058. The Hound of Heaven

Friends, before I present the message today, I’d like to talk to the boys and girls first and tell them a story.
------   I’d like to tell you a story about …

PP    Uncle Phil and Roy

“Once, when I was a little boy,” said Uncle Phil, “I asked my mother to let Roy and me go and play by the river.  My mother said we could go.  So we went and had a good time there.  After a while, I took a piece of wood and sailed it along the edge of the water near the bank.  It began to get into deep water where I couldn’t reach it with a stick.”
“I told Roy to swim out and get it for me.  Roy almost always did what I told him, but this time he wouldn’t.  I yelled at him and he ran toward home.  Then I got very angry.  I picked up a stone and threw it at him as hard as I could.”
“Just then, Roy turned his head, and the stone hit him over the eyes.”
“He gave a little cry and fell to the ground.  I didn’t go to him. But waded into the water for my boat.”
“But it was deeper than I thought.  Before I knew it, I was in a strong current.  I called out as it carried me downstream, but no-one was near to help me.”
“As I went down under the deep water, something took hold of me and dragged me towards the shore.  When I was safe on the bank, I saw it was Roy who had saved me.”
“I put my arms around his neck and begged him to forgive me.”
“He was my dog,” said Uncle Phil, “the best dog I ever had.  I have never been unkind to a dog or another animal since, and girls and boys, I hope you never will be unkind to animals either.”-----

-----  Girls and boys, we should always be kind to animals – we should never hurt them.
And we should be kind to Jesus too.  Just like Uncle Phil’s dog Roy saved Phil, Jesus saves us too.
Girls and boys and older people, we are so often unkind to Jesus.  But when we call out for Him to save us, He will.  --  Have you called out to Jesus, to save you?  He will!  -----

PP    
Friends, right now, and right through this next message, and at the end, I will be asking you to make a personal decision today to accept and follow Jesus more strongly than ever before.
I hope, and I pray, that you will give me your undivided attention for the next thirty minutes, and yes, that you will make that decision today, to accept and follow Jesus more closely.
Thank you.

------   The title of today’s message is …

PP    THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Delphine and I have a couple of wonderful friends in the U.S. by the names of Sidney and Daisy.  Like us, they grew up in the sixties and grew up in the hippie movement of that era.

The Vietnam War was in full swing and the average person on the street had no idea why it was really happening.

In American homes, just as it was in Australia, alcohol was the drug of choice that would make us happy, or so we thought.  It didn’t!

Alcohol destroyed people, it destroyed families, it destroyed health, caused accidents, hurt mums and dads and children.  It was the cause of lots of crime.  Alcohol was a curse!  

In the sixties, the young people hated what alcohol was doing to society.  It caused aggression, hatred, and it destroyed families.

We found something that we believed was better – and it was better!  It was marijuana.  Compared with alcohol, marijuana brought peace, and love, and kindness.  Alcohol brought anger and hatred and destruction.

Marijuana was a soft drug but what we didn’t know was that it would encourage many young people to begin to experiment with harder drugs, to try to get a greater high, and that’s when things started to come unstuck.

PP    (God Helped Us Smuggle Hash book cover)

This is the cover of the book Sidney and Daisy finally wrote as a memory for their kids.  ‘God Helped Us Smuggle Hash’ – ‘The unusual true story of hippies, a love triangle, and an unseen tracker.’

Would God ever help anyone to smuggle hash – concentrated marijuana? -------  And what was this love triangle?   ------  Well, second from the left, this is our friend Sidney, and in the centre, Daisy, his girlfriend.   To the right of Daisy is Sky, Sidney’s best friend.  And in the centre again, Daisy, also Sky’s girlfriend.

Well, that was the love triangle, but even back then, in the sixties era of love and peace, the love triangle still had its problems.

Finally, the two boys went their own separate ways, and Sidney married Daisy, and they are still together today - wonderful friends!

