“Yet I have been the LORD your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me. 5 I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. 6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me.”
What could demonstrate the word ‘incongruous’ more aptly, more clearly, than man’s propensity for denying God, then turning to worship a false god?
What could demonstrate the utter rebellious sinfulness of all mankind more poignantly than man’s universal rejection of the loving and helping advances of the true God and Creator of Heaven and Earth, then bowing down to pay homage to an image he has formed with his own hands out of dead materials?
Now I am aware that when statements like this are made here in 21st century America our very modern and very American brains have difficulty finding a place to file them. We might think something like this. “Well, we’re talking now about the ancients and the uneducated pagan. They make wooden and golden and iron and silver idols and bow down to them; we know better. So what does this really have to do with us?”
That is not a true way of looking at things. It is the propensity of everyone of Adam’s race to shy from, run from, deny, curse, blaspheme the very thought of God and worship something else, because he was created by God to worship, and worship he must. It is in his nature. This is where the problem comes in.
Once he has rejected God and His revelation of Himself, there is nowhere to turn but to falsehood. He may not run immediately to the nearest statue, but that is ultimately where he will end up.
C.H. MacKintosh made a point of this.
“The first step in evil is to place confidence in a form apart from God; apart too from those principles which make the form valuable. The next step is to set up an idol.” -Mackintosh
So the truth, which is true both 900 years B.C. and 2000 years A.D., and true whether you are in the jungles of New Guinea or the jungles of New York City, is that at the moment your image and understanding of God deviates infinitesimally from God as He has revealed Himself, you have begun to worship simply a form; a fake; a delusion. And even though your delusion is seemingly so close to truth that it appears to have value for life and is deemed worthy of your worship, nevertheless it is not God, and as MacKintosh asserted, the next step is to put something visible and tangible before yourself to give palpability to that which you venerate.
The people of Israel were not less smart than you or I. They were not blithering idiots. They knew their history, they had God’s Word proclaimed all about them in the many prophets He sent among them, and they knew what God called evil and what He called good.
So how were they different than you or I? They were not. Just like 21st century America, they forgot God.
What? They didn’t remember Him? No, that’s not it. They put Him out of their minds so they might pursue their fleshly desires, so that they might seek protection and help from worldly sources, so they would not have to be subservient to a higher power. And they died.
EPHRAIM DECLARED DEAD
Verse one of this chapter is a reference to the prominence of Ephraim in Israel. You may remember we mentioned early in this study that Hosea interchangeably used the names Samaria, Israel and Ephraim, because Israel was the name of the Northern Kingdom, Samaria was its capital, and Ephraim its largest and most prominent tribe.
So too here, the use of the name of the largest tribe attaches all that is being said to the Northern Kingdom in its prominence, in its sin and in its coming destruction.
Look at the digression being cited here. First is the self exaltation, then the sin, then the death. This is the pattern of turning from God. It began in the Garden of Eden.
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” Gen 3:6
This is the spiritual principle at work in individuals and in nations. It begins with self-exaltation and the resulting self-deception that God is not needed, and the following downfall.
What fools people is that the downfall is seldom immediate, giving them the false sense that they have gotten away with something; that there will be no consequences to pay for forgetting God.
Someone has said that there is a seed of death in every sin. Adam and Eve died immediately when they sinned in the Garden, the effects of which were not fully realized for many more years. But they died.
Israel as a nation sinned the sin of idolatry for many years and they died long before they saw the ultimate effects.
See verse 1b of our text? “He exalted himself in Israel; but through Baal he did wrong and died.”
Then verse two goes on to say ‘And now they sin more and more’, and I can’t help wondering how many people – or perhaps I should say how few people – there might be in America who are beginning to realize that she is dead, and yet the people go on sinning all the more, unaware because the ultimate effects are not yet apparent.
God declared Ephraim dead while Ephraim went on making molten images, skillfully crafted; probably took a great deal of pride in their work; putting their lips to the metal and kissing it to signify their devotion and adoration to Baal.
“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.” 1 Thess 5:1-3
You see, the inherent danger in turning from God and neglecting Him is that people forget His warnings for the future as well as His past help.
So men go on at fever’s pitch, frantically seeking new ways to violate one another and find instant gratification for their own evil desires, and they convince themselves that all is well and because God has not acted He never will.
But He has already declared them dead, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and when the ultimate effect comes in it will not be slowly – it is never slowly – but it will come suddenly and there won’t even be time to think about escape, as if it were possible.
