The Most Dysfunctional Marriage in the Bible That I Know Of
Hosea provides an inspiring bible less on God's love for us.
Darrell Ingram
Dec 2, 2018 30m
In this sermon Pastor Darrell Ingram goes to The Book of Hosea to teach an important bible lesson on God's love for us all. He tells us about the marriage of Hosea a prophet, to Gomer a prostitute. God brought these two together to teach us that no matter what we have done, if we give our life to God, we will be new and saved. He want's all of us to have hope in him. Video recorded at Pineville, Louisiana.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Darrell Ingram: 00:00 Hey Man, what about our praise team? They're coming out with their first single on Facebook. Listen, y'all go on it, really. That's a song that I love. Hallelujah. And then they put a different spin to it, and it's so amazing that we have Journey creative, and they can get out and they can do this and they can share with a lot of people, which ultimately brings us back to the vision to bring those far from God, close to God one step at a time. So the one step that you need to take is share it, share it on Facebook. Hey, I just want to thank Pastor James again for allowing me to come and fill his pulpit by preaching the Gospel here. We're using his, his pulpit, but you know, this week Sharon sent me a text, that Pastor James wants to meet with you. And immediately I'm going, oh, what's up? You know, what does he want me to meet with him for, you know? And I texted back and said what? Oh, he just wants to go with the message with. You know, and every week Sharon sends me a message, Pastor James message, just in case that site goes down, I have the message that I can follow along with, and go ahead and preach it. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, it's got to be something he wants me to start, he wants me to do, or whatever, blah, blah blah. So she said, you meet him at 3:30. I said okay, I'll meet him at 3:30. The last time I had to meet him, I ended up having to go to Alexandria campus as the Pastor. So that's in the back of my mind again.
Darrell Ingram: 01:23 So anyway, so I sit down with Pastor James and he's beginning to share his heart with me, and he said, Darrell, I need you to preach for me this weekend. Wednesday, 3:30. I said, okay. He said, Sharon already sent you the message. I'm thinking to myself, she sends it to me all the time. So he begins to share his heart with me. Two things that I'm appreciative of him, first of all, for allowing me to preach this morning. Second of all, for sharing his heart, as he started to say, this book of Hosea has opened my heart Darrell. To realize that, and he told me, I want you to convey this and share my heart with Journey Church that God loves us regardless of what we have done. And I said, well, I know that. You know what I'm saying? Thinking to myself, I know that. He said, Darrell, you don't understand. When you begin to open the book of Hosea and begin to read Hosea, you will get a new meaning of God's love for each of us. I'm a 53 year old preacher, and when I opened that book that next morning on Thursday, and I began to read the book of Hosea, I began to weep. And Beverly thought something was wrong with me, and said, baby what's wrong? I said, Beverly, I just now realized the expanse and the depth of God's love for me, for you. And that is what I want to try to convey to you that Pastor James shared with me, that God loves you regardless of what you have done, and God would do it all over again, he would love you without a doubt.
Darrell Ingram: 03:16 So we're looking at this dysfunctional life, this dysfunctional marriage in Hosea. And we see it in Hosea chapter one and two, through three, it says, "When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, go marry this promiscuous woman and have children with her. For like an adulterous wife, the land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord. So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, (Whatever his name is.) and she conceived and bore him a son." Let me tell you what's taking place here at the moment here in Hosea. Hosea was a preacher, and it's a story of a preacher, and there's this woman named Gomer. In other words, it's a story of a preacher, and a prostitute. I think I got most of y'all up now huh? It's about a story of a preacher and a prostitute, and he's a good man. He's a good preacher, an outstanding leader. He's a man of God, he's pure, he's clean, he's kept himself what we would say is unspotted by the world. He had a life of integrity, he was living his life with purity, he was an up and coming preacher.
