Trusting in Self Brings Judgment

Jeremiah 48:7, 42: "Since you (Moab) trust in your deeds and riches, you will be taken captive . . . . Moab will be destroyed as a nation because she defied the LORD."


The Moabites were a pagan people who detested the LORD and His chosen people's (i.e. the Israelites) right to live in the Promised Land. These descendants of Lot's incestuous relationship with his eldest daughter, after the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 19), were determined to destroy the Israelites. One can remember King Balak of Moab desiring the prophet Balaam curse the Israelites in order that he might defeat them in battle (Numbers 22), or the Moabites of later years battling against King David (2 Samuel 8). They were a constant thorn in the side of the Jewish people.


When Jeremiah proclaimed a judgment oracle against the people of Moab, he explained why the LORD would destroy these people. Specifically, the prophet proclaimed that these people trusted in their deeds and riches (48:7) and had become arrogant in their affluence (48:29 [see also Isaiah 16:6]). This pride from accumulated wealth brought a disdain for the LORD (48:26), and they sought to thwart His divine plans of redemption through the Israelites (48:27). They loved to worship their own crafted deities (48:35), which in fact were no deities at all but inanimate objects to which they could ascribe their own wills and desires and justify their actions as something "divinely approved." The LORD would compare the Moabites to a washbasin, because they were a filthy, useless people who would arrogantly believe that they could challenge the Sovereign rule of the One True God (Psalm 60:8). In the end, these people would suffer the judgments of the LORD; He would bring utter destruction to these people for their abject rebellion.


This is a good word for us to hear. We must remember not to defy the Lord, in favor of our own wills; neither should we trust in our riches as evidence of some acquired superiority. If the Lord blesses us, we must not permit that blessing to swell us with pride, believing that we have acquired our material blessings through our own efforts. Instead, we must surrender ourselves to the Lord as our King, and faithfully follow His decrees; it is then, that we will find the blessings of the LORD.