The LORD God made it clear in Chapter 3 that there is restoration, but first there must be an acknowledgment of the sin. Here The LORD spells out Israel’s sin (v1-3). There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. Knowledge of God brings truth and mercy. Proverbs 9:10 tells us that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Where there is no knowledge of God, all personal restraint goes out of the window – things like those described here in these verses – lying, killing, stealing and adultery, no rules, no boundaries. All these lead to bloodshed or destruction.
Some people think it is a way to freedom, I can do as I like, but it leads to destruction. It is sometimes dressed up as ‘my rights’ but with ‘rights’ come ‘responsibilities.’
He warns them against trying to deal with things themselves. Contending and rebuking will do no good (v4-8). He reminds them that God warned them against contending with the priests (see Deuteronomy 17) that it would only lead to their downfall, taking even the prophets with them and lead to breakdown in families. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. (see v1) They didn’t know God enough. I have to ask; do we know God at all or enough? Do we know God’s word at all or enough? Knowing God and His word will affect our behaviour and help us to avoid the sins described in v1-3. If it doesn’t, we are guilty of not taking it seriously and failing to put it into practice. We are the losers, and we will end up in destruction.
God will not excuse the priests, teachers or leaders for failing to keep close to His word. Priests, church leaders and teachers are responsible for teaching God’s word and also for being living examples. Failure to do so will not go unpunished by God and they will be answerable to Him and needless to say, bring shame upon the people. The priests were even living off the sinful ways of the people.
We are living in a day when priests (church leaders) are going against God’s word, particularly so with thinking that we know better than God and we can make up our own rules. Sadly, not only is this rejecting God but affecting our relationships. ‘When we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1). If we are walking in darkness, we are leading others astray.
The priests may have thought that they were above God’s judgment, but God makes it clear that they were not. If the people were to be judged, so would the priests because of their disobedience to God (v9,10). Many priests, who had been appointed, especially by King Jeroboam I (see 1 Kings 12 and 13) were not genuine priests, they were corrupt. I assume they were not of the priestly line, in 2 Chronicles 11 we read that many true priests had left the northern kingdom.
“Harlotry, wine and new wine enslave the heart”. (v11) A profound statement indeed! Some of you may know that I have made a study in the bible as to what God says about the use of alcohol and particularly what should be the Christian’s attitude to alcohol. Nowhere in the bible does it say that we should not drink alcohol, but, and it is a very big subject, but God warns us, over and over again, as to the dangers of it. If you are prepared to read the bible you will see that, more often than not, the overindulgence in the use of alcohol is inextricably linked to sexual immorality. Alcohol is a controller, it seriously affects the mind and will, and one does and thinks things when under the influence which one would not normally do. An example is found in the early chapters of Genesis when Noah, a righteous man, had come out of the ark and a planted a vineyard. On one occasion he got so drunk that he lay down naked in his tent and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth found him. One of them, Ham, made sport of it, the other two didn’t look and tried to cover their father up. Ham was cursed for his actions and that curse passed down his generations. (See Genesis 9:18-29)
A similar event is recorded in Genesis 19:30-38 where we find Lot having been rescued from the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. His two daughters had no children and so they decided to get their father drunk and have sexual intercourse with him to produce children. They did, and their offspring were enemies of Israel for generations to come. In his right mind, I very much doubt that Lot would have consented to this. Their minds and actions must have been coloured by where they had been living and rescued from, this coupled with the effect of alcohol was catastrophic on the nation of Israel.
There are many more, but I leave it with one verse – Proverbs 20:1 “Wine is a mocker, Strong drink is a brawler,
And whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”
There seems to be a close similarity between adultery and harlotry here in v11-14. And it is described as idolatry. They have strayed to other gods, adding them to their God, which will never do. ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods before or beside Me’, God had laid down in the Ten Commandments. None of these are acceptable to God and they, and we, will suffer the consequences. Both the men and the women who partake in this are guilty. Maybe that’s why Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery because they didn’t bring the man as well. The man was obviously present if they were caught in the act! (See John 8) It was obviously a trap for Jesus.
God issues a warning to Judah (v15). He warns them not to follow Israel in their sinful behaviour. You will remember that the nation had split into two, the ten tribes forming the kingdom of Israel in the north, and two tribes forming the kingdom of Judah in the south (see 1 Kings 11 etc). Gilgal and Beth Aven had become centres of pagan worship in Israel and Judah are warned not to go there. It is interesting that there is no city called Beth Aven, which means city of deceit, it seems that Hosea is twisting the name Bethel, which means ‘house of God’ to show what it had become. Both these places began as a house where God was revered but had degenerated into places of idolatry and had gone away from The LORD.
Sadly, this is true of some of our churches today. They may have started well in some cases, but it wasn’t long before Satan crept in with false teachers and the whole congregation had lapsed into following them. The apostles write often about this in their letters in the New Testament warning us that these things will take place and to be on our guard against them. (See e.g. Paul’s letters to Timothy) and the letter of Jude)
Satan is a master at this, he doesn’t usually attack full on, but creeps in unnoticed and we are taken in, bit by bit. It may start small but before long, it has taken over. (See Jude v4 “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”)
Make no mistake, God is not taken in, He knows exactly what is going on, and in His grace and mercy He provided a remedy. That’s the beauty of the gospel, the good news of salvation. It must start with an acknowledgement of sin. You may say, that’s negative. We have gone wrong, we cannot please God, but He provided the way out, that is certainly not negative.
Israel is often referred to as Ephraim which was the largest tribe. Here (v16-19) God tells them that they are stubborn like a stubborn animal and if so, He will let them alone because they are joined to idols. They are rebellious and committing gross sin, the sin of harlotry and they are loving it.
What a disastrous situation to be left alone by God. Reminds me of Romans chapter 1 when the Apostle Paul tells them that if they continue in their sin of sexual immorality, He will give them over and give them up. God is very loving and long suffering but there comes a point where, if we want to continue in our sin, God will give us up to it, and we will suffer the consequences of it, which are dire.
We need to be kept by God, not left alone by Him. Without Him we shall walk the darkest paths, and they end in destruction. ‘The LORD knows the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish.’ (Psalm 1:6)
