And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. — John 17:3
I. What Knowledge
We all know the saying: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Some of us learned it as perish. Either way, we use it regularly to argue for why we need knowledge and counsel and a clear understanding of things, a good plan, a strategy. There is an entire cottage industry and seminar series built around this verse. We think it means we need a vision board and goals, KPIs, and stewardship metrics.
But exactly what knowledge is GOD talking about? Jesus said, Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3). I think we need to be clear what is being said to us about knowledge and knowing.
Read Hosea 4:6 in context and I think we will see that the answer is not information. Hosea 4 opens like a lawsuit because — I believe — that is exactly what it is: Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land (4:1). The Hebrew word behind controversy is rîb, the word the prophets use when GOD takes His people to court (Micah 6:2). The charge comes in three counts: (I) no truth, (II) no mercy, and (III) no knowledge of GOD. Then, the evidence, which reads like the Ten Commandments being broken one after another: By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out (4:2).
So the knowledge GOD is talking about in Hosea has content — it is the knowledge of His Law. But, it is not simply knowledge about the Law, like we would study in a book or graduate school. It is knowledge the way Hosea had to learn it himself: by marrying a woman who left him, and then going to buy her back (1:2; 3:1-2). Hosea is a book about marriage, and the promise that is central to it is a husband’s promise to his wife: I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD (2:20). It is actually the same verb as Adam knew Eve his wife (Genesis 4:1). You cannot get that kind of knowledge out of a book or a school (though, I don’t know anyone who has gotten that knowledge without THE Book, GOD’s Word, but not by reading it alone).
I think one of our basic mistakes is that we think of GOD’s commandments as a set of rules — rules imposed on us from somewhere outside ourselves, something we didn’t necessarily agree to, and something that might be conditional for the right reasons. Once we think of GOD’s Law that way, we begin treating it like every other kind of law or rule in our experience: a social contract, usually worth following (so long as everyone else does with us), certainly there for some reason (probably a good reason, probably worth protecting) — but sometimes circumstances justify a little deviation (sometimes we need to speed or run a red light, sometimes rounding up on our billing entry or tax deduction makes practical sense). And especially if we aren’t hurting someone else or if everyone else is already doing it, we can justify significant deviations from the “technical” requirements of the law in the name of being a good steward or responsible citizen — and of course we praise civil disobedience when we have good reasons to disobey and especially if the law, in our estimation, is unjust. We make ourselves the judge and arbiter of when obedience matters, when it is non-negotiable, and when a reasonable exception can be made. When we think of GOD’s Law this way, we miss the whole point. His Law — His true Law, what He says and tells you to do, how to live, how to walk in the Way — is not a list of standards that He is testing whether you can live up to or not. Rather, GOD’s Law is about how created beings live in harmony with Him, enjoy and experience His life, know Him and are known by Him. It is a wife joining herself to her husband and becoming one person — not so much in a physical sense, in a much more profound emotional, experiential, psychological, spiritual truth. That is why Scripture’s language of marriage, fidelity, temples, houses, vessels, and indwelling matters. Sin is not merely breaking one of GOD’s rules, missing His mark, tripping again over the same habitual sin. Yes of course those things matter and do separate us from GOD. It is just way more than that — way more than just breaking a rule or deviating from a standard too antiquated for modern sensibilities or indulging in something trivial that isn’t hurting anyone else and isn’t all “that bad” anyway. No. At its core, sin is idolatry. It is adultery. It is giving ourselves over to something else — allowing something other than Him to inhabit, dwell within, commune with, or “know” us in the place that belongs only to Him. This is why Hosea calls it adultery. And, yes — it is just that serious and just that profane.
Again, Jesus defined eternal life as knowing GOD (John 17:3). Whatever we think salvation is — going to heaven, being forgiven of sins, being given a fresh start imbued with the new life of the Spirit — there is an incredibly important component that rests on this idea of knowing (and being known by) GOD. We are back at Hosea 4:6 — we are destroyed, we perish, because we do not KNOW Him. And you may only know Him by following the pattern of His Son. The Children of Israel failed to know Him. GOD calls the culprit, the Defendant out specifically: because thou (Who?) hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me (the priest class): seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Then a few verses later: Hear ye this, O priests . . . for judgment is toward you (5:1). So GOD’s people perished — why? Because of the priests. I just finished writing an entire series on how GOD is restoring priestly vocation. This is the WHY behind what GOD is doing — the current priests and those of us who should be serving rightly as GOD’s priests need to get it together. We need to hear and respond to GOD’s charge in Hosea.
For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth.
