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… For a considerable season the country of Moab had been free from the inroads of war and the terrors of pestilence. The nation had, therefore, become so conceitedly secure, that the lord said, "We have heard the pride of Moab (he is exceeding proud), his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart." The people became vain, hectoring, and boastful, and mocked at their afflicted neighbours the Israelites, manifesting ungenerous joy in their sorrows. "For was not Israel a derision unto thee? was he found among thieves? for since thou spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy." From this pride sprang luxury and all those other vices which find a convenient lair in the repose of unbroken prosperity. The warriors of Moab said, "We are mighty and strong men for the war"; as vainglorious sinners, they defied all law and power; trusting in Chemosh, they despised Jehovah, and magnified themselves against the Lord. The prophet compares that country to wine which has been allowed to stand unstirred and unmoved: it settles on its lees, grows strong, retains its aroma, and gathers daffy fresh body and spirit. "But," saith he, "the day shall come when God shall shake this undisturbed liquor, when He shall send wandering bands of Chaldeans that shall waste the country, so that the bottles shall be broken and the vessels shall be emptied, and the proud prosperity of Moab shall end in utter desolation." The fact that continued prosperity breeds carnal security, is not only proved by the instance of Moab, but is lamentably confirmed in the history of others. I. I shall first speak to THE UNCONVERTED, THE GODLESS, THE PRAYERLESS, THE CHRISTLESS. 1. The bold offenders who are at ease in open sin. They began life with iniquity, and they have made terrible progress in it. They go from iniquity to iniquity, as the vulture from carcass to carcass; they labour in the way of evil, as men dig for hid treasure; "And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" "And if He doth know," say they, "what care we? Who is Jehovah, that we should obey Him? Who is the Almighty, that we should tremble at His word?" Yet, Oh, ye haughty ones, take heed, for Pharaoh, who was your prototype in the olden days, found the way of pride to be hard at the end. 2. A far more common form of that carelessness which is so destructive, is that of men who give themselves wholly up to the world's business. Such men, for instance, as one whom Christ called "Fool." Gain is the world's summum bonum, the chief of all mortal good, the main chance, the prime object, the barometer of success in life, the one thing needful, the heart's delight. And yet, Oh, worldlings, who succeed in getting gain, and are esteemed to be shrewd and prudent, Jesus Christ calls you fools, and He is no thrower about of hard terms where they are not deserved. "Thou fool," said He, and why! Because the man's soul would be required of him; and then whose would those things be which he had gathered together? 3. A third case is more common still, the man who forgets God and lives in slothful ease. It is not enough to abstain from outward sin, and so to be negatively moral; unless you bring forth fruits unto righteousness, you have not the life of God in you; and however much you may be at ease, there shall come a rough awakening to your slumbers, and the shrill sound of the archangel's trumpet shall be to you no other than the blast of the trumpet of condemnation, because ye took your ease when ye should have served your God. 4. There are many in the professing Christian Church Who are in me same state as Moab. They have the virgin's lamp, but they have no oil in the vessel with their lamps; and yet so comfortable are these professors, that they slumber and sleep. Remember, you may think yourself a believer, and everybody else may think so too, and you may fail to find out your error until it is too late to rectify it; you may persevere for years in "the way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Be ye not, Oh, ye professors, like Moab, that had settled upon his lees! 5. Equally true is this of the mass of moral men who are destitute of faith in Jesus. "I have no doubt but what it will be all right with me at last. I pay my neighbours their own; I give a guinea to a hospital, when they ask me for it; I am a first-rate tradesman. Of course, I have sown a few wild oats, and I still indulge a little; but who does not? Who dares deny that I am a good-hearted fellow?" Do you envy him? You may sooner envy the dead in their graves because they suffer no pain. II. We speak to THE BELIEVER. A Christian man finds himself for a long time without any remarkable trouble: his children are spared to him, his home is happy, his business extremely prosperous — he has, in fact, all that heart can wish; when he looks round about him he can say with David, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." Now, the danger is that he should think too highly of these secondary things, and should say to himself, "My mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved." He has not been poured from vessel to vessel; he has not been sternly tried by Providence, or sorely tempted by the devil; he has not been led to question his own conversion, he has fallen into a profound calm, a deep dead peace, a horrible lethargy, and his inmost heart has lost all spiritual energy. The great disease of England is consumption, but I suppose it would be difficult to describe the causes and workings of consumption and decline. The same kind of disease is common among Christians. It is not that many Christians fall into outward sin, and so on, but throughout our Churches we have scores who are in a spiritual consumption — their powers are all feeble and decaying. The rapid results of this consumption are just these: a man in such a state soon gives up communion with God; it is not quite gone at first, but it is suspended. His walk with God is broken and occasional. His prayers very soon suffer. By degrees, his conversation is not what it used to be. He was once very earnest for Christ, and would introduce religious topics in all companies. He has become discreet now, and holds his tongue. He is quite ready to gossip about the price of wheat, and how the markets are, and the state of politics, and whether you have been to see the Sultan; but he has no words for Jesus Christ, the King in His beauty. Spiritual topics have departed from his general conversation. And now, strange to say, "the minister does not preach as he used to do": at least, the back-slider says so. The reason why I think he is mistaken, is, that the Word of God itself is not so sweet to him as it once was; and surely the Bible cannot have altered! After a while the professor slackens a good deal in his liberality; he does not think the cause of God is worth the expense that he used to spend upon it; and as to his own personal efforts to win souls, he does not give up his Sunday-school class, nor his street preaching, nor distributing of tracts, perhaps, but he does all mechanically, it is a mere routine. He might just as well be an automaton, and be wound up, only the fault is, that he is not wound up, and he does not do his work as he should do; or, if he does it outwardly, there is none of the life of God in what he does. Very much of this sluggishness is brought on by long-continued respite from trouble. It were better to be in perpetual storms, and to be driven to-and-fro in the whirlwind, and to cling to God, than to founder at sea in the most peaceful and halcyon days. The great secret danger coming out of all this is, that when a man reaches the state of carnal security, he is ready for any evil. We have heard of two men who were accustomed to go into the bush to pray, and each of them had trodden a little path in the grass. Presently one of them grew cold, and was soon found in open sin; his black brother warned him that he knew it would come to that, because the grass grew on the path that led to the place of prayer. Ah! we do not know to what we may descend when we begin to go down hill; down, down, down, is easy and pleasant to the flesh, but if we knew where it would end, we should pray God that we might sooner die than live to plunge into the terrors of that descent. I must pass on to observe God's cure for this malady. His usual way is by pouring our settled wine from vessel to vessel. If we cannot bear prosperity, the Lord will not continue it to us. We may pamper our children and spoil them; but the Divine Father will not. Staying for a while in the valley of Aosta, in Northern Italy, we found the air to be heavy, close, and humid with pestilential exhalations. We were oppressed and feverish — one's life did not seem worth a pin. We could not breathe freely, our lungs had a sense of having a hundred atmospheres piled upon them. Presently, at midday, there came a thunder-clap, attended by big drops of rain and a stiff gale of wind, which grew into a perfect tornado, tearing down the trees; then followed what the poet calls "sonorous hail," and then again the lightning flash, and the thunder peal on peal echoing along the Alps. But how delightful was the effect, how we all went out upon the verandah to look at the lightning, and enjoy the music of the thunder! How cool the air and bracing! How delightful to walk out in the cool evening after the storm! Then you could breathe and feel a joy in life. Full often it is thus with the Christian after trouble. What ought we to do if we are prospering? We should remember that prevention is better than cure, and if God is prospering us, the way to prevent lethargy is — be very grateful for the prosperity which you are enjoying; do not pray for trouble — you will have it quickly enough without asking for it; be grateful for your prosperity, but make use of it. Do all you possibly can for God while He prospers you in business; try to live very close to Him. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) 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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