SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2014
10:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Judgment on
Moab
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah 47:1-47
Message of the
verses: “1 Concerning Moab. Thus
says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Woe to Nebo, for it has been
destroyed; Kiriathaim has been put to shame, it has been captured; The lofty
stronghold has been put to shame and shattered. 2 "There is praise for Moab no longer; In
Heshbon they have devised calamity against her: ’Come and let us cut her off
from being a nation!’ You too, Madmen, will be silenced; The sword will follow
after you. 3 "The sound of an
outcry from Horonaim, ’Devastation and great destruction!’ 4 "Moab is broken, Her little ones have
sounded out a cry of distress. 5
"For by the ascent of Luhith They will ascend with continual
weeping; For at the descent of Horonaim They have heard the anguished cry of
destruction. 6 "Flee, save your
lives, That you may be like a juniper in the wilderness. 7 "For because of your trust in your own
achievements and treasures, Even you yourself will be captured; And Chemosh
will go off into exile Together with his priests and his princes. 8 "A destroyer will come to every city, So
that no city will escape; The valley also will be ruined And the plateau will
be destroyed, As the LORD has said. 9
"Give wings to Moab, For she will flee away; And her cities will
become a desolation, Without inhabitants in them. 10 "Cursed be the one who does the LORD’S
work negligently, And cursed be the one who restrains his sword from blood.
11 "Moab has been at ease since his
youth; He has also been undisturbed, like wine on its dregs, And he has not
been emptied from vessel to vessel, Nor has he gone into exile. Therefore he
retains his flavor, And his aroma has not changed. 12 "Therefore behold, the days are
coming," declares the LORD, "when I will send to him those who tip
vessels, and they will tip him over, and they will empty his vessels and
shatter his jars. 13 "And Moab will
be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their
confidence.
“14 "How can you say, ’We are mighty
warriors, And men valiant for battle’? 15
"Moab has been destroyed and men have gone up to his cities; His
choicest young men have also gone down to the slaughter," Declares the
King, whose name is the LORD of hosts. 16
"The disaster of Moab will soon come, And his calamity has swiftly
hastened. 17 "Mourn for him, all
you who live around him, Even all of you who know his name; Say, ’How has the
mighty scepter been broken, A staff of splendor!’ 18 "Come down from your glory And sit on
the parched ground, O daughter dwelling in Dibon, For the destroyer of Moab has
come up against you, He has ruined your strongholds. 19 "Stand by the road and keep watch, O
inhabitant of Aroer; Ask him who flees and her who escapes And say, ’What has
happened?’ 20 "Moab has been put to
shame, for it has been shattered. Wail and cry out; Declare by the Arnon That
Moab has been destroyed. 21 "Judgment
has also come upon the plain, upon Holon, Jahzah and against Mephaath, 22 against Dibon, Nebo and Beth-diblathaim,
23 against Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul and
Beth-meon, 24 against Kerioth, Bozrah
and all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near. 25 "The horn of Moab has been cut off and
his arm broken," declares the LORD. 26
"Make him drunk, for he has become arrogant toward the LORD; so
Moab will wallow in his vomit, and he also will become a laughingstock. 27 "Now was not Israel a laughingstock to
you? Or was he caught among thieves? For each time you speak about him you
shake your head in scorn. 28 "Leave
the cities and dwell among the crags, O inhabitants of Moab, And be like a dove
that nests Beyond the mouth of the chasm. 29
"We have heard of the pride of Moab-he is very proud-Of his
haughtiness, his pride, his arrogance and his self-exaltation. 30 "I know his fury," declares the
LORD, "But it is futile; His idle boasts have accomplished nothing.
31 "Therefore I will wail for Moab,
Even for all Moab will I cry out; I will moan for the men of Kir-heres. 32 "More than the weeping for Jazer I will
weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your tendrils stretched across the sea, They
reached to the sea of Jazer; Upon your summer fruits and your grape harvest The
destroyer has fallen. 33 "So gladness
and joy are taken away From the fruitful field, even from the land of Moab. And
I have made the wine to cease from the wine presses; No one will tread them
with shouting, The shouting will not be shouts of joy. 34 "From the outcry at Heshbon even to
Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have raised their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim
and to Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim will become desolate.
35 "I will make an end of
Moab," declares the LORD, "the one who offers sacrifice on the high
place and the one who burns incense to his gods. 36 "Therefore My heart wails for Moab like
flutes; My heart also wails like flutes for the men of Kir-heres. Therefore
they have lost the abundance it produced. 37
"For every head is bald and every beard cut short; there are gashes
on all the hands and sackcloth on the loins. 38
"On all the housetops of Moab and in its streets there is
lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like an undesirable
vessel," declares the LORD. 39
"How shattered it is! How they have wailed! How Moab has turned his
back-he is ashamed! So Moab will become a laughingstock and an object of terror
to all around him." 40 For thus
says the LORD: "Behold, one will fly swiftly like an eagle And spread out
his wings against Moab. Moab. 41
"Kerioth has been captured And the strongholds have been seized, So
the hearts of the mighty men of Moab in that day Will be like the heart of a
woman in labor. 42 “Moab will be destroyed from being a people Because he has
become arrogant toward the LORD. 43
"Terror, pit and snare are coming upon you, O inhabitant of
Moab," declares the LORD. 44
"The one who flees from the terror Will fall into the pit, And the
one who climbs up out of the pit Will be caught in the snare; For I shall bring
upon her, even upon Moab, The year of their punishment," declares the
LORD. 45 "In the shadow of Heshbon
The fugitives stand without strength; For a fire has gone forth from Heshbon
And a flame from the midst of Sihon, And it has devoured the forehead of Moab
And the scalps of the riotous revelers. 46
"Woe to you, Moab! The people of Chemosh have perished; For your
sons have been taken away captive And your daughters into captivity. 47 "Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab
In the latter days," declares the LORD. Thus far the judgment on Moab.”
