Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Isaiah 64 and reading from
our text part of verse 3. Part of verse 3. Thou camest down, the mountains
flowed down at thy presence. Isaiah 64 and verse 3 part of
it. We begin our reading this evening
in the previous chapter, where in verse 15, look down from heaven,
whereas in the beginning of chapter 64, it's so that thou would rend
the heavens, that thou wouldest come down. And there is in the
previous chapter, an acknowledging of the church's sin, the reason
for the Lord justly hardening their hearts and withdrawing
from them and their desire that he might return and that their
enemies might be put to the worst and trodden down as they had
trodden down the sanctuary that the Lord would appear for the
Church of God. And so Isaiah 64 is a prayer,
all of it, a crying unto the Lord, that He would appear, that
He would come down, that those mountains of sin and unbelief,
the obstacles of man, the adversaries that are spoken of later on,
that the Lord would appear and deliver the Church from all of
those that are against it. And there's a looking back, a
looking back. Israel often did this, going
back to what the Lord did do and how he appeared for them
when he brought them out of Egypt. And that's why we read the little
summary there in Psalm 114. We'll refer to that in a moment. But we have a looking at the
manner of the Lord's work that the Lord had done and it was
things that were not actually anticipated or looked for at
all and yet the Lord brought them about and he did them. Now the following verse, verse
four, it is a verse that is quoted by the Apostle Paul writing to
the Corinthians. For since the beginning of the
world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear Neither
hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for
him that waiteth for him. And the apostle, he applies then,
as being fulfilled in the day in which he lived. The gospel
day, the day when the Lord Jesus Christ had come down, the heavens
had been ran, and there had been brought about the gospel day
that we are in now. that those Old Testament saints
with their types and with their shadows and with the various
prophecies and promises that they had, they could not really
perceive or even, as if they'd never heard of it, if you were
to get someone from those times and bring them into the churches
today and see how the Gospel has spread right through the
world and right through the Gentiles, and yes we know there are many
parts of the world that still do not have the Gospel, but the
Lord's will is that it's spread through the world and they could
not have really entered into, really thought or even understood
what should be now. And yet we know these things,
we can see and we can get hardened to it and not realise what a
wonder it would be to an Old Testament saint to actually see
what the Lord has done and what has been done with the Lord,
bringing together the Jew and the Gentile. The Lord saying
in John 10, other sheep I have which are not of this fold, there
more so I must bring. And of course, Isaiah is full
of the prophecies of the calling of the Gentiles. But this verse
also is to be applied to us looking forward. One day the situation
that we have shall then be replaced with a new heavens, a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Lord shall rend the heavens
again. He shall come with great power
and great glory. The earth shall be finished,
be rolled up like a scroll, the heavens and the Lord shall make
that new heavens and new earth. And that is not entered into
the heart of man. We cannot picture what that will
be. We can't imagine how the Lord
will bring it about. We cannot put ourselves into
that future time the same as the Old Testament sayings couldn't
put themselves into the time that we are in now. which are those things that the
Lord has done that were not looked for by the Old Testament saints,
those things that are not yet done, we might say are not looked
for and not really even entered into our heart what the Lord
will do, that is before us as well. And so it is with these
thoughts, and I felt very much that during this last year, There's
been those things that have happened. We may have gone on for many
years, and one year has just followed after another. One New
Year's Eve is the same as another one. The fireworks start going
off in other parts of the world and slowly round and round, and
the great big crowds that are gathering together. It happened
year after year after year, but now this year is different. at
least in many parts of the world and in our country, and the things
that have happened that we haven't looked for. And we might think,
well, this is a very unique and very strange time. And certainly
in one sense, it is. But I want to look this evening
and show that this is how the Lord works. When we take a view
as we draw back and we look not just at just a few years of our
lives, but if we go back further, then we see that the words of
our texts, that there are things which we look not for, has been
said and realised by generations before us and the Lord's dear
people, and that the Lord does work. in ways like this. So, I want to look with the Lord's
help this evening. Firstly, the things that we look
not for this year. Just some of them, just a brief
casting of our eyes back and realising as to what has happened
in this year. And then secondly, show that
the Lord has worked in this way in the course of history, just
especially having looked at the children of Israel and their
path and the things that the Lord brought then. And then to
notice thirdly that the Lord works in this way, in a way of
grace. That is when he makes a believer,
when he saves a sinner, he brings in those things which were not
looked for. Of course, the whole text, when
thou didst terrible things, terrible things, which we look not for,
thou camest down, the mountains flow down at thy presence. Well, I want to look then first,
just briefly, with the Lord's help, just at some of those things
that have happened this year. Because this time last year,
