One of the theories of the sexual living hell our society has men and women in is that we train our women not to be wives, but to be Gomer. To sleep around (more unpaid than paid), to be fickle, to be faithless. Those of us who have daughters and grand daughters, do not want this.

We want the young women we love to be happy, and to be wives. Not living by putting their body on the rack or around a stripper’s pole. And writing as bluntly as this will make the feminist’s teeth grind. For they teach that all choices are valid, (if made without a Y chromosome in your body)

But I have a warning to women. No man wants to be Hosea/ None of us want to be divorced, shunned, belittled, abandoned. When we marry, we give our lives, our fortunes and our honour into the hands of our wives: in these days of divorce-at-will any wife can destroy their husband legally, and with the full force of he law behind them.

Perhaps the law makes women similar to Gomer, and men like Hosea, but that is not how it should be.

Most of us are not prophets: most of us are not saints, most of us would rather live in peace. The laws that entrench a low grade war between men and women intrude into our lives, into the raising of our children, and even into our marital bed. The social justice warriors want us to turn our plowshares into swords, and destroy the peace that should be between a husband and wife, the security of our children, and move our desire, our lust, from its Godly and chaste channel into solo vice or worse.

So we will worship one thing, and that is the state. The very idolatry that Hosea was commanded to oppose.

The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

(Hosea 1-2:1 ESV)

An aside about Gomer. This process would have been painful for her: she may have been prostituted out, but no woman wants to have her child named bastard, nor not of my tribe. But consider this: yesterday I was teaching about anxiety disorders, and one of the issues one has to consider is that the rate of such disorders is around twice that of men among women in our society.

Whatever the sexual revolution and feminism has wrought, it has not made women calm and happy. Instead, my observation is that they are alone, fearful, and exhausted.

For we have forgotten that young women have to be guided, have to be taught: the much of the codes around housework, wifery and ladyhood were about obedience to God, and learning how to love God and one’s husband and children (it is not instinctive: like discerning the decent man from the fraud, it has to be learned)led to confidence.

I quoited SD a couple of days ago, but she writes wisely to her daughters here.

I’ve learned a new derogatory term for how I live my life: patriocentricity (father/husband worship). It is spoken of by women who have exceptions for how they submit to their husbands. In this case, in order to not be patriocentric, a wife’s husband must be in submission to a greater authority (of course this is overseen and judged by who else – the wife!). That is beyond my pay grade, so to speak. Your father is quite capable of reading the Bible. You’ll find in reading the Bible that it is prudent to seek wisdom. In seeking wisdom, you will listen to the words of others. You will check those words with the Bible and if they are biblically sound, you will accept them as learning. I am confident your father does this. But it has nothing to do with my submission to him. Also, do not be confused, I do not worship your father. I obey God. Jesus told us in John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commandments.” It is very simple. I love Jesus. And I, as a wife, have very specific commands from God:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. – Ephesians 5:22-24

How awesome is it that God provided for us, as wives, a special message? He considered us, He loves us, and because of that, He told us how we can obey Him. He didn’t make it confusing or hard to follow. In fact, to avoid confusion a very important word was used: everything.

Now, you will know when you have fully embraced this command. You will know when you have stopped rebelling against that very important word. You will know when you have an unshakable resolve to obey God despite any and all of the words you get labeled by those who are still in rebellion.

You will be calm.

Gomer, like the woman at the Samaritan well, are examples to us: not to imitate, but to warn, and to allow God’s mercy to come through. For many of us have erred in our relationships, we have caused damage to others, and we live with the scars on our souls, and with shame for the scars we see on others by our actions.

But there is an out, and it is not the family courts, with their cycle of violence and their intrusive social workers and police force. It is instard seen in the last past of our text today.

God wants us back with him: in right relationships. He is a god of mercy, of restoration: not atomization and hate.

And the Social Justice Warriors have one shared quality, that of hate. Do not be them, Do not follow their teachings. And do not use their tactics: do not be like them.