No Small Parts - Gomer
August 23, 2020 Sunday Evening Study

A good portion of this study was sourced from the audio of a sermon given by Jason Grissom of Eureka Baptist Church found on faithlife.com.

Hosea, a young preacher, is commanded by God to pursue a young woman by the name of Gomer. Gomer is a woman who’s like a city without walls. She’s defenseless against her own passions, and as a result, lived a life a perpetual unfaithfulness to whoever she was with.  Her history is littered with betrayal and brokenness. 

I can hear Hosea asking God; Lord, what possible glory can come from such command?

And God answers by saying; “Hosea, you and I are both going to completely give our hearts and lives to people who will utterly reject us, and we are going to spend our time and our hearts and our energy in going after those people. I am a husband whose wife is unfaithful to him. I am a father whose children have rejected him and are now destroying themselves before his very eyes. Unless you are part of that, unless you experience that too, you will never understand how my heart works. Once you come in and understand this, you will be able to model and proclaim my love to the world and then my glory will fill the earth like the waters that cover the seas.”

So Hosea does exactly this - he marries Gomer and has three children with her, each named for the result of Israel's betrayal of God. But Gomer slips and returns to her old lifestyle, breaking her covenant with Hosea. Yet Hosea pursues her, as God pursues Israel.

Read Hosea 11:1–11

Do you see what an incredible picture this is? God says, “I found a little boy once in a foster home, and I brought him home and I gave him everything. Yet now he rejects me, and now my children turn away from me, and now they are going down a destructive path, and they don’t listen to anything I say.”

You get down to 11:8, and suddenly we hear an incredible noise. God crying. He says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” which is the name of his son. “How can I give you up?” Then he says, “My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.” That word changed is one of the strongest words God could possibly use to describe his inner emotional state. The word changed is a word in the Bible that’s used to refer to the overthrow and the destruction of a city by an enemy. God says, “I’m torn to pieces.” God. “I am torn to pieces. How can I give you up, O Ephraim?”

Do you remember Jesus looking at Jerusalem in Luke 13, and crying and saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How I have longed to gather your children together, and like a hen, bring all your chicks underneath my wings. You who have stoned the prophets, you who have murdered those sent to you, but now you are not willing, and now they're hiding from your eyes?”

Here’s God saying, “I am all shattered inside. I can’t give you up.” Finally, what does he say in verses 9 and 10? He says, “I am not going to give you up. What I will do is I will roar, but I won’t roar in a way that destroys you. I will roar, and you will come trembling.” Trembling is a good word in Hebrew. You will come softened. “I will make you my lovers again. I will make you my children again. You will return to me.” 

God says, “Unless you understand I am a husband whose wife has left him, I am a father whose children have rejected him and who are destroying themselves before my very eyes, you will not understand my love, and you won’t understand how my heart works.” His love is not just any kind of love. His love is not mere affection. It’s not mere sentimentality. His love is the love that forged the worlds. Come! Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.

Hosea's love for Gomer was unforgettable. I suspect Gomer left Hosea thinking she was advancing herself. Lured from Hosea’s side by the enticement of exotic food, a fascination with fashion, and a lively lifestyle, Gomer’s path ended in much the same manner as others. She believed her way was one of ascension only to realize that it did nothing but create a greater distance for her fall. Depravity has a depth that no one has reached, and Satan continues to test us in its depths.  

Gomer’s life after Hosea was a series of failed relational transactions that landed her with a man who could not provide life’s most fundamental necessities.   Forsaken by his wife Hosea remained faithful. Though her choices had separated them physically, his eye remained ever fixed on her plight as she slid deeper into depravity’s depths.  Overwhelmed by her condition and overcome by his covenant Hosea arose and went to the place where his wife now lived. What was his intent? Has Hosea come to buy back his wife? No, he has come to keep his covenant. He vowed to act as a husband should regardless of his wife’s actions.  Hosea has not come to purchase but to provide for his wife.  

