The Heart of Sin

Hosea 4

Grab your Bible and meet me in Hosea. We are going to cover some ground tonight and dive into Hosea 4 and 5.

Who here tonight actually grew up in Oceanway?

If you grew up around Oceanway like I did, you know there’s a phrase that always comes before someone gets hurt: “Hey, watch this.”

It’s the universal red flag of the South. You hear it at every family cookout, every fishing trip, every backyard gathering where someone’s got a dirt bike, a rope swing, or a questionable amount of courage.

And without fail—after the dust settles, after the splash or the crash—you always hear the same response: “What an idiot.”

It’s funny because we’ve all been there. Somebody tries to jump their four-wheeler over the ditch, or light a firework out of their hand, or see if the golf cart can “really drift.” And we shake our heads, saying, “They should’ve known better.”

But if we’re honest, the story of God’s people in the book of Hosea is one long spiritual version of “Hey, watch this.” God says, “Don’t go that way—it’ll destroy you.” And Israel says, “Watch this.”

Over and over again, they ignore the warnings, chase after idols, and walk straight into judgment. And God sends Hosea to stand there like the voice of reason, saying, “Stop before you wreck yourself.”

See, sin always whispers, “You’ll be fine. You’ve got this.” But sin never shows you the crash that’s coming.

That’s where Hosea steps in. Like a siren before the storm, he’s calling out, “Listen up! Turn back before it’s too late.” Because sin isn’t just bad behavior—it’s a destructive force that separates us from the God who loves us.

And just like every “watch this” moment ends in regret, every sin ends in ruin… unless grace steps in.

Hosea 4 “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. 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. 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 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. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding. My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery. 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. Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-aven, and swear not, “As the Lord lives.” Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture? Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone. When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring; their rulers dearly love shame. A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.”

Prayer

The main idea this evening is Sin arises from the heart, breaks fellowship with God, and hurts us; so when we love God, we hate sin and run from it.

That’s where we’re going tonight. We’re going to look at how sin starts, what it does, and how the love of God leads us to run from it—not out of fear, but out of affection.

1. Sin Starts in the Heart

(Hosea 4:12;)

In Hosea 4:12, God says of His people, “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore.”

In other words, Israel didn’t just have a behavior problem—they had a heart problem. They were running after other gods and giving themselves to sin because their hearts had already turned away from the Lord. Before they ever bowed at a pagan altar, they’d already bowed in their hearts.

God says in Hosea 7:14, “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.”

See, sin isn’t just what we do—it’s what’s going on inside of us that drives what we do. The sinful action is just the overflow of a sinful heart.

R.C. Sproul said it like this: “We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.”

You know, I see this all the time with Judah.

I got this little image bearer of me, who I love and just want good things for and he will do things that we tell him not to do. I know parents are shocked to hear this.

The other day, Blair and I told him chips before dinner. He will eat an entire bag of chips in one sitting if we let him.

But we walk out of the room, come back five minutes later, and there he is—crumbs all over his face, tater chip in hand, and trying to hide the bag like we can’t see it.

I said, “Buddy, did you eat more chips?” And he said, “No.” With chip crumbs falling out of his mouth.

Now, I didn’t have to teach him how to lie, right? Nobody sat him down and said, “Alright, son, here’s how to deceive your parents.” It just came naturally.

Because that’s the point—sin doesn’t sneak up on us; it seeps out of us. It’s in our nature. It’s not just a behavior issue; it’s a heart issue.

That’s the problem Hosea’s pointing out. Sin isn’t something that just happens to us—it’s something that lives in us. It’s not primarily an action problem; it’s an affection problem.

Jesus made the same point in Matthew 15:18–19: “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

In other words, sin doesn’t sneak up on us—it seeps out of us. The problem isn’t just what’s in our hands or on our lips; it’s what’s sitting deep in our hearts.

So before we start pointing fingers at what others do, we’ve got to ask the question: What’s really going on in me? What’s in my heart that’s leading me away from the God who loves me?

Because until God has your heart, sin will always have your habits.

2. Sin and Broken Fellowship with God Go Together

(Hosea 4:1, 10; 5:4, 7, 13)

Sin and broken fellowship with God always travel together—you never find one without the other.