Darrell Ingram: 04:31 It's like a lot of people who make the decision to stay in church. These young people that stay in church to serve the Lord, they dream of one day, one day after holding themselves back, that one person will come into their life. Hosea was not practicing safe sex, he was having no sex, it's what we call abstinence. And I think maybe this society today needs to learn about this word abstinence. It's like generation upon generation upon generation from the very beginning, to today, need to learn that promiscuity is wrong, and God wants us to be abstinent before marriage. God said, Hosea, I heard your prayer. I've heard your prayer, your wife, your wife, it's about about wanting a wife. He said, it's time to get married and enjoy the married life. And I could picture hosea saying, praise God, I get to get married. God, which one is she? Which one is she? Is she that blonde that's in the praise team? Oh Man, because she's pretty it. Maybe it's that Brunette that just came in to church, and she started in the youth group. Oh God, I noticed her, she was looking at me. She was cutting in line. Is it her God, is said her? She'd make a good church girl, God, I know she would be. Lord says, no, I want you to go down to a certain street Hosea, on the wrong side of the tracks, and there you'll find the one that you need to marry. I can imagine Hosea thinking, oh, that's a rough side of town. But God, maybe she's got this kitchen, and she's feeding the hungry. She's helping them through an outreach, she's ministering to the people that are down and out, the people that are on the wrong side of town. But I'm sure God, I'm sure, you're taking me to the right person that has a good ministry.
Darrell Ingram: 06:38 So Hosea goes over, and he gets there, and what he sees is prostitutes call, girls, harlots, sex trafficking, on the corner. And there's a girl in fishnet pantyhose with a mini mini, mini, mini, leather, tight skirt, on, and he looks and she's got a biblical blouse on, lo and behold she's smoking a cigarette. And the Lord says to the preacher, there's your wife, marry her, that's who I want you to marry. The story is not the fact that he married her because God told him marry her, if he had just married her because God told him to marry her, that would be an act of obedience. That'd be an act of submission, because God told him to marry her. But it's more than that, what's astonishing about this scripture here is it says that he married her, and he loved her. He married her, and he loved her. God said, you're going to marry that prostitute, and it's a picture of what my children are doing to me, how unfaithful they are to me. It's a picture today of God's people, of how God's people are unfaithful to him today. You see, we get caught up in the church, and we got caught up in the good things of church going things, and you know what? We misplace our priorities. Our priorities are no longer on worshiping and lifting up God, but our priorities on being here, being seen looking good, and I look good guys. Well we misplaced priorities, you see, the right priorities in your life, can change your marriage, can change your finances, and can change your future. Changing your priorities changes everything, changes everything. Do your priorities prove that you love God? Do your priorities prove that you love God? You see, love is not a feeling, love is action. Love is an action. You see you say, I love. Now put those words love into action, and begin to love God like you know what you need to be doing.
Darrell Ingram: 09:22 You see, it's powerful of God's love, in the story of Hosea and Gomer. It's the power, and the story, of the love that God has for us. It's the story of God's love for you, and for me. You see it's not just that Christ was willing to die on the cross for your sins and for my sins. If that's all he did, that would have been an act of submission, and an act of obedience, to the will of the father. But John 3:16 says it like this, "He did it because he so loved the world, and that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life." He did it because of his love for you and for me. That's what the story of this Gomer and Hosea, this dysfunctional marriages is talking about. Hosea is a prophet, a man of God, and Gomer is a harlot, prostitute, unfaithful woman. This isn't how marriage to start out, but yet they started out like this. This is why God's word tells us to not be unequally yoked. God said, Hosea, I want you to preach an illustrated sermon with your life on how much I love the world, because you are going to be marrying a prostitute and then the same way she treats you. That's the way the world is treating me, they're unfaithful, they're dragging my name in the mud. There doing all the things.
Darrell Ingram: 11:12 But I don't want you to know that God's love is not based on our performance, he's not based on your performance, he's not based on my performance. His love, is not based on anything that you and I wouldn't do. It's not based on you coming to church this morning. It's not based whether you pay your tithe. It's not based on whether you sing on the praise team, it's not based on whether you're a preacher, whether you're a teacher, whether you're a leader, it's not based on any of that. It's not based on that, he loves you and he loves me because we're people, and God loves people. He loves people so much that he was willing to send his son to die on the cross, to give his life, to shed his blood so that you and I could have a relationship with God. That you and I can go straight to God. That's how powerful, and how strong, God's love is for you and me and for people of the world. That's why we, at Journey Church, need to love people. It's about people. It's about reAchan people, bringing those far from God, and bring them back close to God. We bring nothing to the picture, You and I, Jesus is the spotless, sinless savior. And you and I are the prostitute. We're the unholy, we're the unclean, we're the unworthy. We bring nothing of value to the relationship. It has nothing to do with what I bring, it has nothing to do with what you bring. It has all to do, with what God brings.
