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I will read what we looked at 
this morning again though from verse 14 just so we understand 
the context in which this passage is taking place here today that 
we're going to look at. So Hosea chapter 2 beginning 
at verse 14. This is the restoration of Israel 
as God's essentially divorced bride. Therefore, behold, I will 
allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and will speak 
comfort to her. I will give or display her vineyards 
from there, and the valley of Acre as a door of hope. And she 
shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the days 
when she came up from the land of Egypt. And it shall be in 
that day, says the Lord, that you will call me my husband and 
no longer call me my master. For I will take from her mouth 
the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their 
name no more. In that day I will make a covenant 
for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the 
air, and with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword 
of battle I will shatter from the earth to make them lie down 
safely. I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me 
in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy. 
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. 
And it shall come to pass in that day that I will answer, 
says the Lord. I will answer the heavens, and 
they shall answer the earth. And the earth shall answer with 
grain, and with new wine, and with oil. And they shall answer, 
Jezreel. Then I will sow her for myself 
in the earth. And I will have mercy on her 
who had not obtained mercy. Then I will say to those who 
were not my people, you are my people. And they shall say, you 
are my God. 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. So I bought her for myself for 
15 shekels of silver and one and a half homers of barley. 
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. For the children of Israel shall 
abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice 
or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward, the children 
of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David 
their king, and they shall fear the Lord and His goodness in 
the latter days. Amen. Well, let us pray together. 
Our Father in heaven, again, we come before you and we thank 
you that we can have this time again on your Lord's day to worship 
you together and to examine your word together. And Father, we 
pray that now would be a time where we can hear from you through 
the preaching of the word. And Lord, we know that's only 
possible when you are here with your Spirit to fill us and to 
bless each one of us. And we appeal to you, Lord, for 
the power of the Spirit in preaching your word. for the power of the 
Spirit in applying it to our hearts, Lord, that you would 
give us attentiveness and help us to push aside all the distractions 
of the busy lives that we live and to sit and focus and hear 
what does the Lord have to say to us today. And Father, we ask 
that if there be any here among us this afternoon who are not 
in Christ, that the power of the Spirit would work mightily 
in hearts. And that sinners would see the Savior in all His glory, 
with His arms open, saying, come unto me, all you who labor, and 
I will give you rest. And that they would flee in faith 
to the Savior for their salvation. And Father, above all, we ask 
that you would be glorified here and now. And it's in Christ's 
name that we ask this. Amen. So for those who are not 
here this morning, we looked at the second half of chapter 
2 in Hosea, and God is restoring Israel, the nation that was His, 
His special people. He had taken them from nothing. 
We read that again today in the consecutive reading in Deuteronomy. 
nothing and he had he had planted them in this beautiful paradise 
uh of the promised land and he had given them a law that they 
needed to follow but they violated that law they broke that law 
and therefore god exiled them and they were cut off that relationship 
was broken and no longer were they his people, he said, and 
no longer did he have that compassion towards them, but he was gonna 
make a way of reconciliation, and he does so first by alluring 
them. In verse 14 of chapter two, he 
allures them, and what he does is he shows them what he could 
offer them, this abundant life that he could offer to his people, 
and they would respond to that in faith, And then they were 
betrothed. That was the legal ceremony where 
they legally became, that relationship was restored legally. And then 
after that, God takes them and he plants them in this land that 
he promised them, that he showed them through the door of hope. 
He gave them a glimpse of the life, abundant life that he could 
offer. After this betrothal ceremony, 
he goes, he prepares, he builds this kingdom that he promised 
us of abundant life, and then he takes his people, and he plants 
them in the land, and they dwell with him forever there. Well, 
we saw how all this points us to the gospel. As I said this 
morning, when we look at these texts like this, we're not looking 
through a window to see how God is interacting with Israel as 
a nation. We're looking in a mirror to 
see how God is interacting with us as his people, as image bearers. And because we have broken his 
law, we were taken, Adam and Eve, formed out of the dust, 
planted in this beautiful garden, life with God, they're given 
a law to obey. But they violated that law. They 
were exiled out of that garden and back into the wilderness, 
the barren wilderness, cut off from God, no access to God. But 
we saw how it's teaching us about So this passage is teaching us 
about ourselves. We have access back to God. There 
is a way in which God has provided for us. He offers us eternal 
life through the gospel, through the word here, that you can have 
this life, this abundant life, back again. What you had and 
what you lost by virtue of your sin, you can have it back again. And by faith, and by grace, we 
accept that offer. We're betrothed. We're legally 
his. Justified, we call that. Justified, 
legally God's, and then we are planted in the land. So we're 
looking in a mirror. We're not looking through a window 
at political Israel. We're seeing how does this apply 
to us? Well, that's, if you know much 
about, or anything about the book of Hosea, you know this 
story between Hosea and his wife, Gomer. and she was unfaithful 
to him. And we have the same story being 
played out in this relationship between Hosea and his bride, 
Gomer. He takes Gomer, he brings her into his household. Things 
start off well. but then she becomes unfaithful, 
and we'll see how that story takes place. But we have to, 
and we'll see how that story is gonna, yes, it was there to 
teach Israel about what they were doing to God, but ultimately 
it's teaching us about what we've done to God. And today we'll 
see that, the reconciliation of that. So Hosea had married 
Gomer, things started out fine, they had the child together, 
named Jezreel, Things were good. They had the intimate knowledge 
of one another. Things started out well. They 
had a child. But then Gomer left him. And she went for, after 
other gods, or other lovers, I should say, sorry, other different 
lovers that she went with, played the harlot with, committed fornication 
with, she had children as a result of those. relationships, and 
in the beginning of chapter 2, essentially we see a court case 
where Hosea files for divorce, and he says, I'm going to remove 
my compassion, my protection, my mercy, is what our English 
translations say there, that I'm going to remove that mercy 
from you, but that's all, everything in that word is what a husband 
ought to be towards a wife, the care, the protector. the one 
who watches over, and he says, I'm going to remove that from 
you. Because why? Lo ami, that you are no longer 
my people. Again, remember, this is also 
taking place, or pointing us to God and Israel's relationship. 
So we have God cutting off Israel, but Hosea has cut off Gomer. He has divorced her, and he's 
left her on her own. Well, today we all see the restoration 
of that relationship in chapter 3. God tells Hosea that you are 
to take this woman back, you're to restore this relationship, 
and we'll see how that points us to the gospel again here. 
So, in the first two verses, we have this display of unconditioned 
love, I might say. In verse 3 to 4, we have a call 
to fidelity, and then verse 5, the promise of consummation. 
So, verse 1, The Lord says to Hosea, go again and love this 
woman who's loved by a lover and is committing adultery. So 
Gomer here, she's described as a woman who's been loved by somebody 
else. And she's an adulteress. The 
Hebrew Bible literally just, the King James tells us, says 
lover. Here she's loved by a lover. It just literally means she's 
been loved by someone else. She's violated herself by having 
relations with someone other than her husband. And God says, 
you need to take this woman back. You need to go and love her. She's, from his perspective, 
unlovable, unworthy. And God says, you need to go 
love her. She's been unfaithful to him, 
not just once, over and over again. But take her back, Hosea. 
Why? Why does Hosea do this? Look 
at the second half of the verse. Just like the love of Yahweh 
for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the 
raisin cakes of the pagans. God says, do this, just like 
the love that I have towards Israel. The love that I display 
to Israel, that I have for Israel, is the same love that you need 
to show to this woman. Israel, they're unlovable. They've 
violated my covenant. They have committed spiritual 
adultery over and over and over again. They had the audacity, 
we might say, to go after other gods, to go and serve other gods 
after all that Yahweh had done for them in rescuing them out 
of Egypt and bringing them into this promised land, yet they 
dare to go after other gods. They looked to other gods, it 
says here, and it tells us they loved the raisin cakes of the 
pagans there. It's an interesting reference 
there. There's not much indication in the Bible about what these 
raisin cakes indicated, although there's a reference in Isaiah. 
