January 7, 2015
Tough Love From A Merciful God
1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles
and Hosea
I think that I told you that our daughter, Mary Kathryn and her husband Joe and our 2 year old granddaughter Winnie, have moved to Cleveland for 5 years……well, they couldn’t come home for Christmas, because Joe had to work, so last week, Dale and I went up to visit them for a few days….We had a really great time with them-----but I have to tell you a story, about sweet Winnie, that we can all identify with, that is the perfect illustration for our wrap- up today….
Winnie has fallen in love with the “tanical gardens” in Cleveland----they went 4 times, alone, over the Christmas season,,,,,it was full of homemade gingerbread houses and a little tree house gift shop with a slide, as the way down and a little train that traveled through the garden decorated with lights on every bush and tree and a ice skating rink dead center in the middle. So her special present to
Granddale was a date with her to the gardens…..and the rest of us were allowed to trail along…
Unfortunately, 2 things went wrong-------the first one was that Winnie fell asleep on the way, but because we got there too soon and we had to wake her up, so she didn’t get her nap out and the second one was that she didn’t want anyone or anything but her mama…she was a whiney mess that, that by the time we got to the train ride, had escalated into a full-blown, all-out, temper tantrum-----
So what did Mary K and Joe do? They put this screaming banshee of a baby in Dale’s arms as we settled into the caboose, hoping that she she would calm down if we forced her to---and the truth is, I think she would have if they had not gotten into the first car, where Winnie could see them every time the little train turned left, as it snaked around its little route of travel…
Needless to say, it was not a pleasant ride for anyone----it was funny to Dale and me and not funny at all to Mary and Joe----as soon as the ride was finished , Mary Kathryn carried Winnie away, for a little much needed discipline-----and when they came back, Winnie was snubbing, but calm. While she was being cuddled by her mama, she very nicely said she was sorry…….got hugs and squeezes from all of us, and then, behaved like a little angel for the rest of our outing….
Walking to the car, while Winnie was riding high in her Grandale’s arms, the whole incident forgotten----Mary Kathryn said, “what was that?” and we talked about, that while it might have been normal behavior for a 2 year old, it was not acceptable, nor permissible, because the underlying truth is , it was sin, plain and simple….clear evidence of how we are all born as sinners, into this world, in need of a Savior….
I know its simplistic, but at the most fundamental level,,,,,the way Winnie was behaving, is the way we behave with God…we want our way, for whatever reason, and when we don’t get it, we act like out-of-control 2 year olds, whiney and sulky, and we’ve even been known to throw a temper tantrum or 2!
That’s exactly the way the kings of Israel and Judah, and their people, for the most part behaved……they did what they wanted to do……most of the time….. leaving the Lord God out of the equation entirely. And for their behavior, and their disregard for God’s goodness and for His glory, they deserved death, but what did God do------over and over and over again, he gave them chance after chance-----because of his mercy and his faithfulness as our heavenly father and because He loved them so much----He warned them through the prophets,, and from time to time, He used, the discipline of war and exile to get their attention, but He never once took his hand or his eyes of them…… and ultimately, and for our great benefit, He sacrificed himself, in the person of the Lord Jesus, to cover all our sins, because he knew that in our own strength, we would never be able to stop sinning…
and just like Mary Kathryn did with Winnie, when the discipline was over, they enjoyed cuddling and hugging, forgetting all about the ugly behavior….. moving forward in a restored right relationship…..
Winnie is blessed to have a mother who disciplines her with tough love and seeks after a right relationship with her----and we are blessed, beyond measure to have a Heavenly Father, who would use any means necessary to discipline us, and in the end, take the discipline for us, so that He could restore us to the right relationship with Himself….…
In thinking about all of this in relation to our lesson this week, I was reminded of the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer------their story is the clearest example of sin and betrayal, discipline, and restoration and love, in the scripture----and it is an exact illustration of God’s love for Israel and for us…
Hosea was a prophet, who lived in Israel, and along with Amos, preached God’s word to the10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, while Isaiah and Micah were living and preaching God’s Word, in and to, the 2 tribes of the Southern Kingdom…
Hosea had a lengthy period of ministry, prophesying ca. 755-710 B.C., during the reigns of Uzziah (790-739 B.C.), Jotham (750-731 B.C.); Ahaz (735-715 B.C.), and Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.) in Judah, and Jeroboam II (793-753 B.C.) in Israel (1:1). His long career spanned the last 6 kings of Israel from Zechariah (753-752 B.C.) to Hoshea (732-722 B.C.) 2 Kings Chapters 14-20 and 2 Chronicles Chapters 26-32 record the historical period of Hosea’s ministry.