Darrell Ingram: 13:03 You see, the Bible, we're told that this prophet marries this prostitute. And a lot of the times in the Old Testament, that's what God uses prophets to speak to his people, to speak to the world. But you've got to understand when the godly an ungodly come together, we're in it for heartaches and hiccups and hangups as life goes on. Don't expect to marry a harlot, and have someone holy. You don't need to marry a prostitute, and expect something pure or having purity. Listen what it says in Hosea 2:5 it says, "For the mother has played the harlot, she who conceives them, has beloved shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who will give me bread and my water and my wool and my linen, my oil, and my drink." Life happens when we're married, when we're in a relationship, when we're in a family, life happens. Hosea's ministry began to grow, and he began to experience this ministry that was growing by leaps and bounds, so he's spent more time in the church. He was spending more time away, and she was getting resentful because she was sitting at home all day with the baby, with the baby. And she started looking down on herself because she had let herself go. Guys, I'm kind of ad libbing a little bit here, okay? You all don't mind, huh? Okay. She started a let herself go, and you need to understand the background that she came from. It was all about her sex appeal. It was all about how she looked, and how she carried herself. Now, her husband does not desire her anymore, so she's feeling left out.
Darrell Ingram: 15:08 She said, oh, that's not the way them other men used to treat me. They would listen to me. They would spend time with me. They would do this for me. They would ust, you know, do this, and so she decided I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to start going to the gym. I'm going to start making myself look better again. Remember y'all, I'm just ad libbing, okay? She says, I'm going to spend time at the gym, and she walks in and there's a cute trainer. And as she's doing sit ups, he's strategically placing his hand on her back and helping her up, and as he's holding her legs, he's touching them just in strategic places, and oh the chemistry. That's how the enemy works. That's how the enemy works. You see thien she starts Facebooking him, she friends him on Facebook, and they talk. You know, because he listens to me, and they talk and they talk and they talk and she gets his attention, and she has his attention, he has her attention. This is, this is true, it's how the enemy works in our life. He brings us in, he sets the trap. And then she decides, let's go to lunch, and they go to lunch, and they keep going to lunch. Then one thing leads to another, and she begins to have a full fledge affair with this man. And it doesn't stop there, but then it starts with multiple men, and she's back right in the same place to where Hosea had married her and saved her from, back in the same situation all over again.
Darrell Ingram: 17:02 I want you to understand, you can't make your mate love you, and you can't make God stop loving you. That's what's so good about God's love. You see, many times you know what we think we want, when we get it, we don't really want it. God gives us the tool. He gives us the tools to help us out, to help our mate, to help our friend, to help our loved one, to help our children. He gives it in prayer, and scripture. That's what Hosea does in Second Hosea 6-7, says, "Therefore, behold I will hedge up, hedge up, your way with thorns, and wall her in, so that she cannot find her path. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them. Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, I will go and I'll return to my first husband, for then I was better than I am now.
Darrell Ingram: 18:18 Listen, this is the prayer to pray for someone that is far from God, so that they can be brought back close to God. And listen, if you want this prayer all you've got to do is write it down in your next step card, and then leave it at the kiosk as you go out, and they'll get you this prayer to pray for your loved one, to pray for someone that is far from God, that God will build that hedge of thorns around them, that it will repel those evil things that try to come in on their lives, and they will not be satisfied so they'll come running back to God.
Darrell Ingram: 18:57 You know how God treats us when we return to him, in spite of the way that we've treated him? Says this in Hosea says, 14-16 says, therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the Wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards from there, in the Valley of Achor, the door of hope. She's shall see there as in the days of her youth, and as the days when she came up from the land of Egypt, and it shall be that the day says the Lord, that you will call me, my husband and no longer call me my master." No longer. You will call me my husband, not master, not slave owner. God's love is more than unconditional. God loves us in spite of our condition. That's God's love.
Darrell Ingram: 20:05 God says to Hosea, I want you to go and get he, I want you to go get her back. She ends up in this sex trafficking. We're back in the Bible now, okay, we're back in scripture. But when he goes, there's a guy there, a pimp, selling her. Selling her for what he can get out of her, he's got her on the auction block. And God says, I want you to go Hosea, and I want you to get her. Notice what he says back in Hosea chapter two, I will allure her, I will speak comfort to her. I will give you to speaking to Gomer, I will give you The Valley of Achor, a door of hope. You know every marriage is at one point, every life at one point or another, sets foot in the Valley of Achor. You see the Valley of Achor, it simply means trouble. For every marriage, for every family, for every life, that is in trouble. God says, I, will give you a door of hope. I will give you a door of hope if your life is messed up, if you got the hiccups, the hang-ups of life, if you have a dysfunctional family, God says I'll give you this door of hope. God said, I'm making a promise to you, and to all the families of the earth.
