A “wife of whoredom.” Who’s entering that into the search criteria in their dating app? “Unfaithful.” “Often doesn’t come home at night.” “Likely to ignore the kids.” No one’s swiping right on those descriptors.

Cue Hosea. Told by God to live out the most costly of object lessons.

“Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

(Hosea 1:2 ESV)

Slow and down and chew on the first three chapters of Hosea and how do you not finish reading them and say to yourself, “Crazy!” Cause that’s what it is for a man to wittingly and willfully take as his bride “a wife of whoredom.”

What grace. What patience. What hurt. What persistence. What love. Behold our God.

‘Cause in this storyline, we ain’t Hosea. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re more like Gomer — drawn to playing the field with idols of all kinds.

And here’s the thing that jumped off the page this morning; God will intervene with judgment to remove our idols so that He might woo us to Himself in the wilderness.

“Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
       and I will build a wall against her,
       so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers
       but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
       but shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
       ‘I will go and return to my first husband,
       for it was better for me then than now.'” . . .

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
       and bring her into the wilderness,
       and speak tenderly to her.”

(Hosea 2:6-7, 14 ESV)

Behold, the way of God towards a bride prone to wander. Hedge her up and bring her into the wilderness. And for what purpose? To speak tenderly to her.

The work God began in Israel He would fulfill in Israel. Yet, even as He redeemed a people from the bondage of slavery to be His people, He was fully aware that she had a propensity for unfaithfulness. But though she frequently faltered with being faithless, yet “He remains faithful — for He cannot deny Himself” (2Tim. 2:13).

And so, “the Lord disciplines the one He loves” (Heb. 12:6-8). God hedges up His bride with thorns. He builds a wall against her so that, though she lustfully seeks to pursue her lovers, she can’t find them. And He takes her into the wilderness.

Into the wilderness. Not to the woodshed. She can’t pay the debt she owes, only He can do that. But she can return — and the wilderness has a way of reminding idolatrous wanderers of the way home. Coming to her senses, a wayward bride can realize afresh that “it was better for me then than now” and again give her Bridegroom her face and not her back. So, even though she has been treacherous, He will speak tenderly. He will woo her in the wilderness.

I don’t have much of a liking for the wilderness. But I know that whether I think “I deserve it” or not, it’s where I’ve often known His allure, where I’ve again heard again His gentle whisper, where I’ve been ready to clearly pick up on “the voice of my beloved” (Song 2:8) as He beckons (again and again), “Come home. Come to Me. Abide in Me.”

If we’ll receive it, the prize through our sin and in our suffering is Jesus, only Jesus.

For He seeks to woo us in the wilderness.

By His grace. For His glory.