HOW CAN I REALLY KNOW GOD?
Series: Hosea: Unbroken Love From A Broken Heart
by Doug Goins
Nothing is more important than what it means to know God in a deep,
personal way. If we know God as he has revealed himself in the Bible, life
can be wonderful. If we don't, we will live with stressful anxiety. Knowing
God offers life abundant, to use the words of Jesus. Knowing God is the
source of wisdom and strength to endure hard times. Knowing God is the purpose
for which we were created. It is life's greatest privilege and our most
urgent need.
But knowing God is a gift that most of us have difficulty receiving or responding
to. Knowing God is not just knowledge of facts, theories, ideas, or carefully
worded theology. It can't be earned. And yet it is the thing in life that
ought to demand our constant attention; it ought to be the central focus
of our lives. Knowing God is more important than personal power, position,
or portfolios. And yet nothing seems to be lacking more in our lives.
Hosea was called by God to prophesy to the northern kingdom of Israel eight
centuries before Jesus was born. He was called specifically because this
quality of life, knowing God in a real way, was lacking for the nation.
Their sins as a nation and as individuals came from the absence of knowing
God. As verse 1 told us, the result was that truth was absent, and mercy
or kindness was not a part of social interaction anymore. The people were
on the brink of destruction because they had rejected knowledge of God.
But God, in severe mercy, sent one prophet after another to warn his people
that if they didn't repent and turn back to him, they were doomed. During
the troubled years before the final Syrian invasion of Israel in 722 BC,
God sent Hosea to Samaria, the capital. He was to confront Israel with the
sin of idolatry, which was expressed especially in the worship of Baal,
the Canaanite fertility god. In lyric poetry and graphic figures of speech
Hosea examined the nation's unfaithfulness. He also focused on God's tough,
unconditional, and unbreakable love relationship with his people.
His theme of knowing God in a relationship of intimacy and obedience was
forged in the fires of Hosea's own personal life, in his relationship with
his wife Gomer and the three children God gave them. Hosea's family life
as well as his words became the vehicle of God's revelation. The first three
chapters of Hosea are a description of the prophet's marriage to an unfaithful
wife and of their three rebellious children. It was an illustration of the
Lord's relationship to Israel in her spiritual adultery, and the rebellion
of the people in their rejecting him and worshiping false gods.
Chapters 4 through 14 combine together a number of sermons that Hosea preached
over a fifty-year period of ministering to Israel. They were sermons that
denounced Israel's ingratitude, idolatry, brutality, materialism, and immorality.
God threatened judgment that was based on love. God won't let us get away
with sin; he will confront us. And shot through this wonderful book are
promises of spiritual restoration and healing if the people will turn back
to the Lord and really examine their hearts.
In the first ten verses of Hosea 4, we will look for the answer to the question,
How can I really know God? Let's look at verses 1-3:
Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel;
for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or kindness,
and no knowledge of God in the land;
there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery;
they break all bounds and murder follows murder.
Therefore the land mourns,
and all who dwell in it languish,
and also the beasts of the field,
and the birds of the air;
and even the fish of the sea are taken away.
The need for intimacy and integrity
Hosea begins with a summons to listen, to pay very close attention. This
call establishes the prophetic, God-given authority and inspiration with
which he lived and spoke and wrote. It establishes that what is going to
follow is God's powerful, living word. It had an impact on the hearers in
Israel, and also on us if we will submit to it and allow it to examine us.
Controversy is a strong word. It has overtones of legal argumentation that
God wants to take up with the people. This controversy was very personal---God's
people had rejected him and forgotten him. (We need to keep in mind that
these were people who claimed to have a relationship with God, to be people
of faith.) In chapter 2 verse 13 God talked about how the people decked
themselves in rings and jewelry and went after other lovers. "And [they]
forgot me, says the LORD." Farther ahead in chapter 4 verse 6, he will
say they have rejected knowledge of him. So this confrontation is full of
God's pain. We can understand the intensity of these charges if we recall
the way God had initiated entering into relationship with the people of
Israel, betrothing them to himself in innocence and committing everything
of his character and resources to them. This was summarized in Hosea 2:19-20:
"And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in
righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth
you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD." God had said,
"I am giving you everything I have---all you have to do is respond
in love to me." The anguish that God felt here was immeasurable because
his commitment to them had been disregarded.