What we are witnessing either blows our mind or takes our breath. Many label this text as fiction. One gives it this designation because no one loves like this; while another says it’s a fairytale, a story that our hearts wished was true, yet our reality tells us otherwise. 

Our instinctive reaction is to say that this doesn’t make sense. May I suggest to you today that the love of God does not make sense. His love is sophisticated. It’s complex. Yes, it possesses an elementary level of understanding. There is an entry level for those who will believe. However, God’s love is for excavation. We are called to plum its depths, measure its heights, and survey its widths. An elementary understanding of His love can save you, but an excavation of His love will sanctify you.  

Hosea 2:5 ESV - 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.’

Hosea 2:9 ESV - 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.

We see Gomer embracing not Hosea for his provision but her lover. Can you imagine the pain the prophet must have endured? The one who could provide nothing receives praise for his provision. Do you feel your judgemental blood boiling?

Before you blow your horn in righteous judgment let me remind you that's the way you and I have acted all of our lives. Whose hand placed food on our table, clothes on our body, and a roof over our heads? We thank everyone and everything except the God who provided them. We thank our family, friends, even the strength of our own hands. Everyone and everything except the God from whom the blessing flowed

In an earlier statement, I said that God’s love is sophisticated and complex. We see this in more detail beginning in 

Hosea 2:14–15 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.

God’s love pursues. It is persistent. It is sometimes painful because it is a jealous love. The word Achor means the valley of trouble. Hosea's saying I'm going to lead her out into the wilderness. I'm going to allow her to stumble into the Valley of Achor, and there in that awful, dreadful place; I will open to her again the door of salvation and hope. What God did with the nation Israel God sometimes does with us. Sometimes when we persist in our running and our going astray, it's almost as if God takes his hands off of our lives and let us suffer and feel the consequences of our actions. We stumble into the Valley of Achor, place of broken dreams, broken hearts, and broken lives. It's often in that place that God opens to us a door of salvation and hope.

We see Gomer in this valley as we arrive in chapter three. Gomer has now fallen into the hands of a man who did not care for her. Her current relationship has decided to sell her into slavery. 

Slavery was an established institution in the ancient world. There was hardly a city that did not have designated days on their calendar set aside where men and women were bought and sold like animals. Secular historians tell us that auctioneers often present women stripped of all their clothing, and forced to stand before the gaze of the crowd. It was evidently to such a place that Gomer found herself and to such a place that Hosea was called to go.

Let your imagination insert you into this story. There is Gomer standing on the slave block head slumped in shame. There is Hosea is lurking on the fringe of the crowd. There is the crowd gossiping, “look there’s Hosea he has come to see her get what she deserves.” Then there’s the auctioneer who says; “let the bidding begin.” 

Someone says, "I'll give you ten pieces of silver for her." Somebody else says, "I'll give you twelve." Hosea says, "I'll give you fifteen." And somebody else said, "Well, I'll give you fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley." Hosea said, "I'll give you fifteen pieces and a homer-and-a-half of barley." The gavel sounds and Hosea pushes forward to buy his wife. 

Hosea, purchase in silver and produce was the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver, the fair market price for a slave in that day. I imagine the crowd is at first surprised by his purchase. “Why would he buy her after all she has done?” “Why not let her get what she deserves?” Someone in the crowd responds; “he has bought her to punish her himself.” 

Hosea 3:2 ESV - So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.

Hosea has not purchased his wife for revenge but redemption. He is not seeking to punish her but nurse her back to purity. It is easy to understand what he is doing; I just don’t understand how he has the strength of character to do it.

The reason that Hosea was able to love Gomer as he did was that the love of God was shed abroad in his heart. Hosea is playing the part with Gomer that God has played with you all of your life and that God has played with me.

Christ follower; God does not love you because of what you do. God always loves you in spite of what you do. God does not love you because of what you are He always loves you in spite of what you are. When you understand how much he loves you, then you will respond to him with love, praise, sacrifice, and service. The character of Gomer stood to make the character of God evident to us in a way that would affect us in a very personal manner. And now, as a result, we can see God’s love in a new light.