we hardly had any inkling whatsoever of the changes that were going
to come about in our lives and in the churches. And so I begin
firstly of course with the pandemic, the coming of the virus, the
slow realisation of the seriousness and how much that it was spreading
and those that were dying of it. and then the restrictions
that were made due to it that have so profoundly affected our
lives. We know that these things are
things which the Lord has done. Our text is very clear that it
is things which the Lord did, when thou didst terrible things
which we look not for. God is in control. God is in
control of the virus. God is in control of men that
he has raised up to deal with this. The decisions are in their
hand, but all things are appointed of God. They and we are accountable
for our actions, but over it all, the Lord is in control. And so we find that we had the
times that our churches were closed. And at very short notice
we then had to seek means of having services that were online,
that were virtual services. Well, I remember that time. At
that time we did not have a website even. We had no means of streaming,
whether audio or visual or anything. And within a week, we had done
it so that we had a website up and we could do recordings. On the Saturday, I remember preaching
here on my own, doing the recording of a service with no congregation
and then putting it up for you on the Lord's Day. By, I think,
the next Lord's Day, we actually had live audio streaming that
we are able to do from my study at home. And it has gone from
there to be able to have, from the chapel here, the video, as
we have tonight, the audio also to the audio page, and then the
Zoom for those that wish to phone in by landline. We do all of
that together. These things were totally unthought
of, unlooked for. We have joined, of course, the
sermon audio, so now the ministry here is a worldwide ministry
that any country in the world that has a computer can join
with our services here. And we're thankful for that encouragement
and those of you who have joined us from other countries. We also then have the restrictions when we've come
back into the chapel and of course we have here the screen in front
of the pulpit making the pulpit look very different from its
original form and the various ways that we've got to rope off
seats not used some seats limited to how many we could have in
the building and also to have to have those rules in place
as to how we proceed in the house of God, how we sing or pre-record
the singing and then sing softly in the Lord's house, the use
of the Mass in the Lord's House. All of these things have come
that could not even have been imagined at this time last year. But in a lot of ways it's opened
up opportunities. In other ways it has made us
very, very sad when we cannot meet have the full congregations
with us. Prayer meetings very often are
held by Zoom. Our young people's meetings have
not been held in the chapel here this year. We cannot go back
and have eats at home afterwards. We have our young people's meeting
Saturday week and that will be on Zoom and Though it does open
up ways you can do different things with the meeting in that
way and more can join in perhaps that couldn't join before. Yet
these things are so changed from what we have been used to. We
did not look for them and yet we believe the Lord has owned
and blessed the efforts that the Word of the Lord sent forth
in preaching and ministry It has not ceased. It has continued
and even increased. We are very thankful, thankful
to the Lord, thankful to the government that we can meet in
the Lord's house, even in a tier four lockdown. And we're very
thankful for that. But then we have that which affects
not just services, and we think of how many large gatherings
like our annual meetings and things like that that we have
not been able to do but it has profoundly affected our lives,
our liberty to see our loved ones. I've not been able to minister
face to face with the pilgrim home all year and yet every two
weeks instead of once a month and sometimes like this week
twice a week we're ministering tomorrow morning there It's all
done through sermon audio, it's all done online, instead of seeing
the residents face to face. And we feel that, they feel it
as well. And of course not able to see
their loved ones and our loved ones. The Lord in this time has
brought about that all the things that are being touched that he's
spoken of as being associated with the days of Noah and the
days of Lot, and the days when he shall come again the second
time. When he comes again, as in those
days, men shall be buying and selling, marrying and giving
in marriage. And we're told that in the last
days men shall be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. And
the Lord has touched during this time man's pleasure. We cannot
go on holidays. We cannot meet one another. pleasure
has been touched in so many ways. And then people's employment,
their wealth, their money, the health has been touched, loved
ones has been touched, the things that we busy ourselves with have
all been touched in some way. And the Lord has a very real
call to men in this. Those things that we should not
have to wait until the last day, until our death, or until we're
sick, before we turn unto the Lord. But those things will one
day all be taken away. But now they're being touched,
and the Lord's message is to return unto the Lord, to cause
us to seek him first, cause us to acknowledge our maker and
our creator, and to confess our sins before him, especially our
sins of a complete rejection of his laws, a turning away and
defiling of his day, the one day in seven, and many, many
laws in our land that are so contrary to a holy God and his
word. But these things then have all
come and they have a message to us. They're things that we
did not look for and that they've come. And yet they have not caught
the Lord by surprise. They're in his purposes and in
his plan. And we know, as we quoted in
prayer from Romans 8 verse 28, that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them that are the called.
