Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2295
“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.