Darrell Ingram: 21:49 The Valley of Achor, that is where Achan...Do you all remember the story about Achan? About sending to camp, how God says, okay, you go over there and you take it, you give everything back to me. But Achan, he took some and he hid it under his tent, you know? He had sinned in the camp. The Valley of Achor is where Achan was stoned to death with his family. This is where they're at now, this is where we're at times in our lives, in the Valley of Achor. But God says, I will give you a door of hope. I'll give you a door of hope. I'll give you a door of hope. It doesn't matter where you're at. It doesn't matter the hiccups or the mess ups in your life. God doesn't care where you've been, he doesn't care about your situation where it was, he doesn't care about the alcohol or the drugs or the hopelessness that you feel, because God gives you a door of hope. He gives you a door of hope in the valley of trouble. I want you to understand that you don't need to focus on your mess ups, on the past, but focus on the present and the future. God gives you that hope. He gives you that promise. God says, I'll put in the valley of trouble, for every family, a door of hope. But not only that, he says in Job chapter 14, "For every tree that is cut down that is planted along the stream, they will sprout to new life,
Darrell Ingram: 23:39 That reminds me of when Jesus was at the well, and asked that woman for a drink of water. She says, [inaudible]. And he says, lady, if you only knew who I was asking you for a drink water, you would ask me. And you would receive, and you would thirst no longer. You see, when we're down in the Valley of Achor, and we feel that we're not there, we feel that we're hopeless, helpless, useless. God says, come back to my water. Come back to my son, and allow me to give you life. You see you go through life you mess up, we all mess up. I mess up, you mess up, we all mess up. And you may be saying, you know my marriage is a shambles, my marriage is messed up. Maybe we're already divorced, you know what? God says, I still love you, you still have hope, he doesn't love you any less because of your marriage is over, he loves you the same regardless. God loves you, regardless.
Darrell Ingram: 24:47 Listen, we have the freedom to make choices, but we don't have the freedom to make the consequences, or to choose the consequences. Consequences happened in her life, and in Hosea chapter three, verses one to five, I'm not going to read it all. But it goes on and says, consequences in the brain bring about change. They do. You have to be willing to choose. You have to be willing to allow those consequences to either make you better, or bitter, it's your choice. Many times we don't change until it hurts enough that were forced to make those changes. Listen, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care how dysfunctional your life is, I don't care how dysfunctional your marriage is, God loves you, and he wants to deliver you.
Darrell Ingram: 25:45 Listen in the Bible, for every name in the Bible it gives character, and it gives that person life. Hosea
means deliverer, that's interesting. Gomer means complete, but yet she's a street walker, but yet her name means complete. You see, we see a prostitute, God sees a preacher's wife. We see someone that is useless, God sees some something that can be used for his honor, for his glory. You see a used, unworthy, unclean, never be anything, God says, I see someone that my grace can get ahold of. What you see is incomplete, what I see is complete. Here's the point that I want to drive in. If you're pointed in the right direction, your direction is more important than your present location. Let me say that again. If you're pointed in the right direction, your direction is more important than your present location. You may have all kinds of issues, you may have all kinds of hang-ups, you've just got to understand you just need to change your direction, and go towards the Cross. And God's promise there when you go towards the cross, is that I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will never abandon you.
Darrell Ingram: 27:16 This is why I love Jeremiah. 29:11, it says, "I know the plans I have for you, and they're plan have of good and not of evil. To give you an expected end." I don't know, I don't look at where you are, or where you were, I see where my grace is taking you. See it doesn't matter what you did last night, doesn't matter what you did last year, doesn't matter what you did last week, what matters is that you're here today. God's placed the door of hope here for you, as I said, a whole different perspective of God's love. Doesn't matter where we're at, Pastor James said, Darrell it didn't matter, whole different perspective of love, it now goes from your head to your heart. The door of hope is there. Where are you going to be?
