No Knowledge of God - Hosea 4

3:00As we studied the letter to the Colossians, one of the themes that kept coming up over and over in the New Testament letter to the Colossians was Paul's emphasis on the importance of knowledge. How important knowledge is, that he's praying for the Colossians, that they would be full of knowledge, the knowledge of God, that they would be growing. And he talks about how he has been toiling and struggling in order to build up the churches to maturity, that they may have the fullness of knowledge and wisdom that's found in Christ. Knowledge was such a big emphasis for Christians. And if there's a book that parallels that emphasis on knowledge in the Old Testament, it might be Hosea. We're going to see why today. Over and over and over, the people are going to be condemned for not knowing the Lord, not knowing him relationally. We'll see some of that today. That they're acting like they don't know him at all. And not knowing what the Lord wants. They have no knowledge of what he wants, what his word says, any of that. We've seen this already in chapter 2, verse 13, he said, I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. He says they no longer have this knowledge of me. They forgot about me. The people of Israel had gone after the Baals, after these false gods. They traded true worship for worship of false gods. But then, 10 verses later, in the message of hope to them, look in verse 19, he says, And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. So, already he set up this theme of you forgot me. You forgot me and ran after these false gods. In the future, after I bless you and I betroth you to myself, you're going to know the Lord. That's what he says. And that's going to be the theme of the chapters that we'll see: that the people in Hosea's day have no knowledge of God. The people in Hosea's day have no knowledge of God. Pray with me before we begin. God, we ask that you'd help us be humble as we study this passage, that you'd help us be people who love to sit under your word, who love to read your word and understand it, love to see the way that you speak to Israel, that you speak to your people in the Old Testament, so that we can learn all about you, all about your character, all about what you want.

6:00Christians, we pray that you would help us be people that know you, that know you relationally, so that we can say we know you, but also people who know all about you, who have studied your word, who can't get enough of it. Help us be people like that. Help us be people that know the scriptures so that we're not led astray. We thank you, God, for your word. You're so gracious to have spoken to mankind through your prophets and through the apostles. Help us be people to pay attention even tonight as we study your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

6:45Hosea chapter 4, verse 1. 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. This is his complaint. This is his controversy. The Lord has seen his people. He's been paying attention. And his indictment upon the children of Israel is that they have no faithfulness. There's no truth and righteousness and faithfulness to their character like a faithful wife.

7:30They have no steadfast love, that faithful love, that loyal love. They don't have any of that for each other. And finally, they have no knowledge of God in the land. And the way he develops the rest of these, we're going to try and cover two chapters today. That seems to be the root cause. They don't have this knowledge. They've forgotten the Lord. They've forgotten what he wants. And it's led to just all kinds of other things, including having no faithfulness and having no love, no steadfast, loyal love. These are characteristics, essential characteristics that we love about the Lord, that he is the faithful God. Great is thy faithfulness. We love to sing that song. That he is the God who does have steadfast love. He doesn't back out on his promises. He's loyal. He's faithful. He keeps his promise. He loves us.

8:30These are things that we love about the Lord. And yet these people have abandoned this because they have no knowledge of God. They've left all that. Instead, they have filled it with some other things. Look at verse 2. There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery. They break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Sounds like he's just almost listing off the Ten Commandments, right? It's like breaking everything they could. There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery. They break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. So they're spilling each other's blood. They're not respecting boundaries. They're moving boundary stones, we'll see later. They're quick to lie. They're fine with murder. They steal from each other. They commit adultery. And then the first one, they're swearing. Usually, when we hear that in English, it makes us think they're saying bad words or something like that, right? When we say swearing. But remember in Scripture that usually the sin that he's talking about when he says swearing is they're swearing by the Lord's name or something like that. They're swearing and not keeping their promises. They're taking the name of the Lord in vain, which we'll see also later in this passage. Okay, so they are swearing. They're taking these oaths that they're not filling.

9:56They are lying. They're murdering. They're stealing. They're committing adultery. All of this because they don't have a knowledge of God. They don't have faithfulness. They don't have love. Verse 3: 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. Because of their sin, creation in the land, nature in the land is suffering itself. And this might be the Lord saying that that's because Assyria is about to come and Conquer them, and so after that, there's going to be no one to take care of the land, and so the land's going to suffer something like that.

