“People to meet in heaven: Gomer”
Hosea 1:1-3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Do you believe in true love? Do you believe in love at first sight? Do you believe that love lasts forever? So asks an article, “Top twenty most famous love stories in history and literature.”
We love love stories, whether they’re real or even if they’re just a story. Take Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, for example. It’s one of the most beautiful, but most tragic, of all. It tells of two teenagers, two “star-crossed” lovers, who fall in love at first sight. Only when both Romeo and Juliet die at the end, do their families, the Capulets and Montagues, finally get along. As Shakespeare penned at the end: “For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
Charlotte Bronte, in her book, Jane Eyre, tells the story of an orphaned girl who’s sent to work for a rich, but rude, Edward Rochester. But as time passes and the two come to know one another, she finds a tender heart beneath his gruff exterior. At the end, when fire destroys his mansion, kills his wife and leaves him blind, love triumphs, and the two live happily ever after. He asks, “Am I hideous, Jane?” She answers: “Very, sir: you always were, you know.”
And in Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, Darcy is rich, educated and refined, and Elizabeth is unschooled and poor. Still, at the end, they manage to fall in love.
And that’s nothing to say of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in Holiday, Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost, Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman, and Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” he said.
The Bible too is full of love stories of all kinds. Think of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel, Ruth and Boaz, Mary and Joseph, and even Adam and Eve.
But of all the love stories that have ever been written, there’s one more amazing and more profound than all the rest. It’s about a man named Hosea and his wife, Gomer.
It was 760 years before Christ, and King Jeroboam II was reigning on his throne.
And life was good for the nation of Israel. Jeroboam had stretched the borders of his kingdom farther than ever before. Tribute money from subject nations was pouring into the treasury, and the people enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. They were rich and happy. What more could they possibly need?
But along with their nearly unlimited power and wealth came what always comes—moral and spiritual collapse—lying, killing, stealing, perversion, oppression, idolatry and deceit, just to name a few.
So first, God sent His prophet Amos, a herdsman from Tekoa, to warn of their imminent ruin. But the people refused to listen. So He sent one more, a prophet named Hosea.
But Hosea was different. Instead of simply preaching the Word of the Lord, he would embody the Word of the Lord. In fact, his life and his marriage would become a living sermon. What Gomer would do to Hosea, Israel had done to God. And what Hosea would do for Gomer, God would do for Israel.
Turn with me in your Bible to page 952 as I read the words of our text, from Hosea chapter 1. I’ll start at verse 1: “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.”
Verse 2: “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 Dablaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Wait just one second! Maybe we didn’t hear that right, or maybe we missed something, somewhere. Look again at verse 2: “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom”? Huh?!
Now if you think that’s bad, (and it is!), imagine what Hosea thought! “Now, Lord, I will go anywhere You want me to go, and do anything You want me to do. I will go to Samaria. I will go Jerusalem. I will preach the Word of the Lord. But You want me to marry a what?! A harlot, a hooker, a streetwalker, a tramp, a whore??!”
Even Gomer was surprised. The first time he asked her to marry him, she thought he was kidding. The second time he asked, she thought he was crazy. The third time, she believed and said, “Yes.”
Now the early days of their marriage were as beautiful as could be, as their love began to grow. God even blessed their union with a son. “Jezreel,” they called him.
Look at verse 4: “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 king of the house of Israel.’”
So far, so good.
But it didn’t take long till Hosea noticed a change in Gomer. She became restless and unhappy, like a bird trapped in a cage. He kept on preaching, begging his nation to turn back to God. But that’s when Gomer started spending a little more time away from home.
Now the Bible doesn’t say exactly what happened next. We can only guess. But whatever happened, suddenly Gomer was pregnant again. And though this time it was a beautiful little girl, Hosea was pretty sure it wasn’t his. That’s why he called her, “Lo-ruhamah,” a name that meant, “No Mercy.”
Look at verse 6: “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.’”
And just as soon as little Lo-ruhamah was weaned, Gomer conceived for a third and final time. And as Hosea looked at the little boy and held him in his arms, he called him, “Lo-ammi,” a name that meant, “No kin of mine.”
Now it was plain for everyone to see. He couldn’t hide it anymore. And no matter what he said or did, no matter how much he loved her and cared for her, Gomer still ran off to her other lovers. Then finally, worst of all, she hit rock bottom and was dumped on the street, with absolutely nowhere to go and no place to hide.
What would you do if your wife did that to you? Hosea could have said, “Goodbye and good riddance. You were a waste of my time!” No one would have blamed him at all.
But that’s not what he did. Instead, driven by an amazing, forgiving, unbreakable love, he searched for her and found her at, of all places, a slave auction, chained to an auction block—ragged, torn, sick, destitute and dirty, a mere shadow of the woman she once was.
That’s when the bidding began. “Ten silver coins,” shouted one voice. “I’ll give you twelve,” said another. Hosea said, “Fifteen.”
Someone else said, “Fifteen and twelve bushels of barley.” “Make it fifteen silver coins and eighteen bushels of barley,” said Hosea. “It’s a high price,” he said. “More than a year’s wages! But it’s all I’ve got.”
So she was sold to the highest bidder.
What does all this mean for us? As one author put it, “God doesn’t love you because of what you do. God loves you in spite of what you do. And God doesn’t love you because of what you are. He loves you in spite of what you are. And when you understand just how much He loves you, how much He was willing to give up for you, then you respond to Him in love, sacrifice and praise.”
Nearly a hundred years ago, a preacher named Clovis Chappell told the story of a young man from Chicago, who went down to the state of Kentucky, where he met a woman whom he dated, then brought back home to be his bride. For three years, their marriage was good, till one day she suffered a stroke. She was never the same. At her worst, she screamed and the neighbors complained.
So he took her and moved her to one of the western suburbs, where he built a house, hoping to nurse her back to health.
But when she still didn’t improve, her doctor suggested he take her back to Kentucky to see if that could make her well again.
So together they went back to her old homestead. They walked through the house where memories were behind every corner, and they went down to the garden and walked by the river where violets bloomed. But after several days, nothing seemed to happen. Defeated and discouraged, he put her back in the car, and headed back home to Chicago.
When they finally made it home, she was sound asleep. It was the first deep, restful sleep she had in weeks. Then he carried her from the car, then laid her on the bed and let her sleep some more.
The next morning, she woke up and saw her husband sitting in a chair by her side. She said, “I feel as though I’ve been a long journey. Where have you been?”
After days and weeks and months of patient waiting, he said, “I’ve been right here waiting all along.”
If you were to ask where God is, the answer would be exactly the same. He’s right here, speaking to you again. He’s waiting and watching. And He’s hoping you’ll throw yourself, with all your heart and body, soul and mind, on His grace, and discover the unfathomable depths of His love.
Hosea and Gomer—does God really love us like that?
Let me tell you! He gave us metal in the mine. He gave us trees in the forest. Then He gave a miner skill to dig up that metal, and the lumberjack to chop down a tree.
Then when the metal was mined, a blacksmith, with his fire and hammer, formed a spike and a carpenter made a cross.
Then when the cross was ready, God came in Jesus Christ. Then He stretched out His arms and died.
And He did it all for us, that we might have forgiveness, that we might have eternal life.
This is our God, and there is no one like Him.
We thank You, dear Father, for the prophet Hosea and for his wife, Gomer. Help even us to know the wonder of your rich, deep, unfathomable love. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen