"The Hound of Heaven" was written by a young man named Francis Thompson over 100 years ago. “The Hound of Heaven” however, is still relevant. It was made into a movie. Songs have been written about the Hound of Heaven. There is a website: thehoundofheaven.com. Prominent Christian leaders and authors refer to the Hound of Heaven.
The parents of this young man, Francis Thompson, wanted him to become a medical doctor like his father. He went to medical school, dropped out, and ended up being homeless, and addicted to opium. A Christian husband and wife rescued Francis Thompson from the streets. Francis Thompson then became what he dreamed of becoming, a writer, and his most famous poem was “The Hound of Heaven.” In this poem, Thompson describes God hunting him in his lost condition as a homeless, begging drug addict. This young ran from God, but God, the Hound of Heaven, trailed him and rescued him from homelessness, drug addiction, and from sin. Thompson wrote of God, the hound of heaven, pursuing him:
“I fled God, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, but those strong Feet followed, followed after. With deliberate speed, they beat--- And a Voice above their beat.”
God hunted this sinner night and day for years calling him to salvation. This young man was running from God to self-destruction. But God outran him.
The week I got saved, I was attending a revival in our church. Every night after the revival service, I would come home and go to bed. God pursued me like he did the author of the Hound of Heaven day and night. In my mind, I could hear his feet following me and hear his voice, not audibly, but nevertheless calling me to salvation. Every night when I was lying in bed I thought what if I die during the night? Or what if Jesus comes during the night? That was God pursuing me.
Writers of Scripture use different animals to describe God as a predator who hunts His prey, the unsaved. God is likened in Scripture to a Lion. God portrays himself as a lion in Hosea 13:7 who tracks the lost. Satan is pictured as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour by Peter in 1 Peter 5:8. But Satan in 1 Peter 5:8 is seeking Christians. Satan has already captured the sinner as explained in Ephesians 2:1-3. In John 8:44, Jesus told the unsaved religionists, “You are of your father the devil.”
Only God is seeking the sinner for salvation.
1. The Word of God teaches that “there is none that seeks after God” (Romans 3:11)
Paul makes this important point in the first part of Romans where he is convincing all of us that we are sinners so that next he can convince us that we can be justified by faith. In Romans 3:23, Paul adds, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” In Romans 5:12, Paul provides the reason we all have sinned. All of us have sinned because we were born sinners: “Wherefore as by one man [Adam] sin entered the world and death by sin; and so, death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Sinners do not seek after God for salvation.
2. But God seeks after the sinner
We love God because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Here is how Jesus acknowledged this truth, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).
With these Bible verses in mind one, Francis Thompson described God as “The Hound of Heaven.” A hound hunts his prey. I never did much hunting with dogs or hounds. I did go coon hunting one night with a coonhunter who had coon hounds. Those hounds hunted their prey for hours.
There are six coonhounds, all recognized by the United Kennel Club which are bred for coon hunting: The Black and Tan Coonhound, the Redbone Coonhound, the Bluetick Coonhound, the English Coonhound, the Treeing Walker Coonhound, and The Plott Hound. In 1989, the Plott Hound was made the official state dog of North Carolina.
I have a pastor friend, Danny Cockran, who is a coon hunter. Over the years he has owned all of these different coonhounds.
1. Danny told me that a good coonhound will run the track of a coon and not be distracted by deer or bear tracks. God, who has been called the Hound of Heaven, also will not allow anything to distract him from seeking the sinner. God has been on the sinner’s track from before the foundation of the world. God sent His Son to die on the cross for every sinner. God is determined. He is longsuffering not willing that any should perish.
2. Also, Danny, said a good coonhound will pressure the raccoon to tree and not flee to his den. The sinner whom the Hound of Heaven is pursuing cannot flee from his chase. Where are you going to hide from God? The unsaved say or think, “I won’t go to church” in order to hide from God. Listen to what the Lord has to say about sinners trying to escape his presence: “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him? Declares the Lord, Do not I fill both heaven and earth? declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:24).
3. Finally, Danny told me that a good coonhound that trees the coon will stay until the coon is captured. That good coonhound will bark all night if necessary. God does not give up. The sinner will go to his or her grave with God pursuing his or her salvation. Remember the dying thief? The Lord saved him on his deathbed.
Do you remember Jerry Clower’s coon hunting story? John was the famous coon hunting tree climber who joined their coon hunt. Jerry’s coonhounds had treed what they thought was a coon. John liked to give a coon a fight-in chance. He would climb the tree and throw the coon down amongst 20-30 coon dogs just to give that raccoon a fight-in chance. John had climbed up the tree and found what he called “a great big-in,” but the great big-in was a lynx that was about to kill John. Jerry Clower hollered, “Knock him out, John.” John hollered back, “This thing is killing me. Just shoot up here amongst us. One of us has got to have some relief.” What is the moral of that story? A coon dog can bark up the wrong tree.
The Hound of Heaven, however, makes no mistakes in seeking the sinner’s salvation. If you are under conviction, that is, if you have a desire to be saved, that is the Hound of Heaven on your trail. God does not bark up the wrong tree.
