If You Knew Your Spouse Was Going To Be Unfaithful, Would You Marry Them?

Let me ask that question again, "If you knew your future spouse would have an affair (or worse yet, even multiple affairs) after you were married, would you still marry them?" I don't know many of us that would accept that deal.

But that is exactly what God told Hosea to do in Hosea 1:2-3: “When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, 'Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.' So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”

Don't you think that is asking a lot of Hosea? This wonderful love story begins in the verses we have just read but it takes an incredible turn in chapter three, where Gomer has returned to a life of prostitution, having left Hosea and their three children. In chapter three, she is now on an auction block, being sold my her pimp because he can no longer prostitute out her services as she grows older. He wants to get whatever he can out of her. So the bids begin. 

Suddenly from somewhere in the back of the crowd a voice strong and clear rings out, “I’ll give 15 shekels and ten 10 bushels of barley.” The auctioneer’s jaw drops. He can’t believe what he has just heard. She was not worth that much. The woman on the podium didn’t lift her head. As far as she was concerned this was just another stranger who would take her, use her, abuse her, and ultimately cast her away. 

The Hosea gently puts a cloth around her naked body, calls her by name, and takes her home as he tells her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” (Hosea 3:3). Arm in arm they begin their journey home. 

Would you do what Hosea did? Probably not. But here's the thing about this story. Although it is a true story, it is really not a story about Hosea and Gomer. It is a story about us and God. The night you and I pledged ourselves to God and accepted Jesus as your Savior, He knew fully well that we would prostitute our loyalty to worldly attitudes and actions. He knew we would fail him. But He chose to love us anyway.

In fact, He made the same promise to us that He made to the nation of Israel in the book of Hosea: “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.” (Hosea 14:4). Don't miss it...he will heal our waywardness. Have we ever been wayward? Absolutely. He will love us freely...in spite of our waywardness.

This week we are going to explore three qualities of this amazing love that God extends to us.