John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: June 18

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John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: June 18


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The Spiritual Marriage

Hosea 2

The prophet Hosea takes peculiar pleasure in describing the church as espoused to her Lord, and in illustrating her circumstances, by analogies, drawn from that condition. These analogies, as followed out in his second chapter, are very full of matter, from which every one may draw instruction for his own soul.

The church has forsaken her Lord. She has wearied of the husband of her youth, and has forgotten the love of her espousals. She prefers other love to his, and is earnest in following the roads that lead to her undoing. But He will not forget how dear she has been and still is to Him. His divine love still, therefore, watches over her for good, and labors to work in her those convictions, however sorrowfully gained, which shall bring her back to Himself.

But how?

He makes the paths of error difficult to her feet, and the objects of her pursuit unsatisfying to her soul. “I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, so that she shall not find her paths.” She finds every path that leads from Him, or that does not lead to Him,

Puzzled with mazes, and perplexed with errors.”

She who had once known the fulness of his love, and sat so long under his shadow with great delight, can find no real joy in the pleasures in which he takes no part. In the heart from which he has been driven, a vacancy remains, which the whole world, with all its pomps, its lusts, its prides, is not large enough to fill.

She is free. She has cast off the restraint of her marriage vows. Yet in this new freedom she does not, in the consciousness of liberty,

Leap exulting like the bounding roe,”

along her paths of new delight, which had before seemed so enchanting to her view. No: in great amazement she finds that the remembrance of her first love is still a spell upon her. Its holy joys, its peace that passed all show—where are they—what has she gained comparable to them? Nothing: and she knows this now. Footsore, weary, disgusted, disappointed, repentant, she cries at last, “I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now.”

But can she?

Not of herself. She feels that the voice which has called her back so long, and which passed her like the unregarded wind, must be heard now—

“Return, O wanderer, return, return;

Let me not always waste my words in vain,

As I have done too long.”

That word now has brought her to a pause, and any further progress along those paths of ruin has become impossible to her. She has been allowed to learn, in the ways of her own choosing, the misery of alienation from Him—the wretchedness of being where He is not. It is enough that her Lord, who has never forsaken her, lays his hand upon her haste, and, by the constrainings of a love that passes knowledge, brings her to a pause. She cannot go on. Can she go back? She has been enabled to form the wish to return to the home she has forsaken. But she has wandered far, and lost the homeward road. The way also is long, or it seems so to one who has so deviously wandered; and she has no strength left. Besides, will her offended Lord receive one who has been so unfaithful to Him? Has he not cast her off forever? Will He not spurn her from the door so long unfrequented by her feet? Alas for her! She cannot return unless he gives her strength—unless He guides her on the way—unless He assures her heart of welcome when she comes. All this she has. She hears his voice once more—

“Return and welcome: if thou wilt, thou shalt:

Although thou canst not of thyself, yet I

That call, can make thee able.”

Yet not altogether at once may she be reinstated in the privileges of home. She has made herself unfit for that holy and happy place. Her heart has much to unlearn, and much to learn. Therefore first will He “allure her into the wilderness;” and there, apart with Him, when she has been properly humbled and cast down, and has been brought to see more clearly her forlorn estate, and to know how deeply she has sinned, then He will “speak to her heart.” Note: This is the literal translation of the words rendered, “speak comfortably unto her”—Hos_2:14. He will tell her that her sins are forgiven. He will let her know that He has loved her with an everlasting love, and that, therefore, with loving-kindness has He drawn her back to Himself. He will enrich her, and strengthen her heart with exceeding great and precious promises. And then will He joyfully throw open to her “the door of hope,” and bring her back into his vineyard; and then once more shall she “sing there as in the days of her youth”—not merely shall she sing the childlike songs her mother taught her—not merely the glad songs of her first espousals—but the deeper and more solemn strains of one who has sinned, and been forgiven and purified—such songs as those which mark the joy there is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Indeed, the song’s and the joys are those of a second espousal—more grave, as well as more glad, than the first. For among the words which her Lord had “spoken to her heart,” in the wilderness to which He lured her, were these “I will betroth thee unto Me forever. Yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.”