One preacher. John R. W. Stott, also described God as the Hound of Heaven in his book, Why I am a Christian. The preacher, John R. W. Stott noted it wasn’t just because of his Christian parents and Bible teachers that he was a Christian. Stott testified that he became a Christian because, in chapter one, the Hound of Heaven pursued him in his lostness. In other words, this preacher became a Christian because God took the initiative to hunt him down.
There is an example in Scripture l want us to consider whom the Hound of Heaven tracked down and captured. The Lord, the Hound of Heaven hunted the religious but unsaved Saul of Tarsus. Saul called himself the “chief of all sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). In other words, Saul was big game. He was the biggest of the big game. Saul admitted he was the worse sinner who ever lived. Why was Saul of Tarsus the greatest of all sinners? Was it because he was an alcoholic, adulterer, wife-beater, or child molester? No! Saul of Tarsus was the chief of sinners because he was a religious sinner who knew God intellectually but not personally. He was a rejecter of Christ as his savior.
How did the Hound of Heaven hunt Saul of Tarsus? How does the Hound of Heaven hunt the unsaved today?
1. God hunts the sinner through Christian witness (Acts 7:51-52; 8:1)
When we think of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, we usually think of the Damascus road experience. But as Francis Thompson testified in his “Hound of Heaven” God pursued Saul “down the arches of the years.” God had already been tracking Saul long before the Damascus Road experience.
Saul of Tarsus is first mentioned in Scripture listening to a gospel message preached by Stephen whose martyrdom Saul witnessed in Acts 7:51-60. Stephen in his sermon identified Christ as “the Just One” whom the religionists murdered on the cross (7:52). Later after Saul of Tarsus was converted and as the Apostle Paul would write about God being “just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). “The Just One” died according to Stephen’s witness in order to be just in justifying every sinner who believes in Jesus as his Savior.
God hunts the sinner through Christian witness. My mother witnessed to me. She read us four boys the Bible. She read us biographies of great sinners coming to Christ like Oliver B. Green in his autobiography From Disgrace to Grace. She was always asking me, “Timmy, are you sure you are a Christian?” My junior boys’ Sunday School teacher (Vance Steed) witnessed to me. At the end of each S.S. lesson, Vance Steed would say, “Okay boys, bow your heads and close your eyes. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior raise your hand.”
I was unsaved but I would raise my hand. Vance Steed forced me to think about my lost condition. My pastor Arthur Blackburn faithfully preached the gospel to me. Evangelist Bill Stafford preached the gospel the night I got saved. He preached for about 45 minutes on Hell.
How does the Hound of Heaven hunt his prey? God hunts the sinner through Christian witness. Who witnessed the gospel to you? Also, God hunts his prey by personally pursuing the unsaved.
2. God hunts the sinner by personally drawing the sinner (Acts 9:1-6)
Not only did God indirectly witness through witnesses like Stephen, the Lord directly and personally pursued Saul. In Acts 9, Saul is racing at a breakneck speed to Damascus to arrest Christians and the Lord Jesus is in hot pursuit. On the road to Damascus, a light shined about Saul that was so bright that the light knocked Saul off his horse to the ground. That light was the Lord Jesus. Charles Spurgeon said Saul of Tarsus had a Son stroke. When Jesus got Saul of Tarsus’ attention he spoke to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” In the poem, “The Hound of Heaven” called the fleeing sinner with a voice that was heard above the beat of the feet hunting the sinner.
Jesus called Saul to salvation. Today God calls sinners to salvation through the Gospel. Paul makes this clear in 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “He called you by our gospel.” Saul responded to the call to salvation with the question that every unsaved person needs to ask, “Lord, what would you have me do” (9:4)? Of course, the Lord has already answered that question. As a matter of fact, Paul the converted Saul, answered that question in Acts 16:31. The unsaved Philippian jailor asked Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” Listen carefully to Paul’s answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
The Holy Spirit does this ministry today. Jesus predicted, “When he [the Holy Spirit] is come he will convict the world of sin, [the sin of unbelief]” (John 16:8). Be overwhelmed with the thought: The entire Trinity has been and is tracking your salvation. God the Father from eternity past according to Ephesians 1:3. Jesus at the cross when he died for every sinner including you and me. Now, the Holy Spirit is pursuing you through the Holy Spirit's conviction. If you have a desire to be saved that is none other than the Holy Spirit personally drawing you to Christ.
I was raised in church. My mom took me to church as far back as I can remember. I made two professions of faith. One was when I attended VBS as a child. I was baptized. But I was not saved. I was a baptized sinner. Later in my early teens, at a revival service, some of my friends went forward at the invitation. So, I followed the herd, my peers. But I was not saved. The next day riding the bus to school, I knew nothing had changed. Finally, the year after I graduated from high school; mom took us four boys to the revival services each night. On the last night at the invitation, I responded and went forward and knelt at the front. My pastor knelt beside me, and asked, “Tim, are you praying for your dad?” “No,” I answered, “I am praying for myself.” He told me, “Just trust Jesus as your Savior.” I did and I was saved.
The Hound of Heaven is seeking your salvation. Cry out with Saul of Tarsus, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Or join the Philippian jailor and asked? “What must I do to be saved?”