God’s People–or Not God’s People

God's People–or Not God's People

(No. 2295)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1893.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say
to them which were not My people, You are My people; and they shall
say, You are my God." Hosea 2:23.

"As He says also in Hosea, I will call them My people, which were not
My people; and her beloved, which was not beloved." Romans 9:25.

To my mind, it is very instructive to notice how Paul quotes from the
Prophets. The Revelation of the mind of God in the Old Testament helps
us to understand the Gospel revealed in the New Testament. There is no
authority that is so powerful over the minds of Christian men as that
of the Word of God. Has God made known any Truth in His Word? Then it
is invested with Divine authority! Paul, being himself Inspired by the
Holy Spirit and, therefore, able to write fresh Revelations of the mind
of God, here brings the authority of God's Word in the olden times to
back up and support what he says–"As he says also in Hosea."

Beloved Friend, if you are seeking salvation, or if you need comfort,
never rest satisfied with the mere word of man. Be not content unless
you get the Truth from the mouth of God. Say in your spirit, "I will
not be comforted unless God, Himself, shall comfort me. I want chapter
and verse for that which I receive as Gospel." Our Lord's reply to
Satan was, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Give me, then, but a
Word out of God's mouth, and I can live upon it! But all the words out
of man's mouth, apart from Divine Inspiration, must be as unsatisfying
food as if men tried to live on stones.

Notice, again, how Paul teaches that the very essence of the authority
of the Scriptures lies in this, that God speaks through His revealed
Word–"As HE says also in Hosea." It is God speaking in the Bible whom
we ought to hear. The mere letter of the Word, alone, will kill, but
when we hear God's voice speaking in it, then it has power which it
could not possess otherwise. It is a blessed thing to put your ear down
to the promises of Scripture till you hear God speaking through them to
your soul. It is truly profitable to read a Gospel Commandment and to
listen to its voice until God, Himself, speaks it with power to your
heart. I pray you, do not regard anything that is preached here unless
it agrees with what is written there in the Bible. If it is only my
word, throw it away! But if it is God's Truth that I declare to you, if
God, Himself, speaks it through my lips, you will disregard it at your
peril.

I will make only one other observation by way of introduction. Is it
not wonderful how God's Word is preserved century after century? There
were seven or 800 years between Hosea and Paul and it is remarkable
that the promise to the Gentiles should lie asleep all that time, and
yet should be just as full of life and power when Paul was quoting it
after all those centuries! God's Word is like the wheat in the hand of
the mummy, of which you have often heard. It had lain there for
thousands of years, but men took it out of the hand and sowed it–and
there sprang up the bearded wheat which has now become so common in our
land! So you take a Divine promise, spoken hundreds or thousands of
years ago, and lo, it is fulfilled to you! It becomes as true to you as
if God had spoken it for the first time this very day and you were the
person to whom it was addressed. O blessed Word of God, how we ought to
prize you! We cannot yet tell all that lies hidden between these
covers, but there is a treasury of Grace concealed here which we ought
to seek until we find it.

Having thus introduced our texts as taken from God's Word in the Old
and New Testaments, and as being God's voice to us, speaking adown the
centuries with all the freshness and force it would have if it were
uttered anew tonight, I invite every unconverted person to listen with
both his ears and his whole heart, to hear if there shall drop some
living word of cheer and promise that shall make this evening to be his
birth night! If so, this shall be the time wherein his captivity shall
be ended, his mouth shall be filled with laughter and his tongue with
singing–and his spirit shall rejoice in God his Savior!

I. Now, first, in considering the words in the Epistle to the Romans,
let us look at THE ORIGINAL STATE OF GOD'S PEOPLE. "I will call them My
people, which were not My people; and her beloved, which was not
beloved."

If we look at the original state of God's people, we shall gaze upon a
very gloomy picture. Yet this portrait reveals the state in which every
unconverted man is tonight–the state in which all of us, who are now
saved, once were! We were not God's people–that is to say, we had not
God's approval. I speak now of all those whom God has saved. There was
a time when there was no approval of them! As the Apostle says, "They
that are in the flesh cannot please God." So was it with those who were
not God's people–their thoughts were contrary to God's thoughts, their
ways were such as God could not endure–their speech grated in His
ears, they followed the devices and imaginations of their own hearts!
The prince of this world had dominion over them and God's Grace had not
been displayed upon them. They went astray like lost sheep.

