Destroyed for lack of knowledge
November 25, 2011Hear 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.
Therefore the land mourns,
and all who dwell in it languish,
and also the beasts of the field
and the birds of the heavens,
and even the fish of the sea are taken away…
My people are destroyed for 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 your children.— Hosea 4:1-6 (ESV)
The nation of Israel was God’s priest; they were supposed to be an example to the other nations. (Exodus 19:5-6) They failed miserably in this role, and God says here that he would remove them from this office. In the New Testament, Peter talks about God taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name, just as he had taken Israel as a people for His name. (Acts 15:7-9, 14) He’s talking about us! We have replaced Israel as the “priest”, the one charged to bring the word of God to people. (See Revelation 1:5-6 & 5:9-10, where the “kingdom of priests” language is used of all the followers of Jesus.)
What were Israel’s failures? Hosea says that, first of all, they were engaged in unacceptable conduct: swearing (that is, invoking curses), lying, killing, stealing, adultery, ignoring all boundaries to their behavior. In our age, killing and stealing are still considered wrong, but the rest of the list is just fine in our society. Pay attention to how many advertisements base their message on the appeal to “break all bounds”. So we, like Israel, can fit in perfectly well with the culture around us, and be completely at odds with God.
The other side of the issue is the behavior that Israel should have had, but didn’t. They should have been faithful, and kind, and should have known God and His Word. Faithful means loyal, and applies more broadly than faithfulness to God. I’m sure you’ve been urged to “look out for number one”, that is, yourself. If there is conflict between your interests and someone else’s, you’re told you have to act in your own interests. Where is the kindness or the loyalty in this kind of philosophy? The New Testament tells us to “bear one another’s burdens”, and to love others the way we love ourselves.
What broke Israel’s back, according to this passage, was lack of knowledge. Had they paid attention to God’s Word, they would have known better. They could have been taught by God to do right. But they ignored the Word, they didn’t know God, and therefore they were destroyed. If you don’t have a regular habit to spend time with God’s Word, you’re putting yourself in the same category as Israel. Not a good place to be!
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