Hosea 6-7 The Danger of Empty Religion

Empty Religion Versus True Heart Religion

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his series on the book of Hosea, a study in God's relentless love. Let's listen in.

Good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcik. I'm the lead pastor here. And we're a community gathered together in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

That's why we're here together. And we've joined together to grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service. And we do a lot of religious things. Our goal is to practice a relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit.

And so, that's why we exist. The purpose of Recast Church is to worship Him and find more worshipers for His name. Both of those being relational in nature, a relationship with God and a relationship with others.

So, in our text, we're going to see, this morning, we're going to be diving into a longer text. But we're going to see the danger of empty religion. And our text will highlight empty religion as defined as outward actions of worship that do not flow from a heart of love for God.

I think we all recognize that we can do religious things without much thought about God at all. Without much genuine love for Him or with our hearts growing cold. We can attend church. We can give money.

We can volunteer time. We can say some prayers. We can read our Bibles. We can work at summer sports camp and do all of that without a thought about God. Without Him being the focus. All kinds of things can motivate religious people.

But there are two motivations that stand out in this text that I'm going to read here in a moment, this morning, that we're going to walk through and they're hallmarks of a life that's pleasing to God.

A Call to Return and Know the Lord

Of what I would call true heart religion. He desires steadfast love and He desires our pursuit of the knowledge of Him. He wants to be known and He wants to be loved. He wants us to know Him in truth and He wants us to love Him in truth.

Our text is going to take us on a tour of sorts through the empty religion of an ancient people, the Israelites, and we're reading about that ancient people because they serve as a cautionary tale for us to consider here where we live today.

Empty religion is a temptation, I believe, to all peoples. All of us will be tempted to gravitate toward doing religious things with no heart engagement at all, without any love, without pursuing the knowledge of God in it.

And this is in part, I'm going to just be direct, I think it's in part because we tend and trend toward laziness. If we're honest with ourselves, we're looking for the path of least resistance, the easiest.

Way to get ahead.

And I mean, how many of you would just raise your hand and agree with me that you've identified over the course of your lifetime that relationships take time? Relationships take effort, right?

They take time.

They take effort.

They take effort.

They take nuance. They take struggle. Checklists, the last time I checked and all the checklists that I've ever made, they don't.

Talk back. They don't talk back.

They don't disagree with me. Checklists are neat and tidy. If I live with God in a way of checklists, I can lay my head on my pillow at the end of the day with a fairly reasonable assessment of how I did.

I can finish the day looking at a list of checked off boxes saying, look at what I have done for my God. Do you know what I'm talking about? But being in relationship with God means some nights I lay my head on my pillow in confusion.

Did I do okay today, Father?

Are we good?

I feel like I could have done better, but thank you for your grace. Forgive me for failing at this point. Forgive me for faltering at this point. I'm looking forward to a new day with you tomorrow. Is that a different ending to the day?

Is that sometimes confusing? Do you ever wonder, have I had a good day with God? And sometimes your assessment is accurate to say, I haven't had a good day with God. So I want us to open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to Hosea chapter six.

We're going to actually read two chapters. You'll notice that it's a little bit of a longer reading, a larger text, but it's what God has for us this morning. Hosea six and seven are really, they go together.

You'll notice in the English Standard Version, they don't even put a paragraph break between.

The two.

They really kind of belong together. But recast, this is God's holy word. I want to remind you that this is maybe the most important and valuable thing that we do together is taking in his word. That's why I have no problem reading larger chunks like this.

Hosea six, come, let us return to the Lord for he has torn us that he may heal us. He has struck us down and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will raise us up that we may live before him.

Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. His going out is sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?

Your love is like a morning dew, like the dew, like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. Therefore, they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers tracked with blood.

As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together. They murder on the way to Shechem. They commit villainy. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's whoredom is there.

Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed when I restore the fortunes of my people. When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria.

For they deal falsely. The thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside. But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them. They are before my face. But by their evil, they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery.

They are all adulterers. They are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine.

He stretched out his hand with mockers. For with hearts like an oven, they approach their intrigue. All night, their anger smolders, and in the morning, it blazes like a flame of fire. All of them are as hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers.

All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.". Ephraim mixes himself with the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face, yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.

As they go, I will spread over them my net. I will bring them down like the birds of the heavens. I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me.

Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart. But they wail upon their beds for grain and wine. They gash themselves.

They rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They returned, but not upward. They are like a treacherous bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue.

This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in singing this morning. Father, we encounter in this passage a reminder of what you desire of us, your people, that you desire our hearts more than our empty actions and deeds.

You're not impressed. You are not looking for just robotic obedience. But you desire our love. And it is good for us to come into the knowledge of you and into a life of consistent pursuit of the knowledge of you.

Father, I pray that you would meet us in this place with a correction for our hearts where we have given ourselves over to the emptiness of religious duties and religious responsibilities and religious actions.

Father, I pray that you would be transforming us internally and making us more and more in the image of your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for salvation and rescue that we have in him. And I pray that even now as we have an opportunity to sing songs that you would impress in our hearts the great glory and beauty of the salvation that we have in your Son.

That we would be moved and we would be transformed in our hearts, that we would not be given over to just the emptiness of a mind that isn't thoughtful of you. But we would think of you, meditate on you, your glory, your forgiveness, your love expressed to us at the cross that we could sing these songs with hearts that are on fire with love and passion and joy and gladness for the hope that you have given us in Jesus Christ, your.

Son.

And it's in his name that I pray.

Amen.

All right.

Yeah.

Go ahead and be seated and get comfortable. You open your Bibles or your devices or your scripture journals to Hosea chapter 6. We're going to be going through those two chapters, Hosea 6 and 7. And I want to start off with a couple of kind of like definitions.

I want to explain that false religion is the worship of false gods and goddesses and that has been around for a long time and continues even to this day. And it's dangerous, but it's not as hard to identify as what I'm going to be talking about this morning and that is empty religion.

I'm making a distinction between these two and yet I want to be clear that I believe that the nation of Israel as of the writing of Hosea were involved in both. They are both involved in pagan false worship, but I also believe that they were involved in empty religion.

And I see God addressing in our text some specific results of an empty religion that is devoid of the knowledge of God and lacks the motivating principle of genuine love for God. So we can do all of the forms and do all of the outward things that God requires of us with no heart, with no love for Him.

Empty religion is cultural religion. Empty religion is going to church because the culture says, well, that's valuable. Empty religion is going to church without any love for God. Empty religion is grudgingly giving money to the church or organizations.

Empty religion is volunteering in recast kids without offering that service up out of gratitude and love to God. Empty religion seeks to put God in our debt by doing things for Him. Does this sound familiar?

Any of you, does this sound like something that you're aware of as a possibility in your own heart and life as a reality and a temptation? And God is not a fan. We're going to see in this passage that God is not a fan of empty religion.

Our outline this morning is six points surrounding the subject of empty religion, really cautions against empty religion. The first is going to start in a good spot, a call to relationship, verses 1 through 3.

The second movement is the nature of empty religion, verses 4 through 7. And then the leaders of empty religion, the power of empty religion, the compromise of empty religion, and the selfishness of empty religion.

The Nature of Empty Religion

So here in our first caution about the danger of empty religion comes a positive thing to begin with. And it's always good when we can start with the good news or the call here, a call to relationship is verses 1 through 3.

And this does have something vital to do with empty religion. But here we see the Lord in His discipline will tear and rend Israel. He tears but with the intention of healing. He strikes down but He will build back up.

You see, God's redemptive plan is restorative. It's restoration with a people who will love Him. That's the end goal of human history, a restoration of relationship with God, with people who love Him, are healed by Him, and are reconciled to Him.

It's quite likely that many of us in the room have a confusing relationship regarding God's discipline or even more to the point, His wrath. How can He tear so that He can heal? We talked a lot about that last week.

Why would He strike us down only to build us back up? That really kind of is valuable for you to go back and listen to last week's message. It's available online on the podcast or whatever. If that's a real confusing point to you, I don't have the time with all that we're going to talk about today to get into that, but here's the, in a nutshell, version of it.

We are sinful. God in His holiness must judge sin. God desires a restored relationship with His people, but His people have gone down the road of sinful betrayal against Him.

God is the creator.

God is the one we have sinned against. God is holy and just in His wrath towards sin. God disciplines His people who wander away from Him. God restores any and all who return to Him in steadfast love and seek to know Him.

Amen? Amen?

This is key. This is fundamental. This is the gospel. And in verse 2, we see a time stamp on the restoration of God. He here is saying, I want to restore my people even though in your sin I have broken you.

My desire is revival and restoration. And after two days, He says, I will revive my people and He will raise His people up on the third day so that we may live in His presence. In the immediate context, this meant something to them.

I know that the idea of being raised on the third day automatically maybe in your mind makes you jump to something in the future, but it did mean something in their context. This is hope that God will not leave His people to ultimate destruction.

That's what they would have understood as they were reading Hosea, not knowing the resurrection, not knowing Jesus' death for them, that God will not leave His people in ultimate destruction,.

But He will heal. He will rescue.

He will raise up His people. Like Job saying in the book of Job, even though He slay me, I will still trust in Him. This was identified in the early church fathers, by the way. This very passage in Hosea is an Old Testament reference to the resurrection.

In hindsight, we can see it. And the raised on the third day is clearly a prophetic nod to Jesus being raised on the third day about 750 years after Hosea penned these words. But God is a God who will not and doesn't leave His redeemed people to destruction.

Our hope for resurrection is based on God's gracious promise to restore His people. And His purging discipline in the face of His people, really in the life of His people, His purging discipline that we may even experience in this life is to prepare us to live in His presence in holiness.

I cannot live before Him. You cannot live before Him in the state in which your heart exists now. We all need revival, but not merely revival, that is a life change that is in love with Him that continues to grow in Him.

But we all need resurrection. I need this uncursed state to give way to a glorious change that He will enact on that glorious day of resurrection. And He will do it for you as well if you are His.

Amen?

And in verse 3, we see the explicit call into relationship with God. Here's the call to relationship as opposed to just religion. Let us know, says verse 3, and then for double emphasis, let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord Yahweh our God.

There is effort in this pressing on. Church, this is a call directly to those who are His people. Press on, church. Be diligent in knowing and then loving the Lord. It is a privilege to know the Lord.

He has stooped so low as to speak with us. He has given us His written record of His ways and works in human history so that we can see Him in relationship to us. The Scriptures exist to offer us the knowledge of God oriented to various human contexts and different movements, different people, kings, shepherds, all different kinds of people that He interacted with so that we can know Him in ways that we can relate to.

Real people, God relating in relationship with real people so that we can be called into relationship with Him as well. God is, in this text here, it's declared of Him that He is more faithful than the morning.

Dawn.

You want to know this God? He is faithful, more faithful than the spring rains, hopefully coming soon to, you know, a field near you, about to blanket Michigan and bring us the spring flowers, right? We're here at the start of March and here it comes.

And so the call here, He's faithful, He's faithful, He's faithful.

Have you tasted that?

Have you experienced His faithfulness? Come return to the Lord. Press on, church, to know your God. So why not today give up your idols and trust Him today? He who gives healing, He who can bind up our wounds, He who promises to raise His people up, He who is more faithful than the dawn, stop ignoring Him.

Stop forgetting Him in the busyness of your empty religion and draw near to Him in relationship.

Today.

The Leaders, Power, and Compromise of Empty Religion

The second caution against empty religion serves to identify the nature of empty religion in verses four through seven. The central problem of an empty religion is not about our actions, not primarily about.

Doing the wrong things.

As a matter of fact, most people practicing an empty religion are doing really good things. Though empty religion does eventually lead to false practice, and it will eventually lead to wickedness, but the problem all begins in the heart.

It's not primarily an issue of doing the wrong things. Look at verse four. God uses the example of an exasperated parent, but what have His people done to make Him say, what am I going to do with you?

How many of you ever heard a parent say that phrase? Raise your hand. Have you ever heard your own lips say that phrase? Some of us in the room, probably all of us have heard it at some point, and maybe many of us in the room have actually heard it on our own lips about to a stubborn child, what am I going to do with you?

What am I going to do with you? But God's exasperation is due to the lovelessness of His people. The love of Judah is likened to a morning cloud or dew in the morning that goes away quickly. The image is a thin and easily distracted commitment to their God.

Their love is weak. Their love passes quickly. It's just there for a moment, and then the next thing you know, they're forgetting Him altogether. It's an absence of love for God that is truly at the heart of empty religion, a lack of faithfulness to God that is at the heart of empty religion.

Why would we give up our time and energy and money and resources begrudgingly? Because we lack love for God. How do we get to the place where we think we will manipulate God by doing things for.

Him?

We begin to see God like a boss and less like a loving friend. And that leads to the second thing that is close to the heart of empty religion as we're still kind of on this point of understanding the nature of it.

Also at the core of empty religion, we find a lack of the knowledge of God. Where there is not steadfast love for God and where there is little knowledge of God, we will most likely find empty religion in that place.

Because verse 6 identifies what God desires from His people. He wants our hearts and minds. And when He has a heart and a mind, He has the will and the actions as well. Because the will and the actions follow the heart and mind.

And if He has our hearts and our minds, then He will have our love. And I would suggest that we cannot love one we don't truly know. That's why knowledge and steadfast love come together here in verse 6.

In true religion, we see heart and mind, knowledge and love together. But they're absent from empty religion. And this steadfast love and knowledge of God is to be qualified by the adverb faithfully.

Love in what way?

Pursue knowledge in what way? Faithfully. According to verse 7, God is looking for us to faithfully love Him.

Keep it up.

And faithfully know Him.

Keep getting to know Him. This is like the word press on to know the Lord in verse 3. Much like a relationship where a husband says to his wife, I told you on our wedding day I love you.

That should be enough.

No, keep doing it. Keep loving her, right? It's that faithful aspect that's keep pursuing Him. Keep seeking to know Him. Keep the fire stoked in your heart. We are being called to continually know Him better so that we continually love Him more.

We are called to a lifelong pursuit of the knowledge of God that leads us to the love of God and then leads us to then serve Him. So often we get this backwards in our lives. We serve Him and serve Him and serve Him with no love and no knowledge.

The people have fallen into empty loveless ignorance, and so God sent the prophets, He says in the text, with cutting words and illuminating judgments. Like Adam, they have broken the covenant with God.

They have acted in infidelity, faithlessness. And I just want to point out that one of the pictures that I'm getting as I'm studying the book of Hosea and kind of pass this along to you is that this is not reflecting on primarily an angry God.

God is not responding basically angry here. He is basically jilted. He is basically heartbroken. He is basically betrayed by His own people through the book of Hosea. Have you seen it? Have you seen it developing?

The entire theme of a man whose wife is cheating on him and he knows it and she knows it and she's doing it brashly before him? Like this is the image of God, jilted, heartbroken, betrayed. The heart of empty religion is a heart that has stopped seeking to even know Him, stopped seeking to love God, and is engaged in infidelity toward Him.

The Political Intrigue and Power Vacuum of Empty Religion

The next caution about empty religion identifies the third thing here, the leaders of empty religion. And this is in verse 8 of chapter 6 and goes over to verse 3 of chapter 7. We're kind of bridging that chapter divide there in this point.

