The Logic of Decay: When a Nation Forgets God Text: Hosea 4:1-3
Introduction: God's Covenant Lawsuit
We live in a time when men believe they can have a functioning society without God. They imagine that a nation can be good without God, prosperous without God, and just without God. They think of morality as a free-floating balloon, something we can keep aloft by our good intentions and a general sense of niceness. But the prophet Hosea comes to us this morning as a man with a pin, and he has been sent to pop every one of those balloons.
The book of Hosea opens with God's command for the prophet to marry a prostitute. This is not some arbitrary, shocking command for its own sake. It is a living, breathing, walking object lesson. Hosea's marriage to Gomer is a dramatic portrayal of God's covenant relationship with Israel. He is the faithful husband, and she is the adulterous wife, chasing after other lovers, other gods. And so, when we come to chapter 4, the domestic drama of Hosea's household explodes onto the national stage. God is no longer just speaking to Hosea; He is speaking through Hosea to the entire nation.
And what He says is this: court is now in session. The passage before us is the opening statement in a divine covenant lawsuit. The Hebrew word for "contention" in verse 1 is rib, a legal term for a formal case brought before a judge. God, the covenant Lord, is bringing charges against His people, the inhabitants of the land. He is the plaintiff, the prosecutor, and the judge. The mountains and hills are the jury box, and the people of Israel are in the dock.
This is not a petty squabble. This is a matter of cosmic treason. And we must understand that this principle still holds. When a nation is in covenant with God, as ancient Israel was, and as any nation is that has been significantly shaped by the gospel, that nation is accountable. There is no neutrality. A nation is either walking in the terms of the covenant, or it is violating them. And when it violates them, God brings a lawsuit. What we are reading here is the divine indictment, the list of charges. And as we will see, the charges brought against Israel eight centuries before Christ could be ripped from the headlines of our own newspapers today.
The Text
Listen to the word of Yahweh, O sons of Israel,
For Yahweh has a contention against the inhabitants of the land,
Because there is no truth or lovingkindness
Or knowledge of God in the land.
There is swearing of oaths, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery.
They break forth in violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Therefore the land mourns,
And everyone who inhabits it languishes
Along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky,
And also the fish of the sea disappear.
(Hosea 4:1-3 LSB)
The Root of the Rot (v. 1)
The indictment begins by identifying the foundational problem, the spiritual cancer from which all other sicknesses in the nation proceed.
"Listen to the word of Yahweh, O sons of Israel, For Yahweh has a contention against the inhabitants of the land, Because there is no truth or lovingkindness Or knowledge of God in the land." (Hosea 4:1)
God lays out a three-fold charge, and we must see that it is a progression. The problem is not first and foremost the crime in the streets, but the emptiness in the sanctuary. The issue is theological before it is sociological. The charge is that there is no "truth," no "lovingkindness," and no "knowledge of God" in the land.
First, there is no "truth." This is not about isolated instances of dishonesty. The Hebrew word is emeth, which means fidelity, faithfulness, reliability. It refers to a reality that is fixed, objective, and dependable because it is grounded in the character of God. When a nation abandons God, it abandons the very concept of truth. Truth becomes subjective, personal, a matter of preference. "Your truth" replaces "the truth." And when that happens, the entire society begins to unravel. Contracts become meaningless, promises are worthless, and the public square becomes a war of competing lies.
Second, there is no "lovingkindness." This is the great covenant word, hesed. It is loyal love, steadfast faithfulness, mercy that is rooted in a promise. This is the glue of covenant relationships. It is the love that a husband owes his wife, that parents owe their children, that a king owes his people, and that a people owe their God. When the knowledge of God disappears, hesed evaporates. It is replaced by utilitarian relationships, where people use one another for personal gain, pleasure, or power. Society becomes a collection of atomized individuals, each pursuing his own self-interest, with no binding loyalty to anything beyond himself.
But these first two problems are symptoms of the third, which is the root disease: there is no "knowledge of God in the land." This is the headwaters of the river of corruption. The "knowledge of God" is not about knowing facts about God, like memorizing catechism answers. It is the Hebrew word da'ath, which signifies a deep, personal, intimate, and experiential knowledge. It is the knowledge of relationship, of submission, of obedience. It is knowing God as He has revealed Himself in His Word and law. When a nation collectively turns its back on this knowledge, when it stops teaching its children the ways of the Lord, when its priests and pastors offer therapeutic pablum instead of the law and the gospel, this is the inevitable result. The absence of the knowledge of God creates a vacuum, and that vacuum will be filled.