We’ve already seen that in Hosea’s story. Gomer’s sin was unfaithfulness to her marriage covenant, and that unfaithfulness led to more sin. In the same way, Israel’s sin was unfaithfulness to their covenant with God—and that spiritual adultery opened the door to every other kind of sin.

Hosea points that out again in chapters 4 and 5. In chapter 4 verse 1, he says, “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.” Down in verse 10, he says, “They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom.”

Then in chapter 5 verse 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.” And verse 7 says, “They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord; for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.”

Every one of those verses paints the same picture—Israel’s fellowship with God was broken.

And here’s the thing: when we’re not walking closely with God, we become sitting ducks for temptation. When your fellowship with God is distant, your defenses are down. You start drifting into compromise, and sin fills the space that used to belong to the Lord.

You know, I see this same thing happen in my classroom all the time.

At the start of the year, a student will be totally engaged — Bible open, notes ready, nodding along as we talk about Abraham or the Exodus. But as the semester goes on, something changes. They’re still sitting in the same chair, but their attention starts to drift. They’re doodling instead of taking notes. They’re staring at the clock instead of the text.

When I ask a question, they suddenly “forgot” what passage we’re in. And when I check in, they say, “I don’t know, Mr. Chambers, I just kind of zoned out.”

I thought maybe it was because we are talking and doing things about books of the Bible they are less familiar with and I realized thats not the case. Its a heart issue.

See, that’s exactly how it happens spiritually. We don’t usually rebel against God in one big dramatic moment — we just drift. We go from listening closely to zoning out. From leaning in to tuning out. And before long, we’re going through the motions while our hearts are miles away. Then we realize we are failing- we wake up and try to lock back in.

That’s what Hosea’s describing. Israel hadn’t stopped worshiping — they’d stopped walking with God. Their fellowship was broken, not because God moved, but because they slowly tuned Him out.

Isaiah 59:2 says it plainly: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

Think about that. Sin doesn’t just make you guilty—it makes you distant. It numbs your prayers. It quiets your worship. It clouds your joy.

Sin and broken fellowship with God go together. And until that relationship is restored, everything else in life will feel off balance—because the heart was made for communion with Him.

In Hosea’s day, the people weren’t looking to God for help anymore.

Instead, they were looking to “the great king” of Assyria (Hosea 5:13). They thought a man could fix what only God could heal. That right there was more proof that their fellowship with God was broken.

When trouble came, they didn’t cry out to the Lord—they called on people. They turned to the world for help instead of turning to the One who made the world.

And honestly, that still hits close to home. When you’re facing a problem, where do you turn first?

Do you run to prayer—or to people? Do you open your Bible—or rely on your own strength?

Here’s the real question: Is prayer your first response or your last resort?

Because for a lot of us, prayer isn’t the steering wheel—it’s the spare tire. We don’t reach for it until everything else has gone flat. But if fellowship with God is where our strength comes from, then prayer can’t be the last thing we try—it’s got to be the first place we go.

Now, I’ve never had a heart heart, but if I did would imagine that I would go to a doctor who could repair it. That would make sense. But imagine if I’d known something was wrong and said, “Nah, I’ll figure it out myself.” Or worse, I went to someone who didn’t have a clue what they were doing. That would be pretty foolish of me. It’d be dumb.

Spiritually, that’s what Israel was doing—and it’s what we sometimes do too. We run to everything and everyone except God, hoping something else will fix what’s broken inside. But when there’s a problem in the heart, only God can heal it.

Sin and broken fellowship with God always go together. But here’s the good news—the opposite is true too. Purity and fellowship with God go together.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8, ESV).

When our hearts are pure—when we confess sin, when we come clean before Him—God restores what’s been lost. He draws us close again.

So if something feels off between you and God, don’t run from Him—run to Him. The same God who convicts you of sin is the One who can cleanse your heart and bring you back into fellowship with Himself.

3. Sin Hurts the Sinner

(Hosea 4:7, 11; 5:4)

In Hosea 4:11, the prophet says, “Whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding.” In the original language, that phrase literally means, “They take the heart.”

That’s what sin does. It doesn’t just break God’s law—it breaks you. We like to tell ourselves we can sin, say sorry, and everything will go back to normal. But sin never leaves things the way it found them. When we sin, something in our hearts shifts.

