Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2629
“And it shall be in that day, says the LORRD, 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.
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. Yes, that can consume the rock out of the heart and utterly burn it away.” Therefore, speaking concerning the Israelites, who were serving Baalim, who were drunk with sin, who were desperately set on worldling iniquity and who had gone far away from God, He puts in no, “if,” but distinctly says even concerning them, “I will take away the names of Baalim out of their mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name”
Have you ever noticed, throughout Scripture, how positively God speaks with regard to His acts of salvation in men? “He shallcall upon Me, and I willanswer him.” “All that the Father gives Me shallcome to Me.” “Him that came to me I willin no wise cast out.” “He shallsee of the travail of His soul and shallbe satisfied.” The free-willer might rise up and say, “But suppose they are not willing to be saved? Will God save them against their will?” To this we reply— There is nothing said about their willat all—the only reference is to God’s will! It is evident that God has such a power over men that He can work in their hearts just what He pleases, apart from their willingness or unwillingness, so that, when I come into this pulpit to preach, if God the Spirit should so please, though you all should gnash your teeth in anger, yet He could, under the sound of the Word, convert you all. Though you should set your hearts desperately against God’s Word and enter His House with a curse upon you, yet He could, before you left the place, change you to another mind!
And though you should have come here with all levity of spirit, hardened in heart, despising God and His Gospel, yet He has such strength that He could, by one word of His mouth, by the breath of His Spirit, transform you into His living children who should do the very reverse of what you are now doing! It is in vain, then, for an infidel to say that he could never be converted, for God could convert him. It is in vain for a man to say, “God will never bend my knees in prayer.” God knows how to make your knees bend, be they ever so stiff. “I never will, like a coward, cry for mercy,” says one. But God knows how to create penitent cries in your heart and how to make them struggle for utterance, too! He has you in His hand, He has the bit even in your mouth. And desperately as you may be set against Him, yet He can turn you wherever He pleases. He who binds Leviathan and cuts the dragon in two will not be stopped by a poor puny mortal like you! But if He has purposes of Grace towards you, He will work those purposes out. If He is determined to save you, He will, Himself, lure you into the wilderness and give you a new heart and a right spirit! And if He has so decreed it, struggle as you may against Him, the hour shall come when, with one blow from the hammer of His Word, your heart shall be broken in pieces! And with one sip of His blessed cordial of Grace, your soul shall rejoice in pardon bought with blood!
This is a great Doctrine of the Gospel—the Doctrine of the power of Grace—the Doctrine that God saves whom He wills, that “it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” “Ah,” says one, “if I am willing to be saved, will not God save me?” Sir, He has saved you! If you are willing to be saved, God has made you willing, and therein He has given you the very germ of salvation, for your willingnessto be saved in God’s way is the very essence of being saved! “But,” says one, “if I am unwilling to be saved, will He save me?” No, Sir, not while you are unwilling, but, if He so pleases, He will make you willing and then He will manifest in you His power to save! God saves no man against his will—and yet it is against his will. Ralph Erskine puts it thus—he says, “I was saved with full consent against my will.” He means to say, “against my oldwill, that always willed to do evil, but yet, with the full consent of all my powers, they being renewed, created anew in Christ Jesus and, therefore, at once willing to submit to everything that God laid down.”
Oh, how I rejoice to preach a Gospel that does not borrow strength from me, but gets its power from God! What a consolation that, go where we may to preach God’s Word, if God wills it, that Word shall be rendered effectual among the very worst of men—among mockers, scoffers and despisers! Why is it that men go not to preach the Word among the Romanists of Ireland? Because they say they will not hear them. Oh, but they would! And we should at least free ourselves from their blood if we did but stand up and testify the Word of God! However unwilling they might be, God could yet, by His abundant Grace, change their hearts! “It is of no use,” said one, “to go to the Bechuana in his kraal—he cannot be saved—he would never be willing to give up his old habits.” But you do not depend upon hswill at all! You go to him with the Gospel and God gives him a new will and the great change is worked! All you have to do is to preach the Word! “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” for, with the Word of God, there goes forth His Holy Spirit which changes men, renews their characters and hearts and makes them what they never were before. Oh, I bless God’s name that, though all the people in the world should lift their hands against the Most High and declare that they never would be saved, yet God could, in an instant, if so it pleased Him, make the whole of them bend their knees before Him, cry for the mercy they once rejected and seek the Savior whom they once despised! Here lies the power of the Gospel, in that it gains the mastery over man’s evil will and without his consent changes his nature, and then fully gets his consent after his nature has been changed!
That is the first Doctrine of God, I think, we may fairly draw from the text.
II. Now for the second, which is, that GOD WILL MAKE THOROUGH WORK OF IT WHEN HE SANCTIFIES A