I want to read a few verses that are found in Isaiah 62.
And they begin in the 10th verse. Go through, go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up. cast up the highway,
gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people." These
are words that speak of preparation for something that will happen. And there are obviously those
who will be drawn to this banner that is to be lifted up. He says,
Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say
ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh. Behold,
his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall
call them the holy people. the redeemed of the Lord. And
thou shalt be called sought out, a city not forsaken." They shall
be called sought out. There was a man in the late 1800s,
an English poet by the name of Francis Thompson. And he wrote
a long poem with the poetic eloquence as it seemed like maybe only
English poets can. But he entitled that long poem,
The Hound of Heaven. The Hound of Heaven. And in it,
in this very poetic language, he describes God's pursuit of
His elect people wherever they might at the first hide from
Him, or in whatever state they may be found in, His pursuit
of them to save them and bring them unto Himself. And as often
as it is in literature, those who read something like Milton's
Paradise Lost or other poems of that kind, there are so many
people who make such wild interpretations of them, miss the mark by a mile. But I did read one bit of comment
on the poem, And it said, "...the meaning is understood as the
hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever
drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and unperturbed
pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by His divine grace."
And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks
to hide itself, divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows
ever after, till the soul feels its pressure, forcing it to turn
to Him alone in that never-ending pursuit. He likens God's pursuit
of his people to this hound that goes after the prey, goes on
with unending chase until he catches it. And so he calls the
poem, The Hound of Heaven. And that is the title that I've
taken for this message today, The Hound of Heaven. And I do
that because those who are described here, those objects of God's
grace, those elect people chosen in love according to His own
will, He says, they shall be called sought out. God's grace
is seeking grace. And I say, and what I will say
today, I say acknowledging that there are many commands in Scripture
to men and women to seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. Seek Him while He may be found. He says in Psalm 105, seek the
Lord. His strength and His face evermore. But what we have to remember
is this, just because men and women are commanded to do so,
this does not mean that they do, neither does it mean that
they have the ability to do so. Somebody says, God would not
have given us the law if we were not able to keep it. But when
He gave that law to Israel, as He gave it, they were at the
bottom of that very mountain breaking it. What God requires
of us does not mean that we have the ability to perform it. And His commandment of these
things to us, they are simply to show us our inability and
our need for His grace and power. You see, our inability is because
of our nature of sin. And not only of our nature of
sin, but also the fact that our natural minds are enmity against
God. And so the Apostle says in Romans
3, he says, "...there is none that understandeth There is none
that seeketh after God. Not one. None righteous, none
good, none that understandeth, and none that seeketh after God. So any and all who would be saved,
they must be saved by God. They must be rescued by God. We must be found by God. And that is the reason He gives
His people all these names, one of which is, they shall be called,
sought out. And this means that if any are
saved, God himself must be the seeker. And it is of this passage
and others that Paul makes reference to in Romans chapter 10, and
he quotes Isaiah. He says, but Isaiah is very bold,
very clear, and saith, I was found of them that sought me
not. I was made manifest unto them
that asked not after me." I was found, God says, of them that
sought me not. And if you'll turn over to the
book of Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 34, Look at what he says in verse
11 of Ezekiel chapter 34. He says, "...for thus saith the
Lord." And I'm glad it says that, lest anybody think that this
is my particular doctrine. or my idea of how salvation is,
he says, "'For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I, even I, will
both search my sheep and seek them out.'" You remember he said
to the Pharisees, you are not of my sheep. But he says here,
I will both search My sheep and seek them out, as a shepherd
seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep
that are scattered. So will I seek out My sheep,
and will deliver them out of all places where they have been
scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out
from the people, and gather them from the countries, and I will
bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains
of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of
the country. I will feed them in a good pasture,
and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their foal be. There
shall they lie in a good foal, and in a fat pasture shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that
which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away. and will bind up that which was
broken, and will strengthen that which was sick, but I will destroy
the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment."
