Lack Of Knowledge
Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>
Hosea - Lack Of Knowledge
Introduction
A. Hosea, like Amos, came unto Israel preaching a message of doom. Israel is doomed unless they turn back and seek Jehovah...cf. Amos 5:14, 15.
B. Hosea views God as a loving husband and a kind father. At the same time he sees Israel as an unfaithful wife and the people as disobedient children.
C. While Amos was a stern man preaching righteousness, we see Hosea as an emotional man preaching love. Amos sets his message in clear, logical form, pursuing an argument until it is clearly proven and understood. By way of contrast, Hosea does not have this clear, precise argumentative style. He jumps quickly from one example to another, from one thought to another. He condemns Israel as does Amos, but merely in a different style.
D. Hosea 4:1...What you don’t find in Israel; Hosea 4:2...What you do find in Israel.
I. A Priesthood in Corruption
A. Moses furnishes us with the key to the OT priesthood in
Numbers 16:5, which consists of three elements...
1. The being chosen or set apart for Jehovah as His own;
2. The being holy;
3. The being allowed to come or bring near.
These express the fundamental condition, the qualification, and the function of the priesthood.
B. Among other duties of the priesthood, the priest was to instruct the people in the law and to act as a high court of appeals in any difficult case...Deut 17:8-12; 21:5.
C. What was the condition of the priesthood in the days of Hosea?
...4:6-10.
1. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. The priests were blamed for the ignorance of the people. They were appointed to teach and warn the people, but were unfaithful to their trust and cause the nation to sin thereby.
2. “Because you have rejected knowledge...” They had the means to gain knowledge but did not put it to use. They neglected study; they had the law, but did not read it.
3. They lived inconsistent lives. They professed to belong to
God, but worshipped the calves of Jeroboam. They suppressed the truth. They desired the nation to sin against God. the shared in the rejection of the word of God and brought themselves under God’s curse...4:7-9; 5:8, 9.
4. It was their duty to remove ignorance from the people, but they encouraged it to answer their own selfish desires. So they were guilty, they partook of the sins of the people and their honor was taken away.
5. 6:8-10...By cheating the people, encouraging them to sin and not giving them the truth they were “murderers”...cf. 1 John 3:13-15.
II. The “Spirit of Adultery”
A. 5:4...The people of Israel had lost all power to return to God and were complete slaves to evil habits. They were possessed by the spirit of whoredom - an devil spirit which carried them into sin, and this spirit was born of ignorance.
B. Israel rejected the knowledge of God...4:4; Amos 5:10, 13.
What was the inevitable result? ...5:11. The idolatrous priests told them to worship the golden calves, and in their willful ignorance of the law of God they did it.
C. Notice Jehovah’s feelings toward the people in their willful ignorance...6:4-6. Sacrifice only has meaning when accompanied by loyalty, or faithfulness. The inward man must be changed before the outward expression is given to God...Eph 4:17-24; Rom 12:1, 2; 1 Cor 13:1-3; Matt 7:21-23.
D. 8:7...Israel “sowed to the wind” - nothingness; they “reaped the whirlwind” - destruction. You always reap what you sow, be it good or bad.
E. 9:10...Every man will become like the god or gods he worships...cf. 1 Pet 1:14-16. If we are not developing the attributes of Christ in our lives, we are not serving Christ...cf. 2 Pet 1:5-11; Gal 5:22-24; 2 Cor 13:5.
III. God’s Love For His People
A. 11:1-4...This is one of the most pathetic statements in the book. Imagine a man with his little boy. He carries the baby in his arms and then teaches him to walk. He holds his little son’s hand as she leads him along. But after a while the boy grows up to turn against his father and against everything he taught him - becoming utterly rebellious against him.
B. God did that for you and me. He took us in His arms when we were in sin. He took us into His family. He cleansed us, He put on us a robe of righteousness in Jesus Christ, He taught us how to walk spiritually, He provided for our needs. If, as time goes on, we turn against God in rebellion against Him, we thereby reject our Father who took us as spiritual babes, who trained us and taught us how to walk. Apostasy is the result and ignorance is the cause.
C. 11:8, 9; 14:1-9. Here again is the promise of the “restoration of all things”...Acts 3:20, 21. Those who were not God’s people are now His people; those who had found no mercy have obtained mercy.
Conclusion
A. Here then is a picture - dark, ugly, and black - a picture of spiritual whoredom that began when people left the way of Jehovah and established their own. The end of a departure from the way of Jehovah is to perish...4:6.
B. Spiritual ignorance resulting from the unfaithfulness of its teachers caused Israel to fall. Preachers and teachers must teach the people knowledge...Eccl 12:9; Eph 4:11-13. Men and women in teaching positions must study in order to provide for the spiritual needs of God’s people...cf. *Matt 13:52...
*A “scribe” originally meant one who by profession was a transcriber of the manuscripts of the law, but ultimately came to be applied to religious instructors. He is likened by Jesus to “a man who is the head of a household...”.
They did not have banks then as we have now, but they did have treasure houses in which monies, clothes, and other useful things were stored. A “householder” was one who had charge of a family, whose duty it was to clothe, feed, and govern them. From his storehouse, or “treasure” he brought forth “things new and old” as any members of his household had need.
The one who learns of the kingdom of God and has his heart filled with the knowledge of the truth or one who lets “the word of Christ dwell” in him “richly” is like this householder. His stores of treasured truth, his illustrations of it, should be so full that in any emergency he can bring forth “things new and old” and wisely adapt them to the varying needs of his household.
The job that the preacher or teacher must be prepared to do is to “refer the people to the Scriptures, and relate the Scriptures to the people”. An idle, ignorant servant is a disgrace to the community and a curse to the church. With one untaught generation in the Lord’s church, we are not headed for an apostasy - we are in the middle of it.
C. You can have the biggest program of work there is to be found and a “fireball” preacher, but if the people are not being indoctrinated with the law of God, then be assured that apostasy is coming.
D. How much do we know about the word of God?
God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. This is an eternal principle. Principles never change. The covenant under which God deals with a people may change, but the principles of divine action and conduct never change.
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