(As I read and studied this passage of Scripture, I felt like we needed to get a a modern day, true-story perspective, so that we can relate, personally to Gomer and Hosea.
Tami grew up in an urban middle class family. Her memories of early childhood were filled with sadness and tears. Her mother and alcoholic father fought long and often. As the oldest child, Tami came to feel that she was somehow the cause of the bickering and the anger which exploded into yelling, cursing, name calling, pushing, and the occasional beating. When her father came home drunk on his weekend binges, she cringed with fear, wanting to protect her mother and knowing at the same time that she would become the object of his anger as well.
Most such weekends, her father would find a time alone with Tami, since her mother worked weekends. “You can make up for being bad- and for your mother,” he would say as he did unspeakable things to her. After he was satisfied, he would often say, “If you tell your mother, you’ll break up our family. She won’t understand.”
Tami’s mother found out about the secret when Tami was twelve. She sued for divorce and obtained custody of the children. Her mother assured her, “What your father did to you was terribly wrong.” Yet Tami could not rid herself of the feeling that she was responsible for the divorce and the hardships that followed.
They moved into an apartment in another part of the city. That meant changing schools and making new friends. Tami was desperate for friendship and affection and felt lonely. She thought, “I don’t know anyone here. Nobody loves me. I’m not worth anything.” She found it harder to concentrate on schoolwork. Her grades dropped.
Tami began hanging around with a group of fringe students. They accepted her. When her dates began asking for favors after an evening out, she complied, hoping to find the acceptance she was looking for. But instead of feeling loved, she felt used. They just reminded her of her father. “Men are all the same!” she thought.
Except for Steve. He was a good student and helped her with her homework, saving her from public embarrassment. Through him, Tami got to know another group of students- clean living, drug free, many of them members of a Christian group. Tami struggled with loyalty to her friends, who seemed to represent two different worlds. In her junior year, Tami became a Christian. It was difficult to leave her partying friends, but she was committed to a new way.
After high school, Steve and Tami attended the same Christian oollege and were married soon after graduation. They had received
counseling which addressed Tami’s dysfunctional family relationships and her personal abuse by her father and many dates. Steve and Tami were determined to have a Christian marriage and family. They identified with a local church, nurtured their spiritual life together, and were blessed by the arrival of a son.
Tami, however, developed a severe case of postpartum depression. She was again overcome by feelings of worthlessness. She refused the help offered by friends and counselors. Steve and Tami agreed not to have any more children until she recovered emotionally. One night Steve and Tami got carried away physically and they conceived another child. They talked about what they were going to do. They were against abortion so that was ruled out. When the daughter was born, Steve found it hard not to think of her as an “Accident.” He thought it was funny that they had only been together once in several months and a baby came from that.
After the daughter, Tami’s depression deepened, and she began a pattern of unfaithfulness. Steve was as understanding as he knew how to be, but he could no longer get through to Tami. Their third child, a son, was not fathered by Steve. As much as Steve tried to rid himself of the thought, the more persistent it became: “This child is not mine!”
Tami, distraught, left Steve and children. She moved in with an old high school friend for a while, prompting Steve to file for divorce and the custody of children. Both were granted.
Years went by. Steve remained single; Tami remarried, divorced, and then lived with another man- an abuser- until she developed hepatitis. Steve heard that Tami had been admitted to the local hospital and went to visit her. The illness seemed to have had a powerful impact on Tami, restoring her to her Christian commitments. The medical and hospital bills mounted, and she felt that there was no way she could ever pay them. But when Steve came to visit, he paid her bill in full. He offered to cover her counseling costs if she would return to a Christian counselor who had helped them before. It was years before she was ready to accept a new offer of marriage from Steve, a marriage they did not consummate until she was able to reach down to the roots of her alienation and depression, and let the Lord heal her.
