The Alarm, The Appeal, and The Apostasy Text: Hosea 8:1-3
Introduction: The Difference Between a Creed and a Slogan
We live in a time of great spiritual confusion, a time when the lines between the church and the world are not so much blurred as they are deliberately erased. The modern evangelical church, in its desperate quest for relevance, has often traded the sharp, two-edged sword of the Word for a soft, pliable butterknife that butters up the world but cannot cut to the heart of sin. We have become experts at mouthing slogans while our hearts are a thousand miles away from the God who gave us the creed.
This is not a new problem. The prophet Hosea was sent to a people who had perfected this art form. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was in a state of advanced spiritual decay. They had syncretized their worship, blending the commandments of Yahweh with the idolatrous practices of their pagan neighbors. They had political instability, moral rot, and a foreign policy that trusted in alliances with godless nations rather than in the living God. And yet, when the alarm sounded, when the consequences of their sin began to gather on the horizon like a storm, their first instinct was to cry out, "My God, we know you!"
But there is a universe of difference between knowing God and merely knowing about Him. There is a vast gulf between a formal creedal affirmation and a heart that is truly loyal to the covenant. Israel had the slogan down pat. They could say the right words when the pressure was on. But their lives, their worship, and their politics all screamed a different story. They had trespassed the covenant and transgressed the law. Their appeal to God was not the cry of a repentant child, but the frantic plea of a guilty defendant who suddenly realizes the judge has entered the courtroom.
Hosea's message is a bucket of ice water to the face of any generation that believes it can have God's blessings without God's government. It is a trumpet blast to awaken a slumbering church that has forgotten that the covenant has teeth. It has blessings for obedience, yes, but it also has very real, very sharp curses for disobedience. God is not mocked. What a nation sows, it will also reap. Israel was sowing the wind of idolatry and political maneuvering, and the whirlwind of Assyrian judgment was about to descend.
The Text
Put the trumpet to your mouth!
Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of Yahweh
Because they have trespassed against My covenant
And transgressed against My law.
They cry out to Me,
“My God, we of Israel know You!”
Israel has rejected the good;
The enemy will pursue him.
(Hosea 8:1-3 LSB)
The Sounding Alarm (v. 1)
The first verse is a command to the prophet. It is an emergency directive.
"Put the trumpet to your mouth! Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of Yahweh Because they have trespassed against My covenant And transgressed against My law." (Hosea 8:1)
The trumpet, the shofar, was used for two main purposes in Israel: to call the people to worship and to warn them of war. Here, the two are tragically intertwined. The very place of worship, the "house of Yahweh," which refers to the covenant people themselves, has become the target of divine warfare. God is summoning an enemy against His own people. The alarm is not to rally the troops to fight a foreign foe, but to announce that the foreign foe is God's appointed instrument of judgment.
The enemy comes "like an eagle." This is a direct echo of the covenant curses laid out in Deuteronomy. "Yahweh will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you will not understand" (Deut. 28:49). This is not random bad luck. This is not a geopolitical crisis that could have been averted with better diplomacy. This is the covenant God of Israel keeping His word. He promised blessing for obedience and curses for disobedience, and He is a covenant-keeping God. The Assyrian eagle is circling because Israel has broken the terms of the contract.
And the reason is stated with legal precision: "Because they have trespassed against My covenant And transgressed against My law." These are not synonyms. To transgress the law is to step over a specific boundary, to break a particular commandment. Israel had done this in spades with their idolatry and injustice. But to trespass the covenant is a deeper violation. It is to betray the entire relationship. It is an act of treason. The law is the stipulation of the covenant, but the covenant is the relationship itself. Israel had not just broken the rules; they had been unfaithful to the one with whom they were in relationship. They had committed spiritual adultery.
This is the foundation of all God's dealings with men. He relates to us covenantally. When you are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are brought into the covenant community. This is an objective reality. It brings with it covenant obligations. If you walk in faith and obedience, you receive the blessings. If you walk in unbelief and rebellion, you are a covenant-breaker, and you come under the sanctions of that covenant. Israel was a nation of covenant-breakers, and the trumpet was announcing that the bill had come due.
The Hollow Appeal (v. 2)
In the face of this imminent threat, Israel's response is telling. It is a religious response, but it is a hollow one.
