Let's open our Bibles now to
Genesis chapter 29. Genesis chapter 29. We'll begin reading in verse 11. And Jacob kissed Rachel and lift
up his voice and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he
was her father's brother and that he was Rebekah's son. And
she ran and told her father. And it came to pass when Laban
heard the tidings of Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to
meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to
his house. And he told Laban all these things.
And Laban said to him, surely thou art my bone and my flesh.
And he abode with him the space of a month. And Laban said unto
Jacob, because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve
me for naught? What shall thy wages be? And Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah,
and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed,
but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved
Rachel. And he said, I'll serve thee
seven years for Rachel, thy younger daughter. And Laban said, it
is better that I give her to thee than that I should give
her to another man. Abide with me. And Jacob served
seven years for Rachel. And they seemed unto him but
a few days for the love he had to her. And Jacob said unto Laban,
give me my wife for my days are fulfilled that I may go in unto
her. And Laban gathered together all
the men of the place and made a feast. And it came to pass
in the evening that he took Leah his daughter and brought her
to him. And he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto his daughter
Leah Zilpah, his maid, for an handmaid. And it came to pass
that in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban,
what is this thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve with thee
for Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled
me? And Laban said, it must not be so done in our country to
give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill her week, and we will
give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me
yet another seven years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled
her week, and he gave him Rachel, his daughter to wife also. And
Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, Bilhah, his handmaid to be her
maid. And he went also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more
than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And we'll
end our reading there. Let's bow before our Lord together. Our Father, we bow before you
this evening, a grateful and a thankful people. How thankful
we are for your mercy and your grace to your people, your eternal
love that you set upon your people that has caused you to redeem
your people from all of their sin. It's by your grace, by the
work, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, human
language, We can't thank you enough. We cannot express the
thanksgiving for your mercy and your grace. You so freely showed
to your people in Christ our Savior. Father, we're thankful,
but in this flesh we're a poor and a needy people. We look to
you today at this very moment to supply grace for the hour,
to supply our need in this hour. Father, how we need to hear a
word from thee. I beg of you this evening that
you would Speak to us through your word. Let us hear a word
from thee. Not the thoughts of men and a preacher, but Father,
speak to us by your word. Enable us to hear from thee.
Father, enable us to believe what we hear, to love what we
hear. Cause what we hear to cause us
to run to the Lord Jesus Christ and find in him everything that
you require and everything that we need. Father, we're thankful
for this family believers that you've called together here.
Father, there's so many right now who are in times of difficult
trial, sickness, heartache, and special need. Father, we pray
you'd be with your people. We pray that you'd meet their
needs, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort, that you'd give
a special portion of your presence. Comfort their hearts with your
presence as you bring them through the valley. Father, we pray that
you deliver them quickly, if it could be thy will. All these
things we ask in that name which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior. It's for his glory and his sake
we pray, amen. Well, I've titled our message
this evening, Christ's Love for His People. Now the story that
we just read, in most ways, is a very sad story, isn't it? But
there's also a beautiful story there, a beautiful love story
that is a picture of Christ's love for his people. I want us
to look just very briefly at the story, the human thing that
went on here in this story, and then see some pictures of Christ
that are here. Now remember, in the previous
verses, Jacob has finally arrived. Remember, he had to leave home.
He's on the run from his brother Esau. His mother and father sent
him to his uncle's house, Laban's house. He's finally arrived at
the town where Laban lives, and he's talking to some men there
at the well, And lo and behold, Rachel came with her father,
She. And you remember what we talked
about last week. It was love at first sight for Jacob. I mean,
this guy, he was defenseless. I mean, he was so in love as
soon as he saw Rachel. And that's why in verse 11, he
kissed Rachel and lift up his voice and wept. That was a sign
of great joy. And Jacob told Rachel that he
was her father's brother and that he was Rebecca's son. And
she ran and told her father. Lost my place here. And she ran
and told her father. And it came to pass when Laban
heard the tidings of Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to
meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to
his house. And he told Laban all these things.
And Laban said to him, surely thou art my bone and my flesh.
And he abode with him the space of a month. And Laban said unto
Jacob, because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve
me for naught? Tell me, what shall thy wages
be? Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah.
The name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel
was beautiful and well-favored, and Jacob loved Rachel. And he
said, I'll serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger daughter.
