Notes (Sept 22): Hosea & Gomer and The Door of Hope

Sabbath School Lesson
September 22, 2007
Teacher: Larry R Evans

What a powerful message Hosea has recorded for us. Is there hope for those who have fallen, who have made some horrible mistakes. Does trouble indicate the end or a possibility for a new beginning. Are we more like Hosea or Gomer? What kind of temptations must Hosea have encountered? What was the major obstacle for Gomer in coming back? How easy do we make it for those who have fallen to come back? All are questions that need prayerful reflection.

Questions for Reflection

1. Grace creates hope through troubling. True or False
   

2. God suffers because those whom He loves are untrue to Him. True or False
   

3. The difficulty facing God with Israel of old was Israel’s goodness. True or False
   

4. The message of Hosea is: Be more faithful to God than to the “gods” of this world. True or False
   

5. Hosea teaches that deep down in Gomer’s heart was some goodness that simply needed the right kind of nurture to develop. True or False
   

Introduction

Hosea is one of the most amazing books of the entire Bible. It captures our attention immediately. Scholars are divided as to whether Hosea’s wife was a prostitute when he married her or if she became one later. There is no question that God knew how she would eventually relate to Hosea. Hosea’s experience becomes an object lesson in which God interprets Himself to us. The tragedies and the eventual restoration of a love relationship between Hosea and his wife, Gomer, become a revealing object lesson for us—of God’s unconditional love for us who have hurt Him over and over again. Behind our study today lies a haunting question: If this is how God relates to our unfaithfulness to Him does this imply how we should relate to those who treat us in despicable ways? This is a question we must answer individually.

In brief, the story goes like this: Hosea marries Gomer and they have a son named Jezreel (God scatters), a name with connotations of punishment. Gomer’s second child and most likely not Hosea’s was Lo-Ruhamah (not loved) meaning that love will not be shown. Her last child and again not Hosea’s was named Lo-Ammi (not my people) which in the object lesson meant “you are not my people.” Judgment would come. Despite all that Hosea does for his wife she is lured away and lives the life of an adulterous woman. If the story would end there it would put us at ease because we could easily say Gomer, and the people she represents, got what she had coming for the terrible deeds of selfishness and betrayal she committed. But it does not end there. In the depths of Gomer’s sin Hosea is instructed to go back to her but that is not all. He is told to “show your love to your wife again.” Ludicrous! Painful! Impossible . . . almost! Then we find these startling words in chapter one,

“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ (1:10)

When a relationship goes from bad to worse is there any hope? Is there any sin so bad that causes all hope to vanish? That is our study for today.

Outline for Reflective Study and Discussion

1. Grace creates hope through troubling. True
   

One of the most profound insights in Scripture is found in Hosea 2:15,

14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
(from New International Version)

[ Achor—The valley in which Achan and his family were stoned to death for taking some of the spoils of Jericho, which w ere devoted to God.]

I wish every pastor, every Bible teacher, every parent, every spouse understood the import of these words! Troubles and hope are often companions—they are not necessarily enemies. Trouble does not have to be the end of the road. The kind of trouble Hosea talks about brings a new beginning though it may not look like it at the moment. G. Campbell Morgan put it this way, “The troubling is the reason for hope, ‘The valley of troubling for a door of hope.’

It is this connection between troubling and hope which reveals God. It is the relation between Law and Grace. Law creates troubling as the result of sin. Grace creates hope through the troubling.” (Morgan, Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God, p.19)

It is precisely the trouble that Gomer was facing that brought her face to face with hope! When she saw her folly the doors began to open and Gomer said, “I will return to my husband.” Unbelievable but not just because Gomer would even consider returning but because she is lured back by the very one she hurt!

2. God suffers because those whom He loves are untrue to Him. False

Morgan makes an important point when says, “There is no aggregate of sorrow except in the heart of God. He feels my pain, thy pain, and his pain.” (p.22) But what kind of pain does He feel? The pain of betrayal? No doubt there is hurt because there is a lost love but that is overshadowed by another dimension of God’s love. “He suffers because the one who ceases to love Him is suffering.” (p.22) This was the experience of Jesus as He was being led to the cross.

Luke 23:27-30

27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then "'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" ' (from New International Version)

These were not words of retaliation but rather words of deep concern for what was to come to those who were at the time leading Him to His own suffering and death.

In the midst of Hosea’s suffering what did God ask him to do?

Hos 3:1-3

3:1 The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."

2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, "You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you."
(from New International Version)

Is this kind of love possible today and for the same reasons—deep concern for the welfare of the very ones hurting us?

3. The difficulty facing God with Israel of old was Israel’s goodness. True
   

Hos 6:4

4 "What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like the morning mist,
like the early dew that disappears.
(from New International Version)

The pretense of love was deceiving God’s own people. The kind of love they showed did not endure. The interpretive paraphrase of this passage by the Message puts it this way:

Hos 6:4 "What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What do I make of you, Judah? Your declarations of love last no longer than morning mist and predawn dew.
Hos 6:5 That's why I use prophets to shake you to attention, why my words cut you to the quick: To wake you up to my judgment blazing like light.
Hos 6:6 I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know GOD, not go to more prayer meetings.

Gomer’s challenge, the problem with God’s people of the past and of today is this: we confined by own perceptions of reality. We barely begin to fathom the goodness of God when our old self-centered natures kicks in. Speaking in an entirely different vane Dee Hock, found of the Visa car, challenging conventional business principles unwittingly touched on a spiritual gateway:

“When it becomes necessary to develop a new perception of things, a new internal model of reality, the problem is never to get new ideas in, the problem is to get the old ideas out. Every mind is filled with old furniture. It’s familiar. It’s comfortable. We hate to throw it out. The old maxim so often applied to the physical world, “nature abhors a vacuum,” is much more applicable to the mental world. Clear any room in your mind of old perspectives, and new perceptions will rush in. Yet, there is nothing we fear more.” (Dee Hock in Birth of the Chaordic Age, p.135)

Forgiveness for wrongs done are never easy. It wasn’t for Hosea but God was introducing him to a whole new way of thinking! As Hock points out, “The future is not about logic and reason. It’s about imagination, hope, and belief.” (p.152)

4. The message of Hosea is: Be more faithful to God than to the “gods” of this world. False
   

There is an intriguing passage found in Hosea 4:17
Hos 4:17

17 Ephraim is joined to idols;
leave him alone! (from New International Version)

In Scripture you will find references to Israel and to Judah. Israel is in the north and is the dominant of the two and is also referred to as Ephriam. but it is also the one which fell first. Judah is in the south and was more loyal to God.

Is this passage saying that because Ephraim or Israel is joined to idols that that God was abandoning it? No! Not at all. That would deny all that Hosea is saying in his writings. What God is saying is that Judah must not enter into compromise. Idolatry is a horrendous sin in God’s sight just as adultery is! There can be no compromise. There is not such a thing as being more faithful to God than to the “gods” of this world. It is an either/or relationship. Key principles are found in this simple verse:

• What is idolatry? Whatever it is it is characterized as being religious. There is another god or else there is no idolatry. In simple terms, idolatry is the worship of a false representation of God.
  

Is it possible to have idolatry in a relationship with a spouse, with the family? Of course! Whatever we do with our time, our affections, our energies which comprise the integrity of our relationship with our spouse or with the family becomes an idol! Gomer and her relationship with her lovers was guilty of replacing her love for Hosea for them.

Later, under the leadership of Jeroboam, Israel set up two centers of worship. One at Gilgal and the other at Bethel and these were set up by Jeroboam to keep his people from going to Jerusalem to worship. The make it more appealing he set up two golden calves as representatives of God! They would have told you that they were not worshipping calves but God . . . but they were worshiping falsely. Israel was drugged with its own religion made up to satisfy a spiritual need but in ways of its own choosing. In doing so they believed and taught wrong precepts of God’s kingdom. So vile did this “idolatry” become that when the Messiah came they killed the real God while they worshiped their idols.

• The last phrase of 4:17 is important – “let him alone.” Loyalty to God cannot and must not be compromised. Without minimizing that vital principle God did not abandon Israel. The compromise by Israel limited the kind of relationship He could have with Israel and put into play God's recovery efforts.
  

5. Hosea teaches that deep down in Gomer’s heart was some goodness that simply needed the right kind of nurture to develop. False
   

Think about the question for a moment. No doubt Gomer needed a conversion if her return to Hosea was going to mean anything. But I have a question for you. When it comes to conversion does that mean that God’s grace is added to our own goodness? Is it possible for our “goodness” to be a hindrance for finding success in meeting temptations--for finding peace from the past? Can we really find peace and fulfillment with 10% built on our own good works? Sometimes those who have fallen the hardest make the best witnesses because they can grasp magnanimous gestures of God’s grace! Being forgiven not only restores; it expands one’s capacity to love!

Conclusion

Years ago in one of my early pastorates I was introduced to an amazing Hosea and Gomer experience. Bob and Sue (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) were members of my church. I was told soon after my arrival that Sue would leave her husband and children in the summer months and would travel hundreds of miles to meet her “summer lover.” She would return and resume her married life as mother to her children several weeks later. As summer approached I began to hear that she was preparing to leave once again. As a young pastor I could not believe the stories so I visited with Sue. Sure enough she had set the date was getting ready to leave. I was dumbfounded and explained that if she were determined to leave I would have to ask for her to withdraw her membership. This shocked her (and me). She came back and submitted her request.

When the church board and business meeting met we did honor her request but we did something else. We began a letter writing campaign expressing not only our concern but our love for her. We talked about her home church and how we wanted her back. Weeks later we learned she was attending a Baptist revival series for which we saw an answer to our prayers. More letters were written back to us and then we received the letter that she was heading back home. She was quite nervous for just prior to her leaving she had asked for a divorce. Now, how would she be received! Her husband – now nearly a year later – had begun seeking companionship.

When she arrived there were a few awkward moments but a few days later I was asked if I would rebaptize her and remarry them. I will never forget what she told me. Before they were married the first time she had gotten pregnant. Everything she did in her marriage was done out of a sense of obligation. There was no fun in her marriage. There were only duties to be performed. But now she had made a choice. Now it was love responding to love and it made all the difference. Bob and Sue have been symbols in my ministry of how conversion can change love. How it can put away the idols of misrepresentation causing hurt. Grace reveals sin in ways that condemnation cannot not. Tough love is not a reprisal for betrayal. It is love with a purpose. A love for reclaiming. There can be no compromise with sin. At the same time the banner over the worst of sinners is that we are not abandoned by God. The question is: Are we willing to accept God's love and return home (as Gomer did). A homecoming celebration has been prepared!

We must never forget that the Valley of Achor can lead to a door of hope! (Hosea 2:15)