Hosea & Gomer

Love Like Ours Series

We are Looking at Relationships in the Bible that Resemble Our Own Relationship to Jesus

We are Looking for a Love Like Ours

Tonight We are Going to Look at One of the Strangest Relationships in the Bible

Hosea & Gomer

Hosea is the First of the Minor Prophets in the OT

God Uses Him to Be a Living Illustration of God’s Relationship with Israel

And in Order to Be Such, He Commands Hosea to Do Something Very Strange

We are Going to Read the First 3 Chapters of Hosea…

And Then We Will Notice the Similarities Between Hosea and Jesus and Gomer and the Church

Hosea 1:1–2:1 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. 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.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 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. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” 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. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.” When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” 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.” 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. Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

God Tells Hosea to Marry a Prostitute

This Relationship Would Illustrate God’s Relationship with the Adulterous Israelite People

So He Marries a Prostitute Named Gomer

Gomer Would Go On to Have 3 Children

Their Names Would Foretell the Future of the Idolatrous Israel

Jezreel - “God Sows”

God Would Sow Judgement Against Israel

Lo-Ruhamah - “No Mercy”

God Would Show No Mercy to Israel

Lo-Ammi - “Not My People”

God Would No Longer Consider Israel as His People

But We See that God Does Plan to Keep His Promises that He Made Abraham

There Would Come a Day When Those Who Were Called “Not My People” Will Be Called “Children of God”

And They Will Receive Mercy

Hosea 2:2–13 ESV

“Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. 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.’ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. 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. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord.

Gomer’s Children are Told to Plead With Gomer to Repent

Though She Married Hosea, She Continued in Her Prostitution

She Continuously Committed Adultery Against Hosea

This Picture of God’s Wife, Israel, is a Sad One

They Continued to Turn to Other Gods and Commit Spiritual Adultery Against Him

Israel is Warned to Repent and Return to God…

Or Else They Will Be Put to Shame and Cursed By God…

Until They Decide to Return to Their Husband

Israel Believed Her Blessings Were Coming From Her Lovers…

But it was God Who was Blessing Her

We Get This Picture of Hosea Providing for His Wife…

Only for Her to Continue Cheating On Him and Praising Her Lovers for Her Blessings

Just as Hosea, No Doubt, Felt Forgotten…

So Did God

So What is God Going to Do With His Wife?

Hosea 2:14–23 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. “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ”

God is Planning a Day of Reconciliation

He is Going to Woo His Wife Once Again

He is Going to Remind Her of the Days When They First Married in the Wilderness

Of the Day When He Saved Her From Egypt

He is Going to Restore Her to Himself With Righteousness, Justice, Love, Mercy, and Faithfulness

He Will “Sow Her” in the Land

He Show Mercy to “No Mercy”

And He Will Call “Not My People” My People

God is Going to Get His Wife Back

He Isn’t Going to Give Up On Her or the Covenant He Made With Her

His Love for Her is Still Just as Strong as it Ever Was

So God Has Commanded Hosea to Marry an Adulterous Prostitute…

In Order to Be a Living Illustration of God’s Relationship with Adulterous Israel

But God Isn’t Done With His Wife

He Has Loving and Merciful Plans to Restore Her to Himself

And So, He Asks Hosea to Be a Living Illustration One More Time

Hosea 3 ESV

And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

Hosea is Commanded to Lovingly Restore His Wife to Himself

It Seems Hosea had to Buy His Own Wife Back (Possible Slavery of Some Sort)

He Redeemed Her

And Her Made Her Be His Faithful Wife

This All Being a Foreshadowing of the Day…

When God Would Redeem His People Back to Himself

He Would Do So Through the Davidic King Who was to Come

Love Like Ours

The Love Story of Hosea and Gomer Isn’t a Pretty One

But at the Same Time, It’s the Most Beautiful Love Story Ever Told

A Prostitute is Loved and Married By a Good Man

She Horribly Mistreats Him and Commits Adultery Against Him at Every Turn

But He Continues to Love Her

When Her Sins Finally Lead Her to Hit Rock Bottom…

Her Husband Lovingly Redeems Her

This is the Story of Hosea and Gomer

This is the Story of God and Israel

And This is the Story of Jesus, the Davidic King, and His Church

God Loved a Wicked People Like Us

But We Continuously Rebelled Against Him

Instead of Hating and Destroying Us

He Continued to Love Us, Even in Our Sin and Shame

In His Love He Sent His Son

And the Son, Through Great Sacrifice of His Own, Married Us

He Led Us to Repentance and Caused Us to Be Faithful to Him

He Betrothed Us to Himself in Righteousness, Justice, Love, Mercy, and Faithfulness

He Caused Us to Know the One True God

Through Jesus We are Loved

Through Jesus We are Redeemed

Through Jesus We are Not Forsaken in Our Sin

The Amazing Love of God Shines So Bright in the Marriage of Hosea and Gomer

And the Promises of God to His People Come to Their Fulfillment in Jesus…

The Loving, Redeeming Husband to the Church

When We Look at Hosea and Gomer…

We See the Love of God for His People Israel

And When We See God’s Love for Israel…

We See Jesus’ Love for His Church

In Hosea and Gomer We See a Love Like Ours

Whether You Know it or Not, You Have a God and King…

Who Loves You With an Unconditional Love that Exceeds Anything You Can Imagine

There’s Nothing You Can Do to Cause Him to Stop Loving You

There’s Nothing You Can Do to Stop Him From Wanting to Redeem You

Do You Love Him?