Weeping Over Moab

Isaiah
Written By Steve Estes

Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Isaiah 15-16
February 19, 2023

Isaiah 15-16: Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high place to weep; Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba. 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. Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out, and their hearts are faint.

My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the way to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonair they lament their destruction. The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left. So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars. Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab; their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim, their lamentation as far as Beer Elim. Dimon's waters are full of blood, but I will bring still more upon Dimon -- a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon those who remain in the land.

Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of the Daughter of Zion. Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.

“Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night -- at high noon. Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer. The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land. In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it -- one from the house of David -- one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.”

Sermon Outline

1. The certainty/sadness of God judging sin, illustrated by Moab's ruin

  • God judges sin

  • Assyrians were fierce

  • National mourning in Moab

2. The grief of God & his prophet over Moab's ruin

  • Assyrian atrocities and Moabite mourning

  • God grieves for Moab as He judges their idolatry

3. The possible solution

  • "Cabinet meeting" of Moabite leaders: Request asylum in Judah?

4. The even deeper solution

  • Messianic prediction: "One from the house of David"

  • Implication: "Moab, you can share in this hope!"

5. Moab rejects the solution, God judges Moab in tears (Isaiah 16:6-14)

  • Moab chooses her false god over the one true God

  • More lamenting, grieving, and destruction are the result

6. Applications

  • God will judge sin

  • Ultimate rescue comes only through Great David's greater Son

  • God's people should "hide the refugees"

  • Pride will keep us from his salvation

  • As we announce the consequence of rejecting him, weep!

Benediction

May the Lord Jesus Christ who wept enable you to weep and to rejoice in His coming as Messiah — paraphrased from Luke 19:41-44 & Revelation 21:4

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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