But it is in the fallen nature of man, isn’t it, to think like that? “I’ll repent before it’s too late.” “When the time comes I will stop doing this thing and get serious with God.” It’s the attitude that was being expressed back there in the opening verses of chapter 6. We talked about that. “He has torn us but He will heal us.” “He will revive us after two days…” Like it’s just automatic; as if God is a cosmic principle, a natural constant that can be depended upon like sunrise and sunset, instead of a Person, a Holy Person, who is offended at sin and because He is just must punish it.
The kids have a toy, maybe you’ve seen it, that is a sort of large whiffle
ball. It’s like a cage that separates in half. And they put a water balloon inside the ball and set a timer, and as the timer ticks they play catch with the ball, each hoping they won’t be the one left holding the ball when a little built-in pin pops the balloon.
That’s the way the people of Israel played at their idolatry and it’s the way men and women always play with sin. And of course it helps in going on unchallenged and unconvicted when they tell themselves that God would never bring evil on a person and He certainly would never condemn eternally.
But Hosea has painted a vastly different picture and he continues to do so in chapter 13, as does, actually, the whole Bible
GOD IS THE DESTROYER
Anyone who holds to this idolatrous image of God I’ve just described and has himself convinced that God is sort of like those paintings you see of the little chubby baby angels looking out over the edge of a fluffy cloud, only He’s more like the ‘daddy’ of these little fellers; chubby and soft with a flowing white beard and a red nose and a sort of silly, perpetual grin on His face, needs to be taken to Hosea 13:7-8 and shown the words God uses to reveal the plan He has for an adulterous people.
“So I will be like a lion to them; like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside. 8 I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will also devour them like a lioness, as a wild beast would tear them.”
In modern vernacular, and not intending any sacrilege here, someone might say that God doesn’t sound like a happy camper there; wouldn’t you agree?
What imagery! Like a lion? Like a leopard crouching in the bushes just waiting for you to walk by on the path, unsuspecting and helpless? Like a bear robbed of her cubs! Not just a bear, not just a hungry bear, but an angry, rampaging bear! This is God! This is God’s own description of what He will be to an idolatrous and unrepentant people. Forget the little baby angel images. Forget the water balloon in the timer. Forget any assumption that the God of love could never deal harshly with His chosen ones.
This is graphic! This is horrifying! And it is inevitable! “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up.” It’s been too late, Ephraim, for a long, long time.
I wonder… has it been too late for us, for a long, long time?
Because people you and I have to face the very real possibility that God can use the very same nations, almost 3000 years later, to tear apart a forgetful, idolatrous, adulterous America that He used to take away Ephraim and dash to pieces the little ones of Samaria. And don’t think for a moment that the present generation in those nations will be any more humanitarian in their dealings with their victims than were the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians.
Only He can help us; only He has ever been our help, just as was true for Israel, who He brought up out of Egypt and gave them His Word.
GOD IS THE ONLY SAVIOR
Coming back now to the verses I chose for our primary focus, we find a declaration by God concerning Himself and the instruction he had given to the people He brought out of Egypt, that establishes both justification for His wrath, and His great grace and mercy in not allowing sin to go unchecked.
“Yet I have been the LORD your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me.”
I’m going to break this into three sections for consideration and then we’re through.
1. I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt.
Now if you think about it, He has been the Lord their God since He first covenanted with Abraham, hasn’t He? In Genesis 12 and again in chapter 15 He promised this land to Abram, and He made him the promise that his descendants would be too many to count.
But it was a generation that had never known Abram, had never seen the land, had never known freedom from harsh slavery, that He delivered from Egypt and cared for in the wilderness. It was that generation to whom He had given His laws and ordinances for worship and tabernacle design.
It was with that generation that He showed His might to the nations as He brought them victory in battle and poured out blessing on them wherever they went.
It was their children that He established in the land, and He had never stopped being their God; He had been with them constantly, as they had evidence of through Temple worship and the words of His prophets who had been present always.
Another reason He refers to Egypt brings us to the second section.
2. This God who has been with them since Egypt is one and the same God who spoke to Moses on the mount and as His very first command; His very first law; said, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” So He repeats it to them here.
In fact, listen to Deuteronomy 5:6-7
“I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 7 ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.”
What’s His point? Look at what you’re doing! You’re bowing down to false gods, made with your own hands, and you have apparently forgotten that the God who brought you out of slavery, who instructed you clearly to have no other gods, is still here and is to be reckoned with!
Ladies and Gentlemen! The God of Abram, the God of the deliverance, the God of Israel and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the same and unchanging and unchangeable.
All of the pathetic driveling of men about their own versions of who or what God is, all of their empty claims, all of their denials, all of their vain imaginings, will be like those who kissed the calves.
“Therefore they will be like the morning cloud and like dew which soon disappears, like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.” 13:3
Because God is who He is and who He is will never be altered by the desires of men.
No matter how badly they want Him to fit their moulds, or to just go away and leave them alone, He always has been, He always will be, and it is inevitable that each and every one will come before Him to give account.
“You were not to know any god except Me”! Didn’t you get the memo?
Yes, I know absolutely that you did.
God is justified in His wrath. David knew it, and Paul knew it because he quoted David in Romans 3
4 Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.”
Ps 51:4
All of mankind since the Garden of Eden is guilty of one sin; of putting something or someone before God. If that were the only sin ever committed, God would be justified in speaking against it and blameless in judging. Because He has always been with us, He has always spoken and reached out to reveal Himself, and yet we have known other gods.
His wrath is justified. The third section tells us why His not allowing sin to go unchecked is a demonstration of His grace and mercy.
3. There is no other savior besides Me.
Friends and family, actually, strangers and enemies also, because everyone needs to hear and come to understand this…
God’s grace and mercy toward us constrains Him to deal completely and finally with sin. Because when we turn to anything but Him, we turn away from salvation.
We turn away from our savior, and the only one who can be our savior. Now I know that in Deuteronomy 5:9 He declares that He is a jealous God as the reason for them to serve no other. But let’s be clear that God’s jealously is not the green-eyed monster that we call jealousy in ourselves.
Remember that He is Holy and He is Perfection, and that therefore His jealousy is both Holy and faultless.
God instructs His people to have no other gods before Him because He knows that He is the One who saves and there is no other, and God loves to save sinners.
He says in numerous places in Isaiah, “I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides Me there is no other God.”
What that translates to you and me, Christian, is that the One who loves to save is the only One who saves, the only One who can save, and according to His grace and mercy His wrath was poured out on sin so that we might live for Him and no other.
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,” Rom 8:1-3
What flesh? The flesh of His only Son as He hung on the cross. Sin was judged and punished forever there, and that is why He says ‘there is no savior besides Me’.
“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
When men turn to any other god they turn away from the only One who can save, and that is why God is just and righteous in coming to the idolatrous like a tearing lioness and a raging bear.
There is a very old story about a man and his boy who were walking through the jungle and came upon a man who had fallen into a pit dug to trap lions. He had been trying in vain for hours to climb out and had accomplished nothing except to exhaust himself.
Nighttime was about to fall and both he and the man with the boy knew that if they did not get him out he would die before morning. Seeing nothing readily available to make a ladder with, the man looked up and high in a tree just over the pit he could see a vine, that with one end cut would reach down to the pit and give the man something to hold on to and climb out.
The problem was the tree was not strong-looking and the branches could not bear a lot of weight.
The small boy volunteered to climb up and cut the vine, pointing out that his light weight could be borne by the slight branches. The father finally agreed and the boy climbed with his father’s knife up to the high branches, where he cut one end of the vine and it snaked down into the hole in which the man was trapped.
As he did so however, the branch on which he was perched snapped under his weight and the boy came crashing to the ground where he instantly died.
As the father held the broken and lifeless body of his precious son to his breast and wept, he heard the voice of the man in the pit calling to him. He stepped to the edge of the hole and looked down, and the man said, “Look, I’m very sorry about your son. But that vine does not look strong and the branches of the tree look brittle. I think you should provide another way – a safer way out of the pit for me.
The father stood silently and looking down for just a moment, then in controlled anger he quietly said to the man, “My son died providing a way for you to be saved; and the only way you are going to get out of that pit is if you take advantage of it.”
Israel demanded a king like the nations around them had. They trusted in their kings and their idols, and when their kings were evil and their idols silent they turned to Egypt and Assyria for help.
But the God they had forgotten was their only help and their only salvation, and friend, you need to know that He is the only savior for you; you must not trust in anything or anyone else besides Him.
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
He is the Lord God who brought His people out of Egypt by a mighty hand, cared for them in the wilderness; in the land of drought. He brought them to springs of living water and sustained them and made them a nation.
He is the Lord God who then sent His Son to that nation to be despised and rejected of men and crucified on a pagan gibbet so He might bear in His body the penalty for all those who had turned to lesser gods and died.
He is the Lord God who says of Himself, “There is no savior besides Me.”
He is the only savior, but He is the Savior. And there is need for no other, for he saves completely. He saves forever.
