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Lesson Six: The Nature
of Marriage - Part 2
"The Picture of
Marriage"
Hosea 1 - 3
Introduction:
Last week we started looking at the nature of marriage. As we
continue this series on creating strong families, I shared with you
that essential to having a strong family is having a husband and
wife who clearly understand what the Bible teaches about the
nature of marriage. Up until the early 1960's, the
institution of marriage was pretty well understood in our country.
Most people would tell you that marriage was between a man and a
woman, and that it was expected to last until one of the partners
died. Those were the two main pillars that our societal perception
of marriage rested on. But we all know that those days are long
past - both of those pillars have started to erode at the base, even
in the evangelical church. So I shared with you that if we
understand and incorporate three critical concepts into our
marriage, they would contribute to us having strong marriages, and
subsequently, strong families.
In last week's message I
shared with you the first of those three critical concepts: we need
to perceive marriage from the perspective of a covenant as opposed
to a legal agreement. We noted that there are two types of
covenants in the Bible, conditional and unconditional.
Unconditional covenants are basically promises, as opposed to
contracts. Does anyone remember the three main points I made about
the characteristics of unconditional covenants?
1. They were made between
parties that were unequal in strength.
2. The initiator of the
covenant was usually the stronger of the two parties.
3. The initiator of the
covenant had the greater responsibility in carrying out the
provisions of the covenant.
All three of these characteristics are
illustrated perfectly in the Abrahamic covenant we read about. So,
when we start to view marriage from this perspective, we will have
laid down the first plank in our foundation for a strong marriage.
1. The marriage covenant is
between two parties unequal in strength - 1 Peter 3:7 "In
the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her
with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you
are, but she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life. If you
don't treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard."
2. The marriage covenant should be
initiated by the stronger of the two parties. The man is to seek
the woman, win her heart, and then ask her to marry him. It is part
of his role as the man, and it sets the tone for the whole
marriage. I would have serious reservations about any marriage
where the woman proposed to the man. When Nancy and I first started
courting, I asked her if she had ever gotten on the internet and
joined any of those Christian Singles groups. She said she hadn't
because she didn't feel like the woman should be the pursuer. That
is the concept I am trying to convey here - the marriage covenant
should be initiated by the stronger of the two parties.
3. The marriage covenant
places a heavier responsibility on the man to fulfil the
stipulations than it does the woman. You heard me say that to Eric
last Sunday afternoon. Who sinned in the Garden of Eden? Eve did.
Why then does Paul say in Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as
through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men, because all sinned?" Why does
he say later on in the same chapter, Romans 5:19 "For as
through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even
so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."
It is because Adam, as the man, had the greater responsibility to
fulfill the stipulations of the covenant than Eve did.
So, when we start to view marriage from
this perspective, we will have laid down the first plank in our
foundation for a strong marriage
The second plank I want to
share with you concerns the picture in marriage. Have you ever
noticed how educational object lessons are? I have seen some great
object lessons in my lifetime, and the truths they convey are still
with me. I have shown you the object lesson with the rope that
wrapped around the front of this room, and we all got a vision of
how short our earthly life is compared to eternity. What a great
way to convey truth.
I remember when I finally
understood how a storm surge worked during a hurricane. I had read
about rising air pressure and how that affected water levels, and
that the storm surge was the most dangerous part of a hurricane
(water levels have risen 20 feet!); but I never really understood it
until I saw an object lesson of how it works. If you were to take a
full bowl of water and seal it off with saran wrap, you could
recreate a storm surge. All you have to do is tape the edges to the
bowl to keep it airtight, tape a piece of string to the saran wrap
and pull up gently on the string, and you can see the level of water
rise in the bowl. That is a storm surge. As the hot air rises off
the ocean during a hurricane, the atmospheric pressure that is
holding the water down at sea level is diminished, and the ocean
level rises because there isn't as much pressure holding it down.
That is the storm surge I never understood until I saw the object
lesson.
And God has done the same
thing with this institution we call marriage. Here is how it
works. There is a very important concept God wants to convey to His
creation - it is the idea that He loves us and wants us to spend all
of eternity with Him. But there is a problem here in that we are
all sinful people. And because He is so pure and holy, there is no
way that sinful man can spend eternity with Him. So He devised a
plan. He sent His Son Jesus to the earth to live a perfect and
sinless life. After Jesus did that, He was killed by a mob of
people who thought Jesus was some kind of blasphemous imposter. But
it was all a part of God's plan, becasue when the perfect, sinless
Jesus died, that death made it possible for us to spend eternity
with God, even though we are sinful. All we have to do is repent of
our sins, and go to God and say, "God, I want the death of your Son
to be applied to my account." And if we do that, God will take the
death of His sinless Son and let it count for, or be applied to, our
sins. This is why the Bible tells us that "the blood of Jesus
Christ (a reference to his death by crucifixion), God's Son,
cleanses us from all sins." The net result is that God now no
longer looks on us a sinful people, but pure, clean, forgiven
people; and now we can spend eternity with Him.
