According to Jesus, there is only one way of salvation and that is through Him. The distinctive claim of Christianity is that God accepts only the worship that is directed to Him via the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. However, a recent survey conducted in the USA indicates that only around half of evangelicals there concur with this claim (45%) while 47% accept the view that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam.” Yet for thousands of years, the testimony of the one living and true God has been consistent. There is such a thing as false worship, which He does not accept. There is such a thing as heathen religion, which is offensive to the Lord God. Indeed, God is so particular about this that He does not accept even His own people’s attempts to worship Him when they mingle His ways with those of the heathen. We can only go so far in respecting and accommodating other religious beliefs and practices without compromising our faithfulness to the one true God. Many of His prophets reminded His people about this over the years, pointing out that blessing comes from loyalty to God and destruction from unfaithfulness. In the following updated extract, George Hutcheson presents the prophet Hosea’s message that God demands exclusive, dedicated worship and we risk ruining everything for ourselves if we are tempted to deviate from this.

Other ways of worshipping are sinful

In Hosea 13:1, the Lord’s message is, “When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel, but when he offended in Baal, he died.”

Worshipping Baal is presented as idolatry, and as a sin which was destroying the people of Ephraim.

Ephraim was not only made a distinct tribe (though he was only the son of one of the twelve patriarchs) in preference to Manasseh (the elder brother), but was more dignified, numerous and influential than the rest.

But now, having brought in the pagan idolatry of Baal in the days of Ahab, Ephraim was become like a dead man. Ephraim was despoiled of authority, many of his subjects were cut off, and he was so broken in his former estate and dignity that he was not far from utter ruin.

Yes, Israel had previously made golden calves, which was also self-destructive idolatry, yet in serving them, they still made some pretence of acknowledging the true God. Now the Lord mentions only the idolatry of Baal, as the apex of their defection, because when they brought in pagan idols, they renounced Him.

Those who God has made very eminent may yet go very far wrong. Indeed, greatness may embolden people to sin. But when people fall away in this way, and abuse God’s generosity toward them, His kindness stands as a witness against them.

Sin will undoubtedly blast our eminency, both as individuals and nations, and will lay us low in reputation, estimation, and power. Even glorious Ephraim, when he offended, looked no more like what he was before than a dead man has the activity and vigour of one that is living.

But above all sins, idolatry, or corrupting religion, is a cause of corruption and decay to individuals and nations.

And although God is angry at all sorts of idolatry, yet He is more especially provoked when people renounce Him altogether, and choose an idol in His place, for the object of their worship. When people will not repent of lesser forms of idolatry, it is only justice when they are given up to this dreadful defection, which puts the certainty of their destruction beyond all doubt. Whatever Israel thought of their golden calves, now when Ephraim offends in Baal, it is undeniably just that he died for this abominable defection.

Ingratitude makes things worse

Notwithstanding their decaying situation, and the fact that God was still preserving them from utter destruction, they continued in their idolatrous worship of images and calves. “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” (Hosea 13:2).

For although Jehu had destroyed Baal and the Baal-worshippers, and God was in some measure upholding the kingdom under Jehu’s posterity, yet the people still adhered to the golden calves, and indeed they grew worse in following that sin, multiplying images according to their own pleasure and fancy. The rulers commanded the calves to be kissed (and the people encouraged one another to do so), as a certain sign of the reverence being given to them.

A habit which is hard to break

This multiplying of images more and more points to how the superstition of the people was growing. At first, they had the calves only at Dan and Bethel, yet afterward they also chose Gilgal, Gilead and Beersheba to be places of public worship. Not only so, but they multiplied little images and calves (as well as altars, Hosea 8:11; 12:11) for their private devotions at home.

Idolatry is a sin not soon abandoned, especially where it seems to serve and uphold an interest. Idolatry may in process of time become universal, and become the choice of a people who were not so willing to it before.

A sin which is impervious to correction

Impenitence after corrections, and God’s moderating of them, highly aggravates sin. Lesser sins, for which God will not destroy a people, will become grievous and heinous when continued in after corrections.

