The Love of God (Part 3): Discover His Relentless Love for You

When I was nineteen years old, I was in the seminary, and I read the book of Hosea for the first time, and I read the statement, the word of the Lord, which came to Hosea when the Lord first spoke to Hosea. The Lord said to Hosea, “Hosea, go take to yourself a woman of harlotry.” I stepped back in horror. If you learned anything about Hosea, you will find him a man so sensible, a man so full of love, a man so full of compassion, a man who abhorred anything impure, and a man who loved the Lord.

One day the Lord came to him and spoke to him with a voice and said, Hosea, go and get married, and marry a fallen woman. How repellent. Then I said to myself, Lord, You cannot do that. That breaks one of Your Ten Commandments. You can’t order a prophet to go marry a fallen woman, one in such sin.

Why did He tell Hosea to do it? Why? Because God Himself – listen, I want you to listen, and may the Lord cover—because the Lord was bound to the same situation. Brothers and sisters, God wanted a wife. Did He love that girl? Tell me, did He love her? Did He love her? Oh, anybody can fall in love with a girl pure and beautiful. We all feel a fine man should have a fine wife, and no story is more beautiful than a man finding a beautiful woman, falling in love with her, and marrying her. That is true love.

That doesn’t get close to the love of God. God pushed that standard back so far. God picked up a nobody, fell in love with her, brought her up, and she fell, did she not? Now, I ask you…you tell me, according to your nature, what will God do? By your nature, what will God do? What? Forget her. Turn from her. Worse than that. Pour out wrath upon her. Judge her.

Brothers, sisters, here is the holy God, and He has fallen in love with a girl who is finally, by His grace, lovely and beautiful…and she falls into sin. She turns away from the lover of all lovers. Brothers, if any woman ever made a mistake in all history, if any woman was ever a harlot, it was when she turned from the very God and was attracted away by gods.

Now, I ask you, what did He do? What did He do? He pursued her. While she was in this fallen state, she had oil and wine and clothing and jewels and grain, and who gave it to her? The very Lord whom she had turned from, until finally she drank of her sin until it became hollow, and she said, “I will go back.” To whom? The One to whom I was betrothed.

Two messages ago, I began by saying to you that there was once a God, and He was what? Tell me… Alone. One. Reality. What else? Light. Spirit. Young. He was all of those things. You might even say He was youth. And then I said, but if there was any essence to His being, it was what? Love. Pulsating love. Love. And behind that incomparable, indescribable love was the power of God driving that love.

One day, God found a place to express that love, and He fell in love, and that love, that new standard of expression…He loved a no one. Who was it? Tell me. Who was it? It was me. It was you.

One day, reality sat atop a hill and looked down at the picture; what did He say? Say it. “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have embraced you and put My arms around you, but you would not. She would not love the very God who created love in the breast of man. She would not turn to love the most beautiful, lovely Lover of all, who loved with a love that surpassed all love; with the passion and love He has displayed.

I tell you, brothers and sisters, He is still the reality. He is still the living One. Don’t look at Him as someone sitting around, hoping someone will pay Him obeisance or some terrified favor of worship. He is still the relentless pursuer. He is the bachelor, still alone, with a passion to put His arms around her and love her. He is waiting for her to stop and say, “My Lord, my God, my Love, do what you have always wished. Love me.

Tomorrow morning, before the sun comes up…if this does not get a hold of you, what can I say? What can God say? My brother and sister, when you get up tomorrow, would you just come and sit down in the Lord’s presence and say, ” My Lord, my God, and my Love, I will give You the desire of Your heart. I offer You one whom You can love.”

“Lord, what a lover. We never knew You this way. Our eyes were blind. We did not know. I bow my knee before the Father of creation that your eyes might be opened, that you might see the riches of the inheritance of Jesus Christ in the saints.