My People Don’t Know Me.

Intro

Joel Beeke tells the story of an author who was in a bookstore and saw his book and thought he would check the price. Just then the store clerk came up to him and asked if he needed help. Upon seeing that he was holding that particular book, the clerk asked if he knew the author. He cheekily replied, “I think so.” The clerk mentioned something about knowing the author, to which he replied, “no, you don’t.” The clerk looked puzzled, then the author said if you knew the author, then you would know that I am he, and I don’t know you. The clerk was amazed and then said that he felt that he knew him because he had read his books.

This simple illustration serves to show the difference between certain kinds of knowledge. You can know someone without ever really knowing them. The same can be said about knowing God. Some know of him, others know things about him, but that is not enough. As we continue to work our way through Hosea, we move from the enacted message of the prophet Hosea and his family to the specific message he declares to the people from the Lord. From chapter four to the end of Hosea, the setting is an imaginary courtroom. Hosea is the prosecutor, the Lord is the aggrieved party, and the defendant is Israel. Through a plethora of images, the prophet makes a case for why the Lord has every right to be angry because Israel has been unfaithful.

This morning in chapter 4, the specific charge can be boiled down to a lack of knowing the Lord. Not necessarily that they lack the basic facts about who God is, but they lack the experiential knowledge of someone who has experienced an intimate relationship with the Lord. One that is born out in a life of faithful obedience, a life of covenant loyalty to the Lord. Because the people of God can be destroyed for lack of knowledge, we must seek to know the Lord experientially.

Hosea 4

The Charges

Prophets are God’s lawmen, sent in as covenant enforcers to call the people to be faithful to the terms of the covenant. Hosea brings an indictment against Israel, who are little more than “inhabitants of the land,” since they refuse to act like they belong to the Lord. He has this against them. They don’t embody the positive aspects of keeping a covenant with Yahweh. It is sort of concealed in the ESV, but three times Hosea emphasizes “there is no, there is no, there is no,” no faithfulness, no steadfast love, and no knowledge of God. You will find that these are a repeated refrain throughout the book, and Hosea will flesh out the specifics of these covenant attributes that are essential for community life.

But for Chapter four it is knowledge of God that he singles out as missing from the people of God. In v. 1 it makes up part of the charge, and then again in v. 6 he maintains that the reason the people are destroyed because they lack knowledge. Faithfulness we understand in the context of Hosea and Gomer and her infidelity, which is both a breach of faithfulness and a failure of steadfast love, which is a kind of loyal love that never fails. But what does the prophet mean by “no knowledge of God in the land?”

What is experiential knowledge?

The Puritans used to speak of experiential knowledge of God, which is a helpful emphasis since we in the Reformed world can be accused of being too cerebral by our Charismatic brothers. Calvin explains it this way in his comments on Zechariah 2:9:

But it is to be observed, that there are two kinds of knowledge,—the knowledge of faith, and what they call experimental knowledge. The knowledge of faith is that by which the godly feel assured that God is true—that what he has promised is indubitable; and this knowledge at the same time penetrates beyond the world, and goes far above the heavens, that it may know hidden things; for our salvation is concealed; things seen, says the Apostle, are not hoped for. (Rom. 8:24.) It is then no wonder that the Prophet says, that the faithful shall then know that Christ has been sent by the Father, that is, by actual experience, or in reality: Ye shall then know that Jehovah has sent me. (Calvin, Zech 2:9)

Experiential Knowledge is knowing God by experience, or knowing Him through a relationship. If I described my wife’s physical appearance, listed some of her personality traits, and told you what makes her unique, but you never met her in person, you may “know” something about her, but not on the same level as having met her and formed a relationship with her, and never as I “know” her as her husband. Of course, Israel knew descriptions of who God is, but did they really “know” God in a relational-experiential way? No.

God makes Himself known through His revelation of Himself in a general and in a special way. First, generally in creation and providence. But even more clearly, God makes Himself known to us in and through His Word. All of which is meant to lead us by the hand to embrace Christ, in whom we see “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” (Heb. 1:3). So as Jesus taught in John’s Gospel, that eternal life is knowing the Father, “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” For if you receive Jesus as Lord, you receive the Father, and if you have by faith seen Jesus, then you have also seen the Father.

Knowing God is an ever-growing understanding of the person and work of Christ, the evidence of which is an increasing conformity unto Him through the renewing of your mind (understanding). As Paul prayed in Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:16–23 (ESV) 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The Evidence

So, if the evidence of the knowledge of God in the land is an increasing conformity to Christ, which we could describe as increasing faithfulness, steadfast love, and an acknowledgment of God in every area of life, then to confirm the opposite, we would expect to see evidence of widespread covenant-breaking as interpersonal strife: swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. It's not a pretty picture of a community that is called to be holy because the Lord is holy. Israel is filling up the land with immorality. Death characterizes a people who turn away from the knowledge of God to pursue idols.

How do you know if you are seeking to know the Lord experientially? How's your interpersonal life? If it's one of strife, marked by conflict and hostility towards others, that's a good indication you are no longer seeking to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. This is true on the corporate level too. A community marked by conflict is a community that has left off the pursuit of knowing Christ.

