Understanding God's Unfailing Love | Hosea 2:14 - 3:5

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, We're just two guys who talk about the Bible, and so we appropriately named our fun Yeah, fun practical ways. Yep. So we propriately named our podcast the Daily Bible Guys because we do money through Friday. And then if you really want more of Chris or Jeff or both, if you are up for that kind of punishment, you can go to Heritage Church dot com and there's a whole message archive of years and years. Yeah, our Sunday stuff we served out the same church, Heritish Church in southeast Michigan, yep. And yeah, lots and lots and lots of lots. Which leaves Saturdays would be the only day that that really we don't do anything. Yeah, So you can go back and listen to the HC Daily podcast and then you can fill. In, Yeah, how many podcasts were of those one hundred and seventy something and seventy podcasts of HG Daily. Yeah, And by the way, those are archived on the Bible Guys dot com. That's okay, So if you go to our website, the Bible Guys dot com. You can find all of the previous podcasts of the h Daily. Is is kind of what it started, Heritage Church Daily, That is what that stood for. And then then we switched over to the Bible Guys. Okay, little promo. Yes, so today, Jeff, we are moving into a piece of the finest news you're going to read for us. Yes, yes, so I shifted the news. I found another super relevant article. And we only bring the finest, yes, only the finest news sources. We scour the internet for the most trustworthy things. And this is a special This is at our church right now. Small groups are there are happening right Yeah, almost everybody's in small groups. And if you're not in small groups, you're a nerd. So all the kids are doing it. We're all in small groups right now. And so I found an article on our favorite news source called the Babylon b Yes, it's a satire thing, but for those of you that are in small groups, it says this. Here's the here's the headline. It says, Christian couple praying their kids throw up so that they can avoid hosting small group tonight. That's great, Tulsa Oklahoma local couple Mark and Ellen Lindell prayed fervently today for their three year old to vomit so they could avoid hosting small group tonight. Deeply fatigued from their daughter Emily waking up several times the night before, and with their home erect, the Lindell's turned in prayer to ask the Lord to please let Emily hurl just once. We really really need Emily to toss their cookies and soon, said Mark. We love our small group, but we're in a bad way right now. Come on, sweetheart, just blow some trunks for daddy. With Emily showing no signs of barfing, the Lindell's began considering alternatives. We could always burn the house down, said Ellen. I really would love to say, see everyone, I'm just so exhausted and overwhelmed right now. If the house was in ashes, everyone would understand. Right at publishing time, the Lindell's ha decided to actually tell their small group the truth and ask for so much needed non upchuck related prayer. So there you go. That's fun. Do you ever have that? Well, I mean, it's it's hosting it. Oh no, it's. The introverts hilarity right. Yeh. So you know, the introvert is is the person who says, I will do just about anything to avoid what I do not want to do tonight, which is have people over my house. Well, signing up to lead a small group seems like a good idea, yeah, and then all of a sudden you're like, man, I got to get the house clean, and we got to get some snacks out, and it's going to take a couple of hours to do to host the group, all these things, and so yeah, sometimes life can just get really crazy and then you're just trying to find any excuse not to do it. It's around that fifth or sixth week for me. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, because you sign up and sometimes you're in a you know, perpetual. Wow even for you because you are the quintessential extrovert. Yes, well yeah, yeah, I mean not as much as I was in the past. Actually I'm slightly more introverted than I was. But at one time when I took the Meyers Briggs Personality Profile test, you know, I think there's what twenty four possible. Points or something something like that. Sways up and down, and so you can you can be like twenty four points extrovert and zero points introvert, and that is exactly what I was. Oh wow, as extroverted. As extroverted as the person could be. But I think now, the older you get, the more you get crabby, and I think, I think now it would probably work to be something like twenty probably like twenty extrovert for introvert. I bet you, Wow. I can handle being alone now way more than I could back then. I remember being a listen. I remember being on the third floor of a place that I worked, and I realized that I had to go down to my car to get my book bag. But it was like all the way down the elevator and all the way across the parking lot and then all the way back up, and I thought, I don't want to walk alone, so I had to. I walked around the office and said, hey, you want to walk to the car with me. I did find somebody just to go, just to go. I was like, hey, let's walk and talk. And then somebody walked and talked with me, and I was like, isn't this great? And they're like what are we doing? I'm like, we're walking and talking, and you're like, what is the matter? With you. Okay, well there you go. Man. For me, I'm happy to be with people I love. I love to be with people. I love people. But I'm less extroverted than you. I'm just above on the east side, but I could easily flip to the side if. You're probably like fourteen to ten. Or something something like that. Yeah. So, speaking of being extroverted and introverted, oh, Osey, I had a very extroverted wife, very extroverted. Now there's a description, how do you describe rosa d very extrovert. So if you're new, we're always trying to find the worst possible extroverted, the worst possible transition. Yes, So yesterday we established we're telling we've been going through chronologically the big stories of the Old Testament. We've been in second Kings and in second chronicles, and it's coming towards the end of Israel's time. God's going to send the greatest judgment. And if you missed yesterday, you need to go back and watch yesterday's or listen to yesterday's podcast, because we set the stage where God said, I feel like Israel is cheating on me, and Hoseiah wound up marrying a