Return to God!

Hosea 3:1-5 

1 Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans."

2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. 3 And I said to her, "You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you."

4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.

Israel was given a visual demonstration of their infidelity to their LORD through the witness of the prophet Hosea.  He was commanded to find a woman with her lover committing adultery with her husband and take her in, keeping her from committing further adultery.  He paid a price for her in silver and grain as an example to Israel who committed adultery with idols and immortality with food offerings to lifeless gods of metal and wood and stone as the godless ones do.  Whether he restored his own wife Gomer (Hosea 1:2-3) or this was another’s wayward spouse is unclear, but the picture to Israel is the same, to stop their spiritual adultery with images of false gods and return to God in faithfulness.  Hosea paid the price as a witness to Israel paying the price for their sin, but he also loved the woman as a faithful husband by example and caused her to stop playing the harlot with other lovers so Israel might observe and understand to do the same with their LORD.  He remained celibate as she would also do with him.  Then the message to God’s people was relayed through him that they would have no ruler of men over them and no worship through sacrifice of idol images.  They were commanded to be spiritually celibate and faithful to their Husband (Hosea 2:16) before their repentance led them back to seek the LORD their God and the line of David as king which led to the Messiah we call Christ in faithfulness to Him alone.  Only in being wed to Him in faithfulness apart from any other god would they be able to fear God and His goodness in the latter days of His coming to them and before His return to claim His Bride, which is the church consisting of all His redeemed children from both Jew and Gentile.  The message was of repentance through faith and resulting faithfulness and devotion to the one and only living God.  For all who are still in sin today the message remains the same, ‘Return to God!’