You'll Never Believe Who I'm in Love With!
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Good morning and thank you for being here today. My name is Hosea and I’m a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and you will never believe who I’m in love with. I want to tell you my story. My story is almost unbelievable. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming. As unbelievable as it is, it’s real. It happened and it happened to ME! It was painful and it was a burden to bear for sure.
The weird thing is, it didn’t just happen to me, it happened to God. As His prophet, He used me to demonstrate to others the pain and agony He goes through when His creation turns against Him and chases after things that will never satisfy. As bad as it hurt me, it hurt Him even worse. I’m getting ahead of myself…let me start at the beginning of my story.
As I said my name is Hosea. I don’t know how things are where you are from, but names have a pretty significant meaning in my society. My name means “He has delivered.” It’s a shortened name…if you translate the whole thing out it means “Yahweh has delivered.”
You do know who Yahweh is, right? Yahweh is the sacred name for God. It’s so sacred that I really shouldn’t even be saying His name. But that’s what my name means and it’s really important that you know that. The fact that Yahweh loves His people and loves this world and the people in it is so important to this story I’m about to tell you…really it’s important to every story of every broken man and woman.
So a little bit more about me. I am a prophet. I am a spokesman for Yahweh. Right now we are in the 8th Century BC. I guess that’s the way you guys keep time…I heard something pretty significant happened a few hundred years after my death…the Messiah finally came…but more about Him later.
It’s during this time that I watched four different kings of Judah come and go…and then after King Jeroboam II, King of Israel passed off the scene, the whole nation went into utter chaos. I’ve watched with my own eyes the nation begin to crumble all around me. I felt so helpless. I tried to faithfully warn the leaders and give them God’s message, but it seems to go in one ear and out of the other.
And it’s during this time that God told me something that you’ll never believe. You see, Israel was unfaithful to Yahweh. God had been so good to us. He had loved us, and called us, and delivered us, and provided for us, yet over and over and over again we had complained, we had turned to other “gods” and had allowed the heathen nations around us to influence us to look to their “gods” for fertility and good crops and riches and it’s like we soon forgot everything Yahweh had done for us and how He had provided. It’s like we forgot that He was the Creator and He was in control. We just allowed life to crowd Him out and He became more a “good luck charm” rather than treating Him like our Sovereign King who He really is!
It’s in this context that God asked me to do something REALLY, REALLY strange...
He said:
Hosea 1:2 (ESV)
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
I don’t know how to say this. I mean, I don’t want to offend anyone and I guess this isn’t politically correct in your society, so I’m told, but, but God asked me to marry a woman who would be known as a “whore.”
God asked me to marry a woman that He knew would be unfaithful to me. God knew that she would do all kinds of ungodly things while we were married. God knew that she would hurt me and hurt me badly. But, He still asked me to marry her. God asked to marry a woman who would become an unfaithful wife.
I guess God wanted me to know He felt. You see God is like a “perfect husband.” He had been EVERYTHING Israel had needed and could have ever dreamed of, but we were unfaithful to Him. He provided for us, but we abandoned Him for other lovers who could never give us what He could. While God was chasing after us out of His love, we were chasing other “gods” out of our lust.
Over and over and over again God reached out, He stretched out His arm and we continued to go in the other direction. We abandoned the One who cared for us.
It’s like Israel was an unfaithful wife. Israel committed spiritual adultery against God. So God used me as a real-life example of what it must be like to love someone with all your heart, to give, and to sacrifice…and not be loved that way in return. God was abandoned by someone He loved, and I would be too.
So I did what God said. I married a beautiful woman named Gomer. Let me tell you a little about Gomer. She was the daughter of Diblaim…do you know him? I didn’t think so. Now, I told you before that names mean something. Gomer’s dad, Diblaim…now he had an interesting name. His name meant, “double layers of grapecake.” Yeah, I know that sounds funny, but in our society, that connotation was not meant to sound funny. It referred to someone who was COMPLETELY GIVEN UP TO SENSUALITY. In other words, Gomer’s dad was a pretty lewd dude. So you can imagine what kind of childhood she had. Her dad was a real piece of work.
