Jeremiah 48:11-12 Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel… Observe — 1. How God manages, on a large scale, in the common matters of life, to keep us in a process of change, and prevent our lapsing into a state of security such as we desire. The very scheme of life appears to be itself a grand decanting process, where change follows change, and all are emptied from vessel to vessel. Here and there a man, like Moab, stands upon his lees, and commonly with the same effect. Fire, flood, famine, sickness in all forms and guises, wait upon us, seen or unseen, and we run the gauntlet through them, calling it life. And the design appears to be to turn us hither and thither, allowing us no chance to stagnate m any sort of benefit or security. Even the most successful, who seem, in one view, to go straight on to their mark, get on after all, rather by a dexterous and continual shifting, so as to keep their balance and exactly meet the changing conditions that befall them. Nor is there anything to sentimentalise over in this ever-shifting, overturning process, which must be encountered in all the works of life; no place for sighing — vanity of vanities. There is no vanity in it, more than in the mill that winnows and separates the grain. 2. That the radical evil of human character, as being under sin, consists in a determination to have our own way, which determination must be somehow reduced and extirpated. Hence the necessity that our experience be so appointed as to shako us loose continually from our purpose, or from all security and rest in it. The coarse and bitter flavour of our self-will is reduced in this manner, and gradually fined away. If we could stand on our lees, in continual peace and serenity, if success were made secure, subject to no change or surprise, what, on the other hand, should we do more certainly than stay by our evil mind, and take it as a matter of course that our will is to be done; the very thing above all others of which we most need to be cured. It would not even do for us to be uniformly successful in our best meant and holiest works, our prayers, our acts of sacrifice, our sacred enjoyments; for we should very soon fall back into the subtle power of our self-will, and begin to imagine, in our vanity, that we are doing some. thing ourselves. 3. That our evils are generally hidden from us till they are discovered to us by some kind of trial or adversity. What good man ever fell into a time of deep chastening who did not find some cunning infatuation by which he was holden broken up, and some new discovery made of himself? The veils of pride are rent, the rock of self-opinion is shattered, and he is reduced to a point of gentleness and tenderness that allows him to suffer a true conviction concerning what was hidden from his sight. Nor is anything so effectual in this way as to meet some great overthrow that interrupts the whole course of life; all the better if it dislodges him even in his Christian works and appointments. What was I doing, he now asks, that I must needs be thrown out of my holiest engagements? for what fault was I brought under this discipline? 4. That we are prepared in this manner for the gracious and refining work of the Spirit in us. Under some great calamity or sorrow, the loss of a child, the visitations of bodily pain, a failure in business, the slanders of an enemy, a persecution for the truth or for righteousness' sake, how tender and open to God does the soul become! 5. Too great quiet and security, long continued, are likely to allow the reaction or the recovered power of our old sins, and must not therefore be suffered. Suppose a man is converted as a politician — there is nothing wrong certainly in being a politician — but how subtle is the power of those old habits and affinities in which he lived, and how likely are they, if he goes straight on by a course of prosperous ambition, to be finally corrupted by their subtle reaction. When he is defeated, therefore, a little further on, by untoward combinations, and thrown out of all hope in this direction, let him not think it hard that he is less successful now in the way of Christ, than he was before in the way of his natural ambition. God understands him, and is leading him off, not unlikely, to some other engagement, that He may get him clear of the sediment on which he stands. In the same way, doubtless, it is that another is driven out of his business by a failure, another out of his family expectations by death and bereavement, another out of his very industry and his living by a loss of health, another out of prayers and expectations that were rooted in presumption, another out of works of beneficence that associated pride and vanity, another out of the ministry of Christ, where, by self-indulgence, or in some other way, his natural infirmities were rather increased than corrected. There is no engagement, however sacred, from which God will not sometimes separate us, that He may clear us of our sediment and the reactions of our hidden evils.Application — 1. It brings a lesson of admonition to the class of worldly men who are continually prospering in the things of this life. "Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God." I commend it to your deepest and most thoughtful attention. 2. Others, again, have been visited by many and great adversities, emptied about from vessel to vessel all their lives long, still wondering what it means, while still they adhere to their sins. There is, alas! no harder kind of life than this, a life of continual discipline that really teaches nothing. Is it so with you, or is it not? There is no class of beings more to be pitied than defeated men, who have gotten nothing out of their defeat but that dry sorrow of the world which makes it only more barren, and therefore more insupportable. 3. It is necessary, in the review of this subject, to remind any genuine Christian what benefits he ought to receive in the trials and changes through which he is called to pass. Receive them meekly, rather, and bow down to them gladly. Bid them welcome when they come, and, if they come not, ask for them; lift up your cry unto God, and beseech Him that by any means He will correct you, and purify you, and separate you to Himself. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed. |
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