Hosea 2: 19+20 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; 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 faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord.
	We have been in consideration of God’s effective dealing with His Beloved. We considered the searching aspect of God as He exposes within us all of self that needs to be removed in order to prepare us for His eternal plan in Christ. We have seen that we are not going through the cleansing of God by ourselves, and that, quite frankly, we are not the focus. God’s divine intent of eternity goes far beyond His workings in individuals. I am in nowise diminishing His effectual Love being accomplished in us, but what God is achieving has a greater purpose than simply our individual growth in Christ, as all-encompassing as that is. Rather, God’s full intent is not centered in anyone less than the complete glorification of His Beloved, Jesus Christ, in union with the church. That is why what we go through on this earth, we go through with each other. We are joined, vitally connected one with each other in Him. On that basis, as we saw two weeks ago, we are being prepared as the Bride of Christ.
	Marriage, two becoming one, is the earthly presentation of what is the outworking of God, in Christ, with the Church. In this view, we have also seen that the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, as the glorified man, was likewise prepared by God in order to be made the acceptable husband of the church. What He had to learn were lessons that were vital to the union into which we are placed in Him. Christ proved that He was the effectively prepared husband for the Church. All that He undertook was with the view of how He could be a true husband for His Beloved. That is what the Father is after, a living relationship with mankind in Jesus Christ. 	Let us be very clear on this, we are not talking about what this world order has made of the sacred marriage bond of God’s creation and blessing. What this earth considers to be involved in marriage is a defilement and a perversion of what God’s truth of marriage fully entails. That is the case with everything that God has put into place in every spiritual truth. This world order always mocks and distorts the spiritual reality of God in order to try to violate it, but it never will succeed in diminishing what God has put into place. God will have His heart’s desire, and that desire is fully incorporated in the Beloved, Jesus Christ and His Church.
	In line with this, let us reflect on this truth concerning how our marriage to Christ is effected in our life as the church. The key is that everything is already settled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the evidence that God’s intent is fulfilled spiritually, even though yet to be seen in creation. This is the aspect that is being concealed from those eyes that long to see it, as all creation will in God’s time. Every created being is yearning for the plan and purpose of God to be evidenced. It is even to the point that all the forces of the enemy have striven to block that which has been ordained in Jesus Christ.
	History is filled with the efforts of this world order to try to stop the glorification of God in His Beloved. From the beginning, in the garden, there was every effort exerted to deny God His rightful place in union with man. The serpent thought that Adam and Eve were the fulfillment, so it put into action every endeavor to seduce humanity from God. Then the Children of Adam became the targets, as did the Children of Israel. Read through the scriptures with the understanding that everything was done with Christ as the focal point, and much will become clearer yet as to the why of the history therein recorded. 
	The Children of Israel were shown as the adulteress that is recorded in Hosea. The beginning of Chapter two deals harshly with the wife who prostituted herself, throwing away the love and the provision of the devoted husband. It is a miserable picture of suffering and shame as the bride gives herself to all the wanton pleasures and entrapments of this realm. Yet, through it all we are seeing the Hand of the Husband working to bring the wife back into her place at His side. The means used are drastic and desperate, but so highly effective in their outworking.
	It is the picture of the Israelites as they turned aside from God, the God of Life and Truth, the God Who had made every provision for their release from slavery in Egypt. He is the only God of holiness and righteousness Who had opened His heart in love unto them by protecting and feeding them as they were led through the wilderness. They forsook the God Who had made them partakers of the Law of God, not given to any other nation, in order to make them a special and unique and blessed people among men. God had done all that showed His tremendous love for them, and they turned to a golden calf, even as they were yet being given the rightful commandments at Mt. Sinai. They refused to enter into the land He had promised to them, rather fearing the giants and choosing to wander far and wide in the wilderness. At the very entrance into the promised land of milk and honey, these stubborn people disallowed the promises of God and trusted unto themselves in their own worldly interests. 
	It was this very people of God, who preferred a man, a king, to lead them, rather than God Who had saved them. They wanted to be like other nations. They didn’t want to stand apart in the eyes of the world, yet they always denigrated the rest of the world as heathen dogs, Gentiles who would fuel the fires of hell. As much as Israel despised the nations, they sought to be like them. They took unto themselves, as recorded throughout the Bible, idols, and anything else that would make them less of God’s people and more accepted of this realm. However, God did not allow them to be fully immersed in their folly. There was always an avenue of return unto God. He hedged them about with His protective Being of Love in order to prevent them and us from being utterly destroyed in our wantonness. Yes, we have made reference to this as the image of the Children of Israel, but it is as valid to see ourselves in the place of that adulteress. The church of God’s design has prostituted herself to this world, as history has well documented. All the time, the name of God has been used on every human effort to make an earthly abode for herself. She has shunned her first love for the sake of monetary, political and societal gain and prestige. The church has wandered afar from her first-love in utter defilement before God. It has aided this world’s ridicule of God, and joined in the mirth of shaming God in all her actions. Hosea shows us the picture of what we were, all of us, as we worked for the ill-gotten wages of our harlotry. Hosea 2:5-7 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil, and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths, And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.   
	The pattern of old was but the representation of what has happened with the Church. The truth is that this has been another avenue of God’s tremendous expression of love for the Church. He has never forsaken her, even when He has been shunned and violated by His own redeemed people. There have countless times that the actions of the Bride have been far from pure before God. His body of believers have spent too many years and too much effort chasing after the mammon of this world order. The church has tried to fit into the societal system, has tried to become like the world, rather than set apart from the world. In this realm’s eyes, the church has prostituted herself in order to gain at God’s expense. It has allowed herself to be soiled with the idols of this age, seeking after praise and money and power rather than after her first-love. Completely in line with Hosea, the body of believers have sought for gain apart from God, and He has allowed it to a point. The point being that eventually, under the guidance and the control of our Lord Jesus Christ, the church will find that she really has but one true love, the husband to whom we are betrothed.