—Malachi 2:7
Hosea tells us the priests had stopped feeding the people and why. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity (4:8). The priests who offered the sin offering were given a portion of it to eat (Leviticus 6:26). More sin meant more meat on the priests’ tables. The men ordained to cure the sickness of the people had learned instead to live on it. There is a whole sermon here but I will let someone else preach it. My part, as an attorney seeking to be used of GOD in the restorative work He is about, we are coming to in the sections that follow.
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them . . . They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good (4:12-13). Hosea 4 is about idols and high places.
The irony is we quote a verse in which GOD indicts the religiously articulate class — the men and women paid to know Him — for trading the knowledge of GOD for a religious economy that profited from the people’s sin. And we use it to argue for more knowledge. In my experience, both worlds I occupy do this: the church (I am a ruling elder) uses the verse to launch a curriculum and a sermon series, and my profession (law partner) uses it to fill a seminar. Our knowledge-seeking still seems to be preaching a gospel of works-based salvation — be smarter, plan better, know more, steward better — and it is something we profit from. Many of us could write GOD’s biography. We know about Him. But do we know Him? And more importantly, does He know us? Knowledge and godly counsel and a good plan are all gifts, and we should be grateful for them — but the verse was never about GOD’s gift of knowledge and understanding. And when we make it about His gifts, we turn GOD’s complaint against us into an advertisement for us, for our good stewardship, our impeccable credentials and long hours of study. We profit off false knowledge — off the lack of true knowledge — and in Hosea we stand accused. How many of us stand accused?
For the lawyer, there is further irony here. Every litigator knows how to answer an allegation he cannot readily confirm. Florida’s rules of civil procedure put it plainly: “If the defendant is without knowledge, the defendant must so state, and such statement will operate as a denial” (Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(c)). The federal rule says the same (Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(b)(5)), and so does the rule for answering a spouse’s petition in family court (Fla. Fam. L. R. P. 12.110(c)). Most of us have typed the formula more times than we could count: “without knowledge, and therefore denied.” It is a legitimate answer. And in my experience, it is also where we put the allegations we would rather not look at too closely.
Read Hosea 4:6 again. The allegation is lack of knowledge. And our template response would be without knowledge, therefore denied. We take up the charge as our own defense.
Recently I wrote a prayer about marriage and the subtle sins husbands especially, but really both spouses, need to be careful of. Not the sins that end a marriage in a single moment. The ones that empty the marriage over years — distraction, preoccupation, keeping score, speaking about your spouse more warmly than you speak to them, providing for the home and neglecting the person within it. Sometimes we can still be friends or friendly, but once intimacy is broken, it can be very hard to get it back. Hosea’s complaint is that kind — GOD does not open with idolatry and high places; He opens with truth and mercy and knowledge — the things a spouse first notices go missing, usually long before there are any outward signs that the marriage is failing.
So here is the point of this particular article. I am going to play this out the way a lawyer would in litigation. First, the Complaint: GOD’s controversy with the priests of His house, set out in present-day language, personal, the way a Husband might plead it against a Wife who knows a great deal about Him, but does not know Him (not anymore). I count lawyers and pastors among those priests, and anyone in what I have affectionately begun to call the religiously articulate class that I belong to. Everything in italics in the Complaint is Scripture. Everything else is my reading of it, my personalizing it in a way that I can understand clearly. And hopefully you, Reader, will understand it and see yourself in it as well.
Then, the Answer. And certainly not the one I would file in the real world — with all the defenses I could muster, even those I know will be struck, have no basis in fact, etc., but I raise them anyway (in an abundance of caution or just to be a pain to make opposing counsel take more time to deal with them). Most of us can draft this kind of Answer in our sleep. No, I offer you a real Answer — the one David gave after Nathan had finished his story and said, Thou art the man! (2 Samuel 12:7). The Answer I give when I hear GOD’s complaint against me: I have sinned against the LORD (12:13). In Hebrew, that Answer is two words. Mine takes a little more than that but I hope you track with me and that it becomes a model for your Answer, as well.
II. The Complaint
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HEAVEN
Case No. Hosea 4:1
THE LORD OF HOSTS, Maker and Husband of His people, Plaintiff,
v.
THE PRIESTS OF HIS HOUSE — pastors and elders, teachers and theologians, chaplains and counselors, ministry executives and worship leaders, Christian lawyers, and the rest of the religiously articulate class, entrusted with His Word and paid to have an answer — Defendants.
VERIFIED COMPLAINT
(Breach of Covenant; Breach of Fiduciary Duty; Conversion; Worship at High Places)
Plaintiff, THE LORD OF HOSTS, sues Defendants, THE PRIESTS OF HIS HOUSE, and alleges:
Parties, Jurisdiction, and Venue
1. Plaintiff is the LORD. 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 (Hos. 13:4). For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name (Isa. 54:5).
