Episode 15: Gomer - Women of the Bible Series

The story of Hosea and Gomer is one that has gripped the hearts of many. It's such a beautiful love story that books and movies have been inspired by it.

You may know their story. You may have read the books or seen the movie. But as you are listening to our conversation about Gomer, try to clear your mind of those pictures and images and walk into this episode with a blank canvas in mind.

Gomer's story is found in the book of Hosea. We will focus on chapters 1-3 but the rest of the book is a beautiful telling of Israel's redemption story.  Through Gomer, we see lived out the enduring and unfailing love of God for his people, the Israelites, and for you and me.

She is a lot like me.
Who God was to her, he is to you and me.

Who was she? Gomer was:
1. a wife and a mom.
2. an unfaithful adulterous.
3. redeemed by Hosea's love.

*After we had finished recording and packing up our equipment, our conversation continued off air. It was such a cool truth that we got all the stuff back out and started recording again! That's why towards the end, it sounds like we jumped back on - because we did.

We pray that our conversation will be a blessing to you and that God will do something new in your heart.

With love,
Amy and Jamy


DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Episode 15 ~ Gomer

*See episode description in the show notes. Review Hosea 1-3 for her story.

1. What did you learn for the first time about Gomer? What surprised you about her?

2. How does health, wealth, and material prosperity sometimes make us vulnerable to forgetting God? What do you do to safeguard your life from forgetting God?

3. One of the most touching parts of chapter 2 is that Gomer receives gifts of provision from Hosea that she doesn’t acknowledge (2:7-8). What are some ways we do that with God?

4. Read Hosea 1:10 again, what does the “Yet” mean to you? What does it teach us about God?

5. In Hosea 2, we see God as One who pursues. Review Hosea 2:14-23; how does God pursue Gomer? Remember: Gomer is Israel, and Israel is us.

6. In Chapter 3, we see an amazing picture of redemption. What does redemption mean? How do you see it shown in these verses? 

7. Review the three descriptions from the podcast and discuss which one resonates the most with you. Gomer was:

· A wife and a mom.

· An unfaithful adulteress.

· Redeemed by God’s love.

8. Hosea 3:5 in the Message says, “They’ll come back chastened to reverence before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.” What does this mean to you? Read Hebrews 12:3-13. How do these passages change your attitude toward times God has disciplined you?

9. “Gomer is one of us. Who God is to her, He is to me.” Who was God to Gomer? What does that mean to you in your life today?

Let's stay connect:
IG: @amyruthpetersen
@jamyfisher

produced by: 4110 Ministries, LLC

Chapters

• 0:08 Gomer
• 11:10 The Idolatry of Baal and Gomer
• 18:57 Exploring Our Pursuit of Satisfaction
• 27:38 Names and Consequences of Unfaithfulness
• 33:15 The Redemption of Gomer
• 46:29 The Power of Redemption and Restoration

Transcript

Amy: 0:08

Hey everyone, welcome to Car Chat Podcast. I'm Amy, I'm Jamie and each month we chat in my car about a woman of the Bible. But today, with the summer heat and the heat advisory, that's for. Shawnee Oklahoma area. We are recording inside. Yes, we are Actually at the place where we met and that changed our lives together, because we met our husbands here too. Yes, we are recording at Oklahoma Baptist University.

Amy: 0:35

Our alma mater, yes, and we hope that through these conversations, you know that you are not alone In your faith and in your struggle and in your growth, even when no one is around. The purpose of this podcast is to answer the question who is she? And as we do, we will discover two things she is a lot like me and who God is to her he is to me. Today is episode 15, and we are talking about Gomer. We are talking about Gomer. We're talking about Gomer. We are talking about Gomer. We actually are coming to the end of our Old Testament women. We're going to talk about Gomer today, and then next month we're talking about Esther, and then that will complete our Old Testament group of women.

Amy: 1:17

Really, we're already there I know 16 women and I had to. I was a little puzzled about the timeline, because we have Hosea, the book of Hosea, coming after the book of Esther, but in the timeline of things, gomer lived in 740-ish BC and Esther lived in 486 BC. And so, even though the book of Esther comes first in the chronological history of God's story Right, because her book is a narrative, so it's in a different section Esther comes first in the chronological history of God's story.

Jamy: 1:45

Right, because her book is a narrative, so it's in a different section, and then all the prophets are kind of put together and so along the timeline when we get there, her story is coming, after all the stuff that's about to happen.

Amy: 2:00

Exactly For Hosea and Gomer, so I wanted to at least mention that in case you two would go huh, they've messed up again. But really it is seriously the order of things. So that gives us, after we finish with Esther next month, that gives us a total of 16 Old Testament women that we have chatted about, and it's been about one and a half years that it's taken us to do that. And so then we're going to turn into the New Testament and we have an amazing lineup of women in the New Testament that we are going to continue to have chats about. So we hope that you will continue to join us each month as we finish up this Old Testament group of women and then move into the New Testament.

Jamy: 2:48

That's right, I love it All right Exciting.

Amy: 2:51

So Gomer is found in the book of Hosea, yes, and it's one of those books that I either have to flip through the last half of the Old Testament really quickly over and over again to find, or go to the table of contents to find.

Jamy: 3:05

Yeah, which is fine. But yeah, I had to train myself to find the biggest book. It was close to so I could.

Amy: 3:10

That's fine, yeah well, that's a good trick. Yeah, find the biggest book. Do you remember what it was?

Jamy: 3:15

it's right after daniel. So if I can find daniel, I can. I can find josea that's a nice trick.

Amy: 3:19

That's what I do. Yeah, okay, you guys, I've spent a lot of.

