Hosea 4:8, “They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.”
This verse is one of the heaviest indictments God ever spoke against a priesthood. Under the law of Moses, when an Israelite brought a sin offering, a portion of that sacrifice went to the priest as his food (Leviticus 6:25-26). It was supposed to be a holy meal, sustaining the man of God for the work of the LORD.
But Hosea is exposing a darker thing. The priests of his day had quietly figured out that their bellies were filled by the people’s sin. The more sin in Israel, the more sacrifices. The more sacrifices, the more meat on the priest’s table. So instead of preaching the people out of their sin, the priests had a private interest in keeping the people in it. They were no longer shepherds. They were leeches with robes on.
The sin was not that they ate the offering. God commanded that. The sin was where their heart sat. “They set their heart on their iniquity.” Their heart had moved from loving God and loving the people to loving the system that fed them. Once a man in ministry, or a man anywhere near the things of God, crosses that line, he has stopped serving and started feeding.
The Modern Version
The priests of Hosea’s day are still walking around today. They do not wear linen ephods and they do not sprinkle blood on altars. They wear suits, they run platforms, they sit on boards, and they hold microphones. But the heart is the same. They have figured out how to feed themselves on the things of God.
Four appetites in particular have not changed in three thousand years.
Power
There are men in churches and ministries today who are not chasing souls, they are chasing control. They want the gavel or the final word. They want the family of the church to revolve around them. They will dress it up in spiritual language and call it leadership, but the truth is they need to be in charge or they cannot function.
A man who needs power for power’s sake is not serving Christ, he is using Christ. And God sees it.
God watched Diotrephes do it in 3 John 9 and 10, “who loveth to have the preeminence.” The minute a man loves the preeminence, he has stopped loving the Lord.
Gain
Others are after the money. They have learned that the church can be a paycheck. They preach for offerings. They massage the message to keep the donations coming. They tell the stories that move the wallets and skip the verses that cost them seats. They eat off the iniquity of God’s people just like the priests in Hosea, because a broken, guilty, manipulated congregation gives more than a free one ever will.
Paul warned about these men plainly.
1 Timothy 6:5, “Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”
Influence
Then there is the appetite for influence. The desire to be heard, followed, quoted, retweeted, invited, applauded. Some men do not need power and they do not need money, they just need to matter. They want their name on the lips of other men. They want to be the voice in the room.
The Lord Jesus had words for this too.
Matthew 6:1, “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.”
A man who serves God to be seen of men has already collected his paycheck on this side of the grave. There will be no reward waiting for him on the other side.
Self
The fourth appetite is the worst of them. The man who points the people of God to himself instead of pointing them to Christ.
Every preacher, every teacher, every leader has been given a finger and told to point with it. John the Baptist knew exactly what to do with his finger.
John 1:29, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The finger always points to the Lamb. The minute it points back at the man holding it, the ministry has stopped being ministry.
But there are men in pulpits today who do not point the people to Christ, they point the people to themselves. They build a following on their personality. They want the people to need them, quote them, depend on them, defend them. They want the church to be loyal to the leader before it is loyal to the Lord.
Paul called this out in his own day.
1 Corinthians 1:12-13, “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”
Paul refused to let the Corinthians make a Paul-tribe. The moment a saint’s loyalty shifts from Christ to the man, the man behind the pulpit has stolen something that does not belong to him.
What Has to Happen
Power, gain, and influence are not inherently evil. God gives all three to His servants at different times for His purposes. Joseph had power in Egypt. Abraham had gain. Paul had influence across the empire. None of those three things condemned them, because all three were brought under the lordship of Christ and used for the glory of God.
The problem is not that a man holds power. The problem is when power holds him.
Any of these appetites that have not been laid at the cross will end up running the man instead of the other way around. He will eat off the iniquity of God’s people without ever realizing what he is doing. He will tell himself he is serving the Lord while he is actually serving himself.
God Will Deal With It
The priests in Hosea 4 did not get away with it. Read verse 9.
Hosea 4:9, “And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.”
God put them under the same judgment as the people they had used. The office did not protect them. The robes did not protect them.
When the Assyrian army came, the priests went down with the flock.
And it is the same today. God is not impressed by a title.
1 Corinthians 3:13, “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”
The fire is coming. It will burn off the wood, hay, and stubble of every self-serving ministry, and what will be left is the gold, silver, and precious stones of men who actually loved God and loved His people more than they loved themselves.
A Word to Every Heart
The question is not whether the man down the street is using the things of God for his own appetites. The question is whether you and I are.
Every Christian has a little Hosea 4 priest inside him that will quietly use the things of God to feed his own flesh if it is not nailed to the cross daily.
Bring your power under Christ. Bring your gain, influence, your name, your influence, and your finger under Christ. Anything in your life that has not been brought under His lordship will eventually eat you the way those priests ate off Israel.
The only safe place for power, gain, and influence is at the foot of the cross, in the hands of a man whose heart belongs to the Lord and not to himself. I am thankful for our church and for godly leaders who refuse the glory that belongs to Christ alone. But not every church, tv ministry, or radio broadcast is the same. Be careful where you sit, who you follow, and whose finger is pointing where. The voices you place yourself under will shape you, your family, and your children for generations. Make sure it points to Christ.