But the chapter divide actually happens to be right in the middle of a Hebrew sentence. So that guy was just kind of like cutting corners at this point in the Middle Ages when he was dividing these chapters.

But where empty religion reigns, leaders run away with the people, okay? So that happens when your heart is not engaged and you're not seeking to know God and you're not seeking to love Him, you are ripe for the picking.

It's quite likely that the next dozen or so verses in Hosea are reflecting on specific historical situations that happened in Israelite history. The footprints of blood can be traced back to the territory of Gilead, the text tells us.

In verse 8, Gilead is a city of evildoers tracked with blood. What in the world is going on there? Why the mention of Gilead? Well, it's kind of interesting because I think there's an actual historical account that is being emphasized here that Hosea is quite likely predicting that comes to fruition in 2 Kings 15 -25.

Now, the names are unfortunately close, so it's very easy to get them confused. But we are told about the downfall of a king named Pekahiah. Now, his military commander's name is Pekah, so those are confusing.

Pekahiah is the king and his military commander is Pekah. And we read this in 2 Kings 15 -25. And Pekah, the son of Remaliah, that's the military commander, his captain, the captain of King Pekahiah, conspired against him with 50 men of the people of Gilead and struck him down in Samaria.

This is a military coup that results in assassination of the current king. Pekah, the military commander, assassinating his king, Pekahiah, with 50 men of Gilead. This was a bloody conspiracy against King Pekahiah, likely a little after the writing of Hosea.

And this is the trail of bloody footprints leading back to Gilead. What is this all about? Empty religion opens up a power gap. When the knowledge of God has gone away and the love of God has waned in a people, there are tons of people who are ready to spoon-feed you.

You are ripe for the picking. And in that absence of a love for God and in the absence of a knowledge of God, many will rise up and feed you conspiracy and intrigue and trivia that serves their ends and their purposes.

And that's happening. That's happening with you. I'm interacting with some of you. I'm seeing it on Facebook. I'm observing it. And it is not like we can sit back and kind of go like, oh, I bet there's somebody out there that this is a good message for.

This is talking to us. This is talking to where we're at, church. There are plenty of people who are sending me podcasts, sending Trent podcasts going, but what about this? And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute.

Is this grabbing us, church? Are we at a place where we're ripe for all kinds of people to come in as spiritual authorities in our lives and teach what is contrary to God's word? We need to be aware of the way that if we're dissatisfied with religion, we're dissatisfied with the truth, we're dissatisfied with Christ.

I mean, there is plenty of stuff out there that's more entertaining than this, right?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Oh, that's scary. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. The priests, the priests, think about this. The priests who are supposed to be serving the people and mediating between them and Almighty God have become a band of highway robbers, according to verse 9.

They engage in villainy and murder on the way to Shechem. Even the priests engage in the coups and the assassinations of the kings during this era. God looks down and he sees it all and he says, this is horrible.

Look at verse 10. In the house of Israel, I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim's whoredom is there. Israel is defiled. Where empty religion takes root, people look for something to love. Something to live for.

Something that they can control in their everyday mundane lives. And the people of Israel turned to whoredom and defilement. They turned to pagan gods. They turned to pagan rituals. And they did horrible things before the face of God.

And while there's a glimmer of hope for the harvest of restoration planted in the middle of verse 11 for Judah, which is the southern nation, Israel, the northern nation, is too far gone. The people have become ensnared in the lives of iniquity and evil deeds.

A spirit of whoredom has taken them over, according to the last couple chapters. And so far, they are so far and so deep into wickedness that when God thinks, man, maybe I should just heal them. Maybe I could fix this.

Maybe I should just forgive. It says their wicked deeds rise up before him. Their banditry, their violence, their evil deeds keep him from giving them a second chance.

Like he will indeed give to Judah.

They're going to last. The southern kingdom of Judah is going to last 150 years longer than the northern kingdom because God sees some glimmers of maybe some repentance there. But they turn very wicked as well.