There are two accusations in verse 1. There was a lack of integrity or obedience
to truth that God had revealed. And there was a lack of intimacy or deep,
personal relationship. Integrity is summarized in two words: faithfulness
and kindness. (Your Bible may translate faithfulness as truth, honesty,
good faith, or trustworthiness.) There were no longer decent, responsible
relationships even between people of faith; there was no moral foundation
of integrity on which to build. So people were suspicious of each other;
giving one's word didn't mean anything. Motives in relationships were ulterior
and devious.
The word kindness is the Hebrew word hesed: loyal love, lovingkindness,
or faithful love. This quality was gone too. God had given them his loyal
love and they were to express loyal love toward one another, but everyone
was out for himself. There was no generosity, no forgiveness, no willingness
to let people off the hook or to love them in spite of sinful faults and
failures. There was an abrasiveness in relationships rather than the oil
of loving acceptance and commitment.
The lack of intimacy is summarized in the statement, "There is...no
knowledge of God." The Hebrew root of this word knowledge has deeper
implications than just understanding information or theories, or even having
a personal acquaintance with somebody. It implies intimate, personal relationship.
In the Old Testament this word to know is used over and over again
to describe the physical and spiritual oneness of a husband and a wife,
each equally knowing the other sexually, emotionally, intellectually, and
spiritually. It speaks of the depth of personal involvement and interaction
God created us to experience with him. But tragically, Israel was not willing
to open up anymore in relationship with him, to respond to his self-giving
and his self-revelation.
I have used the English word intimacy because it is a beautiful synonym
for knowing God. Intimacy means proceeding from within; inward or internal.
It reinforces the reality that knowing God is much more than knowing ideas.
It involves everything that we are intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally.
The reciprocity of this knowing suggests that God knows all about what is
going on inside of us as well; we can't hide from him. In reality, the beginning
of our knowledge of God or our relationship with him is when we realize
that he knows us inside out. When a stranger says to you, "I know who
you are; I know your reputation, your family, what you do in life,"
that is a great affirmation. And God says that to us. The psalmist David
prays in Psalm 139,
"O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me."
He says later in verses 23-24,
"Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my [anxious] thoughts!
And see if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!"
Both our understanding of God and our relationship with him are based on
our response to being known absolutely and thoroughly by him. That is intimacy.
As was suggested in Hosea's first accusation, knowledge of God calls for
obedience to truth, or integrity. Integrity means wholeness, completeness,
or being undivided. Integrity is congruity of behavior, or consistency between
what we believe about God and how we live life in response to God. Intimacy
with God, or knowing him as he reveals himself, must be inseparably intertwined
with revering his character and obeying his commandments. He has chosen
to be our God and elected us to be his people, so then knowing him requires
integrity, a life of faithfulness.
Intimacy and integrity are important aspects of relationship and obedience
to truth, and are the secret of growing in the knowledge of God.
But Israel lacked both of those things, and the evidence listed in verse
2 summarizes a complete breakdown in community life. Going by the list of
indictments, in reality the people of the nation were breaking five of the
Ten Commandments, the law that had been given at Sinai. Verse 6 will say,
"You have forgotten the law of your God." God had built restraints
into societal relationships in the Ten Commandments.
Hosea says, "Among you who claim to be people of faith, there is swearing,
or cursing." That means they were denouncing others, wishing evil on
their brothers and sisters in the community of faith. And they were swearing
oaths that they never intended to keep and dragging God into it by invoking
his name.
There was dishonesty, lying, or deceit in all kinds of relationships, both
in the justice system and in the marketplace. People were being denied their
right to fairness in trade and commerce and their right to justice in the
courts, in defiance of what God had ordained for his covenant community.
There was even murder motivated by jealousy, hatred, and lust. And this
suggests that the whole society was gradually losing respect for the dignity
of life. They were usurping God's authority over life, perhaps life on the
margin---that of the unborn, the elderly, and the infirm who couldn't contribute
as much.
There was stealing, denying an individual's right to the material possessions
that God had entrusted to him.
And finally there was adultery, or sexual impurity. The heart of the society
was the family unit, and family life was being torn apart by immorality.
The security that God designed a man and woman and their children to experience
was being violated.
The last two clauses in verse 2, "they break all bounds and murder
follows murder," are just summaries of the disintegration going on
in that society. Without a knowledge of God as he had revealed himself through
biblical truth, people were breaking out of the boundaries that the Ten
Commandments had built into their society. The commandments of God defined
protection and restraint against sin. But when they were broken, the results
were an escalation of violence and an unraveling of the social fabric of
the nation.
Verse 3 says the land itself was in mourning. Human beings were languishing
instead of thriving with vigor, but there was also decline in the natural
world---the beasts, the birds, and the fish of the sea. I thought back to
Genesis 1:28 and the creation orders. When God gave humanity dominion over
the animal kingdom, he gave us responsibility for stewardship. The harsh
reality here is that when we forsake God and his word, not only does the
human community suffer, but also the natural world. The ecological balance
that God built into it is destroyed. The Scriptures view the whole world
as interconnected and interdependent.
Tragic consequences of not knowing God
The suffering and mourning are expanded in the next section. Verses 4 through
6 talk very specifically about the destruction that comes from not really
knowing God. God says,
Yet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is my contention, O priest.
You shall stumble by day,
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
and I will destroy your mother.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
The dramatic controversy in Hosea's words has become a contention---an
even stronger word---between God and the nation. The nation was to have
been a priest to God. When God had given the nation the law at Sinai (see
Exodus 20:1-17), he said, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation." But it is clear in the indictment in these three
verses that they had lost the right, privilege, and ministry of priesthood,
and there was nothing they could say. They couldn't blame God or one another
for the social disintegration they were experiencing. Each individual was
responsible before God.
There are two accusations in this paragraph, both in verse 6. God says,
"You have rejected knowledge." God was saying, "You have
rejected the personal, intimate relationship that I have called you into.
You have chosen to cut yourself off from communication with me, to isolate
yourself from me." The second accusation is, "You have forgotten
the law of God." That is the law given at Sinai; revealed truth that
called them to obedience, accountability, and a lifestyle of integrity.
Little by little their awareness of biblical truth had been eroded until
now they couldn't remember it anymore. It is just as true in a nation like
our own and in our individual lives that there is erosion of our awareness
of truth when God's character, commands, and personal commitments to us
gradually recede into the background of our lives.
In recent days I have been involved with a number of folks---long-time friends
and fellow travelers in this path of faith---who fit these descriptions,
who have chosen to reject the God who loves them, saved them, and has been
faithful to them. It has gotten to the point that biblical truth doesn't
make sense to them anymore. Things they used to know clearly, they don't
know anymore.
There are four tragic consequences in verses 5 and 6. First he says,
"You shall stumble by day,
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night...."
They had not only a priestly calling, but a prophetic calling. Prophets
were to reflect or shine truth on people. Truth is a light that shows us
where we are going. Moses himself in Numbers 11:29 had said, "Would
that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit
upon them!" They were to be a nation of truth-tellers, to show the
nations all around them how to live life, to make the truth of Scripture
relevant to their neighbors. But because they were disregarding truth, they
were stumbling and falling flat on their faces. They couldn't be a help
to anybody because they couldn't even apply truth to themselves. They ended
up being an embarrassment to themselves and to their prophetic calling.
The second consequence is destruction. Twice, in the last line of verse
5 and the first line of verse 6, that word is used: "...I will destroy
your mother," and "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...."
Throughout this book, Hosea uses his wife Gomer, the mother of their children,
as a picture of the nation as a whole. That is consistent with all of Old
Testament revelation; the nation was a wife to God and the mother of individual
men and women in the nation. The people of Israel considered themselves
spiritual children of the nation. The promise here is that there would be
judgment---destruction and ruin; they would perish. This is a reminder that
the nation was going to be sent into exile for judgment---not to end everything,
because judgment is meant to purify, but to bring the people back to spiritual
reality.
The third consequence in the middle of verse 6, as we already saw, was that
they were going to be rejected as a nation of priests. A priest was to lead
people to God, to live a life that was so attractive that people were drawn
not to them but to the Lord. Priests were to be committed to revealed truth---to
love it, to communicate it, and to be controlled by it. Priests were called
to judge on issues of biblical morality. They had to know right from wrong
and not get confused, even though the society around them was confused.
They had to guard truth: to never forget it and to never allow it to be
tampered with or changed. Priests were called to hallow the Sabbath; that
is, to live a lifestyle of worship and rest and gratitude that people were
drawn into. And the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2:9 that now we too are
a nation of priests; this is our ministry. But the passage shows us how
none of these responsibilities were being carried out---they were being
undermined by the lifestyle of the people, so that God was taking the responsibilities
away from the nation.
And the fourth consequence is found in the final poignant statement at the
end of verse 6:
"And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children."
Remember that Israel's children were the individual members of its society.