But there's something to do with playing a part in the religious 
worship of the false gods. Some think that maybe perhaps 
it was an aphrodisiac. which could be true, seeing as 
there was a lot of fornication involved in Baal worship, especially. they would go, for Baal worship, 
they thought that, they believed that Baal was the god, the fertility 
god, that Baal could offer life. He could offer something better 
than Yahweh did. He was the one who gave life, 
and the way, because he was the storm god, which meant he brought 
the rain upon the land, and when the rain came, then the crops 
would grow, and they would have this abundant life. So they attributed 
this to Baal, And the way that they did that, there was a lot 
of fornication involved in the worship, because they thought 
they would go down to the temple, they would fornicate with the 
priests and the priestesses there, male and female prostitutes, 
working at the temple of Baal, and that would please Baal, and 
then he would send the rain upon the land there. So that's probably 
what's indicated here by these raisin cakes. Something to do 
with that, the part and parcel of the fornicating debauchery 
of Baal worship. But God says here, in spite of 
that, in spite of that wickedness, I still love them. In spite of 
the fact that they violated my covenant. They justly deserve 
to be cut off forever. That was the terms of the covenant. 
You break the law, you are cut off forever. Justice, it was 
completely fair, completely right of God to cut them off. But he 
says, in spite of that, I still love them. And we have to ask 
the question, how can that be? And the answer is because God's 
love is not conditioned by something outside of who He is. I know 
that's a pretty heavy statement. His love is not conditioned by 
anything outside of himself, because God is infinite. We would 
all agree to that. God has no limits, no bounds. Nothing can limit Him. Nothing 
can change Him. Nothing can condition who He 
is as a God of love. Nothing can change that. So His 
love cannot be limited. His love cannot be changed. His 
love cannot be conditioned by something outside of who He is. We have to realize this. Every 
single one of us has broken God's law. Every single one of us has 
violated the terms of that covenant. God made the covenant and told 
Adam, the day that you eat of that tree, you will surely die. 
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, indicating the 
knowledge of good and evil that he had written on his heart. 
He violated that when he, by his sin, violated that the terms 
of the covenant. Every single one of us has done 
that. We've sinned against our Creator. We've gone after other gods, 
maybe not Baal, maybe not Moloch and Marduk, those gods, but we've 
served other things. Most likely it was just ourself 
that we were serving, but we've done that. We've fornicated. 
We've lied. We've cheated. We've stolen. 
We've coveted. We took His name in vain. We broke Every single law that 
God has and we've done it over and over and over we are just 
like Gomer We're just like Israel. We there's there is the same 
now outwardly that looks different for every every person young 
people You might think well, I'm not I haven't done that much, 
you know, very very bad things. That doesn't matter It's because 
it's coming from the heart that is against God and a heart that 
is sinful towards God we've all we're all there but God loves 
you and A love that is not conditioned by what you've done in violating 
His law, but by who He is. Now, I know sometimes we get 
a little bit nervous when we think of a sinner, an unsaved 
sinner, and saying, God loves you. But the Bible tells us that 
God has a special love toward mankind as His image bearers, 
that He willing to accept those back who are his. Turn to Titus 
chapter 3 for a moment where we see that. Titus 3 verse 4, But when the kindness and the 
love of God our Savior toward man appeared, Not by works of 
righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, 
He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing 
of the Holy Spirit. In verse 4, it tells us the kindness 
and the love of God our Savior towards man. Love towards man, 
in the Greek, is one word. Philanthropia. We still use that 
word today. Philanthropy. Love for man. God 
has a love for man. And what do we need to understand 
from that? Never has there been one sinner 
who's too sinful to be a recipient of God's amazing grace and to 
be a recipient of God's love. There has never been one sinner 
whom God says, you're too sinful for me. You have sinned too much. 
You violated my law too much, and you are not, and I won't, 
and you cannot be a recipient of my love. God, God, Does not 
say to anybody you need to first go and make yourself a little 
bit better make yourself a little bit more lovable so that I can 
love you know his love his kindness his mercy his goodness does not 
depend on the state of The sinner they can't because of who he 
is it is it is unconditioned love Unconditioned love love 
that and a love that was willing to do whatever was necessary 
to restore that relationship and Because God's unconditioned 
love does not mean that he takes you back and that there aren't 
conditions to be met, that he just takes you back and pretends 
that nothing happened. There are conditions to be met, 
but they're covenantal conditions that have to be met. Violating 
the covenant had consequences that needed to be met. That's what, We need to understand 
here, when we violated that covenant, there's consequences. And the 
Bible tells us that when we sin against God, the wages of sin 
is death. The wages of sin is not clean 
yourself up, not make yourself a bit more lovable. The wages 
of sin is death. When you've sinned, the condition 
that needs to be met is death. And that's what God was willing 
to do, to pay for those consequences Himself. Back to Hosea. chapter 
three, verse two. So God has told Hosea, go find 
this woman, love her in the way that I would love Israel. So, 
verse two, I bought her for myself for 15 shekels of silver and 
one and a half homers of barley. It says here he bought her. We 
gotta ask the question, well then, what happened to Gomer 
that she needed to be bought? Now remember what I said earlier. 
