Go back with me to Hosea. Last Sunday evening one of the
brethren mentioned this story to me. We were just talking about
it in passing and Monday morning I got here and I started looking
at it and I realized again how amazing this story is. It is
so amazing. We are going to be truthful tonight. I think that's the best way I
can set up this message. We by, by God's grace, we're
going to be very truthful tonight, but also by God's grace, we're
going to see amazing love. I mean, amazing love. I want
to begin this by telling us something that we already know. Really,
that's what I want to do through the whole message. But it is
such a blessing that we know this. It's such a blessing. If we don't know this, then I
want to tell us something that we ought to know. We must know
this. Look with me first at chapter
3, verse 1. It'll tell us the whole reason
for this story. And this is the whole reason
for every account in the Word of God. Every single account. God wrote this Word for one reason. It was to show us what Christ
did for us. That's the whole reason. Chapter
3, verse 1, Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet. And I love the word yet. Even so, go yet. Go still. Love a woman, beloved of her
friend. The word friend translates husband. Beloved of her husband, yet an
adulteress. You go love that woman according
to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look
to other gods and love flagons of wine." That's the whole reason
for this story. That's the whole reason. Our
Lord recorded this to tell us something. And if He will speak
it to our hearts tonight, it will break these hearts in a
good way. in a very good way, it'll break
the hearts of God's people more so to Christ, more love to Thee,
more so to His goodness to us. And this story, I don't know
of a greater revelation of His love for His people than this
right here. I don't know of one. This is amazing. Chapter 1, Hosea
1, verse 1 says, The word of the Lord that came
unto Hosea. Hosea was God's prophet. And
another spelling and another pronunciation of his name adds
an H in the middle of it. Hoshea. Which is the same name
as Joshua. Which is the same name as Jesus. His name means salvation. That's the meaning of the name
Hosea, salvation. I love how the title of this
book, it just says Hosea. You go down through Isaiah and
it's the book of the prophet Isaiah and you go through Ezekiel,
it's the book of the prophet Ezekiel and the book of Daniel.
This just says Hosea. And they could have also titled
this salvation. This right here is salvation.
This man is a picture of Christ. He's a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse 1 says, The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea,
the son of Berih. His name means the well, the
fountain. This is the son of the well,
the son of the fountain. fountain of life, the well of
living water. Verse 1 goes on to say, in the
days of Uzziah, the king, it's about to name a few kings right
here. Uzziah, his name means my strength is Jehovah. And then it says, Jotham, his
name means Jehovah is perfect. Ahaz means the possessor. And Hezekiah, his name means
Jehovah has made strong. Those were all, verse one says,
kings of Judah. Judah means celebrated with praise. And in the days of Jeroboam,
his name means the contender. The son of Joash, his name means
given by the Lord, the contender given by the Lord. And Joash,
it goes on to say, is the king of Israel. Israel means prince
of God. This is Christ. This is clearly
all about Christ and his amazing love to his people. It's inconceivable. It's inconceivable. Here's why. Verse 2 says, The beginning of
the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, go
take unto thee a wife of Hortums. God told his prophet to go marry
that. He said, I want you to go marry
her. Now, I don't believe that we can enter into the depth of
what he just said. I put a lot of thought into this. I don't believe we can enter
into the depth of that. The reason is because we live
in a day when fornication is so common. It's just so common. I know there have been many days
just like this. That is now has already been, right? But we do
currently live in a day when whoredoms is so common and it's
just so natural. It's actually strange if two
people don't commit fornication. Those people are looked on as
strange, odd. And we live in Corinth. We just went through the book
of 1 Corinthians. In Corinth, the lifestyle in
Corinth was a mess. It was a total mess. But they
all thought it was normal. Everybody thought it was normal.
So God told Paul, you write to them. You write a letter to them.
And Paul wrote, flee these things. And God was saying that. He was
telling them, flee these things. And that's where this world is
today. We live in a sinful world, don't
we? We live in Sodom and Gomorrah. We live in such a reprobate world. that it's considered strange
if men and women don't commit whoredom. And they're not only
considered strange, they're considered separatist, outcast, an oddity. And they're also considered unwise,
foolish. You're going to commit your life
to another person, that person only. And you're going to commit
to a covenant of marriage without fully knowing that person and
knowing if that's the right person for you. That's foolish. It's
unwise. Don't do it. It'd be better to
just live together a few years. Don't do it. Well, because of that mindset
that this land is used to, because of this mindset that has influenced
us, I don't believe we can enter into the depth of what he's saying
here. I just don't know if we can get it. A forlorn woman,
a harlot, that's what she is, a harlot. That was not something
that a man wanted to be seen with. That was definitely not
something a man would marry. He wouldn't go out and tell all
of his friends and family, I am marrying this whoremonger. It was vile, it was unclean,
it was a disgrace, dishonorable, just vile, sinful. Verse 2 says,
The 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, the offspring of wickedness. For, here's why, here's why I
want you to do it. For the land hath committed great
whoredom departing from the Lord. That's why I want you to do it.