And Laban said, it's better that I give her to thee than that
I should give her to another man. Abide with me. And like
I said, from the moment Jacob saw Rachel, he fell in love with
her just head over heels and he wanted to marry her. Now Rachel
had an older sister Leah and scripture describes her as tender
hide. I looked that phrase up and it
means several different things. Um, more than likely what it's
referring to is she was not very physically attractive, but it
could also mean that her personality wasn't very attractive. It could
be that she was shy, but we kind of take this to mean she was
not attractive and maybe her personality, you know, wasn't
all that great either. But Rachel is beautiful. And that word means
fairest. Rachel was the fairest in the
land. And Jacob was in love with her. So Jacob and Laban entered
into this agreement. Jacob would work for Laban for
seven years. Well, for free. but he worked
for him for those seven years so that he could marry Rachel.
And Laban sounds like he thought, well, Jacob's not the very best
catch, you know, that I could find, but he's better than these
yahoos, you know, live around here. So yeah, I'll sign off
on this deal and let you marry her. You stay here and work for
me for seven years. In verse 20, Jacob served seven
years for Rachel and they seemed unto him, but a few days for
the love, he had to her. And Jacob worked hard those seven
years. I'm just confident he was the
best worker that Laban had. And he did it with a good attitude.
I bet he just whistled while he worked. He was so happy. And
whatever work he was given to do, it wasn't burdensome to him. It wasn't grievous to him. He
saw it as a happy thing. He's working to earn the right
to marry Rachel. He just loved her so much. Those
seven years of work were a joy to Jacob. He was happy thinking,
when I get this work done, I'm gonna marry Rachel. He loved
her so much, it just made work pleasant to him. That's a pretty
good love story right there, isn't it? But read on, verse
21. And Jacob said unto Laban, give
me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And
Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast.
And it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah, his daughter,
and brought her to him. And he went in under her. And
Laban gave under his daughter, Leah, Zilpah, his maid for a
handmaid. And it came to pass in the morning,
behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, what is
this that thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve with thee
for Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled
me? And Laban said, it must not be so done in our country. To
give the younger before the firstborn, Fulfill her week after, you know,
I guess that's a week of whatever was their custom. And then we'll
give thee this also for the service, which thou shalt serve with me
yet seven other years. And Jacob did so and fulfilled
her week. And he gave him Rachel, his daughter
to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his
daughter, Billa, his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in
also unto Rachel. And he loved also Rachel, more
than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. Now I
see some poetic justice here, don't you? Jacob, the deceiver,
he'd been deceiving everybody, hadn't he? Jacob got deceived. He met his match with Laban.
Laban deceived him. He did this quick change, and
instead of giving him Rachel, gave him Leah to be Jacob's wife. And Jacob thought all along he's
marrying Rachel, but he got laid. I mean, Laban pulled one over
on him now. Not only did he give him the
elder daughter, he knows Jacob wants to marry Rachel. So he
got seven more years. He got 14 years of labor out
of this guy. And in one week, a matter of
seven days, he married off both his daughters. I mean, Laban
comes out of this thing smelling like a rose. But this story is
so sad. I mean, I've just always felt
so sad for Leah. She's in this situation. She's
married to Jacob now. And Jacob doesn't love her. He
didn't want to marry her. I mean, you know, the day after
your wedding is supposed to be part of your honeymoon. He's all mad,
saying, what are you doing? I didn't want to marry you. He
didn't love her, but verse 31 states that more strongly. When
the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel,
was barren. It wasn't just Jacob's lack of
love. He hated Leah. He hated her for that. Now this
also, I guess, should be said. Leah has to bear part of the
blame for this whole situation, don't you reckon? I mean, she
had to be in on her father's trickery. Rachel was too. This wedding is supposed to be
a celebration. It's supposed to be for Rachel, the bride.
And she stays home, and her sister goes in her place. They knew
what was going on. They were all part of this situation
to deceive Jacob. But even though she has to bear
some responsibility for this, you just hate to hear of a woman
being married to a man that hates her. And she was married to him
the rest of her life with him hating her. She had to live the
rest of her life being compared to Rachel, being compared unfavorably
to her in her husband's eyes. That's just sad. I mean, that's
just all you can say about that. That's sad. And you see this
so often in the book of Genesis. This is such a sad situation. I mean, you could call it evil.