Hosea had told Gomer, he says, I'm gonna remove my compassion 
from you. I'm gonna remove my protection 
from you. The mercy, the love. You're no 
longer my wife. Removing that from you. And Gomer 
didn't want it anymore either. She thought she could find it 
elsewhere. Turn back to chapter two, verse five. Their mother 
has played the harlot. She who conceived them has behaved 
shamefully And she said, I'll go after my lovers who give me, 
so they give me my bread, and my water, and my wool, and my 
linen, my oil, and my drink. She thought, they'll take care 
of me. They'll protect me. And I'll go to them. They'll 
provide for me. What Hosea is no longer willing 
to provide, I'm going to go find that in my illicit lovers. But as soon as Hosea removed 
his protection from her, they turned on her, and no longer 
did they love her. Verse 7 of chapter 2, if you're 
still there, she'll chase her lovers, but she will not overtake 
them. She'll seek them, but she'll 
not find them. She'll say, I thought you loved 
me. I thought you were, I thought you loved me, these four illicit 
lovers, but she won't find them. Instead, they will, they will 
turn on her. And it doesn't tell us in that 
chapter, but at the end of chapter four we see that. There's other 
places as well that indicate that her illicit lovers turn 
on her. We know specifically that's what 
happened to Israel. Look, turn to Lamentations, chapter 
one. Lamentations comes after Jeremiah, chapter one. The first verse. following how 
lonely sits the city that was full of people how like a widow 
is she who was great among the nations the princess among the 
provinces has become a slave and she weeps bitterly in the 
night her tears are on her cheeks among all her lovers there's 
none to comfort her all her friends have dealt treacherously with 
her and they have become her enemies Judah has gone into captivity 
etc there so Israel We know they went after these 
foreign gods, God gave them over, and those nations whose gods 
they served turned on them and captured them. Assyria, Babylon, 
brought her in and turned on her, enslaved her instead. So 
it doesn't tell us here, but from the context, we can assume, 
we don't know whoever the lovers were, but we can assume they've 
turned on her and they've made her their property now. And since Gomer is being compared 
to Israel, there's a good chance that she had been going down 
to the Baal Temple and that she had been fornicating there. She had been going down and fornicating 
with the male prostitutes and the male priests down at the 
Temple of Baal. Well, once Hosea removed his 
love, his protection from her, exiled her out of his household. She wasn't under that care and 
protection anymore. Those priests of Baal saw that and they took 
her and they turned on her and now they've made her a sex slave 
working in the temple there. Now she's enslaved to the very 
thing that she was attracted to, enslaved to the very ones 
that she fornicated with. We can imagine, Hosea goes down 
to the temple of Baal, and he says, I'm here for Gomer. And 
they say, oh, Gomer, we have her. You want to fornicate with 
her as part of your worship with Baal, so that Baal will bless 
your land. And he says, no. He says, Gomer 
was my wife, and I love her, and I'm here to take her back, 
to be my wife again. And the answer is, well, that's 
going to cost you. She belongs to us now. because he loves her. And just 
like Yahweh told him to, he spends the money to buy her, to redeem 
her from her captors. And it tells us that he bought 
her for 15 pieces of silver and one and a half homers. of barley. Some translations will translate 
the word lethek, which is translated as a half here, as more of a 
measure of oil or wine. So he's paying for her with silver, 
with barley, and with wine perhaps. What's the significance of what 
he is, of the payment here, this price for her redemption? Well, 
previously, through the book, and through the rest of the book, 
and the rest of the Old Testament, the concept of silver, and gold, 
and grain, and barley, and wine, it's all part of the abundant 
life that the Lord offered. It's abundance. It's life. It 
signifies life. that the Lord provided. So for 
Hosea to have Gomer back as his wife, he has to make a payment 
out of this abundance, out of, we might say, out of his livelihood. 