That is your condition tonight, Sinner–you are the object of Divine
disapproval. "Not beloved," says the text. "Not beloved." How can you
be beloved of God? How can the Lord take any delight in a man who takes
no delight in his God, who tries not even to think of Him–who breaks
His Law with impunity–and finds pleasure in that which God abhors?
"Not My people," says the text. That is, they were not the subjects of
Divine approval.

Next, such people receive from God no good thing of the highest order.
"Oh," say some, "but we are receiving all sorts of temporal blessing's
from God." I know you are and you ought to thank Him for them. But as
you are not His people, and not beloved, even these good things turn
out to be evil things to you. Your table becomes a snare and a trap to
you. Men who receive God's mercies before His Grace has brought them to
Himself, make idols of the good things He bestows upon them. They
receive benefits at His hands and use them to provoke Him to anger!
They take of their wealth and they say, with the rich fool, "Soul, you
have much goods laid up for many years. Take your ease–eat, drink, and
be merry!" And so they forget that they must die and they forget their
God.

Oftentimes, even health and strength become a snare to men. They will
plunge into greater sin because they have so much vigor of body. We
have known some who have been so robust in health that they would not
think of God, or of Christ, or of their souls, or of eternity! I tell
you, Sinners, that while you are as you are, God's curse rests upon
your blessings! There is no good thing out of Christ, for that which
would be good with Christ becomes evil without Christ! It becomes a
thing which destroys rather than blesses and which helps men the more
rapidly to destroy their souls. Oh, what a sad state is yours of whom
God says, "They are not My people, and they are not beloved"! While
they are as they are, they cannot receive the highest good from
God–even the best things that He sends them, they turn into evil.

Remember, too, you who know not God, that you are in a very miserable
condition because to you there is no application of the precious blood
of Christ. Jesus died for sinners, but you pass by His Cross as though
you had nothing to do with it. Israel in Egypt was saved because God
saw the blood and passed over the houses of His people. But you are not
beneath that crimson sign! You have never looked to Christ by faith! No
blood is on the lintel and on the two side posts of your door. All we
can say of you, as we look at you, is, "Not beloved! Not beloved." Oh,
poor Souls, you who have not believed, what does the Scripture say to
you? Why, that you are "condemned already" because you have not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God! You who have not
believed in Christ are lying in the Wicked One–and what does that
expression mean? Why, lying in his bosom, as if you were the darling
children of the devil! How can there be any sign of the Divine delight
or complacency towards you while your delight is in Satan and in sin?
No, you have no interest in the precious blood of Jesus! Ah, me, what
would I do if this were my case? I would sooner lose my eyes, my
hearing, my sense of taste! I would sooner lose life, itself, than lose
an interest in the precious blood of Jesus! Yet some of you live at
ease though there has been for you no pardon of sin, no washing in the
blood of sprinkling. You are still guilty before God.

Again, when these people were called by God, "not My people," and, "not
beloved," there had been no saving work of the Spirit of God upon them.
I am addressing some here, tonight, who have never had their hearts
broken by the Spirit of God. They have never been brought to
repentance, they have never been led to faith in Christ. Consequently,
to them the Spirit of God is not a Quickener. To them He is not a
Comforter. To them He is not an Illuminator. All His Divine

offices are fulfilled in other people, but not in them. They are
strangers to that blessed power without which no man can come to God,
or believe in Christ. Oh, what a sad condition for any to be in–"not
My people," and, "not beloved"! They have no trace of that life which
they would have if the Spirit of God had made them to pass from death
unto life. God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the
living–and as long as you are dead in sin, He is not your God in this
special sense–neither does He call you His people.

Those who are in that sad state have no relief in prayer. They do not
pray–they cannot pray! Now, when I am in trouble, I need nobody to
advise me to pray. A trouble no sooner comes to me than I spread it
before God and I find a sweet relief at once. Oh, if there were no
Mercy Seat, I should wish that I had never been born! But there are
some of you who never truly pray. Such prayers as you do offer have no
heart in them, no life in them and, therefore, God does not hear you,
and you live on in this world without prayer. Men, how can you exist
thus? Life must be to you like a burning desert where every particle of
sand blisters the foot that treads upon it. What can this world be to a
prayerless man?

