will not feed his children. He is not contented with having called at many shops; he will not rest till he finds what he is after and he would be very foolish if he did. So to be a seeker after Christ, walking up and down the streets as it were, will not fill your hungry soul; you must get Christ himself. If any unemployed father of a family were to say, "Well, I walk about so many days in the week, and so many hours in the day, and I am quite satisfied, though I do not find anything to do," you would think him a great simpleton. And so with you. It is a good sign when there is an appetite; but a mere appetite does not satisfy a man he must eat the food provided. Your seeking Christ will not save you, except it leads you in very deed to believe in Jesus. It is an ill sign when a man says, "Well, I am doing my best, I am always at a place of worship, I am a Bible reader, I practice prayer at home, I do my best." My dear friend, if you settle down in that idea, you are self-righteous, and are off the road altogether; besides, you are lying to your own heart, for after all you are at enmity with Cod, and the sign of that enmity is this, that you refuse to believe on his dear Son. If you were reconciled to God you would love Jesus Christ, and trust in him. I see what it is you have resolved, after all, to be your own saviour; you still think that there is something in outward religion to produce salvation; whereas, I solemnly assure you that, if you stand out against believing in Christ, if you will not fly to those dear wounds of his, if you will not hide beneath the shelter of the atonement, you will go to hell as well from a place of worship as from the haunts of sin, and will perish as certainly with a Bible read as with a Bible burned. 