Faithfulness

God’s Love (Hosea 1:2-9, 2:1-4) Gomer had no inner moral compass. She was unfaithful. Hosea could never trust her. Israel was like Gomer (Hosea 4:1) We are like Gomer (Prov. 20:6, Ecc. 7:20, Hosea 11:7, James 4:4, Rom 3:10-12, 3:23) God’s love defies reason (thankfully!) The great question of the book of Hosea is not why God would ask Hosea to marry Gomer, but why God would marry Israel. Why would God commit himself to a group of people he knew would not be faithful to him? (see Matt.5:43-48) God’s love is tough love. Hosea never minimized the nature of the wrong Gomer had done to him. The pain was real and raw. His love had been betrayed. When Gomer insisted on being unfaithful to him, he let her go. He understood that it was to her own detriment. He knew what was ahead of her. She no longer wanted anything to do with him, so she would no longer have his help. She was on her own. It was what she wanted, but she could not see the mistreatment she would suffer. She would be used and abused. She would be called names by those who were supposed to love her. She would be beaten and treated like an animal. She would learn the lessons of life the hard way, and live out the consequences of her poor choices. As Hosea would later write about people like her: “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). In the second chapter of Hosea, God describes what he will do to his unfaithful people: “Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now’” (Hosea 2:6-7, see also Lam. 3:19). As with Gomer, many times we have to learn the hard way that God’s way is the best way. We waste our lives and our love on many other things until we have been abused long enough that we say, “I will go back to my God, for then I was better off than before.” 1st Child: Jezreel – God Scatters/Judgment is Coming/Cast off/The name of the courtyard where Jezebel was thrown to her death and eaten by dogs 2nd Child Lo-Ruhamah – Not Pities/Love removed/You will no more experience the tender love/comfort of your mother/mother’s womb 3rd Child:Lo-Ammi – People rejected/ You are not my people

God’s love is unconditional.

In chapter three, Gomer’s sin has worn her out, and now she is stripped and being sold as a slave on an auction block. None of her former beauty remains. Perhaps she is diseased. It may be that she is being sold by a house of prostitution, or a slave owner who no longer finds her desirable. Whatever the case, Hosea does the unthinkable. He buys her for himself. The price was very low — less than half an ounce of silver and some barley, a grain inferior to wheat. It was half the price a female slave would normally bring. Apparently, she was not worth much to anyone at this point, and they were just glad to get rid of her. In the beginning she was a beautiful woman. The name Gomer means “perfect,” possibly a reference to her appearance and desirability. But now her beauty is gone — ruined through hard living, and no one will have her except one man. Hosea will make her his wife again, a living symbol of God’s unconditional love for faithless Israel. The Lord said to Hosea, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites” (Hosea 3:1). In a film version of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”, the main character, Jean Valjean constantly gives grace to people around him, because he has first received grace from an old priest who saved his life, in spite of the fact that he had stolen from him. One of the people to whom Valjean extends grace is Fantine, a single mother who loses her job and is forced into prostitution in order to support her daughter Cossett, and be able to survive herself. One evening she is abused and beaten by a group of men. Jean Valjean takes her to a safe place and cares for her. But Fantine says to him, “Why are you being so kind?” At first she thinks he wants what all the other men wanted. When it dawns on her that there are no strings attached, she says, “You don’t understand. I’m a whore, and Cossett has no father.” Jean Valjean responds with these amazing words of grace: “She has the Lord. He is her father, and you are his creation. In his eyes you have never been anything but an innocent and beautiful woman.” There is God’s unconditional, inescapable love. We see ourselves as we are, but he sees us for what we can become. The apostle Paul asks this amazing question: “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4). Heb. 13:5 - He will never leave us nor forsake us. If we turn back to God, He is willing to heal our unfaithfulness and grant us His blessings (Hosea 14:1, 4-7, Jer. 31:3-5) Singer Steven Curtis Chapman said it well: “In the Gospel, we discover we are far worse off than we thought, and far more loved than we ever dreamed.” Like Gomer, we were bought back/redeemed for a price. (Hosea 3:2, 1 Cor.6:19-20, 1 Peter 1:18-19, 2. Titus 2:14, 3. Rom. 3:24) Side note: Jehu’s problem – wrong motive, political gain, not zeal for true worship