As I mentioned last week, we are now in a new section of Isaiah. In this section, Jesus deals with the nations. Last week we looked at Jesus’ dealings with Babylon. This week we’ll look at Moab. Let me mention of few things before I read the text. First, Moab was a small nation that was just to the east of Judah. The border between them was the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. Now, when I read the text you’re going to hear a bunch of odd-sounding names that will make no sense to you, Ar of Moab, Jahaz and others. These are all place names, cities and towns of Moab. The only exceptions are two streams, the waters of Nimrim and the fords of the Arnon. So, when I read those odd names just think Harborcreek, Lawrence Park or Clymer. Also, you’re going to encounter some customs that you may not be familiar with. Moab was a more emotive culture. So, the cutting off of the hair, the putting on of sack cloth and the wailing were all expressions of deep grief. And finally, as I read remember that you’re hearing about real people, families with kids growing up, folk who could be your neighbors. Real people.
What we have here is another example of God’s judgment. There are some who have a really hard time with such scenes. And there are others who don’t have enough of a hard time with them. So, what we’re going to do this morning is take a closer look at this theme of judgment. As you might imagine, this is a dark topic. But I want you to know that my goal is for you to be encouraged by something that is full of light.
We’ll begin with the label that we use: God’s judgment. More ‘Church Words’. This label makes things a little too abstract, a little too distant, a little to sterile. So, let’s use different language to label what’s happening to the people of Moab. The Almighty God is really angry at these people. So, He has decided to ruin their lives. He has sent warriors to invade their homes. He has brought normal life to a screeching halt and has replaced it with the horrors of warfare. And the goal? God’s goal is the utter destruction of this group of people. That’s what’s happening to the people of Moab.
So, to take one verse, ‘…Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night…’ I’ve been watching some documentaries about the Second World War. As I watched one army attack the other across Europe I thought about the civilians caught in the middle. After massive bombing raids and shelling, so many European cities were ‘laid waste’. The buildings were shells, if that. All that was left of person’s house and all that was precious to him, including some members of his family, was a pile of rubble. Bodies were lying in the streets. For the living there was more than the physical suffering that they had to endure. There was also the crushing emotional burden of just dealing with it all. Life used to be normal. Job, home, neighbors. There used to be a rhythm to life: getting up, going to work or managing the home or going to school, back together for dinner, bedtime. But now what? No job. No home. Dead and dying neighbors. And the rhythm of life was now about daily bombings, daily death, day after day after day. The ugliness of war.
That’s what ‘laid waste’ means; the devastation not just of cities, but of people. And that’s what happened to the people of Moab. That’s what ‘God’s judgment’ means.
It’s here that many react. They talk about how the God of the Old Testament is a God of anger, cruelty and a quick temper. He’s not like the God of the New Testament, the God of love. Is that true? You all know enough to reply with a quick, ‘Of course not!’ But what do you do with the judgmental God that we see so often in the Old Testament? Is it any wonder that lots of Christians pick and choose from the Old Testament? So, the Psalms are consider safe and Proverbs also and some others. And, of course, there are the favorite stories of Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the lion’s den. These are considered safe – unless you actually read them. Noah is actually about a world of people who were drowned by God. David chopped off Goliath’s head while the rest of Israel chased after and killed his friends. And after Daniel was lifted out of the lion’s den his enemies were tossed in, along with their wives and their children. That doesn’t sound very ‘safe’, does it? What do you do with this God? The Old Testament reveals the true God, as does the New. So, you need to say, ‘Yes, our God loves – amazingly so. But He also gets angry.’ Again, I would remind you to beware of a one dimensional notion of God.
But it’s not enough to state that our God gets angry. You need to go further. You need to ask why. Why does He get angry, so angry that He devastates a nation of people? Asking questions like this makes the difference between knowing the Bible as some facts for the test and knowing the Bible so you can live well. The answer is not complicated. It’s actually clearly stated in the Scriptures. God hates evil. So, from the supposedly safe Psalms there’s this. ‘For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.’ God hates evil.
I am currently reading a book that has as one key element the kidnapping and murder, and who knows what else, of a little girl. When I think of the men who commit such evil, I have a very strong emotional reaction. I wish that the criminal laws of our land were changed just for these men. I want them to be tortured for the evil that they commit. I realize that my notions of justice here are off, but is it wrong for my emotions to react as they do? Is it wrong for me to hate this evil? If it is right for me to feel this way, how much more for God when He sees evil? God hates evil, and He should. But unlike me, He is in the position to do something about it. And so we read, ‘… Ar of Moab is laid waste…’
Now, what was the evil that earned Moab such destruction? Isaiah tells us. ‘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.’ Isaiah also mentions how they worshiped some god who is not God. ‘He has gone up to the temple, and to Dibon, to the high places to weep…’ The evil of Moab: issues of humility and right worship. Now, consider what happened to the people of Moab, destruction of the harshest sort. Do you ever find a question poking its head up asking, ‘Isn’t that a little much?’ Some of these people, maybe most of them, were sincere in their worship, wrong but sincere. And they lived good lives in their communities. We know lots of people like that. And how evil can it be to take the credit, every once in a while, instead of giving thanks? How evil can this be? And that is the point. We do not see evil for the evil that it is. We do not see it in the way that God does. And that’s why the Old Testament has this theme presented in such a prominent way. There are things that we need to learn. So, when we see God’s reaction to evil, His violent reaction to evil, instead of wondering if God might have over-reacted just a bit, our response needs to be, ‘How evil these people must have been to deserve such a response from God.’ We need to re define evil so that we can see it more like God does. How evil is evil?
Now, you’re ready for what’s next. Consider Isaiah as he writes all this down: God’s words concerning the people of Moab, words of just anger resulting in utter devastation. He does this as a faithful prophet. But he also writes down other words. And he does this also as a faithful prophet. ‘My heart cries out for Moab; her fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah. … Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah; I drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh… Therefore my inner parts moan like a lyre for Moab, and my inmost self for Kir-hareseth.’ Isaiah is torn up by what he has been told and then writes about Moab. And so, he weeps for these people. And why? Does he think that God is being too harsh? Is he taking their side? Absolutely not! Rather, the answer is in the first verse of our text. ‘Because Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone; because Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone.’ Now, listen to what Isaiah said back in chapter 6 when he saw Jesus on the throne in the Temple. ‘Woe is me! For I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ Isaiah uses the same language to describe Moab as he did to describe himself. Isaiah weeps for these people because he knows that he deserves what they are receiving. They are undone, ruined, devastated because of their evil. The same should have happened to him because of his evil. Isaiah feels a kind of kinship with these who are to suffer so. There is no sense of superiority, of being better than they are. No, Isaiah identifies with them. And he weeps for them.
But that is not all that he does. Listen to what else he says. ‘… a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.’ Who is this that Isaiah points to? Who will come? Isaiah points the people of Moab to Jesus, the Son of David, the King of Israel. This is the one in whom there is steadfast love, the one who is faithful, the one who is swift to do what is right. And this is the one, as Isaiah personally discovered, who, in love, deals with evil. As Isaiah will explain elsewhere, this Jesus deals with evil by suffering the anger of justice. ‘He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ Jesus deals with evil and provides forgiveness. Isaiah knows this because he has experienced it. Isaiah points to Jesus who rescues evil people from destruction.
Let me pull this all together by asking three questions.
First, what do you think of God? Do you get a little uncomfortable when you read about His anger? Is Noah’s Ark about an interesting boat ride with a bunch of animals, or is it about God’s anger against evil which resulted in the death of myriads of people? How you understand God – including His anger – is the foundation of everything else in your life. Everything else. Is He short-tempered? Then the best thing to do is to be sure that He has no reason to explode at you! So, you need to be sure that you are perfect. And the fruit of that will be a life filled with stress because you know that you’re not. How do you understand God? What is He like? And that leads to the next question.
What do you think of yourself? Do you think of yourself as basically a decent person? If you do, what about the evil in your life? Or is it just a matter of some bad habits that you really ought to deal with one of these days? Have you ever thought of yourself in the way that Isaiah thought of himself, an evil person who deserves God’s anger? And that leads to this.
What do you think of the Gospel? If God shouldn’t be enraged at your evil, then what is the Gospel about? If Jesus didn’t come to rescue evil people, then the Gospel is just another version of so many fairy tales. Jesus is the Good Prince who has come to rescue the lovely Cinderella whose only real problem is that she is oppressed. But everything changes when you realize that it’s the evil stepmother whom Jesus has come to rescue. So, what do you think? Are you more like Cinderella or her stepmother? What exactly happened at the Cross? If God was not justly enraged at evil, at your evil, then the Gospel is no longer the Gospel.
Three questions for you to consider.
Now, my last thought. This is the point of the sermon. Why is all of this important? This is all about you enjoying the love of God. But you will never really grasp the beauty and the power of the love of God for you, never really enjoy it to the extent that you might, unless you understand God’s just anger, His explosive anger, at evil, at your evil. One of the deep needs of so many Christians is to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God loves them, that there is no anger any more. So many Christians today are just not convinced of that. They just aren’t. They need, many of you need, to get what Isaiah got after he saw the holy Jesus on His throne, after the angel came with the hot coal. If I may put words in his mouth, I think he would have said something like this. ‘He should be really mad at me, really mad. I deserve His rage. But He’s not mad at me. Not even a little. No, He loves me, and He always will. Nothing can change that.’ That’s what I want for all of you, to be convinced that you are loved by God and convinced that it cannot be otherwise, regardless of what you might do. But if you would be convinced that you are loved then you must grasp something of the anger of God against evil. And as you do, then the Cross becomes the ‘wondrous Cross’. Then grace becomes amazing. Then it really doesn’t matter what happens to you because you know that the love of God guarantees your safety. You will be afraid of nothing. And so, you will be ready to do whatever Jesus calls you to. If you would know, without a doubt, that you are loved by the Almighty Lord of all, then look at Moab and tell yourself that what happened to Moab, and worse, should happen to you – but it won’t. Jesus has removed all the anger you so richly deserve. There is no anger left for you. None. There is only love. All because of Jesus.
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