Psalm 24:6 “Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah”
Here David writes about a special generation. By “generation” he doesn’t refer to a period of time but rather to a kind of people, to “a race of men”, as Gesenius puts it in his Hebrew-Chaldee lexicon, to a collective whole, whose bond of union is not contemporaneousness, but similarity of disposition (Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament).
According to David, the most significant characteristic of that generation consists in the fact that their heart is set on seeking God. If you would read: “Such is the generation of those who have black hair,” you would conclude that the most essential trait of that generation is their black hair. The same logic is here to be applied. Therefore we are speaking here of a generation that seek God. They might be involved in something else, yet their main activity is to pursue the object of their quest. All else is overshadowed by this sublime singularity.
Something important about that generation
It must be noticed from the very start that their quest is not merely religious or intellectual. I say this because at times we might be seeking religious merits or Christian information, thinking all the while we are seeking God. To confound the Ancient of days with such futilities is an error many have done, only to wake-up on the laps of spiritual bankruptcy.
No! The generation David refers to is made of people that seek God because their survival depends on Him. They must find Him or die; see His face or perish; hear His voice or hit the grave. Psalm 28:1 presents us the cry of a man belonging to that generation. Pay attention to his words; they convey urgency, extreme necessity, and a vital indispensability. “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.”
Did you ever experience such a need of the divine, such an awareness as if the claws of death were coming to take hold of you?
It could be compared to the quest of a man lost in a desert:
The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them” (Isaiah 41:17).
“O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).
Here the soul is drawn away from all other alternatives and subjected to a single odyssey. The whole man is on the climb. You will observe him pursuing hard after God although his strength fails him. And as you keep gazing upon his life you will notice a blessed absoluteness, a drawing of grace that enables him to reach beyond the evangelical status quo.
The contrast
So here we have a generation contrasting with all other generations. And the contrast doesn’t reside in the name they wear, neither in the message they preach, nor in the place they meet. It resides in a specific quest, a quest utterly different from all other quests: Their heart is set on seeking God.
Is your heart set on seeking God? If not, you are not of that generation. You might be an evangelical, a missionary, a pastor, or perhaps a student of God’s word. But you don’t belong to the specific generation David refers to in Psalm 24:6.
The motivation of love
Another thing that must be observed is that the generation we are talking about doesn’t seek Him by imposition but rather by motivation. They seek Him because they love Him. And because they love Him passionately they seek Him with passion.
There is a passage found in the Scriptures that exemplifies beautifully the motivating force the seeker experiences:
My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him. I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock. I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. My heart leaped up when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen who went about the city found me. They struck me, they wounded me; they took my veil away from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am lovesick” (Song of Songs 5:4–8).
Here we have the heart of that generation. A heart saturated with fervency; a heart that seeks Him in spite of opposition and defamation. There she was: struck, wounded and humiliated. Yet she kept on seeking the face of her Beloved. How do I seek Him? Am I easily intimidated? Am I easily sidetracked? Do I seek Him in adversity?
Seeking to find
The verses we have read this far make clear that these people were not seeking for the sake of seeking; they were seeking to find, and this, at any cost. Since this was the case, they were seeking the God of Jacob with all of their heart and soul.
Moses was such a man. Speaking to the people of Israel he said: “But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 4:29). This is the kind of seeking Moses had experienced. He knew this was the only way to find God.
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Here there is no room for the halfhearted. It is all or nothing, consecration or delusion, Christianity or religiosity. There is nothing in between.
Now the question strikes: Am I this kind of seeker? Am I from that generation? David was. Listen to what he writes: “When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8). And again: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4).
Ultimately, a person always seeks what he desires. To the question: “What do you desire?” I answer: “I desire what I seek.” And to the question: “What do you seek?” I answer: “I seek what I desire.” When things are put that simple, it is hard to find a bush behind which to hide.
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