2The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. 3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim.
If it happened in today’s modern church, it would be the most scandalous scandal ever heard of. It would be front page of the News Journal: “Local Preacher Seen With Prostitute.” It would be the lead story of on the ten-o’clock news. It may even make the Jerry Springer Show. It’s outrageous, to say the least. But this is the story of a prophet/preacher named Hosea who married a woman named Gomer.
Hosea was the first of the "minor" prophets. His name, translated in English, means “Joe,” which even adds more insult to injury in these modern times for the headline would read “A Prostitute and Her Joe.” But if you research the name Hosea, you will also discover that Hosea’s name is also related to the name Joshua, which means “salvation.”
Hosea was a young preacher in the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, and he was a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah and Amos. He lived, as we are told in the first verse, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (kings of Judah, the Southern Kingdom), and during the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, the king of Israel.
Jeroboam was one of the wicked kings of Israel and the nation was going through a difficult time when Hosea was preaching. People were "living it up," as we might say, and didn’t have much time for God. They wouldn’t have said that, of course, because nobody ever says that when it’s true! Instead they may have said something like we do: that it was just a case of not having quite enough time to meet the demands that God made upon them! They were so busy with so many other important things. The spirit was willing but the flesh was ready for the weekend.
So, as always, people didn’t pay much attention to Hosea. He spoke of judgment and of chastisement. He said that God was going to raise up the Assyrian nation to punish this people and that a fierce and ruthless army would sweep across the land like a scourge. But the people paid little attention to him, and they said that Hosea’s God must be a pretty vengeful sort to talk like that.
Hosea tried to tell them that wasn’t so. He said that God was a God of love and that his doing this was the very activity of love; that God wanted them to see what they were doing to themselves and that the only way he could get them to listen was to make things rough for them.
God sometimes works like that. Sometimes God will make things rough for you, just to get your attention! But they didn’t pay any more attention than people do today about things like that. Instead, they blamed God and said, "If God is really a God of love, then why does he let things get in such a mess? How could a God of love send a ruthless people like the Assyrians down upon our land?"
And so young Hosea found that his audience was diminishing. People were polite to his face, I suppose, but they sneered behind his back. He found that he was being given the nice-and-harmless treatment. That is what people usually do to preachers. Folk will often greet the man or woman of God with a great deal of respect, but as soon as the preacher’s back is turned they’ll say, “That boy is crazy!”
And I can imagine that their talk hurt Hosea. It’s a hurting thing when you are trying your best to preach and teach the word of God, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. And so Hosea is rather discouraged and in the opening chapter of this little book of prophecy we read a personal note about him. He went to God and God told him to do a strange thing. God said, "I want you to get married." I think Hosea brightened up at that, because he was a bachelor, and God said, "I have a girl picked out for you." When he mentioned her name, Hosea’s heart must have fluttered, because the name of this girl was Gomer, the most beautiful girl in Israel. Hosea was definitely interested.
But God said to him, "I want you to know the whole story about this girl. I want you to marry her, but she is going to be unfaithful to you; in fact, she will become nothing but a common street prostitute. But I want you to marry her anyway." Now undoubtedly Hosea was very puzzled by God’s strange command just as Abraham was puzzled by God’s command that he take his son out and kill him, put his own son to death. God does strange things at times, things we don’t always understand, things we can’t categorize, things that don’t fit into what we think we know of him. And this is one of those strange things.
He told Hosea, "I want you to marry this girl and she is going to be a harlot, a hussy, a skeezer, a hooker, a wench, a common street walker. And you are going to have three children by her, two boys and a girl. And when they are born I want to name them for you."
Hosea then began to understand a little bit of what God was doing. He knew it was customary in Israel to teach by symbols and God often used this method of instructing his people. He also know that names were very important - for God often used the meanings of names to teach Israel certain truths. And now God was planning to use this prophet and his family as a lesson for his people.
So Hosea went courting. Sure enough, Gomer was attracted to this shy young man, and at last he summoned up the courage to ask her to marry him. To his great relief, she said “Yes,” and they were married. At first it was heaven on earth.
I’m not trying to suggest anything about my own married life, or anyone else’s life for that matter, but let me illustrate what can happen to married folk if things start to go south. I have here some boxes of cereal that I want to use as an illustration on married life.
First we have a box of Rice Crispies:
Rice Crispies are very fresh and crunchy when you first open the box. They snap, crackle and pop. Which is typlical of new love. When you first meet, there are fireworks! There’s a lot of snap, crackle and popping going on. But when the milk gets on and stays there for a while, the snap loses it’s snap! The crackle loses it’s crackle! And the pop loses it’s pop!
