I spoke to a man the other day who had been told he had eleven months to live. He talked to me about the surgeries he’d had, the chemotherapy he’d undergone, and the diet he had begun. But in the end, the doctors were telling him that none of it was going to be enough. The most difficult part of the conversation, though, was when he said, “You know, the real bummer of it was that the doctors tell me it probably would have been easily treatable. It’s just that I ignored my body for too long when it was telling me that I was sick.”

As I thought about that conversation later and how it reflected the need to address something that can kill you with urgency, rather than waiting until it has done greater and greater damage, I thought about how well that analogy fits with sin. Indeed, John Owen’s famous words are true, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

And just as hearing the doctor tell you that you have cancer is not an enjoyable conversation to have but is incredibly encouraging when he tells you that there’s still time and it’s treatable, so conversations about our sin are not enjoyable, but it is good to be reminded that you can still do something about it. And that’s what I want us to look at this morning – our sin.

The reason that we need to consider our sin this morning is because that’s the focus of our sermon text – Hosea 4:1-6:3. We saw last week that the first three chapters give us Hosea’s life and marriage, which is a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness and of God’s faithfulness. Well, beginning in chapter 4 and going all the way to the end of the book, we have Hosea’s message. The details of his life and marriage are left behind. We simply hear his prophetic message. And, it’s a message of sin and judgment. Hosea, as the Lord’s mouthpiece, is declaring to the people that God sees their sin, knows what they’ve done, and will judge them. And ultimately God did judge them through the Assyrians as they conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC.

But this morning, as we look at 4:1-6:3, we get to see where Hosea begins his message, and as we look at what he says, it serves as an opportunity for us to be reminded of some things that it’s good to be reminded of – especially in light of the reality that it is easy to drift slowly into a lifestyle of sin.

So, let’s first look at what Hosea’s message to the people is in this section, and then I want to take some time to apply some truths that he brings out to us.

Hosea’s message begins on the basic note that the Lord sees the sins of the people of Israel and will judge them. He begins by naming the sins that they are caught up in, as he declares in 6:1-2, “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” It’s hard to think of much that is missing from this list. Israel is deeply involved in a pursuit of more and more sin.

And because of their sin, the land is suffering. Hosea notes in 4:3 that the land mourns. That might sound odd to us, but this is the consistent theme throughout the Bible. When the inhabitants of the land are guilty of sin, the earth itself suffers. This stretches as far back as Genesis 3:17, when God told Adam that because of his sin, the earth would bring forth thorns and thistles. And it continued in Israel’s history. They would sin, and the land would suffer and even be said to mourn. The same is true even today as Paul tells us in Romans 8 that because of the reign of death over the earth creation groans, waiting for the day when it will be set free from its bondage to decay. Yet that day will only come with the manifestation of our righteousness is shone, and we are raised and revealed as sons of God.

But there is more that was abominable in Israel. The priests themselves have “rejected knowledge” (4:6) so that the people no longer know God’s law. In fact, the more the priests are increasing, the more they sin (4:7). Perhaps worst of all, we read in 4:8, “They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity.”

When the text says, “They feed on the sin of my people,” it is probably being very literal. The word for sin can also be translated “sin offering.” So the idea seems to be that as the people of Israel bring the lamb for their sin offering, the priests are seeing it as fresh meat for dinner. They’re literally feeding on the people’s sin offering. And as a result, the priests actually are greedy for the people to sin more in order that they might bring more and more sin offering.

According to 4:12-13, the people of Israel are using idols as attempts to see if they might discover the future and are sacrificing offerings to the pagan gods that were to be worshiped on the hilltops. And it’s so bad that 4:14 refers to the men going aside with prostitutes and sacrificing with cult prostitutes.

Now, this makes more sense if we understand the gross immorality wrapped up in Canaanite worship. There were certain Canaanite gods that were fertility gods, and we spoke of this a bit last week. But the idea was that these fertility gods could make you have a nice crop. So, how then did you please them in order to get them to bless you? Well, for one, you were to go to the temple and engage in sexual immorality. Because of this, there were actually temple prostitutes there waiting to aid you in appeasing the Canaanite fertility god. And after that, you would offer sacrifices with these cult prostitutes. That’s what Israel was doing.

