Bought With a Price
Hosea
This morning I am going to preach on one of the most unique passages of scripture. So you know it must be in the Old Testament. Open your bibles to the Old Testament book of Hosea. We’re going to look at a little bit of chapters 1, 2, and 3.
Read 1:1- 9
The words I have just read to you were written during the darkest days in the Kingdom of Israel. They were written in @750 B. C…. just a few years before that terrible day… 722 BC. That is when the Northern Kingdom, the 10 tribes called Israel, were defeated, routed, and taken captive by the mighty Assyrian army. God had been patient with Israel: sending them prophet after prophet after prophet. They had been hard headed, unreceptive, and unrepentant. They had been led by a series of evil kings with an occasional good king. A bad king would lead them to worship idols and forget the Lord. A good king would cause them to forsake their idolatry, tear down their idol-worshipping shrines, and return to the true worship of Yahweh. The Southern Kingdom, Judah would last a few years longer, 587 BC, because they had more good kings than Israel did. But eventually they too would fall.
But there was a Godly, faithful prophet in that day and God chose to speak, through him, to the Northern Kingdom, just before the fall. God’s patience was wearing thin.
God came to this prophet, Hosea, and gave him a very strange message. It is a message that was, first, for Hosea himself. But God would use this message and the events in the life of Hosea, to give a message to the ten tribes of the North. A LAST WARNING!! Which they did not heed!!!
So, the Spirit of the Lord comes to Hosea and gives him this message…
“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
Let me take one minute to take an aside…. This is a point that does not enter into my message but must not be missed.
Many are troubled because the scripture tells us that God told Hosea to go and marry a prostitute, an unfaithful, adulterous wife. That is a problem because God says that WE ARE NOT TO MARRY SUCH. Now, it seems, God is telling Hosea to sin.
Look at the scripture again… and children of harlotry. Is God telling Hosea to take on children that are already born of adultery? NO! He is telling Hosea that the children will be born out of adultery. THEY ARE NOT YET BORN. Verses 3 – 9 tell of the births of those children AFTER HOSEA MARRIES GOMER.
God did not tell Hosea to marry a prostitute, and adulteress. He told him that he could marry Gomer, but the bad news was that Gomer, WHO WAS THEN A VIRGIN (the only acceptable wife) WOULD….. LATER…. BECOME an adulteress… a harlot… a prostitute. SHE WILL BE UNFAITHFUL!
This must have broken Hosea’s heart… to think that the woman he loved would do such a terrible thing.. would commit the most offensive marital sin.
LISTEN>>> GOD DOES NOT CONTRADICT HIMSELF!!!
That is one way you can always know if something is God’s will…
If it contradicts scripture… IT IS WRONG!
Back to the story.
And so, Hosea marries Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Notice this is the only time one of the children is referred to as “his”, belonging to Hosea. At this point Gomer is not yet adulterous. This is Hosea’s child.
But God tells Hosea to give the child a strange name… Jezreel. It means “God scatters.” It is used of a farmer who sows seeds by broadcasting them.
The message to Israel is that God is about to scatter them across the face of the earth, as a punishment for the way that Jehu, one of their kings, murdered Joram.
This scattering takes place in 722 BC, when Assyria defeated Israel and made them slaves… scattering them out over many countries to be certain that they could not get back together and become a threat to Assyria. That scattering was known as the Jewish Deaspora, or dispersion. They were not a nation from 722 BC until the 1950’s. And they are still scattered all over the earth.
6And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him:
“Call her name Lo-Ruhamah,
For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel,
But I will utterly take them away.
7 Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah,
Will save them by the LORD their God,
And will not save them by bow,
Nor by sword or battle,
By horses or horsemen.”
This time Gomer gives birth to a daughter but it is not Hosea’s child. This time the scripture does not say she bore Hosea a daughter; it just says she “bore a daughter.” Then Hosea begins to suspect Gomer, that she has already been unfaithful. It was his great fear… he knew it would happen but he could not bear the thought that it would. Every day he had to wake up and worry, "Is it the day that she will be unfaithful?” Whenever he was away from her he worried that she might be committing adultery that minute. When Lo-Ruhamah is born, Hosea know that this child is not his.
And this child served as a “warning shot across the bow” of Israel… “My patience is wearing thin, I will not continue to show pity, or mercy.”
Lo = not Ruhamah = mercy….. I will not continue to be merciful.