Gomer, well her name meant “completion”, but not “completion” in a good way. She would become a woman who was COMPLETELY filled with idolatry and wickedness. Oh, Gomer…I loved her so much.
So like I said, we got married and I had hopes and dreams just like any other doting husband. I knew God had told me that she would leave, that she would be unfaithful, that she would hurt me as Israel had hurt Him. But I didn’t see it at first. I mean we had a wonderful honeymoon and even though I knew in the back of my mind all of the things God told me, I found myself falling madly in love with this woman named Gomer.
Before long, Gomer was expecting...
God blessed our marriage with a little boy. God told us what to name him
Hosea 1:4 (ESV)
And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
Did you get that? God wanted us to name our little boy Jezreel. Now Jezreel is a significant name. Did I tell you before that names are really important in our culture? Yeah, I thought so. Jezreel itself means “God sows” or “God scatters.” But God not only tells us what to name him but why to name him that…Jezreel was an area near us…maybe you’ve heard of the “Valley of Jezreel”…it’s between Galilee and Samaria…well anyway, in this valley a lot of people have lost theirs lives over the years. A man by the name of Jehu was used by God to wipe out wicked King Ahab and his family, but Jehu then took matters into his own hands and went above and beyond what God had told him to do and he ended up attacking the House of David…he went too far.
In naming our son Jezreel, God was reminding us of this horrific valley where horrific bloodshed took place by Jehu. He also reminded us that “the house of Jehu would be punished.” Well sure enough God fulfilled this specific prophecy when the last of Jehu’s descendants were killed in 752 BC and the valley of Jezreel was overrun by the enemy a little later.
Although God had given us this precious little boy, his name wasn’t very precious. Every time we said his name, I was reminded of the coming destruction that Assyria would bring and the devastation that was to come on Jehu’s descendants.
As Jezreel began to grow Gomer announced she was pregnant again! I was excited, yet the words that God had told me kept ringing in my ears. Was this next baby mine? I had some doubts. It seemed as if Gomer had begun to slowly drift away. I wondered if Gomer started her unfaithfulness yet? Every time she left home, every time she looked at another man, every time she was restless in her sleep I wondered if she was thinking about someone other than me? I wondered if she had been unfaithful? I wondered if I was the father of this child. I had no doubt about Jezreel, but I wasn’t sure about this precious little girl...
Yes, after about 9 months Gomer gave birth to a little girl. As I held her in my arms God spoke to me and told me what to name her Lo-ruhamah. In your language, her name means “No Mercy.” Can you imagine naming your child “No Mercy”? Why Lord this name? God said:
She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.
Every time I looked at her I thought about what God had said. I was reminded that God was done showing Mercy to the people of Israel. They had been unfaithful to Him, they had prostituted themselves to the “gods” of the culture, and God’s mercy was done with them.
My heart once again turned to Gomer. She seemed restless. When other men would pass by her she had a lustful look in her eye. I honestly tried to be the best husband I could be, I loved her with everything in me, but it never seemed like it was enough. Even though she had just finished nursing Lo-ruhamah I wondered if she was being faithful. Then it happened…she announced she was pregnant again…child number three was on the way!
Once again I struggled. As our toddler became more independent Gomer was spending less and less time at home and sometimes I didn’t know where she was. She always came home, but something seemed off. Once again I had the question…is this next baby mine? God said she would be unfaithful, God said she would do unspeakable things with other men, had it already started?
In a few months, I held another baby in my arms, another boy. As I looked at him, I heard God speak once again…
And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
Lo-ammi…translated it means, “Not My People.” I wondered if this was confirmation from God. I wondered if the name had a dual meaning. God was reminding Israel that He was not theirs, and they were not His, but was this God’s way of saying that this little boy I held in my arms was not mine? Was this God’s way of telling me that the woman I loved with all of my heart, the woman I loved so passionately had given birth to another man’s son? I wasn’t sure…but then God spoke again...
When He spoke this time it was different. When He spoke this time, He was recalling to me the Abrahamic covenant. When He spoke this time, instead of bringing my focus to the despair and the devastation that our sinful rebellion had brought, He GIVES ME A GLIMMER OF HOPE! Verse 10 is a turning point…and God uses the word “YET.”
