O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO

Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that the entire world loves a lover. If Emerson is correct, then Hosea should be the most loved book in all the world. This story of ole finds many similarities and commonalities with real-life stories of our present age. It’s a story of a broken vow, home, heart, and life. However, it possesses a literary uniqueness that ranks it as one of the most amazing love stories of all-time. Hosea endured this sad sorted story under the sovereign hand of God so that you and I today could have an better understanding of His love and grace towards us.

Hosea, a young preacher, is commanded by God to pursue a young woman by the name of Gomer. If her name did not call into question God’s command then her nature would give Hosea solid ground from which to argue. Gomer is a woman who’s like a city without walls. She’s defenseless against her own passions, and as a result, lived a life a perpetual unfaithfulness to whoever she was with. Her history is littered with betrayal and brokenness.

Hosea brought much to this marriage. He brought the unsquandered treasure of a young man's purity, for Hosea had never sacrificed upon some wayside altar. He came to this apex moment of his life with much to give.

I can hear Hosea asking God; “how will you get glory of this union”? Can you be glorified when the prophet marries the prostitute? Can you be glorified when piety is united to promiscuity? Can you be glorified when wretchedness and righteousness are joined together? How can you receive glory when the devilish and divine are intertwined? Lord what possible glory can come from such command?

And God answers by saying; “Hosea, you and I are both going to completely give our hearts and lives to people who will utterly reject us, and we are going to spend our money and our time and our hearts and our energy in going after those people. I am a husband whose wife is unfaithful to him. I am a father whose children have rejected him and are now destroying themselves before his very eyes. Unless you are part of that, unless you experience that too, you will never understand how my heart works. Once you come in and understand this, you will be able to model and proclaim my love to the world and then my glory will fill the earth like the waters that cover the seas.”

Hosea 11:1–11 ESV

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

Do you see what an incredible picture this is? God says, “I found a little boy once in a foster home, and I brought him home and I gave him everything. I loved him and I taught him how to walk. When he was toddling along, I was there. When he fell down and cried, I picked him up and I held him and I wiped his tears. I gave him everything, and now he rejects me, and now my children turn away from me, and now they are going on to a destructive path, and they don’t listen to anything I say.”

You get down to 11:8, and suddenly we hear an incredible noise. God crying. He says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” which is the name of his son. “How can I give you up?” Then he says, “My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.” That word changed is one of the strongest words God could possibly use to describe his inner emotional state. This is God talking about his insides. The word changed is a word in the Bible that’s used to refer to the overthrow and the destruction of a city by an enemy. God says, “I’m torn to pieces.” God. “I am torn to pieces. How can I give you up, O Ephraim?”

Do you remember Jesus looking at Jerusalem in Luke 13, and crying and saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How I have longed to gather your children together, and like a hen, bring all your chicks underneath my wings. You who have stoned the prophets, you who have murdered those sent to you, but now you are not willing, and now they're hiding from your eyes?”

Here’s God saying, “I am all shattered inside. I can’t give you up.” Finally, what does he say in verses 9 and 10? He says, “I am not going to give you up. What I will do is I will roar, but I won’t roar in a way that destroys you. I will roar, and you will come trembling.” Trembling is a good word in Hebrew. It means you will come melted. You will come softened. “I will make you my lovers again. I will make you my children again. You will return to me.”

God says, “Unless you understand I am a husband whose wife has left him, I am a father whose children have rejected him and who are destroying themselves before my very eyes, you will not understand my love, and you won’t understand how my heart works.” His love is not just any kind of love. His love is not mere affection. It’s not mere sentimentality. His love is the love that forged the worlds. Come! Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.

Hosea love for Gomer was unforgettable. I suspect Gomer left Hosea thinking she was bettering herself. Lured from Hosea’s side by the enticement of exotic food, a fascination with fashion, and a lively lifestyle. Gomer’s path ended in much the same manner as others. She believed her way was one of ascension only to realize that it did nothing but create a greater distance for her fall. Depravity has a depth that no one has reached, and Satan continues to tests in depths.

