Dirty, Ragged, Sinners

Pastor Rod Thompson

Midland SDA Church

April 18, 2020

Has God ever asked you to do something you didn’t want to do?  Or perhaps He wanted you to do something that you didn’t understand why, at the time?  We probably all have had an experience like that.

Story – Brand new Christian, neighbor didn’t like me – her problem.  Lord working on me – try to fix the problem.  Didn’t want to – she was going to tell me what a rotten person I was.  I will go – but you have to make it easy for me.  She came out put her hands on her hips.  I know you don’t like me – tell me why.  Ripped me apart (everything 6 years earlier).  I am so sorry I have offended you greatly and have caused you such pain.  God has gotten ahold of me and is changing me and I’m going to try and make this right and hopefully you can find room in your heart one day to forgive me.  Walked back into the house

That story is mild compared to the story of Hosea.  God tells His prophet to go and take for himself a wife of harlotry.   Now, normally when you get married you promise to love, honor, cherish and obey one another.  But Hosea heads into this marriage knowing that his wife is going to be unfaithful.  In fact after one point, after being gone for a long time, and not knowing where she is, he finds her being sold on the auction block – and he buys her back. 

I don’t know about you but I think the book of Hosea is the most shocking book in all the bible.  Few people can imagine what it would be like to be married to a woman like Gomer.  A woman with no moral inner compass, no restraint, you could never trust a woman like her.    You could know that she was always looking for excitement. 

You could see her inviting the attentions of other men, and then when you call her out on it, she would vehemently deny it.  The ability to make a commitment would never be a part of her character. 

She would disappear for days at a time and you wouldn’t know where she was.  She would cruelly mock you.  And you would be the laughing stock of the town.  She was full of moral depravity. 

You know Hosea is not the only one that this has ever happened to.  It has happened to men and women throughout the world, but Hosea went into this relationship with his eyes wide open. 

He knew what kind of a woman she was.  But God had said to him, go and marry her.  And he willingly did so in spite of the difficulty, the enormous pain that he knew it would bring into his life. 

Sometimes God would call a prophet and give them words to speak to the people of Israel and Judah.  He would give them words of warning of impending judgment.

In doing this, God was trying to draw them back to Himself, to spare them the pain of that judgment.  At other times He would give them words of love.  Were He would try to bring them back to the affections that He had for them.

He would remind them of all of the love that He had for them, all that He had done for them, and try to bring them back to a living connection with Him. 

But, you know, sometimes words fail.  And God had to resort to another kind of communication.  He would give His prophets a message to act out. 

The prophets actions would be a living drama, playing out the message of God, in a dramatic way. 

He told Isaiah to remove all of his clothes except a loin cloth and walk around the city depicting the horrors of war and exile. 

He told Ezekiel to lay on his side and to eat a starvation diet that would be cooked over animal manure, to show the people what it would be like when the city is besieged by its enemies, and the horrors of war that would be inflicted on the people if they didn’t repent of their sins. 

You’ll remember that He told Amos to hold up a plumb line to show the people that their lives were out of balance. 

There were many of these prophetic plays that took place.  But none of these were so painful as when God told  Hosea to marry a hooker. 

Why would God do something like this? 

It was an on-going drama of God’s marriage to unfaithful people.  People like you and me. 

As the people saw Gomer, a woman with no moral sense becoming more and more vulgar and more diseased every year, they remembered that she was the prophet’s wife.  And he had married her knowing that she was going to be unfaithful.  

God wanted them to see that there was a parallel between Hosea’s relationship with gomer and God’s relationship with them. 

They were to be married to God.  We are to be married to God.  And yet they were unfaithful to Him and loved many other gods. 

That was the message of this drama being acted out.  But it was more than just a simple message.

It was actually a three-part message that God was giving to Israel and to us. 

The first message that we can see from the life of Hosea is that God’s love is unreasonable.  Did you get that?  God’s love is unreasonable. 

Who can explain God’s love?  If love always made sense, the it wouldn’t be love.  Love doesn’t always respond to logic.  The thing that God told Hosea to do would make no sense to us. 

But then god’s love for Israel and for us doesn’t make an sense either. 

The question of the book of Hosea should not be – why God would ask Hosea to marry Gomer, but rather why God would marry us? 

Why would God commit Himself to a people who are not faithful to Him?  It doesn’t make sense.     

If God was going to commit Himself to a nation, why wouldn’t He commit Himself to a people that he knew would be faithful? 

If God was going to choose a people, to love them, why wouldn’t he choose those who would be grateful for His love and thankful for His blessings?

If God was going to commit Himself to a people, why wouldn’t he select those who were trying to follow His laws and appreciate the wisdom of His ways?  

According to our way of thinking, God’s love is unreasonable. 

Think about it for a minute.  When you are looking for a mate, a spouse, you are looking for someone who will love you back.  Aren’t you?

We would look for someone that we thought we could trust, someone that would be faithful to us.

But God chose us!  I want to show you one of the most outrageous verses in all of the Bible. 

Read 2 Timothy 2: 13

When God enters into a covenant of love with us, the covenant does not depend on our faithfulness.  It depends on the faithfulness of God.

When God enters into a relationship with us, we can count on Him to be faithful.

Somehow we get it into our minds that God loves lovely people.  But God loves sinners, like you and me.  He pursues us just like He asked Hosea to pursue Gomer. 

In His pain, He comes looking for us.  And when we become enslaved by our sins, He buys us back. 

In Romans chapter 3 we see the predicament that everyone of us is in

Read Romans 3: 10-12

But in spite of that, God does something completely irrational.  He loves us anyway.  And He sought a way to buy us out of our slavery to sin. 

1 Peter 1: 18-19  Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20   You are not your own, you were bought at a price. 

I like the way Steven Curtis Chapman – a very famous musician once said,  “In the gospel we discover that we are far worse off than we ever thought, and far more loved than we ever dreamed.”

You know, there is a natural, logical kind of love that loves lovely things and lovely people.  That’s logical.

And then there is another kind of love that doesn’t look for value in the things that it loves, but rather creates value in what it loves.    

When my daughter Rachael was 3 years old -  given a little rag doll.  Soon they became inseparable companions.  Other toys of greater value, but none she loved as much as that little rag doll.  And it didn’t take long before that rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll.  Became dirty – If you tried to wash it became more ragged.  The logical thing to do would be to through it out on the trash heap.  But not if you loved Rachael. If you loved Rachael, then you loved hat little rag doll as well.  It was part of the package.

It doesn’t make any sense at all, but God loves dirty ragged sinners.    And you can’t separate Him from them anymore than you  could separate Rachael from that doll. 

God’s love is unreasonable. 

The second thing that we can learn from the life of Hosea is that God’s love is tough love. 

Hosea never minimized the nature of the wrong that Gomer had done to him.  The pain was real.  His love had been betrayed.  He didn’t gloss over the situation, he took it seriously.  And when Gomer insisted on being unfaithful to him, HE LET HER GO!

He understood that it was to her detriment.  He knew what was ahead for her.  She no longer wanted anything to do with him, so he would no longer be able to help her.  She was on her own. 

It was what she wanted.  But she couldn’t see the mistreatment that laid ahead of her.  She would be used and abused.  She would be called names by those who were supposed to love her. 

She would be beaten and treated like an animal. 

There would be many things that Hosea could not protect her from, because she had run away from him.  She would have to earn the lessons of life, the hard way. 

She would have to live out the consequences of her choices.  Hosea would write about people like her.

Read Hosea 8: 7

Job says something very similar

Job 4:8       You reap what you sow

In Hosea 2 God describes what He is going to do to us when we are unfaithful to Him. 

Read Hosea 2: 6           I’m going to put this into today’s vernacular and apply it to ourselves.   Replace she with you

I have another daughter that was married to a Christian – she gave her life to the Lord when they met and I had the Joy of baptizing her. 

They were married for several years, but then she came to Sabrina and I one day and told us she was filing for divorce.  She said she was tired of pretending to be something she wasn’t.  We talked about it and I told her it sounds to me like you are really walking away from God and not your husband, and you are willing to leave your family to walk away from God.  And I warned her of what it would be like. 

Made her own decisions and went through with it anyway.  And several months later she called up crying, telling of all the things that had gone wrong in her life, and how hard it was.  And after an hour of compassionately listening to her tears of sorrow.  I had to show her some tough love.  I said to her, sweet heart, this what I was trying to warn you of, when you walk out from underneath the umbrella of God’ protection, these are the kinds of things that happen.

It’s not that God gets angry and causes these problems, but He knows that the problems will be there if you are not under His wings of protection.  And when you go out these are the kinds of things that happen.  

Many people have quoted William Ernest Henley’s poem titled, “Invictus,”  which praises the indomitable human spirit.

It goes like this –

“ Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

You know what the problem with Henley’s poem is?  It’s not true!  You are not the master of your fate, you are not the captain of your soul.  There is another that claims that right. 

And when we fail to recognize God as the master of the world, and your fate as well.  Or worse you rebel against the true captain of your soul, you do so at your own peril. 

Many people have walked away from God and then wonder why things are so hard.  And if you desire to walk away from God’s love,  He will let you!

But you won’t like it.  God’s love is tough love. 

The third message that we can learn from the book of Hosea is that God’s love is unconditional. 

