Sermon Cloud

Hosea 3:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

² So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. ³ And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”

These are the words of God to His prophet Hosea. Why would God tell His prophet to go take an adulteress for himself essentially to by a prostitute?

The O.T. Prophets often use object lessons to teach the hard hearted people the lessons that God wanted them to learn.

Here, Hosea is prophesying to God's people in ancient Israel just before the time that they were finally carried off into captivity by the Babylonians. They have been disobedient and followed after false gods, sexual immorality and selfishness. And now God is giving them a word picture, an illustration of what true love looks like.

The book of Hosea begins, after the brief introduction of his name and the time in which he prophesied, with these words; Hosea 1:2When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord.”

• God told His prophet to take a wife who would become a prostitute and that she would have illegitimate children.

Hosea 1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

• As with many Old Testament stories, the names of the people have something to do with the meaning of the story.

• Gomer means complete. The vanishing point in a drawing, the point at which everything comes together.

• By her very name, Gomer had it going on.

• Dibliam, her father, means two cakes. That means not only did he have plenty, but the two cakes are probably two cakes of raisins used in the offerings to Baal, the false god most often worshiped by Israel.

• This is usually how it goes. We get self sufficient and we think when we have it all together that God is sort of an option in life.

• Maybe we don't actually have it all together, but we try to live like we do and God is still just an option, not a necessity.

Hosea is basically sent to a nation who is about to be utterly wiped off the face of the map and scattered into the world. A nation who is fat and happy and doesn't know that they have only about 20 years left until God's judgment falls hard!

• God sends his messenger to them with this object lesson, go marry a woman who will be unfaithful to you and have illegitimate children.

• Can I ask how many of you have had some kind of Christian or religious upbringing?

• How many know right from wrong?

• How many have more that just made a mistake from time to time in living what you know is true?

Chapter 1 lays out the story of this little drama. After they are married and Gomer has Hosea's son,

• God names him Jezreel. That means God Sows or plants seeds.

• This is all of God's doing, part of His plan.

• It is also as it says in the text a picture of God's judgment as Jahu, King of Israel was sent to remove the line of the former king went a little overboard in wiping people out in the valley of Jezreel. God will likewise do to the nation.

• Gomer has two more children, though it does not say that they are Hosea's.

• God names them as well;

• Lo Ruhamma which means No Mercy

• Lo Ammi which means Not My People

• This is again a picture of Israel. People, when they are living for their own satisfaction, chase after whatever pleases them.

• God says I will not have mercy on them, they are not my people.

Chapter 2 gives us God's response to Israels unfaithfulness as one would expect a man to deal with a wife who is unfaithful.

Hosea 2:2-8

But there is hope.....

Hosea 2:13-23

• The valley of Achor is another famous place of God's judgment in the Old Testament. Achan

• The fact that God judges is important. He disciplines His children. Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; ⁶ For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” ⁷ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

• If God is disciplining you it is a hopeful thing. If He is not you have even more to fear.

• God says that they will again be called His people and He, their God.

This brings us to chapter three. How is this symbolized in Hosea's object lesson? Hosea 3:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

• First God says, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery.

• This symbolizes all of our relationships to God.

• 1 John 4:19 tells us that we love God because He loved us first!

• God says, Go love that woman.

• Does she deserve it? NO!

• Do I deserve the love of God? NO!

• He says love the woman who was loved by her man yet went into adultery anyway.

  Does God love you before you come to know Him?

• Romans 5:8

• Hosea 3:2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.

• The payment, roughly half in silver and half in produce, amounted to about thirty shekels and approximated the price of a slave in Exodus 21:32.

• How much was Christ sold for when Judas agreed to deliver Him to the High Priest?

• Hosea 3:3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”

• Remember back in Chapter 2 where God spoke of Israel / Gomer Hosea 2:7 She will chase her lovers, But not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, For then it was better for me than now.’ ⁸ For she did not know That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, And multiplied her silver and gold- Which they prepared for Baal.

• See, while we are fat and happy we think that the stuff we need comes from us or the situation that we put ourselves in.

• When the party is over we may go back home looking for what we left when we went off like the Prodigal Son, looking for a good time.

• God says, “I gave you all of that stuff. Good timed and bad, I met your needs! And you wasted it!”

• Suddenly we realize it. God has been there all of the time, like the husband of a prostitute who loves her and will give her his love even when she deserves his wrath.

• There is a debt that must be paid.

• She went off and got herself into trouble. She is owned by another. She probably sold herself as a slave. (the welfare of her economy) to get what she thought was better than what Hosea gave her.

• It probably wasn't any better. It just seemed like it at the time. Proverbs tells us that stolen water is sweet. It always seems better when it is someone else's.

• Wasn't Gomer already Hosea's?

• Wasn't Israel already God's?

• Why does either of them buy her back when she already belongs to them?

• Would you?

• Ever been cheated on?

• Anyway. She had sold herself. There was a legal debt owed.

• As with Israel, she had sinned and there was the circumstances of that sin.

• Romans 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. (NASB)

• How many of you were sold into slavery to sin?

• We all have been

• We need to be bought back, But God already owns us, yet He meets the legal requirement, He pays the price!

• This is called REDEMPTION. It is the subject that the mission asked me to share with you this month.

• See, whether or not you realize it, you are a Gomer! You belonged to God, He made you.

• You went and sold yourself to the slavery of sin.

• He paid the ransom price.

• Did you deserve that? NO!

• God loved His people when they were unlovable. When they had done everything to hurt the One who loved them the most.

• That 15 pieces of silver and an Homer and a half of barely was the right price for the wife who sold herself as a slave to be redeemed or bought back

• What was the price of one sold in slavery to sin?

• We will begin to celebrate what most Christians like to call Christmas tomorrow. Many stores and local governments prefer just to call it a Holiday.

• I like to call it Advent, a celebration of God taking on human flesh.

• Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. ³For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

• Just as with Gomer, the law had its requirements that had to be met. The price had been set for a slave back in Exodus 21:32.

• We have a greater debt to the whole law of God. Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. ²⁰Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

• I am a sinner, a breaker of God's Law, an enemy of God and guilty before Him.

• Read some commandments!

• Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

• We see some of that witness in our text from Hosea.

• Romans 3:22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

• Here we see that the Apostle Paul tells the Romans that righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

• Righteousness is being right with God.

• Though all have sinned, we are all Gomers...

• We are justified, that is declared righteous because of our faith in what Christ has done for us.

• WHY?

• Because of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus!

• He paid the price!

• ²⁵whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith,

• He is the atoning sacrifice, that which makes God look those of faith and say you are

• RIGHTEOUS, You've done what is right!

• JUSTIFIED, declared not guilty!

• REDEEMED, the sin debt is paid!

• Because of what Christ has done on your behalf and through your faith in that work.

• GOSPEL

• to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, ²⁶to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

• That makes God righteous, just in forgiving your slavery to sin. It makes it right and fair for Him to take you to Himself, having paid the debt himself to free you and just as Hosea did with Gomer. He just says, the debt is paid, come and be with me, live for me and I will live for you!

• Hosea 3:2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. ³ And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”