“But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:20)
In Jeremiah 2 & 3 (and in many other places in Scripture), God uses marriage and the sexual union as an illustration of His relationship to Israel/Judah. God speaks in very graphic terms when He describes Israel’s idolatry as spiritual prostitution. Israel is to be as faithful to God spiritually as a wife is to be faithful to her husband physically. The book of Hosea makes this point even more graphically. Several thoughts hit me from this illustration:
1. Our view of sex is probably not grand enough. Our society has so cheapened and abused sex that we have forgotten how special and sacred it is. It is a beautiful gift from God meant to enhance the intimacy between husband and wife and illustrate the close, exclusive, passionate relationship that we are to have with God.
2. We are to be faithful to God as a married couple is to be faithful to one another. My relationship with my wife is exclusive. I must love her alone. In fact, to love her exclusively I must in essence “hate” other women. But, in an ironic way, when I choose to love her exclusively (”hating” other women), I am actually enabled to love other women the way I should, purely and without pretense. I am reminded of Jesus’ words that in order to love Him we must “hate” our mother, father, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even ourselves (Luke 14:26). What did He mean? He meant that until we love Him exclusively (”hating” others) we cannot learn to love others and even ourselves properly.
3. A society that demeans, degrades, and redefines marriage and the sexual union is a society that also demeans, degrades, and redefines its spiritual relationship to a holy God. And vice-versa, a society that has abandoned its relationship to God and prostituted itself with idolatry will abandon the exclusive relationship of a man and woman in marriage and prostitute itself in sexual immorality. I think the two spheres are intimately linked together. God has ordained sex and marriage as illustrations of man’s relationship to Him. The abandonment and rejection of one will inevitably result in the abandonment and rejection of the other. That is why almost every false religion/god mentioned in Scripture included, as part of its worship, a perversion of sex. That is why I also believe our nation today is in serious trouble.
A cry is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel (and America today), because they have perverted their ways and have forgotten the LORD their God. Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.
Lord, help us be salt and light in this present generation. May we live holy, pure lives that attract others to You and shine the light of Your truth into a darkened world.