John Piper opened his message at Together for the Gospel in 2012 by saying that he was amazed he was still a Christian. What he meant was that sin is so deceptive and powerful to destroy that apart from God’s grace he’s sure he wouldn’t persevere as a Christian. That’s why it’s helpful for us as Christians to be aware of how sin works, so that we will pray more fervently and fight with more zeal and tact.
The majority of the book of Hosea is expounding on Israel’s egregious unfaithfulness. And we learn a lot about the nature of sin from this book.
Here are 12 characteristics of sin that we learn from Israel’s unfaithfulness in the book of Hosea.
1. It’s Ungrateful
She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil…which they used for Baal.
Hosea 2:8
The Israelites used God’s blessing to worship false idols.
Cornelius Van Til once said that even the atheist who curses God does so using breath God gives him. God sustains his life and fills his lungs with breath, and he uses it to curse God.
When we sin, we demonstrate ungratefulness for all the blessings God gives us. He’s given us life, breath, gifts, relationships, and when we use those things to disobey God we show profound ungratefulness toward him.
2. It’s Personal
She ran after her lovers but me she forgot.
Hosea 2:13
This describes all of us because at the root of sin is idolatry in our hearts. We love something more than God so we disobey God.
In his book Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards argued that we always act on our strongest desire at that moment. To put it simply, we pretty much do what we want. There’s never been a sin against God we could say was a mistake. All of them have been from our heart, pre-meditated, intentional decisions because we wanted sin more than God in our heart. Sin is never unintentional. It’s always personal and so it’s highly offensive to God.
3. It’s Repeated
And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods
Hosea 3:1
Hosea is commanded to go “again” to buy back Gomer for 15 shekels after she left him to go back to prositution.
That’s exactly the point of Hosea. Israel has wandered from God and run after false gods again and again and again and again and again. Hosea’s wife is unfaithful to him again and again and again.
Doesn’t that describe our sin? We know the gospel and yet we fall. We know God’s promises yet we choose sin. We’re all repeated offenders.
4. It’s Insatiable
They are greedy for iniquity.
Hosea 4:7
Ephesians 4:19 says, “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” They are calloused to sin with a continual lust for more.
Apart from God’s Spirit we would dive headlong in sin as much as our circumstances would allow. We would never be satisfied because sin is never satisfied. If we give ourselves to it, we will be carried away by its unending lust for more. Sin is the grave that is never satisfied.
5. It Always Leads to Complete Corruption
It is said of Israel, “Those who make human sacrifices kiss calves!”
Hosea 13:2
The Israelite’s sin is so depraved that surrounding Gentile nations mock them for sacrificing their children yet worshipping calves.
Sin never plateaus. It doesn’t settle into a nice moderate rebellion against God. It doesn’t eventually make its way back to God and righteousness. It always progresses toward complete corruption unless stopped or restrained by God. Sin by its nature is rebellion against God. How could it not continue in that direction?
6. It Leads to a Seared Conscience
Their deeds will not permit them to return to the Lord.
Hosea 5:4
They can no longer be convicted because they’ve ignored their conscience for so long. Their heart has grown callous and it no longer feels. This is extremely dangerous.
At Yosemite National Park there is a trail that leads to a waterfall. The trail runs across a bridge over a raging river, but over to the side there is an area that has relatively calm water so you would think that it would be fine to jump in there and cool off. However, there is a sign that warns people not to get in the water at all. The poster tells the story of two young boys who jumped in the calm area to cool off. They took just a couple steps too far and were swept away in the river. Neither of them survived.
This passage and others serve the same purpose as that poster, warning us to not wade into the water of ignoring our conscience. It can kill us spiritually.
7. It Hides Itself in Religious Activity
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Hosea 6:6
Who cares how many religious events we attend if our hearts are far from God. I think there may be many people on judgment day who will say, “But I went to church every week, and listened to Christian music, and voted against abortion.” But God will say, “I never knew you.” Every Christian should do those things, but every person who does those things isn’t necessarily a Christian. Sin can hide itself in religious activity so that we think, “Oh we’re good!” But our hearts must seek God. We must love him personally as well as corporately.
8. It Seeks to Minimize Itself
They do not consider that I remember all their evil.
Hosea 7:2
We want to hide from our sin. We want to convince ourselves and others that sin actually isn’t a big deal; that there isn’t a God who sees our sin and will hold us accountable. We try to convince ourselves it’s actually not that bad. We look for every possible excuse or example that would justify it. But we can’t hide from God. One day he will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will even disclose the purposes and intent of our hearts (1 Cor. 4:5).
9. It Misdirects Our Hearts
They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves.
Hosea 7:14
The Israelites only wanted the grain and wine. Like the crowds with Jesus they only came to get their fill and ended up weeping over the wrong issue. They didn’t really want God. Sin misdirects our hearts to the blessings God can give us rather than delighting in God himself.
Do we love a lot of the benefits of God or do we love him? Of course, we should go to God in humble dependence for everything we need, but do our hearts also long for him? Is God himself our peace (Eph. 2:14) or just the one we hope to get things from?
10. It Seeks Protection in False Gods
Israel hired lovers…allies in other nations.
Hosea 8:9-10
Because they trusted in nations God threatens to abandon them. Similarly, sin can lead us to find our hope in things other than God. This doesn’t mean we should never save money, get a job, or seek medical attention. But where does our ultimate hope lie? Again, getting advice, working hard, and studying, are not sinful things, but they can become sinful if we attribute to them our ultimate trust and praise. At the end of the day, our attitude must be, “I’m going to be okay because I have God.” And when we experience success we must always give the glory to God from whom all blessings flow.
11. It Blinds us to the Truth of God’s Word
If I were to write my law by the ten thousands they would regard it as a strange thing.
Hosea 8:12
The Israelites were so calibrated to the world they saw God’s Word as strange. Sin blinds us to the truth of God’s Word so that Scripture seems strange and weird to us. But as Christians we should be weird in the eyes of the world, and the world should be weird to us to a degree.
Of course, we must make sure it’s what is in God’s Word that makes us weird, not us. But God’s Word shouldn’t be strange to us because we should be calibrated to it rather than the world.
12. It Will Always End in Destruction
Israel will be defeated. They will say to the mountains “Cover us,” and to the hills “fall on us!”
Hosea 10:8
Jesus quotes this verse in Luke 23:30 to describe the final judgment at his return.
There is no escaping the destruction that comes from sin. It’s not as if we have a small chance of surviving. There is no chance of survival. There is 100% chance of destruction for sin. Siding with sin is complete and utter foolishness, and hatred toward God. So we should flee from it in every single instance. As John Owen said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
Conclusion
We will be serious about our sin to the degree we understand its devastating consequences. First, how it alienates us from God relationally, and secondly the destructive consequences in this life.
But praise God that we have assurance that God will have mercy if we repent.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.” Lamentation 3:19-22
Our sin is serious, but God’s mercy is greater. As Richard Sibbes wrote, “There is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us.”
Mike McGregor
Mike McGregor (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary) is Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter at @m5mcgregor.
