Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones said, “The Bible is primarily the textbook of salvation; it is an account of God’s way of saving men and women.”
I like that.
The bible is primarily a book about God, but not God in the abstract; not God as “concept,” but God as the Saviour and Redeemer of men and women—I think that is exactly right.
How does God save people?
We know that he does, we know that his work is primary, we know that whosoever he calls will come—but how does he woo us? How does he win us? Why is his will so irresistible?
There is probably no book of the Bible that is more helpful in terms of answering those questions than the book of Hosea. Hosea is sometimes referred to as a death bed prophecy. It preserves for us a word that was spoken into the spiritual life of northern Israel just before their total collapse as a nation.
Hosea ministered in the 8th century BC. He began his ministry as a very young man – some say that he was as young as 18 or 19 years old. It appears that he ended his ministry in exile in the Southern Kingdom just before the complete annihilation of Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom, in 722 BC. He was roughly contemporary with Jonah and Amos in the north and Micah and Isaiah in the south.
He lived during very interesting times. At the beginning of his life and ministry, his country was near the end of an extended season of peace and prosperity. Their main enemy had been distracted for a generation with problems to their north and east. That respite allowed Israel to grow their economy and to experience an unprecedented standard of living.
However they did not use this peace and prosperity to worship the Lord and to serve the poor—on the contrary, it caused them to forget the Lord and to abuse the most vulnerable in the land. It seems like the richer Israel got the less they cared for the poor. Their wealth made them arrogant, cold and indifferent. Their religious life had been deeply corrupted and had long since capitulated to the spirit of the age.
Into that historical and cultural context God sent a prophet—and more than a prophet—God sent a living sign.
Hosea did not just tell a story or deliver a sermon—he lived a prophetic oracle against the nation. God told him to marry a prostitute—a woman or whoredom and to have children of whoredom by her – as a sign against the people. God was saying: “This is how you are to me! I am your husband and you have not been faithful to your covenant vows. You have shamed me and disgraced me for no reason and it will not stand. I will fight for you. I will steal you back and I will hide you away and I will win your heart and you will love me.”
That’s the startling message of Hosea and that’s the main metaphor in the book.
But it’s not the only metaphor.
Along the way the prophet, speaking by the Spirit of God, paints a number of pictures that describe who the Lord is as our Savior and what he is willing to do to achieve and affect our salvation. He says that God is like a Father; he is like a Shepherd; he is like a Lion; he is like a Physician; and he is like a Moth.
God Is like a Moth
“But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah” (Hosea 5:12 ESV).
This is perhaps the most interesting simile in the entire book. What in the world does that mean?
In the middle section of the Book of Hosea, running from chapter 4-11, God details all of what Israel has been doing that has necessitated the time of punishment and exile that is about to begin. In that section we learn that Israel had become addicted to the sexual, sensual worship of the pagan neighbours. They had become rich and self-indulgent. They had become powerful and well connected politically. And they thought those things would save them.
They were trusting in human, fleshly things the way they should have been trusting in God. So God says that he is going to eat away—slowly but surely—at all the things they have been leaning on instead of him.
But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah (Hosea 5:12 ESV).
God is like a moth!
He knows that he is the only safe thing for you to lean on. He knows that whatever else you trust in will eventually let you down and break your heart. He knows that he is the only sure foundation in all the universe, therefore if he sees you leaning on things you shouldn’t be, he will eat away at those supports until you learn for yourself the folly of building your life on anything but God.
Is everything around you falling to pieces? Maybe it isn’t that God is absent, maybe it is that he is powerfully and actively present. Maybe he is showing you how weak and how unreliable all of your supports presently are. Maybe he is saying: “I won’t let you trust in anything but me.”
According to the Bible, God does that sort of thing from time to time. He is like a moth and dry rot to the people he has chosen.
Praise the Lord!
Pastor Paul Carter
To listen to the most recent episodes of Pastor Paul’s Into The Word devotional podcast on the TGC Canada website see here. You can also find it on iTunes. To access the entire library of available episodes see here.