Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 525
“You shall be called, Sought Out.” Isaiah 62:12.
THE first meaning of our text is very clear. Here is a prophecy, because Jerusalem, having been despoiled of her beauty by her enemies, was for a long time forsaken and worthy to be called, “A city which no man seeks after,” so, in a brighter day, her glory shall return, she shall be an attraction to all lands and the joy of the whole earth. Multitudes of willing pilgrims shall seek her out that they may behold her beauty. She shall be a city greatly set by and greatly sought out by those who love the hallowed spots where the mighty deeds of the Lord were worked and the arm of Jehovah made bare. The text, doubtless, has a similar reference to the Church of God. During many centuries the Church of Christ was hidden—a thing obscure, despised, unknown, abhorred. She concealed herself in the catacombs—her followers were the poorest and most illiterate of men—proscribed by cruel laws and hunted by ferocious foes. Although the royal bride of Christ, and destined to be the ruler of nations, she made no figure in the world’s eyes. She was but a little stone cut out of the mountain without hands. But the day is already come in which multitudes seek the Church of Christ. Behold, they fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows! They ask the way to Zion with their faces in that direction. As time rolls on and the millennial kingdom of Christ comes nearer and nearer, the Church of God shall be more and more sought out. From the ancient east and the far-off west they shall come, multitudes beyond all count, saying, “Tell us where is the city of the Lord, the people of His love?” Though this, doubtless, is the primary meaning, I nevertheless believe that we may, without violence to the text, use it in another manner in a fuller and more spiritual sense. The Church of God may well be called “Sought Out.” And the like title may truthfully be applied to every single member of that dearly-loved and dearly-purchased family. All the children of God may take for their name and distinction, the words, “Sought Out.”
Without indulging in a longer preface, let us at once proceed to map out the plan of our present meditation. We intend to talk a little while upon the natural condition implied, and then upon the surpassing grace revealed. Our third point will be the distinguishing title justified, and finally, the special duty suggested.
I. First, THE NATURAL CONDITION IMPLIED IN THE TITLE, “SOUGHT OUT.” If the Church of God, my Brothers and Sisters, has been “sought out,” then it is clear enough that originally it was lost—lost like that woman’s piece of silver which she valued so much that she lit her candle and swept her house and searched diligently until she found it. The tremendous fact of man’s utter ruin is the underlying cause of the necessity for Divine Grace to seek out its object. If the Fall had not been so complete in its ruin, there had been no need to seek us, for we should have sought the Lord. This, however, is the gloomy truth—that we are altogether become abominable and all flesh has perverted its way.
Of this fact there can be no doubt, for you and I, who have been saved by Grace, know right well that we were lost— hopelessly and forever lost—had not Jesus sought us out. Many of the chosen seed are suffered to indulge in sin until they are lost even to the presence of virtue and morality—lost to the hopes of the most earnest friends and the most affectionate entreaties of anxious relatives. Lost we all were in our federal head, by imputation of his sin—lost effectually by infusion of his corrupt nature. Lost, afterwards, by our practice. Lost, manifestly, by an accumulation of evil habits and the growing force of depraved appetites.
We have, by nature, departed far from God and, like the prodigal, have gone into a far country. We are comparable to that poor wretch who was possessed with a legion of devils, whom fetters could not bind, nor chains restrain. He who said that by nature man is half brute and half devil, was not far from the truth. O my Brothers and Sisters, shall we ever know in this life how lost we were by nature? 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 not know how lost we were.
But we know enough to make us shudder. Oh, when we saw, or thought we saw, the desperate evil of sin, then we cried out, “Lost! Lost! Lost!” with greater bitterness than he who sorrows for his only son, even for his first-born. Oh, the horrors of that terribly truthful discovery which showed us ourselves. We felt in our conscience that we were lost to everything which could commend us to God or could attract His regard. We knew that in ourselves there were no means of restoration to purity and happiness. We were utterly and entirely lost and, as I said before, some of us lost with a vengeance—for our outward life had become a foul development of the filthy fountains within.