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“And you shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29: 13
YOU started on the Great Quest the moment you were born.
It was many years before you realized it, before it became apparent that you were constantly searching - searching for something you never
had - searching for something that was more important than anything in life. Sometimes you have attempted to lose yourself in other things, sometimes you have tried to forget about it. At moments you
have almost been able to dismiss the quest completly.
Butt always you have been caught up in it again - always you have had to come back to your search - again and again.
At the loneliest moments in your life you have looked at other men and women and wondered if they too were seeking - seeking something they couldn`t describe but knew they
wanted and needed. Some of them seemed so much happier and less burdened than you. Some of them seemed to have found fulfillment in marriage and family living. Others went off to achieve fame and wealth
in other parts of the world. Still others stayed at home and prospered, and looking on them you may have thought: “These people are not on the Great Quest. These people have found their way. They knew
what they wanted and have been able to grasp it. It is only I who travel this path that leads to nowhere. It is only I who go asking, seeking, stumbling along this dark and desparing road that has no
guideposts.”
But you are not alone. All mankind is travelling with you, for all mankind is on this same Great Quest. All humanity is seeking for an answer to the confusion, the moral
sickness, the spiritual emptiness that opresses the world. All mankind is crying out for guidance, for comfort, for peace.
We are told that we live in the “age of anxiety.” All the familar props seem to have been swept away. We talk of peace but are confronted by war. For generations we have
been running like frightened children, up first one blind valley and than another. Each time we have told ourselves: “This path is the right one, this will take us where we want to go.” But each time
we have been wrong.
One of the first path we chose was labelled “political freedom.” Give everyone political freedom and the world will become a happy place. Let us select our own government
leaders and we shall have the king of government that will make life worth living. So we achieved political freedom, but we did not achieve our better world.Our daily newspapers give us reports of
corruption in high places, of favoritism, of exploitation, of hypocrisy equal to and sometimes surpassing the despotism of kings. Political freedom is a precious and important thing, but it alone cannot
give us the kind of world we long for.
There was another very hopeful path marked “education” and many put their whole faith in it. Political freedom coupled with education will do the trick, they said, and we
all rushed madly along the educational path. It seemed a bright, well lighted, sensible path for a long time, and we travelled it with eager, expectant feet. But where has it lead us? You know the
answer. We are the most informed people in the history of civilization - and yet the most miserable. Our high school students know more about the phisical law of the universe than the greatest
scienist in the past days.But though our heads are crammed with knowledge, our hearts are empty.
The brightest, most inviting path of all was the one marked: “higher standards of living.” Almost everyone felt he could trust this one to carry him automatically into
that better and more joyful world. This was felt to be the sure route. This was the “press the button and you’re there” route! This was the path that led through the beautiful full color magazine
advertisements, past all the shining new cars, past the gleaming rows of electric refrigerators and automatic washing mashines, past all the fat chickens cooking in brand new microway ovens. We knew we
hit the jackpot this time!
But has it make us happy? Has it brought us the joy and satisfaction and the reason for living that we were seeking? Or does that awful hollow feeling persist? Does every
further and further discovery of universe comfort you or make you feel more alone and helpless than ever? Does the antidote for human fear and hatred and corruption lie in some laboratory test tubes, or
in an astronomers telescope? There are other paths, of course, and many are travelling them this very moment. There are the paths of fame and fortune, of pleasure and power. None of them leads anywhere
but deeper into the mire. We are ensnared in the web of our own thinking, trapped so cleverly and so completly that we can no longer see either cause or the cure of the disease that is inflicting such
deadly pain.
If it was true that “for every illness there is a cure”, then we must make haste to find it. The sand in civilization`s hourglass is rapidly falling away, and if there is
the way to find the light, if there is the way back to spiritual health, we must not lose an hour! So. “where are we?” you ask. “Where are we now and where are we going?” Let me tell you where we
are and what we are. We are a nation of empty people. Our heads are full of knowledge, but within our souls is a spiritual vacuum.
We complain that the youth has lost its drive, its push, its willingness to work, and to get ahead. They don`t want to make an effort, they just want everything handed to
them. Parents don`t seem to realise that their well-educated, carefully brought up children are actually empty inside. They aren`t filled with the spirit that makes work a joy. They aren`t filled with
determination that makes pushing ahead a pleasure. And why are they so empty? Because they don`t know where they have come from, why they are here, and where they are going!
People have become so empty that they can`t even entertain themselves. They have to pay other people to amuse them, to make them laugh, to try to make them warm and happy and
comfortable for a few minutes, to try and lose that awful, frightening, hollow feeling of being lost and alone.
