Who Is Gomer?

"Somewhere along the line we have to realize that we cannot answer the summons of our Worldly lusts while at the same time answering the call of God. "

The other day I was sitting in the library at college reading and texting a friend, and I don’t remember what we were talking about, but we were joking around about something, and out of the blue, I began to think about Gomer, and that thought has been on my mind without ceasing since.

I have thoughts like this pretty often, but they are generally deep and cause me to immediately become troubled in my spirit because they are usually laid on my heart by God, and it has something to do with how I have been doing in my walk with God.

But Gomer? How does this have anything to do with me? How many people even know who Gomer is? I knew who Gomer was, I had heard the story in passing but I had never thought about it until now.

So I ask you this question “Who is Gomer?”

Contrary to most peoples beliefs the Gomer I am talking about is not one of my favorite characters out of old 50’s tv comedy Gomer Pyle. Not our bumbling, goofy, sweet Gomer Pyle; But the biblical Gomer, yeah her. Since I really didn’t know much about her until I began writing this blog post, I guess I will give you all a short history.

Around 756b.c in the Northern kingdoms of God’s children, there was a prophet of God, Hosea. Hosea was this great man, a prophet, a bulwark of God standing against the syncretic mixture of beliefs. Hosea was a counterpart to the Judean prophet Isaiah. Hosea and Isaiah had two different audiences that they were trying to reach, but their messages were the same, return to your first love, quit trying to intermingle with other faiths, quit trying to live as God’s child and as a heathen. How does this have anything to do with Gomer, well you see God decided that to better help Hosea reach his people, Hosea had to know about God’s undying love, and also God’s heartbreak.

Hosea 1:1-2 “The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms:for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord”.

God commanded Hosea to take this wife, but not a faithful doting wife befitting a prophet or minister of God, no God commanded Hosea to take a whore. God decided that Hosea needed a whore as a bride so that he could better understand that which God had gone through throughout the history of mankind.

Hosea 1:3 “So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son”.

So here is where Gomer comes into the picture, Gomer became Hosea’s whore-wife. Then Hosea can truly began to feel God’s pain and heartbreak. Gomer

Hosea 1:4 “And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel”

In the very next verse Gomer bears Hosea a son who God commands to name Jezreel. Jezreel Means “God will sow”. Jezreel is also the name of a beautiful abundant valley, it was the site of many violent events in Jewish history, King Jehu ordered all 70 of King Ahab’s son’s heads be dumped at the gate of Jezreel, Ahab’s queen Jezebel was killed after being thrown from the palace windows in Jezreel, It was also there that her body was eaten by dogs. Jezreel was the scene of Naboth’s trial wherein he was killed by Jezebel. It is were the Philistines beat Saul and his sons, and also the Egyptians victory of King Josiah.  So this name has serious implications, as signs of destructions. It may have come to be that The boy was named Jezreel as a foretelling of God sowing destruction among his people for their idolatry and disservice. But Jezreel also was the sight of many great victories for the Israelites, Gideon against the Midianites, the Amalekites, and their allies. While this name was a foretelling of God sowing destruction and turning the Israelites over to their enemies and costing them their independence, It is also a foretelling of God’s love, and how after he punishes his children, how he will bring them back and reunite them as foretold in Hosea 1:11 “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land:for great shall be the day of Jezreel”. 

Hosea 1:6 “And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah:for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away”.

Gomer then went onto conceive another child, this time a daughter, God commands Hosea to name her Lo-ruhamah, which means “Not-Loved”. What in the world, why would you name your child this, imagine the uproar at the baby shower, You are naming her WHAT???? But once again this was a pointed jab at the Israelites, God is now calling them unloved.

Hosea 1:8-9 “Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi:for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God”. 

Gomer is now pregnant again with another son, but this time she isn’t conceiving it for Hosea, the paternity of this child now comes in to question. God commands Hosea to name this child Lo-ammi, which means not mine people. You see this child is believed to be born of an act of infidelity, Hosea has now reached the point of of rejection and hurt that God has experienced. God likened the Israelites Idolatry to Adultery. His bride had forsaken him as had Gomer forsaken Hosea. But then comes the key part of the story.

Hosea 2:1 “Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah”.

See They changed the names for Lo-ammi which means not mine people, to Ammi meaning my people, and from Lo-Ruhamah meaning Not Loved to Ruhamah meaning Loved.

Hosea marriage was one commanded by God, but it was a allegory to show how deeply God was hurt and how fiercely God loved his people.

In Hosea 2:2-13 “Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.  Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax. And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.”

