Hosea 1:2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD
We are living in a day of valueless transactions. What I mean by that is that there are very valuable things on which we have placed no value. They don’t mean anything anymore for so many people. Take marriage. Marriage for so many is a valueless transaction. They get married, but it means nothing. Consequently, the divorce that follows means nothing. Easily married, easily divorced. By the way, God can take you from where you are, divorced or whatever may be in your past, to where you need to be today. My point is that marriage and divorce are lightly esteemed by so much of our society today. There is the idea that makes people say, “We’re divorced, but we are still friends. It’s nothing personal. The kids are doing fine.”
In Hosea, Hosea was a man who spoke for God to God’s own rebellious people. In Hosea 3:1 we find that God commanded Hosea to marry a woman who was an adulterous. She would be unfaithful to him. Hosea knew this before he married her. Now, no thinking person could read this and not feel sorry for Hosea. Why would God command such a thing of such a man?
Well, if you are feeling sorry for Hosea here, you are feeling sorry for the wrong one. Hosea was but an illustration of Israel’s adultery against and unfaithfulness to God. God’s own people were faithless to Him. So many times, we view sin as an economic calculation. We think, “Ok, I know I shouldn’t do this, but if I do it, what will it cost me? I know it’s not really right or best, but it’s not really a big deal.” The book of Hosea reminds us graphically that God takes sin personally because He takes you personally. It is astounding to me that an infinite God could ever care about some small sin in my life, but that is because it is astounding to me that God could care about a small person like me. But, He does!
Perhaps a definition of sin in Hosea is that sin is a departure. In Hosea 1:2 God says, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms… for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.” They were putting God in the rearview mirror. If you sin, you are not going toward Him, you are leaving Him. Sin is a departure.
Now it is a departure from a person, not a thing. It’s a departure from a person, God, not a code, rule, or so on. Oftentimes we rightly say “I can’t do anything to make God love me more and I can’t do anything to make God love me less.” That is true as far as it goes, but has it ever occurred to you that the entire universe is not about you or me? The question has never been, “Does God love you?” You cannot make God love you more. You cannot make God love you less. That is God’s grace and that is more about Who God is than who I am.
No, the question has never been, “Does God love me?” The question for us is, “Do I love God?” There is a lot more to loving God than just keeping rules or commands, but I am not going to lightly esteem anything I should do if I value and love the Lord. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” The bottom line is that when it comes to your relationship with God, it is a marriage and not mathematics. It is not an economic calculation because sin is a departure. It is not a departure from a church, code, or rule. It is a departure from a person Who loves you and sent His Son to die for you.