10:38But it's clear that their sin is affecting the land. You know, this might also be because of the covenant curses and blessings. God had made it clear to them that as they continue on in their sin, God's going to send pestilence, God's going to send drought, God's going to send these curses upon them. Well, now they're sinning all over the place. That's all they do. They have no knowledge, no faithfulness, no steadfast love. All they are doing is sinning in all of these ways. And so the land is mourning, and all who dwell in it languish. All the people in it are starving, they're languishing. Even the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven, and even the fish of the sea are taken away. There's all this suffering because of their sin. Now, those first three verses is really a summary of their whole list of sins. Really, for the next two chapters, it's this general indictment saying, Here is everything wrong that you're doing. Because you don't have these three things, you do all these other things. You've forgotten the Lord, you've moved on. The Lord is going to judge them. Now, a quick note about structure.

11:57Hosea, you know, most of the prophets we have. Usually, about once a chapter, maybe two or three times a chapter, they have a statement that says something like, hear the word of the Lord, or the word of the Lord says, or thus declares the Lord, something like that. So you kind of know when it gets broken apart, when they're about to start a new section, something like that. In Hosea, surprisingly, that happens one time, and that's in chapter 4, verse 1. So hear the word of the Lord. And then he doesn't say that again. In chapter 11, he'll say something like, declares the Lord. But for a long time, we don't know what these little chunks are. But I think you'll see that as we go through it, it's pretty clear when he's changing topics and things like that. And I think he changes in verse 4. He changes from talking this general indictment about the whole land and all the sins they commit to speaking specifically about the priests and the leaders. Let's look. Chapter 4, verse 4. Yet, let no one contend and let none accuse.

13:04And then here the ESV says, For with you is my contention, O priest. And you'll see, if you have an ESV, you'll see a footnote there that says, Or, for your people are like those who contend with the priest. And that's more like if you have an NIV, that's what it says, or if you have an NASB, that's what it says. And I think that's the better way to translate it. Let no one contend and let none accuse, for your people are like those who contend with the priest. The priests. So he's about to bring up all of these sins that the priests have done. And he's just talked about all the sins that the people have done. But everybody is wicked. And so I think the Lord is saying something like: now, don't pretend you're innocent and start blaming it on someone else.

13:50You know, the people, and really rightly so, things should be blamed on the priests, as we'll see in just a minute. But I think the Lord is kind of setting straight, we're not going to blame shift here. Take responsibility for your own blame. Don't be people that just start accusing everybody else and accusing the priesthood or something like that. But God is about to accuse the priesthood Himself. And so He's taken away that from the people. He's saying, Let no one contend, let none accuse, for your people are like those who contend with the priest. Don't keep on doing this, don't keep on contending. But, priest, verse 5, you shall stumble by day. The prophet also shall stumble with you by night. And I will destroy your mother.

14:38Does anybody remember who the mother is? Israel, right? Last time, just going on with that theme of Hosea and Gomer, that picture of the unfaithful wife and their children together, he started to every now and then refer to Israel as. As their mother, the people of Israel's mother. So the people of Israel are their children, and the nation of Israel itself is the mother. And so he's saying, You, priests, shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother. So God is giving them a message of judgment. Because you have, as leaders, allowed the people to and encouraged the people to go down this road of total sin.

15:27The priests are going to stumble, the prophets are going to stumble, and Israel is going to be destroyed. Why? Look at verse 6. 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. He says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The people of Israel don't know about their own God anymore. They've chased after these other gods so much they don't remember what the Lord wants. They don't remember that they're supposed to be faithful to him. But it's not just a lack of knowledge, it's a rejection of knowledge. This has been offered to them. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge. I've Reject you from being a priest to me. So, these priests that were supposed to be the ones that bring them back to the truth or who hear the words of the prophets and change, these priests have rejected that knowledge and led the people to the same rejection so that nobody knows what's going on anymore. Nobody knows the Lord.

16:53So, 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. That's another pattern we see in Scripture: that when a branch of the priesthood goes off the deep end, when they start rebelling against the Lord, that sometimes the Lord will take that priestly line and just say, Okay, your kids can't be the priests anymore. You can work as Levites in the temple or something like that.

17:24He holds up the faithful lines of the priesthood and lets them continue to serve in the temple, but the others he does not. And that seems to be what's going on here. The priests have rejected knowledge, and remember what they're rejecting. He is preaching, he starts, Hosea starts teaching in the reign of Jeroboam, but then he continues presumably all the way almost until the northern kingdom gets taken away by Assyria. But who has just preached right before him? Who's another priest? Minor prophet that we've just studied that's talking to almost this exact same group of people 10 or 20 years earlier. Amos, right? He's said all these things before. He's said, the Lord has sent the prophet. It's not like there isn't knowledge. That's the point I'm trying to make. It's not like there isn't knowledge. The prophets have come, they've made the points clear. The Lord has spoken through them. The priests have said, no thanks. We're going to let the people go into ignorance. And we'll see why in just a minute. Verse 7: The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.