	God’s focus is in the marriage of Christ and the church, and in line with that, He has made all provisions necessary to prepare the church for that rightful place in Christ. The reason I call this the rightful place is because it is the place that God has ordained for the Church, in Jesus Christ! Please note, that the passages in Hosea take place after the marriage vows. The prophet is not describing a time before the marriage was to take place, but, in fact after, after a period of time in the condition of having been husband and wife. The church has been belovedly treated by God as the wife in Hosea. He has supplied her every need, in spite of her faithlessness to Him. He has watched over her through her times of prosperity and unrestraint. We have seen the Hand of God effectively bringing her to the place where she has realized that what she wanted from the world was never as fully satisfying as what she has received from her first-love.
	To God’s glory, there will be an evident change in the focus of God’s elect. There will come a time in which the Beloved, having been treated so vilely and viciously by this world, will return with all her heart to her betrothed, our Lord Jesus Christ. In this alone, there will be evidenced the beauty of the Love of God in Christ, as a faithful husband who did not throw off an unfaithful wife, but rather loved her back unto Himself. This will create an even greater depth of glory for eternity. I would not be bold enough to say that this is on par with His saving of the church unto Himself. But it might well be. His immense love for us, in order to die for our sins, and to redeem us unto Himself, goes far beyond the bounds of what would be expected or deserved on our part. We were all under the curse of sin and death. We merited nothing more than an eternity of damnation. Plain and simple. But God, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)... Eph. 2:4+5. But God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son to die in our stead, and to take us into His very life and become joined to us in Christ. He married Himself to us, in all His grace and mercy and love. The question I pose is this - Is it any less an expression of divine and unqualified love, Agape, to so love us unto Himself, even in our faithlessness as His Bride? Is it any less a miracle of God to hold nothing against us, but rather to deal effectively in meeting our every need, even when we are shunning His every approach?
	Just as God will be receiving the glory and adoration of all creation for His wonderful work of divine grace in our salvation, so will He also be the recipient of the marvel of all creation in His unyielding love and mercy for those whom He saved unto Himself. In the redemption at the cross, His grace knew no bounds. In the redemption of His Bride, His glorious wealth of mercy floods the earth and washes away all the lascivious of His Beloved. All that could be counted against her, in her vile adultery is removed, and she is clothed in His righteousness.
	Hosea 2:14-16 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, And I will give her her vineyards from thence, 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. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi: and shalt call me no more Baali.
	This is a very significant statement. These two names hold very dearly what the transition from being saved into being joined in marriage to Christ fully entails. Baali holds the significance of Lord or Master. When we were first saved, first born from above, we freely acknowledged Christ as our Lord and Master. We were very thankful to be saved from Hell, even if that meant that our lives were to be controlled by God. However, in time, we wandered from that desire after God to have only His way in our lives. We began to desire after what we wanted, and we listened to those voices that told us to take control, to live our lives. God helps those who help themselves, which isn’t even scriptural, yet it described the freedom that we preferred in going and doing things our way.
	In dealing with our young people, and believe me this is not just a characteristic of youth, so often we come back to this point in our discussions of who should have control of our lives. They are not always ready, and neither are many of us, to give everything over to God. There is so much of life to live, and they, we, want to do that on our terms, rather than His terms. We begin to see Him as a Lord or Master, rather than as our Redeemer and Savior. Our first love is replaced by our sense of self-love and self-preservation, as God begins to deal in our lives. We begin to dread the working of God, and we begin to eye His efforts with suspicion and with a determination to thwart His activities as best we can in our own manners. This is the period of the working of God in which we are not so much in love with Him as we are enduring through our salvation. It is with the idea that we have to obey Him because He is God, He is our Lord, He is our Master. Sometimes we even feel enslaved unto Him, and we begin to eye the others around us with envy at their seeming carefreeness in dealing with each other and with us. Why is it that they can do these things, and we can’t? So and so doesn’t have to go to church or meetings or pay tithe? Why do we have to do all these things? This is not a new lament. It is the very basis of all that we have been seeing in these past weeks. God, however has a far greater plan in place, in His Love, than what we will ever find in our stubborn adultery before Him. He allures us unto Himself, and takes us into the wilderness, and there He speaks comfortably to our hearts. 
	Look at the history of the physical church. When are the members of the Body of Christ truly in love with Him? It is as they need His comfort in times of trials and persecutions. Invariably, it is in those times that His Beloved are suffering through the wilderness experiences that God manifests the reality that He never left nor forsook His Beloved. He has always, and will always be there, especially when all others abandon us. In our deepest trials and stress, turmoil and anguish, it is the voice of our Husband Who soothes us unto Himself. Then we find ourselves calling Him Ishi. Ishi means my husband. No longer is our relationship on the level of servant and master, it is as husband and wife, the Beloved.
	As another aspect, there is that matter of forgiveness. Yes, we were fully forgiven at the cross, in the death of Christ, and raised up in newness of live in His resurrection. All our sins were forgiven for all of eternity. But there is another element of forgiveness that needs to be forthcoming in us, in the church. It is that forgiveness that we experience as we are brought from the harlot into the Beloved. We sense an even greater reality of just how fully Christ loves us in not holding anything against us. Our adultery is not thrown in our face during times of strife and turmoil, for He has utterly and thoroughly removed it from us, in His love. As He has done so, so ought we do so as His Bride, one with another.
	Next week. Lord willing we will tie our discussions up by looking at the outcome of this glorious relationship, as best we can from our perspective as the Beloved of the Lord.
	And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; 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 faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord.