It’s quite easy to have a comfy religion, but God would have you come to a living faith. Comfy religion is where you can do a bit of “church stuff” on Sundays, but it’s not too demanding. It doesn’t require too much of you for the rest of the week. You think, “God’s happy; I’m happy. All’s ok.”
But then you get some bad news: Work, health, family problem. And suddenly you don’t know which way to turn. Hosea 6 & 7 call you to come to a living faith in God.
Here there is peace, and resilience for all of life.
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered at Bromborough Evangelical Church in September 2024. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
The Lord sees through your sham religion (6:1-6)
In chapters 1-3 we saw how Israel were God’s bride, but that she was adulterous – going after other gods. She had abandoned her husband (God), though he loved her. Chapters 4-14 meditate on how God’s people left him.
We saw last time in chapters 4 & 5 that there was no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God in the land. That led to a country in a mess. Uncomfortably, the words apply to our own times – and our individual lives too. A mess without God.
One response to all that might be to “find religion”. And so we come to the lovely – and a bit surprising – v1-3.
Finding religion
Read Hosea 6:1-3.
On Hosea’s lips – or on the lips of any faithful believer – these are lovely verses. But it’s possible to pray those verses in a way that is treating God with contempt, as if he’s some kind of puppet. It seems the people thought to pray things like this but in a way that tried to coerce God, rather than in real repentance. You can hear them: “Right, we need to get back to God, back to worship, and he’ll sort all our problems out in 2, maybe 3, days.”
You might well have hoped for something similar yourself. Turn over a new leaf. “Right, I’m gonna do this.” A fresh start.
Love, not sacrifice – Relationship, not religion
But God sees right through it. Read Hosea 6:4-6.
To understand the problem, you can see how Jesus understood verse 6 in particular: Read Matthew 9:9-13. The Pharisees were more interested in their own religious observance and reputation, than in restoring a sinner (Levi) to a knowledge of God. Levi’s life was transformed into relationship with Jesus.
Religious practice is an expression of living faith, not a substitute for it.
Obviously, every Christian here has religious practice too: Baptism, Lord’s Table, going to church, Bible reading, gathering for prayer, etc. Does that make us like the Pharisees, bringing religion instead of love (verse 6 again)?
Religious practice is an expression of living faith, not a substitute for it.
There will be people all over the country gathering at church thinking they’re doing good, but God wants you to come to a living faith, to come to know him.
He sees through your sham religion. He calls you to himself.
How can you tell if your religion is just sham? In part, it’s how you live when you’re away from from Christian influence:
The Lord knows all your secret sins (6:7-7:2)
It seems the nation were keeping up with religion “at church” but their lives elsewhere denied the faith.
Specifically, they denied the covenant God made with them.
Read Hosea 6:7.
- It’s not 100% clear whether Adam was a place, or he’s referring to Adam of the garden of Eden.
- Either way, God’s covenants aren’t like a purchase contract with lots of terms and conditions.
- They’re commitments of love, where he binds himself to us in grace and goodness, so disobedience is betrayal.
Read Hosea 6:8.
- The specifics are lost to history, but they were known by God. He sees the sin others can’t see or remember.
See Hosea 6:9.
- Shechem was a City of Refuge.
- If you killed someone accidentally you could go to a City of Refuge and be heard by a court.
- Murder carried the death sentence, but if the court agreed it was manslaughter you could stay in that city in safety.
- Priests were supposed to teach and uphold those laws, so for them to murder people going to Shechem is wicked.
- They thought is was secret. But God knew about it.
Read Hosea 6:10-11a.
- Remember the nation was split: Israel (10 tribes) in the north, Judah (2 tribes) in the south. Ephraim is often used by the prophets to refer to Israel in the north.
- The exact issue in v10-11 is again lost to us, but it was known by God. He knows your secret sins.
Read Hosea 6:11b-7:2.
- All your sin will be exposed, because it is all known.
- Fraud and theft are done in secret, but all will be exposed.
Double lives
Some Christians frankly lead double lives.
Here, you might be nice as pie. A model Christian, even. But elsewhere, you use coarse language, tell smutty jokes, read dodgy books and websites: You fit in with unbelieving people as if you were one. Do you really think God is pleased? Or that he doesn’t see?
God has said to you, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, quoting Deuteronomy 31:6).
- It’s a beautiful and reassuring promise.
- But it’s a promise with two edges, and Hosea 7:2 is the edge you’d rather forget: “But they never consider that I remember all their evil.”
Walk in the light
All Christians sin. But there’s a difference between someone who walks in the light but steps in darkness, and someone who walks in the dark. Confess your sins to God.