prostitute to demonstrate this exact idea, and God finally says, I'm going to she's no longer my wife. Israel is no longer my wife, And the same kind of thing happens happens here where she is kicked out of the family, essentially right. So here's what it says in Hoseiah chapter two. We're going to pick up from there where God basically divorces Israel and everything I gave her she gave to bail she's cheating on me. God is broken hearted. But then you get to the end of God being mad and really kind of you know, telling her off, and then he said and prosecuting her in court. By the way, then it says, but then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from captivity in Egypt. When that day comes, says the Lord, you will call me my husband instead of my master. Oh, Israel, I will wipe the names of it. The many names of bail from your lips, and you will never mention them again. On that day, I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky, and the animals a scurry along the ground so they will not harm you. I'll remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid, peace and safety. I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. And I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord. In that day I will answer, says the Lord. I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds, and the sky will answer the earth with rain, and the earth will answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapevines, and the olive trees, and they in turn will answer Jezrael, God plants. At that time, I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. And I will show love to those I called not loved, and to those I called not my people. I will say, now you are my people, and they will reply you are my God. Then the Lord said to me go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them. So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. And then I said to her, you must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution. During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me. It shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or prince, and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols. But afterward the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord, their god, and to David's descended their king. In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness. Wow, that's beautiful, isn't that something? Yeah, that's really great. And you know it's the what was it yesterday or the day before? You said you made a comment and said God does not promise to bless outside of obedience. Remember that, Yeah, you made that comment, and that is true. There's no promise of blessing outside of obedience, and yet God still chooses without the promise, yeah, to bless outside of obedience all the. Time, extend mercy. Yes, it's just we we get blessings when we don't deserve it. Right, So there are people who do bad and fail and you know, rebel even and yet and yet God is just gives us grace and mercy and in our favor and continues to give us blessing upon blessing even though we don't deserve any of it. Yeah, you know, I thought about that comment, and I agree with you on this. I think I think my intent in saying that yesterday was the answer. The operative orbers promise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have any reason to expect God to bless me apart from obedience. When I'm obeying him, I do have the right to expect him to obey to bless rather. When God says if you do this, then I'll do this. Well, then if I go and do the thing he tells me to do, I have the right to expect that he will keep his word and bless me that that then so my expectation. So it's not that God never blesses God extends mercy to whom he'll extend mercy right, and grace to whom he extends grace. So God often will give me what I don't deserve. That's the whole idea of grace. But I don't have any reason to expect blessing unless I'm obeying. Well, that would be the. I agree one hundred percent with that statement that you made, because you weren't making a statement about God's blessings at all. You were making a statement about God's promises, yes, and you were. Saying, yeah, I just wasn't clear on it. Yeah, yeah, I took it as a good thing. But then I was overwhelmed, even because you know, we moved on and talked about other things, but I was overwhelmed with thinking like that is true. God doesn't say this blessing will come without a promise. It's attached to a condition or a promise. But all the other times when we do fail and we don't keep that, blessing still do come randomly for some right, and that's mercy, and that's mercy and grace. And so anyway, what I was going to say is that comment the other day, whether it was yesterday, day before, I can't remember that's this chapter. Yeah, right, yeah, that's this chapter, because it's it's just like and but I will once again win her back. So God just went through like a divorce you. I have the right to divorce you. I have the right to reject you. You have done everything. I have everything I need to, you know, to strip you and leave you wanting. Right, and and he says, but it starts with butt verse fourteen. Right, it says, but then I will win her back again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. And it's just a beautiful picture of God giving us blessings when we don't deserve them, and giving us love when we don't deserve them. And so we're on the other side of the cross. And so you and I, you know, we have to understand that, like God's forgiveness is limitless, God's mercy is limitless, God's love is limitless. And even though that, we're just people who try our best in most cases, and we're you know, we're good people who fail, and we're unfaithful and we're imperfect. And the depravity of man sometimes is more prevalent the harder we try, right, And yet God will still continue to give us what we don't deserve, and that's mercy, right, And he gives us favor that we haven't earned, and that's called grace, right, And so it's it's it's it's mercy that we don't that we don't deserve, grace that we haven't earned, and it's and it's limitless. And that's what I see here. God just takes a turn and says, in spite of all of this, in spite of this awful illustration of Gomer and Hoseiah, he says, now, I want you to go back and I want you to love her. I want you to purchase her. I want you to pay. And by the way, that's even symbolic, isn't it. It's it's he's like, He's like, I