But what about the ‘unseen tracker’?  Who was that?   Sidney believed it was God.

As Sidney looked back on their lives, and thought about all the things that had occurred on their life’s journey, he believed that it was God, the unseen tracker, who like a hunting hound, had followed them, tracked them, stopped them from getting busted by the police, stopped them from getting killed, protected them as they finally smuggled millions of dollars worth of hash into the United States, believing they were doing the right thing, helping their country to throw off the devastating shackles of alcohol that was destroying so many people and their families.

Much later, Roger, a retired Englishman who had helped them in their hash smuggling episodes, visited Sidney and asked him this question.  …

PP    “So do you think God as you know Him today was the one involved in helping us in our hash smuggling escapades?”

Sidney replied, …

PP    “Roger, my dear friend, I am no expert in the ways of the Divine.  But our experience tells me, the Divine is not so concerned with what we are doing, as to how to make contact with us.  His presence in our adventure was an opportunity to not only protect us, but to reveal His love, and to give us time to understand and discover for ourselves who He is.”

Roger said, “Yes, I can believe that, but I don’t think you would find the church agreeing with you.”

Sidney replied. “Roger, you probably know better than I, that the church, and perhaps organised religion in general, is often out of sync with the deepest intent of the Divine.”

Sidney went on to add, …

PP   “Here’s my take.  I see the Divine as the great Lover, tracking us, looking for favourable moments to attract and embrace us.  But for each of us, there is a different approach.  He can’t just grab us and say, ‘Wake up.  Here I am.  I’m God, you better get on board or else.’  ----  We might get that message from the pulpit, but I don’t see God like that.  Besides, our prejudices, our religions, our egos, our fears – we’ve got all kinds of issues standing in the way of us recognising His Loving approach.  I’m guessing it is often a very delicate process for the Divine to allure us, and to ultimately reveal Himself.”

Roger said, “You’re not trying to persuade me are you?”

Friends, along with Sidney, my answer is the same to you, …

PP    “Hey, Roger, what I can’t deny is that there is a lot more going on than what we see on the surface.  Someone has been tracking me, tracking us for some time now and that Someone was somehow involved in our lives over the last few years.”

Roger gave a knowing nod.  

Sidney continued, …

PP    “And though I can’t speak for what God does and doesn’t do, I’m convinced He’s on our side, and what we are up to, whether smuggling hash or whatever it is, doesn’t stop the Divine from looking for an opportunity to draw close.  I mean, here we are!  Five years ago I was a ‘Couldn’t care less’ atheist, and today I perceive a God of love at the centre of the Universe.  I prefer today’s awareness, as far out as it may sound.”

“So have you got it all figured out now?” Roger asked.

“Yeh, right.  Our relationship triangle, is still a mess, we have no real plan.  Yeh, I’ve got it all figured out alright!  Not! “

Well friends, how did it all work out?  --------

God, the Unseen Tracker, got them.  Sidney and Daisy married.  They love each other dearly.  They love God and His Sabbath day dearly.  They love people dearly.  Their journey has led them to become wonderful Christians today.

Friends, …

PP    This ‘Unseen Tracker’ was God, ‘The Hound of Heaven’, who tracks all of us, pleading with all of us, to give up on the wrong paths we are pursuing, and to follow Him, for a better life.

So friends, our message today, is titled …    -----

PP    THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

At the start of this message today, I asked that throughout the message would you please give me your undivided attention, and make personal decisions to accept and follow Jesus more strongly today than ever before.  Thank you.

A poet, Francis Thompson, once wrote some words that he titled,
The Hound of Heaven.  In his poem he drew a parallel between a well-trained hunting hound pursuing his quarry, and, Jesus, the ‘Hound of Heaven’, pursuing His quarry, you and me.   ------

For years, I ran from Jesus.   Ask yourself, have you run from Jesus? ----   Are you still running from Jesus?   Or have you turned around? ---

------  That poem --- ‘The Hound of Heaven’, goes something like this:-

PP1      I fled from Him, down through the nights, down through the days;

PP2     I fled from Him, down through the years;

PP3    I fled from Him down through the passageways of my own mind,

PP4    And in the midst of tears I hid from Him,

PP5   And under running laughter I hid from Him.