But you can see where this is going here. For Yahweh, the Lord, 
to have his bride for Christ, to have his bride back, it cost 
him not his livelihood, not material goods, it cost him his very life. 
Remember what I said, covenantal conditions, the wages of sin 
is death, life must be given, and Christ was willing to do 
that. So we see here, our sin has earned 
us death, the very thing we were attracted to. When, in the Genesis 
narrative, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree, indicating 
to us a violation of the law of God, they saw that fruit. It was pleasurable to the eyes, 
and it was good to taste, and it was just gonna, it was so 
attractive, it was gonna fulfill something more. It promised something 
other than what Yahweh was offering, and they took it. But what happened? 
The very thing that we were attracted to now, and looked so promising, 
and looked like it was going to fulfill some sort of gratification 
to us, instead turns on us, and now it holds us in its grasp. 
Now we're enslaved to sin. We're enslaved to sin and the 
demands of sin, and our sin demands the payment of death to free 
us from its grasp. Life must be given, and that's 
what God provides in Christ. The payment to free us from the 
bondage of sin, the thing that we went after and turned on us 
and enslaved us. God provides that payment on 
the cross. God himself. We saw that this 
morning. Briefly, we looked at that. But God himself in the 
person of the son, having assumed human nature, taking our sins 
upon himself, paying in full the payment of his life so that 
we could be released from the bondage of sin. Don't ever lose 
the wonder of that, brethren. Don't ever grow cold to that 
gospel message that Christ did that. in our place condemned. He stood in our place. Again, think of Hosea. Think 
of Hosea going down to the temple of Baal. Where's Gomer? She's 
in some dark, dirty room in the back somewhere. There she is. 
She's stripped naked. She's exposed, she's dirty, she's 
enslaved in the sex trade as a result of her own actions. 
But he loves her, he loves her so much in spite of the mess 
she's gotten herself into. And he pays, he pays of his livelihood 
to have her back for himself. Again, that's what Christ did. 
Christ came into this broken world of darkness and there he 
finds us, naked. stripped bare, exposed, dirty, 
enslaved to the very sin that we chose and that we went after. 
But he loves us. He loves us so much in spite 
of what we got ourselves into. So much that he's willing to 
give his very life so that he can have that relationship restored 
and his people back. Greater love hath no man in this 
than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, 
Jesus said, John 15, 13. it's just exactly like what he 
said in chapter in uh in verse 15 of chapter 2 uh sorry not 
verse 15 um verse 19 that he would he would he would do this 
he would purchase his bride in this incredible act of justice 
and and and righteousness but yet loving kindness and mercy 
that that in order to redeem his bride, to purchase his bride 
for himself. Justice and mercy, that's what 
meets at the cross there, so that we can be freed from the 
power of sin. No longer forced to work in the 
spiritual sex trade. We've been freed from that. He 
purchased us. He bought us out of that. And 
there's then, if we understand that, there's massive ramifications 
for how we live our lives after that. If we've been freed out 
of that, we've been redeemed by the life of our Savior out 
of the sin that we were enslaved to, broken free of that, well 
then, Why would we go back and dabble in that again? Why would 
we go back there? Look at verse three. And he says 
to her, you shall stay with me many days. You, sorry, you shall 
stay with me many days. You shall not play the harlot, 
nor shall you have a man. And so too will I be towards 
you. So he buys her, takes her back. She's his. Again, she's under 
his care, under his protection, she's part of his household, 
his kingdom, we might say. But not right away is that relationship 
back to what it was at the beginning. It's not consummated right away. 
There's a time. before it will be consummated. 
There's one English version that I would probably never recommend, 
but it translates this verse this way. You will have to remain 
faithful to me, although it will be a long time before we sleep 
together. Now that's not necessarily as 
literal as the text might be, but that's what's being indicated 
in this verse here. You will have to remain faithful 
to me, even though it will be a long time before we sleep together. So she's not in bondage anymore. 