Jamy: 3:22

It's been a long time since I've spent time in Hosea, but I spent a lot of time with this book in the past. But the first three chapters are mostly the narratives about Hosea. It's not completely narrative, but that's where we can pull out the narrative details for the life of Hosea and Gomer, and so that's kind of what we can focus on and that's what we'll be camping out in in Hosea, chapters 1 through 3.

Amy: 3:44

And every part of her story is rooted in that scripture text. But we want to give a snapshot summary of her life in case you don't know her story. This is an overview, and then we'll kind of dig in and pull out three things about her as we answer the question who is she?

Amy: 4:03

So Gomer was the unfaithful wife of Hosea the prophet, and God told him to marry her, knowing that she would be unfaithful to him. So Hosea took her as his wife, but Gomer kept wandering into the arms of other lovers. She was, in fact, unfaithful. And yet the Lord told Hosea to keep going after her again and again and bring her back home. He ended up buying her back and bringing her home, as God had told him to. The Lord used Hosea and Gomer's relationship as an object lesson to show how Israel had sinned against him by following other gods and how God remains faithful even when his people don't. It's such a beautiful and clear picture of God's immense and powerful love for you.

Jamy: 4:52

It is. I think we see the whole question of what does this text teach about God? These chapters in Hosea, really, god's character is very loud. We can see a lot.

Amy: 5:03

God's character is very loud and it's all about his love. So if you have ever questioned God's love for you, if you have ever questioned the depth or the length or the height of his love, like Paul tells us in Romans, that nothing can separate us from that, nothing can separate us from that. But this is like a visual picture of a life lived unfaithful and adulterous and how Hosea, how God, pursues us and loves us and brings us back to him.

Jamy: 5:37

Yeah, exactly.

Amy: 5:39

It's so beautiful, and so if you, historically in your life, have never felt good enough for God, this is a story for you.

Jamy: 5:46

Definitely.

Amy: 5:47

If you, historically, has never felt that, that you are lovable, or your past mistakes prevent you from the overwhelming, all consuming, restorative love of God, this story is for you, and so, if you can admit those things about your lack of believing the love of God, you will be open to hear the truth of him in this story. So get to that place in the next couple seconds, because I've been there. I have so resisted the love of God, thinking that it can't be real and that my performance is dependent, or his love is dependent, on my performance. And for those of us who are performance seekers, who are perfectionists, this story is all for us. So listen up and take that to heart. So I wonder what y'all's experience and exposure has been.

Amy: 6:49

For those of you listening to Hosea and Gomer, you too may have had studies or sermon series or book studies about this and conversations, and so I'm excited for us all to kind of pool and gather together with our experiences and see what the Lord would have for us in her story for today, for those of you who are listening, when you're listening, because he converges similar truths at different times in our life to bring different revelations to us about himself, and so we only ask that your hearts will be open to him.

Amy: 7:24

So, if you'll turn to Hosea 1, this is where the story begins, and we're really just going to go through Hosea 1, 2, and 3 and footstep our way through it. But we'll see in Hosea 1, 1, the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of all these kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Let's set the context before I move on, jamie, and before we talk about Gomer as a wife and a mother, kind of set what all this means within. What is the timing of Hosea, the prophet, in this little story?

Jamy: 8:03

That's an important part of the beginning of that, because it tells, by telling who the kings are, it tells us the time in history and that sets the context for us. First of all, because Hosea was called as a prophet to Israel, which is the north part, which most of the prophets, many of them, were called to Judah, which is the southern part, you remember, in the divided kingdom, and Judah is where King David and all of the Messiah was coming from. So a lot of times Israel, the northern part, is seen as kind of less than as far as their devotion to God and as far as the captivities that are coming. It hits Israel first and hardest, the captivities that are coming. It hits Israel first and hardest. So in the timeline of all of this, this is a time when it talks about King Jeroboam. It's a time I think I have in my notes it was around 2 Kings 14 where it talks about this.

Jamy: 8:56

But in the time that Hosea is speaking to Israel, it's a time of some prosperity and so things aren't that bad. So when they're talking about these horrible things to come, or giving these warnings that they need to get rid of their idolatry and come back to their devotion to God. It didn't seem that important because things were going well, and I think that will preach for us too. The prosperity is going to be short-lived, I mean, I think it's just it's not that I can't remember off the top of my head but it's not that much longer until things are going to get really hard when Israel falls. But that's kind of the turbulence of the season to come, where they're going to have several kings, the kings come up and down really quickly and they're going to face the exiles. It's really difficult.

Amy: 9:42

I think that is interesting and you said that that plays because in my life, when I look back and when there's seasons of things going well, of prosperity, of the kids are doing good and ministry is going well and opportunities are coming and everyone's healthy, it is so easy for me to maybe not spend time with the Lord every day and not have my heart in really studying his word. Has that happened to you too?

Jamy: 10:15

Oh, absolutely, and I think it goes all the way back to the speeches that Moses gave in Deuteronomy, when God is telling the people through him you're about to move forward. But I'm telling you, if you forget about me, when life gets easy and you forget about me, then things are going to start going badly for you. And I think it is just our nature Even God knew back then. When things are going well, we take credit, we get distant from our need for God and we forget that everything that we have that is good is from him.

Jamy: 10:46

And our attachment to him is our greatest provision, and so I think he knew they were forgetting that that's good and that they needed the reminder.

Amy: 10:56

So where are you today? And this story can land in any part of that spectrum, in any part of that spectrum, but it is so important for us to accept and embrace and admit our need for God on a daily basis. Yes, okay, so does that kind of finish up the context of the setting here?