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
The last few years had been tormenting! I had been loving a woman with all my heart and soul, yet it seemed the more I loved her the more distant she had become. It seemed the more I gave the less appreciative she was. Yes, we were parents of three wonderful children, but I always wondered in the back of my head whether or not two of them were even biologically mine.
I had felt hopeless and discouraged, but now God gives me a glimmer of HOPE! You see in God’s message there was a little word. The word was “YET.” Did you see it? Let me tell you what God said again...
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
This message from God was a glimmer in the darkness. It was a reminder that even though He said they weren’t going to be “His people” that He was still making a way for them to be “His people.”
He was going to make a way for them to become “children of the living God.”
The prophecy continued and it gave me even more hope...
And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
God revealed to me there would come a day that the kingdom that is now divided, would one day be gathered together as ONE! Not only that but they would come under one “HEAD”…you know who that is right?
That’s the Messiah! That’s who you know as Jesus! God promised us that one day, the people that had lived like spiritual whores, the people that had forsaken Him, the people that had chased after the world, the flesh and the devil were going to be OFFERED MERCY. The people who didn’t deserve to have God as their Father would have the privilege to be called “HIS CHILDREN!”
Don’t you get it? YOU are part of that group!
Yep, YOU! You are like Gomer. You have been unfaithful to God. YOU have played the spiritual prostitute. YOU have been ungrateful and have treated God like a spare chariot wheel. YOU have flirted with other lovers.
God had every right to be DONE with YOU! He had every right to say, YOU KNOW WHAT I’m not having MERCY anymore.
I’m not going to let you have a chance anymore to be a part of my family. God could have said He was DONE!
But He wasn’t done with YOU!
He sent Jesus to make a way for YOU to be forgiven. He sent Jesus to make a way for YOU to be adopted into the family that YOU were estranged from. He sent Jesus to show MERCY one more time and TODAY if you will turn from those other “LOVERS” and turn to God He will forgive YOU and make a way for YOU to come HOME!
Did you know that God wants to have a PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with YOU even though YOU have treated Him this way? Do you understand that God LOVES YOU more than YOU can even begin to imagine and that God doesn’t want YOU to keep running from Him, but He is ready to welcome YOU with OPEN ARMS of FORGIVENESS and RECONCILIATION?
Maybe today you feel like “NO MERCY” but the truth is God is ready, willing, and able to show you MERCY!
Maybe today you feel like you are “NOT HIS PEOPLE” and never could be, but GOD is ready, willing, and able to ADOPT YOU and make YOU His child!
Years after I passed off the scene a man by the name of Paul would write these words in your New Testament...
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Today I’ve tried to put myself in Hosea’s shoes. Ultimately, this passage of Scripture is not about Hosea, or Gomer, or the children, or even about Judah or Israel. This story is about God’s redeeming LOVE! There are a couple of important things I want you to take home with you today:
We are ALL Guilty of Being Unfaithful to our Creator
We are ALL Guilty of Being Unfaithful to our Creator
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
You and I are all GUILTY. Whether you like it or not, and whether you admit it or not, spiritually speaking we are all JUST LIKE GOMER! We have all MISTREATED the LOVER of our SOUL!
Our Creator, Who Had Every Right to Write us Off, Lovingly Pursues Us and Makes a Way for Us to Come Back Home
Our Creator, Who Had Every Right to Write us Off, Lovingly Pursues Us and Makes a Way for Us to Come Back Home
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Spiritual Adultery Was Serious Then and it’s Serious Now!
Spiritual Adultery Was Serious Then and it’s Serious Now!
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Hosea was in love with a woman who would be unfaithful. It’s almost unbelievable to think about the depth of love that he had for her…but then I think about the depth of love God has for me and for you.
You and I have all been that unfaithful, ungrateful individual who has spurned and rejected the LOVER of our soul, yet He keeps loving, and reaching out to us, and is patient and is kind.
But that does not mean we can continue to spit in God’s face and there not be consequences. There will come a day when He quits striving with us and leaves us alone. You will never find what you are truly looking for in the “lovers of the world.” It’s only in Christ that you will find the true meaning and satisfaction that your soul is longing for.