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Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read 1 Kings 1, Hosea 3 and 4,
and Psalms 117 and 118. This devotional is about Hosea
3 and 4. Then the Lord said to me, Go,
show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another
and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the
Israelites, even though they turn to other gods and love to
offer raisin cakes to idols. So I bought her for fifteen shekels
of silver, and a homer, and a letheck of barley. Then I said to her,
You must live with me for many days, you must not be promiscuous
or belong to another, and I will do the same for you. For the
Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without
sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol. Afterward
the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and
David their king. They will come trembling to the
Lord and to his goodness in the last days. Hosea 4. Hear the word of the Lord, O
children of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the people
of the land. There is no truth, no loving
devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land. cursing and
lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant. One act
of bloodshed follows another. Therefore the land mourns, and
all who dwell in it will waste away. With the beasts of the
field and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea disappear. But let no man contend, let no
man offer reproof, for your people are like those who contend with
a priest. You will stumble by day, and
the prophet will stumble with you by night, so I will destroy
your mother. My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge,
I will also reject you as my priests, since you have forgotten
the law of your God. I will also forget your children. The more they multiplied, the
more they sinned against me. They exchanged their glory for
a thing of disgrace. They feed on the sins of my people
and set their hearts on iniquity. and it shall be like people,
like priest. I will punish both of them for
their ways, and repay them for their deeds. They will eat, but
not be satisfied. They will be promiscuous, but
not multiply. For they have abandoned the Lord
to give themselves to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take
away understanding. My people consult their wooden
idols, And their divining-rods inform them, For a spirit of
prostitution leads them astray, And they have played the harlot
against their god. They sacrifice on the mountaintops,
And burn offerings on the hills, Under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
Because their shade is pleasant, And so your daughters turn to
prostitution, And your daughters-in-law to adultery. I will not punish
your daughters when they prostitute themselves, nor your daughters-in-law
when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off
with prostitutes, and offer sacrifices with shrine prostitutes. So a
people without understanding will come to ruin. Though you
prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt. Do
not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-Avon, and do not
swear an oath, as surely as the Lord lives. For Israel is as
obstinate as a stubborn heifer. Can the Lord now shepherd them
like lambs in an open meadow? Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave
him alone. When their liquor is gone, they
turn to prostitution. Their rulers dearly love disgrace. The whirlwind has wrapped them
in its wings, and their sacrifices will bring them shame. This is
God's word. Hosea 4.6a is probably the best-known
saying from the book of Hosea. It says, this time from the NIV,
my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. That verse,
that piece of a verse, is often quoted like a proverb even in
our secular world. The way that it is used in the
secular world suggests that more education is the answer for every
human problem. If people were just more knowledgeable,
they would not be destroyed. I do think that knowledge is
important, and perhaps you could extend the application of this
verse into a principle that ignorance, in general, is damaging. Maybe
you could get there. But that's not the meaning, that's
not the message that the Lord is sending through Hosea in this
verse. The lack of knowledge God decries
here is a lack of knowing Him. The verse comes in the larger
context of Israel's unfaithfulness to God and their unfaithfulness
to their covenant with him. You can see Hosea 3.1 and chapter
4 verse 1b and 2 for that. Toward the end of chapter 4 verse
1, the phrase, no acknowledgment of God in the land could, should
be translated. No knowledge of God in the land
as the ESV, for instance, translates it. One of the charges the Lord
brings against his people then is that they don't know him.
That's what verse 1 is saying. The consequence of not knowing
him is that my people are destroyed. And why did the people lack knowledge
of God? Verse 6b says, Because you have
rejected knowledge, I will reject you as my priests. Because you
have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your
children. That's the point. They ignored
God's Word, and that's what made them ignorant of it. The Lord
traced the ignorance of his people back to the unfaithful teaching
of the priests. See, one of the roles of the
priest is to teach God's law to his people. But the priests
had ignored God's law. Whatever they were teaching was
so much less than the greatness of God. For verse 7 says, they
exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. It
seems that spiritual leaders in all ages and all eras can
be tempted to move away from teaching God's Word to teaching
something else. Idolatry, teaching indulgences,
psychology, or whatever. And the result of moving away
from God's Word in our teaching is that God's people no longer
know Him. Having been deprived of his word,
they have no means by which to know who he truly is and what
he is truly like. Churches today are filled with
big entertainment and therapeutic messages, but very little content
about God. When people do not know God,
their worship becomes shallow and self-centered, and their
desire to learn and obey his commands starts to dry up. This is why it is important to
teach God's Word in our churches and to read God's Word in our
homes and on our own. I hope these daily scripture
readings, most importantly, and also my devotionals, have helped
you to know God better. And if you have found this devotional
to be helpful in knowing God better, why don't you subscribe
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else who might be helped in their life by it. I'll see you next
time. May God bless you. Hope you have
a great day today.
Hosea 3-4
Series DailyPBJ Devotionals
This is a daily devotional about Hosea 3-4 from dailypbj devotionals. For more information, visit https://dailypbj.com. To receive these devotionals every morning in your inbox, visit https://dailypbj.com/subscribe. To support my work, visit https://dailypbj.com/support/
| Sermon ID | 9272514582851 |
| Duration | 09:01 |
| Date | |
| Category | Devotional |
| Bible Text | Hosea 3-4 |
| Language | English |
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