Those who are not reclaimed from idolatry by corrections, but persevere in it, will readily grow worse and worse. “Now they sin more and more.” Not only do they bewray more obstinacy and maliciousness in following their sin (when before it could be masked with a pretence of ignorance and infirmity), but they multiply the sin, “and have made them molten images” in addition to what they had before. It also aggravates the sin of idolatry that they pursue it so hotly as to spare no expense to promote it — their images were lavishly made out of silver.

A reverence which is transparently self-serving

Whatever people claim to represent by their images as the real object of their worship, yet images are idols in themselves. They do not represent the true God (as their worshippers make out) but an idol fancied by the deviser, and they will prove matter of sorrow and terror in the end. Their molten images are idols, and represent or bring to remembrance no thing in reality, even if they claim to make them in remembrance of the Lord who brought them out of the land of Egypt (1 Kings 12:28).

Following our own skill and prudence, rejecting God’s counsel and revealed will, is the false principle that begins and carries on all corruption in religion. They made idols “according to their own understanding.” They followed their own imagination and skill in making and multiplying them to further their devotion, as they called it.

Although the rulers commanded the people to give this sign of reverence, “Kiss the calves,” when they came to offer sacrifice, yet commands of authority do not take away the sinfulness of idolatry. Openly avowing idolatry within the visible church, and encouraging one another to it, makes it even more odious before the Lord. It is an addition to the sin, that, as their rulers gave out a wicked command, so the people yielded prompt and ready obedience, and strengthened one another in it.

God does not judge idolatry only by considering people’s intentions in what they do. There is also an external idolatry which He abhors, such as when a religious act of worship is performed towards some object, even if the worshipper claims only to be using that as a means of directing their worship towards God. Kissing the calves is condemned as an idolatrous act, whatever they claimed their intentions were.

A disloyalty which invites destruction

The destruction which this sin deserves is described in four similes — a cloud, the dew, chaff, and smoke — in Hosea 13:3: “Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.” These four similes point out that they will be driven out of their land and consumed, till they would (in a manner) come to nothing.

Nothing will be able to stand out against an angry God. All that the creature can oppose may be compared to the frailest things, and, for that matter, many similitudes are little enough to point out their frailty.

Great appearances of a flourishing condition do not guard against God’s hand. A great cloud overspreading the sky, and abundance of dew watering the earth, seem to promise much, but they soon pass away before the sun. Chaff lying secure among grain is soon driven swat by a whirlwind, and great puffs of smoke going out of a chimney soon scatter and vanish. Judgements on impenitent sinners will come swiftly and violently, and will bring utter desolation.

God does not forget His people

The Lord remembers how He had behaved towards His people. “Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me: for there is no Saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought …” (Hosea 13:4–5).

Before ever they knew idol calves, He had been good to them. In their deliverance from Egypt, He had proved Himself their God by many signs and wonders, including the covenant made with Abraham, which was solemnly renewed with them as a nation, in which He instructed and obliged them to their duty, and to the true religion, by uniting with Him, the only one who could prove a God and Saviour to them. To confirm them in this, He formally owned them to be His people, providing for them in the wilderness, where their food could be provided only by miracle.

Whatever course the declining people of God follow, yet experience will prove that they never thrive as they do in God’s way. When God covenants with anyone, He will support them in their low estate, and will prove His interest by deeds as their need requires.

The covenanted God will also renew His covenant even when His people have forgotten it, and forfeited their right to it. It was God’s great mercy to renew the covenant on Mount Sinai, shortly after they came out of Egypt, considering what they had been in Egypt (Eze. 20:7–8).

The great duty that lies on a covenanted people, and those who have reaped the fruits of God’s generosity, is to be dedicated to God as the only true God, their only delight and their refuge in all needs, and committed to the true religion, where His name is professed and acknowledged.

God does not seek a people to acknowledge Him because He needs them, but because it is entirely in their interests. They will find no God but Him, and they will find Him delighting to be a Saviour, something no one else can do. We acknowledge none but Him for, “there is no Saviour beside me.”

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