LIVING HOLY LIVES

MAIN TEXT: HOSEA 4:6 (Read up to vs 14 as refer text)

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also
reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also
forget thy children.
Priests and people were guilty alike, and would be overtaken by one common doom.

Let us pray
What does it mean to REJECT KNOWLEDGE?
1Samuel 2:12 Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD

THE SIN OF THE PRIESTS.

They rejected living Holy Lives.
1. They rejected the knowledge of God (ver. 6). They did not engage in the study of the Divine Law, and
their lives were a violation of its precepts.
2. They consequently failed to teach the Law to the people (ver. 6).
3. They were part of the plan in the national idolatry, on account of the material profit which they
obtained from it (ver. 8). The calf-worship brought them many sacrificial fees; so the priests, instead of
rebuking the iniquity, "set their heart" upon its continuance.
THE SIN OF THE PEOPLE.
They too rejected living Holy Lives. Their sin lay at the door of the priests.
1. They willfully forgot the Law of God (ver. 6).
2. The more prosperous they became externally, the more grievously they sinned (ver. 7).
3. They addicted themselves to idolatrous divination, using sometimes teraphim, and sometimes
divining rods (ver. 12). In worshipping wooden gods, they showed themselves to be at once wooden-
headed and wooden-hearted.
Psalm 115:8 those who craft them will become like them, as will all those who trust in them.

4. They practiced the sensual rites of nature-worship with the temple prostitutes of Ashtaroth, and even
were so shameless as sometimes to appear with them at the altar (vers. 13, 14). Impurity in one's
religion is often joined with uncleanness of body.
THE DOOM THREATENED UPON BOTH. (Ver. 9.)
1. The priests and their sons would be deprived of their office, and the people would lose their high
prerogative of being a priestly nation (ver. 6).
2. The glory of the kingdom would be turned into shame by reason of the loss of the numbers, wealth,
and power in which they gloried (ver. 7).
3. Their sin would also become its own punishment (vers. 10, 11). The Lord would cause them to "eat of
the fruit of their own way." The result would be surfeit, not satisfaction. Their sin would be their
torment.
4. God would "give them up to vile affections;" he would cease to correct them for their idolatry and
licentiousness, and thus visit them with reprobation (ver. 14).
CONCLUSION. Ver. 11 contains the solemn statement of a great moral truth respecting all sin, and which
is specially applicable to sins of sensuality. Who can place confidence in the moral judgments of an
adulterer or a fornicator? How sad when such men occupy positions of influence in Church or state!

LIVING HOLY LIVES

There is a beauty in the Holy Spirit

1Peter 3:4 instead, it should be the inner disposition of the heart, consisting in the imperishable
quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which God values greatly.

Anything unholy or ugly cannot to ascribed to the Holy Spirit

Our holiness is not an optional choice in the Christian life.

Holiness is an essential part of your salvation. It is not an accessory like upholstery in a car. Some
believers think, I am saved, and if I want I can go on to be holy. They treat being holy as an option. Your
salvation depends upon your being holy.

Nowhere does the scripture say that God takes back his Salvation once given. However for our salvation
to remain we must remain Holy. Let me take a negative example to demonstrate if we are operating in
the Holy Spirit or in an unholy spirit.

All that is unholy is usually ugly too. I am not referring to facial features. It is deeper that your plain
outlook. It is found in these 12 adjectives that describe one’s character.
12 adjectives: vulgar, self-exalting, self-asserting, rude, sham, indecent, insensitive, stupid, silly, flippant,
degraded, and degrading.

If you look closely at these adjectives they encompass the Soul, one’s speech, actions and thoughts.
Thinking Feeling & desiring.

Any believer having these characteristics evidences the presence of an unclean spirit. This spirit will
cause you to lack the knowledge of God. To not know God. To draw away from living righteously.

Let me go a little deeper in the area of behavior. When a person demonstrates animal behavior, this is
the contribution of an unholy or unclean spirit. There is no passage in scripture that speaks about a
human being behaving like an animal. In the case of Balaam, God calls his donkey to speak like a man,
but does not tell Balaam to bray like a donkey.

But there was one man that was made to behave like an animal:

Daniel 4:33 the same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men,
and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like
eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws.
God caused him to behave like an animal, but that was God’s judgment and not his blessing.

In Rev 4:6-8 speak about 4 living creatures that surround the throne of God. But they are there as what
we may call the animal kingdom. A lion, a calf and an eagle. But none of the make noises that express
their animal nature. We see that they through beautiful speech proclaim the Holiness of God
continuously.

We must understand that in God’s creation there is ORDER. Man was created in the image of God to
exercise authority over the animal kingdom. We see that in Genesis 1:26

26 
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Man is in fact the highest creation of God in the order of all his creation. This has a bearing on how the
Holy Spirit blesses us. He uplifts those he blesses. God may cause an animal to speak or behave like a
human being, but God will never degrade a man to act like an animal.

EXPLAIN ANIMAL SPIRIT BEHAVIOUR

MATTHEW 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his
fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
Such trees must be cut down, else just by getting rid of the fruit will not deal with the continued
existence of the spirit. Such spirits are the outcome of occult or pagan practices.

The solution for deliverance is for the spirit to be identified, confess it as sin, and repent of it. For
nowhere in the bible it represents that God will forgive sin that we are unwilling to confess.

ILLUSTRATION: On Being a friend of God by how you see the Holy Spirit. Example of a man and his wife.
Man as God, his wife as the Holy spirit.

MATTHEW 12:31 – 32: Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy (to speak lightly or
amiss) shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto
men.
 
And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

EXPLAIN BLASPHEMY
The Holy Spirit is Holy and He is God. DO not speak lightly or miss represent the Holy spirit. Do not take the
presence of the Holy Spirit in your life for granted. Live knowing the purpose of the Holy Spirit in your life.
He is there so that by your Holy living, you will know God and reject evil / sin.