Undying Love—
The calendar on the wall indicated that it was about 760 years before Jesus was born. Jeroboam II was on the throne of the northern kingdom of Israel, and his military exploits had extended Israel’s borders farther than they had been since the days of Solomon’s glorious kingdom. Tribute money from subject nations was pouring into the treasury at the capital city of Samaria, and the people of
Israel were enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity.
And as is often the case, with prosperity, came the moral and spiritual degeneration of the kings and their people….. Secularism and materialism reigned in the hearts of the people and sin was rampant. Unfortunately, their list of immorality reads like a twenty-first-century United States: swearing, lying, killing, stealing, adultery, drunkenness, perversion, perjury, deceit, and oppression, to name but a few. But the thing that grieved the heart of God more than anything else was the sin of idolatry (Hos. 4:12, 13; 13:2). Jeroboam I had set up golden calves to be worshiped about 150 years earlier and that had opened the floodgates to every evil expression of Canaanite idolatry, for the Israelites, including drunkenness, religious prostitution and human sacrifice.
The Lord viewed Israel as His wife, so He viewed her worship of other gods as spiritual adultery. The b ghjko)))))))))Oo Old Testament speaks frequently of Israel playing the harlot with other gods (e.g., Deut. 31:16; Judg. 2:17). God had told Israel from the beginning that he would not share her with others. “You shall have no other gods before Me” was the first of his ten great commandments (Ex. 20:3). But she had persistently ignored His command, and by the days of Jeroboam II the situation was intolerable.
God spoke decisively first, through the prophet, Amos. He thundered God’s warning of a coming judgment, but the Israelites, paid very little attention to him. So God spoke again, this time through the prophet Hosea whose name meant “Jehovah is salvation….
The very first thing God ever said to Hosea, tells us about his unlikely marriage: “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord” (Hos. 1:2). These instructions have been only vaguely understood, by different students of Scripture through the years. Some believe that God was commanding Hosea to marry a woman who had formerly been a prostitute. Others contend that taking a wife of harlotry would merely refer to marrying a woman from the northern kingom of Israel, a land which was guilty of spiritual adultery.
In either case….. she was a woman who had been deeply affected , for some reason,by the moral laxity of her society, and in this passage, God used the prophet’s personal relationship with her,
as an object lesson of His own relationship with His unfaithful people, Israel
We don’t know her back story, and we don’t know Gomer’s family history, and we don’t have a clue how Hosea knew her…..but whatever her past, God has used her, down through the ages as an example of His redemptive love…..there may have been some evidence of genuine repentance and faith in the Lord God, from her…. Maybe she had responded to the Spirit-filled ministry of Hosea himself, and he found his heart drawn to her in deep and unselfish love. Whatever it was, God directed him to take her as his wife, and Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, became the unlikely wife of a budding young preacher.
The early days of their marriage were beautiful as their love began to blossom, and God blessed their union with a son. Hosea’s heart must have swelled with joy. He must have believed that his marriage would just get better and better as they walked forward….. but he should have recognized the handwriting on the wall-----his first clue should have been what God told him to name the baby…..
God told Hosea what to name the baby because his name was to have prophetic significance to the nation…. He called him Jezreel, because it was at Jezreel, that King Jeroboam’s great grandfather Jehu come to the throne, by ambitious crimes of bloodshed and violence. And even though his dynasty was prospering at the moment, its destruction was on the horizon, and it was going to happen in the valley of Jezreel (Hos. 1:4, 5).
It was after the birth of Jezreel that Hosea seems to have noticed a change in Gomer. She became restless and unhappy, like a bird trapped in a cage. He went on preaching, encouraging the wayward nation to turn from its sin and to trust God for deliverance, from the threat of surrounding nations. “Return unto the Lord!” was the theme of his message, and he preached it repeatedly, with power (Hos. 6:1; 14:1). But Gomer seemed less and less interested in his ministry. In fact, she may have grown to resent it. She probably even accused Hosea of thinking more about his preaching than he did of her. She began to find other interests to occupy herself, and spent more and more time away from home.