God says to them, "I will step away from you and let you go. I will
turn my back on you. I will let you live the way you want to live."
It is a frightening thing as a believer to come to the place where God has
removed his resources and let us go. All four of these things---coming to
a place where we're stumbling and being dangerous to ourselves and other
people, being punished for sin in our lives, having our priestly ministry
of leading people to the Lord taken away because our lives are so inconsistent
and contradictory, and then living in a place where God's resources aren't
even available anymore---are very frightening. I went through a two-year
period in my life when every one of those things was painfully real. It
is an awful place to live.
The critical role of spiritual leaders
There is a final indictment in verses 7 through 10. At the heart of this
whole section was the anguished cry of God, "My people are destroyed!"
(verse 6). They were destroyed because they didn't really know Him. Now
verses 7 through 10 lay part of the blame for that at the feet of the spiritual
leaders of the nation. Working through these verses was very difficult for
me, because I had to examine my own heart; my own calling, responsibilities,
and priorities in life as a shepherd here at PBC. Listen to what God says
through Hosea about the priesthood, or the clergy:
The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
I will change their glory into shame.
They feed on the sin of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways,
and requite them for their deeds.
They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
they shall play the harlot, but not multiply;
because they have forsaken the LORD to cherish harlotry.
The priesthood of Israel had been entrusted to teach Torah, to lead the
nation in worship, and to lead them to the Lord. But there are three words
in verse 7 that summarize what the priesthood had come to. The first one
is wealth, or increase. Second, they had sinned, which speaks of perverting
truth and not standing for biblical reality anymore. And third, they would
be shamed, which talks about degeneracy of life and ministry.
During the early part of Hosea's ministry, the nation knew incredible prosperity
under the reign of King Jeroboam. It was the wealthiest period in the nation's
history. There was stability economically and politically, although there
was a growing disparity between classes. The upper class got rich, and the
priesthood benefited from this wealth. So they uncritically supported of
the king and the upper or ruling classes of the nation. They indulged the
people's syncretism, or blending of the worship of Baal with the worship
of Yahweh; they cooperated with it and didn't call it what it was.
Nor did they preach against the selfish, acquisitive materialism of the
land. They couldn't, because they were benefiting too much themselves. For
the people generously gave tithes and donations out of gratitude.
There is a dangerous principle here that struck me as a spiritual leader.
More abundance of resources and wealth can create a false sense of security.
I grew up without very much of anything, but the more financial and material
resources I have now, the greater temptation it is to trust in them, and
even in the people around me who contribute and support me in that way.
The problem is that false security logically means that you think less and
less that you need the Lord. You abandon him in terms of meeting your needs.
The result is a spiritual life that is degenerative, that isn't true anymore.
The hearts of the priesthood are exposed in verse 8. This is an ugly, horrible
picture. Instead of teaching the people the nature of righteousness by holding
up biblical truth in the Torah, or the Pentateuch, and motivating them to
seek righteousness, the priests were really prospering from what was the
Old Testament equivalent of the Middle Ages practice of selling indulgences.
They were misappropriating the sin offerings and sacrifices that the people
brought to the temple. The indictment is that they were greedy for sin!
The more guilt-driven people were, the more offerings they got. They ate
better and their lifestyle improved. There is an awful picture of gluttony
for the sin of the people: "Don't preach against it, let them come
and unburden themselves, because we're getting fat off it."
Verses 9 and 10 summarize the tragic consequences. It says basically that
the priesthood was going to suffer the same judgment that the nation would
experience, which was described in verse 6. But the phrase in verse 9, "like
people, like priest," was for me a blunt reminder that people emulate
their leaders. It was tragic that the people were willing to be led in the
wrong direction, but you can't really blame them, because without consistent
biblical truth there wasn't any objective standard by which they could know
right from wrong. By the priesthood's failure the people ended up being
victimized.
Personally, this is really an awesome challenge for me as a spiritual leader.
People are going to rise or sink to my level spiritually. I can lead people
only as far as I've been willing to travel in my own spiritual pilgrimage.
The best things any of us as a pastor-teacher, elder, or minister can do
for you, to whom God has called us to minister, is to constantly move deeper
into the Scriptures; examining our own lives in terms of radical discipleship
in following the Lord Jesus, and rising higher in our vision of what God
wants from his people right here and now. My calling among you is not spiritual
superiority, and it is certainly not to benefit personally from this place
and this ministry.
What God calls me to is to simply make obedience to him and his word my
priority.
