Hosea 13:2b, “Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.”
The northern kingdom had set up golden calves back in the days of Jeroboam, and by the time Hosea preached, the people had grown so comfortable with them that worship of the calves had become normal. Men would come, bow down, and kiss the calves as an act of devotion.
The kiss in that day was the highest sign of love and submission. They were giving their highest devotion to silver and gold their own craftsmen had hammered out. The full verse describes it.
Hosea 13:2, “And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.”
They made the idols themselves.
They made them according to their own understanding.
And then they told each other to kiss them.
The whole religion was self-built and self-approved, and they kept telling one another it was the right thing to do. Sin always builds its own altar, names its own god, and then gathers a crowd to confirm it.
Hosea Tried to Pull Them Back
One chapter later Hosea begs them to come home.
Hosea 14:2, “Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.”
Hosea takes the same picture and flips it. You have been giving the calves your kisses. Stop!!
Give the LORD your words instead. Bring repentance, confession, and the offering of your mouth back to him.
The same lips that had been bowing down to dead metal could be lifted up in honest prayer to the living God.
Words of repentance and a request to have iniquity taken away is what getting right with the Lord means. A heart that wants to be received graciously instead of approved by the crowd around the calf. Hosea is telling the nation that the cure for kissing calves is turning back to God.
The New Testament picks the same picture back up.
Hebrews 13:15, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.”
The sacrifice God wants from his people has not changed. He still wants worship that comes out of the mouth instead of bowing down to something the hands have made. Honest speech directed to him through his Son. That is the sacrifice he receives.
So we have two altars in front of us. The altar of the calves, where the lips kiss something built by hand. And the altar of praise, where the lips offer thanksgiving to God through Jesus Christ. Every mouth is at one of those two altars today.
We can have lips full of religious activity and still be kissing the calves. We can pray, sing, post verses, and talk about God all day long, but the whole time our actual devotion is pointed at something else. The mouth says one thing, but the heart is bowed down somewhere the mouth never mentions.
That is exactly what Israel was doing. They had not stopped being religious. They were still sacrificing. They were still going through the motions of worship. They just had their lips on the wrong object.
This is the danger for any of us who have been around church for a while. We know how to talk the talk. We know what to say in a prayer meeting. We know how to look devoted. But devotion is not what comes out of our mouth in public. Devotion is what our heart kisses when nobody is looking.
So look at the calves we kiss without thinking.
Money
Jesus said it plainly. Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” If your first thought every morning is what the markets did, what your account looks like, or how much you can stack, you are bowing down to a calf.
Career
Colossians 3:5 calls covetousness idolatry. The promotion, the title, the follower count, the recognition. A man can sing on Sunday and bow to his career every other minute of the week. The lips look devoted but the life is kissing the calf.
Family Made Into an Idol
Family is a gift. But Jesus said in Matthew 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Even something good can become a calf when it takes the place that belongs only to Christ.
Self
This is the calf nobody admits to. Philippians 2:21, “For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” A whole life can be built around our own comfort, our own image, our own opinions, our own appetites, and we still call it Christianity because we go to church on Sunday. The kiss on the calf is the time, the energy, and the love that goes to self before it ever goes to Christ.
Religion Itself
Israel’s calves were religious calves. They were set up as a substitute for going down to Jerusalem to worship the LORD the right way. A man can become so devoted to his version of religion, his church culture, his preferences, his crowd, his comfort with the routine, that the routine becomes the object he kisses. The form replaces the Person.
The Crowd
Hosea 13:2 said it. “They say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.” A bunch of people were telling each other to kiss the same thing. We are no different. We bow down to whatever the room around us is bowing down to, and we call it normal because everybody else is doing it.
A Warning to Those Just Going Through the Motions
If you are sitting in church every week, your lips know the words, your hands know when to clap, your face knows when to look serious, but your heart has been bowed down to one of those calves all week long, hear this. God is not impressed by the sacrifice when the lips are still on the calf.
Isaiah 29:13 says, “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.”
Jesus quoted that verse in Matthew 15 and applied it to people who were proud of how religious they looked.
You can fool the crowd. You cannot fool the LORD. The mouth that kissed the calf in the morning cannot bring a clean sacrifice in the evening. Hosea’s word is for you. Repent of the calf. Stop trying to keep both altars in your life.
He receives the broken heart. He does not receive the divided one.
