Turn with me please to Isaiah
62. Isaiah chapter 62. This chapter
of Isaiah's prophecy is a prophetic declaration of the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish the salvation of his people in
this world. The Lord Jehovah speaks and declares
that he will establish his righteousness in the earth, and the means by
which he will establish his righteousness is the salvation of his people. And then he describes the glory
of the church in the gospel age, when both Jew and Gentile are
made one in Christ. You see that in verses 1 through
3. For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's
sake I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth
as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy
righteousness, and all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be
called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall
name. Thou shalt also be a crown of
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand
of thy God. Having declared the glory of
his church, the prophet then declares to us by the word of
God that grace which God has determined from eternity to perform
toward his people through the merits of Christ and for the
glory of his own great name. First, in verse 4, he tells us
what he will do for his church as a whole. He says, Thou shalt
no more be termed forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed
desolate, empty, vanity, but thou shalt be called Hephzibah,
the translation being, my delight is in thee, and thy land Beulah,
that is, For the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be
married. Though by nature we are forsaken,
desolate, empty, meaningless, vanity, yet the Lord our God
delights in his covenant people. He has chosen us, his elect,
out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, to be his
holy bride. And as a bridegroom rejoiceth
over the bride, so the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, rejoices
over his church, which he has purchased with his own blood.
And God says, My delight is in thee. The Lord God looking upon
us in Christ delights in us. He delights in us. His heart
is wed to us. Then next verses, the Lord commissioned
those who preach the gospel with a specific work. Look down in
verse 6. I have set watchmen upon thy
walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor
night. Ye that make mention of the Lord
keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish, until
he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Look in verse 10.
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. 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. His work is set clearly before
him. those who are sent of God to preach the gospel, never have
any need to question what their work is or what the work of the
ministry involves. I have read numerous, numerous
books on pastoring and on the work of the ministry and on preaching,
but really there's no question about what the work of the ministry
is. Hundreds of years before the first herald of the new covenant
was sent to proclaim the glorious message of redeeming grace, The
Lord our God tells us plainly what he requires of those who
preach the gospel. And that's what my responsibility
is. That's my responsibility, as
it is the responsibility of every man who stands, as I do, before
a congregation like you, declaring the word of God. The pastor,
the preacher's responsibility, the true gospel preacher is a
watchman. He is one who is set upon the
walls of Zion by God himself. It is God who calls men to the
work. It is God who sets them in their
place. It is God who holds them in his
right hand. And it is God alone who gives
them the gifts qualifying them for the work of the gospel. Blessed
as the work is, much as it is to be aspired unto and desired
by men who desire the glory of God, yet it is not something
that men can attain for themselves. God himself sets watchmen in
Zion. Those who preach the gospel are
called of God, commissioned of God, sent of God, required of
God to give themselves wholly to the work of the gospel. Unceasingly,
generation after generation, those who stand in the pulpits
of the church of Christ must proclaim the gospel of God's
free grace until the church of God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
the bride of Christ is complete and all God's elect have been
gathered in. I wish this generation could
learn what I'm talking about here. Preaching is not the occupation
of God's servant. It is not a vocation by which
we make our living. It is not the most important
part of the preacher's life. The man is called of God to this.
If God has put a man in this work, this work is his life. Everything else is secondary. His primary concern in life is
not for himself, nor for his family, nor for his friends,
but rather for the church of God and for the work of the gospel. His consideration must not be
what's best for my family. How can my children be best educated? How can my family be best provided
for? Where is the best place to live
so that I can comfortably take care of my family and preach
the gospel? His concern, his only concern,
must be the preaching of the gospel of God's grace and everything
else must fall subservient to it. Everything. People ask me
frequently, I don't worry about my wife and daughter when I'm
away. No, I don't. I really don't. I love my family. I enjoy their company. I enjoy
being with them. Sometimes when I'm away, one
of them's sick, and that concerns me. But I don't fret and worry
about them. My family happens to be in the
hands of God. God Almighty can protect mine
and provide for mine far better than I can whether I am on the
other side of the world or whether I'm sitting in the living room.
Do you understand that? And those things that involve
family happiness and family pleasure are of no consideration when
it comes to this matter of preaching the gospel of God's grace. I'm a husband. I'm a father,
I have those responsibilities, but those responsibilities must
be secondary. God's servants are called to
give themselves continually to this business of preaching the
gospel. He says, I have set watchmen
upon thy walls, which shall never hold their peace, day nor night. They must not keep silent, but
they must go through. They must go through. They must
lift up. They must lift up. They must
declare the ways of the Lord, telling men that God, the Savior,
has come and accomplished redemption. And the one business of the preacher
is that business of preaching. Pastors are not counselors. They are not social workers.
They are not ambulance chasers. They are not doctors. They are
not morning fellows who go to the funeral home and spend all
of their time in mourning. Pastors first and foremost are
preachers. Preachers. I know in this generation,
this silly, fickle, ungodly generation, Pastors are expected to drive
a taxi cab, run old folks to the grocery store. I never heard
a temple pastor doing that. I know of several. They're expected
to go visit everybody who's got a hangnail. They're expected
to chase after everybody in the community, try to get them to
start coming to church. They're expected to chase after
delinquent church members and try to build the church back
up. The problem is folks have been coming to the church and
coming to the pastor and coming to the religious house and coming
to the social organization in the name of religion and not
going to God. That's the reason the world's
crazy as it is. Men need to learn to seek God, to trust God, and
it's the pastor's responsibility to spend his days and his nights
in the study of the Word, to declare the Word of God to those
people whom God gathers with a hearing ear. Now, that's his
responsibility. Yes, there are many other things.
that pastors have a heart to do. Many of the things that pastors
have a heart for, they care for the people of God. But all those
other things must be subservient to this matter of preaching the
gospel. Does that make sense, Bob? I
enjoy sitting around chatting with you and Sally and having
coffee. I could enjoy doing that every
morning. I could really enjoy it. But I can't. I can't. Much as I enjoy it, I can't do
it. Not if I'm going to be studying
and preparing to minister to your souls. Those things must
be subservient. The gospel preacher is called
to preach the gospel. And he doesn't need to search
for something to preach. His constant theme must be the
person and work of Christ. His saving merit and his saving
efficacy. The Apostle Paul said, I determine
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And then in the last verse of
this chapter, the Lord God declares what He will graciously make
His people to be. Here in verse 12, the Lord God
Almighty declares four things which shall be true of all His
people. When Christ has finished His work, when the work of grace
is complete, When the eternal purposes of God are all accomplished,
all the host of God's elect shall be saved. And this is what they
shall be called. First, they shall be called the
holy people. The holy people. All the multitude
of God's elect called the holy people. That is, the people whom
God has separated to himself and for himself. They shall be
called the people whom God declares to be holy. They shall be called
the people whom God has, by His grace, made holy. When we stand before the throne
of our God in the endless ages of eternity, and all the world
beholds the ransom of God's people by the hand of God's power and
the hand of God's grace, the whole world Though they are damned,
shall say, These are the holy people, the people of God's choice. They shall be called the redeemed
of the Lord. Those whom the Lord Jesus Christ
has redeemed by the price of His blood and redeemed by the
power of His grace. They shall be called a city not
forsaken. For the Lord God said, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee. and they shall be called
sought out. Now this is the phrase I want
us to meditate on for a little while this evening. The Lord says that those who
are born into the family of God shall be called sought out. The
Lord our God graciously and effectually seeks his people out of the fallen
mass of humanity. I ask you, are you sought out? Have you been sought out by God? I know that most preachers place
great emphasis on the sinner's responsibility to seek the Lord,
and that responsibility needs to be pressed home to every heart.
You must seek the Lord or you must perish. But this is the
great truth of Holy Scripture. Salvation is accomplished not
when the sinner seeks God, but rather when God seeks the sinner. The Lord himself declares, I
am found of them that sought me not. The great question then
is not, have you sought and found the Lord? But rather, are you
sought out and found by the Lord? Let me show you four things about
this title which God has given to his people. God calls you
sought out. God calls me sought out. This is sought out Baptist Church. God has sought out a people,
gathered us in his own name and made us to be his own peculiar
people. Now, what does that title imply?