This deceit, this is evil. But the Lord is going to bring
good out of it. He gives us here some beautiful pictures of salvation
in Christ, our Savior. Number one is this. It was Christ's
love that moved him to come and save his people. his love for
his people. In seven years, a man can do
a lot of work. Jacob did a lot of work in those
seven and then 14 years so that he could have Rachel to be his
wife. Well, I'm telling you, there is a lot of work that goes
into saving God's elect. The law, it must be kept. Justice
must be satisfied. The father must be honored. And
Christ our Savior came and he did all of that work all by himself. He had no help from anyone. He didn't ask for any help from
anyone, and he didn't need any help from anyone. He did all
of the work by himself, and it wasn't grievous to him. It wasn't
just this horrible duty that was put upon him that he had
to do. No, it was a joy to him. It was a joy to him to do that
work because of his great love for his people. And Jacob pictures
that in several ways. Let me give you a few examples.
Jacob walked roughly 500 miles to go from his parents' home
to his uncle's home. 500 miles on foot. I bet once
he got there, once he saw Rachel, he was glad he did. The distance
was worth it when he saw her. The son of God made the longest
journey that's ever been taken to come from glory to this earth
as a man. to leave the throne of God and
come to this earth clothed in our flesh, yet without sin. It's the longest journey that's
ever been taken. The distance down that our savior
went in humbling himself to come where we are, that he might save
his people from their sin is a distance far greater than I
think you and I will ever recognize. The eternal son of God, the father,
scripture says, was made an embryo in the womb of one of his creatures.
The father whom the heaven cannot contain became an embryo, microscopic
embryo in the womb of one of his creatures. The eternal son
was born as a baby who is completely and utterly dependent on his
mother. All the while, She was still completely dependent on
him for her next breath. Go figure that. The lawgiver,
the one who gave the law to Moses, the one who wrote the 10 commandments
with his finger on those tables of stone, he's the lawgiver.
He now had to come and be made under his own law and obey his
own law. He even had to obey his parents. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. He had to obey his parents, even though... Now,
children usually, at some point, think, Mom and Dad, oh, they're
so outdated. They don't know. I'm smarter
than them. No, you're not, just in case you ever wonder. No,
you're not. Our Savior was. Wisdom himself obeyed his parents. How he humbled himself to do
that. Why? I mean, of all the things that
people do, boy, when you're humbled, that's tough to take, isn't it?
Why would our Savior take such a long journey and humble Himself,
humiliate Himself like that? It's because He loved His people.
And that's what it took to save them. And it seemed unto Him,
but a few days, a few days of obedience, a few days of appearing
in the flesh, Just a few days for the love that he had to his
people. But then after he obeyed the law perfectly, after he lived
a life of perfect obedience, he pleased his father in every
way. The holy son of God had to be
made sin for his people. He had to endure the suffering
of being made sin. The Holy Son of God suddenly
feeling the guilt and the shame of the sin of His people because
their sin became His sin. The agony of that in the Garden
of Gethsemane made Him think, my body's going to die. I'm not
even going to make it to the cross. This is so horrible being
made sin. I'm going to die right here unless
the Father strengthens me to do it. It was so horrible. Just
the thought of being made sin, He thought it could kill Him.
And then He went to the cross. And he willingly suffered everything
that sin deserved. Now, why would he willingly suffer
that way? You and I do everything we can
do to avoid suffering, don't we? Why would he willingly suffer?
Physically, his soul, he made his soul an offering for sin,
suffering the shame and the guilt of sin. Why would he willingly
suffer like that? because He loves His people.
He had to be made sin. He had to bear the sin of His
people in His own body upon the tree, because that's the only
way they could be made righteous. He had to take their sin away
from them and trade Him His righteousness. And He did it because He loved
His bride. Those hours of torment on the
cross, believe me, I'm not mitigating them in any way. They're just
more horrible than you and I can ever imagine. He suffered eternal
hell three hours on the cross. I mean, that's how horrible it
was. But it seemed unto him a few days for the love that he had
to his bride. The writer to the Hebrews said
that the Savior suffered all that willingly for the joy that
was set before him. The joy of redeeming the bride
that he loved. You think what he suffered. He
had to suffer. being separated from his father
because of sin. He'd always been one with his
father. Proverbs 8 talks about him being the delight of his
father. He'd always been with his father. His father's always
delighted in him. Now he's separated from his father.