Next we have a box of Cheerios:
Cheerios are little circles that float in the beginning. But after the milk has been on them for a while, cheerios sink and get soggy in the bowl. So it is with some marriages. In the beginning, you seem to be in a state of perpetual floatness! Whenever the love of your life and the apple of your eye walks into the room, you float with passion. But if you’re not careful, or if something goes a-rye in the marriage, things sink and get soggy!
Next, we have a box of Trix:
I think that speaks for itself, cause everybody knows: “Trix are for kids!” A lot of people have bad marriages because they never grew up and jumped into a relationship before they were mature enough to handle the responsibilities of it.
And then, we have a bag of Puffed Rice:
Puff Rice never lasts. The second anything wet hits it, it wilts! That’s the way it is with some marriages. The second there’s any hint of trouble, the two people who said “I do” - say “I don’t!”
Finally, we have a box of Shredded Wheat:
I think that’s the best kind of cereal and the best kind of marriage. Shredded Wheat holds up no matter what you put on it! If it’s dry, it holds up! If it’s wet, it holds up! Crush it if you want, it still holds up! Grind it if you want, it still holds up!
. . . And God was about to use Hosea’s marriage as a kind of shredded wheat - to show Israel that no matter how unfaithful she had been, that He still loved her! And I stopped by to tell you today that God still has a shredded wheat love for His children. You may have been unfaithful, you may be running around, you may be sneaking off to serve other gods, but God still loves you and is willing to forgive you and take you back!
The bible says that Hosea loved this girl. You can’t read this prophecy without seeing that. They must have been wonderfully happy together, and then they had their first child. It was a boy, as God had said. Hosea’s heart was filled to bursting, and he went to God for the name of this boy. "What should we name the lad?" To his surprise, God picked the name Jezreel. Now Jezreel means "cast-away" and was a name of shame in Israel.
Do you remember the bloody story of Queen Jezebel and Ahab? Ahab cheated his neighbor out of his property and stole his neighbor’s vineyard, and Jezebel was the wicked queen who put him up to it. At last God’s judgment fell upon her. She was looking out her upper story window one day when a general, Jehu, was down in the courtyard, and he ordered the servants to throw Jezebel out the window. They threw her out and she fell on the pavement and was killed, and the dogs ate her up, and the courtyard has been called Jezreel ever since.
Nevertheless, that was the name that God picked for Hosea’s oldest boy, his first son. And that was the name Hosea gave to his baby, for he understood that God was thus warning his people: they too would be cast away if they didn’t recognize the folly of their actions, if they didn’t turn from going after idols and giving way to abominable practices and trying to be like everybody else around them. God was warning them with this baby’s name.
In the course of time, another child. a daughter, was born to Hosea. This one was named Loruhamah, which means "not pitied." Imagine naming your little baby girl "not pitied." It meant that God would no longer have pity on his people if they continued their stubborn rebellion. His patience was wearing thin.
After some hundreds of years of trying to reach this stubborn people, he was now warning them that they w ere getting near the end. that a time would come when he would no longer pity them but would hand them over to invading armies.
When this little girl was weaned, Gomer conceived again and bore a third child, another little boy. And this one God named Loammi, "not my people," for God was saying, "you are not my people and I will not be your God." God had said that he would name these children as a sign to his people, but there would come a day of restoration.
In Hosea 2 & 23, God says:
"And I will have pity on Not-Pitied,
and I will say to Not-My-People, You are my people;
and he shall say, ’Thou art my God."
I can’t speak for you, brothers and sisters, but I thank God that He has pity on me. For like Paul said, “When I would do good, evil is present there with me.” Sometimes I know I don’t do God right, but thank God that He sent His only Son to pay for my sins!
And so even though God was upset with Israel, through Hosea’s bad marriage He was announcing that his grace was also being shown. I’m gonna leave you alone in a minute, but after this there were no more children in Hosea’s household - and Gomer began to fulfill the sad prediction that God had made when he had told Hosea to marry her.
What a heartbreak it must have been to this young preacher as he heard the whispers that began to circulate about his wife and about what happened when he was away on preaching trips. Perhaps even his own children may have unconsciously dropped some remarks about the men who visited when Daddy was away. And soon the children were left un-cared for while Gomer wasted all her time running around with these other fellows.
