Sunday 24th November 2024
“I weep for you.”
Jeremiah 48:32 (NIV)
What makes God sad
These words are most surprising, but to feel their force we need to understand who is weeping and for whom. It is the LORD who is weeping, and he is weeping – most surprisingly – for the nation of Moab, one of Israel’s near neighbours: “I wail over Moab, for all Moab I cry out” (verse 31); “my heart laments for Moab like the music of a pipe” (verse 36).
This is even more surprising when we realise that God knows exactly what Moab is guilty of: “she has defied the LORD” (verse 26); she has made God’s people Israel “the object of [her] ridicule” (verse 27); and the LORD says, “We have heard of Moab’s pride – how great is her arrogance! – of her insolence, her pride, her conceit and the haughtiness of her heart (verse 29).
What is more, it is the LORD himself who is bringing judgment on Moab: it is he who decrees, “Make her drunk” (verse 26) and who promises, “I will bring on Moab the year of her punishment” (verse 44, see also verses 12, 35, 38).
So, God is bringing judgment on Moab, a judgment which is richly deserved, and yet he weeps for her. Through Ezekiel God says that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11). Through Jeremiah he now says that he is actually grieved by the death of the wicked – even though it is deserved and he is bringing it!
What kind of God is this? He is the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, the only God there is. Like his Father, Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem even as he promises the judgment it deserves (Luke 19:41-44).
But we should know that God is like this, a God who weeps over the deserved judgment of wicked sinners like us: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It was while we were sinners who “defied the Lord” Jeremiah 48:26), “powerless” and “ungodly” (Romans 5:6) and even “God’s enemies” (verse 10) that Christ died for us.
The question is whether we will weep as our God weeps over the fate of the wicked, even as we acknowledge that their judgment is deserved.
Prayer
Lord, I depend on your mercy to me, and yet I am slow to extend mercy to others. Melt my heart afresh with your mercy, for you have said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Amen.
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)