Saturday, August 27

Weep? Would you do this for your enemy?

A sin against the LORD so stunning it cannot be named by a single word: pride, arrogance, insolence, haughtiness.  This sin meets it's just end of desolation and great destruction for the nation of Moab in Jeremiah 48. Yet the Lord does not rejoice or boast, what does the Lord do? 

He weeps. This tells us more about the God we serve, than the Moabites. 

Moab was a people who born of Lot who worshiped a false God Chemosh, and sacrificed adults, even babies to him. They resisted Moses (Balak and Balam in Num 22-25),  Jehoram/Jehoshaphat (2 Kings 3:4-27), and the Lord even used them to help destroy His Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:2). 


There is something else, however, which unleashes the righteous fury of the LORD - their contempt for God’s people. "Moab and Seir said, 'Behold, the house of Judah has become like all the other nations'" (Ezekiel 25:8-11).  The Lord responds in vengeance "Cursed is  he who does the work of the LORD with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps his sword from bloodshed." (Jeremiah 48:10). 

Clearly, we see a jealous God.  In the midst of His fury, this is what the LORD said:
"I know his insolence, declares the Lord;his boasts are false,
his deeds are false.

Therefore I wail for Moab;
I cry out for all Moab;
for the men of Kir-hareseth I mourn.
Jeremiah 48:30-31;
What!  Wail???  This screams that our God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Later in Mathew we read the testimony of Jesus, who again finds an unwilling group of children: 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" Matt 23:37

"And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it" Luke 19:41

Today, in mourning I became a little more like the one I worship....  and He has comforted me by giving me Himself.  (Matt. 5:4)

Is 48:46
Jeremiah 48:46-47
Woe to you, O Moab!
The people of Chemosh are undone,
for your sons have been taken captive,
and your daughters into captivity.

Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab
in the latter days, declares the Lord.”
Thus far is the judgment on Moab.