The dangers are great when a husband and wife don’t have the same interests in common.
It encourages him to go his way,,,and for her to go hers. They each wind up having their own set of friends, and there is little communication to bring their two worlds together. A husband’s preoccupation with his work may be the major contributing factor to the cleavage. Or it may be a wife’s growing involvement in outside activities and subsequent neglect of the home. It may simply be a disinterest in the things of the Lord on the part of either husband or wife. But it sets the scene for great calamity. Husbands and wives need to do things together and take an interest in each other’s activities. In this inspired story, the responsibility is clearly laid upon Gomer rather than Hosea. She did not share her husband’s love for God.
That brings us, sadly, to Hosea’s unrelieved agony. Scripture doesn’t give us the details of what happened, but what it does say, helps us to imagine some speculation, concerning the progressive trend that led to their tragic situation. Gomer’s absences from home probably grew more frequent and prolonged, and it wouldn’t have been long before Hosea would have grown suspicious about her faithfulness to him. He must have laid awake at night and wrestled with his fears. And he must have preached, with a heavy heart, during the day. And his suspicions were confirmed when Gomer got pregnant again. It was a girl this time, and Hosea was convinced that the child was not his. At God’s direction, he called her Loruhamah, which means “unpitied” or “unloved,” implying that she wouldn’t enjoy her true father’s love. Again the name was symbolic of Israel’s wandering from God’s love and the discipline she would soon experience. But even that spiritual message could not soothe the prophet’s troubled soul.
No sooner had little Loruhamah been weaned than Gomer conceived again. It was another boy. God told Hosea to call him Lo-ammi, which meant “not my people,” or “no kin of mine.” It symbolized Israel’s alienation from the Lord God, but it also exposed Gomer’s sinful escapades. That child , even though it was born in Hosea’s house, was not his…
For the first time, it was all out in the open. Everyone knew about Gomer’s affairs. While the entire second chapter of Hosea’s prophecy describes God’s relationship with his unfaithful wife Israel, it’s hard to escape the similarity, of Hosea’s relationship with Gomer, sandwiched as it is between two chapters. He pleaded with her (2:2). He threatened to disinherit her (2:3). But still she ran off with her lovers because they promised to lavish material things on her (2:5). He tried to stop her on occasion (2:6), but she continued to seek her companions in sin (2:7). Hosea would take her back in loving forgiveness and they would try again. But her repentance would be short-lived and soon she would be off again with another new lover.
Then the final blow fell. Maybe it was a note, maybe word sent by a friend, but the essence of it seems to have been, “I’m leaving for good this time. I’ve found my true love. I’ll never come back again.” How Hosea must have suffered! He loved her deeply and grieved for her as though she had been taken in death. His heart ached that she should choose a life that would surely bring her to ruin. His friends were probably saying, “Good riddance to her, Hosea. Now you’ll be through with her adulterous ways once and for all.” But Hosea did not feel that way. He longed for her to come home.
We cannot escape the message of his undying love. Hosea wanted to see Gomer restored to his side as his faithful wife. And he believed that God was great enough to do it. One day word came by way of the grapevine gossips that Gomer had been deserted by her lover. She had sold herself into slavery and had hit bottom. This was the last straw. You would think that certainly then, that Hosea would have chosen to forget her. But his heart said “No.” He couldn’t give her up. And then God spoke to him: “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods” (Hos. 3:1).
Gomer was still beloved of Hosea even though she was an adulteress, and God wanted him to seek her out and prove his love to her. How could anyone love that deeply? The answer was right there in God’s instructions to Hosea, “even as the Lord loves.” Only someone who knows the love and forgiveness of God, could ever love that perfectly. And only someone who has truly experienced His loving forgiveness cannot help but love and forgive others. Christian husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the Church (Eph. 5:25), and Hosea is an outstanding biblical example of that kind of love.