want you to pay a price. And so it's going to cost you silver, it's going to cost you a barley, it's going to cost you a measure of wine. I want you to literally buy her back that which was already yours, by the way, right, and yet yet she has strayed, she has gone off, and so and so you're going to have to buy back that which was already yours. That that was lost, and that's the picture of Jesus on the cross. Can you imagine this this woman that has has just thrown herself at this wickedness and all the consequences of that. So there's always, you know, the the image of the beautiful young thing running around Vegas or whatever. What they don't normally do is get to the end of that story. But we've all seen that that person that's just been abused and used up and right hurt. They've hurt themselves, They've been hurt by many people, and this is what I'm imagining here in this situation. And oftentimes at that point, then you know she's being sold for some reason. She's just some man's property. At this point, she's not autonomous, she's not able to make her own choices. She's totally ravaged by her life circumstances, and somebody else owns her. And Joseiah goes and I can just imagine looking through the city trying to find her. Right and when he finds her, she's on the auction block somewhere, and he keeps bidding and keeps bidding, keeps negotiating and negotiating, until finally he's able to say, okay, hey, I'll give you all my silver, I'll give you all my barley, I'll give you all the wine I've got. And then he says, come with me. And can you imagine how she must have felt when she realized he was the one who bought her back, right, that the guilt, her inability to make eye contact a at Yeah, the shame you did? What why you Can you imagine if there's a crowd standing around, they're outbidding, and then when she finally finds out, you know who who purchased her freedom, the ones she betrayed, the ones she betrayed, the ones she had cheated on. This is the exact picture of God. This is what he's trying to tell us, is this, this is what I did. The Bible says in First Corinthians, he said, listen, don't give your bodies to wicked things. This is what Paul says. Don't you know that you've been bought with a price? He says, so, and he's talking there about being sexually promiscuous, by the way, in that passage in Corinthians, he said, don't you know that you've been bought with a price? So you are not your own Yeah, therefore, glorify God in your bodies. Right, so for us to realize we are not our own. God bought us. We were slaves to sin, we have been. Our soul was ravaged by wickedness, and we had no right to even expect to see him in the crowd. And he won the bid. He took us back, He set us free. He unchanged this, unchained the shackles, and he gives us freedom again. And then God says, and so I'm gonna win her back. Not only did he buy her back, but now he's gonna win her back. It's not about possession here, right, It's about the relationship. Right. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to win her back to me. The purchase was the legal requirement. It was just to set her free for the relationship. Right. It was she was in bondage to set her free, right, Joseah wasn't one who put put her in bondage. She was already in bondage. He had to buy her back to set her free. But God says, I'm gonna I'm gonna win her back. I'm going to lead her into the desert and they'll speak tenderly to her there this area that he's talking about, this Valley of Trouble is where Aiken wound up hiding the money and stuff from a I remember that from Jericho. Rather, you've been in that. Have you been in Jericho around Jericho areas? So once you get outside the town of Jericho, it's unbelievably desolate. There's just no distractions, there's nothing to do, and it's just it's a desert place where you're not thinking. You know, where I want to go on vacation. I want to go to the Valley of Trouble. That's where I want to go. But what God's doing is He's you know, sometimes the desert place with God is better than anywhere else in the world without him. And so God will take us into the desert to where we're dry and thirsty and the only satisfaction we can find is in Him. And that's a pretty beautiful thing. Yeah, that's great. And so the Book of Hoseiah goes on, doesn't it. Yeah, it does. It goes on for a very long time, and it almost seems like the story between Hosea and Gomer sort of is buttoned up a little bits. It's got this conclusion, this beautiful ending. And yet that's only in chapter two, and Hosea goes on for what fifteen chapters? Yeah? So four fourteen chapters? Yeah, and so we're gonna be are we gonna be touching this? Or I think we're gonna get fourteen I think we're gonna we'll go wrap it up and talk about it again. You know, there's a note in this Life Application Study Bible that talks about her Gomer. Yeah, Joseah loved Gomer, and Gomer seemed ambivalent towards her her husband. Apparently, marriage simply changed the label on Gohmer's behavior from promiscuity to adultery. She got pregnant three times, giving birth to two sons and a daughter. Hoseiah couldn't be sure if the children were his or had been fathered by other men, but he claimed them and named them as God instructed what a noble man? How good is Joseiah? And Joseah is a picture of Jesus? How good is Jesus? Right? All the mess that I bring into this relationship, he accepts and says, okay, sure you're all mine. Yeah, that's what a noble man he is. Yeah, that he brings these kids he's not even sure if there really is, but he brings them into the family. And then sometime after the birth of the third child, it says Gomer became enslaved in prostitution. Oseiah had to buy her freedom, and then he insisted on her faithfulness. It's just amazing. Probably the closest we come to feeling what Gomer felt are those times when we act unfaithfully toward God, yet he continues to faithfully lavish his love on us. Gohmer's shameful story turns out to be a thinly veiled version of our own story. We know Gomer better than we might think at first. For she was what we are, sinners offered overwhelming grace. That's what a phrase. She was what we are, Yes, sinners offered overwhelming grace. That's great. Well, hey, I think that's a great place to end and wrap up. So that is our time, and so we're going to pick up with Hoseah chapter fourteen tomorrow and wrap up this book of the Bible. So hopefully we will see you there on the Bible. Guys, h