according to his purpose. Now, no doubt there's many things
that I haven't mentioned that have happened this year. And
to you, to individuals, and we think of the funerals, those
that have lost their lives to COVID or have passed away through
natural causes or through other illnesses. And the funerals have
hardly had any to be able to attend. And so very, very different
from times that we've had chapels filled to capacity and had to
use other chapels that were bigger than our own to be able to do
it. And yet now we just have so few attending. And these things
have all come. They're things that we could
never have imagined or thought would ever happen. in our country,
let alone around the world and in other nations. And may we
take notice of these and that we don't just, because we can,
we can just gradually take one thing after another and we don't
actually notice as to what things are being done. And they are
great things. And we completely miss the mark
if we ascribe it to chance, if we ascribe it to man, if we ascribe
it to man's mistakes or laws that are made, we need to look
past that all and we need to see the Lord's hand. It is when
thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest
down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. The Lord has
done. Who is he that saith and cometh
the past? when the Lord commandeth it not. We want to then look secondly
at how the Lord has worked this
way in the course of history. And I mainly take it from the
scriptural history We think of the time of the flood
in Noah's day and how that must have been to the inhabitants
of the world then, a most strange and foolish thing that Noah was
doing. There'd never been rain. And there is Noah on dry land
making a boat and his preaching. How could it ever enter into
the heart of those men as to what was going to happen so suddenly? As soon as Noah and all of the
animals and his family are in the ark and the Lord shuts him
in, then not only do the heavens open and there's rain that there's
never been before, and it doesn't stop for 40 days. But the fountains
of the great deep are opened up as well. There's earthquakes,
there's water from beneath. Tremendous commotion. And the
whole world destroyed and only Noah safe. None could have imagined. Now, none could have even thought
of that. They could have looked back the
1640 years of the history of the world and said there's been
nothing happened like this in all of these years. And yet suddenly
it comes. Then we think of Abraham. Abraham
called of God, and before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,
then he sent three angels, one was the eternal Son of God, our
Lord in the flesh, before he came to this world. And when
the angels went on their way to Sodom, then Abraham spoke
to the Lord. And the Lord showed him what
he was going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, he pleaded
with the Lord if there were And he went right down from 50 down
to 10. Righteous or godly in that city,
would he still destroy it? And he said he wouldn't destroy
it if there was 10 godly people found there, righteous. Well,
there weren't 10. Lot was brought out, his wife
looked back, turned into a pillar of salt, and then his two daughters. That's all that escaped. The whole area, Sodom and Gomorrah
and the cities of all the plain, now turned into what we know
as the Dead Sea, completely destroyed in a moment. And who would have looked for
that coming? It was foretold to Abraham, but in spite of all
the warnings that were given to those people, they were destroyed
in a moment. Just because something has never
happened before doesn't mean to say it will not happen. We have the case of Moses. We could look perhaps in the
life of Jacob and of Joseph. How could they have known how
it was that Jacob was to be brought into Egypt and all that would
happen there in the lives of Joseph's brothers after they'd
sold him 20 years go by. And then the famine comes. Would it ever have entered into
their head that actually the man they were dealing with in
Egypt was their own brother? That God would do something like
that? They were Great things, terrible
things in their lives that were done that were certainly not
looked for. They didn't expect them. Then
we think of Moses, and there he is, tending the sheep in the
desert, and he sees this bush burning, but it's not consumed. And he goes up to it, and the
Lord speaks to him from the burning bush, Put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Nothing had ever happened like that before. And then Moses is
sent to the children of Israel in Egypt. And they rejoiced that God had