2. Defendants are the priests of His house, charged to keep knowledge and to teach His law (Mal. 2:7). They are sued individually and in their official capacities, because the person and the office have failed together.
3. This Court has jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein (Ps. 24:1).
4. Venue is proper in every place, because there is no place Defendants can go from His Spirit (Ps. 139:7–8). The acts complained of occurred in pulpits and courtrooms, in studies and conference rooms, at kitchen tables and in cars on the way to work, and in the secret places of Defendants’ hearts.
5. Heaven and earth are called to witness (Deut. 30:19; Mic. 6:1–2).
6. All conditions precedent to this action have been performed by Plaintiff. He sent His servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them (Jer. 7:25). Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them (Mark 12:6).
General Allegations
7. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought (Hos. 13:5). I knew you before you knew anything about Me. I found you with nothing — no name, no standing, no one looking — and I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine (Ezek. 16:4–8).
8. I betrothed you to Myself in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies … in faithfulness, and I promised you one thing above the rest: thou shalt know the LORD (Hos. 2:19–20). Not know facts about Me. Know Me.
9. I gave you My Word to keep and My people to feed. I put you where you would stand before Me on their behalf, and before them on Mine (Deut. 33:10).
10. Every good thing you have, I gave: the mind and the memory, the schooling and the license, the pulpit and the practice, the congregation and the clients, the salary, the reputation, the influence, and the seat at the table. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? (1 Cor. 4:7).
11. I ordained the office. My complaint is not against the office. I complain of what you have made of it, and of what you have done to Me from your place inside of it.
12. There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land (Hos. 4:1). You did not make the land what it is. You were the ones I sent to keep it from becoming this. Like people, like priest (4:9).
COUNT I — BREACH OF COVENANT: THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
(Hos. 4:1, 6; 6:1–6; 7:9, 14; 8:12; 2 Tim. 3:5)
13. Paragraphs 1 through 12 are realleged.
14. You know about Me more than you know Me. You can cite Me, summarize Me, parse Me in the original languages, and defend Me on a panel or in the streets. You cannot remember the last time you sat with Me with nothing to perform or prepare.
15. You speak of Me in public with more warmth than you speak to Me in private. You tell stories about Me the way a man tells stories about a wife he no longer talks to — fluently, fondly, and from a distance.
16. You speak for Me more than you speak with Me.
17. You bring Me your list of requests and leave before I answer, and call it prayer. While I am speaking, you keep one eye on the clock, one ear on the phone, and one hand on the next task.
18. You bring Me what you want to give. I told you what I want: For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings (Hos. 6:6). You have preached that and still you bring burnt offerings — the extra hour, the extra program, the extra conference, the extra board seat — because burnt offerings can be counted.
19. You have mastered the rules of men and forgotten the law of your GOD (Hos. 4:6). I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing (8:12). You treat the rules of your professions, the traditions of men, and the expectations of polite society as binding and My law as interesting, debatable, aspirational.
20. You have kept a form of godliness but denied its power (2 Tim. 3:5). You confess Me with your mouth and deny My power with your plans and lack of faith.
21. You pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith (Matt. 23:23).
22. The serpent never needed to talk you into adultery. It was enough to make you complicated and nuanced. My apostle warned you: I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).
23. Your repentance is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away (Hos. 6:4). You say, Come, and let us return unto the LORD (6:1) by group text message or in the early Bible study, and are back at your desk and self-focused, self-important routine by nine. You apologize to Me the way a spouse apologizes who wants the conversation to be over, but doesn’t want to change. And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds (7:14).
24. You have not noticed what you have lost. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not (7:9).
COUNT II — BREACH OF FIDUCIARY DUTY: FEEDING ON THE SIN OF MY PEOPLE
(Hos. 4:6, 8; Ezek. 34:2–4; Luke 11:52; John 15:18; 2 Pet. 2:3)
25. Paragraphs 1 through 12 are realleged.
26. You held My people’s trust on My behalf. For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God (Heb. 5:1).
27. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity (Hos. 4:8). You did not cause every quarrel, every crisis, every divorce, every lawsuit, every fear. But you did learn to depend on them, to stoke them, to keep them going. The continued conflict raises the fee. The crisis grows the platform. The fear fills the room.
28. I do not begrudge the wage; the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luke 10:7). I complain that the ignorance of My people has become your market, and the knowledge of Me your product. Freely ye have received, freely give (Matt. 10:8).
29. You have read My complaint against you and turned it into an advertisement for you. I said, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, and you answered with more knowledge: a curriculum, a conference, a subscription, a seminar, a course for credit, a podcast, and a book. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you (2 Pet. 2:3).
30. You know what the crowd celebrates — what gets the most likes, the most views, the most followers. It is not My Son. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you (John 15:18). So you have learned to preach a Jesus the world can like, because he sells and then you will go viral. You rationalize this countless ways.
31. You made simple things complicated, so that My people would need you to explain them. My Son said it to the lawyers plainly: Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered (Luke 11:52).
32. You fed yourselves and not the flock. Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? … The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken … but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them (Ezek. 34:2, 4).
33. Some of you drove My people like cattle. More of you let them wander and called it respect. You told them what they wanted to hear, and you called it pastoral care, or client service. You followed them where I sent you to lead them. Like people, like priest (Hos. 4:9).
COUNT III — CONVERSION: MY GIFTS GIVEN TO OTHER LOVERS
(Hos. 2:5, 8, 16; 8:14; 10:1; 13:6; Matt. 21:38; Dan. 5:23)
34. Paragraphs 1 through 12 are realleged.
35. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal (Hos. 2:8). You credit your provision to your own hand — your rainmaking, your reputation, your network, your preaching, the market. What I multiplied, you spent on other gods.
36. You went after other lovers because you believed they fed you. I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink (2:5). The client, the case, the platform, the attendance numbers, the approval of your peers, the next ruling, the next raise. You give them your first thought in the morning, your last thought at night, and your best attention in between.
37. Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself (10:1).
38. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities (8:14). You built strong towers with your own hands — firms and non-profits and para-ministries, reserves and reputations and a strong donor list — and forgot that the name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe (Prov. 18:10).
39. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me (Hos. 13:6).
40. You relate to Me as your master and not your husband. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi [my husband]; and shalt call me no more Baali [my master] (2:16). You serve Me for wages. You keep count of your service, and when you pray, you remind Me of it: Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment (Luke 15:29).
41. You have treated a lease as a title. I let you work the vineyard, and over time you came to believe it was yours. When the heir came, you reasoned the way the husbandmen reasoned: This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance (Matt. 21:38). You act as if you inherited the Kingdom apart from Me. Ye are not your own … for ye are bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19–20).
42. Even the breath you argue with is Mine. The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified (Dan. 5:23).
COUNT IV — WORSHIP AT HIGH PLACES: COUNSEL SOUGHT ELSEWHERE
(Hos. 4:12–13; 5:13; 7:11; 10:8; Isa. 30:1–2; John 18:36)
43. Paragraphs 1 through 12 are realleged.
44. My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them (Hos. 4:12). You consult your data and your dashboards, your consultants and your polls, your precedent and your own experience before you consult Me — and often instead of Me.
45. You set the strategy first and ask Me to bless it after. You will let Me give advice, set some boundaries, bless the trip, even choose the destination. You will not move over. Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me … That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! (Isa. 30:1–2).
46. When you are wounded, you go to other forms of assistance and coping. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian … yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound (Hos. 5:13). Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria (7:11).
47. Some of you have decided that I baptized a political party, and you have done it on both sides. I have authorized neither. My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).
48. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good (Hos. 4:13). You did not go up to the high places because you hated Me. You went because it was pleasant there — the shade of reputation, prestige, respectability, comfort, and the good opinion of your guild. You preferred the shade of the oak to the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. 91:1).
49. You have torn down other people’s high places and left your own standing, and you have made the hunt itself a high place. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (Matt. 7:3).
50. The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars (Hos. 10:8).
INJURY
51. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6). The injury is theirs as much as Mine.
52. And it is your children’s. Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (4:6). The next generation has watched you handle My things like professionals. Some of them have learned to handle them the same way. Some have stopped handling them at all.
53. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth (Rev. 3:16).
54. I do not want a judgment against you. I want you. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? … mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together (Hos. 11:8).
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff demands judgment against Defendants — not for damages — and for the following relief:
(a) That they return unto the LORD their God (Hos. 14:1);
(b) That they know Him, and follow on to know the LORD (6:3);
(c) That they tear down the high places, beginning with their own (10:8; Matt. 7:5);
(d) That they feed the flock of God … not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind (1 Pet. 5:2);
(e) That they break up their fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you (Hos. 10:12); and
(f) Such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.
VERIFICATION
As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezek. 33:11). Because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself (Heb. 6:13).
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I HEREBY CERTIFY that a true copy of the foregoing was furnished to Defendants by the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them (Jer. 7:25), and last of all by hand delivery through My Son to the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders (Mark 11:27; 12:6). Receipt was acknowledged: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him, and went their way (Mark 12:12).
III. The Answer
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HEAVEN
THE LORD OF HOSTS v. THE PRIESTS OF HIS HOUSE, et al. — Case No. Hosea 4:1
DEFENDANT’S ANSWER AND PLEA
Defendant, the undersigned — a lawyer, and an elder in Christ’s church — answers the Complaint for himself and for no one else, and states:
1. This Answer is filed on the day the Complaint was served. Defendant has not asked for more time. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2).
2. Defendant does not move to dismiss, to strike, or for a more definite statement. The Complaint is definite enough. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword … and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
3. Defendant admits paragraphs 1 through 54 — including those he would like to explain, and the ones that charge him not with what he did but with what he missed.
4. Where the Complaint alleges that Defendant lacks the knowledge of GOD, Defendant does not answer “without knowledge, and therefore denied.” He answers: without knowledge, and therefore admitted.
5. Defendant has no justification, and he asserts no affirmative defenses. Not because he does not know them; he has used most of them throughout his life. He does not plead the statute of limitations, though some of this is old; nor laches, because the Plaintiff was never late, only patient (2 Pet. 3:9); nor waiver or estoppel, because the Plaintiff’s silence was never consent — These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself (Ps. 50:21); nor accord and satisfaction, because his tithes, lessons, pro bono hours, board seats, and committee service satisfied nothing (Isa. 64:6); nor unclean hands, because the Plaintiff’s hands are clean, and pierced (John 20:27); nor comparative fault — not the culture, not the congregation, not the client, not the partner, not the market, and not the woman whom thou gavest to be with me (Gen. 3:12); nor failure to state a cause of action, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). Nor does he plead that everyone in his profession does the same. He has no joint defense agreement with his co-defendants.
6. Defendant files no counterclaim; he has no claim against the Plaintiff. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further (Job 40:5). He files no cross-claim against his co-defendants, as the Pharisee did against the publican (Luke 18:11), and no third-party complaint against the serpent (Gen. 3:13). The LORD can rebuke him (Jude 9; Zech. 3:2).
7. Defendant does not plead no contest, which gives up the fight and keeps the denial. He pleads guilty. I have sinned against the LORD (2 Sam. 12:13).
8. Defendant stipulates that any judgment this Court enters will be just. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest (Ps. 51:4).
9. Defendant does not demand a jury. Let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man (2 Sam. 24:14).
10. Defendant claims no title in himself. He quitclaims to the Plaintiff whatever interest he thought he held, and asks that every other lien he has allowed to be recorded against him be stricken as void. Ye are not your own … for ye are bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19–20).
11. Defendant pleads only the blood of the Lamb of GOD, Jesus — His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension (1 Cor. 15:3-4; Rev. 12:11).
WHEREFORE, Defendant throws himself on the mercy of the Court, which is also the Plaintiff he has wronged. He has given up control of the outcome and is wholly, utterly dependent on His mercy. He asks for nothing he is owed, because he is owed nothing (Luke 17:10). He asks for mercy: God be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13). And if it please the Court, when it has made him clean, he asks to be put back to work: Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee (Ps. 51:13).
Respectfully submitted,
Michael C. Kelley
the sinner (Luke 18:13)
by and through his Advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1–2)
IV. Take With You Words
The Answer is short on purpose. The one we would file in the real world would run longer than the Complaint, and most of it would be written to protect ourselves and would include as many affirmative defenses as we could imagine, might include some counterclaims, and would certainly present crossclaims and third-party claims. David’s Answer ran two words (in Hebrew).
Saul said the same words — I have sinned — twice (1 Samuel 15:24, 30). But not initially. First he said, I have performed the commandment of the LORD (15:13). He lied. But I think he actually believed his own lie. Then he blamed the people for the minor deviation. (What was the harm, anyway?) Then he explained his good intentions, that the best of the spoil had been spared to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God (15:15, 21) — a religious reason for a disobedient act. Saul is the perfect picture of us, justifying ourselves and minimizing our rebellion against the Most High GOD. How do you know Abraham believed GOD? Because he did what GOD asked (Genesis 15:6; James 2:21–23). Saul did not. Samuel’s reply was Hosea 6:6, three hundred years early: Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams (15:22). And Samuel’s response is the same as Hosea’s to the priests: Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king (15:23). Only then did Saul say I have sinned, and he attached an affirmative defense, an excuse — because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice (15:24) — and then a request that showed his repentance was not true: I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people (15:30).
