Imagine going to see a movie. It is a love story about a young couple who get married. He is from a strong wealthy background with a good job and a successful life. She has a shady past and has lived a hard life (a woman with a history). The man and woman start life together and have children. For a while, life good. He is a doting husband who loves her deeply. The young woman is beautiful and draws the attention of all kinds of men. She likes this and in time, her husband is convinced that some of the children she bears are not his. Eventually she leaves him for ‘greener pastures’ and takes up with other men. This seems to go well, until her looks fade and her male ‘friends’ lose interest. In the end, she becomes a prostitute and then a slave. It is as a slave that her first husband finds her and buys her at auction. He takes her home and restores everything that she once enjoyed. It reads like a Hollywood script, but it is the life of Hosea and his wife Gomer.
God uses this real-life story to reveal just how much He loves His people, even when they have treated him with contempt. He wants to renew his covenant with them, if only they are willing (Hos 4:1, 6.) But like any marriage, this relationship must grow and develop. And given their past, it is up to Israel to show herself trustworthy.
What does it mean to know someone?
I was a big fan of Michael Jordan but could never say I know him. The Hebrew word Yada means intimate knowledge, the way we get to know close friends or spouses. God wants us to Yada Him Hos 6:3. God uses the marriage relationship with it’s intimacy, it’s commitment, it’s trust and oneness to help us understand the kind of relationship we are to have with Him.
The New Testament also uses marriage to teach us about our relationship with God Ephesians 5:22-33. Learning to know a person is not always easy but must be done if we are to really have a relationship and not just an acquaintance.
Getting to know someone takes time. Spending time with someone allows you to move beyond information about them, to experiences with them. There are no short cuts to experience. It takes of lifetime of living and loving each other – to truly know each other. And what applies to our friends and family, is also true of our relationship with God. It allows our relationships to be rich and fulfilling. It opens our hearts to the influence of those whom we know and trust.
Trust is the key. Love and trust go hand in hand and are at the foundation of our relationship with God. But they do not come easy. It takes an investment of time and energy to develop the kind of trust that we should have.
That’s how it was with Hosea and Gomer. Hosea loved Gomer. He loved her, even when he could no longer trust her. That’s why he tested her faithfulness when he restored her. It took time to rebuild trust.
God is like that. He loves us, even when we sin. He has given us every reason to trust him…even when we have broken trust with Him. And while he has forgiven us, we may feel like He will never really trust us again. To overcome those feelings, we need to get to ‘know’ God all over again.
We can do that by believing what he has said and experiencing God’s faithfulness over time. This does not happen without effort on our part and especially not without constant communication. God speaks to us through his word (1 Cor. 2:12-13) and has revealed himself. We must pay close attention to what He is saying and take it to heart. The things that God has done in history are plain to see in scripture, and we can experience them by seeing similarities between His actions in the past and what is happening today in our own lives.
It has often been said that the best indication of future behavior is past behavior. As we interact with God’s work through history not only do we see the positive and negative examples of others, but we see what God has done and how he has delivered His people over and over again. As we spend time in study we must understand that what we read is not just a timeline of historical events but a carefully and lovingly edited history chosen by God Himself to allow us to understand who he is and how to live with Him.
We also learn that communication with God is not a one-way street. God reminds us that he knows us and is attentive. He listens to us when we speak to Him. So we must prioritize our communication with God (1 Thess 5:17) When we pray, we speak to the creator who is both intimate, transcendent and all powerful. We also understand that as we seek to understand God, he knows us and knows our needs better than even we know ourselves. He applies that knowledge to our prayer life and hears us even when we don’t know what to say, Romans 8:26.
The marriage relationship emphasized in Hosea is meant to convey God’s Covenant Loyalty, His “hesed”, Hosea 6:6. He calls us to respond in kind. Just as a marriage is more than just two people living together, our relationship with God must be about loyalty and devotion.
Gomer enjoyed the blessings of being married, while insisting upon ‘keeping her options open’. She did not consider Hosea or what it meant to be a wife. In order to be married to God, we must give up all efforts to find a ‘better offer’. Marriage is exclusive and calls for covenant loyalty, which is why God uses this word to describe his relationship with Israel.
When Israel became God’s people, it was on the terms of the covenant set out by God at Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 27-29). It was by keeping that covenant that they revealed their love for God and their devotion to Him. The book of Deuteronomy explains how grace and obedience are perfectly woven together.
Having entered God’s new covenant, members of the Lord’s church enjoy a better one, purchased by the blood of God’s Son (Hebrews 9:11-15). Yet, it is still our devotion to God, revealed by doing His will, that seals our vow and keeps covenant with Him (John 14:15; 15:9). As in any marriage, our relationship with God must be typified by spiritual faithfulness.
As a nation, Israel was never faithful to God. Hosea uses the term whoredom 16 times in the book. Israel’s sin was not a one time thing. Rebellion and betrayal broke God’s heart.
When God sent prophets, it was not to ‘get them’, it was to ‘get them back’. God wanted them back as His people, even when they were ‘not my people’. The book of Hosea and the prophetic work of the man – was an effort to get through to Israel and to touch their hearts. To let them know that God still loved them and even as time was running out, that it was not too late.
A hardened heart is a powerful thing. Israel did not turn back to God. But God hopes that when we read this book, we will be touched in a way that they were not. The book of Hosea tell us that God loves us – even when we sin, and he wants us back. He calls us to repent. And he gives us the most powerful reason of all for coming back. We are his children – unless we choose to fully and finally renounce him forever (Hosea 11:3-4 )
As children grow up, they learn to understand that their behavior doesn’t upset their parents because they are breaking rules, but because they are breaking their hearts. This is how it is with God. We obey not because we love keeping rules but because we love God. We too struggle with spiritual adultery. For example, the apostle Paul identifies greed as idolatry Colossians 3:5. It is an easy temptation to fall for since income and security go hand in hand. If we don’t notice God’s signature on our paycheck and put our trust in money, it is easy for greed to take over. It is when God is absent from our thinking that we allow other things to take His place.
God loves us. He cares for us even when we betray Him and sent his Son to die for us while we were his enemies Rom 5:10. He loves us, whether or not we love Him back. But he cannot and will not save us, unless we do. We must love Him in return and having become his children all over again, we must remain faithful.
Barrie ON