“When
the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD
said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of
whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”
(Hosea 1:2, ESV).
What a strange command
the Lord gave to Hosea. He instructed him to go “take to yourself a wife of whoredom” and have her bare your
children. Imagine that, marrying a woman known for her bad reputation of
sleeping around. Yet, this is precisely what God was telling Hosea to do. I’m
sure he must have balked at the idea on first hearing it, but he obeyed the
Lord. Now does this mean God approves of such adulterous and promiscuous
behavior in women? Of course not. There are ample Scriptures that prohibit such
sinful behavior (see Ex. 20:14; Lev. 18:20; 20:10; Matt. 19:18; 1 Cor. 6:18). The
purpose in why God instructed Hosea to take as a wife, a woman of whoredom was
to reflect the nation of Israel’s state of whoredom. The Lord wanted to show
through Hosea’s relationship with Gomer Israel’s spiritual condition before God.
Just like Gomer was an adulterous wife, so was the nation of Israel to God.
Gomer was the physical picture of Israel’s spiritual whoredom before the Lord.
Yet, God loved Israel despite her unfaithfulness to Him. Is this not
astounding? Many people are giving up on marriage today. In our culture, people
view marriage in a mostly negative context. With so many failed marriages,
people look at it as not worth pursuing. They look at such a commitment as being too
hard to maintain. Men view it often as a trap where they lose their freedoms,
whereas women feel they lose their identity in marriage. Men have much more to
lose in marriage than women do due to the fact the courts often award women
with the custody of the children and alimony. The truth is marriage is not the
problem, people are! Marriage can work if a man and woman are truly committed
to each other, and are not in the relationship for selfish purposes, but are
willing to genuinely love each other enough to work through their issues. Yet
with the divorce rate we have today, many people are choosing to live
common-law rather than tying the knot in marriage. Since marital commitment is
no longer viewed as “until death do us part,” but is easily broken over mere
inconveniences, pettiness, and greed, it is no wonder many young people don’t take
marriage so seriously any more. Perhaps the phrase, “until death do us part,”
could be better phrased in today’s culture as, “until inconvenienced, then let
us part.” I like what a friend had recently wrote about divorce on his blog. He
wrote:
“If my wife were to cheat on
me, yes, it would very much hurt me, and my emotions tell me that I
should divorce her for being unfaithful to me. But if marriage is a portrait of
Christ and His church, should Jesus be allowed to divorce us when we are
unfaithful to Him? If so, then we ought to teach and believe in the loss of
salvation because that is precisely what divorce reflects.
Where is the Gospel in any of that?”[1]
This puts a whole new perspective on such marital
vows as seen in this phrase, “until death do us part.” In Hosea’s day Israel
was unfaithful to God, today the Church is unfaithful to the Lord. Yet in all
this the Lord Jesus remains faithful to His bride, the Church. So is marriage
worth fighting for? Absolutely! The challenging question for us here is, are we
faithful to our heavenly Groom, the Lord Jesus Christ? Christian singer, Warren Barfield's words from his song, "Love Is Not a Fight" are fitting here:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight
But it's something worth fighting for
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight
But it's something worth fighting for
Beloved
Lord Jesus, we are often so fickle in our faithfulness to you. One minute we
are devoted to You alone like a faithful bride, then the next minute we cheat
on You in the kisses of other things that rob You of our affection and
devotion. Lord forgive us of our unfaithfulness to You and grant unto us a
steadfast heart that is not divided by other loves. In Christ name we pray,
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment