we've become a people that pursue other things rather than our creator. But yet in the story of Jose, we see this loving God who pursues us in spite of our idolatry and that was me. I was the worst of the worst. I was a professing christian in all kinds of horrible sin, literally no way out except God intervening. Coming in, paying that price that I could not pay and rescuing me if you were God and your chosen people were doing all sorts of things that broke your heart. If they were committing sexual immorality, being religious hypocrites, oppressing the poor, etcetera, how would you communicate your feelings about their lifestyle? What picture would you use? Would you tell one of your profits to go marry a prostitute? I'm sure you wouldn't. But that's what God did today. Well, look at Jose's to a man called to embody the mercy of God by faithfully loving an unfaithful woman.

Thanks for joining us. This is purity for life. Yeah. Mhm. Thank you. Mhm. When we give our hearts to something other than God, whether it's something intended for good, like family or work or whether it's something evil like pornography or sensual pleasure. Do you know what that makes God feel like? It makes him feel like a betrayed husband. He feels like you would, if you found out that your spouse was sleeping with someone else. The people of Israel during the time of Josefa were anything but faithful to God. And God sent his prophet Josefa to communicate to them from the depths of his heart. The book of Jose begins this way. When the word of the Lord first spoke through Jose Yah, the Lord said to him, Go take to yourself a wife of Horde um and have Children of Horde. Um Many of us have probably at some point wanted to hear from God, but can you imagine hearing this from God marry a prostitute?

What? Why in today's picture of Mercy, we're going to look at Jose of the prophet and Gomer the Harlot to help us understand this story in a deeper way. I invited Jeff and Rose cologne to join me, Jeff and Rose worked at Pure Life ministries for 22 years and then went on to found the Lighthouse Biblical counseling center and Lighthouse on the Rock Fellowship. Jeff and Rose. Thanks for joining us. It's good to be here. Thank you for inviting us. Pastor Jeff. I'd like to start with you. We invited you in today because I know that Jose A is one of your favorite books in the bible and it has such a picture of the merciful Heart of God and he's made that very personal and very real to you so briefly. Could you just talk about why this book is so important to you? Sure. I remember reading this book for the first time and especially in chapter three, just relating to how many times I looked to other things when God was pursuing me, trying to reveal himself to me and yet just like the Children in Israel chasing after every other thing that could satisfy, which for me eventually wound up leading to me being in severe bondage and like Gomer who in chapter three winds up in a slave market basically to be sold as a slave.

That was me, I was a slave to sin. It was all because of my own choices. I was running from God when he was trying to be a husband to me, but I really didn't know him in that way. And I just relate so much to this story and how God pursued me. But really when you think about it, mankind, we're all a bunch of harlots from the garden on, we basically said, I I don't want what God has to offer. I want what I want and I want what the world has to offer. And we've become a people that pursue other things rather than our creator. But yet in the story of Jose we see this loving God who pursues us in spite of our idolatry. And that was me and God pursued me in that way until finally he won my heart. It's like in chapter 14 there where it says, Ephraim will say, what do I have to do any more with idols?

And that's what finally happened to me when I I realized this God who sent his son from me who died on a cross, me, who like Gomer wound up in the slave market and here he comes into the slave market to buy back The worst of the worst, that was me. I was the worst of the worst. I was a professing christian in all kinds of horrible sin and because of my own choices, you know, just literally no way out except God intervening, coming in, paying that price that I could not pay and rescuing me and teaching me what it's like to have him as all these other things I was looking to. And so that's why this book means so much to me because it really is a picture of the love of God and the lengths will go to reach a law center. Wow yeah, I've never seen it that way really? That the first few chapters are the actual story.

But then the rest of the book is that process that he was bringing them through. What was it like? I don't know that moment when you knew he really has my heart. Well I'll never forget it. It was actually out here in the hills in Kentucky. I was down on the prayer trail and through many different series of events, God was little by little shedding light into my heart to the homework. I was doing my counseling sessions, the services and I remember one day just being on the prayer trail and praying for this one individual that I was just having a hard time with and God at that moment, just revealing to me that he loved me and that um in spite of all my waywardness and all the things I had done, he still wanted my heart, he still wanted to marry me and I'll never forget that moment that first what I saw was my sin, right?