So, as you can see, this is
somewhat of a complex concept. Now, how can God convey to His
creation this idea of eternal salvation? Here is where the object
lesson comes in. In the very same way the bowl of water can
illustrate a storm surge, marriage can illustrate salvation. That
is the essence of Eph. 5:18-33. In that extended passage that
speaks so much about the husband and wife relationship, and the
Jesus and the church relationship (which is just another name for
all of us Christians), Paul makes this statement, "this is a
great mystery (marriage), but it is an illustration of the
way Christ and the church are one (NLT)." He refers to it as a
mystery, because up until God revealed it to him as he was writing
this letter to the church in Ephesus, people weren't aware of the
full significance of what God was doing in marriage. Up until this
point in history, people thought all that marriage entailed was that
it was God's way to repopulate the earth, that is was God's way to
protect against immorality, and that it was God's way to enable man
to fulfill his vocation. No one knew it was an object lesson of
God's love for mankind.
Now, to really help us see how
marriage is a picture of salvation, I want us to go to the book of
Hosea. We are going to start in chapter one and just skim through
several passages. I am reading this from the New Living
Translation. "The LORD gave these messages to Hosea son of Beeri
during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings
of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. 2
When the LORD first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said
to him, "Go and marry a prostitute, so some of her children will be
born to you from other men. This will illustrate the way my people
have been untrue to me, openly committing adultery against the LORD
by worshiping other gods." 3 So Hosea married Gomer, the
daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son."
Did you see how God used a marriage to illustrate a spiritual
truth? In this object lesson, Hosea is a picture of God, and Gomer,
the prostitute, is a picture of the nation of Israel. But God
pursued Israel, and courted her, and entered into a covenant with
her in spite of her adulterous ways. For you and me today, we can
equally say that in this object lesson Hosea is a picture of Jesus,
and Gomer is a picture of us. Our sinfulness is legitimately
illustrated by prostitution, but does Hosea shrink away in disgust
at what God asks him to do? Not at all - he obeys, just like Jesus
obeyed God when God asked Jesus to come to earth and enter into this
relationship with us that we call salvation.
So when a man pursues a woman
until she gives her consent and agrees to marry him, that is
illustrative of God pursuing us until we give our consent and accept
his offer of salvation. And in the same way that a woman has to
accept by faith that her husband-to-be will protect and provide for
her, we take by faith that God will protect and provide for us. In
the same way that God's desire toward us is driven by love (a
decision of the will to meet the needs of another), and our response
to Him is driven by love; a courting man and woman are driven by
love - they should genuinely have the other person's best interest
at heart. That is the essence of love.
So it is pretty clear from
this first chapter in Hosea that marriage between a man and a woman
is a picture of salvation.
But we see something else in
the book of Hosea that illustrates marriage. Look with me at Hosea
chapter two. This chapter is the message the prophet Hosea has to
deliver to the people.
Hosea 2:2 - 3:1
"But now, call Israel to account, for she
is no longer my wife, and I am no longer her husband. Tell her to
take off her garish makeup and suggestive clothing and to stop
playing the prostitute. 3 If she doesn't, I will strip
her as naked as she was on the day she was born. I will leave her to
die of thirst, as in a desert or a dry and barren wilderness.
4 And I will not love her children as I would my own because
they are not my children! They were conceived in adultery. 5
For their mother is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a
shameful way. She said, 'I'll run after other lovers and sell myself
to them for food and drink, for clothing of wool and linen, and for
olive oil.' 6 "But I will fence her in with thornbushes.
I will block the road to make her lose her way. 7 When
she runs after her lovers, she won't be able to catch up with them.
She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, 'I
might as well return to my husband because I was better off with him
than I am now.' 8 She doesn't realize that it was I who
gave her everything she has-- the grain, the wine, the olive oil.
Even the gold and silver she used in worshiping the god Baal were
gifts from me! 9 "But now I will take back the wine and
ripened grain I generously provided each harvest season. I will take
away the linen and wool clothing I gave her to cover her nakedness.
