Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge

Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge

by Wayne Dailey
Senior Pastor, Bethel Revival Center
43 Norwood St.
Everett, MA 02149

---

Hosea 4:1,2
Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

Think of God's patience and longsuffering in dealing with people, trying to bring them out of sin — out of the way they have turned to go — and bring them into a new life and a new way: where they take hold of Him to follow Him, and where they seek Him with all their hearts and do what is right in His sight.

These Scriptures show you what a job it is for God to accomplish this.

Did God fail in Hosea's day? Somebody failed. Was it God? I don't believe God ever fails. In fact, I know He never fails. In any generation He would point us to hear His Word because that's where we will get the answers.

Hear the Word of the Lord

Hear the Word of the Lord! That's where we'll find the knowledge of God — to hear and to apply that knowledge to our hearts. Doing this can only bring us up. Adding the knowledge of God to our hearts and lives can only better us.

So, it's the knowledge of God that must flourish in our hearts if He is going to make us what He wants us to be.

Haven't you found over the years of your experience that as you get into the Word more and more, and as you are being washed with the water of the Word of God, it naturally tends to clean up your life?

When we hear His Word, it gets into our hearts and minds, and we start to apply it: We start to live by it; we start practicing the Word in our daily lives. The more we follow this, mortifying the members of our body (see Romans 8:11-13), the more we find ourselves walking uprightly with God.

Now, put yourselves in the atmosphere here in Hosea's day and live there for awhile — where there is no truth, no mercy, no knowledge in the land. By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they were affecting one another.

You can see, now, God's controversy. What was lacking here? Looking at the land it seems like it was void of the knowledge of the Word everywhere. This was a nation sunk down, mired in the clay. There's something drastically wrong here.

When we see things like this it helps us understand God as a God of love, a God of patience and longsuffering. It's His desire to bring people out of that way, to bring them up into light and understanding, where they will have love in their hearts for Him and for one another and be filled with the knowledge of Him.

So, the question is this: What is God's attitude toward these people? Is He still going to deal with them as His people? Or is He going to toss them out on their ear and say, "Look, away with this! I can't take this any more!"?

God's dealings with His people show that it takes a lot on His part. He is a great God, a loving God.

Hosea 4:3
Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

Now, it gets down to the same place in which God's people found themselves in the book of Joel. The land in that day was languishing: the fields burnt from the hot sun, the crops overtaken with insects, and so on. There would be a time when the land and the people of the land would languish and mourn.

This is what God said would take place over here in the days of Hosea, as well. Would this help the problem? How hungry will you get before you change your mind, before you change your ways, before you decide to clean up and walk with God uprightly because God has the chastening rod on you and won't let up until you straighten out?

God has a controversy here with these people.

Striving with the Preacher

Hosea 4:4
Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.

We don't want to be in the place of always striving with the preacher who is wanting to deliver God's message. They were doing that here in Hosea. As a people they fussed at everything the priest did to try and bring them out of the state they were in, ever rebelling at the Word.

Why were they this way? What's the reason? This was certainly a hard time in the history of Israel. Every time we look into these prophets, we always find them dealing with the conditions in the land.

It was a time when God's people just let everything and anything go. There was no correction nor instruction given them.

It's nice when you read where the people were doing well, walking in well-pleasing with God. But so many times they lived the way they chose to go, not the way God would want them to go.

Where were they headed with such a way?

Hosea 4:5
Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.

God is reaching down to try to shock them to their senses. God is attempting to waken His people to realize how bad their conditions really were. There has to be a change here in their experience.

How much farther down can they go?

Well, God raised up the prophet Hosea and gave him a message to deliver. He went out, and it was like he was pulling the covers off from every tent. He lets the Word drop in everywhere, letting everybody know the condition they were in and how far away from God they really were. He didn't hold back. He ministered the Word straightforward. What God told him to do, he did.

And, in this realm, we see that God is faithful to let His Word come forth to warn the people — if they just would hear.

One of their problems was that there were too many false prophets in the land, too many who rose up to take it upon themselves to be prophets, yet God didn't raise them up. They spoke as a prophet, but God had not given them the message.

So, they were out there as lying prophets, causing confusion and contention amongst God's people, because while they were prophesying lies, the real prophet was prophesying the truth.

Those who heard Hosea's message and then heard someone coming along with a contradictory message decided to believe the false prophets.

Destroyed by Rejecting Knowledge

Now, one of the most shocking verses that you read in the Bible is the next verse:

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Think of what this implies. This should be a message to us in our day. We who have an abundance of God's Word ought to be a blessed people — we ought to be looking into His Word, wanting the knowledge of God, wanting to understand His Word, wanting our lives to be filled with the good knowledge of the Lord.

Now, think of what it would be like to be the opposite, where God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Notice it says My people (i.e., God's people).

There's a crowd of people gathered together in the Lord's name, yet they are all committing adultery, lying, stealing, cheating — sinning and sinning more and more — and God says, "This is My people"!

