Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1919
“I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did notseek Me: I said, Behold Me, behold Me, to a nation that was not called by My name” Isaiah 65:1.
this is the passage which was quoted by the Apostle Paul in the 10th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. At the 20th verse of that chapter he says—“Isaiah is very bold, and says, I was found of them that sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me. But to Israel He says, All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” The Apostle followed the Septuagint translation, but altered the position of the clauses.
We learn on Inspired authority that this is a very bold passage. It required much courage to utter it at the first and, in Paul’s day, it needed still more to quote it and press it home upon the Jews around him. He who protests against a self-righteous people and angers them by showing that others whom they despised are saved while they, themselves, are being lost, will have need of a dauntless spirit. The Israelite people thought that they had a monopoly on the Grace of God, that the Lord who had chosen their fathers and had indulged them with a Divine Revelation, would never deprive them of their advantages, nor advance others to the same privileges. They dreamed that God was almost bound to bless them above all the nations that were upon the face of the earth.
To meet this national conceit with plain rebuke needed one who was very bold. When Paul spoke of his own mission to the Gentiles, the Jews lifted up their voices and cried out, “Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.” The Apostle, therefore, knew that Isaiah was very bold when, in former ages, he made Israel know that God would save a people who were not called by His name while the favored people would die in their sins because they would not listen to the entreaties of their God. It becomes the servants of God to be bold in rebuking sin and protesting against pride—indeed, in all their messages it behooves them to be fearless. They do not deliver their own words, otherwise they might apologize for their speech. They speak the words of the living God and it is not for them, for fear of feeble men, to soften their words and smooth their tongues. Ah, no! He that is ashamed to speak the Truth of God has need to be ashamed of himself! It is treason against the King of Kings to tone down the Word of the Lord. Surely, among all cowards, he is the worst who is afraid to be true to God. Such preachers must be especially pointed at in the text—“But the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second
death.”
This text has the clear ring of Free Grace about it and, for this reason, it may be called bold. He had need be bold who, in this day, would preach fully and plainly the Doctrine of the Sovereign Grace of God. This cultured age repudiates the Doctrines of Grace which are the heart of evangelical teaching! Men are vexed when we declare that God is first in human salvation and seeks men before they seek Him. Many grow red in the face if we testify that the Lord, in His gracious Sovereignty, meets with persons who have never sought Him and brings them to Himself, changing their hearts by His own eternal Spirit—while He leaves others to perish in their sins because they resist His Spirit and refuse the invitations of His mercy. Yet we shall not cease most joyfully to sing unto our God—
“No sinner can be beforehand with Thee— Your Grace is most sovereign, most rich, and most free.”
While many who have heard the Gospel from their childhood continue to hear it in vain, others, who have never heard it before, are brought by what are commonly called accidental circumstances to hear the quickening Word of God and at once they embrace it and live! My prayer has been that this morning our text may be again fulfilled! May the Lord
be sought by those who, until now, have not enquired for Him! May many who have strayed into this place thoughtlessly find Jesus this day! It may be you are unused to Divine things, unaccustomed to the gracious commands of love which bid you trust in Jesus. Oh, that you may at once be convicted, converted, renewed and saved! While the Lord Jesus, at this hour, calls to you, “Behold Me, behold Me,” I trust you will be made to long, to look, to live and to love! Truly it will be a wonder of Grace, but our Lord is the God of wonders, His name is Wonderful! May He get to Himself great renown throughout eternity by being found, this day, by those who sought Him not! While I am preaching I shall be praying in the Holy Spirit that this Word of the Lord may be carried out most evidently in the midst of this assembly.
I shall ask your earnest attention, at once, to the text in which there are four notable things—the personality of God in the work of Grace; His delight in it; the description which He gives of it and the purposes which He would serve by that description. May the Holy Spirit help us in this four-fold meditation!