Hosea 3:1-5 AMPC
Then said the Lord to me, Go again, love [the same] woman [Gomer] who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins [used in the sacrificial feasts in idol worship]. [2] So I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley [the price of a slave]. [3] And I said to her, You shall be [betrothed] to me for many days; you shall not play the harlot and you shall not belong to another man. So will I also be to you [until you have proved your loyalty to me and our marital relations may be resumed]. [4] For the children of Israel shall dwell and sit deprived many days, without king or prince, without sacrifice or [idolatrous] pillar, and without ephod [a garment worn by priests when seeking divine counsel] or teraphim (household gods). [5] Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, [inquiring of and requiring Him] and [from the line of] David, their King [of kings]; and they shall come in [anxious] fear to the Lord and to His goodness and His good things in the latter days.
Imagine being the prophet Hosea - instructed by God to marry a prostitute, someone who would be constantly unfaithful to him. How would that work out for you?
The Lord used this to demonstrate starkly how He feels when His people go after foreign gods or make gods in their own image. The books of Kings and Chronicles are a constant cycle of the Israel & Judah going astray and then coming back to the Lord when things didn't pan out for them.
Hosea must have felt the stinging betrayal of his wife and it made it easier for him to understand and express God's feelings at being deserted by His people.
Are we, in the Christian Western World any different from back then? Search our history and we find what made us great was our dedication and love for Jesus. It shaped all the good things in our society - from life long marriage, free speech & freedom to polite manners and generosity to others.
Now however, you only need to scan the mainstream media and you will observe the obsession that there is with a downgraded version which I hesitate to call "love".
Excerpts from "Love Island" dominate the headlines - who has got off with who - trivialising intimate relationships.
The drive for sexual pleasure, glamour and possessions is akin to worship, it's what motivates and dominates our society today.
It's just like reading the books of Kings and Chronicles where Israel and Judah were repeatedly downgrading their worship of the Living God and replacing Him with baals & asherah poles [phallic symbols]. In short, focusing on sexual pleasure, hence losing intimacy with the Lord and spurning the ordained relationships of man and wife.
We shake our heads in horror when reading of the Israelites sacrificing babies in flames to Molech, but what of using saline abortion, burning a forming baby in the womb? Isn't that a similar thing?
Everyday there are photos of famous women flaunting their bodies in various seductive poses, so proud of their looks and prosperity. How do you think God feels about it?
Isaiah 32:9-12,14-15 AMPC
Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my [Isaiah's] voice, you confident and careless daughters! Listen to what I am saying! [10] In little more than a year you will be shaken with anxiety, you careless and complacent women; for the vintage will fail, and the ingathering will not come. [11] Tremble, you women who are at ease! Shudder with fear, you complacent ones! Strip yourselves bare and gird sackcloth upon your loins [in grief]! [12] They shall beat upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, [14] For the palace shall be forsaken, the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watchtower shall become dens [for wild animals] endlessly, a joy for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks, [15] Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is valued as a forest.
If the Lord didn't spare Israel from punishment when they forsook Him, how will He not spare the western world that has downgraded the worship of the Lord for foreign, false gods and idols of pleasure?
We are seeing the unravelling of our culture, much like the last days of the Roman empire, imploding with division, an over preoccupation with pleasure and selfishness.
Prayer
Father God, in a world where Your values are scorned and discarded, please give us the strength to stand up for Your ways and Your word.
Comments