Jamy: 11:15

Yeah, I, think that's important to see, because the people were so in love and had polluted the way that they worshiped, because our hearts will worship. We just are. It's how we're our hearts will worship we just are.

Jamy: 11:25

it's how God created us. We will worship, and they were worshiping whatever flowed easily toward toward them, which which was all this false worship, and God in his creativity and his love. Use the situation to give them a really clear, easy to understand and easy to see example of what they were doing, of the damage they were inflicting on their relationship with God, and again we see their worship not of God, but of Baal, and we have talked about Baal over and over.

Jamy: 12:00

Yeah, a part of our study Ever since they went into the Promised Land, even before that's been a big part. Well, with the idolatry, I think they were going along with something that they could control, in that they could turn it into a formula, and the bell worship worked for them in that way, because everyone around them is doing it. It seems to be working. It's all about fertility. It just flows along with their, their desires. They already have and they can turn it into. If I do this, which I already want to do, it's not hard, it's not going against my, my, my lust and my desires. So if I do this and participate, then God owes me in this way and we all want to do that. We all want to do that and God absolutely will not cooperate with it. But I still struggle with how can I make my life work, how can I make my husband's life work? How can I make my kid's life work?

Jamy: 12:50

Okay, so if I do, this then God's obliged to da, da, da, da, and he's like well, I don't play like that. We're not doing that he's never cooperated with that. There's nothing in scripture that really works that way. It's always been an overflow of our faith, our dependence in him, our attachment to him. Because we are loved, we love him back and in the relational part of that, the overflow of it, which and that's exactly what happens with hosea is where the powerful parts of a faith come from and grow.

Jamy: 13:22

That's so good man I think the idolatry is still and we might think, well, that's ridiculous, I would never do all these things that they're doing, but we do it every time. We make compromises in what we're watching on TV to satisfy our desires, or what we're listening to. It's so easy to make compromises along the same line.

Jamy: 13:41

We do it all the time when we let go of our discipline to stay close to God and then you know we're like. There's that whole passage in Isaiah that talks about how ridiculous it is that with this piece of wood you start a fire to heat your food and the other one you carve into something and you hold in your hand and you can't realize that it's just a piece of wood. But we worship something we hold in our hand every single day, all day long. We can't live without it.

Amy: 14:04

So we have our own way of doing that. We so do, and it is a message and a trap from all of humanity, absolutely. I mean, this was back way back when y'all this is not a new thing, this attachment to something in our hands like our phones. They had it back then too, and it is our struggle that we need to be aware of and fight with, fight against and fight to have an attachment to God and our need um so much on the forefront to him, because that is kind of where the, this, they begin to slip down the slope.

Amy: 14:38

Um, and one aspect of bail that we've talked about before with the other women is the, the, the sexual sexualization.

Jamy: 14:44

Yes, that's what I was referring to.

Amy: 14:47

And I think we it's important within this story to talk about that. This because with Gomer, she, she steps out on Hosea sexually from her husband, which we'll talk about in just a minute but but there is that flesh, that lust that she goes after and gets, that is disguised sometimes as worship for them. So for Baal, they would have sexual prostitutes in the temple, where the men would come in and, in a form of worship, have sex with them so that they could be fertile or they would have rain come. Those are the two things that Baal delivered, they thought. And so I just I think that that's an important detail to understand. That's not comfortable to talk about. We don't like it, it's ucky, icky, but it was a very real form of worship that was acceptable in this setting. So let's dive into her. So that's the context of which we see her as a wife and a mother.

Amy: 15:56

It's interesting because then, in verse two, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of her prostitution. Now I read and I'm curious about what you know about this word too. It wasn't necessarily. There's a lot of debate on was she already a prostitute? Or was this word meaning that she would, would have adultery and be unfaithful to him once she was in the marriage? And and what do you? What do?

Jamy: 16:31

you think it's a second?

Jamy: 16:33

I think that when you look at that word, it's it's more about marital infidelity, not necessarily a specific prostitute, and so I think I mean this is I think God went to Hosea, and this kind of wrecks me to imagine, when I think back on you know, at 52, when I think back on my adult life and even my, my young adult life, later adolescent life, if God had come to me and had said okay, these are the things I want you to do, this I want you to see into your future. These are the painful things that are going to happen, but there's going to be purpose in it, it's going to be worth it and I'm going to be with you and I'm going to give you instructions. So, can you obey me? Can you go? Do that? I mean, it's actually a grace that he never does that for us.

Amy: 17:17

But for.

Jamy: 17:18

Hosea, that's the calling, I think. Think the calling is I want you to move forward and marry this woman, and it's going to be very difficult, but I'm going to use it in a way to teach and to bring my people home. So you just keep listening, you just keep obeying, you just keep loving. I feel like that is what is happening here. I think it's more. I don't think and I've heard it taught this way that it's like Jose, is this like perfect priest that gets sent out to you know, to the brothel to find the worst one he can find and he marries her and just kind of out of obligation. I think it's probably a pretty normal marriage to start with that goes bad very quickly um, she, gomer, was a wife.

Amy: 17:59

And then it says that, uh, verse three. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblam, and she conceived and bore him a son. Yeah, so this is like Regular family. Start now, exactly, she is a wife and she is a mom, and that's why I thought it was interesting to have that as the first thing we see about her, because the normalcy of that yeah, it wasn't some weird random thing, except for God told him to marry her, but and gave him the open door into what would end up happening.

Jamy: 18:30

Yeah, I think it was the foresight. This is her wounds are going to take her to a dark place, but marry her, golly.

Amy: 18:38

Yeah.

Jamy: 18:38

And the foresight is what just kills me and it's not typical of God. Doesn't do this. It's very purposeful here, so I think that sometimes can be a little hard for us when it comes to interpreting this, but he clearly gives this foresight to Hosea and Hosea obeys oh, my goodness, the obedience of Hosea and the faith of Hosea.

Amy: 18:57

Knowing I mean, I think back on on my marriage. We just celebrated 25 years and and we have such I'm so thankful and grateful for our marriage. But if I would have known the hard things that we would have gone through. I might've run the other way, but I would have missed out on the blessings that God has brought us in in our marriage and I'm so grateful he didn't tell me.

Jamy: 19:20

Yeah, that's right, we have to. We have to walk with God as we are loving and serving into our future in all of our relationships. Gosh. But man, I don't know. I know I am not trustworthy. He could not have entrusted that to me.

Amy: 19:35

I don't think I would have been able to do it seriously and I wonder if Hosea just married her and had a baby the first child quietly, knowing all this? I don't know. I wonder how that played out in their marriage and whether he was just waiting for the shoe to drop and everything and trying to, trying to keep it from happening and all the so many different things really made that messy.

Amy: 20:00

Yes, yeah, so curious. So she was a wife and a mom. So think about Gomer as her beginning story, as normal, and I think that brings a lot of relevancy to us, and I just think that she was living the American dream. But there had to have been something inside of her that was restless. And so often for us, and especially with where we live within a ministry context, our lives look like the American dream and like we have everything perfect on the outside, but there we know that there's brokenness on the inside.

Jamy: 20:38

Oh yes.

Amy: 20:39

Whether it's behind closed doors that no one knows, whether it's our own restlessness and in fight with our flesh. I wonder what if she could have reached inside of herself and been honest about the restlessness that she was struggling with. Maybe that set her up to be unfaithful to Hosea? I just wonder.

Jamy: 21:01

Yeah, because there's definitely. We see in chapter two, and in chapter two the language is a little bit different because God is talking to Israel, but it's still Hosea and Gomer's story and I think, from the way that the language talks about the searching and the longing and the going after, to me there's such imagery of this pursuit. She's just really trying to uncover something that's going to help, something that's going to satisfy, and we all have that.

Jamy: 21:32

I think we might hide the sinful ways that we seek to slate that hunger, but it's. It's there.

Amy: 21:38

It is definitely there for all of us yeah, and I was thinking about what does that look like? Let's put some words to that for each other. What are those areas or things that we seek for apart from God, that we just pursue and, I would think, approval from other people? I think just happiness, maybe an indulgence of the flesh?

Jamy: 22:03

A contentment, an ease of life. Ease of life, comfortability, I think ease of life is really something we don't really feel like stuff is going good with God, unless there's some ease coming toward us. Difficulty just seems like it's against a godly life, and it isn't. It's actually part of it. It's so true.

Amy: 22:20

It's the backbone of it actually. Oh, that's so good, and I think that I have, in my life, um over pursued a busy schedule, uh, to make my life felt feel purposeful, yeah, and meaningful, but yet without any wisdom, of margin and really doing it in my own strength yeah, that's it, that's for my own adulation.

Amy: 22:41

I think image is a, b. I'm wanting to be admired by other people and what that could look like with how I look, to my shoes, to my hair, to my weight, to my family, to even the success of my kids. Those are some things that I've over-controlled and pursued because even that would bring me satisfaction. So those are just some ways that I've over controlled and pursued because even that would bring me satisfaction. So those are just some ways that I have struggled with this.

Jamy: 23:07

Well, and that's the. It's funny, as you're saying, that I identify with every single one of those and I I'm just kind of grinning thinking of all the women we've talked about for the last year and a half. All of them have flavors of this, colors of this. This, this is our story. We, we all, struggle with this. I think if we can't, if we can't lean into God and know that we are worth it, worth worth his love, that we are just inherently chosen and loved by him, then we'll be, we'll be seeking it out somewhere else, and it so it has to start there. That's the core question is what do I really believe about what God thinks about me?

Amy: 23:46

What do I really believe about what God thinks about me? And that is an interesting question to explore and one in which you really have to get honest.

Jamy: 23:54

And so, if yeah, it's not a shallow easy answer.

Amy: 23:57

It takes some real introspection. It really does. And we would just challenge you, if that's something that pricks your heart, to push pause and to get a piece of paper out and and write down on one column what you believe god thinks about you and why. And why, yeah, and it could tie back to your uh, family of origin. It could tie back to a traumatic experience that happened in elementary school with friends or boys, in fact it will.

Amy: 24:24

I would even venture to say you won't probably go very honestly into this question we're talking about without examining those things and, my friends, you will not be free of it until you can bring it into the light.

Jamy: 24:37

Recognize the lie from truth.

Amy: 24:39

It is, and it's so worth the work, and Jamie and I, both, throughout our stories, have been in the middle of that work and it has brought freedom. But it is not easy, and so just listening to this podcast and hearing these truths will only get to a point that you've got to do work with God and allow him to illuminate those lies that you believe about yourself because of things that have happened in your life, bring them out into the. But you've got to do work with God and allow him to illuminate those lies that you believe about yourself because of things that have happened in your life, bring them out into the light and allow his truth to cover them, and this story of Gomer is a beautiful way to see him in all of his truth.

Jamy: 25:14

Well and we were commiserating a little bit that we don't have more details about Gomer. But I'm wondering if maybe that's why, if we don know where she came from, we can't find out any details about, we know her father's name and that's it. So we can't sit here and say or even kind of responsibly speculate about maybe some of the deficits she felt growing up. We don't have it. So it's it comes to all of us to have to answer that for ourselves.