And as you are without prayer, so you are without the promises of God
to sustain you. The wealth of God's people seldom lies in ready money.
Their treasure consists mostly in promises to pay–promises which God
has made to His own people. But for the ungodly there are no blessed
promises! God will give nothing to you who will not even believe His
Word! He has made no Covenant with you who will not even trust His Son!
You remain as He says–it is not my word, but His–"not My people,"
and, "not beloved," as long as you are without faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ! Whatever promises He has made to His people, you are without
power to plead those promises at the Throne of Grace, for they do not
belong to you.

In addition to all this, you are now without any fellowship with God,
or with His Son, Jesus Christ. God made this world, but you never speak
with the world's Maker. You are guardianed by His Providence and yet
you have no fellowship with the God who rules over all. Why, the joy of
life to some of us lies mainly in our fellowship with our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ! He is the very center of the circle in which we
move. He is the height and glory of our manhood. He is the All in All
of our existence. We would not wish to live if it were not for Him. He
is the sun that makes our Heaven bright–all would be dark without
Him–and yet some of you have no communion with Him, perhaps not even
any knowledge of Him! Oh, my dear Friend, you have no Christ, no
Savior, no communion with God, no fellowship with the Most High! What a
terrible condition is yours!

Besides this, you have no hope of Heaven. If you were to die as you now
are, what could be your eternal portion but to be driven from the
Presence of God, and from the Glory of His power? The Lord Jesus would
say of you, "I never knew them, I never knew them. They are not My
people. They are not My beloved." Why, you have never even sought Him!
You have never cried to Him! You have never forsaken the sin which He
hates! You have never rested upon the Atonement which He has made! You
have never trusted in His living power to save! Ah, poor creatures that
you are, how I pity you!

"Do not call us poor," you say. "We are rich, we are increased in goods
and have need of nothing." So much the worse is your poverty because of
your fancied wealth! It will be an awful thing to go from your
well-spread table to the place where you will be denied a drop of water
to cool your burning tongues! It will be a terrible thing if you go
from the weakness and sickness of the dying bed at once to stand before
your God–to be driven from the pangs of your last moments into that
dread position of a culprit, unpardoned–to receive sentence from the
great Judge of All. "Not My people," and, "not beloved." I cannot bear
the thought of your doom, and I can say no more on that terrible theme.

II. But now, in the second place, I have to speak of THE NEW CONDITION
OF GOD'S PFOPLE. Listen, and as you listen, may God make it to be your
new condition! There are many in this world to whom my text has been
proven to be true–"I will call them My people, which were not My
people; and her beloved, which was not beloved."

Now see the change which God can make. It is God who makes it! The very
same people of whom He said, "They are not My people," He now calls His
people! Yes, and in the very place where He said that they were not His
people, He says they are the people of the living God. Now, what if
tonight I have been saying of such and such that they are not God's
people? But what if, before they leave this place, God should say to
them, "You are My people"? Oh, what a blessed change would have taken
place in them! Let me describe it.

If the Lord shall say to us, tonight, "You are My people, and you are
My beloved," then we shall know, first, that He thinks upon us, that
His mind is toward us, that He has a kindly regard for us, that He
takes delight in us, that His heart

is set on doing us good! Oh, you who love the Lord and are His
children, think of this–you have the thoughts of God running towards
you in streams of ever-abounding tenderness, mercy, goodness and
faithfulness!

And, as the Lord thinks of us, He speaks to us. Oh, to think that the
Lord should speak to those who were once not His people, and speak to
them so effectually as to make His sweet promises enter into their
ears, yes, into their hearts! And should become familiar to them, for,
"the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show
them His Covenant"! Oh, how sweetly does God commune with His own
children! How He does open up His very heart to them and make them to
know Him, even as Jesus manifests Himself unto His chosen as He does
not unto the world! It is a choice privilege of a child of God to be
thought of and then to be spoken to by the Lord!

More than that, God hears us speak. When we are His people, and His
beloved, then our accents become sweet in His ears. You know that your
dear children often speak very poorly and badly, and other people do
not much care to listen to their talk. But to a father's ear the sound
of his own child's voice is always sweet! You have been away from home
for some weeks. I know that you are longing to hear the dear prattlers
once again. Well, like as a father loves the voice of his child, so
does our heavenly Father love the voices of His beloved whom He calls
His people–and He has regard to what they say–He hearkens to the
voice of their cry.

