The Second Bride Price

Introduction

Follow after those who have fled

Chapter three can be confusing because it seems as if the whole story of Gomer is starting over. Because God is telling Hosea to go and marry an adulteress. But the thing is as we read we realize that Hosea’s wife, who you might remember was named Gomer, seems to have abandoned her marital duties. She seems to have left Hosea holding the bag with his three kids and no support. I want to dwell a minute on this because this is not just a story, God is using Hosea’s life to convey a message to the Israelites, sure, but, this is Hosea’s life, how many of us would change places with Hosea, probably no one, because this is a difficult situation that Hosea is in, and in reality God put him there. But we do not hear Hosea complaining to God he just listens and hears what God is asking him to do, and he gets up and does it. Its amazing, he doesn’t complain that God made him marry a horrible woman. No, he doesn’t complain that he has to take care of these kids with no help from his wife. No. He doesn’t complain about his financial situation despite the fact that he really is a bad place. Verse 2 tells us that Hosea goes and buys his wife back for 15 shekels of silver and some food. It is kind of a odd statement, but what it is implying is that Hosea did not have the full amount of money to buy his wife back from whoever had come to own her. So he paid half with money and half with food. Hosea literally had to empty his bank account and his pantry to get his wife back. Which makes sense I guess, Gomer was his wife the mother of his children I am sure he desired that she would come back to him. And on top of that God told him to go get her back, so that is what Hosea does, at great personal cost.

And here is the thing God is having Hosea do this because it is what he is doing for the people of Israel. Verse one tells us that God loves the people of Israel even though they turn to other god’s. As we talked about some last week God will pursue his people even when it is costly. Now I am not saying that God doesn’t have enough money to buy his people back. In fact that is absolutely not the case, but what I am saying is that God goes farther than we as humans think he should, because God has a immense love for his people, no matter what it is that they have done. And what the Israelites have done to him is bad. God did not just decided to have Hosea marry a prostitute because he thought it would be funny. God decided to do that because it was an accurate reflection of the actions of his people. God’s people Israel had not only abandoned their relationship with God, but they had sold themselves to other god’s who had no right to the allegiance of the Israelites. As we talked about last week God is angry, and yet God is appealing to the Israelites sense of love and duty to explain to them why it is that God is relentless in his pursuit of his people.

Welcomed Back but with Consequences

But as we all know mistakes have consequences and for Gomer Hosea lays out those consequences in verse 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” So the relationship between Hosea and Gomer is changed. It is not a permanent change but it is a conditional change. For Hosea he is telling Gomer that although she is back she has to abide by some new rules. Now lets be honest faithfulness to a spouse should not have been a new rule but for Gomer it is. And once her faithfulness is proven then the marriage relationship will resume. God says that it will be similar for Israel, except they will face complete isolation until they are ready to really and truly follow after God. I think this is an important part of scripture because God is showing us that though God does forgive our sin and welcome us into, or back into his family, we see that our actions that separated us from God still have consequences. For both Gomer and Israel, these consequences were earthly consequences. They did not effect the lasting relationship but they temporarily changed something. For Gomer, she did not get to know the love of her true husband, for the Israelites, they were removed from their land and from the promises that God had given to them, until they were properly aware of what being God’s chosen people, really and truly meant.

I think that sometimes when we talk about God’s forgiveness we think that it means there are no consequences and so either we abuse that, or we think that we have messed up so much that God will not want to have anything to do with us. Believe it or not there are people who think that the mistakes they have made in there life makes them unlovable by man or God. But in reality Hosea is telling us that God loves his people no matter what they do, but God wants the people to truly come back and follow him. But there will be consequences for our actions, just not eternal consequences. For someone who suffers from Guilt it might be nice to know that God does forgive. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, that we talked a little bit about last week, when the prodigal son returns after wasting his entire inheritance the father welcomes his son back into the home and throws a big party. The son is part of the family again, it is clearly a celebration. What the father does not do is give him a new share of the inheritance. The prodigal son had to face the consequence of knowing that he had no inheritance to look forward while he worked in his father’s estate, everything would go to his brother. That is earthly consequence. The money and inheritance are actually far less important than having a relationship with your father.

Whatever consequences that we have to face for our sins should be faced with joy, because they mean that God has forgiven us and removed the eternal consequence of our sin. Separation from God.

Conclusion