Hosea 4

CHAPTER 4THEME: Israel guilty before GodFrom this point on in the Book of Hosea we will not be seeing much about the private and personal life of the prophet. Beginning actually with the two closing verses of the previous chapter, the private life of Hosea fades into the background, and the emphasis is now upon the Lord and the faithless nation of Israel which has been playing the harlot. We have left that section of the book which is personal, and in chapters 4-14 we will be dealing with that which is prophetic.

Hosea 4:1

ISRAEL GUILTY BEFORE GODOut of the heartbreaking experience in his own home, Hosea now comes to speak to the nationand he knows how God feels about them. Everything that has been said up to this point has been in the way of generalization. God has said, “They have sinned. They have played the harlot and been unfaithful to Me.” Now God is going to bring them into court, spell out certain charges against them, and prove those charges. The message of chapter 4 is that Israel is guilty of lawlessness, immorality, ignorance of God’s Word, and idolatry. We can compare this chapter with the first chapter of Isaiah in which Isaiah speaks to the southern kingdom, spelling out God’s charge against that nation. I believe that you could interchange these same sins of Israel with the sins of our own nation. It is true that the nation Israel was God’s chosen people, and He gave the Mosaic Law to them. However, we need to understand this: the Law is His pattern for any nation which wants to be blessed. Therefore, I think that our nation is guilty of the same sins that Israel was guilty of when God judged them and sent them into captivity. Someone will disagree with me and say, “Well, we’re not idolaters.” My friend, covetousness is idolatry, and I do not know of a nation that is more greedy and worships the almighty dollar more than this nation of ours today. We might read the Book of Hosea and point our finger at Israel and say, “It is a shame how they turned from God,” but we need to look around and see if the same thing is not true of us. In the first verse of this chapter, the Lord confronts Israel with the fact that they have no knowledge of Him- He says three things here: there is no mercy; there is no truth; and there is no knowledge of God in the land. These people had become brainwashed through their idolatry. Although God had instructed them to be merciful, they were no longer showing mercy. The Lord had told them in Lev_19:10, “And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.” In other words, He said, “This is the way I take care of the poor, and you are to do this also.” Why? “Because I am the Lord your God, and I am a holy God.” The people had forgotten thisthere was no knowledge of God in the landand they were no longer being merciful. Oh, there was a great deal of religion, but no real knowledge of God. Notice that they were breaking the Ten Commandments:

Hosea 4:2

In each of these sins they were breaking the Ten Commandments. Read them in the twentieth chapter of Exodus: “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness …” (Exo_20:13-16). And all of this that they were doing was happening even among relatives"blood toucheth blood." I want to say something very carefully, and I want you to follow me very carefully. God gave the Ten Commandments, which were only a part of the Mosaic system, to the nation Israel, but in them God expressed His will. The church today is not under the Ten Commandments as the way of salvation or the way to live the Christian life, but that does not mean that we can break the commandments; it simply means that He has called us to a higher plane of living and has enabled us so to live by the power of the Holy Spirit. However, since through the Ten Commandments God expresses His will, they are a pattern for the laws of every nation. The nation Israel, which He chose and dealt with, furnishes a pattern to the other nations of the world. We have a so-called Christian civilization in Europe today. It has never really been Christian but has had the semblance of Christianity because its laws were patterned after the Ten Commandments. These laws are the laws for all nations. God has said, “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and there are other things which He has condemned in Scripture. God has condemned drunkenness, and He has condemned homosexuality. He uses the strongest language in speaking of homosexuality. God says that when a people or an individual indulges in that, He will give them up. God gave Israel up to captivity because they were guilty of indulging in these sins. We in the United States today are guilty of the same thing: there is no knowledge of God in this land. Oh, I know that there seems to be a church on every corner and on Sunday mornings you can hear church bells everywhere, but a very small percentage of the population actually attends church, and very few are really being reached with the Word of God. There is a Gideon Bible in every hotel or motel room in which I stay, but I do not know how much they are being read. The Gideons report that they receive many letters telling of conversionsand I thank God for thatbut I am afraid that many of the Bibles are never opened. My point is that, although we have the Bible freely available, we are actually a nation of Bible ignoramuses. We do not know the Word of God today in this land.

For example, a political leader some time ago made the statement on television that the four Gospels contradict one another; he not only misquoted Scripture, he also misinterpreted it. I would have liked to demand equal time to answer him that there is no contradiction in the four Gospels. When a man makes a statement like that, he reveals a woeful ignorance of the Word of God. The consumption of alcohol is another area in which our land is in the same condition as Israel was in that day. We were told a few years ago that there were 128 cocktail parties every day in Washington, D.C. With the trend as it is, I am sure that number has increased greatly. Whatever the actual statistics, we know that there is a great deal of drinking going on in our nation’s capital. Like Israel, we too are being brainwashed by liberal propaganda. A local newspaper in one large city in Southern California dared to publish an article a number of years ago with the following headline: “Alcoholics Cost Area Businesses Ten Million Dollars.” People cry out about the high cost of living, the high cost of war, and the high cost of governmentall of which is truebut who is crying out against liquor today?

We are told that millions of American workers are alcoholics. What do you suppose that has to do with the cost of what we buy at the store today? Someone may say, “Preacher, this is none of your business.” My friend, the pulpit has become extremely silent on these issues, but I must insist that our government and our nation are engaged in gross immorality and are breaking the Ten Commandments. And we will not get by with it as a nation. An alarming percentage of the deaths on U.S. highways and streets is the result of alcohol drinking. We have had much protest about the killing in war, but I have found no one leading a protest in front of a brewery or a cocktail lounge. It is argued in our day that alcoholism is a disease and not a sin. That has been answered by a medical doctor, who writes: Alcoholism, a disease? If so: It is the only disease contracted by an act of will. It is the only disease that is habit forming. It is the only disease that comes in a bottle. It is the only disease causing hundreds of thousands of family disruptions. It is the only disease promoting crime and brutality. It is the only disease contributing to hundreds of thousands of automobile accidents. It is the only disease playing a major part in over 50 percent of the more than 50,000 annual highway deaths. It is the only disease which is sold by license. It is the only disease that is bought in grocery stores, drug stores, and well-marked retail outlets. It is the only disease that is taxed by the government…. Our eyes have been shut to all these facts because the liquor interests have tremendous control in our country, and we have been brainwashed by them. As a result, our nation sinks lower and lower. We have what we call the “new morality” today, but it isn’t new at all. Israel was practicing it way back yonder in 700 B.C. They were breaking all the commandments, and God condemned them for it. It wasn’t even the “new” morality in their day, for homosexuality was practiced as far back as the day of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities which were judged by God and destroyed because of it. Today we have legislatures which are filled with men who are ignorant of the Word of God and ignorant of the commandments which have been basic for this nation, and they are passing legislation which condones the life style of sexual perverts. The liberal church argues that homosexuals are not sinners, but may I say to you, Jesus Christ says to homosexuals, “Ye must be born again” (see Joh_3:7). He can deliver you from it. When homosexuality is treated for what it really issinthen God can deal with it. We as a nation are doomed as much as Israel was condemned and sent into captivity. After all, they were God’s chosen people and we are notby no stretch of the imagination can we make that claim. However, we have here in Hosea the basis on which God judges nations, and the United States stands condemned as did Israel. The pulpits in this country are strangely silent in this connection, and one reason for that is that they seldom if ever study the Book of Hosea; he is one of the forgotten prophets.

Hosea 4:3

“Therefore shall the land mourn.” Suddenly we have found in this country that we are polluting everything around us. But when I was a boy in southern Oklahoma, we used to go swimming in old Phillips Creek, and the water was so clear you could see twenty-five feet to the bottom of that creek. Today it smells to high heaven. We’ve polluted the land, and the land is mourning today. Another interesting thing is that a few years ago there was plenty of everythingthe granaries were filled with grainbut today we often hear about the scarcity of this or that. You see, when God judges a nation, the land itself is involved and even the beasts and fowls suffer because of the sin of man.

Hosea 4:4

The priest in that day was not doing his duty; he was not warning the people. Therefore, God raised up the prophets.

Hosea 4:5

“And I will destroy thy mother"that is, God will destroy the nation. There were false prophets in Israeleven as we have false prophets todaytelling the people, “Everything is going to be all right. We live in a new age. The Bible is an outmoded book, and the Ten Commandments belong to our grandfathers and grandmothers. We have learned to be broad-minded and tolerant.” My friend, the truth is that we are a dirty lot, and we have sunk very low as a nation and as a people. Verse Hos_4:6 is perhaps the most familiar verse in the Book of Hosea

Hosea 4:6

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” The background of their sin was a lack of knowledge of the Word of God. My friend, if you are a Christian, the minute you get away from the Word of God, you are doomed to failure in the Christian life. Regardless of the number of conferences or seminars you attend that tell you how to be a success in your home, in your business, and in your social life, you will be a failure. This book makes it crystal-clear that we do not live the Christian life by these little gimmicks and methods, but by a personal knowledge of the Word of God. This is the reason I am concerned with teaching the Word of Godand the reason I teach even the Book of Hosea. People are destroyed for lack of knowledge. “Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me.” God intended that the whole nation of Israel be priests unto Him; in the Millennium they will be that. But at this time, God says, “You are not even going to have priests.” “Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” God says to the people of this nation, “I will forget you, because you have forgotten Me.” Because they have gone through a long, sordid history of departing from the Lord, they have now come to the time of judgment. God has proved His case against these people; in the beginning of the chapter He enumerated their sinsthey have broken the Ten Commandments. Therefore He hands down His decision that He is going to judge them.

Hosea 4:7

God had promised Abraham to bless the nation by multiplying them, and the nation did increase, but all that it did was bring more sinners into the world. After all, that is what happened when I was bornanother sinner came into the world. But, thank God, the grace of God reached down, and someone gave me the Word of God, and I was able to trust Christ as my Savior. However, these people were ignorant and had no knowledge of the Word of God. “Therefore will I change their glory into shame.” Now the “glory” of Israel was the temple with the Shekinah glory upon itHis visible presence with the nation and His definite leading of them, and their witness of monotheism to the world of polytheism of their day as they worshiped the living and true God. That was their glory, and it brought the Queen of Sheba from the ends of the earth. God is saying through Hosea, “I will remove My glory from you. I’ll remove My blessing from you, and I will judge you by letting the enemy come upon you and take you into captivity.” Of course the enemy is going to be able to say, “Look, they said they were God’s chosen people, but look what is happening to them! Apparently their God is not a very strong God.” My friend, we are seeing today in this land of ours something very similar to that. God is judging many churches, and He is closing many doors. We are inclined to say, “Isn’t it a shame to see a decline in a certain church.” Well, maybe God is closing the door. We need to recognize that God can afford to judge His own people, and this is what He is doing.

Hosea 4:8

The people not only sinned, but they liked to brag about it. As a young fellow I ran with a pretty fast crowd from the bank where I worked. Especially on Monday mornings we liked to brag about what we had done on our weekend, and the blacker the sin was, the more we enjoyed bragging about it. That is what these people were doing"they set their heart on their iniquity.”

Hosea 4:9

The unfortunate thing was that the priesthood in Israel had sunk down to the level of the congregation. When I started out in the ministry, I wore a Prince Albert coat and a wing collar (a friend of mine told me that I looked like a mule looking over a whitewashed fence!), but I soon gave that up and began to dress just like the man sitting out there in the pew. Although I’m no different from the man in the pew, I do want to give out the Word of God in the pulpit and not sink to the level of the man of the world when I’m out of the pulpit. There are many ministers who seek to be “good guys.” One man boasting of his pastor said, “You know, my preacher comes out to our golf club and plays golf with us.” That much sounds good. I think it is great to mix with folk like that. Then he added, “And after the game he goes into the barroom and has a drink with us.

He is just one of the fellows. I sure do like him.” Well, I wonder what God thinks of him"Like people, like priests: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings."

Hosea 4:10

“For they shall eat, and not have enough"in other words, famine is coming to the land. Who would have believed that we would ever hear anything about scarcities in this countrythat there would ever be times when we could not buy meat or bread in the marketyet we have learned in recent years that such circumstances are a real possibility. Again may I say that I believe God judged this nation in the years of the Depression and the “dust bowl,” but no one listened to Him. Then we had to fight World War II, and still we didn’t come back to God. We have had very little peace and a whole lot of troubles since then. “They shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase.” I know what I am saying when I tell you that you can never, never enjoy the sexual relationship in the way in which God really wants you to enjoy it unless it is within the bonds of marriage. When you can put your arms around a woman whom you have been loving and can say to her, “I love you above everything else in the world,” then it is wonderful and there will be an increase. Otherwise, there is really no satisfaction in it; it is just a temporary sort of release, and you hate yourself afterward. I know that some of you know that, and God knows thatHe is spelling that out for us here.

Hosea 4:11

Part of our problems in Washington, D.C. today are caused by these two sinsharlotry or adultery and liquor. They are responsible for men lying and doing any number of crooked things. This is not confined to just one political party or group; the whole crowd is guilty. One writer said that in Washington you do not know whom to trustwhat a sad commentary on our nation! Do not tell me that the “new” morality is working today. It didn’t work for Israel either when they got away from the Word of God and decided to try something new. In the northern kingdom they had sin galore. They put up two golden calves to replace God and practiced Baal worship which involved the grossest form of immorality.

Hosea 4:12

He is speaking here of the harlotry, the spiritual adultery, which is turning from Godthey went to inquire of idols. Today we find people running after the gurus of India. One of the gurus who came to this country said very candidly that he had come for the money and that it was nothing in the world but a religious racket as far as he was concernedyet people went after him! People are going off into all types of things today, including the worship of Satan. I have a newspaper clipping which reports that a group of Satan cultists tortured and beat a seventeen-year-old youth to death, believing he was an undercover narcotics agent. The worship of Satan today is certainly not helping the morality of our country. And in Israel, idolatry simply led them into gross immorality and finally to God’s judgment.

