Well, tonight I invite you to turn with me again to Hosea, chapter 2, the chapter we began to consider last week, Sunday morning, that the Lord pursues His people, and we considered the first two points of that sermon, and I left you hanging with the third one, otherwise it would have gone too long. But tonight, we add chapter 3, along with point 3 of this particular sermon. Remember, I mentioned last week, Sunday morning, those of you who were here, that I was taught, told very beautifully that chapters 1 and 3 are the earthly representation, and chapter 2 is the heavenly interpretation. And therefore, it's fitting, I believe, especially as we consider point 3, as you see them listed on the back of the order of worship, that we add chapter 3 to this. But we're going to read beginning at verse 1 of chapter 2. And in essence, we've already considered verses 1 through 13 of that chapter. We'll read the entire chapter, then also the five verses of chapter 3. Hear now the Word of God, beginning at verse 2 of chapter 2. Rebuke your mother. Rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. she said i will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water my wool and my linen my oil and my drink therefore i will block her path with thorn bushes i will wall her in so she cannot find her way she will chase after her lovers but not catch them she will look for them but not find them then she will say i will go back to my husband as at first for then i was better off than now She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they used for bail. Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen intended to cover her nakedness, so now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers. No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed feasts. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the bales. She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but me she forgot, declares the Lord. Therefore, I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my master. I will remove the names of the bales from her lips. No longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day I will respond, declares the Lord. I will respond to the skies. And they will respond to the earth. And the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil. And they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show my love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God. The Lord said to me, go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes. So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and bought a homer and a lethic of barley. Then I told her, You are to live with me many days. You must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you. For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. Afterward, the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days. May God add his blessing to the reading and the preaching of his word tonight. Beloved in the Lord, really we can only imagine the thoughts going through Hosea's mind and maybe even the words that he may have spoken. Lord, what did you say? you want me to do what? Don't you think we'd be better off without her? Do you know about the pain and the embarrassment that she has caused me? Yes. I know full well, says the Lord. And that's why I want you to go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin caves. We remember from the very beginning that the Lord commanded, Hosea was commanded to take an adulterous wife and into that way that she would be a real-life visible example to Israel of the kind of wife that Israel had been to the Lord. And now after marrying Hosea and after showing her true colors and the true desires of her heart, Hosea is now commanded once again to go to Gomer and to demonstrate in a visible, real-life, concrete way that the Lord pursues His people. Again, that is the message of chapter 2 that we began to consider. And now as we add chapter 3 to this third point, we see here now too that this earthly representation, with that earthly representation, Hosea is commanded to demonstrate the pursuing love of God by pursuing Gomer with the very same sacrificial love as the Lord, humanly speaking, as humanly possible, that is. Now, just a refresher, we considered last week, Sunday morning, first of all, the Lord's pursuit of His people by exposing Israel's hypocrisy. The evidence of Israel's adultery against the Lord was crystal clear. It was clear in her appearance, you remember. She dressed the part. By her lack of obedience to the law of God, she sounded loud and clear. Hey, I'm available for the taking. The evidence was crystal clear by way of her words. She gave credit to Baal for all of the good things that the Lord had given to her. And the evidence was crystal clear in her worship as all those things, especially that religious calendar, that covenantal calendar that God had given to Israel by which to serve him had been turned over to Baal and used to worship Baal. And now we see, too, the same is true with Gomer. The evidence was crystal clear. Not only was she loved by another and by many others, but now Hosea is commanded to go and get her because she had not merely stepped out on him once or twice, but she had deserted Hosea. And we notice, secondly, that the Lord pursues His people by promising Israel's punishment. Because of the evidence that was so clear against her, the Lord says that she would be stripped of all that God had given to her And since he had given her everything, very simply, she would lose everything. Her goods, her worship, the land, her freedom. And we notice now, too, the same was true with Gomer. She had lost everything. He had to go buy her. He bought her. Most likely, for whatever reason, she had to sell herself as a slave. The slave price was 30 shekels of silver, and that's what Hosea pays, it appears. Half of it in silver, half of its value in goods. But also, she would be disciplined with isolation, that she might change her ways and prove her faithfulness. Yet, Gomer's punishment, we notice, was for a purpose, not annihilation, but restoration. Now you see, Hosea had purchased Gomer, and therefore she was his not only by the legal right of marriage, but she was also his by the right of purchase. And legally, he could do what he wanted. Legally, he could put her to death. Legally, he could put her forever out of his sight. But yet, he couldn't do these things, could he? Because the Lord had said, go, love her again. Not if you feel like it, But go and love her again. And he demonstrated it by purchasing her, and he would demonstrate it by restoring her to the dignity of a wife following the Lord's pattern as the Lord loves Israel. And in that way, Hosea was to show the Lord's pursuit of his people and to demonstrate the Lord's patience with and his love for his people when no one else wanted her. The Lord would keep His vows in the third place now, revealing Israel's restoration. And we notice that the Lord reveals Israel's restoration, first of all, with a glorious promise. A promise from trouble to hope. Verses 14 and 15, Therefore I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. Now the Lord speaks of the desert here. I'm going to allure her into the desert. And we said last week that that desert points to her punishment. But nothing else that is said there fits with that punishment, does it? And that's because it's a part of this glorious promise from the valley of trouble. Indeed, the desert pointed to the Valley of Trouble. That's what the Valley of Achor means. It means the Valley of Trouble. And Achor, you recall, I trust, is a reminder of Achan's punishment that Bill reminded us of this past summer. Of Achan's punishment for his sin and rebellion, his execution and his burial. It was a reminder of a very low point in Israel's history. And the desert again points to exile That punishment was clearly set forth in chapter 2. And now notice the details in chapter 3, verse 4. For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. They would be stripped, remember? Stripped bare, made naked as in the day of their birth. But notice in exile, obviously there would be no freedom. But also there would be no national identity. No leaders. For so long, Israel had chosen her leaders according to her own self-will and not according to the will of the Lord. Now she would have no leaders. She would have no national identity and also she would have no worship. Again, all those things, those festivals, plus the ephod, and those things that God had given for the worship of Him had all been tainted with Baalism so He was going to remove their opportunity to worship. And the desert would be a time of barrenness, a time in which they would simply exist. She would be lost with no place to turn. She would be a nobody for whom nobody cared, except for Yahweh. Again, we see that in these beautiful words. the desert was a part of his pursuing love. And notice his purpose was to bring her back to the beginning. You remember before, the desert served as a place of rescue from slavery to Egypt. And now the desert would serve as a place of rescue from slavery to Baal. The Lord would return his wife to the desert where that first wedding took place. When she was nothing, when she had nothing, He took her as His very own and made a covenant with her. In Jeremiah 2, verse 2, we read, I remember the devotion of your youth. How as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Beloved, the exile of God's people was not for destruction, but for reconstruction. It was for transformation. It would prove to be a place of God's blessing. As we read in chapter 3, verse 5, that word blessing is also translated in some versions as goodness, a place of God's goodness. When God acts on behalf of His people, even when we don't appreciate it, it is from His goodness. It is for our good. There, He would speak tenderly to her. He would draw her back from the valley of trouble to the door of hope. That valley of trouble would be transformed into a door of hope as there His wife, His people would remember that their God was one God. The Lord our God is one. He is the one and only. It is there that they would remember as we confess, our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. It would be a door of hope as they would return to the Lord. And again, that was spoken of so long before, even before they entered Canaan. In Deuteronomy 4, verse 30, when you are in distress and all these things happen to you, these things that they were told about, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey Him. And Jeremiah 29 says, you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity. You see, beloved, in the desert, Israel would once again recognize the true God. Verses 21 and 22, In that day I will respond, declares the Lord. I will respond to the skies and they will respond to the earth and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil and they will respond to Jezreel. Do you hear that? All those things that Israel had said belonged to Baal or were gifts from Baal, the Lord says, uh-uh. I will respond. And the sky will respond to me. And so on and so forth. It would all respond because he would reveal himself as the true God, not Baal. And therefore it's in the desert that Isabel would remember God's provision and God's protection and his power that he had exercised on their behalf and that he alone is the source of salvation. He alone is the source of satisfaction. It is He who is the one who struck Egypt and conquered Egypt's gods by the plagues. He is the one who parted the Red Sea that His wife might walk through on dry ground, but the same walls of water that protected them would come crashing down and destroy the army of Egypt. He is the one who provided day by day, like clockwork, faithfully the manna and the quail. He is the one who made the walls of Jericho fall down. He is the one who was fighting Midian when Gideon and his 300 were blowing their trumpets and throwing their glass jars and holding their torches. He is the one. It's in the desert, beloved, when they would be stripped of everything that they would recognize the true God and they would also confess the true God. Verses 16 and 17. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my master. I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips. no longer will their names be invoked. Now in the Hebrew, the word Baal, from which we get the word Baal with regard to Baal worship, also can be translated as husband or lord or master. And Israel would have used that word as well in those ways. But that word had become so tied, obviously, to Baal worship that the Lord says, I'm taking it out of your vocabulary. I'm striking it out. It's going to be gone forever and you will only know me exclusively as husband. Pointing as well to the exclusive worship of the Lord. They would recognize the true God. They would confess the true God. But also they would be protected by the true God. They would enjoy covenant renewal and the security that comes along with the covenant. A new covenant. They had violated the old covenant. And in Jeremiah 31, we read, I will put My law on their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people. And part of that covenantal relationship includes the fact that the Lord says that He's going to court them. Verses 19 and 20, I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. Their betrothal in those days was in essence the wedding. it meant that two people were husband and wife the only thing left was for the groom to take his wife into his home Israel had broke the marriage bond but the Lord says he would restore her she would be restored as his wife and notice the wedding vows the very attributes of God righteousness justice love compassion and faithfulness Really, this was the bride price. This was the dowry. Generally, that the groom had to give to the bride's father. This is what God says, I will give. This is His promise. It points to the unfailing character of God. And this is what was to be the response of His bride. They would be courted. But they would also be claimed by the Lord. Verse 23, I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show my love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people, and they will say, you are my God. Everything that the Lord had said before in chapter 1 is now reversed. He will claim them once again. What a beautiful thing this is. He would restore them forever as his people. He would say, I am your God. He says, you will have my love for always. And they were always able. God's people can claim Him as our own forever. And that means, too, that she would be cared for. Verse 18, In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land so that all may lie down in safety. What a beautiful expression of security from both man and beast pointing forward to perfect peace and harmony and protection. Beloved, the desert is where God would bring His people to their senses. It is where they would recognize the greatness of their sin and misery. It is where their eyes would be lifted to the only Savior. And they would confess, as Moses in essence said, It is better to be in the desert with the Lord than to be in the land flowing with milk and honey without the Lord. But how do we understand this? I mean, we know that a remnant returned to the land after captivity, but we also know that Israel did not see this restoration in an earthly sense. They did not see the glory of this restoration. And we know that there was a faithful remnant that looked for it and desired it And believe the promises of God. But this restoration with a glorious promise as we have just seen, came and comes to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ still today with a divine fulfillment. In chapter 3, verse 5, we read, Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their King. They will come trembling to the Lord and to His blessings into the last days. Now David was long gone. And even Judah who was exiled in Babylon a number of years later and a remnant of which also came back, never again did a son of David sit on the physical throne. So we know this is pointing forward to the greater son of David. This is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the one for whom even the remnant was looking for. Simeon in the temple and Anna in the temple. When the Christ child was brought, they confess that much. Simeon praises God because now my eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord. This restoration is fulfilled in Jesus Christ who said, I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. And He has fulfilled it, beloved, through a costly payment. As Jesus Christ was banished to exile, to the exile of the cross, That cross that reveals our helplessness and our want, our shame. And as we said last week, our idolatry that we still struggle with as we are attached to this world. He was banished to the exile of the cross as he bore God's wrath against us. He was stripped of everything. He was stripped of all of his glory. He became sin and a curse for us. He suffered the valley of the trouble of hell for you and me. And as he did so, beloved, he shed his own blood for my soul and your soul. Peter says, For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. And as he was banished to exile and as he bore God's wrath, beloved, because of that he brings our only hope. He is the bride price that has been provided for us. He is the righteousness of God. He has satisfied the justice of God against your sin and mine. He is the demonstration of the love of God and the compassion of God, that deep-seated compassion for His own. He is the faithfulness of God. But not only that, He has fulfilled our vows in our place. so that we can be restored and reconciled to God the Father, whether Jew or Gentiles, all who are in Christ Jesus, are restored to God the Father and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ alone is the fulfillment. Also, for