Darrell Ingram: 28:36 Maybe you're messed up, maybe you got hiccups, or maybe you got hang ups. Maybe if you died, you don't know where you would go. God says the door is here, today is the day of salvation, today is the day of the Lord.
Darrell Ingram: 28:59 Let's stand and go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I thank you. Father for your grace, your mercy, your goodness. Father, right now many of us may be in that door, or that valley, where we feel that it's hopeless. We don't know what direction we need to go. We don't know what's going to happen later today, or tomorrow. But Father you do, and you loved us so much that you gave your son. And Father, it says in your word that whoever believes, whoever believes, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Whether you're here in Pineville, or the Alexandria campus, God wants to give you hope this morning. He wants to give you a life this morning. Will you come? Will you come? Don't worry about who's next to you, don't worry about who you got to walk over, but come. God's waiting on you today. Whatever it is on your heart, whatever's on your mind, lay it at the altar and let God give you peace and hope. Father, we ask you this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
Darrell Ingram: 01:23 So anyway, so I sit down with Pastor James and he's beginning to share his heart with me, and he said, Darrell, I need you to preach for me this weekend. Wednesday, 3:30. I said, okay. He said, Sharon already sent you the message. I'm thinking to myself, she sends it to me all the time. So he begins to share his heart with me. Two things that I'm appreciative of him, first of all, for allowing me to preach this morning. Second of all, for sharing his heart, as he started to say, this book of Hosea has opened my heart Darrell. To realize that, and he told me, I want you to convey this and share my heart with Journey Church that God loves us regardless of what we have done. And I said, well, I know that. You know what I'm saying? Thinking to myself, I know that. He said, Darrell, you don't understand. When you begin to open the book of Hosea and begin to read Hosea, you will get a new meaning of God's love for each of us. I'm a 53 year old preacher, and when I opened that book that next morning on Thursday, and I began to read the book of Hosea, I began to weep. And Beverly thought something was wrong with me, and said, baby what's wrong? I said, Beverly, I just now realized the expanse and the depth of God's love for me, for you. And that is what I want to try to convey to you that Pastor James shared with me, that God loves you regardless of what you have done, and God would do it all over again, he would love you without a doubt.
Darrell Ingram: 03:16 So we're looking at this dysfunctional life, this dysfunctional marriage in Hosea. And we see it in Hosea chapter one and two, through three, it says, "When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, go marry this promiscuous woman and have children with her. For like an adulterous wife, the land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord. So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, (Whatever his name is.) and she conceived and bore him a son." Let me tell you what's taking place here at the moment here in Hosea. Hosea was a preacher, and it's a story of a preacher, and there's this woman named Gomer. In other words, it's a story of a preacher, and a prostitute. I think I got most of y'all up now huh? It's about a story of a preacher and a prostitute, and he's a good man. He's a good preacher, an outstanding leader. He's a man of God, he's pure, he's clean, he's kept himself what we would say is unspotted by the world. He had a life of integrity, he was living his life with purity, he was an up and coming preacher.
Darrell Ingram: 04:31 It's like a lot of people who make the decision to stay in church. These young people that stay in church to serve the Lord, they dream of one day, one day after holding themselves back, that one person will come into their life. Hosea was not practicing safe sex, he was having no sex, it's what we call abstinence. And I think maybe this society today needs to learn about this word abstinence. It's like generation upon generation upon generation from the very beginning, to today, need to learn that promiscuity is wrong, and God wants us to be abstinent before marriage. God said, Hosea, I heard your prayer. I've heard your prayer, your wife, your wife, it's about about wanting a wife. He said, it's time to get married and enjoy the married life. And I could picture hosea saying, praise God, I get to get married. God, which one is she? Which one is she? Is she that blonde that's in the praise team? Oh Man, because she's pretty it. Maybe it's that Brunette that just came in to church, and she started in the youth group. Oh God, I noticed her, she was looking at me. She was cutting in line. Is it her God, is said her? She'd make a good church girl, God, I know she would be. Lord says, no, I want you to go down to a certain street Hosea, on the wrong side of the tracks, and there you'll find the one that you need to marry. I can imagine Hosea thinking, oh, that's a rough side of town. But God, maybe she's got this kitchen, and she's feeding the hungry. She's helping them through an outreach, she's ministering to the people that are down and out, the people that are on the wrong side of town. But I'm sure God, I'm sure, you're taking me to the right person that has a good ministry.