By any measure a bar association would use, David’s record was far worse. Saul spared a king and the best of the livestock. David took another man’s wife and then his life — the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5). The difference between them was not the size of the sin. It was the Answer. The consequences were real; the sword never departed from David’s house (2 Samuel 12:10). But the sin was put away in the same breath as the confession, and David was not rejected.
Later in his life, David got faster at his confession. After he numbered the people — counted his strength, which is a sin I understand better than I would like to admit; I count hours and dollars and matters, and I have checked the impressions on essays about surrender — David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done (2 Samuel 24:10). The prophet did not come until the next morning (24:11). No one had to tell David a story that time. He filed his Answer before the Complaint was served.
He also wrote down what the delay had cost him: When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me (Psalm 32:3–4). And what the confession cost him — nothing but the words: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin (32:5). In the text, the forgiveness arrives with the decision to put down our own cause and defense, our own justification and attempts at self-righteousness.
Here is something else I think we are missing. We think we will be put on trial one day, and that we will be able to put on a defense. We are on trial right now. We are entering evidence against ourselves right now. There won’t be need for another trial. After this is said and done, it will only be a sentencing hearing. All the testimony and evidence will have been entered. Each side will have rested upon our death. And the only thing separating us from eternal damnation will be whether the Judge recognizes us as His child. Does He see Jesus? Has His blood been applied to us? Does Jesus claim us? We cannot afford to be apathetic about any of this. Do we dare boast? Do we have any sense of entitlement that He must bestow mercy? We throw ourselves at the mercy of the Court, which means we have given up control of the outcome and truly are wholly, utterly dependent on His mercy.
That is why the Answer cannot wait for a better day. The record is being made now.
In What Angels Would Not, I wrote what I heard twenty-three years ago in the living room of the first house I ever bought, after I had complained to GOD about the merry-go-round of following Him, falling, repenting, and following again. Part of what I heard was that the merry-go-round itself was a testimony — that every time a weak, fragile, imperfect man gets back up and follows after GOD, takes that next step towards Him, he does what the fallen angels would not, and becomes a witness in the courts of heaven that there is none like GOD. And it ended this way: “And when you stumble and fall — and you will — quickly confess it. Do not wallow in the mire of self-condemnation. I do not condemn those who yield to my Word and my Spirit, who take the next step towards me.”
I still think we are missing the whole point. The Law was not meant for us to keep but to show us our separation from GOD. It isn’t just that we’ve failed His standard and missed the mark of His perfection — of course we have! He never expected us to meet His standard. If He had, then He made a mistake when He created us, and I don’t believe that He made or makes any mistake. He knew exactly what He was creating, and His purpose was to have a sinful man walk in His Spirit — cleansed by His blood to KNOW Him and inherit eternal life. Our salvation is His answer to the main argument of the fallen angels: that GOD creates beings incapable of meeting His standards and living in His life, and so GOD is inherently unjust, unloving, unkind. Those of us who reject the temptation into self-service and self-rule — who refuse to become His rival — are the evidence, the witnesses, of who He truly is. You just had to want to know Him. You had to put yourself and your desires and selfish ambition aside and choose Him.
Quick does not mean shallow. Hosea heard Israel say, Come, and let us return unto the LORD, and GOD answered that their goodness was as a morning cloud (Hosea 6:1, 4). David’s two words had Psalm 51 underneath them. I try to be obedient in everything. I try to let Him in on everything I think, say, and do. I still fail. I still fall woefully short of the glory of GOD. But I am failing while trying to hear His voice and do what He says, not failing at some standard of behavior, not failing at maintaining a facade. And I don’t think I am better than people who are just trying to stop sinning — especially people caught in habitual sin. I think I am far worse. We struggle with how not to sin. We ought to struggle with how to keep the Law — in the Way of the Son, by the power of the Spirit. Why did Jesus save us? So that we can live whatever lives we want? There is a teaching going around that says, more or less, “GOD cares about your journey and your destination; He doesn’t care what car you’re in or whether you have the A/C on, whether you choose to be comfortable, how you’ve adjusted your chair — He cares about your journey.” What kind of teaching is that?! If GOD cares about the number of hairs on your head (or lack thereof), He cares about it all. There is no place to flee the presence of the LORD. There is no time for distractions, no room for self. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves (James 1:22). Confess quickly. Then stay in the room and get to know Him.
