Hosea 3:1 - 4:19

I have been a lover of TJMaxx for countless years now. I’d go shopping with my mom for school clothes, then after getting married and having kids of my own it became one of my places to escape for a few hours of solitude. Coffee in hand I would wander the aisles and inevitably I would end up in the journal and book aisle. I always loved that I could find notepads with scripture or maybe a discounted book from my favorite Christian author, but over the last few years, I’ve noticed a shift in products, at least in my part of the country. Prayer journals are being replaced with witchcraft and meditation journals; books about deepening your faith are being replaced with books teaching how to read your tarot cards. Where you might have simply found home decor you can now find crystals to use for their healing energy and good fortune. I’d like to think no one is actually buying these things, but I’ve seen the trends myself and I’ve had conversations with women I know who believe they’re harmless, even helpful tools. Y’all.  I hate to tell you but tarot cards are just pieces of paper. Crystals are just rocks. And getting into these things is getting into a false religion that can lead to dangerous places. Why? Because the point of tarot cards and witchcraft and crystals is to find some special kind of knowledge, right? We want to know our future or we want to know peace. When we meditate with a crystal, we’re looking for a way to connect with something, to know ourselves or the world around us better. And in Hosea 4, we see repeatedly that looking for knowledge outside of God leads to destruction. Specifically, we see in 4:12 that using a physical, manmade or natural, object for wisdom is considered idolatry.  “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore.” (Hosea 4:12).  Yikes. God is showing how ridiculous it was for the people to worship their man-made idols by reducing their elaborate carven images to “a piece of wood.” But what makes worshipping these things or inquiring of them for knowledge so dangerous is shown in the next sentence: a spirit of whoredom had led them astray. When we dabble into the spiritual world, we are opening ourselves up to real spirits that can gain access to our lives. Deuteronomy 32:17 shows that the spirits we entertain are actually demons. There can be real power in meditating on crystals, but I’ll tell you it’s not the kind of power that will save you but destroy you.  The bottom line in the whole of Hosea is that the people were seeking knowledge outside of the Lord, and it led to their total destruction. Seeking knowledge apart from God gives us a worldly wisdom that isn’t wisdom at all, it’s actually foolishness. First Corinthians 3:19 says “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.”  So if you want to find wisdom from a rock, let it come from the Rock of Ages. If you want to find a spirit of understanding, let your understanding come from the Holy Spirit. His ways are higher than our ways, and his way is the only way that leads to life. Let’s follow it.  Now go out and be bold!