Darrell Ingram: 06:38 So Hosea goes over, and he gets there, and what he sees is prostitutes call, girls, harlots, sex trafficking, on the corner. And there's a girl in fishnet pantyhose with a mini mini, mini, mini, leather, tight skirt, on, and he looks and she's got a biblical blouse on, lo and behold she's smoking a cigarette. And the Lord says to the preacher, there's your wife, marry her, that's who I want you to marry. The story is not the fact that he married her because God told him marry her, if he had just married her because God told him to marry her, that would be an act of obedience. That'd be an act of submission, because God told him to marry her. But it's more than that, what's astonishing about this scripture here is it says that he married her, and he loved her. He married her, and he loved her. God said, you're going to marry that prostitute, and it's a picture of what my children are doing to me, how unfaithful they are to me. It's a picture today of God's people, of how God's people are unfaithful to him today. You see, we get caught up in the church, and we got caught up in the good things of church going things, and you know what? We misplace our priorities. Our priorities are no longer on worshiping and lifting up God, but our priorities on being here, being seen looking good, and I look good guys. Well we misplaced priorities, you see, the right priorities in your life, can change your marriage, can change your finances, and can change your future. Changing your priorities changes everything, changes everything. Do your priorities prove that you love God? Do your priorities prove that you love God? You see, love is not a feeling, love is action. Love is an action. You see you say, I love. Now put those words love into action, and begin to love God like you know what you need to be doing.
Darrell Ingram: 09:22 You see, it's powerful of God's love, in the story of Hosea and Gomer. It's the power, and the story, of the love that God has for us. It's the story of God's love for you, and for me. You see it's not just that Christ was willing to die on the cross for your sins and for my sins. If that's all he did, that would have been an act of submission, and an act of obedience, to the will of the father. But John 3:16 says it like this, "He did it because he so loved the world, and that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life." He did it because of his love for you and for me. That's what the story of this Gomer and Hosea, this dysfunctional marriages is talking about. Hosea is a prophet, a man of God, and Gomer is a harlot, prostitute, unfaithful woman. This isn't how marriage to start out, but yet they started out like this. This is why God's word tells us to not be unequally yoked. God said, Hosea, I want you to preach an illustrated sermon with your life on how much I love the world, because you are going to be marrying a prostitute and then the same way she treats you. That's the way the world is treating me, they're unfaithful, they're dragging my name in the mud. There doing all the things.
Darrell Ingram: 11:12 But I don't want you to know that God's love is not based on our performance, he's not based on your performance, he's not based on my performance. His love, is not based on anything that you and I wouldn't do. It's not based on you coming to church this morning. It's not based whether you pay your tithe. It's not based on whether you sing on the praise team, it's not based on whether you're a preacher, whether you're a teacher, whether you're a leader, it's not based on any of that. It's not based on that, he loves you and he loves me because we're people, and God loves people. He loves people so much that he was willing to send his son to die on the cross, to give his life, to shed his blood so that you and I could have a relationship with God. That you and I can go straight to God. That's how powerful, and how strong, God's love is for you and me and for people of the world. That's why we, at Journey Church, need to love people. It's about people. It's about reAchan people, bringing those far from God, and bring them back close to God. We bring nothing to the picture, You and I, Jesus is the spotless, sinless savior. And you and I are the prostitute. We're the unholy, we're the unclean, we're the unworthy. We bring nothing of value to the relationship. It has nothing to do with what I bring, it has nothing to do with what you bring. It has all to do, with what God brings.
Darrell Ingram: 13:03 You see, the Bible, we're told that this prophet marries this prostitute. And a lot of the times in the Old Testament, that's what God uses prophets to speak to his people, to speak to the world. But you've got to understand when the godly an ungodly come together, we're in it for heartaches and hiccups and hangups as life goes on. Don't expect to marry a harlot, and have someone holy. You don't need to marry a prostitute, and expect something pure or having purity. Listen what it says in Hosea 2:5 it says, "For the mother has played the harlot, she who conceives them, has beloved shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers who will give me bread and my water and my wool and my linen, my oil, and my drink." Life happens when we're married, when we're in a relationship, when we're in a family, life happens. Hosea's ministry began to grow, and he began to experience this ministry that was growing by leaps and bounds, so he's spent more time in the church. He was spending more time away, and she was getting resentful because she was sitting at home all day with the baby, with the baby. And she started looking down on herself because she had let herself go. Guys, I'm kind of ad libbing a little bit here, okay? You all don't mind, huh? Okay. She started a let herself go, and you need to understand the background that she came from. It was all about her sex appeal. It was all about how she looked, and how she carried herself. Now, her husband does not desire her anymore, so she's feeling left out.