Amy: 25:40

So good, it sets us up as a question for each one of us, with no predictive answer to follow Truth or lie? What are you going to believe? What are you going to?

Jamy: 25:49

believe.

Amy: 25:50

And in order to receive God's love, you have to first be open to the truth of it and clear out those lies.

Jamy: 25:57

There's a part in chapter 2 that talks about God. God says that he's going to woo her. I hate the word woo out loud. Woo allure call seduce entice.

Amy: 26:10

Those are.

Jamy: 26:10

Those are all the synonyms for that word. He's. He's speaking to her in a way that will get to her emotions and her response to him is that she's. She sings, and this is what I want us to understand about Gomer. This is what God called Hosea to do for her, so that we could see that it is what he does for us, and we've already said that. But how long has it been since you have actually intentionally spent any time listening or considering how, what God would say to you to entice you, to remind you, to bring you home? Those are the scriptures we need to be looking at. Those are the scriptures you need to be memorizing. Those are the ones that you sing in your, in your core, because they bring out this. You can't even help it. You're not just yes, god, whatever you say, like. We're little robots that have to. It's. It's a saying, it's a song that comes out of us toward that, because it just comes from that worshipful core that we have and that's maybe jumping the gun.

Amy: 27:10

I'm not sure that's good. It talks about his redemption part of of I think where she, where she lands I love that and I remembering and recalling many verses that the Lord reached deep into my emotions and wooed me to come near him again.

Amy: 27:28

Yeah, so that's so good, that's so good Well, she was a wife and mom, and we've touched on the next two briefly, but we're just going to take some firm steps through it. Number two she was an unfaithful adulteress. I saved the naming of her son with Hosea, so that we could then go into the naming of our other two as well.

Jamy: 27:50

It's very, very important.

Amy: 27:52

Yes, so we see the naming, but let's jump first to her unfaithfulness, which is in verse six. Then Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter, so it doesn't say with Hosea. And so that's where, in verse six, we see that she has been unfaithful to. Hosea that she has gone outside of their marriage and that she is having sex, that she has other men, that she is loving and having babies with.

Jamy: 28:23

And it says later in the text that she loves them and that even that she is loved.

Amy: 28:28

So it's a messiness, it's an emotional connection.

Jamy: 28:30

Yes, it's very connected in every way, okay.

Amy: 28:34

So we see that adulterous life of her. But then let's go back to the names of her kids, the first one that she had with Hosea. In verse four, God names Jezreel. For yet in a little while I will avenge the blood of Jezreel and inflict the punishment of it on the house of Jehu and I'll put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. So there's a lot there. But basically, what does Jezreel symbolize?

Jamy: 29:03

Jezreel. His name means scattered. And so it's referring to a part of a story that is about loss and this scattering before he's renamed Gotcha.

Amy: 29:16

So maybe predictive too of the scattering of her and of Israelites. Yes, that's right.

Jamy: 29:23

What's about to happen? To them, I think, in like less than 25 years, what's going to happen in their story.

Amy: 29:27

I'm telling you, even though it seems impossible to them, then yes, the fact that God knows how they will reject him but yet loves them still is such a beautiful component of his love, and the same for us. He knows we're going to be unfaithful to him of his love, and the same for us. He knows we're going to be unfaithful to him, but he loves us still, and he has still written this story for us, so our unfaithfulness is not a surprise to him.

Amy: 29:47

He knows that we will, but he loves us still. So then this next daughter that she has with somebody else. In verse six they name Lo-Ruhamah, which means what? Jamie? No. And so what does that prescribe to the story?

Jamy: 30:05

it's uh, it's a predictive naming of the story of Hosea and Gomer, but also as it relates to God and his people.

Amy: 30:15

So there's a part of.

Jamy: 30:15

There's a part of what Gomer deserves from Hosea and what God's people deserve from God because of their actions. That is this. Yeah, there is a judgment. There's a part of what Gomer deserves from Hosea and what God's people deserve from God because of their actions.

Amy: 30:23

That is this yeah, there's a judgment there is a consequence to the sin. And we see that, as we know the life of the Israelites, that the the journey of the Israelites God doesn't overlook, it's not loving for him to overlook our sin yeah, in his love he brings consequence and judgments to our sin, but in his love he rescues us in that judgment, we're going to get there.

Jamy: 30:50

But when you stick with the whole story, this will make sense. But the initial naming with the low, which means no, no mercy, that is, you know, we talk about our performance and how it comes naturally to us to want to perform and have our life with God be some kind of a formula that we can work out. But the truth is, if we were to be judged in our performance, or try to it always would, there was always a no, it's never enough, there would never, ever be enough. And so I think, right here, this is God's truth telling, saying what way you, the way you are living, what you have done, no mercy is deserved tonight, and I'm illustrating it in this initial here, the word initial naming of this child, exactly because these names don't say that's right, yeah, it about it about breaks my heart to even talk about it all, but yes, it gets better it gets better, okay.

Amy: 31:39

And then we see now in verse 8, when Gomer had weaned Lo-rah-hah-mah, she conceived and gave birth to a son, and again that is an adultress relationship because she only comes home when she gets pregnant and the Lord said name him. Lo-ah not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God. That's quite a statement, Ouch.

Jamy: 32:05

Yeah, are we glad that isn't the end of the subject, the end of the story. The end of the story.

Amy: 32:10

Yeah, and so there is, because of the sin, a disconnection from, not of, his love. Yeah, okay.

Jamy: 32:18

There is a he allows, I think in the naming it's. It's meant to have shock for us.

Amy: 32:35

It's meant to show what a season of rebellion looks like. Lord, and we all have the reasons that caused us to seek something other than God, and that, from that point, I so relate to her and I am so grateful for God bringing us this messy story so that we know that he knows and he sees but yet his love still reaches there.