18:37I 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 priests. I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. So these priests seem to, part of the reason why they don't care if the people are sinning and sinning and sinning is that the priests are benefiting from this in some way. They're feeding off the sins of the people. They're feeding off their iniquities. That word sin can also be taken as sin offerings, which would make sense because the priests literally feed off the sin offerings, right? And so, you know, if they are feeding off the sin of the people, if they are benefiting financially or with their food or in whatever way, then they're refusing. To get the people to change, because they're benefiting when the people sin. So, rather than being faithful to the Lord, they're just watching out for themselves. It shall be like people, like priests. I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. So, just like the people of Israel are going to be destroyed, so are the priests. They're not going to be spared. 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. So, another part of the issue is that these priests have begun to cherish wine. Their understanding has been limited because they won't stop drinking wine, old wine, and new wine.

20:14These things take away understanding. Verse 12: 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. You can see this repeated phrase over and over. The people of Israel are playing the whore. They're acting like a prostitute when they go after all these other gods. And just like the priests are rejecting knowledge and drinking wine, so they don't have any understanding either, so the people, when they do seek knowledge, they're seeking it from a piece of wood.

20:54They're seeking it from a stick. My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives. Them oracles. 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. So he's saying idolatry is all over the place. We hear about this in a lot of the prophets: how any time there's a good tree for shade, someone's going to go there and worship some idol.

21:35That's happening everywhere in the northern kingdom now. Verse 14, 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. A people without understanding shall come to ruin. So, first he says, this has gotten so bad that even the leading men, they all are seeking after these prostitutes. They all are doing some kind of pagan religious rites with prostitutes. They're seeking after all of these things. And so the Lord said, okay, fine. If you want to jump into that world of prostitution, real prostitution, and you want to jump into that world of spiritual prostitution, of worshiping the idols. Then I'm going to let you go there. And I'm not going to punish your daughters or anything like that when they follow in your footsteps and do the same thing. That's what he says.

22:42As a summary, he says at the end of verse 14: A people without understanding shall come to ruin. A people without understanding shall come to ruin. So again, their issue is they have no knowledge of God. They don't have this understanding. And when this northern kingdom has left behind all this knowledge, when they've rejected the prophets and rejected the word of God and rejected knowledge, then they have no understanding. And when they have no understanding, they come to ruin.

23:22To finish chapter 4, he gives a warning to Judah. Listen to this warning. Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-Avon, and swear not, as the Lord lives. He's saying to Judah, don't copy them. These are the same altars that the northern kingdom that Amos, over and over and over and over, condemned the people for going to. Bethel and Gilgal. Bethel and Gilgal, these places where they. Went to worship. And God is saying, Judah, in the southern kingdom, your northern kingdom is doing this. The northern kingdom is doing this. But you don't go up to those altars. Don't join them in that false worship. Now you'll notice it doesn't say Bethel, right? It doesn't say Bethel. It says Beth Avon.

24:21Beth Avon. And you might be thinking to yourself, I've never heard of that place. Well, it's really, I think, just a play on words with Bethel. You can write down Amos 5:5, but when we studied Amos, actually, let's just go there. In Amos, this is chapter 5, starting in verse 4, he says, For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel. Now, remember, this is probably 10 or 20 years before the prophecy that we're reading today. Okay, so this is recent history for them. This is the word of the Lord to the northern kingdom. Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over into Beersheba. For Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing. And when he says that, both of those, I don't know if you remember when we studied, both of those are kind of puns. They sound like when he says that Gilgal shall go into... Exile, I can't say the word for you right now, but it sounds a lot like Gilgal. They shall go into exile.

25:38And then the next one, Beth El shall come to nothing. That word nothing is translated into English as Avon. And so they've changed from the house of God, that's what Beth-El means, to now it seems like they've started referring to it as the house of nothing. God's not there anymore. It was Beth El, the house of God. Now it's Beth Avon, the house of nothing. And I think Hosea, being shortly after Amos, picks up after this. Amos said, Beth-el shall come to nothing. And so now Hosea, in our passage, chapter 4, at the end of verse 15, he says, Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth Avon, the house of nothing, and swear not as the Lord lives. There's the swearing again. You know, as the Lord lives, I'll keep this promise. As the Lord lives, I'll do such and such. He's saying, don't swear like that. Don't be like Israel when they do these things. Verse 16, like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn. Can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in broad pasture?

26:47You know, I think that's a picture of blessing of a shepherd leading a lamb through a broad pasture. And the sheep follow the shepherd. They're not stubborn. They follow the shepherd to these green pastures. They eat their food, and then they follow their shepherd back to safety. They're not stubborn. But the northern kingdom is like a stubborn cow. Israel is stubborn. So, how can the Lord lead them to these pastures if they're not going to follow, if they're not going to listen to the words of the prophets? They're being stubborn. And God is saying, Judah, don't be like that.

27:28Ephraim is joined to idols. Ephraim was one of the main tribes in the northern kingdom. And for the rest of the book of Hosea, a lot of times he calls the northern kingdom Ephraim. So he says it here in verse 17: 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. God is saying, Southern kingdom, Judah, you look at the northern kingdom, and I'm telling you, it's not going to go well for them. They love shame, they love wine, and when the wine runs out, they turn to prostitution. He's saying, Don't do that, southern kingdom. It's not going to go well for the northern kingdom. Leave him alone. Stay away from that stuff.

28:27That's God's warning to Judah. But unfortunately, Judah doesn't always follow that. They'll end up going to exile themselves. But let's look at chapter 5. Hear this, O priests. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king, for the judgment is for you. Okay, so now he's speaking to all the leaders. He's saying, pay attention. Listen to me. Stop going down this road. Hear this, O priests. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king, for the judgment is for you. I think that can be a tendency for all of us. When we hear judgment or we hear something negative, we can assume it affects everybody else except us. You know, we can be optimists about that kind of thing. I think he's trying to get the people not to do that. He's trying to get the people not to just assume they're exceptions or something like that, that the judgment of the Lord isn't applying to them, that the sins aren't the sins that they're committing. It's the sins that other people are committing. So he's saying, no, the judgment is for you. Listen. Give ear. Pay attention. The priests, the king, the whole house of Israel, pay attention, for you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor. We don't really know why he mentions those places, but they did.

29:53Something happened there. Maybe there's more idolatry there. Maybe they allied with the wrong military. Force there, or something like that. But their snare, their innet spread, verse 2, and the revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them. So you just have this idea that the people are rebelling against the Lord. They're revolting. And just as he said at the beginning of chapter 4, they're murdering, there's bloodshed upon bloodshed. The revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them. The hand of the Lord is about to be on them for discipline.

30:34Verse 3. They don't know the Lord. They have no knowledge of God. But verse 3, I know Ephraim. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. For now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore. Israel is defiled. 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. They know not the Lord. God is saying, I know the northern kingdom. I know Ephraim. I know Israel. But they know not the Lord.

31:16They've stopped paying attention to the Lord, but he hasn't stopped paying attention to them. Their way is not hidden. He sees all the sins that they've been committing. Verse 5, the pride of Israel testifies to his faith. Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt. Judah also shall stumble with them. So it seems like God is already foretelling that Judah is not going to follow the warning that he just gave in chapter 4. Judah is going to stumble with the people. With their flocks and herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord, for they have borne alien children.

32:00Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. So just one of the one that just as after all the exiles, when they come back, they have this problem with marrying foreign wives and bearing foreign children that are full of idolatry. That seems to be a problem even now. They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord. They have borne foreign children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. So the new moon, instead of being this time of a festival, a time of thanking the Lord for what's been going on, it's just going to be another sign of their destruction because destruction is coming in verse 8.

32:46But back in verse 6, with their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them. So they have rejected the knowledge of the Lord, and the Lord is saying, there's going to be a time now. Ephraim and Judah, there's going to be a time now where you seek the Lord and you can't find him. He has withdrawn. Verse 8. Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Rhema. Sound the alarm at Beth-Avon. We follow you, O Benjamin.

33:23What does that sound like? Why would you blow the horn or the trumpet or the alarm? Somebody's coming, right? The Assyrians are coming. They're going to be attacked. These cities are sounding their alarms because the forces are coming. We follow you, O Benjamin. That's actually a quote from Judges 5, from the song of Deborah in Barak. I don't know if you remember that story, but they have this victory, and part of it is they're singing about how at least some of the tribes banded together and helped fight off this enemy. And that's a line in it. We follow you, O Benjamin. And it was Ephraim saying that. And so God says it here. We follow you, O Benjamin. Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment among the tribes of Israel. I make known what is sure.

34:22Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment among the tribes of Israel. I make known what is sure. So, just as Amos stopped asking the Lord for more mercy because the Lord told him to, and just as God told his people through Hosea's child, no mercy, that he was going to stop having mercy, the Lord is repeating that idea again. It is so bad. It is so wicked. There is no more chance for mercy. This is coming.

34:58I make known what is sure. This prophecy is probably getting even closer to the time where Assyria is going to come and attack the northern kingdom. This is probably in like the 740s that Hosea is giving this. And so it's like less than 20 years, maybe 20 years, 722 is when Assyria would come. So that's coming soon, in just a couple of decades. And God says, I make known what is sure. Verse 10, the princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark. Upon them I will pour out my wrath like water. Remember, that was something that was forbidden in the Old Testament law, to be that sneaky kind of person that, you know, you want your property to be bigger. And so maybe they didn't have as good surveys back then or something like that. And so the way you make your property bigger is in the middle of the night, you run out to the fields and you take the little stone that marks the border between you. Your house and your neighbor's house, and you pick up the stone and you move it a little closer to your neighbor's house so that your land just got bigger. Right? And the Lord prohibited this in his law. They're not to act like that, they're not to move these boundaries and expand their territory like that. And he's saying, That's what the leaders of Judah are like. The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark. Upon them, I will pour out my wrath like water. So they're being sneaky, they're being deceptive, these leaders of Judah. They haven't followed the Lord's warning, they won't follow the Lord's warning that He gave them to not be like Israel. Verse 11: Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth, or determined to go after the commands or the traditions of men. But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

36:58To both kingdoms, God is declaring that he has become something against them, a moth to destroy them, a dry rot to destroy them. For the northern kingdom, this will happen in 20 years when they get taken off by Assyria. But even in the southern kingdom, it'll happen in about 40 years when Assyria comes and surrounds them and destroys a lot of the land. They don't take over Jerusalem yet, but then it'll happen again about 120 years after that. When Babylon does come and destroy the temple and take over the whole land, and the people go into exile. So they haven't followed the Lord's warning. Verse 13: When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king, but he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. I think he's referencing there, there's a story. So if we're running through dates really quickly, in the first half of the 700s BC, you know, so something like 793, I think it's 793 to 753, there was one king in the northern kingdom, Jeroboam II. That's a really long reign, right? 40 years, 793 down to 753 BC.

38:19Well, after that, there's a little bit of a quick succession. There's a guy who reigns just one year, and then he's killed. That was the fourth descendant of Jehu, which was a fulfillment of a prophecy, if you remember that. So he gets killed, but then the guy who kills him and takes over the throne, he only rules for one month, and then he gets killed. And then in 752, this guy named Menahem, he's the one who killed this one-month king. He rules, and he rules for 10 years. So this is a little bit of a long reign, but it's a king that we often forget about. Menahem reigned from 752 BC to 742 BC. Now, this is the, they're about to. Be sacked in 722 BC. So he starts his reign when they only have 30 years left, and he ends his reign when they only have 20 years left. But in part of his reign, what happens is the king of Assyria comes down, and you can read about this in 2 Kings 15. The king of Assyria comes down and is strong, has strong military forces, and Menahem at some point has stopped, like eight years into his reign, has stopped trusting that he can hold on to his reign. He's scared about maybe being attacked in the same way he attacked the guy before him, or something like that. And so, what he decides to do is to buy Assyria's help.

39:49And he gives him outrageous amounts of silver, basically for his protection, to set up Menahem as like the Assyrian-recognized king, you know, the officially recognized king of Israel. And so he buys off the king of Assyria so that he can have that help. And he only reigns two more years after that, anyways, or one more year after that, anyways. But you still have this idea that he didn't go to the Lord for help. It's like he didn't even think about that.

40:19He needed help reigning this kingdom, and so he gets help from Assyria, the very kingdom, the very empire that's about to destroy them in 20 years. I think that's what he's referencing in verse 13. When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king, but he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off and no one shall rescue. So you see, the Lord's point is: okay, that's a clever idea, what you did when you asked for help. But I'm telling you that I, the Lord, I'm the one who's against you. I'm the one who's going to rip you up like a lion. What do you think they're going to do? You think they're going to protect you from me? This is from me.