Gomer’s life after Hosea was a series of failed relational transactions that landed her with a man who could not provide life’s most fundamental necessities. Forsaken by his wife Hosea remained faithful. Though her choices had separated them physically, his eye remained ever fixed on her plight as she slid deeper into depravity’s depths. Overwhelmed by her condition and overcome by his covenant Hosea arose and went to the place where his wife now lived. What was his intent? Listen to Hosea; "Are you the man that's living with Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim?" "Well, what if I am?" "I'm her husband." Do you feel the tension? Can you see the man clenching his fist? He's ready to fight. I see Hosea reaching into his tunic but for what? A weapon? Nothing can make a man lose his mind like adultery. As Hosea pulls his hand from his tunic, the man notices there is no weapon but wealth. Has Hosea come to buy back his wife? No, he has come to keep his covenant. He vowed to act as a husband should regardless of his wife’s actions. Hosea has not come to purchase but to provide for his wife.

What we are witnessing either blows our mind or takes our breath. We all label this text as fiction. One gives this designation because no one loves like this; while another says it’s a fairytale, a story that our hearts wished was true, yet our reality tells us otherwise. The Covenant keeping God placed Hosea’s story in Scripture to show us why Paul prayed

Ephesians 3:14–19 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Our instinctive reaction is to say that this doesn’t make sense. May I suggest to you today that The Love of God does not make sense. His love is sophisticated. It’s complex. Yes, it possesses an elementary level of understanding. There is an entry level for those who will believe. However, God’s love is for excavation. We are called to plum its depths, measure its heights, and survey its widths. An elementary understanding of His love can save you, but an excavation of His love will sanctify you.

In

Hosea 2:5 ESV

For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Hosea 2:9 ESV

Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

we see Gomer embracing not Hosea for his provision but her lover. Can you imagine the pain the prophet must have endured? The one who could provide nothing receives praise for his provision. The man who possessed nothing but ineptitude receives gratitude. Do you feel your judgemental blood boiling? How many are ready to blow the whistle and call a foul.

Before you blow your whistle or your head blows off your shoulders in righteous judgment let me remind you that's the way you and I have acted all of our lives. Whose hand placed food on our table, clothes on our body, and an roof over our heads. We thank everyone and everything except the God who provided them. We thank our family, friends, even the strength of our own hands. Everyone and everything except the God from whom the blessing flowed

There is within us all a skeptic of some size who asks, “Does God love us like that?” My answer to our skepticism is “everything in the Word and the world testify to that reality.”

The Word tells us that He formed in His image and fashioned by His hands. He created us for unfettered fellowship. He did not create us because He was lonely for He had perfect fellowship with the Son and Spirit. He did not create us out of need for need is a creature word. He created us because He is a creator. He created us for His glory! Yet; we fell into folly. We fled from God in a fit of rebellion believing He was keeping His best from us. However, in our moment of folly shame flooded our souls like a tidal wave. We ran and hid ourselves believing there was a place that He would not go. A demarcation that His deity would not cross but God being rich in mercy recorded black letters on white pages to reminded us that the His love whispers our name and covers our shame.

This world tells us that he loves us like that. Miners extract ore out of the ground. Blacksmith turns the ore into metal and forms it into a spike. Loggers cut down trees, millers plane planks, and a carpenter builds a cross. When the cross is ready, God comes, and in Jesus Christ, stretches his arms along the arms of that cross and allows soldiers to pound with cruel violence nails into his hands and feet. There on that cross, he dies for you and me, so that we can return to our place of fellowship with the Father. This is our God, and there is none like unto him.

In an earlier statement, I said that God’s love is sophisticated and complex. We see this in more detail beginning in

Hosea 2:14–15 ESV

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

God’s love pursues. It is persistent. It is sometimes painful because it is a jealous love. The word Achor means the valley of trouble. Hosea's saying I'm going to lead her out into the wilderness. I'm going to allow her to stumble into the Valley of Achor, and there in that awful, dreadful place; I will open to her again the door of salvation and hope. What God did with the nation Israel God sometimes does with us. Sometimes when we persist in our running and our going astray, it's almost as if God takes his hands off of our lives and let us suffer and feel the consequences of our actions. We stumble into the Valley of Achor, place of broken dreams, broken hearts, and broken lives. It's often in that dreadful place that God opens to us a door of salvation and hope.

We see Gomer in this valley as we arrive in chapter three. Gomer has now fallen into the hands of a man who did not care for her. Her current relationship has decided to sell her into slavery.

Slavery was an established institution in the ancient world. There was hardly a city that did not have designated days on their calendar set aside where men and women were bought and sold like animals. Secular historians tell us that auctioneers often present women stripped of all their clothing, and forced to stand before the gaze of the crowd. It was evidently to such a place that Gomer found herself and to such a place that Hosea was called to go.

Let your imagination insert you into this story. There is Gomer standing on the slave block head slumped in shame. There is Hosea is lurking on the fringe of the crowd. There is the crowd gossiping, “look there’s Hosea he has come to see her get what she deserves.” Then there’s the auctioneer who says; “let the bidding begin.”

Someone says, "I'll give you ten pieces of silver for her." Somebody else says, "I'll give you twelve." Hosea says, "I'll give you fifteen." And somebody else said, "Well, I'll give you fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley." Hosea said, "I'll give you fifteen pieces and a homer-and-a-half of barley." The gavel sounds and Hosea pushes forward to buy his wife.

Hosea, purchase in silver and produce was the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver the fair market price for a slave in that day. I imagine the crowd is at first surprised by his purchase. “Why would he buy her after all she has done?” “Why not let her get what she deserves?” Someone in the crowd responds; “he has bought her to punish her himself.”

Hosea 3:2 ESV

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.

Hosea has not purchased his wife for revenge but redemption. He is not seeking to punish her but nurse her back to purity. You say; “I get what he is doing; I just don’t understand how?” We find our answer in

Hosea 1:3 ESV

So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

The reason that Hosea was able to love Gomer as he did was that the love of God was shed abroad in his heart. Hosea is playing the part with Gomer that God has played with you all of your life and that God has played with me.

I want to lay before you two truths from this story. The first truth is for those of you who are Christ followers. This lesson comes from

Hosea 1:1 ESV

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hosea 1:3 ESV

So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Christ follower; God does not love you because of what you do. God always loves you in spite of what you do. God does not love you because of what you are He always loves you in spite of what you are. When you understand how much he loves you, then you will respond to him with love, praise, sacrifice, and service.

These words resonate within our hearts but do not find much traction in our life. Why? Our new life in Christ often encounters certain mentalities that remain from our old life. Many bring their bookkeeping mentality into their new life. "I will do certain things, and then God will do certain things for me as a reward." This way of relating to God is biblical but heresy. It is not the gospel. God doesn't bless us or reward us because of what we do; it's in spite of what we do. If you decide tonight to give up all you have and serve a people in some never heard of country, God would not love you any more than he loves you right now. If you were to give all your money to your local church, or a Christian organization, or someone serving Christ God would not love you more than he loves you right now. When you understand how God loves, then you can respond to Him in wonder, worship, and praise.

Grace is amazing because we find it difficult to accept such an idea of unmerited favor. We live in a merit-based society. You get what you earn. Nothing is worth having if you did not work it.

Many relate well to the CBS character Sheldon Cooper who is petrified of gift giving. His anxiety is rooted in what he calls reciprocity, a mutual or even exchange of property. In a Christmas episode, Sheldon prepares himself for Penny’s, his across the hall neighbor, annual Christmas gift. He is taken to a local mall by his work colleagues to purchase Penny’s gift. Being unsure of Penny’s expenditure on his gift Sheldon buys several varieties of Christmas gift baskets. He tells his roommate Leonard that after opening Penny’s present, he will pretend as though he is in gastro distress and excuse himself to the bathroom. While in the bathroom he will assess the value of Penny’s gift through an internet search. Once a value has been determined he will then give her a gift of reciprocity.

Sheldon is confident that his strategy is full proof until he opens Penny’s gift. At first, Sheldon is confused by his gift, a napkin. Penny tells Sheldon to turn the napkin over, and to his shock, there is a signature from a childhood hero, Leonard Nimoy. Sheldon is stunned by Penny’s gift and leaves the room only to return with his arms full of every variety of gift that he had brought her. Penny’s responds by asking Sheldon; “what did you do.” He responds in a voice of desperation saying; “it’s not enough is it.”