And I remember thinking I've gone too far. I knew better. You know, you look at the Children of Israel and you just saying, well, man, how many chances? And that was me. But I realized at that moment, God just gave me a revelation of the cross. He was still there saying, just turned to me, returned to the Lord thy God. And it was as if he was saying, I want to marry your my bride. And all I could see was my filthy rags, my hollow tree. But he clothed me and and for me, that's what caused me to say, I'm yours forever. I surrender. I don't know why I would resist such a God as you. And and that was the day I totally surrendered my life to him. And and then he was able to do all the things I was trying to do myself. It really is the message of the gospel, but we have to surrender to that. But I think our problem is we don't understand who he is that is pursuing us.

We fight him. We resist the Holy Spirit when he really is just trying to give himself to us and rescue us from ourselves. Okay, So for people who aren't aware of some of the specifics of Israel's history at this time, can you explain some of that? I think it would help. Sure. So at this time the kingdom has been divided. So there were 10 tribes in the north. There were two tribes in the south and uh for the most part in the south, they had a couple of better kings than the northern kingdom. So Jose a was preaching to the northern 10 tribes. Okay. And they had just given themselves over to horrible idolatry from the nations around them which God had warned them about, not, you know, mixing with the nations around them because it would draw the hardware and that's exactly what happened. But the less king jeroboam brought them into great prosperity, but he was a very evil king.

So they were prospering, but yet in all kinds of wickedness and this is a time when Jose, yah begins his time. So you know when things are going good, you don't want to hear about judgment and so he followed Amos, they were kind of around the same time, but Amos was more divine judgment is coming. It was more the picture of the God of justice. Now here comes Josefa, the god of love was trying to, I never thought of it that way. He's sending to profits. One is serious judgment, which is totally right, totally God, totally right justice. And then this picture of just unfathomable and he does it in relationships that will understand husband and a wife, a father and his Children. And it's a picture of God just pursuing us in spite of our waywardness, wow!

So it is amazing. So as I was preparing for this interview is thinking about other profits because like you said, God had been sending people for a long time, Jose wasn't the first person to come along and say, wow, this is really wrong and you forsaken God. And if you don't repent, then things are going to be bad. Um but I can't think of any other profit that God said mary a prostitute. So I just want you guys to really unpack that both because this is just a very radical picture for us. Well, he makes it clear in chapter one there verse two because he says right after that when he tells them to do this, like you said, odd thing, Prophet of God, like go wouldn't you tell some young man that's looking for a bride? Hey, go down to where the red light district is, go look for a bride. But that's what God does. But he does it. He says for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So God is teaching the prophet.

He's letting him experience what he experiences with the Children of Israel in his relationship with Gomer, who he's going to seek out as a bride. So God's letting him experience his heart and what he goes through with people that look to everything else I know as ministers and disciple ng others sometimes God let you go through what he goes through. So you can better communicate that to other people. Mm One of the things that I saw when I go through this book is just the reality of God's people are just prone to wander. You know, you just see that over and over again. Like Jeff was saying throughout the scriptures, I was thinking about how it all started in the garden of Eden. But then you see it throughout the Kings and the Chronicles and when the Children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, you know, they quick us so quick to turn out backs towards God. And I was thinking about the hymn that says jesus sought me when I was a stranger wandering from the face of God.

He to save myself from danger into posed this precious blood, right o to grace. How great a debtor! Daily. I'm constrained to be let might let that Grace Lord, like a fetter bind my wandering heart today. And it's so true when you look throughout the scriptures, you just see our tendency is just to stray from the Lord. But then the Lord is so good and so loving and gracious to us that he puts out that love call. And this was a love call really through Jose uh to come back, you know, come back. And the rest of that him says, even though I'm prone to wander and I feel it, Lord, I mean my heart feels it's being pulled this way and that way, and I'm prone to leave the God. I love what here I want you to take my heart and seal it with my spirit from above. So, to me, that's such a picture of what is going on throughout this whole book.

