When God calls for pure devotion towards Him, He is not on an ego trip. He understands what worship does to human beings and wants it to be rightly placed.
Who or what we worship affects our identity, behavior, and friends.
One of our family friends grew up in poverty and started working at the age of 15. He set a goal for himself to become a millionaire by the time he turned 40, and he achieved this dream.
Whenever we met him, he wore the finest suits and traveled in a chauffeured red limousine. His image revolved around his worship: the relentless pursuit of wealth and material possessions.
I’m happy to note that later in life he became a follower of Jesus.
Human trafficking is the fastest-growing illicit trade in the world. It generates over $150 billion in profits every year. 40.3 million people are living as slaves worldwide, 5 times the population of Switzerland.
Globally, the average cost of a “slave” – a trafficked human being – is $90.
This is a clear example of how the worship of money can shape behavior negatively, often at the expense of humanity.
These are only two of a myriad of examples of how worship affects how we see ourselves and what we do with our lives.
For the majority of humans, false worship is not a red limousine or the profit from human trafficking.
It is far more subtle and needs to be investigated. With the aid of the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and self-reflection, we can understand it better.
False Worship
God used Hosea’s second wife as a daily illustration of His love for Israel and His desire to separate them from false worship.
And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not prostitute yourself; you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.”
For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim (Hosea 3.3-4).
From our perspective, it’s easy to identify where Israel went wrong in their worship. They blended two aspects of Baal worship with two elements of their devotion to God.
Sacrifice and the ephod were associated with Jehovah, while the pillar and the teraphim were linked to Baal.
Israel’s high priest wore the ephod, a vest that housed two objects used to discern God’s guidance for the people.
A pillar was a stone set up in a shrine that likely symbolized Baal or another Canaanite deity. The teraphim were household idols that could be consulted for guidance.
Self-Examination
While the sin of ancient Israel is evident to us, recognizing our own is more challenging. Let’s consider an example from Paul’s writings to examine how we might be mixing church culture with the true worship of God.
I have contended for quite some time that the church often condemns sins we don’t commit while ignoring those that have become part of our normal church behavior.
Paul wrote about what is often considered “acceptable” sins in the church world.
For I fear that when I come I may find you not as I wish and that you may find me not as you wish; I fear that there may perhaps be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder (2 Corinthians 12.20).
The church would benefit from questioning the damage we have caused by our quarreling, anger, slander, and gossip.
Let’s ask the same question about jealousy, selfishness, and conceit. How much damage is done when we allow these attitudes to prevail in our lives?
Here’s what’s interesting: any person can possess some or all of these characteristics and still qualify to be the pastor of a Baptist church.
In fact, you can serve in almost any role in a church and have some of these qualities as part of your life.
I wonder if observers of American Christianity in the future will view these “acceptable” sins as similar to the household idols and pillars that were mixed with the worship of Jehovah during Hosea’s era.
The old saying, “making myself taller by standing on top of someone,” can easily apply to sin. We often excuse these so-called “acceptable” sins when we look at some of the more glaring sins of our culture.
We need to ask ourselves, how destructive are these attitudes and actions to the cause of Christ?
Our Problem – God’s Solution
God examines how we incorporate what is acceptable in church culture into His worship, and He declares that He must put a stop to it.
He used Hosea’s experience with his second wife to illustrate this point.
And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not prostitute yourself; you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you” (Hosea 3.3).
Rather than being cast aside, the prostituting nation is drawn into a relationship with God, and by His grace lives in intimacy with Him.
Repentance and Return
You are likely like me, painfully remembering a time when anger or gossip caused a significant break in a relationship.
Pain and loss often lead to self-evaluation and repentance. In the case of Israel, their pain was severe. They were defeated in war and taken into exile.
Hopefully, our pain is not that extreme, but it should have the same result.
Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days (Hosea 3.5).
God’s invitation to His people is, “Return to Me, and I will return to you” (Malachi 3.7).
Instead of attempting to merge the gods of this world with the one true God, we choose to turn back to Him.
We earnestly seek Him and live in awe, holding a profound respect for His great majesty and goodness.
To respond to the message of Hosea, we need to examine ourselves and question how we have merged what is culturally acceptable with the worship of God.
We need to repent and return to Him with our entire hearts.
YouTube Video
Rudy Ross and I discuss this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
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