Redeeming Gomer
Hosea 3:1-3
1 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”
2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.
3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”
As if the strange story of Hosea wasn’t strange enough, now God tells Hosea to go and find Gomer and buy her back and take her back to his home and love her. God wanted to illustrate how He loved an unfaithful Israel and would one day buy her back from her evil lifestyle for a price.
Why did God command Hosea to go back to his still-unfaithful wife? Not only for the sake of Hosea and his wife Gomer, but also so that they would become a living lesson of the God’s relationship with us. Even while we still are attracted to the world and spend time with the world God still loves us.
Hosea goes and finds Gomer but she is enslaved and he has to buy her for a price. He loved her so much he paid the price and bought her freedom - fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.
Hosea is also told to love her, even though she had willingly committed adultery with other men. Even though she had been unfaithful, Hosea brought her back into his home and loved her again.
Some commentators believe Hosea was merely paying her going rate and hiring her to come home with him. Some believe she had become a slave and was being purchased. I lean towards this second scenario. This is a well-known practice in prostitution rings. When a woman becomes too sick to be valuable or are injured or just have a mental collapse, and they are no longer profitable they are disposed of. Many today are merely thrown out in the street. In days when slavery was common, they would be sold into slavery. The price Hosea paid was high but not too high so might be the price for a former harlot who was no longer earning money but had been sold into slavery.
This happens to people trapped in sins and living “eat, drink and merry” lives. If they become overwhelmed by their sins, and their physical and mental condition deteriorates, they find themselves left alone. I have met so many, too many, who have suffered this fate. Drunks who never sober up and drug addicts who are sick all the time and never draw a breath without pain. People who have had mental breakdowns and retreated into themselves and can’t react normally with others. Sex addicts who have contracted some incurable disease. The list of cast aside humanity makes me sick at heart to even think about. They are cast aside because the enemy has no further use for them. They cannot entice anyone else to sin so he is done with them and they find themselves enslaved by their lifestyle and then cast into the mud, unwanted even by the devil. Who would even look at them, to say nothing of loving them?
God loves them. He has reached into countless mudholes and pigstys and drawn out broken vessels who seem too far gone to even be considered human anymore. His hand is held out to the lost and to the broken and to the hopeless. And the lost can find their way back and the broken can be mended and the hopeless can find a new spark of hope in their lives. I’ve witnessed many who have been miraculously transformed by the love of God.
I confess I don’t like the story of Hosea and Gomer much; it shines a light onto a strange and uncomfortable story. But the message of Hosea taking his wife back to himself gives hope to a dying, lost world. God will not stop calling you as long as you have the ability to hear His voice. His hand will reach out to you until you draw your last breath and pass from this life. God loves you in whatever condition you have put yourself into. He paid a high price for your freedom and you need only respond to His call. Jesus blood shed on the cross has an amazing capacity to clean even the dirtiest heart and make it clean and new. The hand that reaches out to you has a scar on it from a nail. The face is scarred from the beatings and the thrones.
You have been redeemed at a price, and He wants you to come home to Him.
Stephen Cram October 7, 2012 Colossians 2:8
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8
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