God's Moral Law Will Have the Last Word

Sometimes I hear the line quoted from the following passage in the book of Hosea, "My people are destroyed for lack of kowledge," followed by different interpretations of what sort of knowledge is being referred to. This has bothered me for some time because the context itself seems clearly enough to d3efine what knowledge is meant.

Hosea 4:1-8
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.

2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

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

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

Very earnest Christians, even pastors, will offer ideas of what sort of knowledge is meant, from knowledge about the devil's wiles, to knowledge about diseases and poisons in our environment, to knhowledge about political conspiracies, all things that could certainly threaten our survvival if not recognized and avoided.

But reading the passage as a unit it seems pretty plain to me that God is talking about a lack of knowledge of His Law. He says there is no truthy, mercy or knowledge of God, that there is swearing and lying and killing, stealing and committing adultery. Isn't it clear that He's talkiing about a lack of knowldedge of the consequances of sin here? Isn't it sin that is bringing on them the mourning of the land, the languishing of the people, the taking away of sustenance, causing their falling?

It is sin that destroys us. Scripture says elsewhere "The waes of sin is death." And Romans 5:12 has: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned..." It is violations of God's Law that bring every kind of destruction on the humqan race. That's what the Fall was, from which all humanity has been suffering for millennia. We live in a fallen world, which is too often fprgpteem evem by Christians who should khnow it best. Althoughh in the Hosea passage God is talking specifically about His chosen people who lack the knowledge of His law that would keep them from the sin that destroys them, it's true of human beings inb general. All suffering of every kind is the consequence of sin, our own personal sin or sin we inherit from ancestors, our own ancestral lineage as well as our original parents whose Original Sin of disobedience has been passed on to all their progeny.

As I've mentioned before, various cultures and religions also have some knowledge of God'[s Moral Law although it is incomplete or distorted by comparison with the biblical revelation. Lying, stealing, adultury, murder are all identified as basic karmic categories to be avoided in Buddhism for instance. That's four of the Ten Commandments spelled out in the Bible. If you avoid committing these sins you will cut down on your susceptibility to disease, injuries and early death. Of course we can't change what we inherit from our ancestors, all we can do is minimize our own personal sibns and their consequences. Even so we all commmit sins every day because it's built into the fallen nature we are born into.

This is why Christ died. This is the gospel, the "good news" that although we all deserve Hell because we're all sinned against the Law of God, Jesus Christ the God-Man came to pay our sin debt for us. He took on our sins so that we could take on His perfect righteousness and have eternal life. If we believe in His death in our place we are saved. If we refuse His offer we will go to the Hell we have personally deserved.

I remember God's Law lately because of the sins America as a nation has accumulated, and natiobs are also subject to destruction for sin. That's what the Judhment of God is all about. Pass a law calling the killing of the unborn good and the nation comes under God's judgment. Pass a law interpreting Freedom o Speech to include protecting pornography and the nation comes under gOD'S JUDGMENT. Pass a law extending marriage to homosexual couples and the nation comes under God's judgment. God's judgment includdes all kinds of destruction, from violent weather patterns to social unrest, increased in murders, the election of evil people to governing positions, defuncting the police so that crime increases, bringibng foreigners into the country to destroy the economy, spending more monjey than we have which will also destroy the economy. In other words sin increases sin and that in itself is God's judgment. Eventually God's wrath will utterly destroy a nation. He may use our enemmies to destroy us, although they in their turn will also be judgged.

Knowing that God is in chanrge of all these things is what keeps me from being very hopeful that America can recover from our current downward spiral. The Left has the upper hand and they are at the moment the wielders of our destructfion though they will be destroyed in turn for their blatant violations of God's Law. I still see some signs of hope here and there so I haven't given up completely but the general trend of lies and more lies and destructive policies after more destructive policies looks like the main trend with no end in sight.

The only way to prevent it is for the nation to turn back to God in humility, rependance and prayer. I don't see that happening, do you? well, I could add that there are passages in the bible that make it clear God will honor a few righteous even in a predominantly wicked nation. I guess that's a source of hope. Otherwise it looks like it's all downhill to the Great Tribulation from where I sit.