Hosea 6:6-11

Now this evening, I invite you to turn with me for the book of Hosea once again, and chapter 6. Oseaa chapter 6, and will be reading verses 6 through 11 for our text and study this evening. Osea chapter 6, beginning with verse 6 and reading through verse 11. For I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant. There have they dealt treacherously against me. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity and is polluted with blood and as troops of robberies or robbers wake for a man so that the company of princes murder or excuse me the company of priests murder in the way by consent for they commit lewdness. I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is the whoredom of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Also, O Judah, he has set a harvest for thee when I returned the captivity of my people. God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this evening. Correctional institutes sometimes keep track of criminals by putting an electronic device on their ankles. And then they, that will make sure that they know, you know, what they’re leaving early or returning late or returning late or try to tamper. with the electronic device and so the correctional officials are alerted. One offender said, I didn’t feel like I was in jail, but I do feel like I’m being watched. In a sense, this is how we ought to all feel when we are all feel when we are in God’s presence under his severance of all things in this world. You are constantly being watched by God. As Jeremiah 2319 says, your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men. This ought to be a very sobering thought. that no matter what you do, no matter where you go, whatever circumstances are around you, God is monitoring every thought, motive, and action. But too many people like Israel of old, and Judah of old seem to forget that God is monitoring that God is watching. Now tonight, as we look at this text of scripture, we see here that God evaluates your worship here in verse 6. It says here, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. When God looked upon Israel and Judah, he saw a lot of sacrifices, burn offerings in their worship services. I mean, when you think about it, everywhere there were altars to their gods and so forth. Incense and smoke filled the air. And in those ancient days, sacrifice was certainly essential as a religious act. So it may sound. strange for God to say here, in the sense, I don’t really want your burnt offerings and your sacrifice. I want something else. And this is because, as Josea relates, there was something important that was lacking in their worship. And that which was important was mercy and the knowledge of God, that God would prefer. the just sacrifice. Now this text is an important statement from the Old Testament. It teaches that when it comes to serving God, the important thing is not the external ritual or the external ceremony. But what’s going on in the heart, that’s what’s important. And the sad thing is that you can. be so satisfied with the externals of things, of religion. You know, the IRS is completely satisfied with the outward right of you paying your taxes. As long as you pay your taxes on time and everything is in order, they’re fine with that. The IRS doesn’t care whether you pay your taxes with joy and a spirit of, you know, true patriotic feeling towards your country, or whether you moan and groan about it when you pay your taxes. You can, you can complain publicly, you can loudly, you know, protest on your rate that you have to pay, and you may even say, I hate paying taxes to the IRS. But you know what? They don’t care as long as you pay your taxes on time and your check doesn’t bounce. They don’t care about your spirit in paying the tax. But God, however, isn’t like that. When it comes to his worship, God isn’t satisfied with you merely having correct form and having some type of sacrifice you’re going to give, or let’s say, church attendance today. He looks into your heart. He’s going to determine whether what you’re doing is out of true love to him and devotion to him. So God hates you, if you hate you engaging in hypocritical worship, God desires for you. to be merciful and to know him. Mercy here is the same word which is used in verse 4 for goodness, and it’s used for all practical religion. It is virtually the same in the New Testament word, charity. Knowledge of God, of course, refers to a true love of devotion. to the Lord God. And thus, both tables of the law are covered here, both how you feel about your neighbor and how you respond to God himself are both included. Christ summarized this in Mark 1233 when he said to us, love God God with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself, this is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. So here is what he’s emphasizing in a sense as well in our text tonight. Jesus twice quoted Isaiah 66, or excuse me, Jose 6,6, in the New Testament, to show that practical duties are preferred to just mere ritual. on our part when it comes to worship. He ate with the publicans and sinners because it was mercy to them about their souls. He came to do them good. And many of them, he would bring to salvation. He healed on the Sabbath day because it was mercy to mercy to the one whose body was wracked with pain or sickness or demon possession or something of this nature. He defended his disciples about plucking corn or grain on the Sabbath day because it was mercy to them because their stomachs were hungry. So what is God saying here? That religion is not just a matter of church rituals and religious ceremonies. It must be practical and it must be lively. God is watching how you treat your wife and your children and your neighbor. Where is your mercy and goodness to them? And the same is true with reference to the knowledge of God. You know, cult theology is useless without a devout devotion, without a devout spirit on our part. What good is external worship if you don’t love God? If God is not in all your thoughts, if Christ doesn’t reign on the throne of your heart, something’s wrong. So God evaluates your worship, and he hates hypocritical worship. He desires mercy and the knowledge. of him. Secondly, notice here that God keeps track of all your transgressions in verses 7 through 11. He knows those who are violators of his law. Notice verse 7 with me here. But they like men have transgressed the covenant. There have they dealt treacherously against me. Josea charges Israel and Judah with transgression against the law of God. Remember they, when God gave the covenant on Mount Sinai to them, the moral law was given and both God and man were covered in this, and both those tables of the law were violated by these people. Obviously, those tables of the law were violated by these people. those lacking in love to God and man are violators of the covenant. And even if they bring abundant offerings, it doesn’t change the state of their heart. So when you come to Christ, there’s a sense in which you promise to be subject to him. To obey his commandments and confirm a form to his law. Now you may spend a great deal of time attending church and observing religious ceremonies, all the while you’re breaking God’s law. The word there seems to be implied here in this particular. In other words, in imagining God would be properly worship without mercy, without a true knowledge of him. Sadly, there are a lot of people professing to be gods who think in the very same manner. And you need to realize this message that God expects you to keep his moral law. It’s not done away with. It’s not something we don’t have to worry about being obedient to. Romans 311 says this, do we make void the law through faith? We’re not saved by the law. Faith in Christ is what saves us. But does that make void the law? And he goes on to say, God forbid. It we establish the law. It is a path of obedience for us. It is the way we should walk. Remember in Ephesians 6, where Paul writes, children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. He’s applying the law of God to the New Testament believers in the church, making application, and telling them this is what is required to you, because they were violators of the law. Notice he also speaks of them here in verse 8, as workers of iniquity. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity and is polluted with blood. Now, Gilead refers to Ramoth Gilead, which you’ll recall, was a city in the hillyi region beyond the Jordan River to the east of the Jordan River. And it was a city of refuge. It was indeed inhabited by priests and Levites, those who ought to know the law of God, those who should have been instructing people about obedience to the law of God and living exemplary lives. Josea has picked what should have been a holy city. If there’s a holy city somewhere, certainly this is one of them, surely. A city where justice and integrity should have reigned. But think about this. If Gilead is corrupt, then what must the other cities of Israel be like? If the one that the Levites and the priests are living in, it was given to them, if it’s corrupt, that’s pretty bad, isn’t it? So God says here they are workers of iniquity. What do they do for living in this city? What is their occupation? Well, they’re busily engaged in doing evil. That’s what he tells us. A Gallup opinion poll indicated to nearly one third of all Americans, claim to be born again. Those figures surely represent millions who are tragically deceived. They have a damning self-assurance. It’s shocking. We see the forms of open immorality that take place and are commonplace among those who profess to be Christians. People are. have been told that their behavior has no relationship to their spiritual status. California pastor John MacArthur once visited a fellow minister who drove him through the city that he was visiting. And they passed through the town, and as they did so, McArthur, happened to notice. a rather large liquor store. He mentioned that, boy, this really stands out as unusual looking place. And the minister said, yes, there’s a whole chain of those liquor stores around the city. They’re all owned by one man, and he’s in my Sunday school class. McArthur wondered aloud about, well, what kind of man is this? And the minister replied, well, he’s quite faithful. He’s in class every week. McArthur replied, well, doesn’t it bother him that he owns all these liquor stores? He said, well, the minister said, well, it doesn’t matter to him. He figures if someone’s going to buy liquor, they’re going to buy it anyhow, and he miles will make miles will buy it from him. McArthur says, well, what is this life like? The minister said, well, he did leave his wife, and he’s been living with a young girl. After several minutes, of bewildering silence. The minister added, well, you know, sometimes it’s hard for me to understand how a Christian can live like that. McArthur confessed this. It was hard for him to understand how someone who teaches the Bible can assume that a man living in rebellion against God is a Christian merely because he cleansed to me. All of your religion. activity is undone if you’re a worker of iniquity. So we see the problem here. Also in verse 8, he says that they’re bloodstain. Let’s look also at verse 9. And let me read that as well. And his troops of robbers wait for a man. So the company of priests murder and the way by consent. For they commit lewdness. The priest among the people were schemers of evil. They were guilty here of the most outrageous crimes and sins, such as robbery, such as murder, it says. Apparently, they went as far as to kill as to kill travelers. very much like the robbers and the terrible you recall the Good Samaritan when they robbed the man and left them for dead. And so we see that the word here is about their behavior. Now the word lewdness seems to indicate some type of plotting to do evil here. It is a viciousness, a plan in a bad sense. is the idea. And it was deliberately planned by them to do evil. The priest consulted together so that there was a company of them that in a sense became highway robbers. Those who should have been most pure and did up most corrupt. It’s one thing to be caught off guard and to fall into sin, but it’s another thing. and to scheme to do evil, as we see here, premeditated evil. Amos denounced the businessman who sat in church on the Sabbath day scheming how they could cheat others out of their money in Amos A. In the New Testament, Anonias and Safira were held in high esteem among the people of God all the while they were scheming to cheat. God in the church. Ministers are sometimes conmen. Going on in dealing with the elderly, perhaps cheating them out of their money and maybe they spend it on their own lust. There’s a lot of evil scheming going on among those who profess to be the people of God. But God is in fold. God is taking it all in. He sees everything that’s happened. And then he says that they’re also unfaithful. Verse 10 says this. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is the hordom of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. God says, I’ve seen a horrible thing. Literally, a thing that makes the hair on your head stand up. up. What is he, what is so shocking? Well, the horrible spiritual adultery that Israel was committed, has committed, the unfaithfulness of Jehovah that they’ve committed. We have discussed spiritual adultery in the past. I’m not going to dwell on it in any length tonight. But I remind you of what James says in James 4.4, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God. So that those who may claim to be the people of God can be guilty of the same spiritual adultery that we’re talking about here in Josea. We can be guilty of this. God is saying, you profess to be my bride, but you are being unfaithful to your vows. And God has to still say that today. Indeed, this is an evil and adulterous generation. Are you guilty of being unfaithful to God? Have you been so caught up by the world and the things of the world, and the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life? that you get off track? What do you give your heart and your mind to? What idleness in those who, what worldliness, I should say, in those who profess to be the people of God, if indeed were unfaithful to God, as he mentions here in this passage. Now, hypocrites have their hearts divided. They have a hearts divided between God and the world. and they prefer the world to God, really, as an adulterous wife, would prefer anyone else to her husband. But the Bible warns about love of pleasure more than love of God. Who prefers carnal satisfaction to communion with Christ? Well, God sees it all. God knows where your affections lie. and he could weigh your loyalty. I’m afraid that many may be found one thing in this regard. And then he says that they’re also ungrateful. Verse 11. Alas, O Judah, he has set a harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people. Judah here will not. escape judgment either. There is a harvest of judgment to come for them. When did he do this? When I returned the captivity of my people, it seems to refer to Second Chronicles 28, where there’s a harvest set for Judah, the captivity of Judah, and the return of captivity are all mentioned. When God spared Judah, this time, he has set for them a future harvest to come. And he will deal with them at a later day. Since they did not make good use of the deliverance that they received and resorted back to their same previous sinful practices, God says, well, then you shall have judgment fall on you as well. God takes notice when you despise the goodness, his kindness is good gifts to you, and you don’t repent of your ways after he deals with you. God sometimes sets up thorn hedges and man pursues and pushes right through him. And you’re not appreciative of the fact that God’s trying in a way to restrain you. At least he’s putting some restraints out there, but you’re ungrateful. When God sends his moth and worm trials to prick your conscience that we talked about earlier in this book, to cause you to turn from your evil ways, and you pay no mind you’re being ungrateful, and God causes you to recover from the sickbed, and it doesn’t make a dent in your behavior at all. never no change yet it’s being ungrateful and so we see this situation God is keeping track of all this and none of it escapes his notice those who despises goodness keep up under themselves wrath in his sight God’s evaluation of you may be that you are a worldling in your behavior. Now God is watching all of us carefully. You don’t have to be one who has an electronic transmitter strapped to your ankle for him to know everything about you. He is evaluating your worship. He’s keeping track of all your transgressions, and his conclusion may be that you’re just like men. I take it here just like men, meaning just like the world, around you. Oseus is saying that Israel and Judah acted in an all too human way, a worldly way, like the heathen all around them. Are you like that? Are you like that? Well, let us wait carefully this issue tonight. May God and His grace enable you and I to be faithful to be faithful. to the Lord Jesus Christ and not unfaithful. Let’s close with a word of prayer tonight. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for your goodness to us, your provision for us. We read this passage with solemnness, realizing nothing escapes your attention. We pray we may not be guilty of any of these sins. Father, that may indeed be faithful in our lives and not be double-minded. And love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, as you’ve commanded us. And where we fail in this, we pray for help, Father, knowing that without your spirit, this is an impossibility for us. May your spirit work in us help us in this situation. And now I ask these things in Jesus’ name with Thanksgiving. Amen. Let’s stand for the benediction tonight. Grace be with all them to love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.