That's the way it happens. He
reaches down, looks at us like a brand from
the fire, out of the hog pen. Turn to Hosea chapter 3, but we will touch
on chapter 1, 2, and 3. The name Hosea means Deliverer. His name means Deliverer, and
I'm sure when his parents named him that, they had no idea that
he was going to be such a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. the Messiah, the true deliverer
of God's people. Gomer means failure. Failure. When failure meets deliverer,
she goes from rags to riches. I titled this From Rags to Riches,
and I told Mike I was going change the title to Amazing Love, and
we'll probably change this title two or three more times by the
time we get through it. It's just an amazing, amazing
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and His love to us. You know, He told Hosea in chapter
3, look at this verse 1, unto me, go yet love a woman, beloved
of her friend, yet an adulteress." And here's how you're going to
love her. It's not going to be a pretended love. Don't pretend
like you love this prostitute. You love her. And you know what? God enabled Hosea to love her. He did love that woman. And listen
to what it says, according to the love of the Lord toward the
children of Israel. Now the children of Israel are
all who believe God. I'm looking at children of Israel
this morning. And I'm looking at a people whom
the Lord loves, loves. And at one time, at one time,
every one of us were spiritual prostitutes. Think about that. We really were. God sees our
hearts. You see, he tells it like it
is. He tells us what we really are. And then he reveals himself,
who he is, and his love, his love to us. Now, just let me
give you a brief story, then we'll go through and look at
this. God tells Hosea, he says, you go take a wife. And it's
not just any wife. It's not just the wife of your
choosing. You go take a wife from among a people that's given
to whoredoms, whoredoms. Go take a wife that's given to
fornication, her people given to fornication and adultery. This is the kind of people that
she's going to come from, an adulterous, wicked, vile, So Hosea does as he is told. He goes and he gets this young
lady. I think she at this time was
probably about the age of around fourteen. They married very early
in that day. I believe, and I don't know,
but I believe that she herself had not yet been given to these
the sins of the flesh, you know, the ways of her family when Hosea
first married her. But we will see that she does
go into this and then we'll relate this to the Lord's people. So
he goes and he gets this young lady and he marries her. She
has three children. And then Gomer, after a while,
she leaves. See, at first she did not love
Hosea. Hosea loved her, but she loved
her flesh. She loved her family. She loved
the way of her family, so she leaves Hosea. And she goes after the wicked
way of her own nature. But during all that time, all
that time that she's out there going after the sins of her flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Sound
like anybody you know? Does it feel like you're looking
in a mirror right now? You are. I am. This is us. But all this time that she's
going after the lust of her flesh, who is providing for her? Who
is really giving her her corn and her wine? Who's giving her
her wool? Who's giving it to her? Hosea. Hosea's doing it. She thinks it's her lovers. She
thinks because of who she is, she thinks she's so attractive that her lovers are supporting
her. She opens the door. And there's some silver. She
opens the door and there's some wool. She thinks, my lovers have
given me these things. I'm good at what I do. They love
me. She calls them her lovers. They
never did love her. They used her. And after a while we see
her on the option block and the toll of sin and the sinful life
has taken its toll. Ain't nobody wants her. She's
on that auction block and there's only one person standing there
that will have her, Hosea, her savior, her deliverer, her husband. He's the only one that can get
fifty cents for her. She's so wore out, sin has taken
its toll on her, no one wants her. But during this whole time,
Hosea is providing for her. She thought these gifts were
from her lover, but they weren't. They were from Him. And she praises
her lovers. She gives them the glory that's
due unto our Lord's name. He deserves all glory and all
honor. He gives us all we have. What do you have that you did
not receive? And if you received it, who gave
it to you? The Lord did, our deliverer did,
our hope. Well, we will see how she's brought
to shame, she's brought to poverty, and this is where sin always
leads. Now you mark it down, sin always
leads to shame and poverty, always, and loneliness. There she is,
standing on an auction block, a slave, belonging to someone
else. And as I said, there's one person
there that doesn't have anything to do with her. That's Hosea. There's only one person who really,
really would have anything to do with us because of who he
is. Not because of who we are or what we are, but because of
who he is. That's our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ. Now he
says in verse 1 of chapter 3, we'll start there and then we'll
look back. Then said the Lord unto me, unto
Hosea. You know, I've been reading through
Ezekiel, and when I was reading this, it just jumped out at me. If you read through the book
of Ezekiel, God has Ezekiel doing certain things, and He says,
this is what I'm going to do to the children of Israel. And
you're going to be an example. And here, He does this. I thought,
the first thing that crossed my mind was God puts His pastors
through what he's going to put that congregation through. You
go look in the book of Ezekiel. You can look at the others, but
he had to go through some stuff that was just tough. God said, this is what I'm going
to do to my people. And I thought, you know, for God to make a pastor
a pastor, he's got to go through some tough experiences so he
can identify with the people. Well, that was a thought I had
when I read this. But anyway, he said, Then said the Lord unto
me, unto Hosea, Go yet, love, and I mean truly love, a woman,
beloved of her friend, according to the love of the Lord toward
the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons
of wine. The Lord is going to put Hosea
through this in order to demonstrate his love To us, to us, His children, His people. All we, the scripture says, all
we have sinned, we've all gone our own way. That's the way of the flesh. We did not come into this world
in love with God. We ought to, shouldn't we? You know, it says that we can
go astray from the womb, what? Speaking lies. We have to be
taught to tell the truth. We have to be disciplined to
tell the truth. It is our nature to lie. Why did you lie to me? Well,
that's who he is. That's who we are. That's what
we are. We're born as the Word of God teaches us. We're born
this way. We're born liar. Let God be true and every man
a liar. That's what the Scripture says.
