Step # Two in the Fall of a Nation

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today

God's Steps In The Fall Of A Nation:

Step #TWO 

Hosea 5:12 NLT

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I will destroy Israel as a moth consumes wool.
    I will make Judah as weak as rotten wood.

Hosea 5:12 NLT
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One of the biggest struggles of Western Christians, especially Americans, is God's relationship to evil. How can he let it happen. Then throw in the verses in the Bible, like this one in Hosea, where God is credited with being the cause of something evil and you can send the church running to hide from it's detractors. How can a good God do that?

How quickly we forget that less than 100 years ago, people of faith did not struggle with this issue. To have faith in God was to believe that he was in control. To have faith in God meant that our human blinders dropped and we saw the hand of God in everything - even the sending of evil in judgment or as a warning that the chance to repent is coming to an end.

In other words, we judged God by His words and by the surety of the Holy Spirit speaking within, not by human standards, political correctness, or cowardice in the face of culture. But as we came to import culture into faith, into our expectations of God, we in the church have now put ourselves in the seat of the Judge, judging God's words and judging God. Woe to us in the last day when our judgments are shown for the rebellion and selfishness they are. Woe to us in the last day when we will be judged by what is written in the books, tongue tied and silent before the Judge we should have paid more attention to in life.

But, back to the question: What is Step #2 in the Fall of a Nation?

It is being riddled with holes, weakened and destroyed from within like a moth consumes wool. Not many people have seen moth riddled wool in our present day but I remember it as a kid. Precious wool garments would be stored away with mothballs to protect them, but sometimes something would go wrong and when the precious, beloved, wool item was lifted from its drawer it would be riddled with large and small holes. I have seen baby clothes being saved to hand down to grandchildren fall apart when pulled out to revel in their nostalgia. The beauty, the warmth, the protection, the utility, the memories eaten away. 

Such is what happens to the nation that has forgotten their God and to the nation that does not guard truth, justice, and godliness in life, business, and government.

And who is this moth that eats away the very fabric of our nations? God.

For God himself has said, "I will destroy the nations as a moth consumes wool."

But there is another Step #2. One that provides a warning that allows rebuilding faithfulness before collapse.

For God says, "I will rot the unfaithful nation, even though its lips still speak love and faith to me and make that nation as weak as rotten wood."


Judah, in Hosea, stands for the nation that still worships its God, still participates in the rituals of their faith, but which does not live out that faith and is spending less and less time in the daily presence of God and doing his will.

You may say, "What's the difference? Rot destroys the wood just like moths destroy wool."

I will tell you the difference.

A moth eaten cloth cannot be restored. It, if you are lucky, can be patched but it can never be made whole.

A piece of wood that is rotting, if we pay attention to the signs of its weakness, can be replaced and the building or object it is a part of can be restored to wholeness.

Wood hath hope. The rottenness can serve as a warning. The moth steals in and in hiding does its work of destruction. There is no warning.


And who causes the nation to become weak like rotten wood? God does. It is him in action to warn, and if ignored to bring collapse.

Step # Two in the fall of a nation is the work of God. It is destruction from within that finally works its way out. Destruction due to the rot is imminent. Destruction from the work of the moth is already occurring it just has not at the moment been revealed.


Photo Credits:
Moth Eaten Vintage Sweater from phantasmicfashions.blogspot.com/2013/05/sew-vintage-part-two-stitch-it-up
mold rotten wood! by mycomi2 @photobucket.com