Well, the first thing that's obvious, this title implies the
natural condition of all men. If the people of God have been
sought out, then it's abundantly clear that they were originally
lost. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians 2. The Lord God has sought us out
by his grace, but we were by nature lost, perishing, depraved,
undone. The Apostle Paul says, and you
hath he quickened. That is, God has made you alive,
but you were dead in trespasses and in sin. wherein in time past
ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation. This was our manner of life in
times past. in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature
children of wrath, just like everybody else. Our hearts were
hearts of enmity against God. We were under the curse of God's
law, children of wrath, even as others. But God, but God,
God who is rich in mercy, For his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace are you saved. If we
had not fallen in our father Adam, there would have been no
need for the grace of God to seek us out. But since by the
fall of Adam we had been completely ruined and hopelessly lost, we
would all have perished if the Lord had not sought us out. Of
this terrible fact, There's no question. You and I who have
been saved by almighty grace know right well that we were
helplessly, hopelessly lost, would have been lost forever
had the Lord Jesus Christ not sought us out by his grace. We
were lost in the sin and fall of our father Adam. That's where
it all starts. Somebody says, if you go back
to the beginning, And you see things right there, you'll see
things right all the way through. But if you messed up in the beginning,
you're going to be messed up all the way through. Now, what
happened in the garden? What happened when Adam sinned
against God? Did that man, Adam, who was the
father of us all, who represented us all, Just make a little mistake
by which he became somewhat hampered spiritually. Did he simply stumble
and trip and fall down and bruise himself a little bit? Or did
our father Adam fall utterly into a state of death and sin
and helplessness? Now that's what happened. Adam
sinned and when he sinned, he died spiritually. He was altogether
separated from God, completely alienated from God. His heart
was at enmity against God from that day forward. And because
our father Adam fell and we fell in him, we have inherited from
our father Adam a depraved, corrupt nature. We inherit from Adam
the depravity of his heart. We inherit from Adam the corruption
of his heart. He wasn't made that way. Man
wasn't originally made with selfishness and envy and pride as the basis
of his actions. He was originally made in the
image and likeness of God. But Adam sinned and he failed. And we failed in him. And now
all of Adam's children, every last one of them, come forth
from the womb speaking lies. That's where our problem is.
The problem with man is not his environment, nor his
education. The problem with man, the psychologists
always want to go back, you know. They want to alleviate us of
any responsibility. They say we have problems back
in your childhood. It is. Back in the childhood
of humanity. That's where the problem is.
It's with our father, Adam. And Adam's sons are all just
like him, the only difference being we accumulate more and
more depravity as we go along. We were not only lost in the
fall of Adam and born with a heart of enmity against God, but we
were lost by our own practices, by our own deliberate choice.
Man is so perverse, Job said he drinks iniquity like a thirsty
dog laps of water. All men deliberately, maliciously,
willfully choose to rebel against God. Everybody does. It talks about the age of accountability. The scripture doesn't talk like
that, but preachers do. We try to make every excuse we
can, get folks into heaven. Doesn't matter whether we rob
God of His glory or not. But every child I've ever known,
my own included, every child I've ever known, deliberately
chooses evil rather than good. Every child I've ever known,
yours and mine. Here they are. They have a choice.
A choice of telling the truth or telling a lie. Did you spill that water? No. No, not me. Well, reckon who
did? Nobody else been in the house
for two days. It must have jumped out by itself.
That's just the way we are. I have a choice of being kind
and generous or being selfish and hard. There's your little
girl sitting down, that little angel, sitting down on the floor. And here comes a little girl
in, one of the neighbors visiting with her children. And the little
girl sits down with yours, and your little girl's got 25 dolls
scattered along the floor, everywhere. That little girl walks over and
starts to pick one up. Doesn't matter which one. Doesn't
matter if your little girl threw that one away ten years earlier,
if she starts for that one, MINE! You can't have that. My favorite
dog. What's that called? It's called
depravity. It's called selfishness. It's
called greed. It's called covetousness. It's
called pride. Sin. Sin. Now those are just
little trivial instances. But those things indicate the
very same thing that a man taking a revolver and blowing his neighbor's
brains out indicates. Man's heart is enmity against
God. Willfully, deliberately, we chose
the path of iniquity. We willfully, deliberately chose
the path of rebellion against God. Man just naturally rebels
against authority. He just does. I don't know what
it was about me growing up. All on earth it took getting
me to do anything was somebody with some authority to say, Don,
you can't do that. Son, now listen, I'm going to
be gone for a little while. Don't you get in the car. It's
a dangerous thing. Don't ever get behind the wheel
of a car. You know how old I was when I wrecked my first car?
Five. Never will forget it. My dad
had a 1955 Pontiac. I can remember it like it was
yesterday. 1955 Pontiac. He got out of the car. First
one he ever had with air conditioning on it. Left me sitting in the
car. Don, don't get around the wheel. Don't get around the wheel
of the car. He got out, shut the door. I got behind the wheel.
Stuck that thing in driving down the hill we went. That's all
it takes. Just don't do it. Don't do it.