Something's wrong here. Can you understand that? It's not the love of God that's wrong. It's His love that's behind those words, "My people." God speaks here because there's a great failure somewhere, and He wants to see that failure corrected.

He is saying that His people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. What does that word "destroyed" mean here?

Well, God said that His people were destroyed for lack of knowledge. In the spiritual realm — the realm of our experience with God — there are those who are in the place where they don't have the Bible, don't have the preachers, thus don't have the knowledge.

Here in Hosea they didn't have the priest functioning and didn't have the temple functioning: not having, then, the great things that should be had.

Why? Because they had rejected knowledge. It wasn't that God hadn't given them knowledge. This is what Hosea was doing right here, giving knowledge to them. He was telling it like it is, but they were rejecting that knowledge.

If they were rejecting knowledge, they weren't listening to anybody who related knowledge to them. They went strictly on their own, and if their heads were empty, it was their fault that they remained empty.

The fault fell back on them. It wasn't God's fault. People are too quick to always blame God, but He is saying His people were destroyed for lack of knowledge — because they had rejected the knowledge He had given them:

Hosea 4:6a
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee . . .

You see, it gets down to the place where God begins to speak strongly, telling them Himself what they need to hear.

The Pastor's Great Responsibility

Think of the duty, the responsibility that falls on the heads of some pastors when God sends them to pastor a people like this!

Hosea 4:6b
. . . that thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

See the one God points to in His Word? He points His finger to the priest. This is the man who's responsible, and God is dealing with him. He's a man who should be teaching the knowledge of God.

Back in the days when God had a priesthood in Israel, He made them responsible for teaching the knowledge of God to His people. They had the book of the law, and they were to teach it to the people.

The people would hear the words of God at the mouth of the priest. So, if the priest stopped doing what he was called to do, then the people wouldn't be hearing.

We see that it could be the priest who is rejecting the knowledge of God. He could be the fault that's behind the fact that God's people were destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Let's talk here about what it means to be responsible as a servant of God. In the end, a pastor who has faithfully taught the Word of God to the flock entrusted to him won't be ashamed when he stands before the Lord. He won't be ashamed that he made knowledge readily available to the people of God, that he gave the church opportunity to get a hold of the Word and hide it in their hearts.

This is what the priest should have been doing in Hosea's day. He should have been doing this, but he wasn't. The priests seemed to have sat down and forsaken the house of God, forsaken the sacrifices, forsaken their priestly duties.

Bear in mind that there's a failure here. Somebody failed, and God's dealing with that because in His heart He wants that corrected.

His people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge — destroyed by the very people who should be helping them, by lack of knowledge from the mouth of the priests.

Here in the days of Hosea was a time when the only thing that would correct the state of things in the land would be God's strong judgment.

He raised up Hosea the prophet in their stead, calling him to be a true voice of God, a true messenger of God — if the people would listen.

Willful Ignorance

They were so accustomed to not listening that they didn't want to listen to anybody. They rejected knowledge and, thus, rejected an experience with God, rejected having a real true experience with God that would save and bring deliverance, that would prepare them for the day when they would meet the Lord.

This is where things break down: willful ignorance. One who is willfully ignorant likes it that way. After all, if they learn too much, they'd have to be responsible for the knowledge they have.

Give me the knowledge, and take the ignorance away! We don't want to swap our knowledge for ignorance. We shouldn't want ignorance. We should want to learn more and more of the knowledge of God.

With the Lord, it's a learning process. How long does it go on? We should ever be learning — our whole lifetime.

Now, in the New Testament Paul warns of this willful lack of knowledge. He speaks of those who are ever learning but never able to come to knowledge of the truth. They are ever learning what they want to learn and are rejecting the rest.

II Timothy 3:7
Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

To come to the knowledge of the truth about salvation is not a complicated thing. The grace of God has surely made the way easy for any who will believe to the saving of their soul. When we come to that saving knowledge and receive Jesus Christ as Saviour, we find we fall in love with Him; we want to hear His words more and more and apply the Word to our lives.

As we continue on walking with Him, we grow more and more in our love for Him, and more and more in love with the Word of God.

We want to be in the realm where we desire the truth, where we're ever open to the knowledge of the truth. We shouldn't want to slide any Scriptures out of the way where we don't have to receive them. We should want to receive all God would say to us.

Some believe that if you don't hear it, then you're not held accountable, then you're not responsible for it. Listen, you don't want to reject any of God's Word. You want to read it and feed on it.

Dishonoring God!

Hosea 4:7
As they were increased, so they sinned against Me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.

In rejecting the knowledge of God's Word, they were rejecting God. They were sinning against Him, and God would change their glory into shame.

We never want our lives to bring shame to the Lord and His glory. When we are called by His name — Christians, His children — we want our lives to honor His name. We should be leery of allowing anything in us to dishonor Him and His name.

I surely wouldn't want that tagged to my record: that my life dishonored the Lord before others. Here's the One who died to save me from my sins, and here I am dishonoring Him!

We should honor the Lord in everything. There are so many ways to honor Him. We are told to even honor Him with our substance, in our giving (see Proverbs 3:9).

Whenever you take your walk with the Lord seriously, you'll honor Him. When you put His Word right out there in front of you and you live according to His Word; when you do what the Word says to do, you honor Him because you're honoring His Word. You're taking His Word seriously.

We should always make this our practice: that we don't want to do one thing that dishonors Him or His Word.

If I lie, what does that do? Doesn't that dishonor the Lord? If I steal? If I commit adultery?

We see what others did when they dishonored the Lord, and we learn that we should ever be on guard not to dishonor Him in any way.

Our lips should ever honor Him and give Him glory, praise and thanksgiving. We should lift up His Name.

Ways to Glorify God

Psalm 71:8
Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise and with Thy honour all the day.

We honor the Lord when we tell others about Him, when we tell others how good He is to us. We honor the Lord with our works and with our testimonies.

This is the thing they weren't doing in Hosea's day. They lost their sense of giving honor to the Lord, and nothing was going well for them.

We see where God says they had sinned against Him, and their glory would be changed to shame.

Man was created in the likeness and image of God, created in His glory. This gives us a responsibility to God. As Christians we should want our lives to shine, not dishonoring His name in any way.

Now, "glory" is a word we don't altogether grasp the full meaning of. Nobody can take the Lord's glory unto themselves. God won't give His glory to another.

There are many times in the Word when glory is used to speak of a man's glory: such as having a good wife, having nice children around about him. That's his glory, having a nice family. Even one's hoary head can be our glory; yes, our gray hair is considered our glory when we walk in righteousness (see Proverbs 16:31).

Would we want our glory, now, turned to shame? God says here in Hosea that He would change their glory into shame.

In walking with Jesus, one of the greatest events ahead of us is the day when we're glorified together with Him. He's going to bring a glory upon all of His own who are in the family of God — being made partakers of God's glory that fills the heavens. And those who love and treasure Him will be gathered together about His throne.

One way people could be guilty of taking the Lord's glory unto themselves is not giving Him credit for what does for them or through them. It is God who heals and prospers people, and He should get the glory.

You can tell when someone is a real servant of God, a real messenger of the Lord. They won't bring a message about themselves, but about Christ. They preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

We're servants of God to His people, and all the glory belongs to Him. We want to lift up His name, and we want to exalt Him. Yes, praising His name glorifies Him.

When we pray and seek His face, we should want to honor Him, asking in His name. Yes, there are a lot of ways to honor Him.

But, then, there are also those ways where we can be guilty of dishonoring Him.

How about You?

Let's think about you for a moment. Do you really honor the Lord? You can honor Him with your words, just like you can praise Him with words.

The Scriptures teach to give honor to whom honor is due. Some want all the honor for themselves, but giving honor to whom honor is due is giving honor to the Lord. It is our duty and responsibility to give all honor to the Lord. Failure on our part can make us look in God's eyes like we want everything we can get from Him, but we never take the time to thank Him, to honor Him, and to give Him glory.

Have you ever given somebody something and they never took time to say thank you? Something's wrong there. And this should go up to a higher realm: giving thanks to the Lord for all things. Nobody ever gave to you like He has given to you. Nobody has ever done as much as Jesus has done for you — and does for you day after day after day. He thinks about you every day and loads you with benefits daily. You need to honor Him and give Him thanks.

Psalm 145:5
I will speak of the glorious honour of Thy majesty, and of Thy wondrous works.

Open your mouth and use it to lift up the Lord, to give Him glory. Your mouth can't speak on its own — it speaks out of the abundance of the heart. Words come from somewhere, and the Scriptures say they come from the abundance of one's heart.

There's nothing in your mouth that speaks of itself. All it does is take the words from the files of your heart and make them audible. When we hear someone cursing the Lord, we know their heart is filled with curses for the Lord — and the same is true of those who praise and magnify the Lord with their words.

God knows what's in our hearts. Let's keep our hearts open, glowing with truth. Let's not be part of those who are destroyed for lack of knowledge — those who stopped listening to the Word, stopped taking heed to the Word.

You can see it was a hard time in that day. The land was full of failure. They had turned away from righteousness and going the right way, and they turned back to their own ways. They had left off taking heed to the Word of God and were taking heed to their own interests.

Keep on reading in the book of Hosea, and you'll find more and more of the things they did in rejecting the Word of God. The priests decided they were no longer going to go to the temple to teach God's people from God's Word, to teach them the ways of the Lord. One by one the priesthood ceased, and one by one the people failed because they weren't being fed — and they didn't care. They started going a new way.

Let us not go that way. We should want our lives to greatly honor the Lord, that we keep His name lifted up in our hearts, ever living for Him to His honor and glory. Bringing honor and glory to His name should be a daily event, taking every opportunity that comes our way.