She's freed from that, but she's not to go back and dabble in 
that harlotry that she was saved from and rescued from. She needs 
to be faithful to her husband until that marriage is consummated, 
until they are together again. Look at verse 4. For the children 
of Israel, now we're back to the nation of Israel again, they 
will abide for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice 
or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. So now we're looking 
at Israel again and the analogy pointing us to ourselves. So 
even though Israel is going to be restored back to the land 
again, it's going to be a very long time before they are with 
their king, with their leader, with the son of David on the 
throne with them again. And it says here there's going 
to be no sacrifice or sacred pillar, no ephod or teraphim. There's some parallelism. going 
on here. Sacred pillars and teraphim, 
those were divination tools. Those were things that were part 
and parcel of worship of the foreign gods, interaction with 
the underworld that was connected to that worship of these false 
gods. So they're not They're not to 
engage in that type of worship. They're not to try and communicate 
with the underworld, with some spiritual being other than Yahweh, 
their God. They are to remain faithful to 
Yahweh. But there's also, he says here, 
there's also not going to be any sacrifice, and there's not 
going to be any ephod. Those two things were part of 
religious worship for the nation of Israel, they provided communion 
and they provided an intimate access to God for Old Testament 
Israel. And God says, you're not going 
to have that now. You're not going to have that 
unique, intimate relationship that came via the sacrifice and 
via the ephod with me. right now. You're not going to 
have that anymore. But they still had the law. They still had the law and they 
knew what was required of them to be faithful. Just because 
they did not have these other ways of communication with God, 
they had the law, they knew what was required to be faithful. And having been freed from the 
slavery that they were in, they were to live according to that 
law. That's where we are right now, 
brethren. That points us to ourselves. Our relationship with Yahweh 
is not consummated yet. We saw that in a lot more detail 
this morning. The relationship is consummated 
when we enter glory with Him. When He comes and returns for 
us at the end of the age, we might die before that happens 
and we enter what we call the intermediate state. But that 
final consummated state is when Christ returns to this earth, 
he takes his people and he plants them in the earth and they dwell 
with him. The veil is removed, they see him face to face and 
we dwell with our king in the new heaven, new earth. That's 
the consummation. Right now we are in this betrothal 
stage and what is required of us is faithfulness. We have his word and we know 
what is required of us. We are to live according to that 
until he returns. We're to be faithful to him and 
to him alone. We're not to go dabble in the 
very sin that we've been rescued from. We would think it horrible 
and atrocious for Gomer, after such an incredible and amazing 
act of love, that where Hosea would go and purchase her from 
such a wretched situation, we would think it atrocious, horrible, 
if she would go back, willingly go back to the temple of Baal 
and fornicate there again at that temple. Well, we should 
think it horrible that after an amazing act of love, where 
Christ gave of his very life to rescue us from that sin, that 
we would go back to that again. That's why we're called to holiness. 
It's not legalism, brethren. Having been saved from that, 
we are to be Faithful. We would not say it's legalism 
for, you know, for Gomer to not go back and work at the whorehouse 
again and say, oh, Hosea's gonna love you anyways. Of course not. 
She belongs to him again. She needs to be faithful to him. Well, we belong to Christ. We 
are to be faithful to Christ. But here's the thing, though. 
We know that every day we do sin. Every day we return to the 
whorehouse of sin. And it doesn't tell us here, 
but we can imagine. Gomer, after this, she goes back 
down to the temple of Baal, and Hosea goes again. He goes down 
there, and he brings the receipts. And he says, she's mine. I've 
paid. I've purchased her. She doesn't 
belong here anymore. And he takes her home again, 
and he cleans her up. Every single day, we do the same 
thing, brethren. Every single day, the story is 
repeated. we end up at the whorehouse of 
sin. Christ shows up, and he brings 
the receipts. He says, paid in full. Those 
receipts say paid in full. Behold my hands and my feet, 
and see the prints of the nails there, and see the hole in my 
side, the receipts that he has paid in full, and we are his. 
