Hosea chapter 4 continues the prophet’s theme of God’s judgment on the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land:
‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

3 Because of this the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea are swept away.

The sins of the Israelites were so severe that they were even bringing destruction on the Promised Land. The people were breaking the Commandments,
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
the root cause of all this evil and wickedness was actually what was lacking in the people.
‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.
When people do not have faith in God, and have no love, and do not even acknowledge God, then all kinds of terrible sins will follow. And remember, these charges are not being made against pagan nations who did not know God. Israel was God’s chosen people, his holy nation, his royal priesthood, his special possession. How much worse it is to say there is no acknowledgment of God in the land
But who is to blame for this dreadful situation which God’s chosen people have fallen into? Hosea goes on to explain that God’s judgment is burning especially against a particular group of people.
NIV 4 ‘But let no one bring a charge, let no one accuse another,
for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest.

The Hebrew in verse 4 is very hard to understand. That 2011 New International Version doesn’t bring out the real meaning. The New Revised Standard Version is clearer.
NRSV Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest
The Good News Bible puts it this way.
GNT The LORD says, “Let no one accuse the people or reprimand them—my complaint is against you priests.
Personally I think the New Living Translation makes the meaning most clear.
NLT “Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame! My complaint, you priests, is with you.
God’s judgment was coming on the whole nation of Israel, for they had all rejected God and drifted into worshipping idols and false gods. But the blame for that lay fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the priests. The very people who God had entrusted with the spiritual life of Israel were the ones responsible for her downfall..
4 ‘But let no one bring a charge,
let no one accuse another,
for your people are like those
who bring charges against a priest.
5 You stumble day and night,
and the prophets stumble with you.
So I will destroy your mother—

The nation would be destroyed because both the priests and the prophets who should have been leading the Israelites to God were failing in their callings.
6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
It was the special responsibility of the priests to teach the people the law of Moses so that they would all obey the law. But the priests were failing to do that.
‘Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.
The priest had abandoned God’s law – so God would reject them. Their lack of knowledge would bring on the destruction of the Israelites. But the priests weren’t just failing to teach the law. They were bringing false teaching, actually leading the people to worship idols and false gods, encouraging everybody to sin.
7 The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me;
they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.
8 They feed on the sins of my people and relish their wickedness.

So God’s judgment will fall particularly on the heads of the priests who were leading the people into idol worship, and worse. This was not just spiritual prostitution but the ritual prostitution of the fertility cults of the surrounding nations, who believed that sexual immorality, drunken orgies and other despicable pagan rituals would produce good harvests. The priests were taking their living for leading the people to worship false gods and not the One True God, the glorious God who had saved and created Israel. So judgment will come on them all.
9 And it will be: like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.
10 ‘They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not flourish,
because they have deserted the LORD to give themselves 11 to prostitution;
old wine and new wine take away their understanding.

Instead of faithfully worshipping the one true God and Saviour, the people were worshipping idols.
12 My people consult a wooden idol, and a diviner’s rod speaks to them.
A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God.
Unfaithful to their God, as Gomer Hosea’s wife had been unfaithful to him. The priests are even offering sacrifices to the pagan gods at their altars built on high places.
13 They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak, poplar and terebinth, where the shade is pleasant.
All this pagan idol worship was leading the ordinary people into all kinds of immorality.
Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery.
14 ‘I will not punish your daughters when they turn to prostitution,
nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery,
because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with shrine-prostitutes—
a people without understanding will come to ruin!