At least he's separated from his father's love, from the mercy
and grace of his father. He did feel his father, didn't
he? He wasn't separated from his father's wrath. His father
poured out his wrath upon his son and would not even look upon
him in favor because he had been made sin. He suffered the eternal
debt, sin debt of each one of his people. He suffered until
that sin was paid for. He suffered until that sin was
been put away by his precious blood and justice was satisfied
by his death. Life himself had to humiliate
himself to die. Nobody could take his life from
him, he had to give it up. He gave up the ghost and died. Now
why would he willingly suffer? All that suffering of body, all
that suffering of soul, all that suffering of mind. Scripture
says he suffered as no man had ever suffered. Why would he suffer
that way? Because he loves his people.
And his suffering is the only way they could be saved from
their sin. So he suffered willingly. He suffered willingly. And it
seemed to him but a few days for the love that he had for
his bride. It's hard for us to be able to
accurately estimate the love of God. The love of God for his
people. You can't measure its length,
its breadth, its width, its depth. You can't measure it. Let me
give you a few scriptures here. Christ's love for his bride.
In John 13 verse 1, now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out
of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them until the end. Our Savior would not
quit his work of redemption. He wouldn't back off of it until
it was finished because he loves his people He loved his people
to the end. He loves his people and he'll
never quit loving them. Never. I don't think you can, I mean,
I know for sure you can't put a value on the love of Christ. You can't find a greater love
than his love for his people that moved him to save them.
He told his disciples in John 15 verse 13, greater love hath
no man than this. that a man lay down his life
for his friends. To think of our Savior counting
you and me as his friend, the friend of God, and he laid down
his life for us because of his love. Greater love can't be found
anywhere. And I'll tell you the way we
know that God loves us is the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. I don't know if I'm the only
one that does this. Sean, not only do I stop, I'm
flipping the channel rocky every time. I see some preacher, I
stop. I saw a man just last week, this
is what he was saying. God loves you and he wants you
to have a new child. He wants you to have a new car.
He wants you to have a new house. He wants you to have these things.
That's his evidence. That's God's evidence that he
loves you. And I just, you know, I'm gonna have a stroke one of
these days doing that. The evidence of the father's love is not stuff. It's not stuff. The evidence
of the father's love for his people is he sacrificed his son. Before we go popping off, making
statements like this, well, you know, God wants you to have these
things. This is evidence of His love, you know, for you. Why
don't we check that out with Scripture? This is what Scripture
says. 1 John 3 verse 16. Hereby perceive
we the love of God. Now here's how you know what
it is. Because He laid down His life for us. That's the love
of God. In 1 John 4, 10, herein is love. You want to know what love is?
Here it is. Not that we love God. We ought to love God. How can you not love God? He's
perfect. But that He loved us. And He
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin. He covered the sin
of His people with His own precious blood. Now, that's love. That's
love. And it's Christ's love for His
people that moved Him to do everything that it took to save them from
their sin. And he was happy to do it, motivated
by love for his people. Number two, Christ our Savior
was not deceived. Nobody is going to pull a quick
switch on him. He married the bride he came
to save. Now Jacob was deceived into marrying Leah, the unattractive
sister. but our savior was not deceived.
He knew exactly who his bride is. He went into this thing with
his eyes wide open. He knew exactly what she looked
like. He knows better than we do the ugliness of our sin, the
depravity of our sin. He knows it. He knew her and
he loved her anyway and chose her anyway to be his bride. That's
what Paul said in Romans five verse eight. But God committed
His love toward us in that while we are yet sinners, Christ died
for us. You can't clean up your act enough
for God to love you. God loves sinners. And the proof
of it is, He died for sinners. The Savior came to get His bride,
specifically her, by name. He's not trying to get just as
many people as He could get, you know, to decide to accept
Him, you know, and then those people will be His bride. Christ
chose a specific bride. The father chose a specific bride
for the son. And I'll tell you who he chose.
An ugly bride. Ruined in sin. But Christ loved
those people and he came to redeem that specific people that the
father gave to him to be his bride. And that's who he redeemed. Them and them alone. And they
will be joined to him forever. By nature, that bride is ugly. She, oh, she's ugly. But you
know, to him, to the Savior, she's beautiful. Just like Jacob
was utterly captivated with Rachel, her beauty, the Savior is captivated
by his love for his people, by her beauty, her beauty. Now her
beauty is his beauty, which he put on her, but he's captivated
by her beauty. He says in the Song of Solomon,
you've ravished me with one of your eyes. You looked at me and
you ravished, my heart was ravished with your beauty. Oh, he sees
his bride as beautiful. I know he made her beautiful.
