God chose to speak to Israel through a man named Hosea, the son of Beeri. It was going to be a very frank message to Israel. They had turned from worshipping Him, the one true God, to chasing after false gods.
Jeroboam II is nearing the end of his reign as King of Israel. The nation of Israel has prospered through God’s love and benevolence for her. Prosperity went to their head. They forgot their Holy God. Israel has become morally unfaithful to her first love and the source of her prosperity. The God of Israel.
So begins the story of a marriage. Hosea receives instructions from the God of Israel. Hosea and Gomer will be the model for God and Israel and their covenant relationship. The Lord instructs Hosea to find a wife. He should find a prostitute to marry. Hosea will marry Gomer. The Lord will use this marriage to give Israel a strong message about the consequences of leaving the one true God to seek after other gods.
Gomer gives birth to three children and then leaves to return to her former life. She will leave the home and love of a devoted husband, and her children to return to the false loves she had once known.
~Thought For Today~
The honeymoon is over. The world wooed her from the arms of the one who loves her. She went out into the world. Back to her old lifestyle. She will spend time searching for love and a living in all the wrong places.
The world uses and then discards. Like the prodigal son in Luke 15, her options come to an end. She has the filth of the world all over her. The world and the false gods it offers have failed her. Failed her miserably.
God asked Hosea if he still loved Gomer. His response was yes. God tells him to go after her. He finds her standing on a slave block waiting for the highest bidder. We could assume that the beauty she once was, has suffered as she stumbled through the dark places of the world. She was used and abused. Yet Hosea loved her and wanted her back.
Hosea will buy her back for fifteen pieces of silver, five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. He will redeem her in her broken, sinful condition. He will carry her back home. He will clean her up and set her apart from him for a time. Then bring her to himself as his bride again.
This story could be our story. We trade a relationship with the one true God for a relationship with the world. We seek after false gods to replace Him in our lives. We stop worshipping Him. Instead of graven images and Baal, our gods take the form of money, material possessions, jobs, cars, sports and many other gods. False gods that pull us from the only God who will leave His home, come into a sinful world, find us in all our ugliness and buy us back.
An amazing love that longs to receive us back into His favor and love.
God sent a redeemer to buy us back from the world and idol worship. The hero in our story is not Hosea. His name is Jesus. The price of our redemption? Not silver, barley and wine. Something more precious. Something that gives life. His blood. Will we step off the slavery block of a world of sin and receive redemption for our sins? Or will we try to go it alone without Him?
How long will He chase after a runaway bride? Is it time to return home? Return to a life of amazing love?
~Scripture For Today~
Hosea 2:8
8 She doesn’t realize it was I who gave her everything she has— the grain, the new wine, the olive oil; I even gave her silver and gold. But she gave all my gifts to Baal. (NLT)
Hosea 3:1
3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.” (NLT)
~Prayer For Today~
Hello Father! We pray that You stay with us. That we will stop searching for other loves to replace You in our lives. We pray that we turn back, enter the places You have provided us to worship You. That we will study once again, Your love letters to us. That we will take our vows of a covenant relationship with You seriously and commit to the only relationship that will bring us mercy, peace, grace and forgiveness. An eternal relationship of love and praise. Forgive us of our sins. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
©2015 Kathy Ledbetter. All Rights Reserved.