God's wooing of you today in this text is not based on a naive estimation of your character.

The point of Hosea is that God exalts his mercy

by pursuing relentlessly a wife of harlotry.

What is it about God's love for us

that is so very shocking? John Piper. love for

us, John Piper looks to the book of Oseia for scripture's provocative answer

in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 26,

1982.

There's something utterly unique about

Jose. God called upon Jose to suffer in his own marriage the tragedy that he would proclaim to the people.

What happens in these next verses is shocking because Israel and her idolatry is shocking in the eyes of the Lord.

Verse 2 and 3.

When the Lord first spoke through Jose, the Lord said to Jose,

Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry

and have children of harlotry

for the land commits great harlotry

by forsaking the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter

of Diblam, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Some Christians would never think of marrying a pimp or a prostitute

and nevertheless fall in love with an unbeliever.

A well-bred unbeliever, no doubt.

...