By nature, she's ugly. He can't have made her beautiful
because he loves her. Then here's the third thing.
Salvation in Christ is a just salvation, always satisfies God's
law. In verse 25, it came to pass
in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, what
is this thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve with thee for
Rachel? Wherefore then has thou beguiled me? And Laban said,
it must not be so done in our country to give the younger before
the firstborn. Now it was their law, that country,
The older sister had to be married before the younger sister. Now
Jacob didn't know that, did he? But you know what? Ignorance
is not an excuse. Ignorance of the law is not an
excuse. The law had to be fulfilled. That's why Jacob had to marry
Leah first. The law required it. She's the
firstborn. But now when it comes to saving
the people God loves, the father, he can't just wave a magic wand.
He can't just issue a royal decree that wipes out the sin of God's
elect that wipes out the debt of God's elect even though it's
still there. He can't ignore the debt. He
can't just, you know, say, well, we're going to forget about the
debt. God's holy. He can't forget anything. He
can't forget that. If the people that the father
chose to be saved would be saved, the law has to be kept perfectly. They have to keep the law. They
do. There's no shortcuts now to this. The law must be kept.
But our problem is we can't keep the law. We can't keep it. We
can't deceive God, like Laban deceived Jacob. That's the thing
in false religion. All they're doing is going around
trying to deceive God. And you can't do it. We might
be able to deceive one another. And we try to do it. We want
people to think we're better than we are. But truth be told,
we can't. You know this. We can't deceive
each other into thinking we're perfect. I might deceive you
into thinking I'm better than I really am. I can't make you
think I'm perfect. I can't deceive you. We all know
better than that. Well, we sure can't deceive God.
God looks on the heart. Well, what's going to be done
about the demands of the law then? The law must be kept. Well,
if the law is going to be obeyed, God's going to have to obey it.
God's gonna have to come in the flesh and obey his own law as
a man. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ did. He came in the flesh and he dealt with God's law head
on. He obeyed it perfectly in every jot and every tittle. And
this is no small task. God's law is very demanding. There are so, so, so, so, so,
so many commandments to be kept, both inwardly and outwardly. The law even demands, you know,
we think of law, you know, don't lie, don't cheat, don't commit
adultery, don't take the Lord's name in vain. The law also requires
something from the heart. Perfect love for God. Now we
can't do it. Even if you and I had the capacity
to outwardly obey the law, inwardly we'd be bitter. This is so many
commandments, and we get bitter about it. I got a cute illustration
of this Sunday evening. Sunday evening, I was at Todd's
Road Grace Church, and I was talking to a little girl after
the service. She's in first grade. And I was
asking her. I've been trying to get this
kid to warm up to me. She finally warmed up to me.
I was so happy. I was going to keep the conversation going. And I
asked her about school, how she's doing in school. She said, doing
good. I said, do you like your teacher? And very enthusiastically,
she said, oh, yes. And Mrs. So-and-so, oh, yes,
I really like her. And then she stopped and she
thought for a minute. Her little forehead furrowed up. She said, well, most of the time. She's pretty bossy, you know.
I said, well, I think that's a teacher's job. They kind of
got to be bossy. They got to tell us what to do,
you know. And so we learn new things. She said, well, I guess. Isn't that us? Even if we could
outwardly keep the law, inwardly we'd be saying, God's pretty
bossy, got lots of rules. That's not loving God. That's
not loving God perfectly from the heart. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the only one who ever outwardly kept God's law and inwardly was
happy to do it. He delighted in God's law and
kept it perfectly. In every second of his life,
he kept the law. He had it on his mind to obey
that law, establish righteousness for his people. Now that's a
task that's so high above us. We just don't even know what
a difficult task that is, how comprehensive it is. But to the
savior, it was not a soul crushing task. It wasn't just grievous
all the time. It didn't cause him sorrow to
obey the law, to establish righteousness for his people. Because he loves
them. Because he loves his people. And if you really love somebody,
you know this. There's no amount of work that's too much for you
to do for somebody you love. There's no amount of work that
was too hard for our Savior to do to redeem his people from
their sin, because he loves them. Right, now here's the last thing.
These two sisters, they're a picture of the two natures of a believer
in this world. Now Leah is a good picture of
us by nature. And assuming that the definition
of the word means that she was ugly on the inside and out, tender-eyed,
you know, has to do with both her looks and her personality.
Now, it could mean that she was shy, you know, but it also could
mean her personality was not pleasant. You know people like
that. That's us. That's what being ruined in sin
does to us. It makes us ugly inside and out.
You see, Leah, she's the reflection that we see in ourselves when
we look in the mirror of the law. Our sin, our rebellion,
our refusal to obey God has made us ugly before God. Our sin has
made us the ugly sister. And I know that's probably not
politically correct nowadays. You probably ought not go, you
know, especially your children. Don't go quote me on that. I'm
public. But in here, I think I can say that. That's what we
are. We're the ugly sister. But Rachel, she's a picture of
what Christ has made his people by his sacrifice for them. See,
he was made sin for his people. When he was made sin, he took
the sin. He took the ugliness of sin.
Not just the commission of it, he took the filth of it. He took
the ugliness of it away from his people and took it into his
own body upon the tree. He made it his and he put that
sin away with his precious blood. He washed his people white as
snow and made them beautiful in his righteousness, in his
holiness. He made them beautiful in his
beauty, which he put on his people. So Rachel, She's the reflection
a believer sees when we look in the mirror of grace. Don't
spend too much time looking at yourself in the mirror of the
law. Look at yourself in the mirror of God's grace. The mirror
of God's grace says we're beautiful, the fairest in the land, because
that's what Christ made us by his righteousness and his holiness. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
husband, the bridegroom of his people. Now you think of who
he is. This man's somebody. He's the
prince of glory. He's the son of the highest.
He could marry any woman he wants. Now why would he choose to marry
the ugly sister? Because he loves her. He made
her beautiful in his beauty. See, it was love that caused
him to betroth himself to his people. even though they never
did one thing to deserve it. He chose to love them anyway.
There's a good picture of that in the book of Hosea. In Hosea
1 verse 2, Lord said to Hosea, go take unto thee a wife of Hortums. That's where he went and chose
Gomer to be his wife. That's what the Lord told him
to do. And you know the story, Gomer went off and seeing other
men and she became a prostitute. It was just awful. Awful embarrassment
for Hosea. She thought her lovers were giving
her corn and wine and things, and all along Hosea was the one
that was providing for her. I would imagine, wouldn't you?
He's ready to cut her off. And then chapter three, verse
one, the Lord said, go yet love a woman, beloved of her friend,
yet an adulteress. I know what she is. She's an
adulteress. She's a harlot. But you go love her, Hosea, according
to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel. who looked
to other gods. The Lord told Hosea, you go love
Gomer. That's going to be a picture
of my love for my rebellious people. That's a picture of Christ's
love for his bride. She's like Gomer. She's just
as ugly as an old, used-up street harlot. That's pretty graphic
language, but that's what she was. And that's what you and
I are by nature, dead in sin, worshiping our idols, committing
spiritual adultery against God. And God came and saved him anyway,
because he set his love on that adulterous people, washed her
in his blood and cleansed her and made her beautiful. Let me
show you that in closing, Ephesians chapter five. Verse 25. Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for
it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish. Our Savior did that. because
of his great love for his bride. Let me read to you in closing
what the songwriter said. The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star
and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair bow down with
care. God gave his son to win. His
erring child he reconciled and pardoned from his sin. Could
we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made?
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade?
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor
could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from
sky to sky. The love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless
and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints and angels
song. That's God's saving love for
his people. If God loves you that way, that's
going to be your song now and your song throughout eternity.
Because his love will never end. That's a love story. That's a
good love story. All right, let's bow to him. Our Father, how can we even begin
to thank you for your immeasurable love to your people? But Father,
we do thank you. We praise you for your love for
your people that would cause you to give your son as a sacrifice
for our sin. The propitiation that covers
our sin makes your people holy without blame before you. Father, how we thank you. Father,
cause us to dwell on Christ's love to a people that do not
deserve it, that we might be a thankful people, that we might
be a grateful people, that we might be a people that would
then show that love one to another. Father, it's in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ. For his glory and his sake, we
pray and ask these blessings. Amen. All right, Sean.