And quick does not mean anxious. Some of us will read the Complaint and go looking for idols under every bed until the hunt itself becomes a new high place — a program of self-inspection with our own name on it. That is the Strongman again, trying to administer his own breaking. Humanity is not simply sick with sin. Sin has rendered all of us morally, intellectually, and spiritually dead — unresponsive, and incapable of being responsive to GOD. So the searching belongs to GOD: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts (Psalm 139:23). And the walking belongs to Him too: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you … And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Our part is to answer when He finds something — the same day, in plain words — and take the next step toward Him.
Notice what David asks for there: know my heart. That is where this has been going all along. The knowledge Hosea says we rejected begins with GOD’s knowledge of us, received. But if any man love God, the same is known of him (1 Corinthians 8:3). But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God (Galatians 4:9). The first temptation was an offer of knowledge a man could take for himself: ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5). The knowledge of GOD is never taken. It is received, the way a bride receives a name. And the first thing GOD did after the Fall was ask a question He already knew the answer to: Where art thou? (3:9). He was not gathering information. He was giving Adam the chance to answer.
Ursinus opened the Heidelberg Catechism with a question about ownership, not obedience: “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” He put belonging before obedience on purpose. Do I keep the Law? Of course I do not. But the ownership question is the one that actually sorts people. Ye are not your own … for ye are bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). For this lawyer, this is all a title question. Our whole trade is sorting out who holds what, and the instinct to quiet title in our own name runs deep. Whose name is on the deed to me? And who else has a lien? This terrifies me — particularly because I am not more terrified than I am. GOD gave us life, and we act as if we are entitled to it, like we inherited something that now belongs to us, when it all belongs to Him. It is not really a question of whether I keep His Law. The better question is whether I actually believe, and act as if, I belong only to Him and not at all to myself. Have I given myself to anything or anyone other than Him? Do I KNOW Him? And does He know me?
We in the religiously articulate class act as if we inherited the Kingdom apart from GOD. We live out the parable of the tenants. The owner goes away, the tenants work the land, and over time they forget it isn’t theirs. When the heir showed up, the reasoning of the day — our reasoning today — was: This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance (Matthew 21:38). That is the whole Fall in one sentence: creatures treating a lease as a title. And Luke 13 is what the tenants hear at the door. We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets — proximity, familiarity, knowledge about — and the answer: I know you not whence ye are (Luke 13:26–27). The lack of knowledge in that sentence is not theirs. It is His: He does not know them as His own. They were never of His household. Or maybe I should say “they,” since I am dropping to my knees crying out for mercy even as I write this. Like David: I have sinned.
There is one more Answer I cannot leave out, because it shows the complete mercy and compassion of GOD, despite our continued frailty. It starts in the high priest’s palace, in Matthew 26:58. When the servants asked Peter about Jesus, he pleaded lack of knowledge three times: I know not what thou sayest; I do not know the man; I know not the man (26:70, 72, 74). Without knowledge, and therefore denied. After the resurrection, Jesus meets Peter beside a fire of coals, like the one Peter had warmed himself at that night (John 18:18; 21:9). Peter had gone back to fishing, all night, and Jesus had breakfast waiting for him — fish, for the fisherman. Then asked him three times, Lovest thou me? Peter’s last answer reverses his denial: Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee (21:17). He stopped pleading his own knowledge and rested on the Lord’s. And Jesus gave him back his office on the spot: Feed my sheep.
I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, Hosea wrote. Feed my sheep, Jesus said. Between the two is an Answer and the difference is in the knowing.
Hosea does not end with the Complaint. At the end of the book, the Plaintiff drafts the Answer Himself and hands it to the defendant: O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously (Hosea 14:1–2). The words He supplies include a renunciation any lawyer or pastor could sign: Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy (14:3). No more alliances for safety. No more horses for strength. No more bowing to our own work product. Then the ruling: I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him (14:4). And the book’s last verse comes back to knowledge: Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein (14:9).
So deal with it quickly. Whatever GOD has put His finger on — the idol, the high place, the commonplace you settled into and built a practice around — do not ask for an extension. Do not move to dismiss. Do not prepare the defense you know will be struck. Left alone, subtle sins harden: exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13). There is no formula, no secret, no incantation, no vow or oath, nothing we can buy or merit or obtain or achieve. Admit it, today, in plain words, and throw yourself on a mercy that is not a gamble: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Faithful and just. This Court does not show mercy by setting justice aside. It shows mercy because justice has already been satisfied: For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). The One who knew no sin was made sin, so that those who did not know GOD could be known by Him. The publican understood this. His prayer, in Greek, asks GOD to be propitiated toward him — the verb is kin to the word for the mercy seat (Hebrews 9:5) — and he calls himself not a sinner but the sinner (Luke 18:13). He made no comparisons. This man went down to his house justified (18:14).