And while God is beholding the horrible deeds of his people, they are so far out of relationship with him that they don't even think about it. In verse 2 of chapter 7, we see that they don't stop for a second and think, maybe we ought not to do this wicked thing that we're about to do because God is over us.

Their sin surrounds them like a wall. Their sins are ever before his face while they follow their leaders. To the neglect of their almighty God. And this is brought back to the leadership in verse 3. The evil and treachery of the priests and the people give gladness to the king and gladness to the princes.

How?

Well, new kings, here's what's going on. New kings are often pleased by whatever violence or deception or wicked plots were required to get them to the throne. Can you imagine that historically? Wicked kings are always glad for whatever it took to get them in power.

The political turmoil in the coming years for Israel is a clear fulfillment of these very direct prophecies from Hosea about political intrigue. So why all this section about ancient Israelite politics?

Some of you are interested, most of you are not. Is this just a history lesson? And I say absolutely not, no way. Nothing is existing in the pages of scripture just merely to teach us history so that we can win at trivia or something like that.

This shines a light on the way that our hunger for control puts us on a pathway of danger. We are at any moment running the risk of compromise for power, compromise for wealth, compromise for fame. And these are all real temptations for us, church, in every generation.

An empty religion is a real pathway to deep cultural compromise. Where the church is just a social club, where the church becomes just a thing that our culture does on Sunday mornings. In that context, the church is drained of her power, drained of her appeal, and drained of any real substance.

And church, I'm suggesting to you that we are in part living in a time of rebuilding from that status. The church drained of her power, drained of her appeal, and drained of her substance. And I think that's been going on for a couple of decades now.

And it's time to rebuild. It is time for revival. I believe we're living in a time of rebuilding. We need a revival of the knowledge of the Lord that leads to a steadfast love, a burning in our hearts, and a burning in our souls for Him.

I've not really considered this, so we've been going for over 15 years now. We're really coming up on 16 years of our church history. And I think that there might be a shift coming. And I'm saying this as a might be a shift coming, but I think it might be time for us to activate the lowercase e in Recast.

I don't know how many of you guys know this. The e has been just laying there as a little lowercase for a while. It's been kind of dormant. It's been sitting there waiting for the right moment to spring forth with a core value.

And I think we might be getting there. Trent and I have been talking about it. We haven't necessarily, this is not even to the elders. Some of the elders are like, what's Don about to say? We'll talk about it, and we'll work through it, and we'll figure out if it's the right move for us.

But I actually think that the e might be coming up to education. I think it's time. I think it might be time. Education comes to my mind. Our minds need to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and we might need to rethink some of the ways we pursue the knowledge of the Lord together here.

As I'm beginning to pull on these strings and hear, where you're going for your sources, where are you going to get your information? What intrigues are grabbing your minds and hearts? What conspiracies are abiding in this church?

I think we need some education. Education and knowledge of God. I'm grateful for Trent being on board to help me to rethink some of these things with a fresh set of eyes, and I'm looking forward to what God might be doing in us and through us in the coming months and years.

The Power of Empty Religion and the Call to Pray

The fourth caution here highlights the power of empty religion. It has power. This ties in a little bit with the leaders. They kind of go together. This section continues that political discussion and even dives into it more specifically.

The gap that empty religion creates is a vacuum that will be filled by something. Again, kind of like that same as the last point, our hearts will be moved by something. Your heart is moved by something.

We will get passionate about something. It might be essential oils. It might be video games. It might be fishing. It might be family. But we will get animated when we talk about something. Have you ever found that for your co-worker?

And that thing that all of a sudden, oops, I stumbled into that, and now they won't stop talking about that. You guys know what I'm talking about. And that isn't wrong. That's how we're designed. I'm not at all saying that any of those things are wrong in and of themselves, but the religious leaders of Israel, including the priests, it says, are like a heated oven.