Darrell Ingram: 15:08 She said, oh, that's not the way them other men used to treat me. They would listen to me. They would spend time with me. They would do this for me. They would ust, you know, do this, and so she decided I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to start going to the gym. I'm going to start making myself look better again. Remember y'all, I'm just ad libbing, okay? She says, I'm going to spend time at the gym, and she walks in and there's a cute trainer. And as she's doing sit ups, he's strategically placing his hand on her back and helping her up, and as he's holding her legs, he's touching them just in strategic places, and oh the chemistry. That's how the enemy works. That's how the enemy works. You see thien she starts Facebooking him, she friends him on Facebook, and they talk. You know, because he listens to me, and they talk and they talk and they talk and she gets his attention, and she has his attention, he has her attention. This is, this is true, it's how the enemy works in our life. He brings us in, he sets the trap. And then she decides, let's go to lunch, and they go to lunch, and they keep going to lunch. Then one thing leads to another, and she begins to have a full fledge affair with this man. And it doesn't stop there, but then it starts with multiple men, and she's back right in the same place to where Hosea had married her and saved her from, back in the same situation all over again.
Darrell Ingram: 17:02 I want you to understand, you can't make your mate love you, and you can't make God stop loving you. That's what's so good about God's love. You see, many times you know what we think we want, when we get it, we don't really want it. God gives us the tool. He gives us the tools to help us out, to help our mate, to help our friend, to help our loved one, to help our children. He gives it in prayer, and scripture. That's what Hosea does in Second Hosea 6-7, says, "Therefore, behold I will hedge up, hedge up, your way with thorns, and wall her in, so that she cannot find her path. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them. Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, I will go and I'll return to my first husband, for then I was better than I am now.
Darrell Ingram: 18:18 Listen, this is the prayer to pray for someone that is far from God, so that they can be brought back close to God. And listen, if you want this prayer all you've got to do is write it down in your next step card, and then leave it at the kiosk as you go out, and they'll get you this prayer to pray for your loved one, to pray for someone that is far from God, that God will build that hedge of thorns around them, that it will repel those evil things that try to come in on their lives, and they will not be satisfied so they'll come running back to God.
Darrell Ingram: 18:57 You know how God treats us when we return to him, in spite of the way that we've treated him? Says this in Hosea says, 14-16 says, therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the Wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards from there, in the Valley of Achor, the door of hope. She's shall see there as in the days of her youth, and as the days when she came up from the land of Egypt, and it shall be that the day says the Lord, that you will call me, my husband and no longer call me my master." No longer. You will call me my husband, not master, not slave owner. God's love is more than unconditional. God loves us in spite of our condition. That's God's love.
Darrell Ingram: 20:05 God says to Hosea, I want you to go and get he, I want you to go get her back. She ends up in this sex trafficking. We're back in the Bible now, okay, we're back in scripture. But when he goes, there's a guy there, a pimp, selling her. Selling her for what he can get out of her, he's got her on the auction block. And God says, I want you to go Hosea, and I want you to get her. Notice what he says back in Hosea chapter two, I will allure her, I will speak comfort to her. I will give you to speaking to Gomer, I will give you The Valley of Achor, a door of hope. You know every marriage is at one point, every life at one point or another, sets foot in the Valley of Achor. You see the Valley of Achor, it simply means trouble. For every marriage, for every family, for every life, that is in trouble. God says, I, will give you a door of hope. I will give you a door of hope if your life is messed up, if you got the hiccups, the hang-ups of life, if you have a dysfunctional family, God says I'll give you this door of hope. God said, I'm making a promise to you, and to all the families of the earth.