Jamy: 33:03

Well, and I think I hope that listeners will hear us say this If you, if you were living in some kind of a rebellious place where you're digging your heels in and refusing to come home to God, then you're stuck here. You're stuck in verse nine, because verse 10 gets really really beautiful. 9 because verse 10 gets really really beautiful, but there's. You can't force him or manipulate him, or be mad enough at him to force a change to the consequences of what your rebellious choices are are building, are begetting, are growing, there is mercy and there is love and there is belonging. But it only comes when you come to God on his terms, in his way, with a heart of repentance. And this is so. It's just over and over through the book.

Amy: 33:48

it's so true, it's so true and we see that her unfaithfulness led her somewhere and our unfaithfulness will always lead us somewhere apart from God, yes, and through the rest of her story, and we see just some beautiful things that we're going to hit back on on the redemption. But through her unfaithfulness it led her to being sold, as we see in verse 3, and put up on an auction or a block and God calls Hosea to buy her back. But let's first look just to kind of piece together and pull out those things that Hosea 2 about her unfaithfulness and what it says.

Amy: 34:28

So, as we start, what are some things? Let's see. I will strip her naked and expose her. These are some of the judgments that come. I will expose her. I'll make her like a wilderness, slay her with thirst. What are some other?

Jamy: 34:44

things that you see, that unsatisfaction, her children will bear some of the consequences. It says in verse four.

Amy: 34:52

I will pursue other lovers.

Jamy: 34:54

Yeah, this is interesting. In verse six of chapter two it says I'll hedge up her way. I think that's always interesting to show. We usually think of the hedge as God's protection of us, but right here it is God's protection, but it's to keep her from going out, instead of keeping bad things from coming out.

Amy: 35:11

Exactly, I put up a wall and a hedge of shutting off her way so that she cannot find her path. Yeah, and she will passionately pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them. She will seek them. But she will passionately pursue her lovers, yes, but she will not overtake them. She will seek them, but she will not find them. And then she will say let me go and return to my first husband. For sure, it was better for me then than now.

Amy: 35:29

Yeah, I mean, that reminds me of the prodigal son and just coming to the wit's end of seeking his own interest and saying I just Got to get home, absolutely.

Jamy: 35:38

I think so much of chapter 2 is Her lack of ability to recognize God from Gomer and Gomer able to recognize Hosea and us, israel and us being able to recognize God's protection and provision because he leaves her gifts and she gives credit to the to bail the false gods. And we do that all the time. All the time the good things that happen, it must be my own efforts, or it must be all this stuff that I'm seeking after not realizing that it's so often it's God taking care of us and then we kick and throw fits about the hedges that are also for our protection, isn't?

Amy: 36:14

that true, and sometimes the very things we've prayed for.

Jamy: 36:16

But we just don't want them that way.

Amy: 36:21

We don't want them that way.

Amy: 36:22

We don't like how God answered that prayer, and so we're going to come back to the second half of chapter two in just a minute, but let's kind of set the scene for the ultimate desperation of where she's at. So in Hosea 3, 1, we see. Then the Lord said to Hosea Go again, love Gomer, who is beloved by her husband and yet is still an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods. And so Hosea bought her for himself for 15 pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley.

Jamy: 36:54

So she was being sold. Yeah, at some point, after all of these pursuits, she'd gotten to the place where the only way she could survive was to be sold into slavery. And we don't know all the details of that, but something happened. It would have only been desperation where she would have gone from being a married woman to sold into slavery.

Amy: 37:15

And God calls Hosea to do the. It's where the music swells in any love story. Yes To, against all odds and even against her rebellion, love her and bring her back home.

Jamy: 37:27

There's so much humiliation here and I read I think it's the ESV study Bible that says the average price for a slave was 30 and he buys her for 15.

Jamy: 37:38

So talking about value and worth Half of the slave. And he buys her for $15,000. So talking about value and worth Half. She had ruined her life to the point that she was only worth half what most would be. And so he offers and I don't know, I don't know if this is like he got a good deal or if it's all he had the whole thing about the $15,000, the price being $15,000, and then the extra home or a barley. I don't know. I know there's so many different things. There's an aspect of this is what I have.

Amy: 38:05

Yeah, and somewhere I read is that he had to subsidize with the barley because he didn't have enough money.

Jamy: 38:11

That's what that seems like to me.

Amy: 38:14

He gave all he had to get her back and she was redeemed, and so that was the third thing. She was a wife and a mother, the first thing. The second, she was an unfaithful adulteress, and then she was redeemed by God's love, by Hosea's love, as we are redeemed by God's love.

Jamy: 38:31

Well, and don't miss, that's what the word redeem means. It's become such a spiritual, kind of a Christian-y word for us that we maybe lose track of what the word actually originally means, and it means to buy back. That's that's. This is the perfect, actual, perfect picture of it. She's on an auction block and he buys something that already should belong to him.

Amy: 38:55

Yeah I just think about that. My nieces and I were thrifting this last week when they came to visit, and we went into a thrift store that I had actually given my clothes to, and so we were laughing. How funny would it be if I loved something and then I picked it up and was going to buy it and I was like, oh my gosh, this was mine in the first place. That is such a silly example.

Jamy: 39:20

It works, because you're not walking out of that store without buying it again.

Amy: 39:23

Yes, yeah, I have to have to and it's it feels a little funny because I had it in the first place, but I just, I just can't imagine the love of Hosea and and the obedience to God, because we don't know if this was totally like, how much was obedience and how much was his love for her.