God in his hurt spoke through Hosea’s hurt unto his people, he warns them that he will destroy their homes, their fruit, their beautiful things, he will send them out to the wilderness, he will put them away from him for their failure to give up and turn away from their idols and false God’s that they had received from the people that they had conquered. Like wise Hosea would turn away from away from Gomer if she didn’t turn away from the gifts and things that she had received from her lovers that she had conquered.

But then in Hosea 2:14-23 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,

and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth,and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord. And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.”

You see in the immense amount of hurt that God had been subjected to by his people due to their infidelity, but God in his immense unfailing love chooses to bring his people back and reinstate them as his people. Using this analogy of hurt and love, God shows his deep unconditional affection for us.

So I asked myself who was Gomer? Who was this woman who played such a pivotal role in this story of Love and betrayal? Who is she?

Gomer while a real lady and not just a character in a story to get our attention in a attempt to reconcile us to God and his love. But Who really Was she? Better yet, Who is she?

I have thought about this question all day, and I have now realized who she is, Gomer is you, Gomer is me, Gomer is that lady on the pew beside you, Gomer in all actuality is the Church.

I originally thought that this thought had nothing to do with me, but now I realize it has everything to do with me. Why? Because I am Gomer, I have committed Idolatry or adultery. Now not in the physical sense, I have never actually committed adultery, But as a part of the bride of Christ I have left my first love, I turned away and in my idolatry committed adultery. You see I had reached a point of letting something else take God’s place in my life. I had become unfaithful, I committed spiritual Adultery.

“Spiritual Adultery” - having undo fondness to the world and being unfaithful to God, Spiritual Adultery is analogous to unfaithfulness to a spouse, includes any form of idolatry. According to James, spiritual adultery is claiming love of God, while finding real love and pleasure in the world. 

Two years ago I went to church camp, I honestly went to play sports and to meet girls. You see the past couple of year before I went to this camp I had got renewed in the Holy Ghost, and then threw God aside for Football. You see I had quit being God’s bride, and had allowed football to take his place, football had taken the center stage in my life, it was all I ever did or thought about. Football was this god that I had allowed to control me. I had committed spiritual adultery. I remember sitting at camp during the Tuesday morning service seeing all the people around me praying to God and getting breakthroughs, and I cried out to God and said “God, why can I no longer feel you in my life?”. And I heard God reply “Because you have replaced me, you allowed football take my place”. Like the Israelites I had committed Spiritual adultery, God had labeled it as my Jezreel, this Adultery I had committed with Sports and other Idols I had allowed in my life was going to be my destruction. I had become in God’s eyes Lo-ammi and Lo-Ruhamah, because I had lost my Love for God, I quit being God’s child, I walked away for another love. I remember weeping, and crying out to God. I loved football, I kept going back to it, God had dealt with me upon it many times, but every time it’s charms had pulled me back in. God said it is time to remove it from your life, you have to get it out. I got up from that altar and walked back to my pew, I grabbed my phone and texted my paster, football coach, dad, and youth pastor, and told them as of that moment I quit football. I then went back to the altar and had the most amazing breakthrough I have ever had. You see my Jezreel, my downfall, also became my uprising, when I removed my old Idol and put God in it’s place Jezreel no longer was my destruction, it was my rejoining, it reunited me with my first love, God. I turned my Lo-ammi and Lo-Ruhamah into Ammi and Ruhamah, because now I am once again God’s, I now loved God and am Loved by him.

In Revelation 2:4 it says “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love”.

You see the church at Ephesus had committed adultery, the church had turned away from its first love, It had grown to love something else more than God. The church at Ephesus had become Gomer. And like the Israelites in Hosea, God gives Ephesus and edict, a command.

In Revelation 2:5 it says “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent”. 

God tells the Ephesus church; turn away, repent, give up this other love, come back to me, I am the one who loved you, I am the one who saved you, I am your betrothed, come back to me. If you don’t though, I will be forced to remove you from my sight, I will take my light and spirit from you. But please just come back.

God is our Hosea, we are his Gomer, all he wants is for us to just come unto him. Jesus came to earth and died on a cross for one purpose and that was to reconcile us to his love. Jesus wants us who have strayed, us who have been unfaithful to come back, he is crying out for his lost bride, “Come home”. He doesn’t care that you have sinned, that you have borne consequences of sins, that you have flaws, so what if you are unloved, so what if you are not of his, God still wants you. You have those burdens that were conceived from your affair with  the world; Bring them unto him, he wants to take them and turn them in to testimonies. Your scars he wants to heal, your pain he wants to relieve, All you have to do is come back to God.