The more we flirt with sin, the more comfortable we become with it. The conscience gets quieter. The conviction gets duller. What once felt wrong starts to feel normal. Sin numbs us, and we don’t even realize it’s happening.

Even people who truly love Jesus can fall into a pattern of sin so often that they stop calling it sin.

Instead, they start calling it something else—a struggle, a mistake, a phase, just the way I am. But let’s be honest: when we start justifying sin, sin has already started changing us.

I once had a young couple come to me for counseling. They were living together outside of marriage. When I gently showed them what God’s Word says about that, they tried to explain it away—“We love each other.” “God understands.” Their thinking had been so twisted by sin that they honestly believed God would bless what His Word clearly condemns.

And here’s the thing—many people think the same way today. They’re so used to their sin that it doesn’t even shock them anymore. But sin will never be justifiable to a holy God.

Sin never helps us—it only hurts us. It dulls our hearts, damages our fellowship with God, and destroys the joy He designed for us to live in.

When Hosea says sin “takes the heart,” he means exactly that—sin steals something sacred.

In Hosea 4:7, God says, “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.”

Now that’s a striking summary of Israel’s history. You can read all the history books that trace Israel’s rise—how they went from wandering in tents to building cities, from slaves in Egypt to a powerful kingdom under David and Solomon, from simple shepherds to a people with a complex economy and government. But God’s version of their story is brutally honest: “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.”

In other words, every time Israel grew in strength, success, or comfort, their hearts grew colder toward God. The more they prospered, the more they forgot who gave it all to them.

See, God wasn’t nearly as concerned about their political structure or military power as He was about their spiritual condition. His main concern wasn’t how many cities they built—it was whether they still walked with Him.

And that’s the tragedy Hosea is pointing out: sin doesn’t stay still. It grows. It multiplies. It spreads like a disease.

“The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.” That’s a sobering reminder that sin is never stagnant. It never plateaus. If it’s not confessed and cut off, it keeps climbing.

It’s like when I tell my students, “If you don’t deal with a small issue early, it becomes a big one later.” A missing homework assignment turns into a failing grade. A little gossip turns into a full-blown conflict. A half-truth turns into a lifestyle of lying. It always grows.

Sin works the same way. What starts as a thought turns into a habit. What begins as a compromise becomes a chain.

Every time we excuse sin instead of confronting it, it digs in a little deeper. Every time we justify it, it gains a little more ground.

That’s why Scripture warns us not to play with sin—it doesn’t stay small. It grows, and when it grows, it grieves the heart of God and hardens ours.

4. Wrong Worship Is Still Sin

(Hosea 4:12–14)

It’s possible to be religious and still be in rebellion.

That was Israel’s problem. They weren’t atheists; they weren’t ignoring worship altogether. They were showing up, singing songs, burning incense—but to the wrong gods. They had religion, but they didn’t have truth.

Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The Israelites were doing neither. They were worshiping passionately—but falsely.

Hosea 4:12 says, “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore.”

In other words, God says, “You’re talking to sticks and calling it spirituality.”

The practice was called rhabdomancy—using sticks or rods to try to figure out what the gods wanted. They’d throw them on the ground, see how they landed, and take that as divine direction. Hosea is almost mocking the absurdity of it: “Oh, you’ve got yourself a multiuse stick—it’s a walking staff and a fortune-teller!”

It’s tragic, isn’t it? God had already revealed His will to them through His Word. He’d spoken clearly through His prophets. But instead of listening to the living God, they were listening to lifeless wood.

And before we shake our heads at them—don’t we do the same thing sometimes? We may not throw sticks on the ground, but we’ll scroll through social media looking for direction. We’ll listen to cultural voices, or even our own feelings, before we’ll open the Word of God.

Wrong worship is still sin. It doesn’t matter how passionate or sincere it looks—if it’s not anchored in truth, it’s empty.

God doesn’t want performance; He wants purity. He doesn’t want lip service; He wants lordship.

The Israelites didn’t need a new religion—they needed to return to the one true God.

In God’s law, He told His people exactly how to worship Him—what sacrifices to bring, how to offer them, and where to offer them: at the temple in Jerusalem.

But through Hosea, God calls them out for doing the opposite. He says they were offering sacrifices “on the mountaintops, and they burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth” (Hosea 4:13).