a transformed life. You see, that's what all mankind needs. All of mankind is adulterous against the Lord. All of mankind has turned its face against the Lord, and all of mankind needs a transformed life. That's what God's people receive. And that transformation, beloved, takes place in the valley of trouble. You see, every believer who has lived, who lives today, or who will live, have all traveled through that valley of trouble. You and I experienced that valley of trouble when God, by the Holy Spirit, brought us to our knees in humility to recognize the truth of ourselves, to recognize how great is our sin and misery, and to recognize the pride and arrogance within us that would destroy us, to recognize that we are nothing without Him, to recognize that we have caused Him pain, that we are nothing but an embarrassment to Him. To recognize the truth of the fact that in reality He is better off without us. All who are brought to faith in Jesus Christ travel that valley of trouble, and it's there in that valley of trouble that that transformation takes place as it becomes a door of hope. Because as we are brought to recognize these things, beloved, our eyes are lifted to the only Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the powerful demonstration of God's pursuing love. God sent His Son to seek and to save the lost. He is the door to the sheepfold, as Jesus Himself has said, and whoever enters by Him will be saved. And those who come to the Father through Jesus Christ will never be cast away, because He clothes us with His perfect righteousness forever. You see, that's how we stand in the sight of God. You remember Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3. He was dressed in filthy garments, and the Lord said, him off and clothe him with rich robes that's what we enjoy our garments of sin and shame all removed and we have been clothed with the perfect righteousness of jesus christ which is ours forever and that is how god sees us now and that is how we will stand before him forever but while it is still called today that righteousness is what we are to strive to demonstrate now. You see, Gomer's isolation not only pointed to Israel's exile, but it also points to our call to be set apart as those who are in Jesus Christ. We are set apart from the world. We are isolated, as it were, in Jesus Christ from the world. And we have been given a call for strict obedience. Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey what I command because you are set apart and John adds in first John chapter 5 and his commands are not burdensome we might think they are at times but his commands are not burdensome they are for our good and that ought to be what we want correct Paul puts it this way he says put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness and that includes imitating in as much as we are able the love of God. But now, beloved, we have a problem with this, don't we? Because we often become troubled. We often become troubled because we find ourselves back in the valley of trouble as we recognize with Paul that the good that I want to do, I don't do. But the evil that I don't want to do, that is what I do. But even in that valley of trouble again, and we are reminded over and over again that God is faithful in His goodness. He allows us to visit that valley of trouble again and again in this life, only there to be reminded of that only door of hope, Jesus Christ. You see, we need to be reminded of that over and over and over again because we are a forgetful people. Let's be honest about that. We are a people who are prone to wander, And we constantly need that glorious reminder of the door of hope, Jesus Christ, who paid for all of our sins. And we need that reminder of that well of His cleansing blood that never runs dry. We need that reminder that He has restored us with God. Not only for this life, but unto the joy of paradise. The glory of heaven where no other name will be worshipped when all pretenders to the throne of Christ will have been destroyed and forgotten where there will be true and lasting peace and harmony. As Isaiah describes in chapter 11, the wolf will lie with the lamb and all those harmonious things. And beloved, we know that the joy of paradise is permanent because our God has betrothed his people to himself forever. Nothing can separate us from his love. that joy of paradise is intimate in verse 20 the lord says you will acknowledge me remember we said last week that word has the idea of what's been called that three-fold cord of the covenant intimacy loyalty and obedience that is how we will know him in the glory of heaven as we will be with him and glory in his name forever and the best part of all beloved is that this is god's doing In Ephesians 2, Paul says, but because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. Beloved, apart from Jesus Christ, there is only an eternal valley of trouble, where there is no rescue, no relief, only destruction and horror. But for those, all those, who look to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in Him alone for salvation, To them, God has given a beautiful picture through Hosea and Gomer and a vivid proof that we have before us in the Lord's table of what He has done for us in Jesus Christ. We who were wayward, who were unloving, who were unlovable, who were unwanted by others, who wanted nothing to do with Him, He came after us. It is not that I did choose thee, for Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me. And therefore, as Peter says, the church is a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. You see, from prostitution against God to becoming his own possession, not to be shared, but protected forever. You see, beloved, this is the pursuing love of God. And in a particular way for you and me today, this is the message of the Lord's table. And there's only one way to respond, with Paul. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. To him be the glory forever. Amen.