God says, I will seek out my sheep. wherever they are scattered,
wherever they are scattered in that dark and cloudy day, I will
seek them out, I will find them, I will fold them, and I will
feed them." And there is no doubt that one thing he's talking about
here in our text, that has to do with the Gentiles. One of
the things he's doing is showing us that his people, his sheep,
these who will be sought out, they are a people not simply
of the Jews, but that they are also a people of the Gentiles. But what he says of these people, is absolutely true concerning
us individually when God saves His people. If you remember,
Matthew was not seeking the Lord. He was simply sitting as he daily
did, seated at the seat of custom. Peter and James and John They
were not seeking the Lord. They were simply engaged in their
work as fishermen. The woman at the well was not
seeking the Lord. She was simply there at a time
of day when she knew the other women wouldn't be there at that
well gathering water. And the one who is described
As the pattern, Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the Apostle,
he was not seeking the Lord when the Lord came to him on the road
to Damascus. But God was seeking them all
in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because as he tells us there
in John 10, not only does the shepherd lay down his life for
the sheep, he as the great shepherd, the chief shepherd, the good
shepherd, the shepherd and bishop of our souls, he seeks each and
every one of his sheep. And why must he do that? Because
they're lost sheep. And when you look in this book,
what you find out is the only ones that are saved are those
that were lost. There are a host of people in
this world who do not imagine themselves and will not ever
imagine themselves under any kind of description such as that,
being lost. But all his sheep were lost. And they, like each and every
other son and daughter of Adam, they got lost first of all when
they fell in Adam. They are lost sheep. And they
never of themselves, as I hear this expression sometimes, they
never of themselves find the Lord. People say, I found the
Lord. No. That's not how it works. As a matter of fact, turn over
to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18 and listen
in verse 11. Because in verse 11, Christ the
Great Shepherd Himself tells us exactly why He came into this
world. He says, "...for the Son of Man
is come to save that which was lost." How think ye, if a man
have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth
he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains,
and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he
find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more over that sheep,
than of the ninety and nine which went not astray." Next verse. Even so, it is not the will of
your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones
should perish. He's not talking about children
simply. He's talking about God's sheep
particularly. And that's the same thing that
Peter says when he speaks in 2 Peter and talks about how it
is not the will of God that any of these perish. Somebody says,
well, that just shows it's not God's will that anybody be lost. No, that's not what it says.
It says that God, Peter writing to God's people, he says, God
is longsuffering to us, to usward, not willing that any of these
usward should perish, but that they all should come to repentance. He's longsuffering. That means
He stays on the trail. That means he's always in an
unhindered pursuit. That means it is his purpose
and his will that he should be the Savior of these people that
were given to the Son, these lost sheep, and he seeks them
one and all till he finds them. In most cases, they have no idea
that he's after them. They have no interest in God
as He is at all. They have no interest in being
saved by grace alone. They're busy. They're going about
trying to establish their own righteousness, and they've not
submitted themselves to the righteousness of God in Christ, and they're
going out, going their merry way, they think going their own
will and purpose and all, but He's always in pursuit. He never runs ahead. He never
falls behind. He never is thwarted by any of
their twists or turns, or He's never stayed by the rebellion
against Him. And had they ears to hear, they'd
always hear His constant footsteps behind them. Turn over to Luke
chapter 15. Luke chapter 15. where we find one
parable that is given to us by three illustrations. They all
say this in their various ways. God possesses a people. Whether they're described as
lost sheep or that lost coin, whatever it is, He possesses
them. The second thing is that they're
everyone lost and they must be found. And the third thing is
this, they everyone shall be found. Listen to what he says
in Luke chapter 15 verse 1. Then drew near unto him all the
publicans and sinners for to hear him. What an audience! And the Pharisees and the scribes
murmured, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. I call that the blessed indictment. Because if he didn't receive
sinners, if it's not his will and purpose to dine with sinners,
he'd never ever have anything to do with me. And immediately on the heels
of that, it says, "...and he spake this parable unto them
saying..." Now, it's a parable, and these scribes and these Pharisees,
It went totally by them. They didn't understand what he
was saying, not one bit, because they didn't want to understand
it. But I do imagine that there were
some publicans and sinners there, gathered around him, that this
was like music to their ears. He spake this parable unto them,
saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one
of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and
go after that which is lost?" But look at those next words.