Whenever I think of Moab and also the Ammonites I think
of God’s grace and God’s mercy, for both of these nations began with a drunken
incestuous relationship with Job and his two daughters after they left the city
of Sodom before God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrah. Both daughters thought that because of the
fact that they were living in a cave with their father that they would never
have children and so they got their father drunk so that he could provide a
child for each of them. After living in
the wicked city of Sodom it is no wonder that they would conceive an idea like
that (no pun intended).
The people of Moab lived on the East Side of the Dead
Sea, along with Ammon, and it was a hilly place to live which gave them
confidence that no army could get to them, but because of they did not fear the
Lord and worshiped idols they were doomed and were defeated by the Babylonians.
Now we are developing a theme here as we study the in chapters in the book of
Jeremiah, and that theme is that Babylon is being used by the Lord to conquer
the nations that did not worship the Lord, and even detested the Lord. Now when we get to chapters 50-51 we will see
that God will have Babylon destroyed for the same reasons. Now as we look towards what the Bible teaches
about the end times we see what is called The Day of the Lord, and we have seen
already little pictures of what this is about from the prophets we have already
studied, but the true “Day of the Lord” will happen at the end of the
tribulation period along with at the end of the Millennial Kingdom when God
will destroy the wicked and then after the destruction of the wicked at the end
of the Millennial Kingdom God will completely destroy the world along with the
entire universe, then judge the wicked, and then set up His eternal Kingdom
with a new heaven and a new earth and an new Jerusalem. (Forgive me, but the end times is something I
have a special part in my heart for.”
Back to Jeremiah and we see that Moab is going to be
destroyed because of being proud and because of their worship of idols. “42 “Moab will be destroyed from being a
people Because he has become arrogant toward the LORD.”
Dr. Wiersbe states that there are over twenty different
places that are named in this chapter, and many of them are not known where
they are located, but he writes the following “but the list shows how detailed
God can be when He wants to predict future events.” He adds the following in an endnote: “Madmen
in Jeremiah 48:2 is the name of a Moabite city.
It’s not the English word for men who are mad.”
Jeremiah used different kinds of imagery in writing this
chapter, and in verses 11-13 the image pictures Moab as a self-satisfied nation
who is feeling secure like wine that is being aged in a bottle so it will taste
better as it ages. However the
Babylonians will empty these wind jars along with destroying the Moabites. We see this same image in verses 26-27. “The nation was drunk from the cop that God
gave her (25:15-16, 27-29), and like someone at a drunken party, she was
vomiting and wallowing in her own vomit.
It isn’t a pretty picture.” Next
we see the image change to a dove who hides, but then we see that another image
of an eagle swooping down on its prey.
The dove has no chance, and neither did Moab when Babylon swooped on
them.
Remember we have called Jeremiah “The Weeping Prophet,”
well Jeremiah weeps over the people of Moab, as he sees what will happen to
them because of their sin. Jeremiah is a
man with great compassion, and when we study about our Lord when He was on
planet earth He had great compassion for sinful people and weep over them on
different occasions. We see the
compassion of God, but we also see the wrath of God who must judge sinful
behavior.
I want to now zone in on the last verse which has brought
some confusion to me and so I will quote from both Warren Wiersbe and also John
MacArthur, and perhaps others to help better understand what this verse
means. “47 “Yet I will restore the
fortunes of Moab In the latter days," declares the LORD. Thus far the
judgment on Moab.” Warren Wiersbe writes
“After writing a long chapter on judgment, Jeremiah ended with a promise “Yet I
will restore the fortunes of Moab In the latter days," declares the LORD.
Thus far the judgment on Moab.” This statement
refers to the future Kingdom Age when Jesus Christ will reign.” (Warren Wiersbe)
From John MacArthur’s Study Bible “God will allow a
remnant of Moab to return to the land (cf. 12:14-17; 46:26; 48:47; 49:6, 39),
through their descendants in the messianic era (‘the latter days’).”
“Yet it is not a perpetual destruction. The chapter
concludes with a short promise of their return out of captivity in the latter
days. God, who brings them into captivity, will bring again their captivity,
#Jer 48:47. Thus tenderly does God deal with Moabites, much more with his own
people! Even with Moabites he will not contend for ever, nor be always wrath.
When Israel returned, Moab did; and perhaps the prophecy was intended chiefly
for the encouragement of God’s people to hope for that salvation which even Moabites
shall share in. Yet it looks further, to gospel times; the Jews themselves
refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captivity of the Gentiles, under
the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by divine grace, which shall
make them free, free indeed. This prophecy concerning Moab is long, but here it
ends; it ends comfortably: Thus far is the judgment of Moab.” (Matthew Henry Commentary)
8/27/2014 11:32 AM
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