We come into this world estranged. We come into this world, as David
said, born in sin and shaped in iniquity. That's not just
the worst of the worst. No, that's everyone. That's every
one of God's children. Everyone's born this way, but
we are born also this way. Children of wrath by nature,
even as others." It says over in Ephesians 2. So Hosea does, as he's told,
look over in chapter 1. In verse 2 of Hosea, chapter
1, 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
whoredoms, departing from the Lord." He tells him, you go to
a vile, to a sinful people, and you take a bride. You take yourself
a wife, and you marry her. You join yourself to her, and
you love her. And God enabled him to love her.
I believe Hosea loved Gomer. When he first saw her, I have
no doubt, he fell in love with her. When our Lord chose his bride, where'd she come from? Before God created the heavens
and the earth. A bride was chosen. Where did she come from? She
came from a fallen, sinful, vile race. That's where she came from. Look
over in 1 Corinthians. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter
1, Verse 26, For ye see your calling, brethren,
that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base base things of the world, and
things which are despised. Here is a description of the
bride of Christ. Yea, and the things which are
not, praise and nod, things that are. What a description. What a description. God that created the whole universe. God that created all things.
All things are created by Christ and for Him. And what kind of people does
He choose? A vile? You say, don't call me
vile. I may not be speaking to you. A vile, wretched race of people. They make up His bride. They
make up the bride of Christ. He loved us before we ever loved
Him. We love Him because He loves
us. When the Holy Spirit sheds abroad
in the heart the love of God, Then that heart responds in love,
but there's no love there until that happens. There's not, listen,
there is not an ounce, not even a speck of love to God. I'm talking about the God who
is, not the God of our imaginations, not the God that we dream of.
I'm talking about the God of the Bible, the God of Revelation. There's not an ounce or a speck
of love to Him in any way, shape or form. When people find out
who He really is, if He leaves them alone, they leave Him alone.
If God leaves you alone, you'll leave Him alone too. You won't
have anything to do with it. We did not choose Him. He chose us. He chose the bride. If you'll notice here, God tells
Hosea, where to go, the people to choose the bride from, where
he gets his bride from. The whole arrangement is what?
Of God. This whole marriage arrangement
is of God. He tells him who to marry and
directs him right to this home, to this woman, and he takes her. He takes her to be his bride. But after they are married for
a while, after Hosea takes her home, they have three children,
but she does not love Hosea yet. She doesn't love him yet. She loves her family. Our Lord said, unless you hate
mother, father, sister, brother more than me, You're not worthy
of me. You've got to love me more than
them. He's not going to have a rival
for his love. Everyone in here is like that.