We no longer are held captive at that whorehouse of sin. His 
compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great 
is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3. God, we sin. We end up at the whorehouse of 
Baal. It's not okay. There's no one saying that's 
okay. We ought not to. Yet we do that. Yet Christ comes every time. and says, they are mine. I don't say this so that you 
go out and sin. I say this so that you know when 
you sin. You have an advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who will love you, and he will 
take you back, and he will be faithful to you in spite of your 
unfaithfulness to him. That is our Christ. And one day he's coming, then 
he will take us to glory with him into his kingdom, his household, 
and we will dwell with him forever. And then there will be no more 
sin there. There will be no more opportunity to sin and to violate 
that relationship. Verse five, the consummation. 
Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord 
their God and David their king, and they shall fear the Lord 
and his goodness in the latter days. After their restoration, Israel 
went, they went back into the promised land and they lived 
a long time without a king on the throne, many days, many years. And unfortunately, what happened 
when David, their king, David's greater son, Christ, when he 
came there, they rejected him and they killed him. And they 
faced their final judgment because of that. Now does that mean that 
this prophecy wasn't fulfilled then? Does it mean that God was 
wrong or that God was not true to his word? No, it's because 
the Old Testament tells us that this Messiah, this son of David 
who was coming, he was going to usher in a new covenant, a 
new relationship. He's going to usher in the covenant 
that this covenant is pointing us to and he's going to And as 
we've been seeing all along here, that was God's plan. The plan of that old covenant 
and of God's relationship with Israel was to bring in the new 
covenant and God's relationship with His true bride, the church. That's, so it's not that God 
was unfaithful to his promises. It's that this promise was ultimately 
fulfilled in the Messiah, in Christ coming and ushering in 
this new covenant here. That's where we, and that's where 
we find ourselves today. Now, awaiting the arrival and 
the return of our Messiah. He came, he redeemed his bride 
from slavery. He betrothed her. We saw this 
morning, he promises, he guarantees that he's going to come back. 
Nothing's going to hinder that. He's going to come back and he's 
going to, now he's gone to prepare a place, but he's coming again. 
It's been many days. 2,000 years ago, he left us to 
go and build this kingdom. And he's building it right now. 
And he's preparing it, but he's coming back. It's been many days, 
and we don't know how many more days it will be before he returns. But till then, verse 3, be faithful 
to him. Be faithful to him as we await 
his return. and let us pursue holiness. Let us, like a bride, adorning 
herself for the bridegroom to return with anticipation. Let 
us adorn ourselves with good works and sanctify, sanctification, 
cleaning up our lives. Yes, we do this by the power 
of the Holy Spirit, absolutely, but we adorn ourselves. We are excited for His return 
and in the anticipation of his arrival. This morning we saw 
that we are to be encouraged by the fact that we're betrothed 
to the Creator. Nothing can separate us from 
that. So we're to be encouraged, but 
we're to be excited as well at the thought of going to dwell 
with him in this glorious new Eden-like creation that awaits 
us in paradise with Him, but here we see also that we are 
to be faithful to Him while we wait. Don't go dabble in the 
very thing for which He died to save you from. Spurgeon, I 
think it's Spurgeon, says don't trifle with the, I should have 
wrote it down instead of trying to quote it from memory, but 
don't trifle with the very thing that slew your best friend. And 
that's what we need to understand here. We are to be faithful to 
Him, but let us live for Him and let us never forget that 
amazing act of love and compassion, faithfulness, where justice and 
mercy met at the cross, where Christ purchased us for himself. And an unbeliever, if you're 
not in Christ here now, and this goes for children, youngest to 
the oldest, if you do not believe, you do not belong to this kingdom, 
you are still apart from him, But I hope you see what a good 
and a loving and a merciful God this is. He's offering full and 
free salvation to those who are enslaved in their sin. He says 
he offers that he will free you from that. And that, as we saw 
this morning, that he will not just free you from that, but 
give you abundant life in glory. God loved. He's a God of love. He loved the world. God so loved 
the world in John 3, 16. God loved the world in this way 
is probably the better translation, that he gave his only begotten 
son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have 
everlasting life. I hope you don't find yourself 
here today comfortable and happy to be enslaved in sin, happy 
to be like maybe Gomer, happy to be working at the whorehouse 
of Baal. I hope you don't find yourself 
Now, like that, I hope that you see that this is bondage. I hope 
you have a desire to be freed from this, so that you might 
have this abundant and eternal life with Him. And the way to 
be freed from that, the way to be rescued out of that, is simply 
to look to Him for salvation. Trust that He will save you, 
and He will. That we can't save ourselves, 
we need to be freed from this, but we can't do it. We're held 
in bondage because of that, because of the demands of justice. But 
he says, look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for 
I am God and there is no other. then you will get to experience 
the infinite goodness and the love of God for an eternity of 
bliss and glory with Him. That's what eternal life is. 
