The great desire of Hosea is that you come to know God truly. No-one is called by God to Christianity as such. He calls you to himself, to know him. And you come to know him through Christ.
In Hosea’s day, people had substituted a true, living knowledge of God with dry religion. Worse, in abandoning the true God they’d naturally abandoned the system of worship he’d given them!
This chapter will show you how catastrophic it is to turn your back on God and on the only way he’s given to you to know him truly: Jesus Christ.
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered at Bromborough Evangelical Church Wirral in September 2024. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
Know God truly (1-3)
It’s a bit of a style of Hosea to give you a few verses on a theme that get expanded in the rest of the chapter. Verses 1-3 set the scene for the whole of chapter 8. Read Hosea 8:1.
Hosea himself is getting ready to sound the warning! The ram’s horn would be an alarm bell, like a fire alarm. But what’s coming is an eagle (or, in other translations, a vulture), coming against the house of the LORD. Imagine you’re in Jerusalem, looking at the magnificent temple, certain of God’s protection. You look up. And way in the distance, there’s a worrying omen. Is that an eagle about to swoop? A vulture, waiting for your destruction?
Hosea 1:1 gave us the timescales of Hosea’s ministry, and the context makes it clear that this particular bird, poised for death, is the Assyrian empire. After centuries of sin and rebellion against God, all documented for us in 1 & 2 Kings, time was up for the northern tribes known as Israel. They were going to be invaded by the Assyrians and forcibly evicted from their land. Others would replace them, and Israel would never recover.
Punishment
What had they done to deserve that? Read Hosea 8:1 & 3.
- “They transgress my covenant” God was not the centre of their community or individual lives; he was just “in the background”. That led to mediocre, lip-service worship. He loved them; they disregarded him.
- They “rebel against my law” Living selfishly, rather than having God’s concern for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable.
- “Israel has rejected what is good” An all-encompassing statement for lives that have wholly rejected God’s good laws. You’ll see that in our own society that would strongly argue that some of God’s laws are actually bad.
The disaster for Israel was that they actually thought they were still ok with God! Read Hosea 8:2.
Literally, “My God, we know you – Israel!” Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and one day you will meet him, as everyone will. Read Matthew 7:21-23.
Whether Christ will receive you into heaven’s glory isn’t about your religious orthodoxy, knowledge, or attainment. He will want to know if you have done the Father’s will.
What’s that? Read John 6:40.
The thing is, God invites you to know him. He wants it. Read Hosea 2:20.
To know God truly is to know him in Christ. And by ‘know’ we mean experience his love, worship him in covenant love, in obedience, delighting in his goodness. Go to Jesus in repentance, in prayer, and know him.
Israel got it all wrong. Avoid their mis-steps. So first:
Worship in truth (4-6)
God loved Israel, so he’d given laws for godly kings and sacrifices for worship. These sacrifices should be offered in Jerusalem because that’s where God had especially put his presence among his people.
All this was ignored by northern Israel. Read Hosea 8:4a.
God had appointed king David over a united Israel around 1000 BC. More, in 2 Samuel 7, God promised an eternal dynasty in David’s line over God’s people! Things went mostly good under David, and the country’s heyday came under his son Solomon. But after Solomon, the country split: Israel’s 10 tribes in the north, Judah and Benjamin in the south.
In the north, there was a succession of kings not related to David. Men who just took the throne by force. All hungry for power, and none of them true to God. The first northern king was called Jeroboam son of Nebat. He set up golden calves in Dan (far north) and Bethel so that people could worship God there, rather than go to Jerusalem. This self-appointed king created a new system of worship, appointing a priesthood of his choosing.
Read Hosea 8:4b-6.
King after king repeated the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat. They kept the false worship of the LORD going. It was a deliberate power play over the people. And it kept ordinary people from knowing or enjoying God. How wicked.
Parody worship
The whole setup was sold as an alternative place and system still to worship the same God as Judah in Jerusalem.
But get this: Parody worship is as offensive as pagan worship.
God had given them a way to come to him, and they’d rejected it. Their rejection of him meant that he rejected them: V3 “Israel has rejected what is good” was met with: V5 “Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria” (Samaria being the capital city of northern Israel).
There are plenty of “parody Christianities” around:
- Much of Roman Catholicism is wonderful, containing rich theology (especially regarding the nature of God in his trinity). But their notion of the Lord’s Table (the “mass”) is heresy, false teaching. They say that the bread and wine don’t change physically, but their substance become the actual presence of Jesus’ flesh and blood at the cross. And they’d say that only a priest can make that happen because of the holy orders given him by the church. That elevates the authority of the church to that of Scripture, which is another of their heresies.