41:16I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a young lion to the house of Judah. That's why this king, this great king, is not able to cure you. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off and none shall rescue. They're doomed. It's too late. No mercy. Not my people. Verse 15, I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me. So God's saying, just as he said in chapter 5, verse 6 earlier, that he's withdrawing from them. Not going to be able to find him anymore. Verse 15 again, I will return again to my place. God's saying, okay, I'm done. I'm done protecting this northern kingdom of Israel. They're not going to receive my mercy anymore until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress, earnestly seek me.

42:21Now, he does have a whisper of hope there at the end, right? He's saying, I am done for now. It doesn't have to be forever. Someday, if we're adding this to chapters 2 and 3, they are going to earnestly seek the Lord, and he'll return to them. But for now, God says, I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress, earnestly seek me. They haven't sought the Lord. They've hated that knowledge from the prophets.

42:58And I think if we were to try and pinpoint the greatest takeaway from this passage is that we do not want to be people who have no knowledge of God. We do not want to be people that reject knowledge of God. Every now and then in Christian circles, we hear something like that. We hear, you know, this hatred of knowledge. You know, it's all about those. Say something like it's all about relationship, which is, you know, we do have a relationship with the Lord. But they'll say something like, it's all about relationship, so we don't need to worry about knowledge. We don't need to study. We need to experience God or experience the Holy Spirit or something like that. And when you come to them and you talk to them about studying the scriptures with you, they might not even be interested in that. And they'll quote to you something like, knowledge puffs up, like we see elsewhere in Scripture, which is in Scripture. And that's a warning we need to pay attention to. But clearly, that doesn't mean that God wants his people to just never have knowledge. We saw that in Colossians, and we see it now in Hosea. That when a people has no understanding, that people shall come to ruin. Just this idea that you can't just reject knowledge. Instead, we should be people that flee to the Word of God and soak up as much knowledge as we can, that can't get away from it. I think that's the opposite of what they had done. And because of that, because they had rejected knowledge of the Lord, because they didn't know him anymore, and because they didn't know about him, they didn't have steadfast love. They didn't have faithfulness. They didn't have these characteristics that God wanted his people to have. Instead, they filled up their life with all kinds of sin. And even on an individual level, That can be true of you as well, right? And true of me. We can have these periods of our life where we reject knowledge of the Lord or we live without understanding. Maybe it's because of alcohol, like it was listed in this passage, you know, that we're willing to let something take away our understanding. Maybe it's just a lackadaisical attitude of, you know, watching too much TV or, you know, something like that. But just this idea of we're not paying attention to our walk.

45:35And we're not paying attention to the Word of God. And before you know it, you've gone down this path of all these different sins. And so it's just another warning to us to pay attention, to pay attention to the word, to pay attention to what God has said. As Christians, this should be even more so the case for us, right? We are people who have been saved by grace, completely, eternally changed. God's righteousness has been applied to us. And so we should be people that, out of gratitude and love for that, out of thanksgiving for the gospel, that seek after knowledge, that seek after the Word of God, and try and fill up our lives with studying scripture, studying with each other, studying on our own, so that we are not people that lack understanding. Because in their Life, you could see this direct relationship that their lack of knowledge led them into sin. And though it wouldn't look the same for us, you know, we're probably not going to go and consult a stick for knowledge, right?

46:46Most of us probably are not going to go and consult or spend time with a prostitute or something like that. You know, our sins are going to be different. But I think that we could say a similar principle applies: that when we're not paying attention to what the Lord wants, well, of course, we're going to go down and sin. We're going to go down the path of sin. Because if we don't know what he wants, how can we do what he wants? I think that was the issue for Israel. They had rejected the Lord. Judgment was coming. We'll read more about it in the future. But for now, pray with me.

47:22Father, we pray that you would help us be people that have a knowledge of you. People that know you as our Father, people that love you, have steadfast love, have faithfulness. But also people who know about you, who have listened to the prophets and the apostles and scripture. Help us be people that dive deep into your word, that seek to know your word. Word inside and out. Not because we want to puff ourselves up with knowledge, not because we want to make much of ourselves, but because the more we know about you and your word, then the better we can please you. The more we can know about your character, the closer we can be to you as our Father.

48:25The more we can know about your attributes and what you want from us. So help us be people that seek after your wisdom. Help us be people that keep you in our minds rather than people that run after sin. Help us be people that are happy to know your word and obey it for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.