----------    In my hopes, I climbed, I sped,
And then came down into Titanic gloom, and valleys of fear.
Yet – Those - strong - feet that followed me,
With unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Those strong feet beat --  and a voice plead …

PP    “All things in this world betray you  --  please stop!”

-----------   Friends, are you lonely?  Are you wanting something better?  Are you hanging onto your problems instead of handing them over to Jesus?   Deep down, are you actually running away from the ‘Hound of Heaven’?

He pursues you, determined to win you back.  He simply cannot do without you.  You and I have very little idea just how badly Jesus wants to win us back.  He will spare nothing -  not the angels of heaven, not His Holy Spirit, not even His own life – to appeal to us to come back to Him, and hand our problems over to Him.  Nothing will stop Him in His desperate attempt to win us back to Himself – not a devil, not a cross, not our indifference, nothing!

I’m going to turn to a Bible verse in Romans chapter eight.  These two verses tell us what things will stop God from loving us.  In …

PP    Romans 8:38,39   (Paul says)
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, (and just in case he missed anything out, he added) nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Friends, Nothing, and No-one, will stop God from loving us.

PP1    So, how does God’s desperate Love come to us?

PP2    Through Jesus, the Hound of Heaven.   And He keeps on chasing us, unless we reject Him completely, like some in the pleasure bent crowd, and the pride-hardened ‘religious’ church goers, the Pharisees.

-----   Friends, I can ignore Him days without number as I cling to my pet little sins.  I can reject Him, as He pleads with me to follow Him more closely.  I can deny that He exists by deliberately refusing to sift the evidence that proves that He does exist.  I can mock and ridicule Him by my careless lifestyle.  I can claim His name (the name of Christian) and yet play the devil’s game.   I can show that I am ashamed of Him by not talking about Him to my friends.  I can hate Him bitterly and curse the day I ever heard about Him as I fight against His pleas to follow Him all the way.  I can deliberately run away from Him and say, “I know I should follow you Lord, but not today, maybe tomorrow – or some other day.”   I can pledge allegiance to His greatest enemy as I say I want to indulge in the pleasures of sin for a while.  I can squander all His gifts to me on my own selfish self instead of sharing them with others.  I can defy Him and ‘kick Him in the teeth’ as it were – biting off the hand of the One who so desperately wants to feed me.  I can lie about Him by portraying Him and His Father to others as severe and ruthless and hard and uncaring.  I can shut Him totally out of my life.  Without thinking, I can blame Him for all the evil in my life and in my world.
I can whip Him till He bleeds and spit on Him and nail Him to a cross and laugh -------- while He dies from a broken heart.  

PP1    I can do all this.  

PP2    But there is one thing my friend that I can never do.

PP3    I can never stop Him from loving me.

PP4    NEVER !  

And no matter how far we run from Him, no matter how much we hurt Him, no matter how helpless and hopeless we may feel, Jesus comes looking for us, the Hound of Heaven.  

----  In the Bible stories, I am so glad that the Shepherd didn’t wait for the one lost sheep to find its own way back home but He went out looking for it.  I’m so glad that the housewife didn’t wait for the lost coin to move itself out into the open, but she swept the floor till she found it.  I’m so glad that the Father’s long-distance love followed the wayward son to the far country and brought him home again.  I’m so glad that Jesus doesn’t wait till I get my act together before He loves me.  He’s out after me like a hound – the Hound of Heaven! --------  
Back to the poem! -------

“Like an outlaw, I run on.
Why?  Because I am afraid.
That if I turn to Him,
I’ll have nothing else.
His love pursues me
But I flee.
I watch the moon,
I watch the stars,
Through the dark night I race.
He follows me to the nightclub door,
panting, and He waits there,
lonely, hurting,
sad that I should go into a place
where He can not follow.
So he waits!
Every time the door opens He stands,
Hoping it will be me.