You take every one of you married couples and you're not going
to have a rival for your love. Not if you love them. Not if
you love your spouse. You're not going to have a rival,
I'm telling you. And our Lord's not going to have
a rival. We do love one another. Husbands love the wives, wives
love the husband. We're told to do that, and we do that. But
I tell you what, our love to Christ, there's no rival to it. There's no rival. Well, Gomer leaves. She leaves. She packs her bags. She takes off. She goes back
to her family, and she goes into She goes into prostitution. Can you imagine this? Now, what would we naturally
do? We'd naturally divorce her. We would naturally get rid of
her. That's not going to happen because
God didn't get rid of us. You know, when I was reading
this, I really tried to put myself And we say, you know, we say,
oftentimes, but by the grace of God, there go I. And we do
believe that. But I tell you what, sometimes
we just say that without the real experience of it, the heart
experience of it. And I thought, I'm Gomer. That's me. That's me by nature. That's who I am. That's what
I am by nature. So she leaves. Hosea, and she
goes after the way of her family. She becomes
a prostitute, an adulteress, and that's how she lives for
a while. She lives like that for a while. She was from a people
of whoredoms, and when she becomes of age, she walks that same path. You know, that old nature that
we are born with, It rules the day. It rules us. It rules. We don't rule it. It
rules us. It controls us. That's why man
doesn't have a free will. He's not free. You've got to
be free to have anything free. Right? If you're not free, then
nothing about you is free. The way of her parents. This
is what she was born into. This is who she was. And finally,
she just one day, you know, Jose may have been out somewhere.
She just took off. She goes back home and she falls right into
that lifestyle. Falls right into it. Listen. Before the world began, God entered
into a covenant with our with our Deliverer, with our Hosea. He chose us in Christ before
the world began. That's what it says over in Ephesians
chapter 1. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world. But when we came into this world,
when we came into it, how did we come into it? Lost. We came into this as nothing
but a bunch of spiritual prostitutes in love with our flesh, in love
with the ways of this world, in love with the principles of
this world. That's the way we came into this world, though
we have been here before the world began. We were here before
the world began. But when we came into this world,
we came into this world through a sinful race, Adam and Eve and
all those after. We inherited that. We inherited
that. And until God does something
for us and in us, we will follow that. Now, we will follow that
to the T. We had no trouble trying to fulfill
the lust of the flesh and of the mind. That's what we seek
daily. When, you know, back before God
flooded the earth, when He looked down from heaven, He said the
imagination of man was evil once in a while. Every now and then. He said continually. He said they don't have any break. There is no break in their thoughts.
There is no break in their imagination of evil. There's nothing that we can do
by nature that does not have sin in it. We can't tell the
unadulterated truth. Can't do it. Can't do it. Because there's always sin in
it. Sin is always in it. In everything we do. That's the bride that Christ
chose. That's the bride he chose. We are not born into this world
as innocent babes. Now, I do believe that all babes,
children, mentally handicapped, are redeemed by the blood of
Christ. But babies die because of sin.
They die because of sin. You know, all it takes is for
a little time to go by All it takes is a little time
to go by, and you find out what those children are made of, don't
you? You find out what they're made of. How much time does it
take to go by? Not much. About as soon as you
get them home. Keep you up all night? You got
to change your diapers? I mean, it's right from the get-go. From the womb, he says, they
go astray, speaking lies. We are born fallen. That's how
we were born. And all it takes is time and
opportunity. And you find out what we're made
of. It doesn't take long. It is our nature to love sin. We drink iniquity. Scripture
says we drink iniquity like water. Like water. All this time, she's gone. All
this time, she's out there prostituting herself. All this time, she's
out there loving and fulfilling the desires and the lusts of
her flesh. But all this time, this is amazing
love. This is amazing love. This is
amazing. None of us can do this. Because she can't stand Hosea.
She really can't. But all this time, Hosea is giving
her her corn and her wine. All this time, Hosea is taking
care of her. She says in verse 5, I will go
after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool
and my flax, there in chapter 2, mine oil. and my drink." Who was giving her that? Hosea. Hosea. He took care of Gomer
even in her rebellion. All that time she was out there
sleeping with others, Hosea is taking care of her. He's seeing
to it. He's seeing to it. that she is
taken care of very well. He's seeing to it that she has
something to put on to cover herself. He's seeing to it that
she has money. He's seeing to it that she has
a place to sleep. Hosea is doing that. She doesn't realize it yet. Just like us. We grow up. We get an education. We get a
job. We work. We do this. We start
to accumulate. We start to buy. And we think
we're just intelligent people. Very talented. Very good at what I do. Who gave
you what you do? Who gave you the mind? Who gave
you the mind and the intelligence that you have? Who gave it to
you? God did. Who gave you the job you have?
God did. He has given us and taken care
of us even when we were in rebellion against Him. That's the picture
here. While we were in absolute rebellion
and hatred of God, He's taking care of us. He's feeding us.
