Philip Bell, creation.com
From my earliest years as a creation apologetics speaker, I have sometimes referred to the following sobering Scripture verse:
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children: (Hosea 4:6).
This statement and the surrounding passage are very relevant for the times in which we live. God contended that there was no longer any “knowledge of God in the land” of Israel, no faithfulness or love. Instead, the people were guilty of swearing, lying, stealing, adultery, and murder (4:1-2). Even those who should have especially feared God, the prophets and priests, were thoroughly corrupt.
The Old Testament prophet Amos was a near contemporary of Hosea in the eighth century BC who also bemoaned the deplorable condition into which Israel had sunk, full of pride, oppression, deceit, and godlessness (Amos 8:4-7). God warned that the time would soon come “when I send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). The nation was judged to be so contemptible as deserving judgement; any future efforts to find “the word of the Lord” would meet with failure (v. 12).
The days of Hosea and Amos, then, were characterised by a wholesale rejection of the knowledge of God. But look again at the verse that heads this article: the tragic result was that the children of that generation suffered abandonment, by God Himself; in fact, He says he will forget that generation!
In commenting on such passages as these (c.f. also 1 Samuel 3:1), I have pointed out how that sad state of affairs increasingly rings true for our own generation. In our so-called ‘enlightened’ 21st century, there is a rejection of God’s Word at every level of society. How many Christians can you name who are valiant for truth among our politicians, judges, magistrates, police, health service professionals, lawyers, corporate managers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders? Men and women think nothing of publicly scorning Christian values these days, often blaspheming God’s name while they do so. We see godlessness and a growing intolerance of biblical Christianity in every walk of life, do we not?
What about God’s own people? Unhappily, the rejection of God’s Word is all too often seen within the Church itself, not least with respect to Genesis 1–11. And with this rejection, the very foundations of Christianity are threatened. In my public presentations and preaching I have often gone on to illustrate those verses from Old Testament prophets in various ways. For instance, does God’s ‘forgetfulness’ in Hosea 4:6 not connect in some way to the mind-numbing abortion statistics, rampant teenage drug abuse, and rising suicide rates among young people? For Genesis alone gives the ultimate foundation for such things as the sanctity of human life (Genesis 1:26-27), something that has been terribly eroded in today’s culture. I shall further illustrate this with reference to just some of the societal problems in my own country, the UK. Of course, similar examples could be multiplied across the world.
Abortion
Since the UK’s Abortion Act in 1967, over 10 million lives have been terminated—equivalent to one unborn baby every 2½ minutes.2 As if these eye-watering statistics were not enough to give legislators pangs of conscience and pause for thought, there are serious plans afoot to legalise full-term abortions across the country,3 as is already the case in, for example, six states of the US. The prospect of the UK “embracing the most extreme abortion laws in the West” calls Hosea 4:6 to mind.3
Transgender treatments
Instead of protecting and speaking the truth to children, adults are lying to children and young people. The worrying level of gender dysphoria and confusion among today’s youngsters attests to the insidious, pervasive influence of the trans movement in society.4 Health professionals increasingly admit to the damage being done. Transgender healthcare in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is influenced by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. A cache of leaked e-mails from WPATH “show that doctors are carrying out life-changing surgery and prescribing puberty blockers even though they are aware the adults and children may not fully understand the long-term ramifications,” such as cancer, serious depression, psychosis, and infertility.5
Even prominent non-Christian writers observe that radical surgery and puberty blockers for children and adolescents are neither scientific nor medicine.5 And if parents object, they are liable to be criminalised in the future.6 Their crime? Desperately trying to help their confused children.7 A nation that rejects God will increasingly pay a high price regarding its children.
Broken families
With the legalisation of ‘same-sex marriage’ and the rise of such things as polyamory (consensual non-monogamous relationships) the erosion of Christian marriage continues apace. Whatever the causes of marital breakdown, the redefinition of marriage and the increasing rejection of the traditional family unit—of a father, mother, and their children—is also taking an inevitable toll on the younger generation. “About a quarter of all families with children in Britain are headed by single parents,” representing millions of youngsters.8While many separated, divorced, and single parents are dedicated to their children, we cannot avoid the sad facts, borne out by research, that family breakup is associated with more mental health problems (e.g. depression, anxiety, bad conduct).9 When God’s design for marriage and the family is ignored, the children suffer.
Mental health
There is no single cause of mental illness among youngsters today, but we have already noted some obvious factors, and the COVID pandemic clearly exacerbated matters with lengthy school closures and societal norms being upended. The NHS now estimates that 20 percent of all 8–16 year-olds in England have some sort of mental disorder! Walk-in centres for children and young people are being expanded across the country to try to help and counsel those who are struggling.10 NHS Mental Health Director Claire Murdoch said in 2023, “we have already supported over 700,000 children and young people with their mental health this year.”11 There are no easy solutions to a problem of this magnitude, and Christians must show great compassion, empathy, care, and prayerfulness in engaging with troubled youngsters, and helping all we can. Nevertheless, I come back to Hosea 4:6 merely to point out that the children are likely to fare badly in any nation which rejects the Creator of human beings.
Child crime
There was a time when the words ‘child crime’ were more likely to prompt thoughts of terrible things inflicted by adults upon children. Nowadays, we are woefully familiar with news stories of children themselves committing unspeakable acts. These things are rapidly on the rise in the UK. Over 107,000 child abuse offences reported to the police in 2022 were committed by 10–17 year-olds, including almost 15,000 sex assaults and rapes,12 not to mention the rise in violent murders. Due to many crimes going unreported, the real scale of the problem is actually far worse! A police chief has warned that “Violent pornography easily accessible on smartphones is contributing to a surge in child-on-child sex assaults and rapes.”12 Need we again point out the link between such horrendous statistics and Hosea 4:6?
We have largely forgotten God
These pressing societal problems are among many more that affect our children and young people. The warnings of the Lord God to Hosea and Amos surely have application for our own time. Any nation where there is “a famine … of hearing the words of the Lord” and which has “forgotten the law of … God” is liable to suffer grievous consequences—and these will increasingly emerge in the younger generation.
So, what is it that western nations have increasingly forgotten and rejected? Part of the answer is that we have rebelled against our Maker’s instructions because we have denied Him, the Creator. There is only one sure foundation upon which to build the sanctity of human life, a true understanding of human sexuality, marriage, the family, and much more. It is the Word of God, beginning in Genesis 1:1, for it is God who created all things. We are made in His image, not that of evolved hominids (Genesis 1:26). God made male and female, not a smorgasbord of genders (Genesis 1:27). Marriage was instituted by our loving Heavenly Father, the God of the universe (Genesis 2:24) who also blessed and commanded human beings to fruitfully multiply (Genesis 1:28).
But a great majority of today’s young people know little or nothing of these things. They are not raised to see life as precious, but to seek out their own identity. They know nothing of what it means to be loved by God. Many are duped into believing the lie that they were born in the wrong body. Their perception of marriage is marred by perversions of God’s divinely ordained institution. A famine of the words of the Bible (of hearing even the basics of the Word of God) coupled with the widespread rejection of foundational scriptural teaching—some of it from the mouths of pastors and church leaders—has been catastrophically harmful to a generation of children and young people.
Our Creator God is the one who gave nations such as the UK their great blessings and advantages. Perhaps surprisingly, Scripture tells us that there can be an instance ‘when God forgets’. And as surely as a nation’s people forget God, a hardening of the hearts of men and women can lead to God forgetting its children. A sobering, if unpopular, truth for sure—and one which should drive us to our knees.
All is not hopeless, however. Christians worship a God who is “the Author of life” (Acts 3:15). The Lord Jesus Christ conquered death through his resurrection and the Good News is that men, women, and young people can be lifted out of the moral swamp and set upon solid ground, spiritually speaking. He “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), to deliver them from death and grant them life and immortality (2 Timothy 1:10). Now that’s a tremendous message of hope for a decaying culture and for people without true purpose! Christians reading this, be encouraged to stand for the truth and to share the Gospel truths with the younger generation who are so deprived of the truth of their loving Creator God.