Yahweh Has a Controversy – Hosea 4:1-6

Could Yahweh bring a controversy, a legal case, against the church in America, more specifically, the evangelical church?  I believe so.  We have forsaken His law with our anger and hatred against those we deem politically “other.”  We have closed our hearts to people seeking refuge in our great land.  We have vilified the minority populations, and even those who have a sensitivity to this, calling them the pejorative term “woke.”  We do not look like the church of Jesus Christ anymore, but rather a twisted and inbred imitation.  We need the message of Hosea.

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.  (Hosea 4:1-6 ESV)

Yahweh has illustrated His relationship to Israel through Hosea’s life and the judgment that is coming.  Now He begins to bring the evidence for why judgment is needed, entering into a “controversy” or court case with His people.  They are guilty of disloyalty to Yahweh and of failing to teach the true knowledge of who God is.  In consequence they have broken all the boundaries of the 10 commandments with lying, murder, stealing and adultery, so that the land experiences God’s curses for disobedience, no longer being fruitful.

Yahweh is particularly upset with the leaders of His people, the priests and prophets, who are responsible for teaching the truth about Him.  God will destroy mother Israel and His people because they lack and have rejected true knowledge about Him, and He has rejected the priests who have forgotten the Law.

With knowledge of God comes responsibility, the responsibility to teach that knowledge to others in an unbroken generational chain.  To not teach it is to reject it.  Are you teaching the knowledge of God?