The word translated as “knowledge” means “perception, skill.” You cannot get that from playing video games or reading romance novels or some other fiction. Perception and skill must be developed. In the secular world, there are some people who have some perception. Perception has to do with seeing a situation for what it truly is. When I listen to people talk, some of them can tell you what is actually happening, but few people know what the root cause of the problem is. Society has worked hard to dumb down its people. We are taught to always think the best of others and ignore what we really see.
The book of Hosea begins in a unique manner. Hosea was a God-fearing man. He was told to marry a woman who did not fear God. She was a whore. The book speaks of her unfaithfulness to Hosea and of God’s direction to Hosea of how he was to reach out to her and even buy her back after she had been sold into the sex trade.
God showed Hosea that this challenge that he was given was to be a vivid picture of how Israel was treating God. God chose Abraham and promised to make a great nation out of Him. God kept His Word. Israel had come through some great times and also times of great challenges. When the nation chose to follow God, He guided them to victory through those challenges. King David is probably the greatest example of this. Israel faced the Philistines during that time. They were a formidable enemy. David chose to listen to God and God guided him to success against this enemy, so much so that by the end of his life, they were no longer a threat to the nation of Israel.
Solomon began his reign in a good way. He sought God’s wisdom in carrying on from where David left off. David had a major flaw and that was in his family relationships. He was not a faithful husband nor a faithful father. Solomon also picked up on that sin and he is listed as the most unfaithful husband in the history of the nation of Israel. His unchecked lust for women was the ruin of his own life and that of the nation of Israel.
God showed Himself faithful in giving the nation of Israel good prophets and priests who could keep reminding the people of the need to trust in God and follow Him. Over the generations, Israel chose to reject God more and more. They did not want His “interference” in their affairs. They wanted to pattern themselves after the pagan nations around them. Yet they could not understand why they were struggling so much.
Hosea was a godly man who was chosen by God to remind the nation of the real problem. We are told in our verse that Israel was being destroyed for lack of knowledge. They chose to reject the truth. It was not that the knowledge they needed was not available to them.
God is good. He does not keep His truth away from man. He carefully and systematically revealed His Word to man as needed. Every generation has had all the truth needed to know who the true God is and how to know Him. The problem has never been from God’s side. The problem is with man. As we read in our text, the problem was that Israel rejected the knowledge that God had given them. They were like Gomer, Hosea’s unfaithful wife. She persisted in looking for other men to indulge her. She was not content to be a faithful wife.
The result of Israel’s persistence in rejecting God was that He was also rejecting them. That is not a good thing. God takes no pleasure in rejecting man. He takes no pleasure in watching man stumble and fall and end up in hell. God is very gracious and merciful. He is also just. His standards cannot be changed. He is always right.
It is interesting to listen to people talk about what they believe and how they came to that position. There is still a great lack of knowledge today. It is not that the knowledge is not available. God’s Word is still available. It is man’s lack of interest in the truth that is the problem.
I spoke to a young man recently who claimed to be saved. He was attending a ‘feel good’ church. He did not understand the importance of having the Word of God. He did not seem to be very concerned about the differences between the perversions. He liked to read from several different perversions because he thought they all added something to the truth. It was obvious that this man lacked knowledge. He was not being led by the Holy Spirit. He was led by his feelings.
This man is not alone in this lack of discernment. There are older men who have been in church most of their life, but they still lack discernment. There is always a danger that we get lazy and do not spend enough time actually listening to God’s Word. It is quite possible to read the Bible, but not pay attention to what we are reading.
The good news is that the Holy Spirit is at work in the heart of each person that is saved. He is working to move His children into greater obedience to Him. We have noted that in our study of the book of Hebrews. God expects His children to grow. As we look at the average church today, we see a weakening of the faith.
Some years ago we had a preacher speak at our men’s breakfast. In his message he warned of the danger facing churches. He stated that in one generation a church could become apostate. I did not like to hear that, but it is certainly true. If we do not take God’s Word seriously we will not walk with God as we must. We would pass on a wrong picture of Who God is and our children and grandchildren will not have the fear of God that they need to have.
God tells us:

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.