You may think that boredom is a minor matter. Everyone gets bored sometimes. But let me tell you something about boredom, and this dangerous apathy that is creeping over the
land and over the minds and hearts of the people. Man is the only one of God`s creatures who is capable of being bored. No other living thing except man can ever be bored with itself or its surroundings.
This is very significant, for the Creator never does anything without a purpose, and if He gave man the capacity for boredom. He did it for purpose.
Boredom is one of the sure ways to measure your own inner emptiness! It`s as accurate as a thermometer for telling just how hollow your inner spirit really is. The person who
is throughly bored is living and working in a vacuum. His inner self is vacuum, and there is nothing that nature resents more than vacuum. It is one of the rules of this universe that all vacuums must be
filled, and filled immediately.
So that is where we stand today - a nation of empty people. We have tried to fill ourselves with science and education, with better living
and pleasure, with many other things we thought we wanted, but we are still empty. Why we are empty? Because the Creator made us for Himself; and we shall never find completness and fullness until we
reach fellowship with Him. We cannot stand the terrible emptiness of ourselves, we cannot look at the lonely desolate road that lies ahead. We are desperately weary of the hatred and greed and lust that
we know are within us, but we are helpless to get rid of it and filled with something better. Time is of essence. We don`t have that much time! For our generation has accomplished what other
generations only dreamed of doing in their most insane moments of power and ruthlessness! We have achieved a weapon of total destruction. We are witnessing the climax of man`s madness - the atom cleaved!
How the demons must have laughed as some of the most brilliant men on earth worked for years to achieve this horror! The atom cleaved! Divide and conquer! Split apatr,
destroy, shatter, crush, crumble! We see before us Satan`s masterpiece.
We all recognize that the world has changed radically since the last century. We are aware of its increased tempo, of the spirit of revolution that is sweeping away the established landmarks and traditions, of the speed with which language, fashions, customs, housing, and our ways of living and thinking are changed.
Only few years ago children were delighted at the prospect of a trip to see the great ships come in. Today they are blase about helicopters and jet planes. We who once
marvelled at the telegraph, now take the great miracle of television for granted. Not so long ago many man`s phisical diseases were termed hopeless and incurablen. Today, we have drugs so effecitve that
many old-age diseases are becoming rare.
We have accomplished much. But with all this progress, man has not solved the basic problem of the human race. We can build the highest buildings, the fastest ships, the
longest bridges - but we still can`t govern ourselves or live together in equality and peace! We may create vast new schools of art and music, we may discover newer and better vitamins, but there is
nothing new about our troubles. They are the same old ones that man has always had, only they seem magnified and more abundant. Fundamentally we are facing the same
temptations, the same trials, the same testings that have always confronted mankind.
For ever since that tragic moment in the Garden of Eden, when man gave up God`s will for his own will, man has been plagued by the same problem. It is man`s depraved and
sinful nature that fills him with hate, envy, greed and jealousy. The curse of sin is upon his body and he is forever haunted by the fear of death.
Sin, too, has remainded unchanged, although man has done his best to alter it. We`ve tried calling sins “errors” or “mistakes” or “poor judgement”, but itself has
stayed the same. No matter how we try to salve our conscience, we`ve know all along that men are still sinners; and the results of sin are still disease, disappointment, disillusion, despair, and death.
Sorrow hasn`t changed either, sorrow is the universal language of man. No one escapes it, everyone experiences it. Death is also still the same. Men tried to change its
appetence. We try to soften the sorrows of the last rites; but regardless of what we call it, the cold, hard, cruel reality of death has not changed through all of man`s history.
These three facts constitute the true story of man: his past is filled with sin; his present is overflowing with sorrow; and the certainty of death faces him in the future.
The Bible says, “It is appointed unto men once to die,” ( Hebrews 9: 27) and to average person this seems a stark and hopeless situation.
Hundreds of philosophies and scores of religions have been invented by men in their efforts to circumvent the Word of God. Modern philosophers and psychologist are still
trying to make it appear that there is some way out other than the path of Jesus Christ. Bat man have tried them all and none of them leads anywhere but down.
Christ come to give us the answers to the three enduring problems of sin, sorrow, and death. It is Jesus Christ, and He alone, who is also
enduring and unchanging. “The same yesterday, and today, and forever.” ( Hebrews 13: 8 ) All other things may change, but Christ remains unchengeable. In the restless of human passion,
Christ stands steadfast and calm, ready to welcome all who will turn to Him and accept the blessings of safety and peace.
For we living in the age of grace, in which God promises that whosoever will may come and receive His Son, Jesus Christ. But this period of
grace will not go on forever.
We are even now living on borrowed time.
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