The Prophet is a Fool, the Spiritual Man is Insane - Hosea 9:7

Why don't men give their hearts to God? Why don't men reckon with God? Why do they hate God? Because they do not know Him. Misapprehension of God is at the root of all hostility to God in the human soul. If I could reveal Him to you, there is neither man nor woman, youth nor maiden, listening to me, who would not be drawn to Him, not one. But the God of our own imagination or interpretation, distant, cruel, vindictive, oftentimes men hate. But that is not God; that is man's vain imagining concerning Him. This mistaken idea comes of sin, and blindness that has resulted from sin. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God."

God disobeyed always becomes God distanced from consciousness; and even when men hold on to some belief in His existence, they are still in revolt, because their conception of Him is false. That is why they call the prophet silly, and the man of the spirit mad.

Let us turn for illustration to a story found in the first Book of the Kings, chapter twenty-two. Ahab was King of Israel, the northern kingdom, and Jehoshaphat King of Judah, the southern kingdom. Ahab an incarnation of wickedness. Jehoshaphat a well-meaning man without any backbone. These two men were forming an alliance to make themselves safe against the common enemy; and Jehoshaphat went up and had a meeting with Ahab. The religious undercurrent in Jehoshaphat, and perhaps in Ahab too, made them feel it was necessary to get some kind of religious sanction; and Ahab had arranged a wonderful gathering. He got prophets of his own together, and one of them, Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, arranged a very remarkable display. He put on horns of iron to show how victorious they were going to be. Jehoshaphat, however, was not satisfied; and he said: "Is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides? There was one named Micaiah. Now hear what Ahab said concerning him: "The King of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Jehovah, Micaiah, the son of Imlah; but I hate him." Carefully observe that, "I hate him." Why? "For he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." There was the trouble. The prophet of the Lord will make no terms with sin. This Ahab knew, and so he hated him.

So it ever is. The reason for the false conception is found in the moral turpitude of those who hold the view. The false conception, so begotten, leads to hatred. Your iniquity is great, and your enmity is great.

--G. Campbell Morgan, Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God