Darrell Ingram: 21:49 The Valley of Achor, that is where Achan...Do you all remember the story about Achan? About sending to camp, how God says, okay, you go over there and you take it, you give everything back to me. But Achan, he took some and he hid it under his tent, you know? He had sinned in the camp. The Valley of Achor is where Achan was stoned to death with his family. This is where they're at now, this is where we're at times in our lives, in the Valley of Achor. But God says, I will give you a door of hope. I'll give you a door of hope. I'll give you a door of hope. It doesn't matter where you're at. It doesn't matter the hiccups or the mess ups in your life. God doesn't care where you've been, he doesn't care about your situation where it was, he doesn't care about the alcohol or the drugs or the hopelessness that you feel, because God gives you a door of hope. He gives you a door of hope in the valley of trouble. I want you to understand that you don't need to focus on your mess ups, on the past, but focus on the present and the future. God gives you that hope. He gives you that promise. God says, I'll put in the valley of trouble, for every family, a door of hope. But not only that, he says in Job chapter 14, "For every tree that is cut down that is planted along the stream, they will sprout to new life,
Darrell Ingram: 23:39 That reminds me of when Jesus was at the well, and asked that woman for a drink of water. She says, [inaudible]. And he says, lady, if you only knew who I was asking you for a drink water, you would ask me. And you would receive, and you would thirst no longer. You see, when we're down in the Valley of Achor, and we feel that we're not there, we feel that we're hopeless, helpless, useless. God says, come back to my water. Come back to my son, and allow me to give you life. You see you go through life you mess up, we all mess up. I mess up, you mess up, we all mess up. And you may be saying, you know my marriage is a shambles, my marriage is messed up. Maybe we're already divorced, you know what? God says, I still love you, you still have hope, he doesn't love you any less because of your marriage is over, he loves you the same regardless. God loves you, regardless.
Darrell Ingram: 24:47 Listen, we have the freedom to make choices, but we don't have the freedom to make the consequences, or to choose the consequences. Consequences happened in her life, and in Hosea chapter three, verses one to five, I'm not going to read it all. But it goes on and says, consequences in the brain bring about change. They do. You have to be willing to choose. You have to be willing to allow those consequences to either make you better, or bitter, it's your choice. Many times we don't change until it hurts enough that were forced to make those changes. Listen, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care how dysfunctional your life is, I don't care how dysfunctional your marriage is, God loves you, and he wants to deliver you.
Darrell Ingram: 25:45 Listen in the Bible, for every name in the Bible it gives character, and it gives that person life. Hosea
means deliverer, that's interesting. Gomer means complete, but yet she's a street walker, but yet her name means complete. You see, we see a prostitute, God sees a preacher's wife. We see someone that is useless, God sees some something that can be used for his honor, for his glory. You see a used, unworthy, unclean, never be anything, God says, I see someone that my grace can get ahold of. What you see is incomplete, what I see is complete. Here's the point that I want to drive in. If you're pointed in the right direction, your direction is more important than your present location. Let me say that again. If you're pointed in the right direction, your direction is more important than your present location. You may have all kinds of issues, you may have all kinds of hang-ups, you've just got to understand you just need to change your direction, and go towards the Cross. And God's promise there when you go towards the cross, is that I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will never abandon you.
Darrell Ingram: 27:16 This is why I love Jeremiah. 29:11, it says, "I know the plans I have for you, and they're plan have of good and not of evil. To give you an expected end." I don't know, I don't look at where you are, or where you were, I see where my grace is taking you. See it doesn't matter what you did last night, doesn't matter what you did last year, doesn't matter what you did last week, what matters is that you're here today. God's placed the door of hope here for you, as I said, a whole different perspective of God's love. Doesn't matter where we're at, Pastor James said, Darrell it didn't matter, whole different perspective of love, it now goes from your head to your heart. The door of hope is there. Where are you going to be?
Darrell Ingram: 28:36 Maybe you're messed up, maybe you got hiccups, or maybe you got hang ups. Maybe if you died, you don't know where you would go. God says the door is here, today is the day of salvation, today is the day of the Lord.
Darrell Ingram: 28:59 Let's stand and go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I thank you. Father for your grace, your mercy, your goodness. Father, right now many of us may be in that door, or that valley, where we feel that it's hopeless. We don't know what direction we need to go. We don't know what's going to happen later today, or tomorrow. But Father you do, and you loved us so much that you gave your son. And Father, it says in your word that whoever believes, whoever believes, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Whether you're here in Pineville, or the Alexandria campus, God wants to give you hope this morning. He wants to give you a life this morning. Will you come? Will you come? Don't worry about who's next to you, don't worry about who you got to walk over, but come. God's waiting on you today. Whatever it is on your heart, whatever's on your mind, lay it at the altar and let God give you peace and hope. Father, we ask you this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
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