Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2663
“One born out of due time.” 1 Corinthians 15:8.
PAUL thus describes himself. It was necessary that Paul, as an Apostle, should have seen the Lord. He was not converted at the time of Christ’s Ascension, yet he was made an Apostle, for the Lord Jesus appeared to him in the way, as he was going to Damascus, to persecute the saints of God. When he looked upon himself as thus put in, as it were, at the end of the Apostles, he spoke of himself in the most depreciating terms, calling himself, “one born out of due time.”
Those who are acquainted with the Greek tongue know what a despicable term Paul here applied to himself—as though he was scarcely a man at all. At any rate, as the very last of the family, “born out of due time,” and not only the last, but also the very least, for he says, “I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Scholars will know why I cannot exactly explain the word which Paul uses, but rather keep to the rendering of our translation, which, although it may not have the force and full meaning of the Greek expression, is, perhaps, none the less useful for public reading. “One born out of due time.”
Paul thought very humbly of himself. He reckoned himself less than nothing and put himself down at the very lowest estimate—and mentioned that he was brought to Christ and made an Apostle when the time for such a work was apparently over. Out of date altogether, beyond the period when it might have been thought that another Apostle would be called of God, there was Paul—found as “one born out of due time.”
My subject tonight is, first, the singular time of Paul’s spiritual birth. There are many of God’s true children who, like the Apostle, were “born out of due time.” When I have expatiated upon that fact, I shall speak of the sure evidences of his spiritual birth and show you that, although “born out of due time,” he was born—and there were sure evidences of his spiritual birth—which evidences, I trust, may be seen in many of us, also!
I. First, then, let us think of THE SINGULAR TIME OF PAUL’S SPIRITUAL BIRTH.
There are still some who, like the Apostle, are born to God “out of due time.” They are truly born again, regenerated, converted, at a most unlikely season. There have been multitudes brought to Christ under earnest sermons, when the appeals of faithful men have thrilled the congregation and the Truth of God has been effectually carried home to the hearts of many of the hearers. But there have also been times when God’s ministers have waxed faint, when the sermon has appeared to be destitute of all force, when nobody has seemed to have felt the power of the sermon and, apparently, the Truth of God has fallen quite flat! Yet, on many such occasions there have been some sinners converted to God when we would hardly have thought it to be possible!
Mr. Tennant, a famous American minister of Whitefield’s time—one of the most earnest and seraphic men who ever proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ—had a hearer who remained unmoved under many a score of his most faithful sermons. Others were saved, but not this man. He seemed unmoved and immovable, but it came to pass, on a certain Sab-
bath, that a very unusual thing happened. Mr. Tennant had prepared his sermon with great care. It was what we are known to call a laborious discourse into which he had put all the thought and all the pains possible. But he had not been preaching long before his memory completely failed him! His mind refused to work and, after floundering about for a while, he was obliged to sit down in great confusion and say that he could not preach to the people that day. The man I have mentioned, who had never before been impressed under Mr. Tennant’s ministry, was that daycalled by Sovereign Grace as “one born out of due time,” for he was led to see that there was a spiritual and supernatural force which had usually helped the pastor to preach—and that when this Divine influence was withdrawn—he was as weak as other men and could not speak with power as he had been accustomed to do! This Truth of God, somehow or other—for human minds are strangely constituted and things which have no effect upon certain people, very greatly affect others who are present at the same time—this Truth, I say, induced the man to think! And thinking, he was led to believe in God, and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of his soul. He was, without doubt, one “born out of due time.”
I would like to break down, as Mr. Tennant did, if some of you would be born to God by that means! I would rather be dumb and win a soul for Jesus, than speak with the tongues of men and of angels and yet men’s hearts should not be impressed by the Truth of God I proclaimed! How often I have found that when I have gone home and sighed, and cried, and groaned over a sermon in which I felt no liberty, but thought it was an utter failure, it has afterwards been proved that, here one, and there another, have come forward blessing and praising God for that very testimony which seemed to me so faulty and feeble, but which the Spirit of the Lord has savingly impressed upon them! So, still, there are some who in this way are “born out of due time,” through the Holy Spirit’s use, even, of the preacher’s weakness and apparent failure!