He’ll trade the world for the good thing he found. Yeah, if she’s bad, he can’t see it. She can do no wrong. Turn his back on his best friend if he put her down. Yes, brothers and sisters, love exists apart from reason and has its own reasons! Love does not act according to logic. Love acts according to its own nature. And so Hosea acted on the basis of love. Undoubtedly he watched from a distance to catch a glimpse of the woman he loved as she rushed out the door to take the groceries from another man’s arms and to thank him for what he was bringing to her -- the gifts that her true love had provided. How long this went on we don’t know for sure, but at last word came that the woman Hosea loved was to be sold in the slave market. Her current husband had tired of her and she was to be sold as a slave. The brokenhearted prophet didn’t know what to do. He went weeping to God. And God said. "Hosea, do you love this woman in spite of all that she has done to you?" Hosea nodded through his tears, and God said. "Then go show your love for her in the same way that I love the nation Israel." So Hosea went to the marketplace and he watched Gomer brought up and placed on the dock and there she was stripped of all her clothing and stood naked before the crowd. The auctioneer pinched her and prodded her and showed how strong she was, and then the bidding began. Somebody bid three pieces of silver and Hosea raised it to five. Somebody else upped it to eight and Hosea bid ten. Somebody went to eleven; he went to twelve. Then Hosea offered fifteen pieces of silver and a bushel of barley. The auctioneer’s gavel fell and Hosea had his wife back. He went to her and put her clothes on her and he led her away by the hand and took her to his home. And when I think of God’s love for us, that’s what God did when He allowed His Son Jesus to go to the cross for us. Jesus went to calvary for low-down, run-around folk like you and me! Many times we try to run from God and drown our miseries in empty pleasures, or drink, or work, or social life. . . but as surely as we think we have escaped, as surely as we think we have run far enough, God touches our sleeve with his love and says: “My child, my name and my nature are love and I act according to what I am. When you tire of all your running and your wandering and your heartbreak, I’ll be there to draw you to myself again!" That is the story of the Bible isn’t it? At Bethlehem God entered the slave market where the whole human race was putting itself up for auction, prostituting itself and its humanity to a cheapened life. But on the cross the Lord Jesus paid the price, the full price for our freedom, and bought us back. This is the story of God’s love and God’s heart -- his loving desire to make of his people the full persons he intended them to be. Thank God when Jesus went to calvary’s auction, His father let him die a horrible death for sins of the this wicked world... but early one Sunday morning, Jesus got up with all power in His hands! I’m closing now, but if your life has lost it’s snap, crackle and pop... If your life has lost it’s cheerio... If your life and your joy has wilted like a bowl of puffed rice... . . . let me suggest to you that you try Jesus! His life was shredded on the cross, but it happened that you and I may see love personified!
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:42:07 +0000
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