I have no justification. The little good I have done is so far outweighed by — not even what I have done wrong — what I have missed. What I failed to see and hear. Where I failed to obey, or even to consider Him. I have taken the vast majority of my life for granted. I have borrowed His breath and acted like it is mine. I am that man trapped upside down in a pit, one I voluntarily crawled into, and no one can rescue me, and I am dying in that pit, in that condition — BUT, Jesus! He saved me. And He saved me for a reason. I want to honor His reason for saving me.
Oh brothers and sisters, we need to repent. If you found your name somewhere in the Complaint — it was obviously drafted exactly against me — file your Answer today. You do not need to retain counsel; you already have an Advocate (1 John 2:1). The Answer does not need to be long. It just needs to be true, and it needs to be now.
A Prayer of Repentance
Heavenly Father,
I have sinned against You. I have no excuse. I have no justification. I assert neither.
You betrothed me to Yourself and promised that I would know You, and I have settled for knowing about You. I have spoken in public of You more warmly than I have spoken to You, and spoken for You more than I have listened to You. I have brought You my lists and prayers and desires of my heart and left before You answered. I have brought You burnt offerings — hours, programs, service, and sacrifice — when You asked for mercy and the knowledge of Yourself [Hos. 6:6].
You gave me the privilege to know You, and I have not honored it. Thinking I was pursuing You, I was pursuing selfish gain. Thinking I was making myself look good in front of others, I was serving myself as God. I was deciding for myself what is right.
I repent of holding on to the image of success that I constructed, what I wanted people to see me as. I repent of striving, of being adversarial, of controlling. I repent of chasing money, wealth, success, and achievement as a sign of Your favor and blessing. I began wanting to serve and came to desire control; wanting justice and came to want victory; wanting peace and settling for managed process. Forgive me for living on the conflicts You sent me to reconcile, and for treating the ignorance of Your people as a market [Hos. 4:8].
I have credited my own hand with what You gave — the mind, the memory, the license, the clients, the income, the name. I have borrowed Your breath and acted like it is mine. Everything I am and have belongs to You, and none of it to me [Dan. 5:23; 1 Cor. 6:19–20]. I have built fenced cities and called them security. Be my strong tower again [Hos. 8:14; Prov. 18:10].
I have sought counsel at the stocks — my data, my experience, my own understanding — and asked You to bless plans You were never consulted about [Hos. 4:12; Isa. 30:1]. I have let You give advice and set boundaries and bless the trip, and I have not moved over. I have rested in the shade of reputation and respectability, because the shadow thereof was good. Bring me back to the shadow of the Almighty [Hos. 4:13; Ps. 91:1].
I have torn down other people’s high places and left my own standing [Matt. 7:3–5]. Not everything is a devil. Some of what must be cast down is my own agreements with lies.
I have repented like a morning cloud and been back at my desk doing my own thing by nine [Hos. 6:4]. This time, do not let me leave the room.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting [Ps. 139:23–24]. When You find it, let my answer come the same day, and let it be one word: Admitted.
Create in me a clean, pure heart: one without guile or manipulation, self-interest or personal agenda. Renew in me a steadfast spirit that consistently pursues You, Your Kingdom, Your Glory, Your Righteousness, Your agenda. Do not cast me from Your Presence or take Your Spirit from me [Ps. 51:10–11]. Put Your Spirit within me and cause me to walk in Your statutes [Ezek. 36:27].
Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation, and then, if it please You, put me back to work: then will I teach transgressors Your ways [Ps. 51:12–13]. Make me a priest to You again. Let me feed Your sheep, and never again feed on their sin [John 21:17; Hos. 4:8]. You saved me for a reason. Let me honor Your reason for saving me.
When You look at me, see Jesus. Let His blood be applied to me. Let Him claim me as His own.
Do not forget our children [Hos. 4:6]. Let the next generation know You — not facts about You. You.
You are a Lover, O GOD. Make me a lover like You. Be gracious to me to make it so.
Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You [John 21:17].
In Jesus’s name. Amen.
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Michael C. Kelley is a Florida attorney and shareholder at Lawson Huck Gonzalez, PLLC. He writes at Turris Fortis on faith, justice, and the practice of law as peacemaking — not the kind that confuses peace with avoidance, but the kind that contends for it with the weapons God supplies. Turris fortis mihi Deus — Prov. 18:10.
For Lack of Knowledge stands beside the numbered Where Chaos Meets Holy Ground essays. It is the why behind Stand in the Gap: the charge GOD brings against His priests in Hosea 4, and the Answer. The full map is at Start Here.