BH Bulletin - Friday 6 August 2021

Thought for the Day by Stephen Demetriou ​(Youth Minister)

Hosea 1:1-2
For the next few thoughts for the day that I write, we’re going to be camping out in Hosea.
I love the book of Hosea;
Hosea is a book that I think stands alone in the Bible.
It gives us an insight into the outlandish love of God like no other.
It is a book that was made for times our faith feels flat and difficult.
It is the wonderful Love story of a God who will not let His people go, written to warm your heart whenever you feel the cold frost of apathy setting in.
 
So before we look at it; pray.
Pray now that God would use a prophet’s love life and powerful words to rekindle a burning, vibrant love for Him in you…
 
 
Done that?
Look how this book starts:
 
1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:
2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her
What?! In fact; the ESV puts it even starker:
“Go take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom
 
Wow. This is has got to be one of the most shocking commands God gives right? Marry a wife of whoredom. God loves marriage and this seems a mockery…
I mean think of the pain that Hosea would have felt trying to love and stick by a woman who was a serial adulteress. A wife whose eyes were constantly looking and body constantly going elsewhere…
 
So why is God doing this to poor Hosea (we think)?
 
…for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” Or the ESV again:
, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
 
Hosea and his wife Gomer are a 4D living, breathing prop to God’s people Israel.
As Gomer time and again (as we’ll see) spurns the consistent loving embrace of a doting  husband, she is showing the spiritual adultery of God’s people.
As Hosea faithfully loves a woman who does not love him back, he is showing the faithful love of God.
As Hosea takes Gomer to be his wife he is, in miniature, a tangible example of God and His people.
 
The depth of God’s Love for His people cannot be measured. Over and over again in Scripture His people are called His bride. So then the book of Hosea frames sin starkly. Like Gomer cheating on Hosea; Sin is cheating on God.
 
I wonder if we see sin like that?
How does it change our attitude to sin?
And if God still loves and keeps holding on to us, His people, even despite our constant adultery; how much more reason to praise Him.