"The End of Moab" Sermon: Isaiah 15:1-16:14

“The End of Moab”

[Isaiah 15:1-16:14]

October 7, 2018, Second Reformed Church

            We now turn to the third oracle against the nations – this time against the nation of Moab.  Moab was a small nation contained in the area of what we now call Jordan, to the southeast of today’s Israel.  Moab contained in it part of the King’s Highway – a major trade route from Egypt to Mesopotamia, so it was a wealthy – cosmopolitan – nation.

            We may remember as God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his two daughters escape – as they leave, his wife is killed for her sin.  In a short time, the two daughter realize they don’t have husbands, and there is no one to carry on the family line.  So they get their father, Lot, drunk, and have sex with him – the story is in Genesis chapter 19 – and the child born to one of the daughters is named Moab, he is the father of the Moabites, who lived in the land of Moab.  They were incestuous cousins to the Israelites.

            We may also remember that Moab tends to be hostile towards Israel, but there are times when Moab is kind to Israel – for example, when during a famine in the book of Ruth, Israelites like Naomi found food and a home in Moab, not to mention her daughter-in-law, Ruth, an ancestor of Jesus Christ.

            Moab is utterly destroyed by the Persians around 400 B.C., so, while we don’t know when Isaiah gave this oracle, it is fulfilled long after his death.

            Although Moab was cousin to Israel and knew the Word of God and the prophecies of the coming Savior, they chose to worship idols – false gods – chief among them being the god, Chemesh.

As we turn to our text we see, first, idolatry is the wrong answer to suffering.

“An oracle concerning Moab.”

The oracle against Moab begins by telling us that city after city – from the north of Moab to the south – is destroyed overnight.  It is a rapid destruction.  The word that is used is the same word that Isaiah uses back in chapter six when he says he is “undone” – completely unraveled, broken down to the most elementary of particles – this is a total ruination of these cities – nothing is left but rubble – and it happens quickly.

The prophets of Israel and Judah have been warning Moab for years to repent of their sin and to return to the worship of the One True God of Israel – the God of their father, Lot, but, instead, they go to the Temple of Chemesh and up to the gods of the high places and plead with them for deliverance.

They wail and the weep over the sudden and utter destruction, they shave their heads and beards to show the depth of their mourning.  They wear sackcloth, and everyone is weeping rivers, crying out to their idols – even the armed guards are brought to their knees in sorrow and despair – their very souls tremble.

But they miss the point – when suffering and destruction and utter loss of understanding descend upon us, the right answer is to put everything that we have and are and look to behind us in favor of coming before the One True God in prayer and repentance.

Now, we do lots of good things and have lots of good habits in our lives.  But we have some bad ones, too, don’t we?  When we are frustrated or angry or confused or in pain, don’t we often find ourselves sinning?  Don’t we find ourselves turning to drugs or alcohol or illicit sex or food or arrogance or pride or spreading lies or whatever it is that we think will make us feel good in the moment – that will relieve us from the pain we are in.

Don’t misunderstand, medications and alcohol responsibly used are fine – this is about sinful use and abuse.

When you’re sick, when a loved one dies, when you are in pain and you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, do you bring that to God in prayer?  Do you confess your sin and ask for forgivesness and ask for God’s intercession in the situation and then wait?

Or do your turn to sin – to your lucky charm, to your lucky number, to a fortuneteller – God forbid.

The psalmist writes in a song of ascents:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?”

And we often read and sing this psalm as though it says, “I lift my eyes to the hills from where my help comes.”  But that’s not what he is saying – he is drawing the distinction between idolatry and worship of the Lord.

“I life my eyes to the hills” – where all the idols are perched for worship – impotent, unmoving, deaf stone and wood.  No!

“From where does my help come?  My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

“The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day,            nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Psalm 121: 1-8, ESV).

 When you are suffering and in need – your help comes from the Lord.  Don’t turn to anything else even for a moment – no matter how tempting it may be – it is not your help – your help is the Lord.

The Moabites knew this.  Though they worshipped Chemesh – they knew from their family history that only God is God, and He would deliver them if they returned to Him humbly and repentantly.  But they don’t.

Idolatry is the wrong answer to suffering.

            Second, God weeps for the wicked and their burden on Creation.

            So, God cries for Moab.  God cries for the fugitives running from God’s Wrath.  He cries for those who cry.  He cries to see all the plants of the land wither away and die.  He cries that the Creation has suffered for human sin.  He cries because the waters of Dibon – in the north – are full of the blood of slaughtered Moabites, and that those who fled to the south have heard of it and are wailing in distress.  He cries because those who escape from the initial slaughter will be mutilated and killed by lions.

            As God says, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23, ESV).

            God does not get His kicks in seeing wicked people die.  God would much prefer that he turn from his sin and live.  God is not a psychopath who laughs and falls off His chair as lions shred bodies.

            “But, if God’s gets no pleasure in the death of the wicked, why doesn’t He stop their death?  And don’t you always says that God is Sovereign and everything that happens is His plan?  How can He wish that we would do something different?
            Yes, God is Sovereign and everything is happening according to His plan.  Still, we are responsible creatures who freely make choices.  So, when we choose sin – when the wicked choose sin – God weeps.

            When the wicked suffer for their sin, God weeps.  Yet, at the same time, God is glorified when His justice is satisfied in His Wrath coming down.  God weeps for the wicked choosing to turn away from Him, and He is glorified when His justice comes down on them.

            Have you ever heard someone say, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you”?  Well, that may not be true – but there is something here that is true – inflicting punishment or discipline hurts the one doing it.

            God can justly run the wicked to the ends of the earth and slaughter them and weep that justice requires that He run the wicked to the ends of the earth and slaughter them.

            Jesus looks down on Jerusalem not long before the crucifixion and says, “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! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:34-35, ESV).

            Jesus weeps for Jerusalem and the wicked in her, yet He declares Jerusalem forsaken in His justice.

God weeps for the wicked and their burden on Creation.

            Third, the call to repent and believe goes out to all people.

God entreats the Moabites to offer the appropriate sacrifice to the One God – on Mount Zion – that is, Jerusalem.  God calls on the Moabites to return to the family religion – to come to the Temple – to repent of their sin – to offer up the sacrifice for sin – and then God will welcome them into His Kingdom.  Then the remnant of Moab will live without fear of the destroyer.  Then they will be received in love as part of the Davidic Kingdom – as those for whom the Savior came.  “Just come and do this and you will rejoice in seeing justice and love and truth and the faithfulness of God.”

            God knows full well that the Moabites are sinners – they have attacked Israel – they have worshipped false gods – idols – but while they are alive, God puts the Gospel to them – if you would live and be right with God – repent of your sin, believe in the Savior, and be reconciled to God.

            Is there anyone or any group of people you hope will never repent and believe?  People you hope suffer the eternal Wrath of God?

            Would you be angry if Hitler repented and believed with his last breath and now is forgiven, and you meet him in the Kingdom?

            Would you rather tell Dr. Ford or Judge Kavanaugh the Gospel?

            We don’t get to make that call.

            Paul writes the young pastor, Timothy, about whether he can pick and choose who to pray for:

            “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. (I Timothy 2:1-6, ESV).

            God says that we must pray for everyone – and specifically for their salvation – because God desires that everyone receive the clear call to repent and believe the Gospel – and God rejoices in every one who repents and believes – male and female, gay and straight, Democrat and Republican, saintly wife and serial killer.

            Our job is to tell everyone that there is One God and the only way to be right with that God is to repent and believe in Jesus – Who He is and what He did to secure our salvation.  Anyone who does not believe will suffer eternally for his sin against God.

            We can like or not like certain people.  We can think someone is good or evil.  But we must be ready to offer the Gospel of salvation to all people at all times, because that pleases God – and that is what we are called to do.

The call to repent and believe goes out to all people.

            Fourth, the unrepentant will suffer God’s Wrath.

            Moab does not respond to the call to repent and believe the Gospel.  Rather, they continue to call upon their idols and think they can find another way out of their situation:

“We have heard of the pride of Moab—how proud he is!—of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence; in his idle boasting he is not right. Therefore let Moab wail for Moab, let everyone wail. Mourn, utterly stricken,….”

There comes a point at death – or when Jesus returns – when there is no more chance.

Moab rejects the Gospel she heard all her life, and God takes away her fine food and drink, and God kills all the fields – all the plants – God is anguished over subjecting the Creation to further suffering for what the Moabites did:  “Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah; I drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; for over your summer fruit and your harvest the shout has ceased.”

Paul reminds us,  “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21, ESV).

God subjects the Creation – which never sinned – to futility – to suffering – so, we, humans will suffer for our sin.  Remember what God says to Adam, “And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field’” (Genesis 3:17-18, ESV).

The suffering of the Creation is due to our sin – but it will not always be this way.

And so, God takes away the fruit and the field from the Moabites.  He takes away their joyful singing in the winepress.  God stops their mouths.  There is silence.

On the day of Judgment, Jesus will say, “And [the unrepentant] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46, ESV).

And God says, again, He has no joy in their death, “Therefore my inner parts moan like a lyre for Moab, and my inmost self for Kir-hareseth.”

God weeps, but God is just, and the end must come: “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all his great multitude, and those who remain will be very few and feeble.”

If you never repent and believe in Jesus as your Savior, you will suffer the eternal Wrath of God, just like the Moabites.

I hope that makes you concerned about other people, if you are a believer.  It should concern us and make us want to go out from Jerusalem to Samaria to the whole world – from Irvington – to Essex Country – to the world.

Make sure you truly believe, because turning to idols is sin.  Repent and return.

God weeps at our sin and the suffering of the Creation.

Isn’t there anyone you can tell the Gospel?  Is everyone you know a believer?  Everyone you come in contact with?  Your mail carrier?  The people who wait on you in the stores and the restaurants?

Tell them that all humans sin – we all do things that are wrong – and that makes God angry.  But God has made One Way to be right with Him – that is through believing that God came to earth in the person of Jesus, lived, died, physically rose from the dead, and ascended back to His throne.

God wants you to do that.

Still, there are people who will never believe – and that should upset us to our core – our innermost parts should be thrown into turmoil – because if they never believe, they will be damned – and that should turn us to prayer to the One God, our Savior – not to idols.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, You planned everything that occurs from before the foundation of the world, and You weep because many will reject You and be damned, yet You are glorified for Your justice.  Help us to know that it’s not all about us, it’s all about You.  Help us to submit and carry the Gospel to every person we meet, that we would have joy with You and all the angels when even one repents and believes.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.