Hosea 4:13

They put their idols on top of a hill under a grove of trees. The center of this idolatrous worship was in these groves; it was cool there and a nice place to go. “Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.” Our idolatry in this country today is covetousness and greed, and it has caused many a family to try to get on in the world. They want to move to a better neighborhood, to have a swimming pool, and to have a boat. They say they are doing it for the childrenbut all of a sudden the children leave the home. There are thousands and thousands of young people wandering up and down this country and all over the world. I have seen them in the Hawaiian Islands, and I talked to three of them in Constitution Square in Athens some time ago. There were two young men and a young lady, and I am sure they were not beyond their teensone of them could have been twenty.

I tried to talk with them as they sat there under the influence of drugs. They told me, “We’re nobody. We don’t count. We’ve dropped out.” What has happened to them? The problem is back there in the home. Their parents are idolatrous, worshiping the almighty dollar.

We have forgotten God. We’ve turned away from the living and true God, and we no longer worship Him. We need to turn to the Savior who can redeem us and help us.

Hosea 4:14

God says that ignorance of the law excuses no one. He is saying, “Although these people have gone off into sin, I am not going to judge them for the sin they are committing right now. I am going to judge them because they have turned from the living and true God and from His way.” I made this point to a man on the golf course who joined with my two preacher friends and myself to make a foursome. He said he guessed he was a sinner going to hell because of the various sins he had committed. I said to him, “You know, you’re not going to hell because you commit those sins.” He said, “What do you mean I’m not going to hell? I thought that’s what you preachers say.” I told him, “This preacher never said that. You’re going to hell because you have rejected Jesus Christ.” Israel was not judged because they had become harlots, but because they had turned from the living and true God.

Hosea 4:15

God is saying, “I am going to hold Judah back. I will not judge Judah yet. And Judah, don’t you come up and worship these calves which Israel has put up here.”

Hosea 4:16

I want to look at what backsliding really is. A great many people think that backsliding is when you have become a Christian, have joined the church, and then drop back into sin. That is not backsliding in the way it is used hereGod illustrates it so that you cannot miss its meaning: “For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer.” In the little town in which I lived in southern Oklahoma as a boy, there lived next door to us a rancher who had a big cattle ranch and two boys who were about my age. We three played together. We enjoyed riding heifers out in the lot. We would tie a rope around themas we said in that day, a bellybandand we would hold on to that until the heifer bucked us off.

Every now and then that rancher would need to load up some of those heifers into his wagon to take them to market. He had a runway constructed out of boards which he would put at the back end of the wagon, and then he would try to run the heifers up that. He put a rope around the heifer to lead her up and then would have someone push her from the rear. The heifer would go up part of the way, and then she would stiffen those front feet of hers. You know what would happen? You couldn’t push her, and you couldn’t pull her.

She would simply start sliding backwards. My friend, that’s what backsliding is"a backsliding heifer.” Israel was stiffening her front feet, and instead of being led of God, she was slipping backward all the time. My friend, you are backsliding when you turn your back on God, stiffen that little neck of yours and that little mind of yours, and you say, “I don’t have to obey God’s Word.” When you refuse to go the way God wants to lead you, then you are backsliding. God called Israel a backsliding heifer. The word backsliding is used three times in this book. It is used in Scripture only by Jeremiah and Hosea, both of whom spoke to a nation ready to go into captivity. Israel and Judah were guilty of backsliding, guilty of refusing to be led of God and refusing to come to God.

Hosea 4:17

“Ephraim” occurs thirty-six times in this book. God has picked out the name of one of the ten tribes in the north and applied it to all ten of the tribes. I used to wonder just how God used this term: was it a term of endearment or a term of ridicule? I have come to the conclusion that it was a term of endearment, actually His pet name for the northern kingdom. These ten tribes had revolted, and Israel in the north actually had no name as a nation; it was Judah in the south who was really the nation. I think God gave this to them as a pet nameEphraim. It is used throughout this Book of Hosea. “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” God says this in a longing sort of way but with a note of finality. If a man continues in a backslidden condition, refusing to listen to God, there will come a day when God can no longer speak to that man.

Hosea 4:18

“Their drink is sour"You will become an alcoholic if you keep drinking, my friend. And it is not a disease; it is sin. “They have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love.” The sad thing is that men high in our government, instead of using language that is clean and chaste, love to curse and to drink. They love shame more than glory.

Hosea 4:19

People are carried away by every wind of doctrine, and God says that they are going to be made ashamed before it is over.