That's what makes eternal life so amazing. It's not the beauty 
of the palm trees of Eden, of a new Eden-like paradise that 
we live in. What does the hymn writer say? 
The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land. We're there 
with Him, experiencing an eternity of the infinite love of God. But if you choose to remain in 
your sin, if you think, you know, there's no need to be freed from 
this. I'm happy to just be here. This 
doesn't really feel like bondage. And you need to realize there's 
a time coming when that opportunity to be rescued is no longer there. 
And the end of that bondage leads to the absence of any goodness. that there might be. Any of the 
goodness that God is offering right now, even the goodness 
of life as you know it now, there's so much goodness here. There's 
joy, there's friendships, there's happiness, there's good food, 
there's so much goodness here yet. But there's a time coming 
when any goodness of God is removed, and you're forever separated 
from that goodness, forever separated from anything good, and you will 
only face bad wrath, the wrath of his anger against your sin 
and for the rejection of the Savior. Think of the Israelites. 
The Messiah came and they rejected him and they perished in the 
most, as a nation, perished in the most horrific way in 70 AD 
when the Romans descended upon Jerusalem. You can read the account 
in Josephus. Horrible, horrible things that 
are unimaginable, unimaginable. Millions and millions of people 
thrown into the fires of Gehenna in the valley of Hinnom there, 
their bodies burning and smoldering. Well, what did Jesus say? Hell 
is worse than that. The fire never burns out. The 
worms, the maggots never, never die. It's continual, eternal 
death that awaits those who reject the Messiah. Heaven Heaven is 
described in the Bible as no sadness, no crying, no pain, 
no sorrow. It's pure bliss. Well, hell is 
the opposite of that. It's the removal of anything 
good. It's only sadness, it's only 
crying, only pain. only sorrow, it's pure, it's 
terror. Hell is real. Hell is a place 
that you go to experience what the absolute absence of any goodness 
looks like. Right now, as I said, you experience 
a lot of God's goodness, but in hell, There is no goodness. The world says hell ain't a bad 
place to be. The world says all my friends 
are going to be there too. But that is an utter lie. There's 
no such thing as a friend in hell. Because a friend is a good 
thing. In hell there is no Goodness. Understand that. Make no delay. Flee to the Savior while there's 
hope. Stop playing games. You're gambling with your soul, 
your life for eternity. You're thinking that God somehow 
deserves to give you one more day to live, and then another 
day, and then another day. You don't deserve that. Stop 
gambling with your eternity. Today is that day of salvation. Trust in Him. Look to Him. and 
He will deliver you from the bondage that you're in. Realize 
you are in bondage that leads to absolute destruction. Look to Him. He will deliver 
you from that. Then go on your way rejoicing. Your relationship with your Maker 
has been restored, and you're bound for glory. Be excited, 
be encouraged, and be faithful. Let's close there in prayer. O Lord, we thank you for this 
passage of Scripture again, and what a glorious display of the 
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that we find here in the life 
of Hosea. Lord, I pray that you would take 
this message and that you would press it on our hearts, that 
we would be encouraged, we would be excited, and that we would 
be, again, given a new resolve to walk in holiness, to be faithful 
to you, Lord, while we await your return where we get to go 
to enter into glory with you. Lord I pray that that if there 
be sinners here who are unsaved that are still in that in the 
bondage of sins in the whorehouse of sin Lord that you would that 
you would press it upon their hearts to see that reality that 
that that there is utter destruction coming their way but today there 
is the offer of rescue from that and that they would see that 
Christ is that only way and that they would trust in him and Him 
alone to free them from their sin, Lord, and that You would 
draw them to You, and that they would come willingly, having 
been made willing, and that You would save them to the uttermost, 
and that they would leave here, go on their way, rejoicing for 
your sins have been forgiven. Lord, it's in Jesus' name we 
pray this. Amen.