- Home
- Speakers
- John Nelson Darby
- The Unsought Love Of God
John Nelson Darby

John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882). Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, author, and founder of the Plymouth Brethren, born in London to a wealthy family. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated with a gold medal in classics in 1819 and was called to the Irish bar in 1822. Ordained a deacon in the Church of Ireland in 1825, he served as a curate in Wicklow but left in 1827, disillusioned with institutional religion. In 1828, he joined early Brethren in Dublin, shaping their dispensationalist theology and emphasis on simple worship. Darby translated the Bible into English, French, and German, and wrote 53 volumes, including Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. His teachings on the rapture and dispensationalism influenced modern evangelicalism, notably through the Scofield Reference Bible. Unmarried, he traveled extensively, planting Brethren assemblies in Europe, North America, and New Zealand. His 1860s split with B.W. Newton led to Exclusive Brethren. His works, at stempublishing.com, remain influential despite his rigid separatism.
Download
Topics
Sermon Summary
John Nelson Darby emphasizes the profound insensibility of souls towards their spiritual state and the indifference they show to God's love. He illustrates how, like Adam, people often choose worldly pleasures over a relationship with God, leading to spiritual ruin. Despite this, Darby highlights the unsought love of God, which is revealed through Christ's sacrifice, offering reconciliation and peace to sinners. He urges listeners to recognize the gravity of their sin and the incredible grace of God, who desires a relationship with them. Ultimately, he calls for a response of faith and joy in God's love, encouraging believers to rest in His grace and share in the hope of glory.
The Unsought Love of God
{Pamphlet} Is there anything that marks the insensibility of souls more than the carelessness they evince about their state before God; or anything that shows how far they are from God, than the utter indifference they manifest to the things of heaven and Christ? Adam gave up all that God was to him for the sake of eating a fruit: and this is what sinners are doing every day. They are giving up God for the things of the world continually. Any vanity or amusement has more power over them than all God's beseeching love - than all the grace of Christ! Like the young man with the great possessions, they go "away sorrowful" when they hear of the reality of their state; but still they go away. This brings out the utter ruin of your heart - that there is not one atom for God there! The Holy Ghost is pleading with sinners, "Be ye reconciled to God," and sinners do not care. But when God is revealed to my soul, I discover that there is sin there, which must in itself shut me out from God for ever! But then I discover that sin is the very thing for which Jesus gave Himself - for which He bore the wrath and died, - thus accomplishing for me, and revealing to my heart, the unsought love of God! God has come in in mercy and dealt with the very sins and state which troubled me, in His own Son in righteousness, in order that He might be free to express His love - to deal with me in grace! He has dealt in holiness against my sin, and that before the day of judgment comes, so that I can say I "have peace with God"! Romans 5:1. How dreadful, then, in the face of all this, to find a sinner going on with sin; with that for which Christ has been delivered - that which caused the death of the Son of God! Think of being the cause of Christ's death! and yet if I was, which is true, He died to put my sins away! Wonderful for a sinner to be able to say, "I believe that this blessed One did drink the cup of wrath and died; and that so surely as He drank it, He is at God's right hand, my Saviour!" This is what brings the heart back to confidence in God - the very thing that Adam lost. What He wants you, sinners, to believe is His love. Did He spare a poor apple from a tree for you? He spared not His Son! That Son gave Himself that you might be with Him for ever. This perfect grace takes the guile out of the heart: there is no need for any concealment of your state - no need for guile. You can rest in Divine and perfect favour, and know God better than yourself; and the way you will know yourself best will be to look at God. Can you not then say, "I believe unfeignedly that He gave His Son for me; and I am at peace with God, and rejoicing in the hope of His glory"? Then you can boast in God - joy in Him through our Lord Jesus. This gives full Christian character! Oh, what a God we have to do with! One who commends His own love to us as sinners - His unsought love - makes us feel we need that love, and that He desires we should enjoy it, and be at peace with God. One who sheds His love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. It is peaceful joy to the heart to think of what He is to us - poor, lost, self-ruined sinners - rising in the triumph of grace above our wretchedness. 'Tis thus the Holy Ghost ever reasons - downward from what God is in His goodness, to us who are in ourselves nothing but evil. Blessed for those who find in truth that the cross of Christ has answered every claim of God upon them, as it has also been answered to all His glory! Solemn the state of those who are satisfied to sit in darkness, and in the unbelief and insensibility of sin. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us" 1 John 4:16 Have you?
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882). Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, author, and founder of the Plymouth Brethren, born in London to a wealthy family. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated with a gold medal in classics in 1819 and was called to the Irish bar in 1822. Ordained a deacon in the Church of Ireland in 1825, he served as a curate in Wicklow but left in 1827, disillusioned with institutional religion. In 1828, he joined early Brethren in Dublin, shaping their dispensationalist theology and emphasis on simple worship. Darby translated the Bible into English, French, and German, and wrote 53 volumes, including Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. His teachings on the rapture and dispensationalism influenced modern evangelicalism, notably through the Scofield Reference Bible. Unmarried, he traveled extensively, planting Brethren assemblies in Europe, North America, and New Zealand. His 1860s split with B.W. Newton led to Exclusive Brethren. His works, at stempublishing.com, remain influential despite his rigid separatism.