Because you see the wandering and then you see Jose God's just calling out, return to me, return to me, you know, and he allows all these circumstances come into play not only in her life, but also in our life to try to get our attention, you know, to kind of shake us and wake us up that what are you doing? You know, I mean what are you doing? And it's really a mercy that God will allow these things to come to draw us back because we're so prone to wander. It's like he really is long suffering and patient with us and kind and gentle and we don't deserve it, but it's because of who he is, you know, his heart. So you really see his heart throughout this book. Just his heart for his people, for his Children. So good for us too, because we misinterpret him so much. The things that come into our lives at times that are very painful or confusing.

I'm just thinking of what you said. It's a love call. We see it more of punishment. Well yeah, because we're seeing that in counseling, in our counseling center that there's couples were working with and they're going through trials, but they don't see God right in the midst of the trials, they feel like they're being punished or they've done something wrong and it's good to examine your heart to see, okay, there's something here that I need to repent of. But once they've examined their heart and they see, no, this is just a normal thing in life to go through this trial because we live in a world that we're going to face all different kinds of trials, the scripture tells us, but are we turning to God in it? Because really what we share with them is it's when you're in that trial, you really see what you believe about God. You know we could profess and say yeah I trust God, I love God. I believe he's good. But the minute we're in a trial it's like where are you, why are you doing this man? I don't understand this. And but he's still the same. He still loves us, He still loves us.

You know, he's there if we turn to him and he wants us to turn and again, you just see that where this book turned to me, plead with your mother plead for she is not my wife and I am not her husband that she put away her whoring from her face and her adultery from between her breasts lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born and make her like a wilderness like a parched land and kill her with thirst upon her Children. Also I will have no mercy because they are the Children of horde. Um for their mother has played the whore she who conceived them has acted shamefully for, she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax my oil and my drink mm.

Therefore I will hatch up her way with thorns and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them and she shall seek them but will not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband. For it was better for me then than now. And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil and who lavished on her silver and gold which she used for bail. Therefore I will take back my grain and its time and my wine in its season. And I will take away my wool and my flax which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand, and I will put an end to all her mirth.

Her feasts, her new moons, her sabbath's and all her appointed feasts, and I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees of which, she said. These are my wages which my lovers have given me. I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them, and I will punish her for the feast days of the bales when she burned offerings to them, and adorned herself with ring and jewellery, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord Therefore behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of a core a door of hope. And there she shall answer. As in the days of her youth. As at the time when she came out of the Land of Egypt.

Yeah, I want to get your thoughts on a few notable portions of Jose. To the first one is in chapter two. What is it that stands out to you about the Lord in that chapter? Yeah. One thing that really stands out to me that I couldn't help but think of the product of some, but also hebrews. Chapter 12 where it talks about the father's discipline, Rose was sharing on that basically how sometimes we view God's punishment as just retribution. And you know, there's some truth, but God's goal is not the same as man's goal. I'm thankful God is not like man, uh his punishment. His dealings with us, his disciplines with us are all designed to draw us back to refine us to purge us of the idolatry and the things our lives. So that in the end, like it says in Hebrews 12, it produces holiness in our lives.

And so that's what I really see in that chapter two, we see all these series of afflictions that are pronounced upon them again. We see that and we think, wow, God's really letting them have it now. But the design, as we see in the end is no, so that they'll come to their senses kind of like the prodigal son. The father lets him go. And the picture here in chapter two is, God gave them everything, they had just like the product son and they just used it to go after all their idols again, you think of yourself, you'd be like okay fine, but the heart of God is and so now you're gonna suffer and all those things, you're spending your money or they're going to become afflictions to thorns for the purpose that you will come to your senses and you'll come back to the father's house. So that's what I see in that chapter. Just that father's heart of compassion, that's willing to put us through some things, even severe judgment but with the goal of bringing us back to himself and lavishing us when we do come back.

Not oh you see I'm glad you find learn july said no, it's the whole idea is he's just gonna wants to lavish us, put the robe on in the ring and bring us back wholeheartedly. It's so beautiful. Mm. What I see in that chapter and I think about my own life, how he lets us pursue everything in life just so that we come to the end of ourselves. So we see this this this doesn't satisfy me. I mean everything I'm pursuing in life is empty. You come to that reality or you get yourself down in the pit because of your sin or someone else's sin. But there's only one place to look and that's up. You know? And reality is that what we read in that chapter verse six and seven where it says therefore behold I will hedge up by way with lawns and make a wall that she shall not find her path and she shall follow after her lovers. But she shall not overtake them. And she shall seek them but not find them. Then she'll say, I will go and return to my first husband for them.