Jesus---the way, the truth, and the life
That was Hosea's passion in life, his central focus. He agonized over a
people who had lost that focus. Look ahead to Hosea 6:3, where he calls
Israel, and us today, to both intimacy and integrity, to a deepening relationship
with God, and obedience to God: "Let us know, let us press on to know
the LORD...." And remember, pressing on to know the Lord is predicated
on the fact that God has initiated relationship with us. To know him is
his gift to us. Every discovery about God and his nature is really our response
to his revelation.
The people of Israel were being destroyed because of a lack of teaching
by the priests about God and about his written word, everything he had revealed
of himself to that point in history. But today our problem is not a lack
of information about God, or even misinformation about God. Our problem
is a lack of really knowing him as he has already revealed himself.
It's easy to talk superficially and glibly about knowing God, or to talk
mechanically as if it were a matter of following a set of formulas. But
the apostle Paul said, "Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of
our religion...." (1 Timothy 3:16). There is something almost unfathomable
about knowing God. Yet the way God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ
is awesome, profound, overwhelming! In Christ, God opened up and revealed
his intrinsic, essential, innermost heart. God dwelt bodily in Messiah,
Paul wrote in Colossians 1:19. The eternal God was revealed in human history
for all time and for all people. Nothing was left out, nothing held back.
Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father...." (John
14:9).
God came to his people who had been drawn into the seduction of secondary
rites and rituals about him, but who didn't know him personally. That was
Hosea's heartbreak. But they didn't listen to the prophets; one prophet
after another was rejected. So God sent Jesus. Out of unreserved love he
offered himself in the person of Immanuel, "God With Us." John
says in John 1:14, "In him was the life, and the life was the light
of men." The Light of the World revealed both God and man, and in that
illumination we see God as he is and we see ourselves in desperate need
of him. "The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made
him known" (John 1:18). It was God himself who came to us in Christ
his Son, the divine logos, God's Word. And Jesus is the redeemer,
the reconciler, and the restorer of man to God. So our knowledge of God
and our relationship with God begins, and never ends, in Jesus Christ. Jesus
said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father, but by me" (John 14:6).
In the prayer that Jesus prayed for us in John 17, we see again the intimacy
of relationship with God combined with the call to integrity to live in
obedience to his revealed word. Jesus prayed, "And this is eternal
life, that they know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent" (17:3). There is the intimacy, the deep and personal relationship.
He also prayed, "Now they know that everything that thou hast given
me is from thee; for I have given them the words which thou gavest me"
(17:7). Later on in verse 16 he prayed, "...Thy word is truth."
And there is the call to integrity, to live in obedience to biblical truth.
The same dynamic was at work in the life of the apostle Paul. Paul was a
stubborn, hard-hearted Jew who lived a life of tremendous contention with
God until he met the resurrected Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul
grew in that relationship as he grew in his knowledge of Jesus Christ. He
wrote this about his purpose in life in his letter to the Philippians (3:10),
"...That I may know him and the power of his resurrection...."
He wrote to the Corinthians about his priority in life (1 Corinthians 2:2):
"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified." He wrote to Timothy about his passion in life (2 Timothy
1:12): "...I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is
able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day."
How can we really know God? Knowing God is about our hearts. It is about
a life of prayer and a life in the Scriptures. This is how God reveals himself
to us and communicates with us. Knowing God is also about cultivating relationships
with men and women who are equally serious about knowing him. There are
many who will settle for superficial relationships with the Creator and
Savior God. Find men and women who are serious about going deeper in knowing
him.
There is a great book I commend to you that J.I. Packer wrote about twenty
years ago entitled Knowing God. I found it just after I got out of
college, and I have read this book three times since then. It always calls
me back to the essentials, reminding me who this God is and how urgently
he wants to know me. Packer wrote:
Do we desire such knowledge of God? Then---
First, we must recognize how much we lack knowledge of God. We must learn
to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and
responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our
hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this
level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.
Second, we must seek the Saviour. When He was on earth, He invited men to
company with Him; thus they came to know Him, and in knowing Him to know
His Father...The Lord Jesus Christ is now absent from us in body, but spiritually
it makes no difference; still we may find and know God through seeking and
finding His company. It is those who have sought the Lord Jesus till they
have found Him---for the promise is that when we seek Him with all our hearts,
we shall surely find Him---who can stand before the world to testify that
they have known God.
Catalog No. 4393
Hosea 4:1-10
Fifth Message
Doug Goins
May 8, 1994
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