So I again ask you, “Who is Gomer”?

Is Gomer you, have you too set aside your first love, is God being replaced in your life? If so, then it is time that we get God back at the center, take it from me, God belongs in the center, and when he is the center of our lives, Life is in order.

I have come to realize that as God's child I cannot fit into the world, it is part of my DNA, I am Apostolic, I have tasted of the sweetest of loves, I cannot go back. You see once you fall in love with God and it is the only thing that matters unto you, everything else takes a back seat to it. 

I recently wrote a blog post over "Focusing On The Journey" and in it I talk about how that when the eye is single, when it is focused you go towards what it is focused upon. I have found when you fall in love with Jesus and you focus on him and truly being a part of his "bride", you begin to grow in his love, other things start to slide out of focus, you begin to truly develop a relationship with him. 

You see, I understand I have desires, my flesh cries out for attention, I give in sometimes, I am still gomer: But oh when I remain focused on God, when I am walking with God, I find it easier to keep from starting away, I find it is easier to stay away from "Spiritual Adultery". Somewhere along the line those things that I had filled God's place with began to lose their splendor, they started losing their appeal. 

I am going to be completely honest here, my testimony is not something I usually share with people, as a matter of fact only like four or five people that I know of know about it, but I am going to share a part now. 

I used to be this shy, awkward kid, who was very introspective and I didn't have a lot of friends. I was homeschooled for most of my life until the fourth grade when me and all my siblings went back to public school. Well while in school I got picked on a lot, so in fifth grade I dropped out to be homeschooled again. In sixth grade I got into this online school, which I throughly enjoyed. Then the bad stuff happened. So when I was twelve, I stayed home alone a lot and did my schoolwork, and somewhere along the line I found the monstrosity of pornography. Yeah that thing, it kinda latched onto me and I hid it from everyone I knew for like two years, till one day towards the end of seventh grade my dad found out, and we had a long talk, and we decided that I needed to get back in a real school with real people, and where I wasn't on a computer all day so that I wouldn't be tempted. 

Well I went to HYC that year, and I would like to say it went away, but it didn't, I still struggled with it, it was like a small gnat that kept bugging me and would go away. I struggled off and on with this addiction to pornography for the next year or so. But during this time, when I first came back from HYC, there was still this habit, it didn't just disappear, I would pull up the porn on my mobile device and then just shut it off, I wouldn't watch it, It had lost its appeal, I still had the habits of going back to my old lusts, but it no longer had the same taste, I would cry and pray for hours afterwards, I felt dirty and broken and shamed, I had committed "Spiritual Adultery". Then in 2011, at HYC, Rev. Doug White preached the sermon, "No Small Snakes" and I went to the alter and prayed through again, I spoke in tongues again, I was restored. Did that mean that all the sudden I don't have these desires, did it mean that overnight I was perfect again, no. But God began to work on me, and I'm still a work, I still get tempted, but now I have a savior, a shield who gives me strength to say no, I'm not going to give into the devil and satisfy my flesh. It was during that service that I felt the call of God upon my life to reach people.

Somewhere along the line we have to realize that we cannot answer the summons of our Worldly lusts while at the same time answering the call of God. Matthew 6:24 says "No man can serve two masters:for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

We have to make up in our mind that we can either continue as Gomer, we can continue to turn our backs to God's love, and focus our attentions upon our fleshly desires and our false idols that we have allowed to take precedence in our lives. Or we can forsake our old lusts and loves, and go back to our true love, we can go back and serve God, we can choose this day that we will no longer allow other things to have precedence in our lives that we are going to allow God to take his place as our God. 

One of my favorite verses is Matthew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen". 

I honestly feel that this verse must have been mistranslated because, you seen God bids all to come unto him, he calls to all of us, he is crying out for his people to return unto him, But few of them choose to answer the call of God. You see, God called all of his Gomers back, but few of the choose to return to God. God is to be the head of the man, so we need to put him there, as a church we need to reinstate God as the spouse to our church. Just think of the revival and coming home that we would have if we reinstated God into his rightful place. 

What would happen if we turned our backs on the world and turned back to God? I ask you this day, will you continue to be Gomer, or will you choose to return unto your first love, Will you forsake your lusts and desires of the flesh, and return unto God? If you choose to stay as Gomer, your Jezreel will be your destruction, but if you choose to go back to God, and reassert him unto his rightful place in your life, Jezreel will come to be the blessings and love that God will so in your life. 

So, what will you choose?