Then, beloved, He not only hears us, but He grants us our desire. He
will come to our deliverance in the time of trouble. He will bestow
upon us all good things–"No good thing will He withhold from them that
walk uprightly." Oh, the privileges of those who are God's people! The
theme is too vast for human language to compass!

One special mark of our new condition is that the Lord forgives our
sin. Once we were loaded with sin, but now we have not a single sin
left upon us. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us
from all sin! Paul challenges the whole universe to lay anything to the
charge of God's elect, for God has justified them. "Who is he that
condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who
is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
Oh, the heaped-up blessedness of the man whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered! And that is true of all whom God calls
His people, though they once were not His people!

And then, dear Friends, sin being forgiven, the Lord works all things
for our good. Whether we are joyous or depressed, if we are the Lord's
people, all is working for our good! "We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to His purpose." Our losses and our crosses, our bereavements
and our bodily pains, as well as our rapturous joys and our highest
delights, are all working out the best results for us!

More than this, when we are in trouble, God pities us, for, like as a
father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him."
Yes, and He sends us relief, too, according to that word of David,
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivers him
out of them all." What is better, still, God dwells in us, as He said,
"I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and
they shall be My people." And the Holy Spirit has come, and taken up
His abode in these mortal bodies–and He dwells there, our Teacher and
our Comforter, our Guide and our Friend.

By-and-by, the Lord Jesus will come, again, and receive us unto
Himself, that where He is, there we may also be. I wish I had the
tongues of men and of angels that I might tell you the splendor of the
position of those who are the Lord's own people, the Lord's own
beloved! And who were these people once? I come back to my text. They
were not God's people, and not beloved–"I will call them My people,
which were not My people; and her beloved, which was not beloved." Now
then, some of you, whom God cannot now look upon except with anger–why
should He not look upon you with love, tonight, through Jesus Christ?
He that believes in Christ Jesus may have the blessed assurance that
the Lord loves him and that he is one of the Lord's people!

You may have come in here saying, "I belong to the devil. I am sure I
do. I feel within my spirit that I am under his cruel sway. Alas! I
have not a spark of Grace, or a thought of goodness. I am as far off
from God, holiness and Heaven as I can ever be." Then to you, may God
say, "I will call them My people, which were not My people; and her
beloved, which was not beloved"! Oh, the magnificence of this Grace
that waits not for man, neither tarries for the sons of men, but works
according to the eternal purposes of God and accomplishes all His
sovereign will!

III. This brings me, in the third place–going back to the text in
Hosea–to notice THE GRAND RESULT OF THIS WONDERFUL CHANGE. "I will say
to them which were not My people, you are My people; and they shall
say, You are my God." Here is a dialogue between the Lord and His
people. God says something to them and they say something to Him.

Remember that there is no change in God–it is only a change in our
relation to Him, because those who have become His people were really
His people, in His everlasting purpose, from before the foundation of
the world–though they were not actually so as to their own spiritual
condition. But now, when this change comes to pass in their relations
to God, see the grand result of it!

First, the Lord says, "You are My people." Now I pray that the Lord may
come, tonight, and speak to some who never made mention of His name
before, some who never knew Him, who never trembled at His Word, never
hoped in His mercy, never trusted in His Son, never, indeed, meant to
be His people at all! I trust that the Lord will now say to some of
them, "You are My people." Oh, what a wonderful experience it is when
the poor lost sinner finds out that he belongs to God, that he has been
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, that God means to save him,
that He will not let His Son's blood be shed for him in vain! I
remember the shame and yet the joy that filled my soul when I first
woke up to the consciousness of what Christ had done for me. I remember
the confusion of face I felt because I had treated such a Savior so
badly and yet I also felt intense delight in thinking that He loved me,
notwithstanding all my sins. This is a text that comforted me– I pray
the Lord to send it home to some other heart– "I have loved you with
an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you."
And this one, also, "I have called you by your name; you are Mine." Oh,
if the Holy Spirit would apply those Words with power to some sinner's
heart, tonight, what a running after God, what a seeking after Christ
there would be!