Thus, the Lord lets it be known in chapter 5 that judgment is coming. We read in 5:1-2 and 9-10, “Hear this, O priests! Pay attention, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah and a new spread upon tabor. And the revolters have gone deep into the slaughter, but I will discipline all of them. . . . Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment; among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure. The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.” God’s judgment is coming.

And finally, once God’s judgment is set in motion, there is no power of man that can stop it. The Lord warns them not to waste time appealing to the king of Assyria, saying, “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and none shall rescue” (5:13-14).

Thus, we see Hosea’s message of sin and coming judgment. But instead of simply looking at what they’re doing, let’s look at ourselves this morning as well because I believe there are some lessons we can be reminded of as we look more intently at what Hosea declares in these verses.

The first of these reminders is that . . .

How we live our lives is directly linked to our knowledge of God’s Word

It’s interesting to see in this text what Hosea sees as the ultimate source of Israel walking in such horrible sin. He focuses on the priests. We read in 4:4-6, “Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget you.”

Now, this is interesting isn’t it? God says to the priests, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” What knowledge is he talking about? He’s talking about the knowledge of his word. That’s why he mentions the forgetting of God’s law. You see, the priests were responsible for teaching God’s law to God’s people. The priests had not done that, thus the people did not know God’s law, and, consequently, they were not obeying God’s law.

Now, this is informative for us. It’s a reminder to those of us who are pastors and given to the role of teaching you God’s Word both publicly and privately, that we must make sure that we are indeed teaching you God’s Word and not something less than that. After all, more than you need us, you need God’s Word. It is powerful to transform your hearts and lives.

At the same time, however, I don’t know if the application should be limited to those of us who are pastors or teachers in the church. After all, the context of the Old Covenant and that of the New Covenant are quite different. In the Old Covenant, the Lord gave the people priests in order to serve as mediators between them and God. A priest was someone chosen among God’s people who would represent God’s people before God.

However, once Jesus came into the world, lived, died, and was raised, the role of the priest was greatly altered. Now, instead of us going to one of our neighbors, who is a priest, so that he might represent us before God, we all have the ability to approach God’s throne ourselves because of our high priest who is at the Father’s right hand – Jesus, the Christ. This is why when we pray we might say something like, “In Jesus’ name.” It serves to declare our recognition that we are approaching our Father through the authority of the one who serves as a high priest for all of God’s people.

Thus, there is no longer a need for you to depend on a mediator in order to know God or to know God’s Word. Furthermore, our ability to read the Scriptures is much easier. Thus, each of us carries a responsibility to know God’s Word and hide it in our hearts.

Now, let me pause for a second and say, this doesn’t mean that if someone doesn’t sit down and read a portion of God’s Word every day he’s necessarily sinning. After all, throughout much of the church’s history people did not have copies of God’s Word and a number of believers were illiterate. However, consider this. In a day when few might have a copy of God’s Word and many were illiterate, Psalm 1 taught the people that blessed was the man who would meditate on God’s Word day and night.

So, before we rest in our pursuit of knowing God’s Word, consider what this meant for God’s people throughout much of the history of the church. It meant that they had actually memorized God’s Word and, thus, were able to meditate on it. You see, in some ways, we might have relaxed more than many of our Christian brothers and sisters throughout history because the Word is so readily available to us. Aaron O’Kelley brought up to me a few weeks ago how none of us now knows phone numbers because they’re so easily accessed. If you don’t have to remember to punch in the numbers when dialing, you probably aren’t going to commit them to memory. However, there are a number of phone numbers I’ve memorized from before cell phones became common. And I’d imagine that you’re in the same boat. When we had to memorize, we did.

Therefore, before we too quickly excuse our laxness toward God’s Word because most people in the history of the church wouldn’t have been able to read the Bible every day anyway, consider that they were charged with the responsibility of meditating on God’s Word day and night, and they did what they had to do in order to make that a possibility.