Until he find it. How long does he seek after his
sheep? How long does he seek in the
face of all the obstacles? Here they are held captive by
the enemy of their soul and his long arch enemy, the devil. Here they are in the rebellion
of their so-called free will. Here they are willing to hear
of any God other than the true and living God, to be saved by
any way that involves the works of men, and not the work of God
alone. They're all tangled, most of
them, in a maze of religion. They're all tangled in the affairs
of life. They're all going along a course
that weaves and twists and moves through this world, always away
from Him. Why? Because there's none that
seeketh God. So how long does He seek them?
until he finds them. And when he hath found it, he
laith it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth
together his friends and his neighbours, saying unto them,
Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." Rejoice
with me. Be happy with me. And I can promise
you this, that that's always the case when the Savior finds
one of His lost sheep. Those other sheep who've already
been found, they rejoice with Him. They rejoice with them because
that is their same experience. He says, "...I say unto you that
likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth
more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance."
Next part of this parable is about the woman who has the lost
coin. What does she do? She sweeps her house from one
end to the other until she finds it. Third part of this parable,
here is this lost son. This is the one we're more familiar
with. We call him the prodigal son. And he goes every way away
from the Father's house, he goes and does his own thing, he brings
his own self to such a low state of affairs in his life. But when he comes home, the Father
with open arms reaches out for him and embraces him because
it was the memory of his Father's house that brought him home. In John 10, Christ says, "...and
other sheep I have which are not of this foal. Them also I
must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be
one foal and one shepherd." They are going to hear His voice. John 4, he says, "...but the
hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship Him." They're not seeking Him. They're not looking for
Him. They're not interested in Him.
But if they're His sheep, He's interested in them. He's interested
in them. And Paul says Isaiah was bold
in declaring this. And that is so contrary to the
opinions of religion and preachers in our day who think that everything
should be set forth to show something about everything depending on
this sinner. But he said Isaiah was bold.
in saying this, and we have to be bold in saying that all of
salvation is of the Lord. All is by His sovereign and omnipotent
grace, which some people call fetching grace. Fetching grace. Turn over to
2 Samuel. This is one of my favorite portions
of Scripture. I've preached on it a lot of
times, and I don't feel like I've ever come close to what
is illustrated here. But it has to do with David when
he's brought to the throne, when he becomes king, actually sits
on the throne and becomes king after Saul and his family, for
the most part, have all been destroyed. Now listen, and David
said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul that
I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Not that he deserves it. Whatever
David's going to do is not because of anything by him. He says it's
for Jonathan's sake. If I'm not mistaken, Jonathan,
the name means whom Jehovah loves. Wonder who that would be. It
would be for Christ's sake. And there was of the house of
Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called
him unto David, the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And
he said, Thy servant is he. And the king said, Is there not
yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness
of God unto him? And Ziba said unto the king,
Jonathan hath yet a son which is lame on his feet. Now that obviously shows the
condition of all that God would be gracious to. Whatever else
might be pictured by that picture of this lame man who cannot walk,
who came into this situation he was in by being in a family
that was against David, Saul's family, and also because in his
early days as a babe, a nurse dropped him. He became lame from
that fall. You and I became lame from a
fall. And the king said unto him, Where
is he? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he is in the house
of Makar, the son of Amiel in Lodabar." Do you know what Lodabar
is? It means the land of no pasture.
So what's being pictured here is a lost sinner. One of God's
lost sheep. And he in his sovereignty, here's
this king, who'd show him kindness for the sake of another. Then
King David sent and fetched him out of the house of Makar, the
son of Amiel from Lodabar." What did he do? He went and fetched
him. And when the news first came
to this man, whose name you find out was Mephibosheth, whose name means destroying shame. Think about it. He's in a household
that's the enemy of the king. He's lame in both of his feet.
He cannot go, do anything to make amends for the position
he's in. And his very name means, destroy
Yingsheng. That's a sinner. That's a lost
sinner. But he sins, David does, he sins
and fetches Mephibosheth. You can read the rest of the
chapter, but when Mephibosheth first got word of that, when
he found out that he was being summoned and would be taken to
the king who had every reason to just destroy him and assure
himself that he'd have no problems for him anymore of Saul's house.
