Hosea 2:17

Note, The surest pledge and token of God's favour to any people is his effectual parting between them and their beloved sins. The worship of Baal was the sin that did most easily beset the people of Israel; it was their own iniquity, the sin that had dominion over them; but now that idolatry shall be quite abolished, and there shall not be the least remains of it among them.

For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth,....

For I will take array the names of Baalim out of her mouth - It is, then, of grace. He does not only promise the ceasing of idolatry, but that it shall be the fruit of His converting grace, the gift of Him from whom “is both to will and to do. I will take away, as God saith elsewhere, “I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall be no more remembered Zec 13:1-9; and, “the idols He shall utterly abolish” Isa 2:

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.

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.