Those spots—high places and tree groves—were the same locations used for pagan worship. People thought that being up higher somehow got them closer to the gods, or that certain trees carried sacred power. So instead of going where God told them to, they went where everyone else was worshiping.

And Hosea, with a little holy sarcasm, adds, “because their shade is good.”

In other words, their worship decisions came down to comfort. “Hey, let’s go worship Baal!” “Nah, man, it’s too hot.” “Well, there’s some nice shade over there.” “Oh, then okay—let’s go worship there.”

How far they had drifted from the heart of true worship.

They weren’t driven by conviction—they were driven by convenience. They weren’t seeking holiness—they were seeking shade.

And honestly, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sometimes we treat worship the same way. We’ll worship when it’s comfortable, when it’s convenient, when the schedule’s open or the setting’s just right.

But God’s not after comfortable worship—He’s after committed worship. Jesus said it clearly: “Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

True worship doesn’t ask, “Where’s the shade?” It asks, “Where’s the Savior?”

Some of the Israelites had sunk so far that they were even participating in cult prostitution (Hosea 4:14). God had been crystal clear about that in His law—“None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute” (Deuteronomy 23:17–18). But they ignored Him and followed the practices of their pagan neighbors.

We don’t know how widespread it was, but it was happening enough that Hosea had to call it out. And that tells you just how far Israel had fallen. The people who were supposed to be a light to the nations were now imitating the darkness of the nations.

Verse 12 says they were being led astray by “a spirit of whoredom.” That’s not just describing physical sin—it’s describing spiritual unfaithfulness. They had left their covenant with God to chase after other gods. And in doing so, their spiritual adultery turned into physical adultery.

In Canaanite religion, prostitution was part of the worship service. People believed that if they engaged in those sexual acts, it would inspire the fertility gods—like Baal—to make the land fertile too. That’s how twisted sin can make worship: something holy and pure turned into something depraved and self-serving.

So imagine how heartbreaking this was for God. The very people He rescued, redeemed, and called His own were now calling their sin worship.

And that’s the sobering truth Hosea drives home—just because something feels spiritual doesn’t mean it’s pleasing to God. There were Israelites who genuinely thought they were worshiping, but God rejected what they were doing.

That should make every one of us stop and ask: Does my worship please God, or just me?

Because the same danger still exists today. We can lift our hands and sing the songs and still have hearts that are far from Him. Worship isn’t about what stirs us—it’s about what honors Him.

Conclusion: The Only Cure for a Wandering Heart

If there’s one thing Hosea has shown us, it’s that sin always starts small and always ends badly.

It starts in the heart. It breaks our fellowship with God. It hurts us more than we realize. And if left alone, it spreads—it grows until it hardens the heart completely.

Israel thought they could handle it. They thought they could flirt with sin and still keep their relationship with God. But sin always takes more than you intend to give, and it always keeps you longer than you plan to stay.

And yet—right in the middle of Hosea’s message of judgment—there’s still grace. Because the same God who exposes sin is the God who can heal it.

Hosea 6:1 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.”

That’s the invitation of the gospel: come home. Stop running. Stop hiding. Stop pretending everything’s fine. The only way to be free from sin’s grip is to run back to the God who loves you enough to call you out of it.

When Hosea’s wife, Gomer, walked away, Hosea went and bought her back. That’s a picture of what Jesus has done for us. We walked away, but He pursued us. We sold ourselves into sin, but He paid the price to bring us home.

So maybe this morning, your fellowship with God has been broken. You’ve drifted. Maybe sin has dulled your heart or distorted your thinking. Or maybe you’ve just been worshiping from a place of convenience instead of conviction.

The good news is—you can come home.

God isn’t finished with you. He doesn’t reject a repentant heart; He restores it.

So here’s the question: Are you going to keep running, or are you going to return? Are you going to keep excusing sin, or are you going to let Jesus cleanse your heart?

Because sin hurts, but grace heals. Sin takes your heart, but Jesus gives it back.

And when He does—when your heart belongs fully to Him—you’ll finally see what Hosea wanted Israel to see all along: that God’s love isn’t just trying to fix you. It’s trying to free you.

So return to the Lord. Let Him heal your heart. Because when you love God, you’ll hate sin—and you’ll run from it straight into the arms of grace.