A Strange Relationship

A Strange Relationship: The Prophet and the Prostitute

Scripture Reference: Hosea 1:2 – 7

Thesis: Our relationship with God should not be weighed by how we relate to the things of God, but how we relate to the person God. So let us stand fast in the relationship that God desires to draw us into.

Introduction

If I were to ask you to rate certain relationships on a scale of 1 – 5, how would they rate? For instance, how would you rate your relationship with your supervisor? On the scale of 1 – 5, with 1 being poor and 5 being good.

How would you rate your relationship with your peers, your co-workers on that same scale? How would you rate your relationship with your spouse… with your children… with your parents… with your siblings?

Now you know that I have to ask you, how do you rate your relationship with God based upon who He is rather than what He has done? Don’t rate based on what He has done for you lately, but rather how intimate you are with Him. Drawing close to Him as much as He desires to draw close to you. What’s your number…1, 3, a 5?

Transition

You have to agree with me that our text this morning offers what I have called a strange relationship...the marriage of a prophet and a prostitute. There is a man whose name is Hosea and a woman whose name is Gomer. Hosea was a young preacher in the nation of Israel. Gomer was a young woman living in the land.

There is nothing unusual about a man loving a woman enough to want to marry her. There is no mystery when a woman gives her hand to be united to a man until death do them part. But this is an unusual relationship.

This is an abnormal covenant between a man who will be answering a call to God and a woman who would be answering a call to men. Hosea was called to preach, Gomer was called to…

The prophet – a man of God

The prostitute – a woman of the night

The Prophet – a lover of one

The Prostitute – a lover of many

The prophet – saved for God

The prostitute – estranged from God

The prophet – a name known in time

The prostitute – a name known in town

The prophet – who stands up for righteousness

The prostitute – who lays down in unrighteousness

This is a strange relationship…but the one who actually initiated and sanctioned this strange relationship can easily overshadow our attention to this unusual union. Did you get the fact that God was the one who instructed Hosea to go marry this woman?

Wait a minute God…you want me to do what? Lord, I understand you called me into a ministry, but now you are calling me into a marriage. Not with the daughters of the prophets Isaiah or Amos my contemporaries. Not with the girl next door but a girl which I would never bring home to momma.

It’s one thing God, that that I am going to get married and you have found me a wife. But at the same time you are telling me ahead of time that she is going to be unfaithful, that she is going to be an adulterer.

You know church, God does strange things at times, things we don’t always understand, things we can’t categorize, things that don’t fit into what we think we know of him.

It is a mistake to think that everything God asks us to do will be easy. It is also a mistake to think that we will always understand what God is up to. At times, it even may appear that God has acted in a way contrary to His character. But God is in the business of speaking to men.

It was a strange thing when He asked Abraham to slay his son, Isaac. It was strange when God told Moses to stretch out his rod over the Red Sea to part the waters. It was a strange thing when God spoke through the mouth of a donkey to save an unsaved prophet’s life.

It was a strange thing for God to ask Noah to build a boat three-football field length when it never had rained before. It was a strange thing when God asked the Jews to slaughter animals so that blood can be shed for the atonement of sins. It was a strange thing that the walls of Jericho fell down from marching and shouting.

Listen, and this is not the first time God has asked His prophets to do some strange things:

Did you know that God ask Ezekiel to eat a scroll, a book which would represent Him eating the Word of God and to then go to Israel to deliver a message?