He is faithful and just to forgive. You can’t be punished for your sins because Jesus has taken all the punishment already. But you can be corrected and disciplined.
In 2 Samuel 11, King David was somewhere he shouldn’t have been. He saw a woman and took her. He got her pregnant, and then had her husband killed in battle to cover up his sin. David added sin to sin to sin, and all along it was all known to God. He was held accountable, though forgiven.
Christian, what will you do with the sin you keep coming back to?
Will you carry on hiding it, pretending it’s no big thing?
Or will you go to God with open heart and hands and say, “I have sinned against you. Please forgive me.”
Sin damages people, including you. So:
The Lord grieves over your restless heart (7:3-19)
There are things in life that cause us anxiety and restlessness. Jesus invites you to rest in him: Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
But often a restless heart is caused by the stress of sin within. Hosea gives a string of similes to make the point:
An oven that can’t cool down
Read Hosea 7:3-7.
- He’s speaking particularly about the rulers of the country.
- They urge one another in sin, and their lies and intrigues pile up and entangle.
- You reach a stage where you’re so caught up in your own sin and the sins of others that you can’t get out.
- A baker can stoke an oven up (like a log burner), so it’s really really hot. You couldn’t cool it down if you wanted to.
- And sin entangles you so much it’s hard to get out of what you’ve done.
Half raw, half burned
Read Hosea 7:8.
- Like a piece of bread in a grill: Burned on one half, untoasted on the other.
- You might find you actually get no rest in church or at work (or home, etc).
- You’re all burnt out in one, but still raw in the other.
- What kind of half-baked life is that?
Self-deluded “I’m ok”
Read Hosea 7:9-10.
- “I’m young, strong, capable, doing ok.”
- But you’re not noticing that unbelieving people are consuming your strength as you compromise with sin with them.
- How awful not then to seek the Lord through self-delusion and arrogant self-confidence. It’s not about you.
A silly dove
Read Hosea 7:11-12.
- Going to Assyria and Egypt for help was like asking bullies to help you with a problem: They’re going to dominate you.
- If you find yourself looking in different directions for peace, happiness, trying everything to please everyone, you’re a silly dove.
- There is rest for you in the invitation of Jesus. Go to him.
A faulty bow?
- Read Hosea 7:13-16.
- A faulty bow will look like the real thing, but in time of battle it’ll be useless. It’s arrows will fall short, off target.
- You cry and wail your sin and trouble, but you don’t actually cry out to God for help, for forgiveness, for compassion.
- If anything, you go to self-help books and herbal remedy.
Maybe some of this has resonated with you. Maybe a lot has. You’re a sinful person.
But there’s no delight in God’s heart to see you so restless. He invites you to find rest in him.
He holds these things up for you in Hosea to act like a mirror for you to see yourself truly. See the sinner in the mirror.
Because only once you’ve understood yourself as a sinner will you turn to the one who has dealt with all your sin.
- The Lord sees through your sham religion.
- He knows all your secret sins.
- The Lord grieves your restless heart. And:
He wants you to know his love (7:13)
Read Hosea 7:13 again. Amid all that description of rebellion, we see what God would rather happen: “I want to redeem them.”
About 100 years or so after Hosea, Ezekiel was another prophet. Read Ezekiel 18:30-32.
Everything that’s been said about sham religion, and secret and destructive sin, is so that you will return to God.
“I want to redeem them,” he said. What does redeem mean? It’s a payment of a price to buy something (someone) back. In Hosea 3:1-2 God told Hosea to go and love his unfaithful wife again: He had to buy her back. Real cost. And that’s a picture of how God has paid a price to redeem his people, his bride.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.
1 Peter 1:18-19 For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.
Redeemed in love
You were bound to death because of your sin. By taking death on himself, Jesus has redeemed you from that. He did that because he loves you, despite your sin.
When you sin, he will love you again. And again.
He calls you to his love. Read Hosea 2:19-20.
The world’s cares will lead you into restlessness. There is such a thing as godly restlessness: True worry for the physical and spiritual welfare of others. And some have a restless temperament. You may have a restlessness caused by sin, as Hosea has described.
But in everything, Jesus calls you to peace.
Come to a living faith and know deep contentment, even in life’s storms. Be reconciled to God forever.
Drop the shallow, sham façade of religion-only Christianity. Repent of and put to death your secret sins.
Know the love of God in Christ as you enter into life with him.
And then express all that in a living faith and vibrant worship, both here and in all of life.
Live out your love for God in every area of your life. In doing that you will know him and proclaim him in ways that are good for you and honouring to him, our beautiful saviour.