Hosea 2:16

You who have been here, on recent Thursday nights, will remember how Israel was described at the time to which our text refers. [ See Sermon #s 2564 and 2569—Strange Ways of Love, and The Backsliders Door of Hope] She was represented as a woman who had been false to her marriage vows, had left her husband and defiled herself in the most abominable way. Being greatly inflamed with evil passions, she had gone astray times out of number—and then the Lord Jehovah, who was Israel's true spiritual Husband—in the abundance of His love, sought to bring her back to Himself. He exercised her with severe discipline, taking away from her many things in which she delighted, till she became poor, sick and wretched. He hedged up her way with thorns and put obstacles in her way so that she could not find her paths. And when she went after her lovers, she could not overtake them. But, notwithstanding all that, she still continued to go further and further away from Him to whom her love was due—the God to whom she owed everything—the only living and true God who had been so gracious and true to her. At last the Lord tried other means of bringing her back to Himself. Instead of driving her from Him, or threatening her with destruction, He allured her into the wilderness and there He manifested Himself to her in all the charms of His Divine Purity and Beauty. He drew her away from all her old companions, brought her into a place of solitude and then spoke to her very heart with a voice of Infinite Love so that He won her, again, and brought her back to Himself. And then it was that He once more gave her the joys which she had lost—and a great many others—and made her rich with everything that could cause her to be, indeed, blessed! Now comes in this passage, which I have just read in your hearing, that which appears to me to describe the climax of God's love.

WITHOUT any preface or prelude, we shall draw from these words three on four lessons. I. The first lesson from the text is this, that GOD SPEAKS CONCERNING HIS PURPOSES OF GRACE IN MAN WITHOUT NOTICING EITHER MAN'S WILLINGNESS OR UNWILLINGNESS—AND WITHOUT ALLOWING HIS OWN PURPOSE TO BE CHANGED BY THE ONE OR THE OTHER. According to the free-will plan of salvation, it would be absolutely necessary for God to put it thus—"At that day, says the Lord, if you are willing, you shall call Me, Ishi, and shall no longer call Me, Baali. And if you will believe and repent, if you are willing, I will take away the names of Baalim out of your mouth. And if you are willing, they shall no more be remembered by their names." But note that God puts in no, "ifs," at all, but talks about men as if they had absolutely nothing to do in the matter—and as if He, Himself, did it all! One might object, "But suppose they are unwilling to forget the names of Baalim?" "Ah," says God, "but I have their will in My hands! I have the key of man's will—I can open it and no man can shut it. I can shut it and no man can open it." "But suppose they should be hard-hearted and will not repent?" "Yes," says the Lord, "but I have the hammer that can break the heart in pieces and make it fly into shivers!" "But suppose they should be stony-hearted and will not melt?" "No," says the Lord, "but I have a fire that will melt the most adamantine rock that was ever known.

WITHOUT any preface or prelude, we shall draw from these words three on four lessons. I. The first lesson from the text is this, that GOD SPEAKS CONCERNING HIS PURPOSES OF GRACE IN MAN WITHOUT NOTICING EITHER MAN'S WILLINGNESS OR UNWILLINGNESS—AND WITHOUT ALLOWING HIS OWN PURPOSE TO BE CHANGED BY THE ONE OR THE OTHER. According to the free-will plan of salvation, it would be absolutely necessary for God to put it thus—"At that day, says the Lord, if you are willing, you shall call Me, Ishi, and shall no longer call Me, Baali.

And it shall be ... thou shall call Me Ishi - (my Husband) and shalt call Me no more Baali (my Baal, Lord). “Baal,” originally Lord, was a title sometimes given to the husband. “The lord of the woman,” “her lord,” “the heart of her lord,” stand for “the husband,” “her husband” (Exo 21:22; 2Sa 11:26; Pro 31:11, ...). God says, “so wholly do I hate the name of idols, that on account of the likeness of the word Baal, “my Lord,” I will not be so called even in a right meaning, lest, while she utter the one, she should think on the other, and calling Me her Husband, think on the idol.” Yet, withal, God says that He will put into her mouth the tenderer name of love, אישׁ 'ı̂ysh, literally, “my man.” In Christ, the returning soul, which would give herself wholly to God, however far she had wandered, should not call God so much her Lord, as her Husband. : “Every soul, although laden with sins, meshed in vices, snarcd by a captive in exile, imprisoned in the body, sticking fast in the mud, fixed in the mire, affixed to its earthly members, nailed down by cares, distracted by turmoils, narrowed by fears, prostrated by grief, wandering in errors, tossed by anxieties, restless through suspicions, in fine, a captive “in the land of the enemy, defiled with the dead, accounted with them who go down in the grave” (Baruch 3:10, 11), although she be thus condemned, in state thus desperate, yet she may perceive that in herself, from where she may not only respire to hope of pardon and of mercy, but from where she may dare to aspire to the nuptials of the Word, tremble not to enter into alliance with God, be not abashed to take on her the sweet yoke of love with the Lord of Angels. […]