Last night, before I retired to bed, I picked up my Bible and read Hosea chapter 1. As I lay down, I reflected on the content of the passage and made it my prayer.
Early this morning when I went to my office, I did an exegetical and homiletical analysis of the chapter to check the accuracy of my reflection last night. After the analysis, I came up with the same conclusion as I did last night regarding the central idea and its content.
Through the marriage and the family life of the prophet, God was sending a message to both Judah and Israel that they were "guilty of the vilest adultery." He was calling them to repent and to return to Him. Moreover, the Lord was not happy with His people's infidelity, and their action would have serious consequences. Nevertheless, despite His people's infidelity, their future remains great, and this is because of His grace.
Infidelity Remains a Relevant Message for the 21st Century Church
Reading the unfortunate story of Hosea's life, it is easy for Christian readers to dismiss the relevance of Gomer's adultery. We don't see ourselves in Gomer simply because we don't commit the same sexual intimacy with someone else besides our spouse. However, if we dig deeper into the real essence of infidelity, we will see that we are not really different from that of Gomer when it comes to replacing God with idols in our hearts.
In the 10th chapter of Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp's book, How People Change, they identified that the real reason why we sinfully respond to the heat of life is because our hearts' loyalty lies somewhere else besides God. They described this as the problem of "worship disorder." In other words, we replaced God with something else, and that is the essence of spiritual infidelity.
Popular Diagnoses Today
In medicine, the accurate diagnosis of a physical problem determines the cure that will be applied to the patient. The same thing in identifying a spiritual problem. If the diagnosis is mistaken, the proposed solution is useless.
Some of the popular diagnoses today include shifting the blame to other people, to our past, to a family origin or to a dysfunctional family, to a physical infirmity, or to simply having a bad day. Such diagnoses are superficial, for they take the issue of the heart for granted.
Our biggest problem is not outside of us. Instead, it is inside of us. The popular saying in biblical counseling captures this:
The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.
This is contrary to what many believe these days. Their advice is to follow your heart, and you will never go wrong. This is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches:
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:5).
Using the Bible as a lens, Lane and Tripp are precise in their identification of our true problem:
The Bible says that my real problem is not psychological (low self-esteem or unmet needs), social (bad relationships and influences), historical (my past), or physiological (my body). They are significant influences, but my real problem is spiritual (my straying heart and my need for Christ). I have replaced Christ with something else... (How People Change, 2006, p. 134).
That is the essence of spiritual infidelity.
Idols of the Heart
John Calvin describes the human heart as "a factory of idols." Based on Romans 1:25, the essence of "idolatry is often the result of taking good things in creation and making them ultimate things" (ibid., p. 139). They could be our family, our spouse, and our children. They could also be our career, our work, our profession. They could be our academic achievement and our employment promotion. They could be anything in creation that in themselves are good, for they are gifts from God. However, when we make them the ultimate goals in our lives, they become replacements and, as such, the working idols in our hearts. The list of idols I mentioned here could expand indefinitely, including money, power, position, pleasures, love for country, and others.
Homiletical Question
Because of the limitation of time, I cannot provide a judicious explanation of all the exegetical details and questions in the chapter under study. All I can do this time is ask the homiletical question of how the marital and family life of Prophet Hosea remains a relevant message for the body of Christ today.
I do believe that we are like Gomer, guilty of the vilest adultery by replacing God with idols in our hearts. I also believe that the Lord is not happy when we remain unfaithful to Him. The punishment mentioned in verses 4 to 9 should serve as a serious warning for the church today. In the case of Israel, her bow would be broken, symbolizing the tragic defeat of her army on the battlefield and political collapse. Moreover, the withdrawal of God's love and forgiveness and the renunciation of covenantal relationships were far worse consequences of such marital infidelity.
Nevertheless, the good news is that despite our infidelity, our future as God's people remains great. In the case of Hosea's generation, such greatness was prophesied through a promise of increase in the number of the Israelites, through a renewal of the covenant, and through the reunion of Judah and Israel under one leader.
In the case of the church, despite her repeated infidelity throughout history, the 21st chapter of Revelation gave us a vision of a beautiful bride:
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband (verse 2).
Such a bride was purified by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of grace; she had repented from all her sins, pledged allegiance and loyalty, and been reconciled back to her husband. What a glorious day to see the fulfillment of such a glorious wedding day!