The Fruit of the Rot (v. 2)
Verse 2 shows us what fills that vacuum. When theology is abandoned, morality collapses. When the first table of the law is ignored, the second table is shattered.
"There is swearing of oaths, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. They break forth in violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed." (Hosea 4:2 LSB)
Hosea now lists the practical, observable consequences of a godless society. Notice the direct connection. Because there is no knowledge of God, therefore there is this cascade of sin. This is a direct assault on the modern secularist assumption that we can be "good without God." The Bible says that is a fool's errand. Without the fear of God, there is no ultimate restraint on the wickedness of the human heart.
The list is a direct echo of the Ten Commandments. "Swearing of oaths" and "deception" violate the ninth commandment against bearing false witness, and the third against taking God's name in vain. "Murder" violates the sixth. "Stealing" violates the eighth. "Adultery" violates the seventh. These are not just individual failings; they have become the national character. The text says they "break forth in violence." The image is of a swollen river breaking its banks and flooding everything. The moral levees have broken. And the result is that "bloodshed follows bloodshed." One act of violence touches the next. It creates a culture of death, a cycle of vengeance and retaliation that permeates the whole land.
We see this today. When a nation aborts its children by the millions, is it any surprise that its streets are filled with violence? When we teach our children that they are nothing more than evolved primates, is it any surprise when they act like it? When we remove God's law from our courthouses and our classrooms, is it any surprise when lawlessness abounds? This is not complicated. This is cause and effect. A nation that sows the wind of apostasy will reap the whirlwind of social chaos.
The Groaning of Creation (v. 3)
Finally, the prophet shows us that the consequences of man's sin are never limited to man. The covenant lawsuit extends to the very creation itself.
"Therefore the land mourns, And everyone who inhabits it languishes Along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, And also the fish of the sea disappear." (Hosea 4:3 LSB)
This is a staggering statement. Because of Israel's covenant rebellion, the land itself is sick. The word for "mourns" is what one does at a funeral. The land is dying. The people "languish," they grow weak and faint. But it doesn't stop there. The curse of man's sin radiates outward, affecting the entire ecosystem. The beasts, the birds, and even the fish of the sea are swept away.
This is a foundational biblical principle. Man was created to be the federal head of creation, the steward and vice-gerent of God. When man is in right relationship with God, creation flourishes under his dominion. When man rebels against God, he drags the creation down with him. The Apostle Paul picks up this very theme in Romans 8, when he says that "the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now... eagerly waiting for the revealing of the sons of God" (Romans 8:22, 19). Creation is waiting for man to be redeemed so that it can be redeemed along with him.
The modern environmentalist movement gets this half right. They see that the creation is groaning, that the ecosystem is out of balance. But they misdiagnose the disease. They think the problem is carbon emissions or plastic straws. They think the solution is more government control and less human flourishing. But the Bible says the problem is not carbon, but covenant-breaking. The problem is sin. The land is not sick because of man's industry, but because of man's impiety. You cannot heal the land without healing the people on the land. And you cannot heal the people without reconciling them to the God they have rejected.
Conclusion: The Only Verdict that Matters
So what is the verdict in this great covenant lawsuit? For Israel, the verdict was guilty, and the sentence was exile. God would vomit them out of the land that they had defiled. But that is not the end of the story. The entire Old Testament points forward to the one who would come and stand in the dock on our behalf.
Jesus Christ, the true Israel, came into a land where there was no truth, and declared Himself to be "the way, the truth, and the life." He came into a world with no hesed, and He was the perfect embodiment of God's steadfast, covenant love. He came into a world with no knowledge of God, and He said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."
He took upon Himself the curse that we deserved. He was charged with our swearing, our deception, our murder, our theft, our adultery. The violence of our sin was laid upon Him, and bloodshed touched bloodshed on the cross. The land itself mourned, as darkness covered it. He languished and died, taking the full force of the covenant curse.
And because He did this, a new verdict is now possible. For all who repent of their sin and trust in Him, the lawsuit is dismissed. The charges are dropped. We are declared righteous in Him. And through His gospel, He begins the work of healing not just our souls, but the land itself. The Great Commission is a command to disciple the nations, to teach them the knowledge of God, so that truth and lovingkindness might once again fill the land. The creation itself is waiting for the church to take this task seriously. It is groaning for the gospel to advance, for the kingdom to come, so that the curse might be rolled back, and the whole earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.