It was better for me than it is now. And that's really the place he wants to bring us to. You know, that we realized, what am I doing like the prodigal son? He finally came to his senses, realizing what am I doing. I might as I need to go back to the father's house where it was so much better. So, you read in verse 14 through 17. Therefore, behold I will allow her and I will bring her into the world of the nice. And I think about my own life. How God did that when he brought me here to up your life? You know, it was my husband Sin. But God was doing this very thing in my heart, bringing me into a wilderness. I mean, this was like a wilderness for me you know. But he was speaking to me here and giving me hope and revealing his love in his heart to me. You know And the reality that what it says here and it shall be in that day says the Lord that you will call me my husband. And long no longer my master. And I remember when I came here the first time ever I had seen jesus wanting to be my husband and then I was just bright but I was pursuing everything in the world you know And he just used my husband's sin to shake me and wake me up.

Hey what are you doing? Never mind what he's doing, What are you doing And where is your heart? Your heart is far away too from me you know? But he used all this to bring me to the reality that yeah, I was created for him. I was created for his purpose. So Lord, here's my heart. Mm. It's my heart. Mhm. Mhm. Come let us return to the Lord. For he has torn us. That he may heal us. He has struck us down and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us. And on the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord his going out as sure as the dawn he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains, that water the earth. What shall I do with you? E from what shall I do with you? O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud like the do that goes early away.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets. I've slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgment goes forth as the light for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Can we also talk about chapter six and what we learn about the Lord there? Sure, it kind of ties in because obviously God is still calling them in this chapter and they're saying, hey let's return, let's go back. But the problem is, and I think a lot of times we do this with God, we think we just got to be more religious and we do our religious exercises and we've maybe call out to God, you know, okay, I gotta get back in church and I need to do this and I need to and there's nothing wrong, we should do those things right, but God wants our heart.

And that's what I see in this chapter because he says to them in verse six, I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more then burnt offering. So in other words, he's hearing their words, but he sees their heart and he sees their heart has not returned. It's just again, what they've learned to do outwardly to try and get back to God. He's saying, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, I want your heart and what I see in this chapter. But we also see it in the way jesus prayed for us in john 17, and even what it says in the beginning there, that salvation is to know God, he wants a relationship, he wants our hearts and he really all we have to do is turn to him in faith and say, Lord I repent and my heart is yours. That's what he's after, not our Religious studies and exercise.

That will come out of our first love. Us giving our heart to him and surrendering to him because we understand how much he's loved us, how much he's forgiven us. And so that's what he's after. And when you think about that is the gospel, it is what our salvation is all about. Him, revealing himself to us, us understanding I'm gonna haul it through and through. I deserve hell and judgment. But yet he joined himself to me. He bought me out of the slave market. He came to me, I wasn't looking for him. He came and he wanted to join his life with mine and when I acknowledged my sin, he forgave me. He closed me. Therefore, I want to give him my heart. I want to know more of this guy I've tasted. And I've seen the Lord is good and I want to know him. and so salvation is to know him is to know he is a merciful, good loving heavenly father creator who gave his only son of ransom for us.

And so that's what chapter six is expressing to me is he's a relational God that wants us to know him and really again is calling us to just turn him and give him our hearts. Yeah, that's good because one of the things that we were thinking about when we came up with this whole series is what does it really take for a person to who's living in total spiritual defeat to begin living in victory? And one of the huge components is seeing God as he is. Instead of like you're saying so many times were just like okay, tell me what to do, okay, I'm doing the wrong thing, so tell me what to do, how do I change? And you start to express people where you got to get to know the Lord. And a lot of times people like kind of answer is that no, no, they don't. They kind of think it's a lame answer. I mean we've had people say that to us in the counseling that seems so petty, you know? But it's not, it's everything because if you really see him and know him your hands, I mean you just let go of what's in your hands and just surrender it to the Lord.

And it's like Lord here I am. I mean I'm yours. I don't want to hold on to these things that are offensive to you. You know what I mean? So, but it's I don't know why people react that way when you tell them it's like or you mean you're examining their faith to see are they really in the faith? They get offended at that. But we need to do that because if we know him, like you say, we're going to be just yes Lord. I mean it's not to say we're not going to struggle with the fresh because we do struggle, but there's something in us that just want to lay it down at the end. You know, it's like how can I hold on to this one? He's so good to me and continues to be good to me and I don't even deserve any of it. And the key is, you know, we don't want to want to be careful not to get mystical, like who he's gonna just some kind of give us epiphany of himself, we have the word of God that tells us who God is. We have the Holy Spirit, that's a reveal er of truth.

So you need to just encourage someone and it really is all I did, I didn't realize it was setting me up for that moment that God could finally reveal himself to me, but it wasn't that moment, it was all the other things I was doing was getting in the Word of God for the first time in my life and spending time with him, it was sitting under the Word of God, it was asking him to reveal himself to me. You know we gotta seek, we gotta not, jesus says it will be open to you, so our part really is to just start seeking him and crying out to him um and really just start believing what he says about himself in the word of God and when we have a hard time just like that man uh told jesus, I think it was the one guy who has, his daughter was sick, he said help my unbelief, help my unbelief. And I I I still pray that way sometimes Lord help my unbelief. Lord help me to just no.

The things you want me to know from your word about you, about myself, about others in my my life with you and God is faithful. One thing he has shown me all these years, he is faithful. If you're sincere, he will make himself known to you. If there's a cry in your heart to know God, he will reveal himself to you. So seek him in his word, ask him to reveal himself to you. He will. When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away, they kept sacrificing to the bales and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of loving kindness, with the bands of love and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws and I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall not return to the land of Egypt. But a Syria shall be their king because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates and devour them because of their own councils. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the most high, he shall not raise them up at all. How can I give you up? Oh, Ephram, how can I hand you over? Oh, Israel! How can I make you like add MMA How can I treat you like, zebra? Wom My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not a man, the holy one in your midst and I will not come in wrath.

Yeah, let's talk about chapter 11 rows. Can we start with you? Just how it's described that when Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son as they called them and so they went from them and sacrifice to the bells and burned incense to carbon images. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms. But they did not know that I healed them. And I just was thinking about how faithful God has been to mate even as a child. Just the reality that as a child, even though I didn't know him, he was there sustaining me, keeping me, you know, I come from a home that my dad was abusive and would drink and parents got divorced 10 years old and I always felt like God, where were you in that? But when I read this, I just brought back to that that he was there, he was there for me, even though I didn't know him, he was there.

And at some point he was going to use all of that to draw me and to reveal his heart to me as my heavenly father, who can totally be trusted in all things, you know, not like my earthly dad. So that verse four says I drew them with gentle chords with bands of love and I know that's how he drew me. He drew me that way through my husband's sin. He was drawing me in that way and it says I was to them as those who take the yolk from their neck. I stooped and I fed them. And it's so true. I mean, that is just such a beautiful picture of how God has been with me since I've come to know the Lord. And but again, in the midst of all that, you still see verse seven, my people are bent on backsliding from me, even though God reveals himself to us, still were prone to wanda. And I think about that when I came to the Lord in 1984 my heart was still wandering all over the place. And it took coming here 1990 for 10 years later, for God to finally win my heart and the way he wanted to win my heart, you know?

So, I just look at this when he says in verse eight, how can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over? Israel? My heart churns within me and my sympathy is stirred. He's that way. I mean, regardless, he's still he's for us. If I could say it that way, he's you just see his heart in this chapter. He's for us. He's not against us. Even when we might feel he's against us, he's not against us. He's for us. Because what you see is he loves, he loves that last verse there says he is the holy one who is faithful. He is faithful and his love towards us, even though we don't deserve it. It's it's not because of us. It's all because of him. You realize it's it's you it's your love. So again, how can we spurn that over and over and over and over again. But yet we do. But then you see it's common throughout the scriptures. And we got to thank God for the profits.

You know, that come and correct us and point things out because that's what gets us to say what am I doing? And you turn back, You know, you turn back so, yeah, I just agree with what Rose is saying. Because what I see in this chapter is the faithfulness of God's love, because he gives us a picture of Israel here, you know, their whole journey out of Egypt. That's really what this is a picture of. But yet, like Rose said, uh, even with all that, their ingratitude still going after other idols and other things. But yet in versus 89 we see that churning heart of God, you know, mercy remembered in the midst of wrath. And we also we got to remember that, this is pointing a lot of this way in the future when God is gonna restore Israel, it shows he's a covenant, God, there's many places in the book Jose where it's pointing to when christ comes then even the millennial reign when the to become one of the two sticks talked about executive that become one, it's God uniting Israel once again and we can look at the world, we could see God actually fulfilling that.

Now. Israel has returned to the land. So we see God, in spite of Israel's total harlotry, he was faithful to his covenant to Abraham and he's waiting now for the gentiles to be brought in and he's going to be faithful to carry out his problems. So we can look at that as believers and know God you're faithful, you really don't give up on us. And I was thinking about this of people that reject God's mercy. There really is nothing left but Wrath. When you really think about you and you see how faithful God is to his covenant. That's why there's nothing left if you willfully sin. If you just totally reject that mercy God has given. It's a scary thought when you think about it, but that's what people do that ultimately rejected. Um but if you're truly his and you're sincere, he's going to be faithful, carry out his part.

And that's what I see here is he's faithful. His love is backed up by his faithfulness to us. Yeah, I think we need a picture this radical and almost um wrong. It feels wrong in a way, you know, to picture God as as being that faithful to a harlot, but we need that. I think because it shows us, like you said, it shows us how evil it is to reject that life it is, it magnifies well, in hebrews for it says an evil heart of unbelief, that's why it's evil. Because what we're saying is, you're not good when yet we see over and over in this book, especially, oh yes, he is. And to say he's not, that's the evilness of people that reject, you know, and that's why they're gonna be in hell blaspheming his name, not begging God to have mercy.

They're gonna go to hell in that same mindset, You're not good. See now I'm in this place because of you and and really it was their own choices that brought them there. And that's what hell is going to be the absence of God's mercy, but that people chose that. It's a scary thing really. I'm just thankful here sitting here today that somehow he got through this hard heart and one it yeah, through his love. You guys have any just close anything left Jeremiah 31 verse three. If I can read that, it says the Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you and that is again the heart of God. His heart is everlasting. His love is everlasting. It's through his loving kindness is mercy, that he draws us through. No matter what circumstances we go through in life.

He wants to use it to draw us to himself. Because reality is there is a heaven and there is a hell and the choices we make here determine what our destiny will be. So, it is wise to turn to the Lord return to the Lord by God. That's my prayer today for anyone listening. Don't resist the Holy Spirit. Don't chide against the Lord's dealings with you. It's all motivated by love. I don't care what you're going through today. God's promises. If we love him in romans 8 28 um he will work out all things for his purpose and glory in our lives. But the key is loving him, believing who he is first and foremost and responding to him. So don't resist the Holy Spirit today. Why would you want to resist such a loving God? Who gave his son for us?

Who sent him to buy us out of the slave market? A price that none of us could ever pay? Just give him your heart today. Just don't resist him anymore. One minute longer. That that's what I would encourage anyone today. Listen, he he is so much better than anything else you can ever imagine. I love him and I'm so grateful for him today. And um our prayers go out to those listening that they would come to know him more intimately and grow in their knowledge of his love and be rooted and grounded. It like paul prayed for the Ephesians. The Grace of God in Joseon is, if I can say it reverently, it's scandalous and God means it to be that way because his love should shock us and impact us. It should arouse us, especially if we're in sin. And we ought to ask ourselves, what kind of love is this? What kind of grace is this? What kind of God is this?

This is one of those episodes that you should listen to again and again and again, asking God to soften your heart and to give you the grace to respond to him with all that you are. That's all for this week. Next week's picture of mercy, a pursuing father. Thanks for joining us on purity, for life purity, for life is a production of Pure Life ministries. For over 30 years. Pure Life ministries has been the go to for those whose lives have been devastated by sexual sin, visit us on the web for more information about our life changing counseling programs and powerful teaching materials. Also check out our video clips of men and women whose lives have been radically transformed. All that and more pure Life ministries dot org. Yeah. Mhm.