As a discipline, we must be cultivating our hearts through self-examination. Every saint should be engaged in the discipline of questioning themselves, searching out the depths of their souls to root out any remaining corruptions of the old man that still remain. It's not merely that you may not kill another, but you must seek to preserve life. It's not only that you must not tell lies, but you must privilege and promote the truth. I commend the larger catechism's exposition of the law of God. For each law contains not only prohibitions against sin, but also duties that must be performed.

The Cause

What would cause a people, who have been given such rich blessings by God, to turn away from "knowing" Him? To understand the spiritual state of God's people, one need not look further than those God has called and empowered to lead them to Him. The cause of Israel's apostasy can be traced back to the priests who have failed in their task to make the Lord known to His people.

Hosea 4:7–10 ESV

7 The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. 8 They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. 9 And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. 10 They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish

The people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge, and this has occurred because the priests have rejected knowledge. This is evident because they have forgotten the Law of God. Rejecting knowledge is akin to forgetting the Law of God. I interpret this in two ways: firstly, forgetting the nature of their vocation, and secondly, forgetting is a failure to keep the Law themselves. In other words, forgetting is a failure to teach and embody the ideals of the covenant community enshrined in the law, which is the character of God. It is a failure to lead the people in faithfulness, steadfast love, and in the knowledge of God, both in word and deed.

Recall when the kingdom was divided and Jeroboam became the ruler over the northern ten tribes. He established alternate sites of worship in Dan and Beersheba to prevent the people from being tempted to return to the Davidic king. He also did away with the restrictions of the priesthood by appointing "priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites" (1 Kings 12:31). This led to a sudden increase in interest in the priesthood as a vocation. It also undermined the idea of calling and election in favor of an inclusive priesthood. Now, unqualified men, whose motives were less than pure, made up the priesthood. "Feeding on the sin of my people" could be a reference to their sustenance coming from the sacrifices of the people of God. Kidner comments, "To a degenerate set of priests, the more sin the better: there would be all the more fresh meat." (Kidner, Hosea, 50).

As is often the case, sometimes God allows people to indulge in their sins to the point of dissatisfaction. Like a drug addict who seeks harder and harder drugs just to get high, or a glutton who chases the feeling of satisfaction with every meal, but as soon as the food is in their mouth, the pleasure of eating dissipates and they are left always hungry. So these priests will eat but not be satisfied, and chase after foreign gods that promise fertility but they will remain barren.

As I quoted Bonhoeffer last week on cheap grace, Evangelicalism is as guilty as these priests in Israel. They have profited off the guilt of God's people, but have only superficially healed their wounds by saying peace, peace, without calling the people of God to take up their cross and follow Christ. Obedience is costly, but we have cheapened grace with a Christless Christianity that offers blessings in this life and the next, but makes absolutely no demands on us now. Cheap grace says come to Christ with all your sins to receive his blessings, and don't worry, you can keep your sins too. Christ does bid you come with all your sins, but He would have you leave them on the cross, where He suffered and died for each one. Not so that you could continue to cherish them, but so that you could hate them and see them as they are, hideous and reprehensible.

The Result

The result of these priests' rejection of the knowledge of God is a people who become further and further estranged from God, to the point where they no longer know Him. However, we are inherently designed to worship God, and when we don't, we replace Him with other entities, even trivial ones like a piece of wood. I understand that we, as modern individuals, consider ourselves more enlightened. We would never resort to primitive means of worship, like inquiring of a stick. Instead, we prefer more advanced substitutes such as silicon. We no longer rely on reading the oracles of gods in the livers of birds; now we just ask Google or ChatGPT. We create an image of the beast, breathe life into it, and then worship it (Rev. 13:14-15).

We may not possess the same type of idolatry sites as Israel did, but I assure you, the same desire drives our contemporary idolatry. When you abandon the knowledge of God, things quickly become bizarre. Paul provides the most lucid example of this progression in Romans 1. When people refuse to acknowledge God, that is, when there is no knowledge of God in the land, He gives them over to a 'spirit of whoredom' so that they commit acts they ought not to.

Sin has a trickle-down effect. Even though their daughters (and daughters-in-law) engage in prostitution, and marriages are spoiled before they even begin, the blame rests on the men who have led them into this behavior by visiting prostitutes. Sin is covenantal; when priestly men lead other men astray, these men lead their families astray, and soon enough, the community is marked by the stain of debauchery.

Carl Trueman, a professor at Grove City College, wrote a book a few years ago titled The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. He aimed to answer the question, "How did we get to the place where the statement 'I am a woman trapped in a man's body' could be coherent and meaningful?" The rapid onset of transgenderism has surprised many of us, but Trueman shows in his book that the seeds were planted long ago during 18th-century Romanticism. The sexual revolution did not spring up from nowhere during the sixties counter-culture, its roots go back to the enlightenments humanism and its rejection of knowing God. As Nietzsche said, “God is dead, and we have killed him.” Out of that, God gives us over to depravity, to worship that which is not God, and to a spirit of whoredom. An apt description of our current cultural moment.

