Sermon Tone Analysis

Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that the entire world loves a lover.

If Emerson is correct, then Hosea should be the most loved book in all the world.

This story of ole finds many similarities and commonalities with real-life stories of our present age.

It’s a story of a broken vow, home, heart, and life.

However, it possesses a literary uniqueness that ranks it as one of the most amazing love stories of all-time.

Hosea endured this sad sorted story under the sovereign hand of God so that you and I today could have an better understanding of His love and grace towards us.

Hosea, a young preacher, is commanded by God to pursue a young woman by the name of Gomer.

If her name did not call into question God’s command then her nature would give Hosea solid ground from which to argue.

Gomer is a woman who’s like a city without walls.

She’s defenseless against her own passions, and as a result, lived a life a perpetual unfaithfulness to whoever she was with.

Her history is littered with betrayal and brokenness.

Hosea brought much to this marriage.

He brought the unsquandered treasure of a young man's purity, for Hosea had never sacrificed upon some wayside altar.

He came to this apex moment of his life with much to give.

I can hear Hosea asking God; “how will you get glory of this union”?

Can you be glorified when the prophet marries the prostitute?

Can you be glorified when piety is united to promiscuity?

Can you be glorified when wretchedness and righteousness are joined together?

How can you receive glory when the devilish and divine are intertwined?

Lord what possible glory can come from such command?

And God answers by saying; “Hosea, you and I are both going to completely give our hearts and lives to people who will utterly reject us, and we are going to spend our money and our time and our hearts and our energy in going after those people.

I am a husband whose wife is unfaithful to him.

I am a father whose children have rejected him and are now destroying themselves before his very eyes.

Unless you are part of that, unless you experience that too, you will never understand how my heart works.

Once you come in and understand this, you will be able to model and proclaim my love to the world and then my glory will fill the earth like the waters that cover the seas.”

Do you see what an incredible picture this is?

God says, “I found a little boy once in a foster home, and I brought him home and I gave him everything.

I loved him and I taught him how to walk.

When he was toddling along, I was there.

When he fell down and cried, I picked him up and I held him and I wiped his tears.

I gave him everything, and now he rejects me, and now my children turn away from me, and now they are going on to a destructive path, and they don’t listen to anything I say.”

You get down to 11:8, and suddenly we hear an incredible noise.

God crying.

He says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” which is the name of his son.

“How can I give you up?” Then he says, “My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.”

That word changed is one of the strongest words God could possibly use to describe his inner emotional state.

This is God talking about his insides.

The word changed is a word in the Bible that’s used to refer to the overthrow and the destruction of a city by an enemy.

God says, “I’m torn to pieces.”

God.

“I am torn to pieces.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?”

Do you remember Jesus looking at Jerusalem in Luke 13, and crying and saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

How I have longed to gather your children together, and like a hen, bring all your chicks underneath my wings.

You who have stoned the prophets, you who have murdered those sent to you, but now you are not willing, and now they're hiding from your eyes?”

Here’s God saying, “I am all shattered inside.

I can’t give you up.”

Finally, what does he say in verses 9 and 10?

He says, “I am not going to give you up.

What I will do is I will roar, but I won’t roar in a way that destroys you.

I will roar, and you will come trembling.”

Trembling is a good word in Hebrew.

It means you will come melted.

You will come softened.

“I will make you my lovers again.

I will make you my children again.

You will return to me.”

God says, “Unless you understand I am a husband whose wife has left him, I am a father whose children have rejected him and who are destroying themselves before my very eyes, you will not understand my love, and you won’t understand how my heart works.”

His love is not just any kind of love.

His love is not mere affection.

It’s not mere sentimentality.

His love is the love that forged the worlds.

Come! Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.

Hosea love for Gomer was unforgettable.

I suspect Gomer left Hosea thinking she was bettering herself.

Lured from Hosea’s side by the enticement of exotic food, a fascination with fashion, and a lively lifestyle.

Gomer’s path ended in much the same manner as others.

She believed her way was one of ascension only to realize that it did nothing but create a greater distance for her fall.

Depravity has a depth that no one has reached, and Satan continues to tests in depths.

Gomer’s life after Hosea was a series of failed relational transactions that landed her with a man who could not provide life’s most fundamental necessities.

Forsaken by his wife Hosea remained faithful.

Though her choices had separated them physically, his eye remained ever fixed on her plight as she slid deeper into depravity’s depths.

Overwhelmed by her condition and overcome by his covenant Hosea arose and went to the place where his wife now lived.

What was his intent?

Listen to Hosea; "Are you the man that's living with Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim?" "Well, what if I am?" "I'm her husband."

Do you feel the tension?

Can you see the man clenching his fist?

He's ready to fight.

I see Hosea reaching into his tunic but for what?

A weapon? Nothing can make a man lose his mind like adultery.

As Hosea pulls his hand from his tunic, the man notices there is no weapon but wealth.

Has Hosea come to buy back his wife?

No, he has come to keep his covenant.

He vowed to act as a husband should regardless of his wife’s actions.

Hosea has not come to purchase but to provide for his wife.

What we are witnessing either blows our mind or takes our breath.

We all label this text as fiction.

One gives this designation because no one loves like this; while another says it’s a fairytale, a story that our hearts wished was true, yet our reality tells us otherwise.

The Covenant keeping God placed Hosea’s story in Scripture to show us why Paul prayed

Our instinctive reaction is to say that this doesn’t make sense.

May I suggest to you today that The Love of God does not make sense.

His love is sophisticated.

It’s complex.

Yes, it possesses an elementary level of understanding.

There is an entry level for those who will believe.

However, God’s love is for excavation.

We are called to plum its depths, measure its heights, and survey its widths.

An elementary understanding of His love can save you, but an excavation of His love will sanctify you.

In

we see Gomer embracing not Hosea for his provision but her lover.