Isaiah
15 reminds me about the difficult challenge of having a family with
different religious beliefs. Some of us have a relative that
continually warns that our life is outside of God’s will. Some
have relatives who use religious words, yet act in ways that do not
match up. Some have relatives that mock and ridicule faith in God.
And some have relatives that quietly worship privately without
sharing their faith in any way. In today’s chapter Isaiah begins
his “prophecy against Moab“.
It is important to remember that the nation of Moab was “kin” to
Israel. Father Abraham departed for the Promised Land with his
nephew Lot. It was Lot that was given first choice of a land to
settle when they separated, and it was Lot that settled near Sodom.
Lot raised his family facing the neon lights of the city of
temptation. After escaping destruction, Lot’s daughters acted on
their incestuous plan to conceive by their father, “Let’s
get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our
family line through our father”
(Genesis 19:32). Moab was the son of the older daughter. Over the
centuries Moab was sometimes a great ally of Israel, but more often
Moab was an adversary. As we read the words of Isaiah, I believe
they are filled with sadness. He is faithfully pronouncing God’s
Word, but knows they are also family. He begins, “Ar
in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined…
Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep; Moab wails“.
It is never easy to share God’s love with family members because
they know much of the foolishness from our past. That does not
prevent Isaiah from publically doing what God has called him to do.
What do your actions say about the God you serve?
Isaiah continues with descriptions of
mourning in Moab, “Every head
is shaved and every beard cut off. In the streets they wear
sackcloth; on the roofs and in the public squares they all wail,
prostrate with weeping“. When
relatives are in anguish they need compassion first. His words are
filled with emotion, “Their
voices are heard all the way to Jahaz…. men of Moab cry out, and
their hearts are faint. My
heart cries out over Moab“.
These are events yet to happen to Moab but I believe Isaiah would not
try to prevent God’s discipline. We sometimes interfere with the
lesson God is teaching when we attempt to prevent the result of bad
decisions. Sometimes pain is required to motivate change, “her
fugitives flee… They go up the hill… weeping as they go“.
Are you preventing God’s correction in someone?
Isaiah uses a word we rarely hear today,
“they lament their
destruction“. That is, they
regret the result, but they also ponder their situation. There is a
sense of reassessment and new awareness. The chapter closes with a
post destruction view of the land, “The
waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the
vegetation is gone and nothing green is left“.
The remnant is moving on carrying the burden of what was once their
priority, “So the wealth they
have acquired and stored up they carry away“.
What about those that still refuse to change? There is another
warning that God’s judgment will be completed, “I
will bring still more… a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon
those who remain in the land“.
I am reminded that in the genealogy of Jesus we see Ruth the Moabite
prominently noted, as a symbol of God’s ability to do great things
in our family in spite of our past. Do you have a family member that
needs a reminder today the God loves them and you do too?