"I will say to them which were not My people, You are My people." The
Lord does not always say that to His people with equal force. At first,
they half hope that it is so. They indistinctly hear His voice saying
it, but as faith increases, they hear Him say it more distinctly, "You
are My people." I feel that it is most gracious of God to call those
His people that were not His people. You see that He gives them a new
name and that overrides the old one. I think that I hear someone
saying, "I have found the Savior!" "What? What?" says somebody who
knows you. "You? Ha! We all know what you were." Perhaps one says, "Ah,
you know that you have been as bad as any of us!" Possibly in one case
they might say, "You talk of being God's child? You are a fallen
woman," or, "You have been a thief," or, "You have been a liar," or,
"You have been a frequenter of places where God is forgotten, a lover
of pleasure rather than a lover of God."

Yes, but, Beloved, if the Lord says, "I have called you by your name;
you are Mine," you can say to yourself, "They may say what they please
about me, and I must acknowledge the truth of it all, but this Word of
the Lord, 'You are Mine,' overrides them all!"

What a blessed text this is for one who has lost his character, for one
who has lost all repute! If you come to Christ, and believe in Him,
here is a text that applies to you! God says, "Since you were precious
in My sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you." God can
make "right honorables" out of those who are, in themselves, most
dishonorable, and He can give them a name and a place among His people.
Yet I can imagine God looking upon someone here, tonight, and saying of
such an one, "How can I put Him among the children? What? Put such a
sinner among My children?" I can fancy there is somebody here who is so
extremely sinful that if I were to propose to God's people that he
should be received among them, they would say, "We would not like to
receive that man into the Church." Ah, but when our heavenly Father
welcomes home His prodigal son, He will not have the older brother talk
like that! He comes out and reasons with him, and says, "It was meet
that we should make merry, and be glad, for this, your brother, was
dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found."

Jesus would have us receive the very chief of sinners, the jailbirds,
the Hellbirds, the men who have gone farthest astray–the men who have
lost all hope, the most forlorn and self-condemned, the most dejected,
distressed, devil-haunted men and women out of Hell! These are just the
people in whom the Grace of God triumphs over all sin! "I will call
them My people, which were not My people; and her beloved, which was
not beloved." "And I will say to them, which were not My people, you
are My people."

When the Lord says this to any, their sin is put away! My Lord is a
great Forgiver! My Lord, whom I preach to you tonight, who was once
nailed to the Cross, is able to save all them to the uttermost that
come unto God by Him. "He delights in mercy"–it is His right-hand
attribute, His last-born, His Benjamin! Never does He display His mercy
more than when, like the mighty sea, His love rolls over the very tops
of the mountains of iniquity and covers them!

I close by noticing what the Lord's people say to Him, "They shall say,
You are my God." That is the right saying for every one of the Lord's
people, "You are my God." Poor Sinner, may God the Holy Spirit help you
to begin to say that,

"You are my God"! Here is a text that should help you to say it, even
as it helped me in the hour of my conversion, "Look unto Me, and be you
saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none
else." Will you look to God, Sinner? Will you say to the Lord, "You are
my God"? "My God, I have long forgotten You, I have blasphemed You, I
have rebelled against You, I have desecrated Your Sabbath, I have
decried Your Gospel, I have ridiculed Your servants! But, behold, I
look to You, for I have sinned. Have mercy upon me for Your dear Son's
sake!"

That is a good beginning, but may you have Grace to advance beyond that
experience, so that you may come and lay your hands on Christ, the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sin of the world, saying, "This Savior is my
Savior. I accept Him as my Substitute, to stand in my place"! When you
have once rightly uttered this blessed sentence, "You are my God,"
God's Grace will help you to keep on saying it! There is no getting
farther than this, "You are my God." That is the end of all good
things. What more does a man need? What more can a man desire? There is
not a good thing anywhere out of Christ!

One of the old Puritans, in the days when nobody much liked going to
sea, said, "When a man is in a ship and in his own little cabin, if he
casts his eyes all around, and sees nothing but the wild waste of
waters, without a sign of land any-where–nothing but angry billows
tossing the vessel up and down–and if anyone says to Him, 'Will you
leave your little cabin? Will you leave your little ship?' 'No,' he
says, 'where else can I go? There is nowhere else to go."' That is just
how I feel tonight about my Lord! My cabin, my ship, my Christ, my
faith in Him, gives me rest and peace! I cannot see anywhere else that
I can go except to destruction and despair–so my soul says over again,
"You are my God, you are my God. Others may have what they will, but I
will have my God. They may have what god they like, but You, Triune
Jehovah, Father, Son and Holy Spirit–You are my God and on You my soul
does rest, seeking no other confidence."