Jamy: 39:42

Well, and how awkward it would have been. We don't really know her response. I kind of have some assumptions about her response, because all of chapter 3, the speech he gives her in chapter 3, which is basically you've got to stay home, you can't sleep with anyone.

Amy: 39:55

Yes, I love that and I'm not going to sleep can't sleep with anyone. Yes, I love that and I'm not going to sleep.

Jamy: 40:00

I mean he doesn't force himself on her and he has every right to Right. It wouldn't be right, but he legally would. So all of that makes me think it was probably a. It was probably pretty rocky right home. I do too.

Amy: 40:08

Pretty icy. I think. So too. I think, and all of us know this, that whenever we have those types of wounds, that it is not just an easy fix, right, and how God in his mercy and his power, can zap us like a magic wand, but we would not stay attached to him and be aware of our need for him if he just magically made it go away. And so some of the rebellious parts of my life in which caused some major wounds in me. I have worked hard to get to the root of them, to release my pride and to, in such humility, be so broken. And the Lord allows us to go through that, to have complete healing, because healing cannot come if it were just zapped away.

Jamy: 40:57

That's right, and so we see that in her story in such beauty and I I encourage listeners to to pay a lot of attention to chapter three and both in the narrative of how jose and gomer relate, but also toward the. It's only a few verses long, but at the end of that little section, and and how the, the hope and the promise that god is, is laying out for them, because I I think that's what happens with them.

Amy: 41:22

That it ends up being good. Yeah, because he says afterward, because there's this.

Jamy: 41:26

there's kind of this idea that it might take a little bit that it might take a little while.

Amy: 41:31

So he buys her back for 15 pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. That's verse two, and I also read that barley was the offering given for an act of adultery.

Jamy: 41:42

Oh, I did not see that.

Amy: 41:43

I've never seen that, Okay yeah so it was a cool understanding that he was Of a confession or something Of her, or an acceptance, an awareness.

Amy: 41:51

Yes, An awareness or acceptance. And then this is what Jamie was talking about in verse 3. And then Hosea said to Gomer you shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the prostitute adulteress, nor shall you have a man. So I will also be towards you. And in my parentheses, in the amplified, it says until you have proved your faithfulness. And so he did give her time and he did not. They did not sleep together until she was at a place in which he felt like she was healthy and that shows so much respect for her that she hadn't earned, but he gave.

Jamy: 42:24

It's really beautiful.

Amy: 42:26

And I love.

Jamy: 42:26

Verse five of chapter three. I like it in the message where it says they'll come back chastened to reverence before God and his good gifts, ready for the end of the story of his love.

Jamy: 42:36

To me that sounds kind of like the end of, like the curtain coming down on, like the private part of Hosea and Gomer's story. But I like that they'll come back chastened, Because in the ESV it says that they'll return, Return and seek. I like those words together Because so much of her story has been seeking after all these things that will just never and just take her away. Sin has such a high price. We just chase it and chase it and chase it, hoping it will satisfy us. It never does. All the things that God gives her, that Hosea gives her to try to help her stay provided for and healthy and good, she gives to someone else or gives the credit to someone else. She's never satisfied. Finally, she becomes a slave. Slave and he brings her home and the promise is that she will return and she will seek.

Jamy: 43:24

And that's the part of the heart josea could have forced her to go home and he could have forced her in any way, but I love the promise there and this is this is what we need to be seeking to. Where are the ways I'm seeking the wrong things and where can, how can I return and seek God?

Amy: 43:39

that's what shows the true heart change and, I think, shows, maybe, hopefully, the real healing of their marriage that's so true, I think, the awareness, that of God's love, of his massive love that is full of grace. And there's certain words within the second part of chapter two that are just beautiful. I will allure her, I will bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. I will give her vineyards, I will make the valley of Acre a door of hope and expectation. Well, she'll sing and respond. She will call me Ishi, my husband, and no longer call Baal. I will remove the names from her very mouth. She will call me Ishi, my husband, and no longer call Baal. I will remove the names from her very mouth. I will betroth her to me forever. I will betroth her in righteousness and justice and loving, kindness and loyalty and compassion in stability and faithfulness.

Amy: 44:35

I mean, it's just a beautiful.

Jamy: 44:36

They're like wedding vows. They are, that's beautiful Really are.

Amy: 44:40

And there's parts within the other, beyond chapter three in Hosea, in which it talks about I mean, it is a very flowery descriptive love of God's love and pursuit of Israel in the midst of the rebellion. And so I just hope that, as you walk away from this story and this conversation, that you will be overwhelmed by God's love for you, that you will put in priority the power that even your rebellion has and it will lead you somewhere, but it can never overtake God's love for you and it can never lead you to a place where he can't reach.

Jamy: 45:22

That's right. There's never a place that it takes us where we can't come home.

Amy: 45:29

So where are you today, listener? Are you living the American dream where everyone thinks you have it all together and you have it all on the outside, but yet, like Gomer, you long and are discontented. You long for something else, you lust for something else, or you're very discontented and restless. Where are you? Where does the story land for you today? But we see that God's love, in her story and for you, is very action oriented. He goes out and brings her back. Pursuit, he pursues you. It's unfailing. Regardless of the rebellion that you do, it will never fail and it brings you home. Yes, so if you find yourself there, jamie, for the listener that's there and they find themselves in either the American dream, but behind closed doors they're just so discontented or even if it's just outright in the middle of a junky mess that everyone can see, what would you say to that listener of what she should do?