But sadly – no!   ---------
The night wears on.
He desperately wants to be with me,
To care for me, to protect me –
After all, He is my best friend,
the Hound of Heaven.
But no, I shun Him
As I did the nights He waited for me
outside the closed doors where I spoke
to my so-called ‘friends’.    He waited  ---------
outside the hotel, outside the TV room.
He waited, knowing that He couldn’t
go into such an environment
and hoping I’d come out soon.
He was lonely without me,
the Hound of Heaven.”  -----

-----   You know, as I think of my ‘friends’ who encouraged me to go to the wrong places and do the wrong things – as I really think about it, they weren’t my friends – they were only wolves in sheep’s clothing.
They didn’t really care about me.  They were my ‘fair-weather’ friends, close by me, when all was going well.  But when there was trouble, no-one stood by me, except One, the Hound of Heaven, while I was beaten and scared, and bruised, He was the only One.  --------

“So the night wears on.
I say to the dawn, hurry,
It is so dark and lonely.
Then the day comes ----- too bright – so scary.
So I stumble on, still running.
Calling again for the night to come quickly,
I don’t stop to notice the warmth, the beautiful blossoms.
I just keep running, running from the Hound of Heaven.
Close on my tracks – wanting me to stop, and think.  -----
He tries to tell me, that ---

PP     In every human being there’s a vacuum that only God can fill.

------------  Stop, the Hound cries.
Stop running from one thrill to the next.
From highs to disappointments.
From euphoria to pain.
If you’ve stumbled into the pit of discouragement,
Stop – and think – think!
You’re running from the Hound of Heaven.
Stop, and let Him catch up – He loves you.
He is the world’s greatest lover –
Stop, and let Him invade your life,
Stop, you’ll never regret it! -------

And so, on, with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Come the feet,
And a voice above their beat ----
‘Stop, it’s Me, the Hound of Heaven’ -----
------  I want to turn and look,
But I can’t stand
those penetrating eyes.
Their love is too deep
And the scars
All because of me, the Hound of Heaven ------
Bleeding, running -------
Wanting me to stop
In my headlong thrust
Into darkness. -----------

Friend, once Jesus Christ begins loving someone, He never stops.  His love for you will never fade or fail.   And I feel sure that if, ultimately, you reject His love and choose eternal oblivion rather than eternal life in His presence, He will love you still.

And for all eternity there will be a great aching void in His heart ---
A never-diminishing grief over the fact that you are not there.  God will not take your loss philosophically, but personally.  And the passing of eons of time will not find Him missing you any less.  -------

PP1      Every one of us wants to be loved.

PP2      Every one of us needs to be loved.

PP3      And for most of us, the great, driving hunger of our lives –

PP4      the over-riding search for happiness that consumes us –

PP5      is really an effort to find love.

If I’m beautiful, maybe you’ll love me.  If I’m good, maybe you’ll love me.  If I’m successful, maybe you’ll love me.  If I entertain you, maybe you’ll love me.  If I love you, maybe you’ll love me back.
So we humans look constantly to one another to fill our need for love.  But human love – while it can be satisfying – never seems to be quite enough to meet the awesome need we seem to have for love.

PP1    Many who lose possessions, or friends, and every other earthly thing, find themselves with nothing left but the love of Jesus.  -  only to discover what is true for all of us : that His love is enough.
Jesus loves you with no strings.  
No ifs.  No conditions.  
He loves you if you have nothing.  
He loves you if you are a failure.  
He loves you if you’re ugly.  
He loves you no matter how far down you’ve fallen.  
He loves you – not for what you have or what you do – but for simply being you.  -------

PP2     It’s very, very, good news.  