You ever hear the old slogan, don't bite the hand that feeds
you? Well, we've been it plenty of times. Plenty of times. But he kept on feeding us. Kept
on feeding us. Kept on taking care of us. I can look back just at my teenage
years. There's a couple of times I can look back and I ought to
have been dead. Eighteen, seventeen, eighteen
years of age. I should have been in the grave. A friend of mine
is at nineteen. I'm not. He kept me and brought me to
the gospel. He brought me to meet my deliverer.
My deliverer, my Hosea, took care of me all that time. He
provided for me. He provided a family for me to
live in, took care of me. That's the way he does all his
children. That's the way he does every one of his gomers, or a
bunch of gomers. Really. He takes care of Gomer, how gracious
our Lord is to his people throughout our whole lives, from the cradle
to the grave, our whole lives. Provides for us, blesses us,
even though we hate him. You know Gomer, when she'd open
that door, she'd get some silver or she'd get some wool and flax
you know, water and oil and her drink. She praised herself, her
lovers. Well, she was off base, wasn't
she? Our Lord gave all these. He gives
all these things to us. But now, now, Enough's enough. She's been out there long enough.
She's fulfilled the desires and lusts of her flesh long enough.
She's going to come back home. But this time when she comes
back home, she's going to come back home humbled. She's going
to come back home. She's going to love Hosea. She's
going to come back home. She's going to appreciate Hosea.
She's going to come back home. She's going to stay home. She's
going to stay home. And she's going to look at her
life, her past, and she's going to be sorrowful of it. What was
I thinking? Just ashamed. Ashamed. And you
know what? The Lord has to make us ashamed
of this flesh and the lust of this flesh and the things we
do in this flesh, the thoughts that go through our mind. We
are not ashamed of them until Christ makes us truly ashamed
of them. until we see them as they really
are. So God now is going to bring
down Gomer. She's out there just having a
good old time, she thinks. Look in verse 6, chapter 2. Therefore, behold, I will hedge
up thy way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find
her pass." Here comes Holy Spirit's conviction. This is what happens
when the Lord takes hold of a sinner. He's going to hedge up your way. Every time you put your hand
to something, it's not going to be a blessing. You're not
going to find pleasure in it no more. You're going to hate
that which you love, and you're going to start loving that which
you hated. But the first thing God has to do is make us hate
what we love. He's got to do that. Listen, you miss what happens
here, you miss Christ. You miss salvation. He says, She shall follow after
her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek
them, But shall I find them? Then shall she say, you know,
he's going to make her life miserable. Miserable. You will not find
true repentance to be joyful. It's sorrowful. You're sorrowful
over your sins. She said, I'll go and return
to my first husband. For then was it better with me
than now. For she did not know. Then I gave her corn, and wine,
and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared
for Baal. Therefore will I return and take away my corn in the
time thereof." Hosea says, I'm going to take it away. God's
moving his prophet now. He's going to take away the corn. He's going to take away the wine.
He's going to take away the wool. He's going to take away the flax.
And he's going to discover her nakedness. You'll never want, you will never
desire the righteousness of Christ until you learn you don't have
any. And until you learn that before God, you are naked. That you're vile and you're sinful. And you're wretched. He said, this is what she's got
to go through this or she'll never be a good wife, but she'll
never be a wife. to Hosea. She'll never love Hosea
no more than you and I would ever love Christ apart from Him
bringing us through this, seeing what we are and who He is. We have to discover, He discovers
to us, our nakedness. I don't think there's anything
I would hate right now more than to be
stripped naked in front of this crowd. And you too. Wouldn't that be the most humiliating,
devastating? Well, God has to do something
for it to be that. Before it didn't bother her, did it? This is heart work going on now.
There's heart work going on here. Because before it did not bother
her to be naked. in front of different people.
But now, oh now, there's a time that the lust of our flesh, the
desires of the flesh and of the mind did not bother us. But then the Lord takes hold
of us. He creates a new man, a new nature. And you are embarrassed. You're embarrassed to think of
who and what you are. And now he said, 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 Sabbath, everything
she takes pleasure in, in this flesh, God has to bring it down. He has to bring it down. He has to destroy it. He said, I'm going to take away
all of her joy in these things. I tell you, when your Lord truly
gives a repentant heart, you don't enjoy those things that
you once enjoyed. You don't enjoy the company you
once enjoyed. You don't enjoy it. I will destroy her vines and
her fig trees where she said these are my rewards that my
lovers have given me. Oh no. God's got to bring her
down. God has to bring us down in order
for us to truly love Christ and to despise our ways and love
His way. This has to happen. This has to happen. Grace means
nothing. It means nothing until you are
weary of sin. Righteousness, the righteousness
of Christ, means nothing until you are weary of the old rags
you got on. It means nothing. Love to Christ means nothing
until we really, truly hate ourselves, hate our way, and then we fall
in love with Him. We realize, we realize He has been giving me my corn
and my wine. He has been taking care of me.
