The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. Hosea 4:1 

God’s people had become like children who have had poor parenting.  The neighbors say of his poor manners and bad behavior, “Poor kid.  He doesn’t know any better.”   

God verbalized His legal complaint.  He said there was no knowledge of Him, no truth, and no mercy.  This knowledge God speaks of is not the kind where a person becomes informed.  It means ‘to know’ God like people know each other through walking in intimacy.  Through a deep familiarity, they know what the other loves and hates.  They can guess what their counterpart might do in a hypothetical situation.  They know how deep the other’s convictions are about certain issues.  They know each other’s moods, even the meaning of a look that comes over their partner’s face.  

If Israel knew God like that, they would have automatically known Truth, and they would known Mercy, because God is both.  The very fact that they lived recklessly, and the very fact that there was no justice in the land, no compassion for the poor, no mercy extended by those who sat in the seats of power and influence, proved that they were far from God.  

We are living in this reality too.  In our godless society, marriages are hanging on by a thread as each partner tries to figure out how to make things work. Without the Word, there is no insight. Without intimacy with God, there is no cure for the pain of intimate relationships out of sync with their Creator. 

The relationship between children and parents has also deteriorated.  Without intimacy with God, lawlessness and disrespect breed like wildfire. Their hearts want what isn’t good for them and their behaviors prove it. Only the mirror of the Scriptures can show any of us where our faces are dirty.  A well-behaved society, even if it were possible, would not fix anything.  Knowing God and being willing to be transformed from sinners to saints is the only cure for this sin-sick land. 

Let not mercy and truth forsake you.  Bind them around your neck.  Write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Proverbs 3:3-4