Sermon Tone Analysis

The Accusations

With Chapter four we see an intentional break to start the new section.

In the first three chapters we had a continuing narrative.

This doesn’t necessarily break with the narrative but it does indicate we should give this section a new heading.

I do think it’s interesting that God brings in the children of Israel to hear a complaint as if they were going to participate or judge someone else for what God was about to say.

It’s like if I called all my children together in the living room of my house and said “Sons, I need you to hear this.

There are some problems with the boys who live in this house.”

I’m clearly talking to them, about them but I’m doing it in a tone that brings them in to witness their own faults.

The problem for the children of Israel is three fold.

No Faithfulness

No Love

No Knowledge or Discernment of God

Here’s a small link let’s try and think what does it make you think of when someone references these things all together?

Beasts of the field, birds of the heavens, and fish of the sea?

Creation is what I thought of, but this order is a clue.

This is the order they appear but in reverse.

The result of sin and rejection of God is an un-creation event and Hosea is pointing that out to us right here.

We’re tearing at the fabric of the universe when we reject God by persisting in sin and ignoring his will for our lives.

Hosea is not the first and certainly not the last to use uncreation to point to us to the same idea.

No one contend or accuse, why?

We see why because the contention is with the priests!

And what’s more the prophet of the land who is kind of a backstop will stumble and Israel (mother) will be destroyed.

The pillars of society here have already fallen.

The priests are all doing the wrong thing and we’ll see that more and more and the prophets are not prophets of God.

Here we see this threefold accusation come to bear they don’t KNOW God so God won’t know them.

They turn from God to things of the world.

They think there is satisfaction in them but it’s all fruitless they’ve given up their love of God to love their own iniquity.

The people don’t remain faithful but they inquire after dead wood for answers, they sacrifice on mountains and burn offerings on the hills.

They become physically unfaithful in adultery both men and women.

This will bring ruin to the people.

We’ve once again brought Judah, the southern kingdom back into the picture.

This abrupt inclusion of the other people of God called upon here is a bit of a rebuke.

Don’t drag them into this as well with your sinful pagan worship.

Two places of that pagan worship get called out, don’t go there!

Now being compared to a stubborn cow Israel has been shown everything it is.

Ephraim (the most prominent tribe of the northern kingdom) is called out for their alliance with idol worship.

When they aren’t drinking they’re whoring.

So… what do we do with all of this?

Well we’ve seen some connections and we really could have spent a lot more time on things there.

The un-creation notion is a big one.

It’s a theme that runs throughout if you can catch it, like in Gen 6.7 and many other places.

We see the absolute failure in Sin that seems to just be inherent with Israel at this point.

Because there was no Faithfulness, Love, or Knowledge of God.

Those got touched in reverse order from their first listing like many of those AB patterns we’ve seen, and at the end of the chapter they’re wrapped up in a wind that our foreshadowing would tell us is going to sweep them away and out of the land.

What do we take away from these sorts of things?

I think the three points I highlighted are something we should strive to come back to when we find ourselves in trouble spiritually.

When everything around us seems to be spiritually falling apart we go back to the Knowledge of God.

The discernment not just a mere factual knowledge that’s a different Hebrew word actually.

This we get from the scriptures.

The love of God is our next focus and where we mediate in the scriptures.

Finally in faithfulness we surrender the remaining iniquities we want to keep holding onto.

Christ has been faithful for us it’s not our own faith that some how makes us trust in Christ.

Christ has loved us far deeper than we know and can express.

Christ has become our discernment and joined us as heirs to be able to know God and discern his will.