The Response

What hope is there for a community marked by such sins? Can the slide into atheism and sexual immorality be stopped once it has begun? Hosea would seem to suggest that it might be too late to reverse course in Israel. As we have already heard on multiple occasions in chapters 1-3, exile is inevitable. Israel will be disciplined for her unfaithfulness. “And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.” But as we have also seen, the judgement of the Lord is a purifying fire that will purge the evil from Israel, preserving a remnant until the Messiah should come.

But there is a warning to nearby Judah, who, as it turns out, was not as far down the slippery slope of apostasy. She is warned not to become guilty with Israel. For, at that point, she may prevent that which is a foregone conclusion for Israel. Sadly, we know that after a little over a hundred years from the point of Israel’s exile in Assyria, Judah too is taken captive, and her place and temple are taken away from her. That is despite the valiant efforts of such leaders as Hezekiah and Josiah to reform Judah.

I sometimes wonder where the church today is on that slide into apostasy. The mainline denominations have rotted out and are little more than a shell. In fact, the United Methodist church lost over 1.3 million members in one day, as some African bishops voted to leave the denomination. While the PCA is one of the few denominations in the West that is growing, most are shrinking. The church, in the same vein as Israel, has studied all kinds of ways to keep people entertained, catering to their desires with feel-good messages designed to give you five ways to have a better sex life, and other such nonsense.

We will occasionally have someone come here with that mindset. Their first question is what can your church offer me, and complaining that our worship service doesn’t seem to cater to their personal tastes. I am reminded of what JFK once said, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” In our age of entitlement, we care little for “knowing” the Lord and his desire for our worship, and more about “knowing” ourselves so that we can self-actualize and overcome all our childhood trauma, and live out our “truth.”

Calvin began the 1541 edition of his Institutes with this:

THE whole sum of our wisdom—wisdom, that is, which deserves to be called true and assured—broadly consists of two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. The purpose of the first of these is to show not only that there is one God whom all must worship and honour, but also that he is the fount of all truth, wisdom, goodness, righteousness, judgment, mercy, power and holiness. We must learn, therefore, to expect and ask these things from him, and with praise and thanksgiving to acknowledge that they come from him. The purpose of the second is to show us our weakness, misery, vanity and vileness, to fill us with despair, distrust and hatred of ourselves, and then to kindle in us the desire to seek God, for in him is found all that is good and of which we ourselves are empty and deprived.

Much of our therapeutic culture has us seeking to know ourselves, but without also insisting that we know the Lord. The foolishness of this approach is on display in our text today. “My people,” says the Lord, “are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” As we have already mentioned this is not a lack of information about God, you can get plenty of that from the internet, much of which is not true. What the Lord commends is experiential knowledge, which comes by being in covenant with him. You come to know him by studying him, his person and work, as he has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in creation and in his word.

I have been married to my amazing wife for almost twenty years, and I can say confidently that I know her better than anyone else. And yet, there is so much of her that remains a mystery to me, so much that I have yet to discover. I will spend my whole life studying her, trying to understand her, so that I can love her better, and share even greater intimacy as the years go on. But that will not happen apart from an ever-increasing relationship with her. It will not happen by just maintaining the status quo, bringing home a paycheck, occasional kiss as you head out the door for work, that won’t do it. You will have to put in the work, you will have to spend time with her, you’ll have to study her, and when you discover ways that you can love her which you haven’t been doing you have to put them into practice. Our relationship with the Lord is no different.

We must study his word to discover more of who he is and of what he has done. We must study to find what he wants from us, both in worship and work. When we know him more, we begin to resemble him more. We look like him because we do those things which are pleasing to him. But some here have stopped studying their spouse, have stopped trying to know them more, and have settled into just maintaining the status quo. Worse, you’ve done even less to know God. You don’t come each day to spend quality time getting to know him in word and prayer, and you don’t make any effort to make him known to others. Oh, you go to church on Sunday, and if things are not going your way you may say a quick prayer hoping God will give you what you want. But sadly what you want is not more of him, but usually relief from some present difficulty. I am not at all suggesting that God doesn’t care about our difficulties. I’m suggesting that this is akin to a wife wanting a husband only so he can open the occasional jar that’s too hard for her to open, or get something down from the top shelf. That’s not marriage, and no husband would last long under such conditions. But we often treat the Lord that way.

You can see what happened to Israel when they left off pursuing the Lord. Things get weird real quick. The only way to stop the slide into apostasy in families, churches, and states is to repent and seek to know the Lord. Only by seeking to know Him are we safe from being destroyed. This is a repeated refrain in Hosea, and one we shall visit again and again. So I will conclude with his admonition from ch. 6:

Hosea 6:1–3 ESV

1 “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. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. 3 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.”

Charge

The path to destruction is a slippery slope of apostacy which begins with a refusal to know the Lord. The damage is often brought by the leaders of a community who refuse to teach people the law, rejecting the knowledge of God themselves. The result is idolatry and a society marked by breaking God’s law. Embedded in ch. four is a proverb we would do well to remember: “Whoredom, wine and new wine take away the understanding...and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.” So let us press on to know the Lord; paying careful attention to his self-revelation in creation and in His word. Amen.

2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV

14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.