Will you say that, tonight, my dear Hearers? I do not know your cases,
but I know that if I need to get sheep into a fold, a good way is to
set the gate open as widely as ever I can! And then another good way to
entice the sheep in is to have rich pasture inside. Well, I have tried
to set before you the rich, Free Grace of God to the very chief of
sinners. And I have pointed to the opened Door that is wide enough to
let the biggest sinner come through! Jesus said, "I am the Door: by Me
if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and
find pasture."

Now, if Noah's ark had a door that was big enough to let an elephant
through, then it was big enough to let a dog through, or a fox, or a
cat, or a mouse. You may come if you are the biggest sinner in the
world, but I do not suppose that you are, for the biggest sinner died
and went to Heaven long ago. Paul says that he was the biggest sinner,
the chief of sinners–and I believe that he knew what sized sinner he
was. If there was room for him to go through the gate of salvation,
there is room for you! May God's Grace draw you this very night–and
unto the God of all Grace shall be the praise forever and ever! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON. HOSEA 2:5-23.

In this chapter God compares Israel to a woman who had been unfaithful
to her husband in the very worst and most wicked manner.

Verse 5. For their mother has played the harlot: she that conceived
them has done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that
give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my
drink. She attributed to false gods the gifts which God had given to
her. This was great ingratitude to God, and a high insult to His holy
majesty.

6. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a
wall, that she shall not find her paths. That is what God does to
sinners whom He means to save. He will not let them take their own
course. He gives them thorny trials which hedge up their way. He puts
an obstacle in their path–perhaps some sickness or poverty. When men
are desperate in wickedness, God has a way of stopping them. Even in
their mad career, His mighty Grace comes in and says, "So far shall you
go, but no further."

7. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake
them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Thus sinners go
after the pleasures of the world and the pleasures run away from them.
They make one thing their god, and then another, and they put out all
their strength to attain the object of their ambition, but God thwarts
them. In Infinite Love, He baffles all their endeavors because He means
to bring them to Himself!

7. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for
then was it better with me than now. That is what He brings us
to–weary of the world, yes, weary of life, itself–we get worn out in
the ways of evil, and then we say, "I will go to God." What a blessed
conclusion to come to! However terrible the whip with which He scourges
us, it does us good. The fierce billow that washes the mariner upon the
rock of safety is a blessing to him.

8, 9. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and
multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore
will I return, and take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine
in the season thereof, and will recover My wool and My flax given to
cover her nakedness. God claims the blessings of Providence as His own
and when He sees His people misuse them, He says, "I will recover them.
She is giving them to Baal, she is using them for an evil pur-pose–I
will take them away."

10, 11. And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her
lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hand. I will also cause
all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her
Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. When God deals with men, He uses
no half measures! If they have been very happy in the ways of sin and
He intends to save them from their evil courses, He will take away all
their joy. They shall henceforth have none of the merriment in which
they indulged. He will give them better happiness, by-and-by, but for
the time being it shall be true, "I will cause all her mirth to cease."

12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has
said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will
make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. Her
most precious things shall be destroyed, or, if they are allowed to
exist, they shall become a cause of fear and trouble. Oh, how often
have I seen this verified in the experience of men and women whom God
has saved by His almighty Grace!

13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned
incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her
jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot Me, says the LORD.
They burnt no incense at Jerusalem. They refused to offer sacrifice
there, but they went to this hill and to that, to worship the different
images of Baal, and said, "These are our gods." Therefore, God says
that He will make them sick of their idolatry! They shall grow tired of
thus polluting His holy name and degrading themselves by worshipping
things made of wood and stone.

14. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the
wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. Oh, glorious verse! She
that went so far astray, God will come and draw her back from the path
of sin! He will get her alone. He will bring her into a place of grief
and sorrow, a wilderness–and then He will come near and speak sweet
words of comfort into her ear. "I will allure her, as the bird catchers
whistle to the birds and draw them to the net, so will I allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness, the place of loneliness, the place
of need, and I will speak to her heart," so the Hebrew has it, for God
knows how to speak, not only into the ears, but into the heart.