Thus, in the same way, we should most likely reflect on our brothers and sisters in history and ratchet up our commitment to hide God’s Word in our hearts. After all, it is difficult to overstate the effect God’s Word has in affecting how we live. The one who meditates on God’s Word day and night is much more likely to discern evil, turn from it, and pursue holiness than the one who does not. Therefore, let us simply examine our lives and practices this morning and ask if we’re equipping ourselves to live a lifestyle of holiness by hiding God’s Word in our hearts.

Second, we are reminded that . . . .

Sin has the power and tendency to enslave us and spread to others

Let’s first note sin’s power and tendency to enslave us. The Lord says of Israel in 5:4, “Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord.”

That is, the Lord says that Israel had actually gotten to the point of being so enslaved to their sin that repentance was impossible. The spirit of whoredom had so overtaken them, that there wasn’t a chance they’d repent.

And this isn’t just a reality of sin that happened in the Old Covenant; it happens with us as well. The author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 6:4-6, “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

The text is Hebrews 6 is warning believers not to entangle themselves with sin, lest they get themselves in a place that repentance is impossible. That is the same thing that Hosea said had happened with Israel. And it is a warning to us.

Our hearts are quite complex. In fact, they’re so complex that Paul tells the Corinthians that there’s nothing wrong with eating meat sacrificed to idols, then he tells them that if their conscience is bothered by eating such meats, they should abstain, for whatever is not done in faith is sin. That is, we can actually damage our hearts even by doing something that is not objectively evil but we think it is.

So there is great risk every time we embark on a path of sin. Every time you put an inappropriate image before your eyes, you’re risking a hardening of your heart that gets gripped by that sin and doesn’t want to repent. You do the same every time you lust in your heart, or covet what another has, or give in to emotions of greed, and on and on and on. These sins are not to be treated as if they are benign. Engaging in sin is like playing with the deadliest of poisons, for it can poison and harden your heart so that you find yourself in a place that you simply can’t let go of your sin.

And it doesn’t just affect you. In 4:14, the Lord says, “I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.” Now, this is not to say that the women living in Israel escaped judgment, they most certainly didn’t. When the Assyrians attacked women suffered as well. However, the point seems to be that the Lord is reminding the husband and father that the sin of his wife and daughter lay very much at his feet. His sin had given them the message that they too should pursue rebellion against God and his Word.

Paul says the same thing can happen in the church. If sin goes on without repentance or discipline, then Paul tells us, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Therefore, one reason that we must make war on sin in our own lives is because our sin may very well spread to those we profess to love and destroy them as well.

Third, we are reminded that . . .

There is certain hope if we’ll repent

I mentioned that Hosea’s message is one of declaring Israel’s sin and coming judgment against them, and it is. However, there is another aspect of his message as well. He announces that there is certain hope if Israel will repent. We read the Lord’s words in 5:15, as he says, “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.” You see, God was telling them that if they would only confess their sin, turn from it, and turn to him earnestly, he’d bless them. In fact, he wants them to realize that his discipline in their lives had been for the purpose of bringing them to recognize that there is hope in repentance.

Hosea 6:1-3 seems to be words that the Lord is holding out to his people, showing them what their repentance could look like. There, he says, “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Let that be your response this morning. Let us return to the Lord, knowing that he’s disciplined you so that he might heal you. He’s declaring his Word to you this morning, even exposing your sin, because he doesn’t what your heart to be hardened. He does not want repentance to be impossible. Therefore, if your heart is able to repent this morning and actually soft toward God’s Word, please repent while you can.

But how do we know he’ll receive us? It’s because there was one who took the punishment that God’s children deserved. He bore God’s condemnation, but on the third day God raised him up and he lives before him always. And if our faith is in him, then he has paid our penalty for our sin. If our faith is in him, we can know that we will one day be raised as well. He bore condemnation and was declared righteous on the third day so that our sins might be forgiven and we might be declared righteous as well. He was delivered us for our transgressions and raised for our justification. Therefore, let us repent and come to the table this morning, resting in the finished work of Christ for us. Amen.