When he first found out who sent for him, he was afraid. He's scared out of his mind.
He thinks that maybe the king has summoned him back to Jerusalem
for a public execution. to show what a king does to all
his enemies. And that's the way we are. We
imagine that the true God, we want nothing to do with Him because
He would do us harm. We imagine that the truth of
the gospel that says we're sinners condemns us so that we will be
without hope. But the one who pursues His people,
He pursues them to do them good. Oh, can you just... Can you imagine the relief, the
burden that rolled off old Meshep Phibosheth, when he found out
that the king wasn't summoning him, finding him, searching him
out to do him harm, but that he might bless him? Can you imagine
the indescribable joy of his heart, the relief? That's the
same kind of relief that a sinner feels. when he finds out that
God in His great mercy, as the hound of heaven, has been on
his trail all his days. All his days. You see, the Scripture
says that our Lord told us, no man can come to the Father except
He draw him. No one will ever seek God who
is not first sought of God. No one will ever be brought to
Christ until Christ is brought to them. You see, Christ was said to be
sent of God, not sent for. The gospel is sent by God, not
sent for. It comes to men as it came to
us, unasked for, unexpected, undesired, as well as undeserved
by us. I wonder how many of you here
this morning, when you first heard the first tricklings of
the gospel of grace, when you first sat down and actually listened
to what was said, it was as if maybe you thought something might
be added to what you already were. But what you found out
was, with all your morality and all your religion, Just lost. That's why the gospel is good
news. You see, God is constantly seeking
His elect by His wise providence. Now, He runs the whole world.
I know we think we are doing our own thing, we make our own
decisions, but if we are one of God's sheep, I always liken
it in this way. It's like a big funnel. And we're
standing at the big end of that funnel and you throw a tennis
ball against the side of it. And it bounces back and forth.
But every time it bounces, it's going farther and farther, straighter
and straighter toward the end, the narrow end of that funnel. Here we are, we move this way
and we move that way and we make this decision and most all of
them are wrong. Oftentimes they are simply God
bringing us to an end of ourselves that He might bless us. Showing
us the foolishness of our imagined wisdom in order to give us His
wisdom. Showing us the weakness of our
own imagined strength that He might, in His strength, save
us. Lydia was down by the river. with some women. She was described
in scripture as a seller of purple. She was a business woman. And she just happened to be in
this particular place, at this particular time, doing what she
did for a living every day, selling her cloth. And she heard the Apostle Paul
preach. And the Bible says, and the Lord opened her heart. The Ethiopian eunuch, he's traveling
out in the desert on his way home from Jerusalem. He's a man
of high authority and great trust is put on him. He's in charge
of the queen of Ethiopia's treasure. He's riding along. He's reading
from the book of Isaiah, by the way, and a man named Philip. He starts walking beside his
chariot. And he asked him this question. He said, Do you understand
what you're reading? He said, How can I, unless some
man show me? Well, that man was there to do
so. The Son of God. Why? Because that Ethiopian eunuch
was one of God's sheep. And that's the way it is. Whenever
Paul was there imprisoned, And I'm sure many thought it was
a bad stroke of luck that he would be there, the apostle of
God put in prison for preaching. But he's not on the fool's error.
He's in search of one of God's sheep. When God rattled that
place that night with the earthquake and that Philippian jailer called
out for mercy, God broke his heart and enabled him to believe
the truth. Why did all that happen? Because he was one of God's sheep.