"They cry out to Me, 'My God, we of Israel know You!'" (Hosea 8:2)
Notice the sudden piety. When the eagle is circling, they suddenly remember God's name. They cry out, "My God." There is an appeal to the special relationship: "we of Israel." And they make the central claim: "we know You!" This is the great tragedy. In one sense, they did know Him. They knew His name. They had His law. They had the history of His mighty acts of salvation. They knew about God. But they did not know Him in the biblical sense of the word.
Biblical knowledge is not abstract, intellectual data-collection. To "know" God is to be in a loyal, faithful, intimate relationship with Him. It is the difference between reading a biography of a man and being his faithful wife for fifty years. Israel's claim was a lie. Their actions demonstrated that they did not know God at all. As John says, "He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:4). Their cry was an attempt to use their formal covenant status as a shield against the consequences of their covenant infidelity.
This is a perennial temptation for the people of God. We can substitute church attendance for righteousness. We can substitute right doctrine for a right heart. We can wave our Bibles and our catechisms at God and say, "See? We know you!" all while our hearts are chasing after the idols of money, sex, power, and approval. But God is not impressed with our slogans. He looks at the heart, and He judges based on the fruit. Israel's claim to know God was invalidated by their rejection of His goodness.
The Authoritative Apostasy (v. 3)
God's verdict cuts right through their religious posturing. He gives the true summary of their condition.
"Israel has rejected the good; The enemy will pursue him." (Hosea 8:3)
This is the heart of the matter. "Israel has rejected the good." What is "the good" that they have rejected? In the immediate context, it is the good law and the good covenant that God had given them. But ultimately, the only one who is good is God Himself (Mark 10:18). To reject God's law is to reject God. To reject His covenant is to reject Him. They had spurned the greatest possible good, God Himself, in favor of carved idols and foreign alliances. They had traded the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that could hold no water.
And because they have rejected the good, the consequence is unavoidable: "The enemy will pursue him." This is not a new thought; it is a restatement and confirmation of the warning in verse 1. Their pious cry in verse 2 did nothing to change the situation. Their appeal was denied. The judge was not swayed. The sentence stands. The pursuit is certain.
When men or nations reject the ultimate good, which is God and His revealed will, they do not enter a state of neutral freedom. They are immediately pursued by the consequences. When you reject the good, you do not get nothing; you get evil. When you reject the God of order, you do not get autonomy; you get chaos. When you reject the God of life, you do not get a secular paradise; you get the culture of death. Israel rejected the good, and so the enemy, God's appointed rod of discipline, was sent in hot pursuit.
Conclusion: Knowing and Being Known
The message of Hosea is a severe mercy. It is a diagnosis that is intended to lead to repentance, not despair. The fundamental problem in Israel was the same as our fundamental problem today. It is the problem of a divided heart. It is the problem of claiming to know God while functionally living as though He does not exist, or as though His Word is not binding.
The gospel does not abolish this paradigm of covenant faithfulness; it fulfills it and empowers it. The old covenant was broken by Israel. But the new covenant in Jesus Christ is an unbreakable covenant because its mediator is perfect. Christ is the true and faithful Israel who never trespassed the covenant and never transgressed the law. He knew the Father perfectly, and His entire life was a seamless expression of that knowledge in perfect obedience.
When we are united to Him by faith, His perfect record of covenant-keeping is credited to our account. We are forgiven for our covenant-breaking. But that is not the end of the story. God then sends His Spirit into our hearts, so that we might begin to truly know Him. The new covenant promise is that God's law would be written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). True knowledge of God is not just an external claim; it is an internal reality that produces the fruit of obedience.
Therefore, the warning of Hosea remains for us. We must not be a people who cry "Lord, Lord" while rejecting the good. We must examine ourselves. Does our claim to know God match our lives? Do we love His law? Are we faithful to His covenant? Or have we become comfortable with a form of godliness that denies its power?
The trumpet is always at the lips of God's faithful watchmen. It is sounding today. The eagles of judgment are always circling nations that reject the good. The only safe place to be is in Christ, the one who took the full force of the covenant curse for us. And being in Him, we are called to walk in a manner worthy of that calling, so that when we say, "My God, we know you," it is not a hollow slogan, but the faithful confession of a loving and obedient heart.