Pause and Reflect

A rebuke from Hosea 4

Hosea 4:1–6 (NET)

1 Listen to the Lord’s message, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God.

2 There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. They resort to violence and bloodshed.

3 Therefore the land will mourn, and all its inhabitants will perish. The wild animals, the birds of the sky, and even the fish in the sea will perish.

4 Do not let anyone accuse or contend against anyone else: for my case is against you priests!

5 You stumble day and night, and the false prophets stumble with you; you have destroyed your own people.

6 You have destroyed my people by failing to acknowledge me!

Hosea 4 ought to give us pause. Most of us know and love Hosea’s story. The prophet marries an unfaithful woman who commits adultery and ends up selling herself into slavery as a prostitute. And then God tells Hosea to go and buy back his unfaithful wife, redeeming her from slavery to bring her home and show her love once again. It’s a beautiful portrait of God’s unconditional love for his unfaithful people, and his willingness to redeem them even though they’ve fallen into sin.

That story is found in the first three chapters of Hosea. But Hosea is 14 chapters long. And there are some hard words in those later chapters.

In light of the recent events in our nation, Hosea 4 takes on fresh clarity.

“There is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God. There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. They resort to violence and bloodshed” (Hosea 4:1-2).

That’s a fitting description of our society. And we might be tempted to read the word “they” in those verses and think, “Yes. They are terrible people! They are ruining our nation! They need to be held accountable!” But if we do that, we’ll miss the full force of Hosea’s rebuke.

“Do not let anyone accuse or contend against anyone else: for my case is against you priests” (Hosea 4:4).

Yes, the nation of Israel was unraveling into sin. But God pointed out that the reason Israel was stumbling was that the priests were stumbling. This might not be a popular opinion, but I believe one of the reasons our nation today is unraveling is that Christians (a royal priesthood, see 1 Peter 2:9) have been spiritually asleep for decades. Before we point fingers, we ought to look in the mirror. We too often haven’t taken our faith seriously, but have slipped into casual, cultural, Christian consumers. We haven’t given our lives to loving the lost, winning the hearts of the sinners, or teaching them how to follow Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope we have. Without him, things will only get bleaker. So, yes, let’s advocate for a change in the political landscape. Let’s vote out the leaders who support murdering babies in the womb, mutilating children in the name of gender ideology, and making euthanasia legal (these leaders, by the way, usually come from the same party that previously supported slavery in the U.S.—not exactly a party that can claim any moral high ground.) And while we participate in the governance of our nation as responsible citizens, let us set an even higher priority: to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, to show them the Way of Jesus, and to make disciples of all nations—including our own.