Dear Friend,
One of the most beautiful love stories in the Bible is found
in chapter 3 of Hosea. God calls the prophet Hosea to love and seek after
Gomer his adulterous wife who has run away with other men. In obedience Hosea
sets out to find Gomer and bring her home. Then we read, "For the
Lord still loves Israel even though the people have turned to other
gods, offering them choice gifts."(Hosea 3:1-2)
In spite of the nation’s unfaithfulness, God promised that He
would still love his people. If it was hard for Hosea to invite his adulterous
wife back to live with her knowing her past, imagine how hard it must have been
for God to watch his creation, purposely turn it back on him as they followed
after the idols of their own choosing.
Hosea certainly had good reason to divorce Gomer, but God
commanded him to show the same forgiving love that He was going to show his
people, Israel. And it is that same love that he showed them, that he still
shows us today as He continues to love us his wayward and wandering children.
Hosea had to buy Gomer back out of prostitution. She wasn’t worth
much to anyone except Hosea, but he loved her, in spite of who she was, and
what she had done, just as God loved Israel, then, and just as God still loves
us today.
It is good to know that it doesn’t matter how low we sink into the
depths of sin, no matter how far we wander from the path on which He calls us
to walk, God was and still is willing to buy us back, to redeem us, and to give
us a fresh start and a new life.
A.J. Gordon, the great Baptist pastor of the Clarendon church in
Boston, Massachusetts tells how one day he met, a young boy in front of the
sanctuary, carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously.
Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?
The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field."
"What are you going to do with them? he asked"
"I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed
them to an old cat we have at home."
When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mr., you
don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very
well."
Gordon replied, "I’ll give you two dollars for the cage and
the birds."
"OK, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain."
The exchange was made, and the boy went away whistling, happy with
his shiny coins.
Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened
the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the
blue. The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit, and used it to
illustrate his sermon about Christ, coming back to seek, and to save the lost-
paying for them with his own precious blood.
"That boy told me the birds were not songsters," said
Gordon, "but when I released them, and they winged their way heavenward,
it seemed to me that they were singing, redeemed, redeemed,
redeemed!"
And you know like those song birds, we didn’t have much going for
us, but one day, the cage was opened, and we too took flight, and as our new
wings lifted us heavenward, there was a new song in our hearts, as we too sang,
"redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb."
How grateful I am that in spite of my sin, and the selfishness
that characterized my life, that one day there was a great exchange, and in it
God took on my sinful nature, and in turn wrapped me in the robes of his
righteousness. Once trapped by sin, Christ has purchased our pardon, and placed
a new song in our hearts.
And you know I can almost hear Gomer singing those words.
"redeemed, redeemed, redeemed" too, for what a difference it must
have made in her life to know that the one she had betrayed by her sinful
behavior, was willing to accept her, take her back and love her, just as she
was. That’s a real God story, one that we must never forget!
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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