- In another example, Mormons believe you have to be baptised if you wish to be in heaven with God. Like the Catholics, the idea isn’t found in the Bible but in Mormon teaching.
Is it so bad? Is it so serious? Read Galatians 1:6-9.
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.
You might still wonder if these are really so serious?
Worship without compromise (7-10)
Remember, a major theme in Hosea (and the prophets) is that sin against God isn’t like getting a parking ticket: It’s personal. God loves you, and sin throws that love back in his face.
He had blessed Israel so much, and they rejected his love: The sacrificial system wasn’t just random. It meant that sinful people could have their sins atoned for so that they could approach a holy God. And that was necessary because that holy God intended to dwell among and bless his people.
Then, because God dwelt among them, his holiness was to flow outwards from his presence – seen and felt in a community of compassion, honesty, love, and equity.
They were immeasurably blessed more than any other nation on earth: And they just threw it all in God’s face. They didn’t want to live his way, and they preferred a religion of their own design (far less demanding).
But they were under God’s covenant, which included curses for disobedience. The would experience crop failures and other disasters. Eventually, repeated rejection of God would end in exile from the land. So read Hosea 8:7-10.
They rejected God, and were rejected by him.
You’re more blessed than they were
But remember: That Old Testament system of worship was just a 2D shadow the 3D heavenly reality, now brought to you through Jesus.
Jesus is the eternal, uncreated Son of God.
- By him and for him all things were made – things seen and unseen, physical and spiritual.
- And he took on human flesh, as frail and fragile as any human being.
- He did that so that he could live a morally perfect life, so that he could die to take the punishment you deserve for your sin: Death.
- He is the propitiation for your sin: He’s the sacrifice that atones for your sin, appeasing God’s righteous wrath against you.
- And he’s the expiation for you too: Cleansing you from all sin and unrighteousness so that you are declared righteous before God.
- Your creator, your Maker, died for you to save you from the consequences of your sin.
It seems like a small thing to say, “No thanks.” You think, “Christianity’s not for me” – like it’s just one item on a menu of religions. You might even think, “I prefer the easier teaching down the road. It’s all a lot less challenging.”
But if you turn your back on Jesus, or compromise by dabbling with other faiths or sin, you’re sowing the wind. You’ll reap the whirlwind. Your rejection of him is met with his rejection of you. What does that mean? Hell. A place of punishment, where even the measure of goodness you have in this world will be gone.
But that’s not what God wants for you.
He gave you Christ so that you could turn from your sin, turn to God for forgiveness, and know him forever. But even if you have done that, it’s still possible that your worship of him is unworthy:
Worship in spirit (11-14)
Verse 11 is a bit odd: Read Hosea 8:11. The same word is translated “sin” and “sinning”.
The idea is that altars that were built to offer sacrifices to take sin away were actually becoming places of sin. False worship, ignoring what God has given, is sin. Why? Read Hosea 8:12.
False, wonky worship happens when you’re not following God’s word. When might you be doing that?
- When you agree with what’s said, but never think to apply it to your own life.
- Your worship is wonky when you don’t sing, even though the Bible commands it.
- Or your worship is wrong if you abuse the Lord’s table, making an individualistic moment instead of a whole-church statement of faith.
These are all examples of worship in form only, not in spirit. The problem with that is that your worship isn’t accepted. Read Hosea 8:13-14.
Wonky worship
Singing is a good example.
- Some prefer the old hymns, others prefer new.
- Your approach to what we sing will be healthy if you think in terms of preference and deference:
- Everyone has some kind of preference, and there’s no reason to think we’ll all be the same.
- But a loving heart will give deference to the preferences of others, thankful for their worship.
- Sometimes we get the music wrong, play a wrong note, get the words wrong.
- Will you stand there with a judgmental heart, or pray for those who put the effort in every week to serve?
- What do you think would be more acceptable worship to God?
- A lot of thought goes into what we sing. Some songs are never chosen. If you don’t like the tune, don’t miss out on the words.
- Grumpy, begrudging singing is not acceptable worship, because you’ve lost sight of God.
In almost anything that goes on here Sunday by Sunday, you can have an irritable heart about you, or let unforgiveness go on and on.
But remember Hosea 6:6 – so much a part of Jesus’ own thinking.
Worship in spirit. Work at that, avoiding a need to depend on forms to bring you closer to God.
So:
- All this is so that you will know God truly: Experiencing him in his covenant love, living for him in union with Christ.
- Be sure to worship him in truth, only coming to him in Christ.
- Let there be no compromise, dabbling with things outside what God has said: You just might sow the wind and reap a whirlwind.
- And be sure then to worship in spirit, not in form only.