15. And I will give her her vineyards from there. He will give back
what He took away. He will seal with loving kindness the real kindness
which made Him deal roughly with her at first.

15. And the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing
there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up
out of the land of Egypt. Oh, Backslider, God can give you back your
early joy, your early love, yes, and your early purity! And He can make
you sing as at the beginning! Therefore, be of good comfort and come to
your Lord–come even now, with all your sins about you–and He will
receive you!

16. And it shall be at that day, says the LORD, that you shall call Me
Ishi; and shall call me no more Baali. "Baali" means, "My Lord," in the
sense of domination. But God will not seem to us, anymore, like a
domineering Governor, as we once thought Him. But we shall call Him,
"Ishi," "My Husband." There shall be such nearness of love, such
confidence of hope between the restored soul and her God, that she
shall call Him no more Baali, but Ishi.

17. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they
shall no more be remembered by their name. Oh, the love of God! He does
not want us to remember our old ways. I do not like to hear people talk
about their old habits, except they do it very tenderly, with many a
tear and many a sigh, and tell the story to the praise and glory of
Divine Grace. God takes the old names out of our lips–we forget them,
we have done with them, we bury the dead past– and we live in newness
of life.

18. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of
the field, and with the fowls of Heaven, and with the creeping things
of the ground. So that the insects should not devour the crops, the
foxes should not spoil the vines and the birds should not steal the
seed! So will God take care of His people! It does seem that, when we
once get right with

God, we get right with everything–when we are at peace with Him–then
neither beast, nor fowl, nor creeping thing can do us harm.

18. And I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the
earth, and will make them to lie down safely. They had been much
troubled by war. It had killed their children, destroyed their homes
and made them poor and wretched. Now God says, "I will break the bow
and the sword and the battle." How often God gives a heavenly calm to
us when we are once washed in the blood of Christ and covered with His
Righteousness! I remember how the storm within my heart was hushed into
a deep calm as soon as I had seen my Lord and had yielded my heart to
Him. Oh, you that are in storms tonight, I pray that God may bring you
to Himself and give you "peace, perfect peace!" And then what more will
the Lord do?

19. And I will betroth you unto Me forever. What? This woman that had
gone so far into evil? Can a man receive such an one back? No, but God
can! He says there shall be a new betrothal, a new marriage–"I will
betroth you unto Me forever." Blessed word!

19, 20. Yes, I will betroth you unto Me in righteousness, and in
judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth
you unto Me in faithfulness: and you shall know the LORD. You shall
know Jehovah! You shall know that there is none like He, passing by
iniquity, transgression, and sin–and faithful to His people even when
they are unfaithful to Him! Is there any god like our God? Have you
ever tasted His Grace? Do you know His pardoning love? Have you ever
been brought back to Him? Have you been restored to His favor? Then I
am sure you can say, "There is none like unto Jehovah."

21, 22. And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, says the
LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the
earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall
hear Jezreel. God would send rain when it was needed. He would be all
ear to hear on behalf of His people. He would not only hear them, but
hear the very earth they tilled, and the heavens above their heads, as
if Nature, itself, began to pray when the child of God learned that
holy art!

23. And I will sow her unto Me in the earth. He would make the people
to be like the seed which He, Himself, would sow, and cause to spring
up and abide.

23. And I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy. I would
like to read that again. Somebody has, perhaps, come in here, tonight,
who has never obtained mercy. Perhaps you have been seeking it and you
have not found it. Hear God's promise, and lay hold upon it–"I will
have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy."

23. And I will say to them which were not My people, You are My people;
and they shall say, You are my God. See, it is all in, "shalls," and,
"wills!" God is speaking! God Omnipotent, Omnipotent over men's hearts.
He is not saying, "I will if they will," but, "I will, and they shall,"
for He has the key of free agency–and when He turns it in the lock,
without violating the free will of man, He makes him willing in the day
of His power to the praise of His Divine supremacy, for God is God when
He saves as much as when He reigns! Yes, His reigning Grace is the very
glory of His Nature, and this we love and adore. Grant us a taste of
it! Amen.