In America, statistics tell us that a divorce is granted to a couple every 26 seconds.
Slightly more than half of all marriages, and nearly 60% of all remarriages end in divorce.
Some would argue that this is because divorce is so easy. Easy legally, and easy in terms of our societies acceptance of it.
In today’s world, divorces are granted freely for most any kind of reasons. Most US states are “no contest” states. In other words, either party can file for divorce for any reason, and neither the other party nor the state can object or keep it from happening.
So if you are in no contest state, your spouse can get upset that you have left your pajamas on the bathroom floor, and divorce you for that.
And often, it’s not even a specific as that.
Marriages often end simply because “I just don’t love her the way I once did.” Or the “new and exciting” romantic feelings of our first days of love have cooled so the marriage is over. Or may someone “new and exciting” comes along, so we move on.
And that moment is not often mutual. It certainly doesn’t happen at the same time for both people very often.
But suddenly people start to calculate the value of their relationship in terms of divided financial assets, and use emotional warfare against each other to “even the score”.
And then, of course, it boils over to the children who are suddenly pawns and weapons.
And it goes on and on.
The dramatically negative effects of widespread divorce are pervasive throughout our culture and it has changed the way our children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren view marriage and relationships in general.
I was stunned by this statistic. More that 70% of the children currently being born in the US today, are being born to mother’s who are not married. They are not married to the father of the child, or anyone else. More than 70% of the children!
Do you know why?
Is it because some are manipulating government programs that give them more benefits if they have children but remain unmarried? Yes. That is a reason, but it’s one of the smallest reasons.
Is it because of sexual promiscuity that results in babies out of wedlock? Yes, but that’s not the biggest reason.
Is it because of rape, or incest? Not really. Because unwed mothers were so rare, it was a significant reason for a girl to be pregnant and unwed in the past, but it makes up only a slight statistical amount today.
The biggest reason that babies are born to mothers who are not married?
Because the individuals involved want to have a child, but do not want to get married, so they don’t.
They watched their parents and their grandparents with their sometimes multiple divorces. They were themselves as children seriously effected by these sometimes multiple divorces, and they say honestly, “I’m not doing that. I’m not putting my kids though that”
Of the 70% plus kids born out of wedlock, two thirds of them today are born to couples who are together, express some sort of commitment, but refuse to marry.
Looking at this personally. In my own family, on both Tonya’s side, and my side, I know of at least six children born in the last 5 years, and none of them to married parents.
And strangely …rather than be shocked and indignant and insistent, our culture has embraced “pregnant and unmarried” as yet one of many possible, acceptable lifestyle choices. Not a “situation” but a choice.
Many a child has been born to an unwed mother that grows up happy, well-adjusted, and very loved. But children are, and always have been, intended to be raised in the context of marriage.
But it’s understandable why marriage has declined. Marriage, love, and commitment to family and relationship have eroded into something that doesn’t even resemble what God intended. And as a culture, we seem sadly OK with it.
Specifically, our view of love and covenant have become very superficial. We, as a whole, love each other as people in very superficial ways.
Now, although it is worse today than in some other times in history, it is not new. People have long wrote out “papers of divorce” for inconsequential reasons and sent their spouses (or I should say wives to be historically correct) way.
We’ll always had the impulse that when a person disappoints us, or frustrates us, or angers us, or bores us, we have a tendency to “write them off”.
But that is not what God does with us. God’s love is deeper than that. His commitment to us, his promise, his covenant is deeper than that, and marriage between man and woman, instituted by God as a gift to us in the Garden of Eden, is to reflect this type of love.
It’s covenant between man, woman, and God together. It’s a promise, and one designed to be a promise kept.
Author Thornton Wilder described marriage this way:
” I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married, and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.”
So the bible tells us that all God ordained relationships are built upon a promise, not on a passion.
Passion can fade, and passions can die, but covenant relationships continue because of the promise.
In other words: we shouldn’t think that it’s love that sustains commitment, it’s commitment that sustains love.
And that is what Hosea is all about, and today we read Chapter 2: [from the NLT – New Living Translation]
1 “In that day you will call your brothers Ammi-‘My people.’ And you will call your sisters Ruhamah-‘The ones I love.
2 “But now bring charges against Israel-your mother- for she is no longer my wife,
and I am no longer her husband. Tell her to remove the prostitute’s makeup from her face and the clothing that exposes her breasts.
3 Otherwise, I will strip her as naked as she was on the day she was born.
I will leave her to die of thirst, as in a dry and barren wilderness.
4 And I will not love her children, for they were conceived in prostitution.
5 Their mother is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a shameful way.
She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers and sell myself to them for food and water, for clothing of wool and linen, and for olive oil and drinks.’
6 “For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes. I will block her path with a wall
to make her lose her way.
7 When she runs after her lovers, she won’t be able to catch them. She will search for them but not find them.
Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’
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.
9 “But now I will take back the ripened grain and new wine generously provided each harvest season. I will take away the wool and linen clothing I gave her to cover her nakedness.
10 I will strip her naked in public, while all her lovers look on. No one will be able to rescue her from my hands.
11 I will put an end to her annual festivals, her new moon celebrations, and her Sabbath days- all her appointed festivals.
12 I will destroy her grapevines and fig trees, things she claims her lovers gave her. I will let them grow into tangled thickets, where only wild animals will eat the fruit.
13 I will punish her for all those times when she burned incense to her images of Baal,
when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out to look for her lovers but forgot all about me,” says the Lord.
14 “But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.
15 I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble* into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
16 When that day comes,” says the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.’*
17 O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again.
18 On that day I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground so they will not harm you.
I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety.
19 I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.
20 I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.
21 “In that day, I will answer,” says the Lord. “I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds. And the sky will answer the earth with rain.
22 Then the earth will answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapevines, and the olive trees. And they in turn will answer, ‘Jezreel’-‘God plants!’
23 At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. I will show love to those I called ‘Not loved.’* And to those I called ‘Not my people,’* I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’ And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”
So we see the two realities of God’s love for us.
As we see in the first half of reading, he has every reason to abandon us, write us off, leave us behind, forsake us. We do him wrong, disappoint him, betray him, sin against him at every turn.
He has every justification to say “enough is enough, you are “Not my people”.
But in the second part we see something that should give every person great joy.
” I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.”
If you remember from last time in Chapter One, God has instructed Hosea to marry Gomer, a known adulterer.
It a very tough situation for Hosea, and it gets tougher. As the chapters continue, Gomer hits bottom very quickly finding herself immersed a the living hell of prostitution.
The text tell us she was “swapped on the open market like a livestock animal”.
And we can see this situation clearly foretold here in Chapter 2.
And, in truth, Hosea has every legal and moral right to divorce her, and, under God’s law, to even have her killed.
But the book of Hosea is not about every legal right.
Unlike some other Old Testament books that are unfairly treated as such, this is book is clearly allegorical prophesy. Hosea words here speak clearly about God’s fulfilled covenant through Jesus.
The marriage between Hosea and Gomer are a clear picture of the faithfulness of our Lord, and his covenant love for us.
When Hosea is introduced to Gomer she is known to bad. It’s not secret. She is very sinful, and Hosea is reluctant to marry her. She should die, by law. The wages of sin is death, and she should die.
But in faithfulness, Hosea marries her. And instead of things getting better, they get only worse and worse.
Her life gets so bad, that any reasonable man would just walk way.
But in love, Hosea does the unthinkable.
Following God’s instructions, he goes to the slave market, purchases this woman with whom he exchanged wedding vows, takes her home, and says to her a little bit later “I will be for thee.” ALWAYS.
I spoke about this being a clear allegory, and prophesy.
And most people know what a prophesy is….Words of God that tell of future events. The bible has lots of prophecies.
But what does it mean to be allegorical.
It means the surface meaning is true, but it goes deeper than that.
This does tell the future, but it’s also God telling us the details in the form of a deeper, representative story. Much like Jesus did with his parable.
When Gomer has gotten as low as she can get in sin. When she cannot save herself. God sends a bride groom, to come to where she is, and be with her, and pay the price to redeem her from slavery.
That is an absolutely clear “deeper meaning” that tells us all about God plan through Jesus Christ to redeems us in the fullness time.
And Jesus is obviously the faithful bridegroom that comes to pay the price to save all of us hopeless Gomers, even though we hardly seem worth saving.
God loves us that much.
And He says to us through Jesus, ‘”I will be for thee.” ALWAYS.” Even to the ends of the earth. Always.
God knows we struggle with our promises to each other. We spoke at the beginning about the pervasiveness of divorce.
And even though it’s a a God breathed covenant that he created for us. He knows that we mess up, and we mess up big time. We taken what he gives to us, and tear it down into something repulsive to him. We’ve do worse and worse things to marriage as each day passes.
But God does not forsake us. Despite our failings, and our fallings. He keeps his promise to love us always and eternally.
There are a lot of people with idea that we have to work hard to get ourselves in good shape before we approach God.
And we reflect this a bit in our wedding ceremonies. We get all cleaned up in our nicest of nicest clothes, and then are presented to each other. But the story in Hosea shows that God does not expect this, and as a matter of fact, the more we try to improve matters on our own, they often get worse.
In the eyes of Israel, you really couldn’t get worse than Gomer. She was lower that low. She was certainly wearing black and dirt and mud on her wedding day.
And yet, God sent his bridegroom to save her anyway.
She simply had to trust him, and go with him.
And this wedding between this bride and this bridegroom is a forever thing. That’s a deeper love that as humans we can’t really understand, but it is how much God loves us.
He doesn’t wait until we are cleaned up to offer us salvation.
The bible says “While we were yet sinners,” He came “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Romans 8:32 asks, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
So, we don’t have to earn God’s love, or earn His blessings. We are loved. Calvary and the empty tomb are the proof.
And that’s big love.
I challenge you to think about someone you love, or someone you have loved in your life. And I want you to well up every ounce of what that love means to you in your heart. Really feel it. Think of how much that you sacrificed, or would sacrifice because of that love.
To do have that?
It’s still not even close to how much God was willing to sacrifice, and how much he really really loves you.
We like to say the little say, “God is love.”
And that’s true, and it’s a nice saying. But it doesn’t really cover it.
Those who know Jesus, and live for Him, know the price that was paid.
It goes way beyond how we understand love. It’s always. It’s forever. It’s complete.
And it’s even deeper than that.
Amen
©2011 Timothy Henry