But, Israel did not listen, so God sends another warning.
8Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9Then God said:
“Call his name Lo-Ammi,
For you are not My people,
And I will not be your God. .”
Now, he gets the news, it has happened, she has been unfaithful, had fooled around, had played the harlot. The thing he had feared every day, the thing he had nightmares about every night…. IT WAS NOW REAL! God told him so when he told him to name the child Lo- Ammi
Lo = not Am = people Mi = my NOT MY PEOPLE!!!
Imagine the heartbreak. And he could not even keep it a secret. Because God said, “Name the child ‘Not Mine’” Now everyone would know. God was sending a message to Israel that they had been unfaithful to God, that they had played the harlot with idols, they had been unfaithful to God by prostituting themselves for material things. And now, God would no longer treat them as his people. He would not protect them, would not bless them, and would withdraw from them.
He had said “You will be my people and I will be your God.” Now they have broken the covenant, had not been His people. Now, God said, “I will not be your God either.”
Hosea had to bear the public humiliation, the stares, the gossip, and the sting of public criticism. Imagine how hard it was for him to carry on his ministry.
BUT THINGS WOULD GET WORSE.
One day the religious leaders came to the house and took Gomer. They said to Hosea. “What are you going to do about this woman? You know what the law says must be done with her?”
Hosea knew! He knew that the law sentenced an adulterer to death by stoning. He knew she was guilty and he knew the punishment…DEATH!
But he also knew that despite how she had hurt him, how unfaithful she had been, how bad her sin was… HE STILL LOVED HER! It didn’t make sense! No one else could understand it! Hosea did not even understand it…. But he still loved her.
So, Hosea said, “Yes, I know the law. And I also know that you teacher of the law are experts at finding loopholes. And I know that there is a loophole in the case of adultery. Instead of being killed, there is another punishment possible; a kind of humiliation that is so severe til it is a “living death.” Hosea chose this loophole.
She was dragged through the streets as a crowd gathered to watch. She was taken to the Town Square, the market place, and the most public of all places. There, she was placed on a podium, where slaved were placed to be auctioned off. Her clothing was torn from the top to the waist. She stood there naked, humiliated, sobbing and afraid. She would be sold as used goods. She would not bring much; she was only good as a slave. She would be bought by some sleazy character and would spend the rest of her life in poverty and servitude. She would even be shunned by the slaves. She would be the lowest type of slave.
The bidding began. At first, just a paltry amount.
She was conscious of the eyes on her bare breasts. She was no longer young and beautiful. Her body showed the affects of childbirth and prostitution. She hung her head and did not dare to raise her eyes to meet those of the crowd.
The bids came, slowly, grudgingly, and miserly amounts. Even the amount embarrassed her.
Then, from the back of the crowd, loud, and cheerfully came another bid. “I bid fifteen shekels and a homer and a half of barley.”
There was astonishment in the crowd! Every head turned and every mouth was agape. Fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley? That makes 30 shekels… the full price for a male slave. It was an outrageous bid!
The bidding was only at about two shekels… why had he raised the bid so much?
No female slave, even young and able to have many children was EVER worth more than 15 shekels!
It was too much! It was ridiculous! It was unheard of.
Gomer heard the silence. She had heard the bid. And she recognized the voice. It was the voice of her husband, Hosea!
She was so ashamed til she could not look up.
The auctioneer was shocked. “Uh, Uh… Hosea?!!! Is that you? You bid how much???
Hosea is walking boldly through the stunned crowd. He does not look at them. His gaze is straight ahead, on Gomer. As he walks to her, the auctioneer asks, "Did you bid 15…”
You heard me, 15 shekels of silver and another 15 in barley.
The auctioneer is so shocked til he stutters… Do… do… Do I hear any other bids?
There is silence. No one would possibly pay half that much.
Then Hosea reaches Gomer. She has collapsed.. driven down by her incredible burden of guilt. She is lying there… naked, humiliated, her face in the dirt making mud with her tears. Hosea does not speak to her from above, but stoops down to where she is. He places his hand under her body and pulls her to her knees. Still she hangs her head in shame. Hosea takes off his own cloak and wraps it around her to hide her shame. Then he places his hand under her chin and lifts her face until her eyes meet his. And he says to her gently, “We’re going home now. And you will be for me and I will be for you.”
There may be no more beautiful story of love and forgiveness in the entire bible.
