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… Transitions from elevation to depression of soul, from "joy and peace in believing," to spiritual anxiety, arc beneficial as disturbing perilous security, as leading to such critical scrutiny of conduct and of the motives which underlie it, as reveals shortcomings which there would be no effort to detect were spiritual enjoyment to continue unbroken, In such ease of soul the feeling of security — though not, perhaps, finding audible expression in the words, "I shall never be moved, Thou, Lord, of Thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong," might find in them a fitting description. Then, a season comes when God, for a time, hides His face and causes trouble, when the chastened soul is taught humility, and mercifully roused from a dangerous state of over-confidence. To be left, Moab-like, "at ease," so as never to be subject to apprehensions and doubts, would indeed be detrimental to the health of the soul, and therefore, by wisely contrived changes, alternations experienced in that life which "is hid with Christ in God," the Christian is experimentally taught that salvation is not promised to the experience of feelings, however ardent, but to "patient continuance in well-doing," to "endurance unto the end," to gradual progress in conformity to the will of Him who has made obedience to His commandments the test of the genuineness of professed discipleship. In the way by which heaven is to be reached, there are salutary changes from one kind to another of spiritual experience, and by their means invaluable lessons are conveyed to the soul. If there be a tendency to become less vigilant, to "restrain prayer before God," to grow remiss in religious exercises, public and private, there is a change to the experience of some humiliating conviction. If, on the other hand, there be a tendency to spiritual dejection, which if too long dominant, would have the effect of paralysing effort, there is a change to an experience animating and consolatory. Whether God manifests His power in the soul by gladdening it with tokens of His favour, or depresses it with a painful sense of their withdrawal, He is, all the while, educating it for immortality. But further. For all who carefully observe it there is spiritual teaching in what the Church terms, in one of her comprehensive prayers, "the sundry and manifold changes of the world." Evidences of mutability and uncertainty in the world external to us, are set before us in order that we may be disciplined for that "life immortal," which is promised to those who "walk by faith." The present state is designed to be one of pupilage for a higher and a nobler, and no sadder aspect of it can be imagined than when it is viewed as a season of opportunity wasted, a life in which nothing has been learned which is of profit to the imperishable soul. Of momentous import, therefore, is the consideration, whether you be really advantaged by the teaching of those mutabilities. The manner in which prosperity and adversity are borne, the effect which these opposite experiences produce upon character, the spirit in which benefits upon the one hand, and trials upon the other, are received — it is to that you must look if you be desirous of arriving at a reliable conclusion as to whether or not you be. spiritually disciplined under God's providential dispensations. May the mutable nature of all sublunary things be so impressed upon you, as an influential conviction, that the result may be the sure fixing of your hearts "where true joys are to be found." (C. E. Tisdall, D. D.) 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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