He was lost. And he had to be found. Paul
said, I endure all things. Prison, whatever it is. I endure
all things for the elect's sake. One day a man who's a slave,
he runs away from his master. And he's found. He's a runaway
slave. His name is Onesimus. And he's
put in prison. But the prison that he's put
into just happens to be the same one that Paul is in. And the Lord causes him to hear
the gospel and believe. You see, all the time God was
moving the messenger toward that lost sheep. And so when Paul
writes that epistle, that little epistle in the New Testament
called Philemon, he's writing it. to this slave's master whom
he knows, who's a believer. And he said, when Onesimus gets
back to your house, you treat him like a brother, because he
is. God comes to all His sheep. He
reveals Himself to them in His gospel and by His Spirit. And I can say to each one of
them, you cannot escape The lingering, haunting, seeking effect of His
truth, of His Word, of His Spirit. Somebody said, well, preacher,
why don't you all give an invitation at the end of the service? Because
there's no salvation at the front of this building. There's no
salvation in you taking a walk down this aisle. There's no salvation
in you being dipped in the water. Well, what do you do then? We
preach the gospel. Christ said, my sheep will hear
my voice, and they'll follow me. I may preach to someone today,
or next week, or probably have many times in the past, and I
never saw them again. You say, well, what does that
mean? Well, I don't know altogether, but I know this. The seed of
the gospel that might have been sown in that heart, if that was
one of the Lord's sheep, He will in His time use it, add to it,
until He brings such a one unto Himself. I look out from among you and
I see you. I can think of so many things
that God has used in your life as well as my life when He brought
us together and brought us under the sound of the truth. It wasn't something that any
of us had planned. It wasn't something that any
of us had any part in doing. And therefore, it wasn't anything
that we could get glory for doing. We were lost. And He sought us
out. He sought us out. We resisted
every overture of His grace. But His grace is irresistible
grace. You say, does that mean you can't
resist? You can't resist this grace. Oh, you can resist it. But if you're one of God's sheep,
you can't resist it successfully. He stays on the trail of His
people. They flee from grace, but they can't outrun grace.
He brings them to that day of His power. Thy people shall be
willing in the day of His power. In Isaiah 65, He said, I'm sought
of them that ask not for Me. I'm found of them that sought
Me not. I said, behold Me, behold Me
unto a nation that was not called by My name. They hide from God
like Adam and Eve hid in the trees of the garden. They turn
their face away from Him to every distraction, to everything but
Him, to every entertainment and amusement. But every way they turn, they
behold Him. The gospel by the power of the
Spirit of God is likened to a fishhook. My friend, if He sets that hook
in you, you'll never escape it. You'll never escape it. The hymn says, I sought the Lord,
and afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek Him
seeking me. It was not I that found, O Savior,
true. No, I was found of Thee. Thou didst reach forth Thy hand,
and mine enfold. I walked and sank not on the
storm-vexed sea. Was not so much that I on Thee
took hold, as Thou, dear Lord, on me. I find, I walk, I love,
but, O the whole, of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee.
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul, always thou lovest
me." If the hound of heaven is on
your trail, it is not to hurt you, it is to save you. It's not to cast you into hell,
but to carry you to heaven. It's not to take from you, but
to give everything to you. Not to burden you, but it's to
bless you. And my prayer is that you'll
hear His footsteps. They'll be sure and steady, and
He will overtake. And I hope He wears you down,
tires you out to collapse into His arms and be blessed. Treat it as that prodigal son.
Given that robe of righteousness, that ring of sonship, cease from
your fleeing and turn to Christ who loves you with an everlasting
love. We've always heard that saying, that the FBI always gets its
man. But if we're honest, we know
that's not true. But God does. He always gets that sinner, male
or female, that He loves. He pursues them. He works all
His providence moving them to that point when He reveals Himself
through His gospel. And He will not let them go.
He will not let them go. That's why they're called the
sought-out. Seeks them until He finds them. I have to confess that sometimes
he does not seek as many as I would seek. Does not seek them as fast
as I'd seek them. Like the poet said, in his own
undisturbed, unhastened, and unhindered pace, he finds his
own. He knows who they are. He's loved
them from old eternity. He sent his son to die in their
place. You think He won't have them? He's God. He's God. Father, this day we
give You thanks and praise as we praise our blessed Father,
His glorious Redeemer Son, His Almighty Holy Spirit. Seek Your sheep. Find them, bring
them to the foe, feed them, and give them rest. We thank you
for seeking irresistible grace. We thank you for bringing us
to Christ. For if you hadn't, we never would
have come, and we would have forever perished in our sins. Thank you and receive today our
thanks and praise in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.