They've committed great whoredom departing from the Lord. Now,
our children are going to grow up in the world today, and as
their minds become ready, they need to understand that our God
said, be ye separate. Be ye separate. Don't follow
this world. The way of this wicked world
is not okay. We need to teach our children
this. This is not the way. Don't follow it. Don't fall in
with it. It's not the way. But with that
being said, The truth of the matter is there's not a soul
on earth that is truly separate from any sin that has been committed
in this world. Not one soul. There are some
who commit things physically, but all commit things in this
heart. all. There are some who have
done this or done that and they've been caught doing this or that
and they've been punished doing this or doing that. And some
haven't. Some haven't. But there's not
a soul on this earth that is exempt from any sin that has
ever been committed in this world. Think of a sin. Just think of
any sin. There's not a soul on this earth
that has not committed that sin in his own heart or her own heart.
And if we believe that's not the truth, we're deceiving ourselves. We've all committed it right
here in this heart. And to God, there's no difference. There
is no difference. Go with me back a few pages to
Isaiah 64. Now our text said that Hosea
was in the days of Uzziah, and Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, all of
those kings of Judah. So was Isaiah. He said, in the
year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. They were prophets
at the same time. They had been given the exact
same message, and it's the same message that God still gives
to this day. Isaiah 64, look with me at verse
6. He said, but we are all as an
unclean thing. We are all as a foul, defiled
thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. Filthy right there does not translate
extremely dirty. And I don't want to say this
to be crude, but I have to say this to understand what our God
wrote. The word filthy translates minstrel. He said that filthy rag is what
our best is to God. That's what it is. Verse six,
we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags and we all do fade as a leaf. And our iniquities,
our sins, our whoredoms, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.
For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities." All because of our iniquities. The book of
Leviticus continually talks about a man's uncleanness and a woman's
uncleanness. The uncleanness of their diseases. If a man contracted leprosy,
he had to be cast out of the camp crying, unclean, unclean. And that's us. This is us. This is all us. All of us. Now,
do you want to hear some amazing love? I mean amazing love. God said
to Hosea, God told salvation. You go down there and marry that
woman. You go marry that woman. I love
that song, Hail Sovereign Love, that first began the scheme to
rescue fallen man. Against the God who ruled the
sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, but thus the eternal counsel
ran. Almighty love, go get him. You go arrest him. You go down there and you marry
that woman. That's amazing. That's just amazing. Go with
me back to Hosea. Verse 2 says, the 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. So he went and took Gomer." Her
name means to end, to cease. That's death, isn't it? That's
what death is. He took this ruined woman and
he married her. Now, after that, she did not
remain faithful to him. Our story is not over. I won't
be long, I promise, but our story is not over. After he did that,
she did not remain. Can anybody enter into that?
Look with me at chapter 2, verse 1. Say ye unto your brethren,
am I, and to your sister Ruamah, plead with your mother, plead,
for she is not my wife. She's not a wife to me. Neither
am I her husband. She doesn't want me to be her
husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her
sight and her adulteries from between her breasts lest I strip
her naked and set her as in the day that she was born and make
her as a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her
with thirst. And I will not have mercy upon
her children, for they be the children of whoredoms. For their
mother hath played the harlot, she that conceived them hath
done shamefully. For she said, I will go after
my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my
flax, mine oil and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge
up the way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find
her paths. And she shall follow after her
lovers, but she shall not overtake them. And she shall seek them,
but shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go
and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me
than now, for she did not know that I gave her corn. She said,
I'm going to go after my lovers and get all those things. And
he said, she had no idea that I gave her corn and wine and
oil and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared
for Baal. The whole time that she was playing
the harlot, he said, I was the one setting corn out for her.
I was the one leaving wine for her. I supplied her with that
oil. I made sure she had all the silver
she needed. All the gold she needed. And
I'm going to tell you, that's exactly the case for you and
me. That's exactly the case. Since
the day we were born, all we have done is run off. That's all we've done. And the
whole time, has he not supplied our every need? Can we not turn
around and look back and say, everything I needed, he had it
sitting right there for me. Well, here's his goodness to
her. He's going to convict her. That's
his goodness to her. He's going to convict her. Horror would be if he let her
go. She won't. He married her. She still won't
stay. Absolute horror would be if he
let her go, but he's going to convict her. He's going to show
her. I see it all. I know it all.
Verse 9, therefore will I return and take away my corn in the
time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will
recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness. And now
I will discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and
none shall deliver her out of my hand. I will also cause all
her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
all her solemn feasts, and I will destroy her vines and her fig
trees. whereof she hath said, These
are my rewards that my lovers have given me, and I'll make
them a forest, and the beast of the field shall eat them,
and I will visit upon her the days of Balaam, wherein she burned
incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and
her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith
the Lord." He said, I'm going to strip her of everything. I'm
going to strip her of everything. And that's exactly what He in
mercy did for us. That's exactly what He did for
us. He could have let us go. But
He in mercy stripped us of everything, didn't He? We were harlots of
religion. We were harlots of the world.
Harlots of the flesh. Harlots of self. And He stripped
us of everything. He said, you have no reason to
be proud of anything. That's how man goes through this
world. Pride. You have no self-righteousness. None. You don't have anything. Everything you've ever had, I
gave it to you. And you've ruined yourself, and
you've wasted yourself, and you've sold yourself. Isn't that his
goodness to his bride, that he would reveal that? To put her
in a position that opens her eyes to her condition, causes
her to see who she is, what she's done, see who her husband is
and what he's done. Well, now here she stands, ruined,
wasted, sold, stripped. Will anybody have this woman?
Chapter 3 verse 1 says, Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet,
even so, go yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an
adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children
of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine. So salvation said, I bought her
to me. I went and bought her. In walked
God's prophet, her husband. He said, what's the price? I
will buy this woman back. I'll pay it. Verse 2, I bought
her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an omer of
barley, and a half omer of barley. And I said unto her, Thou shalt
abide for me many days. Thou shalt not play the harlot,
and thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee. He said, You're not going to
be for anybody else, and I'm not going to be for anybody else.
You'll be only for me, and I'll be only for you. Verse four,
for the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king,
and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image,
and without an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterwards shall the
children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and
David their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in
the latter days. That's the whole reason he said,
I told Hosea to go marry that woman. That's the whole reason. Now, I'm going to close this
out. Chapter 4, verse 1. He says to us, Hear the word
of the Lord, ye children of Israel. For the Lord hath a controversy
with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. I told Hosea to go
marry this woman. to show you your own condition. That's what he's saying. To show
you your own state. And then he goes through this
chapter, chapter 4, giving judgments against the people. That's what
he did through chapter 4. Chapter 5, he started giving judgments
against the priest. Chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter
8, he exposed their sin. Chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter
11, He told them the distress of their captivity. Chapter 12,
He said, You have provoked Me to anger. But look at chapter
13. Chapter 13, verse 2. And now
they sin more and more. After all that, what are they
doing? Surely they've learned by now. What are they doing?
Sinning more and more. Can we at all enter into this?
Bless our hearts. And now, after all that, they
sin more and more and have made them molten images of their silver
and idols according to their own understanding. All of it
the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, let the men
that sacrifice kiss the calves. Therefore they shall be as the
morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the
chaff that is driven with the world went out of the floor,
and as the smoke out of the chimney. Yet. That's what he told, that's
what he said to Gomer. Go yet. Verse four, he said,
Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt
know no God but me. For there is no Saviour beside
me, in spite of all that. He said in verse 9, O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. He said in verse 10, I'll be
your king. I'll be your king. He said in chapter 14, verse
1, O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen
by thine iniquity. Verse 4, he said, I will heal
their backsliding, I will love them freely. That's my favorite
line in the whole thing. I will love them freely. at no cost, with no price. I love him freely. For mine anger
is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel. He shall grow as the lily and
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and
his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow
shall return. They shall revive as the corn
and grow as the vine. The scent thereof shall be as
the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, what have
I to do anymore with idols? I've heard him and observed him. I don't need idols anymore. I've
heard him. I've observed him. I'm like a
green fir tree, from me is thy fruit found. And now he closes
this whole thing by saying in verse 9, who is wise? I'll tell us who is wise. Whoever
has Christ. whoever bows to Christ, and whoever
follows Christ, and whoever returns to Christ, and loves Christ. The only thing good about this
woman was her husband. That was it. Verse 9, he said,
Who is wise, and he shall understand these things, prudent, and he
shall know them. For the ways of the Lord are
right, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors
shall fall therein." Now, we are transgressors. We have fallen. But this is what our husband
said. We just read it in this chapter. Return unto me. Return
unto me. I've loved you. I've bought you. And in spite of all your whoredoms
and all of your adulteries, I'm going to give you double for
all your sins. That's what God says to us. That's what God says
to his adulterous wife. I'm going to give you double
for everything you've done against me. And that's the message in
every bit of this. That's the message in the whole
book. Return to the Lord. Come back
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You've run, you've fallen, return
unto me. Let's all run back to our husband. He loved us. He washed us from
our sins. He bought us back to himself
with his own blood. And the only thing we can say
about that is that's amazing love. We're just saying, how
can it be that God should love a soul like me? It's just amazing love. Amazing
love, how can it be? Inconceivable. But it's true. It's good news. All right, let's
stand together.