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Jeremiah 48:13-15  Then Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their confidence.  How do you say, ‘We are heroes and mighty men of war’?  The destroyer of Moab and his cities has come up, and the choicest of his young men have gone down to slaughter, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

This is part of the Judgement the LORD told Jeremiah, his faithful mouthpiece, to pronounce against Moab, warning them of their pending doom at the hands of mighty Babylon, the very nation to whom they had aligned themselves against Israel less than a decade earlier.

The just reason for God’s Judgement is set down by Jeremiah throughout this chapter, the main one being their pride: trusting in their own resources, military strength and valour under the imagined protection of their false ‘god’ Chemosh.  What they failed to acknowledge is the reality that there is only one true God, and he is ‘the LORD of hosts/armies’ (Yahweh Sabaoth).

He is the One who chose Israel to be his Covenant People, the One who would always protect and lead them under his Covenant of Grace; the God who describes himself clearly in Psalm 2 as the ultimate Conqueror of all who think they can pit their strength against him, only to discover in the end that “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.  Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill’”, and “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Psalm 2:4-6, 8-9)

And he is the One who ultimately revealed himself on earth in the Lord Jesus Christ, who fulfilled all the terms of his Covenant Promises, who died and rose again, and will one day return in power as the true anointed ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ and at whose Name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10)

In Jeremiah’s pointed pronouncement upon Moab, the LORD is indirectly warning every nation that foolish pride and insubordinate self-rule in the form of idolatry, always has the same inevitable outcome.  The Northern (breakaway) kingdom of Israel had made the same disastrous mistake under their rebellious leader, Jeroboam, by setting up golden calf idols at Bethel (1 Kings 12:25-29), and even this foolish action was in imitation of what Aaron had done to incur the outpouring of God’s wrath at Mt Sinai (Exodus 32).  The evidence could hardly be clearer; any nation that decides to follow this path of refusing to acknowledge and submit to God’s rightful rule in Creation would meet the same fate!  The Northern Kingdom of Israel was wiped out as a nation forever by Assyria in 722 BC.  The golden calves at Bethel could not save them.  Chemosh could not save Moab.

We find ourselves asking: “When will they ever learn?”; and then we reflect on the present course most modern nations (including our own) are pursuing today and our question becomes: “When will we ever learn?”  It is not as if our supremely compassionate God is not giving us ample warning in the patient outworking of his Sovereign Plan of Salvation, both in seemingly secular history as well as biblical history!  Moab was not part of God’s Covenant people, but that did not exclude them from the outworking of the execution of his plan of justice for all of nations as they persisted in rebellion against his rightful sovereign rule and authority, as Creator.  And no-one can claim that the Creator God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the LORD of hosts, has not graciously given adequate warning of the consequences of such foolishness, so we are left without excuse. (cf Romans 1:18-20 and Acts 17:30-31)

How can this clear warning not move us to urgent prayer for our world, and concerted efforts to point people everywhere to the One who has borne God’s wrath for us on the cross, and who can therefore provide us with the only refuge from God’s just wrath?  “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.  Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2:10-12)

– Bruce Christian