heard their groanings and was come to deliver them. but then
followed plagues that put the virus in a way that we have to,
as if it was nothing. One thing after another, 10 plagues,
and the last one are destroying all of the firstborn in Egypt. And Pharaoh's wise men saying,
knowest thou not that Egypt is destroyed? But Pharaoh was still
hardening his heart, still refused to lend the children of Israel
go. A devastation that was terrible
indeed, and that which the Lord said that he would be magnified
above man. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord
that I should serve him, shaking his fist at the God of heaven? But the Lord worked. bringing
in and taking away one plague after another. You know those
people, they could be like our nation today. Well, we've got
a vaccine and we can see the end of this tunnel, the tunnel's
shortening and it's going to come to an end. Well, they had
that happen nine times. Their trials came upon them and
then They came to an end. But each time, when there was
any respite, Pharaoh hardened his heart, still wouldn't let
the people of Israel go. And the Lord bringing these things.
And so then it is what the Lord did. And this is especially what
was referred to in Psalm 114, because what is picked out there It is when Israel went out of
Egypt. And they mention firstly is the
sea. Firstly, it was with the Red
Sea that it was divided. The sea saw it and fled. Jordan was driven back. Jordan,
of course, was a river, not a sea, so it was stopped up. And then
we think of Mount Sinai and the earth quaking and the fire and
the thunder and the voice sounding long. We think of the smitten
rock. We think of the manna that was
sent from heaven for them to feed on for 40 years in that
wilderness and the water to drink. We read these accounts and we
forget that these people were just the same as you and I. They
were people living on this earth. They were living in Egypt. And
the Lord suddenly appears, and all of these, their whole lives
turned upside down. And then they go out into the
desert to find the Red Sea just parting asunder, a wall on one
side and the other, water. Never happened before, never
happened since, as far as we know. And those are terrible
things, great things that were done. The army of Pharaoh destroyed
while the Israelites safely brought over. And, you know, when the
children of Israel got to Canaan and the spies went into Canaan,
Rahab, who hid the spies, She said, we heard what your God
did at the Red Sea. They testified as to the reality
of it 40 years later. They still remember it. And they
feared. And what must they have felt
when they saw that Jordan acted the same, that Jordan was held
back and they went over there, the same God 40 years later. I say again, we get hardened,
we think these were miracles, they were things that God did,
but man could not have looked for them. When Korah, Dathan
and Abiram in the wilderness, they rebelled against the Lord,
they rebelled against Moses. And Moses said that to the rest
of the congregation, if you will understand that this is an evil
thing that Korah, Dathan and Abiram have done, If they die
the normal death of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing,
and the earth open up and swallow them up, then you will know that
the Lord has sent me, and these men, they have provoked the Lord."
And when he finished speaking, the earth opened up and swallowed
up all of that company and then closed up over them, buried alive,
all of them. And Moses had foretold it, he'd
said that that would happen, and that happened. And those
things, they were not lookful. They were terrible things. They
were great things that were done. And the Lord has done these things.
We think then of our Lord coming to this world. All of the things
that recently, as we remembered his birth, that happened at that
time. But then at Calvary, our Lord
tried to prepare the disciples for what was going to happen,
how that he would be crucified, how that he would lay down his
life, how that on the third day he would rise again. No one had
ever risen from the dead by their own power and risen from the
dead to die again no more. But the Lord is God, the true
God, the eternal God, made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. And he
laid down his life for ransom for his people, bearing their
sins in his own body on the tree, and then rose again from the
dead and then ascended up into heaven. Never, never had that
ever happened, ever been done before. No wonder the Roman soldier
When he saw these things, a centurion, truly this was a righteous man.