You and I, often give up on each other, don’t we?  When we have someone, who betrays us we write them off.  We count them as dead, even, when our love and trust has been betrayed, but God is different. 

In Hosea 3 Gomer’s sin has worn her out.  And now she has been stripped of everything and she is being sold as a slave on the auction block.  None of her former beauty remains.

It may be that she is being sold by a house of prostitution.  It may be that she is being sold by a slave owner who no longer finds her desirable.  It may be that she is selling herself.

But what ever the case may be Hosea does the unthinkable.  He buys her for himself. 

The price was very low.   About a half an announce of silver and some barley, a grain inferior to wheat.  He paid about half the price that you would normally pay for a woman slave, in those days.

Apparently, she didn’t have much value in the eyes of those who were watching, and they were just glad to get rid of her. 

I don’t know if you knew this or not, but the name Gomer means chosen.  Possibly referring to us be chosen of God. 

But now Gomer has chosen to go her own way, ruined by hard living and no one will have her anymore – except one man.  Hosea will make her his wife again.

A living symbol of God’s unconditional love, for faithless people. 

Read Hosea 3: 1

It would have been one thing for Hosea to excuse a foolish or sinful mistake of his wife.  But even after he confronts her she continues brazenly in her sin. 

She flaunts it, she mocks him, forgetting everything that he has done for her. 

But God told Hosea to go and buy her back from slavery.

Why would God do such a thing?  Because that’s what God does.

Hosea was acting like God.  God’s love is unconditional

King David wrote in Psalm 139: 7, where can I go from your spirit, where can I flee from your presence?     

But there is a better question then that, that we should be asking.  And that is –

Why would we want to walk away from God?  Why would we run away from Him?  And the answer is – because it’s a part of who we are. 

It’s apart of our carnal nature to run away from God, and it is a part of the nature of God to pursue us.  Even when we are at our worst. 

But you can never run so far, or so fast, that you can outrun the love of God. 

No matter where you have run, no matter what you have done, He wants you – and He sees you as His beloved bride. 

God doesn’t through us out on the trash heap when we fail, or we get a little dirty. 

One of the greatest movies that I have ever seen is called “Les Misérables.”  It is based on a book by Victor Hugo. 

In this movie a man by the name of Jean Vel John, is a despicable human being.  A miserable man, who has done all kinds of terrible acts, who has been in prison.  Get’s out of jail – tries to straighten out his life.  But people treat him badly, so he goes back to his old way of life.  Goes to a church to steal from them,  takes the collection plates, candelabra, large knapsack of things – walking down the road and the police stop him.  Recognize the items- take him back to the church, parsonage is next door.  Priest gives him more – collects things of value. 

Why would you do that?  Because there is a od in heaven and He loves you.  He has shown great mercy to me.  And because I have His grace in me, I am showing you grace as well.  Take these things and sin no more. 

Jean Vel John – life changed.  Begins to show grace to others.  Showed grace to a woman by the name of Fanteen. 

Single mother who lost her job, who resorted to prostitution to support herself and her daughter Cassett.  But one day Fanteen is beaten by a group of men and left for dead.  Jean Vel John finds her, barely alive, takes her to a place of safety and begins to care for her. 

When she is strong enough to realize what is going on she says to him, why are you doing this? 

At first she thinks he just wants what every other man in her life wants, but soon she begins to realize there are no strings attached.  And finally she cries out, why are you doing this for me, don’t you realize that I am a sinful woman and Cassett has no father? 

Jean Vel John speaks these amazing words of grace to her – “The Lord is her father and you are His creation, and in His eyes you have never been anything but an innocent and beautiful woman. 

Brothers an sisters, that is God’s unconditional, inescapable love. 

We see ourselves as we are, but He sees us as what we can become.  God knows the value of each and every one of us, and the Apostle Paul asks this amazing question in

Romans 2:4         In retrospect to that knowledge.  Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that god’s kindness leads you to repentance.     

That’s the way God’s unconditional love works.  It leads us to come home to him.

We are prone to wander and leave the God we love, but when we recognize that love of God it should draw us back to Him

Titus 3: 4-7          But when the kindness and the love of God our savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

We have a God who gives us unconditional love.  Yes, sometimes it’s tough love, it’s unreasonable love. 

And what are we doing with it.  Perhaps you have been unfaithful to your heavenly lover.

It doesn’t take much for us to wander from him.  You think you can’t be forgiven, but friends, that’s exactly what Satan wants you to think. 

But God is waiting with arms wide open, waiting so that He can receive you back.  All we have to say is Lord forgive me, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve fallen down.  I’m a dirty ragged sinner.  Will you forgive me

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Is it the desire of your heart?  Maybe you’re not that far off, maybe you are.  Let’s stand and pray.