--------   Back to the poem.  -----------
“The gap is narrowing -
with unperturbed pace.
Closer, closer draws the chase.
Deliberate speed,
Majestic instancy.
And from the pounding feet
A voice comes --------
‘Lonely one, empty one.
Stop!  You’ll never regret.
I’m here, coming closer.
Slow down, look back.
Stop and rest.
Come to Me
All you who are heavy burdened
And I will give you rest.
Remember,
inside every human being
is a God-shaped vacuum
that only God can fill’ -----

(slow)
“Lord, can I give up?
Can I stop?
I’ve been running from you for years
and I’m so lonely
and my body hurts.” -------

The long pursuit is almost over.
The Hound has nearly caught me.
The voice is round me like a stormy sea.

PP1    “My child, everything eludes you,

PP2      because you are eluding Me.”

-----    Awake, realise where you’re going,
before it is too late.
Down, down, into a pit.
Make every effort
to turn your face
and stop!” -------

------- Fear grips me!  -----
------- What - am I doing?
I’m down on my knees
Who?, me?, praying?!
Lord I’ve never wanted to pray
I’ve always fought against it
Even though I knew I should.
And my Bible Lord?
What do you mean -
‘Tell You that I hate reading it.”
But child, you do, don’t you?
Isn’t it true?
Yes Lord, I don’t like reading Your Book.
But I didn’t want to say it. -------
Do You really mean it Lord
that if I’m fair dinkum, genuine,
and own up
that I hate Your Book
that You’ll still love me
and accept my honesty
and help me to learn
to love Your Word – Your Book?
Do you really mean that God? -----
------  Yes child, a thousand times yes.
Rise, grasp My hand and come.

PP3     I love You, I seek You,
           Come home.

-------  Before it is too late.  ------

-----  Friends, at the beginning of this message, I asked if you would make a personal decision to accept and follow Jesus more strongly than ever before.  So I’d like to come to four points.  As the piano plays softly, here’s …
 
         Point number 1.
   1.   If you have already accepted Jesus as your friend and Saviour, but you don’t feel you love Him as much as you could, then I invite you to come down to the front and re-dedicate your life to Him. --------------------------------------------------------------------

Now Point number 2.
   2.   If you are saying, “My love for Jesus has slackened off and I want to get that original love back again,”  then I invite you too to please come down to the front. ------

   Point number 3.
   3.   If you’ve never met Jesus in the first place, and you’d dearly like to have something better in your life, then I invite you, no, I plead with you, to please come down to the front also. ------

   Point number 4.
   4.   If you are still in your seat, whether you see yourself as a Christian or not, maybe you have even hardened your heart against Jesus for some reason, then I’d love you to stand and come down too.  But whoever you are, and wherever you are on life’s journey, I would invite you all to stand or kneel, and close your eyes, as we pray to the Hound of Heaven and His Father. -------

PRAYER

Dear Lord ……    
Today, as we make decisions to follow You more closely, I would like to offer these dear people, four things.  And just like Your gift of eternal life, these four things are free too.
Firstly Lord, on the table in the foyer today is the DVD called ‘Receiving the Free Gift of Eternal Life’.
Second, is the DVD called ‘The Hour’ – about the importance of spending time each day with You Lord.
Third, also free, is the little book called ‘Good News for a Better Life’.  Yes Lord, if we read some of this book every day, it guarantees a better life.
And last of all, there’s the little ‘Try Jesus’ card to keep in our wallet or purse to give to our friends, or even to use for letterboxing.
Lord, we cannot thank You enough for Your love for us, and for all the wonderful things You want to do for us.  I pray that You will help us to stay strong together, as we journey together towards Your wonderful golden city.
Thank you Father, and thank You Jesus, for Your wonderful love and blessings.
Thank you, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

5 second pause

PP

Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message,
then please take time now to send it on to your friends.
To God be the Glory!

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