Why? Three hours of darkness with
the Lord on the cross. The earthquake. Those things
had happened. And, you know, those on the way
to Emmaus, we trusted it should have been he that should have
redeemed Israel. anticipated these things, it
stumbled them as to what had happened, it wasn't what they
had looked for. And our Lord says, ought not
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his
glory? Shouldn't these things have happened?
The thing is, we read these accounts and we get hardened to it. We
don't see it in the eyes of someone like ourselves beginning a year
ago And suddenly one thing after another happens that we never
look for, that is so, so different. And yet God used that way, and
right the way through the scriptures, he works in a way that he hides
from men what actually he is going to do. And when he does
things, it is in a way that was not looked for. And though it
is at the end of the world, we know the end of the world will
come, the Lord shall return again, he shall come again. And we're
told about signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, and men's
hearts failing them with fear. And then the sign of the Son
of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, and every eye shall see
him. We're told about it. It's one
thing to be told about something. It's another thing to experience
it. And I hope in the things that
we've gone through this year, we're experiencing them. And so we can then look at those
accounts that we're told about in the word of God and understand
a little bit of how those men and women would have felt when
these things came. into their lives, things that
they did not look for. It was the Lord's appearing,
the Lord bringing it about. And we know in our lives, it
extends to smaller things as well. Many things in providence,
many things that happen, we didn't look for, we didn't anticipate
that that would happen. It turns men's lives upside down,
women's lives upside down, whether it be illnesses, whether it be
who we marry, where we marry, where
we accord to, the job that we might go to, many, many things. Hang on. We might say small things. You look back and you think,
well, When I first started work, or when I was this age or that
age, I never ever thought that I'd be doing that, or I'd be
in such and such a place. And yet it has come to pass. We think of the Day of Pentecost,
what that must have been, and the great miracle of the different
languages being spoken. We think of more recent times
in history and the tsunamis, the great earthquakes, the many
people that were killed in those tsunamis, things that were not
looked for, men and women going about their work and in their
cars on the seashore, seeing the sea suddenly go out and then
it come back in, in a 10-metre highway, Those things were not
even thought about, that it would happen or it was even coming.
And yet it was brought about some 16 years ago now. And yet
there's been other ones since. Things which we looked not for. Yes, terrible things which we
looked not for. One to then look in the third
place at the Lord working in this way in a way of grace. In the very next chapter, chapter
65, it begins with these words, I am sought of them that ask
not for me, I am found of them that sought me not. And really,
all of mankind, when we're brought into this world, We are born
dead in trespasses and sins. We can't imagine spiritual things. We do not know them. We haven't
got faith. We haven't got spiritual eyes. We haven't got spiritual ears.
We have ideas about religious things. But we've never experienced
the new birth. We've never experienced the power
of God in quickening us into spiritual life. God says, I pass
by thee when thou wast in thy blood, and when thou wast in
thy blood, I bid thee live. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. When the
Lord calls or brings one to be born again of the Spirit of God,
It is spoken in scripture as the first resurrection. In that
sense, it is being brought from spiritual death to spiritual
life. And those that are made spiritually
alive, then the life that is given them is eternal life. The
Lord says, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. And he describes
that work as old things are passed away, all things are become new. And I look back to when the Lord
first began with me and opened my eyes and showed me my sinnership
and ignorance of Him and brought me to first seek the things of
God. I could never, ever have imagined
that happening. No man could have told it to
me. But when it came to pass, the power of it, the profound
effect on my life, The change that was done then was a profound
change, a change which I never looked for, never understood
at all until it was come. And even when it was come, and
many a Lord's people like this, like with Paul when he writes
to the Ephesians, he writes to tell them that the power that
was put forth to make them a believer was the same power of God that
raised up Christ from the dead. That's how much power is needed.