Jamy: 46:29

One of my favorite parts of this and I would send you back to chapter one, verse 10, because it gives the whole thing about the horrible naming of the kids and we're stuck in this season of rebellion and we're stuck in this season of rebellion and we have more details in 2 and 3. But if you go back, verse 10, the very first word is yet. And this is where I would really encourage you. I see so many women and I have lived long seasons here where, because of my regrets and mistakes I've made, I maybe believe God will forgive me, but only to a certain degree, like there's a certain place and if I just you know, I can serve him, but kind of as this stepchild over here who doesn't really belong because I'm still paying penance for all these bad things I've done or the mistakes I've made and and I just got to keep those hidden away. But I think the reality of the story of Jose and Gomer is that what he says is yet, if you go back to 110, he says yet, in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people and you are not loved. In that same place you will be called children of the living God, he takes away that. No, you are my people, you are. I do show in that place place I will show mercy in that place. You're called my people. He what I would want.

Jamy: 47:44

Women in that position maybe, maybe, who are tempted to think that they, they really aren't worthy, maybe can't ever live up, they're kind of feeling gomer, stuck in life. I would remind you of the power of that yet, because God says in that place, he's not waiting for you to find the right place to become like this really great version of yourself, so that you can and just hide away all the sin. He actually says in that place, the place that you're trying to hide, where you've made the biggest mistakes, I think this is that unplowed ground. Those are the places are the very best fruit grows.

Jamy: 48:20

These are the places where you can invite other women into your story and say, look, this is what I did and this is who I was. But in this very place, god provided and he was providing and he is providing and he loves me. This is where we belong, this is where he shows mercy, this is where we belong, this is where he shows mercy and maybe hide less, accept his love fully and then let that be the place that launches your ministry. Instead of being kind of a kind of a halfway servant that thinks you don't really deserve it, he calls you daughter, completely accepted, completely loved, and let's, let's live there. I think if we can live there in transparency, it would be really powerful. I think so too.

Amy: 49:01

I think so too. I think that is. We're just going to leave you with that, because there's so much, it's hard, I think there's so much that we would want to say to you more, but I think that the Lord can do a better job of it. But I think that the Lord can do a better job of it. So, as we finish this up, we're just praying for you, listeners, as whatever the Lord needs to do in your heart, he'll do, and that you'll be receptive and obedient to it. Because Gomer, she was one of us. She was a wife and a mom, an unfaithful adulteress, and she was redeemed by God's love.

Amy: 49:39

And who was God to her. He was her faithful pursuer, redeemer, who gave everything to bring her back home. That's right, all right. So Jamie and I shut off the microphone and shut off the computer and we just continued to kind of trickly talk about what Jose and Gomer mean to us.

Jamy: 50:00

Yeah, this story gets us in the feels it gets us we can't quite, and so I was wrapping up the microphone and we're getting ready to leave.

Amy: 50:06

She was getting ready to leave, but then she said something and we started this conversation that we just had to come back and revisit. It was about just trying to step into the shoes of Gomer and what it was like to move back home with Hosea, knowing her entire history.

Jamy: 50:25

Yeah, and we were kind of putting our responsible.

Amy: 50:30

Imagination is kind of what I call it.

Jamy: 50:32

That's a good way for it what it would be to go home and be with Hosea and be with these three kids that she had abandoned, and what it would be like to kind of have the time to wake up, like the process of waking up to sorrow over what it, what her sin, had had cost. And I just wonder if sometimes we we don't see each other through that process very well or don't give ourselves the patience and the grace to go through that process. Maybe our expectations are that. You know I said I'm sorry.

Jamy: 51:06

So we're uh, instead of the hard work that it takes to actually really live in the sorrow of that for a while and wake up to also the grace of it that you have been welcomed home and you are, you do belong there, and you are his wife and you are their mother, and how can I, how can I do that? And so for those of us that have had, you know, big, big chunks taken out of our soul because of mistakes we or others have made, I think just a little bit of that the late, something about the language of chapter three is what gives me this imagery that the afterward it's this, this is going to come about.

Amy: 51:42

I think it speaks to a season of time that is kind of required for our healing giving a season of time, because often we would think, oh, she's back home, happily ever after, but there is within. What Hosea said is we're not going to be together for a while, until you're ready I think that that just notes that there's some, some wrestling and some growth and some healing.

Amy: 52:07

That had to happen and, like Jamie said, I don't think we often give ourselves enough room to do that. We resist it because it hurts and the grief of our own choices or choices of other people is hard to deal with and many of us stay there where we can't forgive ourselves.

Jamy: 52:25

It's so much easier just to stay there and be good. Yes, be good, stop doing bad. Yes, and be good, but not really be whole and healed and your relationships restored, and that is what God is calling us to.

Amy: 52:40

So, without a doubt, oh, it's so, and I remember seasons in my own life of grappling with the stupid rebellion and even the consequences of my choices that continued to play out. I mean goodness. She had her kids in front of her face all the time, reminding her of her unfaithfulness. She was having to raise those kids with the reminder that they had different fathers.

Jamy: 53:02

Every one, two, three. Yes, did they look like their dads? Yes, did they look like her? I wonder? Those are the kinds of things that could be just right there before her.

Amy: 53:09

Yes, and so I just want we just want to encourage you, ladies, to have the grit and the bravery and the obedience and the perspective that it is healthy and it is okay. If you're not okay, that's right, as God brings maybe some rescue to you. There's the long process of redemption and restoration that still continues to happen.

Jamy: 53:36

Yeah, and stop defining yourself by what you deserve. God doesn't do that, so we need to stop it.

Amy: 53:43

That's so good. So let the curtain closing on Gomer's story be an opening for you to write what God wants for you in your story today. Absolutely. We couldn't leave you without saying that I know All right, see you next time, I hope this falls really sweetly and tenderly on everyone's hearts. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time on Car Chat Podcast.