He's the one been doing it. He's the one been doing it. Well, after he does all this,
there's a problem. She sold herself, as the scripture
says, under sin. She has sold herself. She now
belongs to someone else. She is now a slave to someone
else. She belongs to a fallen race. She's in the clutches of Satan and Hosea cannot just legally
walk up and take her. There's a price on her head now.
There's a price. So what does Hosea do? What does he do? He goes up to that auction. Look in chapter 3, verse 1. Then
said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman, same woman, same
woman he married some years ago. She's 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 I bought her. You know, the
law owned us. There's a curse on us. The soul
that sinneth shall surely die. There's a price on our head. And for the Lord to have us,
he had to pay the price. He had to be tormented in our
place. He had to die. His blood had to be shed. And
he did. So I bought her to me for 15
pieces of silver for an omer of barley and a hat omer of barley. That's the price of a slave. I can just picture this woman
standing on that block and they are auctioning her off. Her master doesn't want her.
She's no good to him now. She's wore out. Sin has taken
its toll on her. Just beat her up. And here are these people around.
You've got all these people around. And nobody wants her. Nobody
wants that woman. Except one. Except one. And he's going to pay the price. Whatever price is on her head,
Jose is going to pay it. Look at the price our Lord paid
to have us. Though he was rich, yet he became
poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. The price
he had to pay was humiliation. Here is a prophet of God. Here
is a prophet of God, preacher of the gospel, and he's going to identify himself
with this prostitute. This is my wife. He's going to identify himself
with that shame. He's going to take that humiliation
that comes with being identified with that person. And He's going to do it. He's
going to take the pain. He's going to take the humiliation
just as our Lord did. He endured the cross, despising
what? The shame. Do you know how much
shame He had to endure because of me and you? Because of you and I. Look at
the shame our Lord had to endure. Look at the pain He endured at
the hands of God. The wrath of God. Well, she's on that option block,
and Hosea paid the price. Just thy Lord paid the price.
It happens. And I said unto her, What do
you think? Why did you do this? Did you not love me? What did
I do to ever make you leave me and go into prostitution? What?
You know, he never got enough. He never got enough. Just as
our Lord does not remember our sins anymore. They're gone. You don't have to worry about
Him saying, you wretch, why did you do that? Why did you leave? Look at what you missed. Look
what you could have had all those other years. Look at the joy
you've missed. He doesn't bring it up. I said unto her, Thou
shalt abide with me many days. You're mine forever." This beat up woman, wore out
woman, Hosea said, You're mine forever. Thou shalt not play the harlot
no more. He's not going to be anyone's prostitute anymore.
You're my wife. Thou shalt not be for another
man. I tell you what, I know every man in here is thinking,
wow, the grace of God. What grace, what love it would
take to do that. Everyone in here understands
that. Every man and woman understands that. So will I also be for thee. Uzziah goes and he gets her, and he buys her. And that's,
listen, her eternal security is him. Her safety, her security
now, I mean, she's devoted to him. Christ has bought us. He loved us. He bought us. We
are his. Forever. You are not your own. You've
been bought with a price. This is eternal security. Christ is our eternal security. He said in one place, They shall
be my people, and I will be their God. And I will not, I'm going to
close with this, I will not turn away from them to do them good. They shall not, they shall not
depart from me. They said, I will not, I will
not, I will not, I will not turn away from them to do them good. You know, I look at, I can look
at now, even now, you know, we, in our minds and thoughts, we
do. You call it spiritual adultery. If you love, if Christ said if
you look on a woman as a lust after her, you've already committed
adultery in your heart. If you look on anything, to love and
take your attention more than Christ, guess what you committed
in your heart? Spiritual adultery. But you know
what he said? I will not, I will not turn away
to do you good, and you won't leave me. I'm not going to let
you. I ain't going to let that happen again. That won't happen
the second time. Not going to happen.