And the change that is wrought, the change that is done, is an
amazing change. Light to newly opened eyes, eyes
to see our danger, eyes to see a beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ
that we never saw before, and a desire to walk in the ways
of the Lord. All of God's people, in a lesser
or greater way, walk through an experience like that, passing
from death unto life. And it is a wonderful time when
there are those that haven't looked for it, that have perhaps
begun this present year with not a care in the world for their
soul, and by the things that have happened, they've been brought
into real concern, and then they have been brought to read the
Bible, read the word of God, and to marvel at the things that
are in it, to have a real desire to know the truth, and to know
the Lord for themselves, and the pardon of their sins. to
know that hope beyond the grave and never would have imagined
that should happen to them. Some of the Lord's dear people
have made those resolutions in their ignorance and said, I will
never, I'm never going to be a Christian. I'm never going
to go to the house of God. I'm never going to be a believer
and called the Lord's people all manner of names. You think
of the Apostle Paul, soulless he was, soul of Tarsus, who hailed
men and women to prison because they were believing in the Lord
Jesus Christ. How could he have understood
what was going to happen on that Damascus road when the Lord stopped
to him and appeared to him from heaven, spoke to him from heaven,
and changed him from being an enemy of the people of God to
the preacher of the Lord Jesus, so greatly blessed, and many
of the epistles in the inspired Word of God written by him. Those things that the Lord does
in saving sinners are things that we did not look for. And we read in Psalm 25 that
the people of God, they shall be taught in the way which the
Lord shall choose. and is teaching in a way of experience. We've been through experiences
this year, experiences of things that we look not for. When God
works in a sinner's heart, it is by experience, to feel things,
to see things, to know things that we never knew before. God's work, often it cannot be
anticipated. It is the Lord's work. and he
works in this way. He is a sovereign, he is high
above our thoughts and our ways, but that which he does for his
people is for their eternal good and eternal blessing. What a blessing if we do know
the Lord's work in that way in our lifetime, so then when the
Lord does come, whether by death or at the end of the world, then
we shall have known something of his power and something to
not fear his coming, but know that those things that have taken
us by surprise have not taken him by surprise. May we learn
from this past year. May be a help to us as we go
forward to another year. to commit our way unto the Lord,
to trust also in Him, and to profit from the scriptures and
the accounts that are in them, of those things that the Lord
has done, which were not looked for. And when we pray, when we
are praying like Isaiah, O that thou wouldst rend the heavens
and come down, Many a Lord's dear people praying for revival,
praying for a revival in their own souls and in this land, praying
for the Lord's blessing. We do not know how the Lord will
answer that. We do not know that, and our
expectation is that the Lord is using this present time to
bring men to turn unto Him again and to seek Him again. We are
reminded here, when we pray for the Lord to appear, we may not
and most likely will not anticipate how he appears, how he answers
our prayers, how he works his sovereign will, and it is a sovereign
will, and brings things, maybe terrible things, that we view,
which we look not for and It is here thou camest down, the
mountains flow down at thy presence. And we close this year, many
things unfinished, many mountains, many difficulties, many sorrows,
much cause for prayer. If the Lord comes down, if the
Lord appears to answer our prayers, it will be in ways that we hadn't
anticipate, is anything too hard for the Lord? We might look and
restrain our prayers, trying to work out how the Lord can
answer those prayers, but we're to leave it with the Lord and
to look for Him to appear and to be watching for His appearing,
knowing that so most likely it will be in things that we looked
not for. You know, the church that was
praying for Peter that was locked up in prison. The Lord brought
him out of that prison, opened the prison doors, awakened him,
took off his shackles, let him go. And he went to the house
where the church was praying and he knocked. And when the
maid came and recognised his voice and went in, and told them,
they said, they aren't mad. It is His angel. They couldn't
believe that the Lord had answered their prayer and that He'd done
it in such a way. Again, we can read that account
so familiar and yet not realise what would it be if we'd been
in that house, if we'd have been praying. Would we say the Lord
has appeared in a way that we look not for? We might not have
known what we were looking for, what they were looking for, but
the Lord did appear. It should be a real encouragement
to us to pray and to leave how the Lord deals with the matter
in his hands. May the Lord then add his blessing,
things which we looked not for. Amen.