Hosea is very clear – God’s punishment will fall on the Northern Kingdom of Israel for their immorality and their lack of understanding. And there is a solemn warning for the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
15 ‘Though you, Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty.
‘Do not go to Gilgal; do not go up to Beth Aven. And do not swear, “As surely as the LORD lives!”
Judah would need to stay firm and resist the same temptations. But Israel had already fallen too low – the Israelites were already doomed by this idol worship.
16 The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer.
How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow?
17 Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!
18 Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution;
their rulers dearly love shameful ways.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was now trapped in their sins. They had gone beyond saving.
19 A whirlwind will sweep them away, and their sacrifices will bring them shame.
Judgment was coming. And the blame rested squarely on the shoulders of the priests who had abandoned the law of God and led the people into worshipping false gods and into depths of immorality. The nation would be wiped out because there was no acknowledgment of God in the land. … My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
So what does all this have to say to us today? I believe Hosea chapter 4 is a solemn warning to those who follow in the footsteps of the priests in the church today. To ministers and preachers who teach in the church and to those who lead God’s people in worship.
The priests in Hosea’s day had abandoned God’s Law, leaving the people in ignorance of what God required and even teaching them to worship false gods. They had rejected knowledge and ignored the Law. That to me is a warning to all the preachers today, especially the famous ones, who depart from Bible truth. All the teachers who cut out of their Bibles the difficult bits they don’t like or who tell us that what the Bible says doesn’t apply today or that Christians don’t need to obey what the Bible teaches us any more. Some are open about which bits of the Bible they are rejecting. Other preachers can be more dangerous because they don’t actually base their teaching on the Bible at all – they just give entertaining and encouraging messages of hope which aren’t really founded on anything. The result is the same. My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
The priests in Hosea’s time led the Israelites into immorality and ritual prostitution. There are preachers today who say that God’s standards of sexual ethics don’t apply any more, condoning and even encouraging behaviour even between Christians which was universally condemned in previous generations. The church desperately needs preachers and teachers and theologians who do not “reject knowledge” and “ignore the law of God.” We must beware of being led astray by teachers who exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.
The apostle Paul had these instructions for Timothy which still seem very relevant today.
2 Timothy 4 2 preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Preachers and teachers should not compromise the Christian faith by just telling people what their itching ears want to hear. We must be faithful to what God has revealed to us in the Bible
The other great sin of the priests of Hosea’s time is that they led people to worship idols instead of the one true God, even offering sacrifices to those false gods. Those priests just gave the people what they wanted and what they asked for. And this I think gives a serious warning to anybody who is entrusted with the responsibility of leading God’s people in worship, not only clergy but also thr increasing ranks of worship leaders. We must make sure that we are actually leading people to worship God, and not just giving people what they think they want.
I read an interesting blog article this week reporting how an Old Testament scholar Michael Rhodes compared the worship of God we find in the Psalms with the worship of God reflected in the chart of the Top 25 Christian worship songs. He found a number of themes like justice and concern for the poor and oppressed which are very important in the Psalms to be almost completely absent from those top 25 Christian songs. On the other hand popular worship songs tend to focus on the emotional encounter of the individual with God, what one author has described as “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs. They often talk about “I” and “me” whereas the Psalms talk much more about “we” and “us”. So many modern worship songs express celebration and triumph while the Psalms so often talk about suffering and lament. Most of the top 25 Christians worship songs were written by just a few individuals. Michael Rhodes commented, “if those professionals keep writing songs that just edit out enormous portions of the biblical language of worship, churches will have to fire them and find other resources OR our worshiping lives will be impoverished.”
It may be true that all some Christians want to sing at this time is cheerful triumphant songs. But coming out of the Coronavirus pandemic what we all need is actually a healthy balanced diet of worship which gives space for reflection and mourning and lament as well as rejoicing.
The other point the article made was that sung worship in many large and popular churches seems to emphasise performance rather than participation. Songs are written for the band to perform rather than for the congregation to sing together. The commercialisation of Christian music through YouTube and digital downloads has produced popular worship songs which a generation of Christians love to sing along to in the kitchen or in the car, but which are a long way from the kinds of worship we find in the Psalms. The hymns and songs we use in our times of worship shape the faith and the life of our churches. Unless God’s people are really worshipping in spirit and in truth, there is a real danger of ending up with no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God.
So Hosea brings a warning to worship leaders and song writers, and to preachers and ministers. And let me finish by explaining why I think those warnings are particularly important for churches at this time. We are all beginning to emerge from the massive upheaval of the Coronavirus pandemic. Many churches are struggling in these days. Not only have the finances of many churches been hit very hard. In many churches, worshippers and even church members are not all returning. The last 20 months have caused very many people to take a long look at their lives and re-evaluate their priorities, and for some people church (or sometimes the church they used to belong to) is no longer as important to them. For many people, church has become a video they can tune into from their sofas whenever they want to watch a recording, rather than a community they are happy to belong to. There are also some people who used to be very active in their churches who have been glad to be less busy, and are not wanting to take up all their old jobs again.
Churches are wanting to bring people back into church again. But the temptation will be greater than ever for ministers and preachers to tell people just the things that are easy to hear, rather than the hard truths of the Bible. For worship leaders the temptation will be to give people just the popular songs they enjoy singing, rather than to lead them in the broad riches of worship, which of course includes times of prayer and testimony and prophecy and silence as well as just singing.
In Hosea’s time, Israel came under God’s judgment because there was no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. God’s people were destroyed from lack of knowledge. But this was the fault of the priests who had rejected knowledge, “ignored the law of God” and “exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.” So it is that a people without understanding will come to ruin!
These things are given as warnings to us today. Remember what happened to Israel.
19 A whirlwind will sweep them away, and their sacrifices will bring them shame.
Let those who have ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches