Knowing God

(ESV) 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.

INTRO

C.S. Lewis, the re-known Christian Apologist Apologista is quoted as having said "There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one." Today the question posed to us by the message this morning is, DO YOU KNOW THE ONE ANSWER? Let me rephrase that in the context of this passage that we read....

Do you have the required knowledge, or are you still exploring all the other views? I must say, that there is only one truth that matters.

The fourth chapter of the book of Hosea starts of with an indictment acusación of the people of Isreal. God is levying Imponer a charge against his people. He has brought forth a "Covenant Lawsuit" ( Demanda del Pacto). His people have failed not only by not attempting to know God, but by rejecting the knowledge of God. His priest have failed by not leading the people to know God. This is an affront (afrenta) to God, it is a betrayal of the Covenant, and so judgment must be proclaimed.

Mathew Henry's commentary states: They forgot the law of God, neither desired nor endeavoured to retain it in mind, nor to transmit the remembrance of it to their posterity Ni deseaban ni pretendían retenerlo en mente, ni transmitir el recuerdo de ello a su posteridad

Because of this God declares that His people are being destroyed, not only as a matter of Judgement, but as a statement of fact. In Duet 6:4-9 God calls His people to Hear! He instructs them to Love Him, to keep His word in their hearts, and teach it to their generations, to write them on their doorposts and bind it to their hands and place it on their foreheads. But Isreal neglects to do this Shema, and because of their neglect they faced exile and national destruction. Hosea is diagnosing the problem of Israel, they have no knowledge because they have neglected the instruction of the Shema.

It seems to me that our nation today faces a similar crisis. We have a full assault on our children from all sorts of media with regards to their sexuality, and what is morally right. Christians are judged in the streets as bigots, hateful people for rejecting immorality. Our government looses consciousness that it once declared "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Sostenemos que estas verdades son evidentes, que todos los hombres son creados iguales, que son dotados por su Creador de ciertos Derechos inalienables, entre los cuales están la Vida, la Libertad y la búsqueda de la Felicidad. It looses sight of an ideal that once called out and said...

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

"Dame tu cansado, tu pobre,

Sus masas apiñadas anhelando respirar libremente,

La desdichada basura de tu orilla llena de agua.

Envía a estos, a los desamparados, a la tempestad-arrojados a mí,

¡Levanto mi lámpara junto a la puerta de oro!

This ideal is being lost, even now as a woman is being torn from her children and 24 years of life, here in our very own community.

Is God looking upon His Church today, upon our nations, and finding reason to bring a covenant lawsuit against us? Have we been found lacking in faithfulness, kindness, and the knowledge of God? Have we his priest neglected to bring our people to the knowledge of the Lord?

I. God Desires To Be Know & We Need To Know God

* God demands we know Him

We can determine that if God is angered by our ignorance of him, then conversely he is pleased with us knowing Him. Moreover, God is not simply pleased with us knowing Him but He demands that we know him.

In the OT God decrees in the Shema

* Consequences of Ignorance

II. God Is Knowable & Reveals Himself

* God is inscrutable

* God's General Revelation

* God's Special Revelation

* Scripture

* Jesus

III. God's Supreme Revelation Through Jesus

* Man's need to know Him

* Man's charge to share the knowledge

* Man's evidence of knowing God

Conclusion