Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2571
“And it shall be at that day, says the Lord, that you shall call Me, Ishi; and shall call Me no more, Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.” Hosea 2:16,17.
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.
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. His Infinite Mercy at last taught Israel to know Him in deed and in truth and, by the mighty power of His Grace, she was clean delivered from all her former idolatrous lovers and made to cleave in holy constancy to Jehovah, her God! I want to speak to you about that work of love in the heart of these wanderers which, at last, brought them to be right with their God. And my hope is that our meditation upon the text will be blessed in the same fashion to many others. When a man is truly right with God, he is right everywhere. As long as he is wrong with God, he may be right everywhere else, yet he is not right in the most important matter of all! But as long as he is right with God, everything is put in due order and everything will go on well with him in all respects.
Coming closely to our text, I want you to notice, first, the conquest of love—“It shall be at that day, says the Lord, that you shall call Me, Ishi.” That is, “my Husband.” Secondly, I shall say a little upon the jealousy of love. “At that day . . .you shall call Me no more, Baali.” Because that name had been defiled and God would not have His servants use toward Himself a title which had been stained with sin. Then, thirdly, I shall speak of the nearness of love, which is a point that lies concealed within the text, but which I will try to bring out. And, fourthly, I shall speak upon the vengeance of love, for true love will lead us to take vengeance upon that evil which has brought so much sorrow to our heart—“I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.”
I. First, then, let us think for a little while upon THE CONQUEST OF LOVE—“It shall be at that day, says the Lord, that you shall call Me, Ishi.” That is, “my Husband.”
They had never called God by that name. They had stood in awe and dread of the Most High, but as to calling God, their Husband, that they had never done, though He was truly a Husband to them, for He lavished on them all the kindness and tenderness which a husband renders toward his beloved wife. Yet God’s people had never given Him that love which was due in return—and they had never dared to call Him by so sweet and endearing a name as that of Ishi, “my Husband.” But the Lord said, “At that day, you shall call Me, Ishi.” Grace has really won us when it has won our hearts! When we yield to God not a mere external obedience, but the affection of our hearts, then all is won and all is well.
Note, first, dear Friends, that these people were so truly won back to God that they had a new name for Him, a name which had never occurred to them before. They had called Him, God. They had spoken to Him as Jehovah, or as El, or as Elohim, but they had never thought to call Him, “Ishi.” But now they understand Him better and here is a new name for Him who is, to them, practically a new Being, a new Person. Alas, that still many men do not “know the Lord.” There is a depth of meaning in that expression and to multitudes God is quite unknown. It was said, long ago, that it is the highest wisdom for a man to know himself—but I deny that. The first, the highest, the best of all wisdom is for a man to know his God. As for himself, he is but a speck, an atom, a nothing. If he truly attains a knowledge of God, he will afterwards know himself in the best possible way. Pope said that “the proper study of mankind is man,” but it is not so. His proper study is mankind’s Maker, the God who made us all! But man, until he is Divinely taught, knows not God—he has not, by nature, a name for God. He borrows a name out of the Bible and calls Him, “God.” That is, “good” but he does not mean what he says, for if he thought that God was good, he would love Him. But inasmuch as he does not love God, he does not, in the highest sense, know God.