10 I will strip her naked in public, while all her lovers
look on. No one will be able to rescue her from my hands. 11
I will put an end to her annual festivals, her new moon
celebrations, and her Sabbath days-- all her appointed festivals.
12 I will destroy her vineyards and orchards, things she
claims her lovers gave her. I will let them grow into tangled
thickets, where only wild animals will eat the fruit. 13
I will punish her for all the times she deserted me, when she burned
incense to her images of Baal, put on her earrings and jewels, and
went out looking for her lovers," says the LORD. 14 "But
then I will win her back once again. I will lead her out into the
desert and speak tenderly to her there. 15 I will return
her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a
gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long
ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in
Egypt. 16 "In that coming day," says the LORD, "you will
call me 'my husband' instead of 'my master.' 17 O
Israel, I will cause you to forget your images of Baal; even their
names will no longer be spoken. 18 At that time I will
make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds and the
animals that scurry along the ground so that they will not harm you.
I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows,
so you can live unafraid in peace and safety. 19 I will
make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice,
unfailing love and compassion. 20 I will be faithful to
you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as LORD.
21 "In that day," says the LORD, "I will answer the pleading
of the sky for clouds, which will pour down water on the earth in
answer to its cries for rain. 22 Then the earth will
answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapes, and the olive
trees for moisture. And the whole grand chorus will sing together, 'Jezreel'--
'God plants!' 23 "At that time I will plant a crop of
Israelites and raise them for myself! I will show love to those I
called 'Not loved.' And to those I called 'Not my people,' I will
say, 'Now you are my people.' Then they will reply, 'You are our
God!' "
I wanted us to take the time
to read this entire chapter because it is such a beautiful
expression of God's love for his sinful children. Can you
appreciate this morning that in the spiritual realm, those words we
just read apply to you and me? Each time we sin against God, we are
committing spiritual adultery. And it is such a foolish thing to
do. That is the message of verse eight. But instead of God
breaking the covenant with Israel, or instead of God breaking the
covenant with us, He honors the covenant. Why? Because it is
unconditional. Because as the One who initiated the covenant, He
has the greater responsibility to fulfill the covenant's
provisions.
Now where the book of Hosea
gets even more curious is in chapter three. Remember, chapter two
is the manuscript of the message Hosea delivered to the nation.
Chapter three contains God's commands to Hosea. "Then the LORD
said to me, "Go and get your wife again. Bring her back to you and
love her, even though she loves adultery. For the LORD still loves
Israel even though the people have turned to other gods, offering
them choice gifts. " What is going on here? Gomer has
returned to prostitution after she married Hosea! And it is going
to be very instructive to us to see Hosea's response. Is the
marriage covenant still intact? Has Gomer's infidelity (actually,
infidelity is quite an understatement since she is a prostitute)
given Hosea the right to divorce her and find a new wife? Does
Hosea enter into dialogue with God and remind God of the Mosaic
provisions for divorce? 1
Let's read in verse two.
"So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and about five
bushels of barley and a measure of wine." This is phenomenal!
Hosea sacrificially brought her back at his own expense. He didn't
say:
1) "I'll take her back when
she repents and asks me to forgive her."
2) "I'll take her back when
she cleans up her act."
3) "I'll take her back when
she can demonstrate to me she has fully changd her ways." He
sacrificially initiated the reconciliation process!
And he did this because he was the initiator of the covenant, and as
such, he bore a greater responsibility in keeping the covenant
intact than Gomer did. Now, as amazing as this sounds, Hosea's
response is somewhat predictable because he understood the picture
of marriage. Marriage is the human, physical reinactment of what
goes on in the spiritual realm when a person comes to Christ for
salvation and enters into an unconditional covenant with God.
Conclusion: By
way of conclusion let me say that it is this realization that serves
as the second plank in our foundation for a strong marriage. Not
only is marriage a covenant, it is also a picture of salvation. For
the believer, our commitment to our spouse should be just as strong
as God's commitment to us. And it is this level of commitment that
shows the world around us what salvation looks like.
Have you ever wondered why
Jesus said in Matthew 22 that in heaven ("in the resurrection")
there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage? It is because
marriage, as a picture, will no longer be necessary. Everyone there
will fully understand the nature of God's relationship with His
creation, and the need for the object lesson no longer exists. But
until we get to heaven, there are multitudes of people who need to
see how much God loves them, and we can show them by our
marriage. |