One day Hosea came home and found a note from Gomer: she had decided to find the happiness she felt she deserved, and she was leaving him and the children to follow the man she really loved. You know how those notes go: "Dear John..." Or in this case, “Dear Joe...”
Gomer passed from man to man, until at last she fell into the hands of a man who was unable to pay for her food and her clothing. Her first lover had given her a mink stole, but this one made her clothe herself from the Goodwill store.
News of her miserable state came to the prophet and he sought out the man she was living with. He knew where he would find him, down at the local tavern, and when he met this man, the conversation may have gone something like this. "Are you the man who is living with Gomer, daughter of Diblaim?" The man must have said, "If it’s any of your business, I am." Hosea said, "Well, I am Hosea, her husband."
It was probably a tense moment, but the man said, "What do you want? I haven’t done anything wrong." Hosea said, "Listen, I’m not interested in causing any trouble. But I know that you are having difficulty making ends meet. I want you to take this money and buy Gomer some clothing and see that she has plenty of food. If you need any more I will give it to you."
The man probably must have thought, "There’s no fool like an old fool. If this man wants to help pay her expenses, that’s all right with me." So he took the money and bought her Some groceries and went home.
Now you may say, ‘That’s a foolish thing for a man to do’ - but who can explain the madness of love? Love will make you do stuff you’d thought you’d never do. In 1966, a man by the name of Percy Sledge recorded a song titled: “When A Man Loves A Woman.” I know we’re in church, but I think the words of Percy’s song are appropriate for me to recite in this sermon. The words go:
When a man loves a woman,
can’t keep his mind on nothing else.
He’ll trade the world
for the good thing he found.
Yeah, if she’s bad, he can’t see it.
She can do no wrong.
Turn his back on his best friend
if he put her down.
Yes, brothers and sisters, love exists apart from reason and has its own reasons! Love does not act according to logic. Love acts according to its own nature. And so Hosea acted on the basis of love.
Undoubtedly he watched from a distance to catch a glimpse of the woman he loved as she rushed out the door to take the groceries from another man’s arms and to thank him for what he was bringing to her -- the gifts that her true love had provided.
How long this went on we don’t know for sure, but at last word came that the woman Hosea loved was to be sold in the slave market. Her current husband had tired of her and she was to be sold as a slave. The brokenhearted prophet didn’t know what to do. He went weeping to God. And God said. "Hosea, do you love this woman in spite of all that she has done to you?" Hosea nodded through his tears, and God said. "Then go show your love for her in the same way that I love the nation Israel."
So Hosea went to the marketplace and he watched Gomer brought up and placed on the dock and there she was stripped of all her clothing and stood naked before the crowd. The auctioneer pinched her and prodded her and showed how strong she was, and then the bidding began.
Somebody bid three pieces of silver and Hosea raised it to five. Somebody else upped it to eight and Hosea bid ten. Somebody went to eleven; he went to twelve. Then Hosea offered fifteen pieces of silver and a bushel of barley. The auctioneer’s gavel fell and Hosea had his wife back. He went to her and put her clothes on her and he led her away by the hand and took her to his home.
And when I think of God’s love for us, that’s what God did when He allowed His Son Jesus to go to the cross for us. Jesus went to calvary for low-down, run-around folk like you and me! Many times we try to run from God and drown our miseries in empty pleasures, or drink, or work, or social life. . . but as surely as we think we have escaped, as surely as we think we have run far enough, God touches our sleeve with his love and says:
“My child, my name and my nature are love and I act according to what I am. When you tire of all your running and your wandering and your heartbreak, I’ll be there to draw you to myself again!"
That is the story of the Bible isn’t it? At Bethlehem God entered the slave market where the whole human race was putting itself up for auction, prostituting itself and its humanity to a cheapened life. But on the cross the Lord Jesus paid the price, the full price for our freedom, and bought us back. This is the story of God’s love and God’s heart -- his loving desire to make of his people the full persons he intended them to be.
Thank God when Jesus went to calvary’s auction, His father let him die a horrible death for sins of the this wicked world... but early one Sunday morning, Jesus got up with all power in His hands!
I’m closing now, but if your life has lost it’s snap, crackle and pop...
If your life has lost it’s cheerio...
If your life and your joy has wilted like a bowl of puffed rice...
. . . let me suggest to you that you try Jesus!
His life was shredded on the cross, but it happened that you and I may see love personified! No wonder the song writer said, “At the Cross, at the cross where I first saw the light and the burdens of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight... and now, I am happy all the day!”