Go to school, teacher said, now listen class, I want you all
to stand up. That's a sure way to get them
all to sit in their seats. I want you all to talk. That's a sure
way to get them to be quiet. Any symbol of authority, man
rebels against it and the reason is that man says, God has no
right to rule. I'll rule. I'll rule. Many of us were manifestly lost
by the accumulation of our evil habits through the force of our
depraved hearts. Like the prodigal, we strayed
into a far country and wasted the substance of our lives with
riotously. Like that poor, wretched man
who was possessed with a legion of demons, The fetters of firm
discipline could not bind us, and the chains of social opinion
could not restrain us. We were determined to have our
way, determined to have our way, cost what it may. I doubt that we shall ever know
in this life how thoroughly lost we were by nature. Spurgeon said,
until we can comprehend what the wrath of God means by gazing
steadfastly into the pit of hell, until we can understand the purity
of God amid the perfection of heaven, and so can measure the
awful distance between our depraved condition and the perfect holiness
of Jehovah, we shall never know how lost we were. But we who
have experienced the grace of God, do know enough to make us
shudder. Never before or since have I
known the terrible, soul-shaking fear that I experienced when
I first saw my lost condition before God. I saw that God is infinitely
holy and that I was thoroughly corrupt, and I had nothing absolutely
nothing with which to commend myself to God. I had nothing
to attract His regard, and I had no ability whatsoever to change
my heart. I knew in my inmost soul that
if God were to throw me into the lowest pit of hell, He would
be just in doing so. This is the condition of all
men by nature. And if you're yet without Christ,
it's your condition now. Wherefore, remember that ye being
in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that
at that time when God was pleased to save you by His grace, when
God was pleased to reveal His Son in your heart, You were without
Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the
covenants of promise, without hope, without God perishing in
this world. We were so completely lost that
we did not and would not seek the Lord. I know that natural
men have occasional religious thoughts. and sometimes desire
things that have to do with God and his grace. Men get very religious
when they get sick. Men and women get very religious
when they have trouble. I have seen people time and again
have a little boy, a little girl have some trouble. Child gets
sick. Mama or daddy gets sick. Daddy
loses his job. Mama loses her job. They get
so religious. Oh, they talk so piously. Well, I know the Lord was in
it. He was teaching me something. I need to get right with God.
And so they'll get religion for a little while. And then they'll
get the job back. It'll get better. And everything
goes well. And they forget God. They forget
God. Now, preachers are good at capitalizing
on that. They're good. It's easy to get
folks to make a profession of faith. They'll do anything under
the sun. Try to get God on their side.
Natural men have some desires toward God occasionally. But
they have no true hunger and thirst for Christ and His righteousness. Natural man never does. I never,
I never do. I never Go to anybody in a time
of calamity and try to deal with their soul. I don't do it, Lindsay,
for good reason. They're not interested in their
souls, man. They're interested in getting over the calamity.
I never do it. Don't ever intend to do it. You
see, men by nature are skilled in straying from God. The easiest
way to stray from God is to hide in the church. The easiest way
under the sun. We were skilled at straying,
but we were utterly without any desire to return to him. Men want forgiveness. Men want
acceptance with God. Men want entrance into heaven.
Men want to escape hell. But nobody wants Christ as Lord. And nobody saves until they come
to want and have. Christ as Lord. Nobody. The picture of our lost condition
only gets worse as we consider it. Not only were we lost, we
had no thought of returning to God and would never have willed
to do so. Left to ourselves, we would only
have wandered further and further away. We were lost without a
wish to return and without any possibility of ever having such
a wish. But our lost estate was yet more
desperate. Not only did we not seek the
Lord, but we had no desire for him to seek us. We were so far
from seeking God that when he did seek us, we didn't come. When he did come to us to bring
us salvation, we took up arms against him. We resisted his
grace with every fiber of our being. You know it and I know
it. Sometimes, sometimes, not often,
but sometimes I suppose God calls a sinner to himself and that
sinner is suddenly made willing. But usually God has to take souls
of Tarsus and throw their cans down on the ground and blind
them and scare them to death and break their will because
they resist. Saul heard Stephen preach. He
said, No, sir. No, sir. He heard the testimony
of Christ. He said, No. No. We resisted his grace with every
fiber of our being. I remember those early strivings
of the Spirit with my heart. I was resolutely determined not
to become one of Christ's disciples. I was determined not to. I was
determined not to. I stood out against His grace
saying, I will not have this man to rule over me. And I bolted
every door of my heart against the influence of His grace. And
if God's almighty grace had not sovereignly overpowered my will,
I would never have been saved. Never. Oh, I thank God that He
did not leave me to my free will. And I thank God He didn't leave
you to your free will. If God leaves a man to his will,
just kiss him goodbye. That man is damned. He's damned
forever. if God ever leaves a man to his
will. Twas thy love, O God, that knew
me, earth's foundations long before. That same love to Jesus
drew me by its sweet constraining power. If you're saved, you know
what I'm talking about. You know what I've said is true.
I remind you of it because it'll do us good to look to the hole
of the pit from which we were dug. and to the rock from which
we were healed. May this remembrance of our lost
estate in some measure humble our proud hearts and fill us
with praise to the God of all grace who saved us according
to his own will and sought us out. Boasting excluded, pride
I abase, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. I lift my heart in
praise to God. He's given me a name. Sought
out. Sought out. He would not leave
me in my lost and ruined condition. Secondly, I want you to see that
this title reveals the marvelous grace of our God. The Apostle Paul says in Romans
5 and verse 20, the law entered that the offense
might abound. But where sin abound, grace did
much more abound. Oh, the fact that God Almighty
should seek out any of Adam's race is a marvelous thing to
me. When I think of man, who he is, what he is, what he's done. When
I think of God, who he is, I'm amazed that God should ever save
any son of Adam. I'm amazed. I'm amazed. It would be a great condescension
of God Almighty to have simply provided eternal salvation and
invited us to accept it. That would have been great grace. Surely no man could expect God
to be more gracious than that. That's what the Arminian says
He did. He provided salvation. And He
sets it before you and invites you to take it. Now you can't
expect God to do any more than that, can you? No. No. But He does. He does. Here's the wonder and splendor
of His grace. When we would not heed His invitations
of grace, He sought us out by grace. We heard the gospel and
rejected it. Christ was offered and we refused
Him. But grace would not be stopped. God was determined to glorify
His love, so He sought us out. He sought those who would not
seek Him. And He would not leave us in
bondage, not even in the bondage of our own self-will. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee. Thy people shall be
willing in the day of thy power. But the grace of God is even
more conspicuous when you consider the people whom he has sought of all the men and women in this
world at God's disposal, to whom He might be gracious, why in the name of heaven would
He be gracious to the likes of Oscar Bailey? Why on this earth
would He be gracious to the likes of West Why would He be pleased
to seek out the likes of Don Fortner? Why under the sun? I can't see why He'd be gracious
to you or to me. His reasons are known only to
Himself. But He sought us out and He made us the heirs of eternal
life. All I can do is lift up my heart
in wonder, love, and praise to him. There are ten thousand reasons
why he should have damned me. There is only one reason why he should
be gracious to me, and that is because it seemed good in his
sight. Why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there
is room, while thousands made a wretched choice? and rather
die than come. Aren't you amazed? He sought
you out. He sought you out. You who were most vile, you who
were drunks and whoremongers and harlots and thieves and Oh, what marvelous, wondrous,
amazing, incomprehensible, irresistible grace. Look at some scripture
with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Don't you know, Paul said, that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers. nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. It's what it says in verse 11,
and such were you, and such were you, but you're washed, you're
sanctified, you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the spirit of our God. Look back in chapter one. You see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of this world to confound the wise. God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and
base things of the world and things which are despised. hath
God chosen, yea, in things which are not, to bring to nothing
things that are." It's the good pleasure of God
to take the stake of the dumb heel of fallen humanity It's the good pleasure of God
with the hand of his grace to dig down into the dung heap of
fallen humanity and pull out the lowest maggots of the earth
and make them the trophies of his grace and use them to bring
confusion to the kingdom of darkness. "'Tis not that I did choose thee.
For, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
Thee, but Thou hast chosen me. Thou from the sin that stained
me washed and made me free, and to this end ordained me that
I should live to Thee. For sovereign mercy taught me
and taught my opening mind the world had else enthralled me
to heavenly glories blind, my heart owns none before thee. For thy rich grace I thirst,
this knowing. If I love thee, thou must have
loved me first." Now let me show you that this title is fully
justified, sought out. It's a good title. for God's
people, it's well justified by all that we've experienced. You
see, the one who sought us out was none other than the Lord
God Jehovah himself. No man could seek us out, and
not many would. when God was pleased to have
mercy on my soul. Everybody, everybody had just
flat given up all hope of anything worth the redeeming in Don Fortner. Everybody, including Don Fortner. No man could, and very few would,
but the eternal, all-wise, all-powerful, all-gracious God said, I will
be their God, you read, and they shall be my people. I'll take
away their heart of stone, I'll give them a heart of He sought us out in eternal election. He said, I'm going to heaven. And He never one time took His
heart off of us. Not one time. He sought us out
in the incarnation life and death of His Son. He sought us out
in His all-wise Oh, I thank God for His good
promise. Even those things, as I look
back upon them as memories that are nothing but pain and scars
to my soul, I thank God for His wise providence. For in His wise
providence, He guided the affairs of the universe. and the meticulous
affairs of my own life, yes, even governing the evil passions
of my own heart, to bring me to the place where he would be
gracious to me." Somebody says, do you believe God ruled all
that? I believe he ruled it all with exact precision according
to his eternal purpose to bring this center to know his name. I believe. Though we would not hear, though
we would not seek him, he graciously sought us out by the ministry
of the word. by some means or other caused
us to here. It's amazing how God works at
times. George Whitefield was preaching
in a chapel in London, 1700s. And Whitefield was frequently
the object of abuse, scorn. Some boys walking down the road
one night while he was preaching, all the time involved in various
things. These boys walking down the road,
one of them said to his buddy, said, John, why don't you go
inside the chapel there and see what time it is? All the churches
had big clocks. And so this boy walked inside
the chapel, turned around to look up and see what time it
was. While he was looking at the clock, the preacher prayed. spoke to his ear, to his heart,
and brought him to life. God's example. I began to go to church and Sunday
school because there were some pretty girls at church that I
wanted to go and visit, you know. I was there seeking the companion
of a young lady, the companionship of a young lady. But God was
there seeking the companionship of a perishing sinner. He sought
us out. He sought us out by the blessed
power of the Spirit and made us willing. Shelby and I have been married
now for 17 years. 17 years and a week. I've often told you, I remember
the first time I asked, I didn't ask her to marry me, I told her
I was going to marry her. We hadn't been dating any time. She said, well,
you're crazy, you don't know what you want. And about a lot of things she
was right, I didn't, but I knew what I wanted then. And I proceeded
to work on her will. I used to call her and send her
flowers and take her out to dinner. I charmed her. Oh, I charmed
her. You just couldn't believe how
charming this fella could be. I just charmed her and charmed
her. One day I got down on my knees,
but I knew it was going to be all right. I wouldn't have got
down on my knees on a chance. You can believe that. I got down
on my knees, sat on a sofa, asked her if she wouldn't be my wife.
And while she looked like that's the most thrilling thing she
ever heard in her life, she was tickled to death. Just, I mean,
tickled to death. You see, I'd conquered her will. Lord God came to me. through
his word, through his providence, the influence of his spirit.
And he said, will you have my son? And I said, no sir, I'll
not have him. I don't want him. I've got no
use for him. But he wouldn't leave it at that. He does leave it at that with
some people. There is common grace against which men contend
and resist. And God leaves it at that. Aren't
you glad He didn't leave it at that with you, Lindsay? He wouldn't
take no for an answer. He said, I said, you shall be
mine and I shall be yours. And He proceeded to show me my
utter emptiness, my sin and degradation. And He proceeded to show me the
beauty and the grace and the glory of His dear Son. And He came to me again and He
said, when I had been stripped and my loathsomeness exposed
to me. He said, now, will you have my
son? Oh Lord God, I want him more
than I want life itself. Well, what made the difference?
His will. His grace, His mercy, that's
all. That's all. At the appointed time, He sought us out. He charmed
us into subjection. He caused us to believe. He made
us willing in the day of His power. He effectually completely,
irresistibly sought us out. Well, what shall we do who have
been sought out? We must surely acknowledge the whole of our salvation. the whole of our redemption,
the whole of our righteousness to the grace of Almighty God. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. I will ascribe to God alone all
the glory of my salvation. I will worship and adore the
God of all grace. I gladly surrender myself, all
that I am, all that I possess, to my great and gracious God.
I love Him supremely who has sought me out. And if it's really true that
we're sought out, surely we ought to spend our whole lifetime seeking
others Oh, that God would make us fishers
of men, and let us constantly be engaged in the work of seeking
the Lord's chosen ones out from among the fallen mass of humanity. Has the Lord sought you out? If He sought you out, I want
you to confess it. Let us rejoice with you. You're
welcome in this family. The name of the family is sought
out. And if he sought you out, you're
a member of his family, his church, his kingdom. God give you grace
now to confess him, to believe him, to follow him. For Christ's
sake, amen. Ladies and Ladies.