So he began his search, driven by that indestructible divine love, love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love that never ends. And he found her, ragged, torn, sick, dirty, disheveled, destitute, chained to an auction block in a filthy slave market, a repulsive shadow of the woman she once was. We wonder how anyone could love her now. But Hosea bought her from her slavery for fifteen shekels of silver and thirteen bushels of barley (Hos. 3:2). Then he said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you” (Hos. 3:3). He actually paid for her, brought her home, and eventually restored her to her position as his wife. While we do not find anything else in Scripture about their relationship with each other, we assume that God used Hosea’s supreme act of forgiving love to melt her heart and change her life.
How many times should a husband or wife forgive? Some contend, “If I keep forgiving I simply affirm him in his pattern of sin.” Or “If I keep forgiving, she’ll think she can get away with anything she wants.” Others say, “If I keep forgiving, it’s like putting my seal of approval on his behavior.” Or “I can’t take another hurt like that. If he does that one more time, I’m leaving.” Those are human responses. Listen to the response of the Lord Jesus. You see, Peter had asked the Lord this same question: “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” The Lord’s answer was, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:21, 22). That is a great deal of forgiveness. In fact, the Lord Jesus was saying that there is no end to forgiveness.
Sometimes it’s just the little slights and daily agitations that need forgiveness, the occasional sharp word or angry accusation. But we harbor it, let it eat at us, and build up bitterness and resentment which erodes our relationship. Maybe it’s a major offense, like Gomer’s, and we can never forget it. We stew on it and fret over it, and we keep bringing it up in a subconscious attempt to punish our mates for the hurts we have suffered. We try to forgive, but a few days later it’s right there again, preying on our consciousness. Big wounds sometimes take longer to heal. They will come back to our minds. There is no way to avoid it. But every time they do, we have to consciously remind ourselves that we really did forgive, them, then remind ourselves how much God has forgiven us, and then ask Him to take the destructive, unforgiving thoughts out of our minds. And sometimes we have to do this numerous times in a day….till we forget that we’re mad and that there’s even something to forgive.
Forgiveness does not necessarily mean that we must suffer in silence. The need for open and honest communication would demand that we share what we think and how we feel, what the wrong has done to us, and how our mates can help us get over it. God tells us how much our sin grieves Him. Gomer certainly knew how her affairs were tearing at Hosea’s heart. What we say must be said lovingly and kindly, but we have both the need and the obligation to share what is on our hearts.
Neither does forgiveness necessarily mean we cannot take positive steps to guard against the sin recurring. That might require some extended counseling; it might demand an honest reappraisal of our personalities or habit patterns; it might mean a change in our life-style or a relocation. God takes positive steps to help us want to please Him, often through discipline…. That is what divine discipline is all about. We do not discipline each other, but we can discuss and come up with a plan, that will help us avoid these same pitfalls in the future.
Forgiveness does mean, however, that we will pay for the other person’s offenses. We will refuse to retaliate in any way to make the guilty person pay. We will absolve him of all guilt. God can use that forgiving love to melt hardened hearts and change callused lives quicker than anything else in this whole wide world. That is the lesson of Hosea and Gomer, the lesson of forgiveness. God’s love and forgiveness pervade Hosea’s entire prophecy. Please do not misunderstand it. God hates sin; it grieves His heart; He cannot condone it; His perfect righteousness and justice demand that He deal with it. But He still loves sinners and diligently seeks them out and offers them His loving forgiveness.
God’s ancient people Israel, kept going back to their sins. “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early” (Hos. 6:4). But God never stopped loving them. “When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son” (Hos. 11:1). “I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love” (Hos. 11:4). “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel?” (Hos. 11:8). And because He never stopped loving them, He never stopped pleading with them: “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity” (Hos. 14:1).
We need to love like that. We need to forgive like that. We need to drag the festering hurts we have been harboring in our hearts to the cross of the Lord Jesus—where we found God’s loving forgiveness, when He saved us —and we have to leave them there. When we fully forgive, our minds will be released from the bondage of resentment and bitterness and heartache that has been building a wall between us, and then, we will be free to grow in our relationship with the Lord, and with each other.
