Knitting Hearts Café
“Amazing Love! Story of Hosea”
Message by Devon Coker
Written by Sue Sanders
Knitting Hearts’ Flag Ministry Team, arrayed in white and red, exalted Jesus as they danced and worshipped to “Lift You up Higher.” The song invited us to come see what God has done and then lift Him higher by bringing our highest praise to Him. Joyce Sanders read Isaiah 6:9 and John 4:23 and reminded us that God is looking for worshippers. How appropriate that the first song that the praise and worship team led us in was “Let the Worshippers Arise.” As we lifted our voices, we were praying “Let Your kingdom come, let it live in me” and declaring “I am surrendering my all. I surrender to my King.” The combined worship song moved to “Every praise is to our God. Every word of worship with one accord. Every word of worship to our God.” We, His sons and daughters, just had to arise and to sing, to surrender our all, to surrender to our King, our Savior, our Healer, our Deliverer.
As we sang “God of Mercy,” we surrendered to His design. We longed for Him to take the offering of our worship and let it stretch across the sky and for our hallelujahs to be multiplied. In her interpretative worship dance, Shelika Daniels decreed that through every mountain high and every valley low, she would stand tall, and through it all she was learning to trust in Jesus. Devon Coker brought the message in first person as if he were the prophet Hosea. This is a paraphrased version of his thoughts from the book of Hosea.
“I am Hosea, a prophet of God. My story symbolizes the love that God had for His people, a nation that constantly strayed from Him. God grieved over the infidelity of His people. He had made a covenant agreement with them. His love was like the love of a man for his wife. He expected His people to return His great love for them and to be faithful; instead, they were constantly unfaithful. God was relentless in His pursuit over the rebellious Israel.
God spoke to me about His nation who had committed great harlotry by departing from Him. They had even stooped so low that they sacrificed their children to their false gods. Nonetheless, God told me of His great love for Israel and said that He would take them back. Then, he gave me some very strange and troubling instructions. I was to take a bride, but not just any bride. My bride would be a prostitute. How could God demand such a thing from me? After all, I am a prophet. Doing such a horrible thing would destroy my reputation. God said that my marriage to this prostitute would be a visual to Israel. It would demonstrate to them His great love for them and His endless pursuit for a love relationship with them.
God chose Gomer to be my bride. She was beautiful, but she had been a prostitute. I was torn still wanting to please God but worrying about my reputation. God said, “Hosea, what faith does it take to do something when you understand? Trust when you can’t understand.” Consequently, I married Gomer, and we were blessed with three children. God was trying to teach me about true love, His love. I began to understand how you can hate sin and yet love sinners. God showed me that my relationship with Gomer would demonstrate how someone you love can break your heart and yet you can still love them. Israel broke God’s heart, but He still loved them. His love is boundless, incomprehensible. All of us are sinners in need of a Savior.
Gomer tried to be a good wife and mother. It is a funny thing how a sinner can be accepted at the pagan temple but yet ostracized at God’s temple. People did not accept Gomer, and I think perhaps that had something to do with the pull on her life to her previous lifestyle. She felt that rejection from the religious people over and over. Things began to change. At first she would leave for a night occasionally, but then she started leaving more often. Eventually, she left home and never returned leaving me to care for our three children alone. Through all the pain and hurt, God was striving to teach me not only about judgment but about His great mercy and grace. He wanted me to tell His people about grace and law–that grace without the law is liberalism and law without grace is legalism. He was giving me a message of hope. I knew that it is easier to demand justice rather than to forgive. At the time, I did not understand that my marriage to Gomer would be a literal picture of God’s love for His people even when they turned to harlotry.
God seemed to ask the unthinkable of me. He told me to find Gomer, an adulterer, and to love her again. This was just like His love because His people were committing adultery with other pagan gods. God had prepared me to preach His message to His people: I still love you, and I want you back.
I found Gomer where she was being sold as a slave. The years of sin had stolen her beauty. As she stood there naked on the auction block, I shouted out my bids for her and bought her back for 15 shekels of silver. As I led her from the auction block, I covered her nakedness with my cloak. She began to thank me and offered to become my slave. I told her that I had not come for a slave but for my bride. My cloak symbolized my covering of love over her, her sins and her scars. At the end of Rev Coker’s drama, Sabrina Barrineau sang Gomer’s story, a visual of God’s love for His bride: “I’ve come to take you home. I know you’ve done wrong. But for you I give my life. Through sorrow, pain, and strife, I couldn’t let you go. Let’s leave the past behind. Love conquers one more time.” This is God’s message for each one of us. He paid the price to buy us back from the slave market of sin. He wants to clothe us with His righteousness. We can leave the past behind and become new in Him.
Rev. Coker called people to a renewal of their relationship with God—a rekindling of the fire within each one of us, that His passion would burn in us. As the song declares, Hosea took Gomer’s hand and said, “There’s a new day just ahead. I’ve come to take you home.” There is a new day just ahead if we will take His hand and surrender to Him
Hearts United Women's Ministry 