Write this down and hide this truth in your heart; God does not love you because of what you are. God does not love you because of what you do. He loves you in spite of what you are, in spite of what you do. I pray this truth takes root in your heart because when it does you will begin to experience what Scripture calls conformity to the image of Christ.

The second lesson from today’s story is for those of you who have not yet come to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Some of you here today are close but you’re not quite there yet. Your lesson comes from chapter tree. You may feel as though God has deserted you. You may have often asked, “Where is God? ” Hosea and the entire bible answers this question by telling us that God isn’t lost; you are.

Christ pursued you up a Calvary’s hill down into a borrowed tomb, and He has brought you here today because he wants to make you His own.

Clovis Chappell tells a story about a young man who lived in Chicago. He went down to the bluegrass regions of Kentucky, and there he met and wed a young woman who ultimately he brought back to Chicago as his bride. They enjoyed three lovely years of marriage, and then one day in a seizure of pain the young woman lost her mind. I mean when she was at her best she was a bit demented. At her worst she would scream and neighbors complained because the screams cut the air and it was hard to live with. And so the young businessman left his home in the middle of Chicago, went out to one of the western suburbs, built a house, determined that there he would try to nurse his wife back to health and sanity again. One day the family physician suggested that perhaps if he were to take his wife back to her Kentucky home that something in those familiar surroundings would help her restore her sanity, and so they went back to the old homestead. Hand in hand they walked through the old house where memories hung on every corner. They went down to the garden and walked down by the riverside where the first cowslips and violets were in bloom. But after several days nothing seemed to happen.

So, defeated and discouraged, the young man put his wife back in the car, and they headed back to Chicago. When they got close to the house he looked over and discovered that his wife was asleep. It was the first deep, restful sleep she had had in many weeks. When he got to the house he lifted her from the car, took her inside, placed her on the bed and realized she wanted to sleep some more. So he placed a cover over her and then just sat by her side and watched her through the midnight hour, watched her until the first rays of the sun reached through the curtain and touched her face. The young woman awoke, and she saw her husband seated by her side. She said, "I seem to have been on a long journey. Where have you been?" And that man, speaking out of days and weeks and months of patient waiting and watching said, "My sweetheart, I've been right here waiting for you all this time."

If you ask me where is God I would say; he’s right here where he has been all this time. Waiting for you to cast yourself with a reckless abandon upon the grace of God, and waiting for you to experience what it means to be loved by God.

In the book Les Miserable by Victor Hugo the main character Jean Valjean, who was a former prisoner that was unjustly imprisoned, is show hospitality by a Catholic bishop. When the bishop goes to bed, Valjean steals the silverware and runs. The police catch him and bring him back to the bishop and say, “We caught a thief.”

The bishop looks at him, and to Jean Valjean’s amazement (grace is always amazing), the bishop says to the police, “Oh, no, no, no. I gave him the silverware, and here,” and he grabs the silver candlesticks, walks over, and says, “You forgot the candlesticks. I gave you those too.” The police said, “We could have sworn he was acting like a thief.” “Oh no, no, no. I gave all these things to him. These are his. You are dismissed.” And the police leave.

There’s Valjean, staring at this grace. The bishop says,

“Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you. I withdraw it from your black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”

Now you may have seen this performed as a play or at the movie theater, but the only way you’re going to get the full artistry and wisdom of Victor Hugo’s novel is to read the book, because the next chapter talks about this incredible struggle Jean Valjean had over the trauma of grace.

The text says something like this:

“There came over him a strange emotion, opposed to the hardness that he had acquired during the 20 years in prison. He perceived with dismay that the frightful calm, which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him, was giving way. He was conscious that this pardon, this celestial kindness, was the greatest assault and most formidable attack he had ever addressed.”

Hosea and Gomer’s story ends in chapter three without an ending. Scripture never tells us how Gomer responds to Hosea’s act of grace and love. What did she do? The Spirit did not place this story in the inspired Scriptures to answer this or any other question we might ask. It is here to ask you how will you respond to a love that will not let you go.