All the other judgments God hurled at the peoples in that region for their evil.
With Moab, there's this emotional, this pathos, this sadness, that empathizing with Moab on over her self-inflicted judgment. God is saying, you know, I've got to judge you. Justice demands judgment on you. And it breaks my heart.
You were that close to being with my people, but you turned against them. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 15 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. As the song goes, he's got the whole world in his hands, and that's what is being demonstrated by the prophet. And much of what he had to say has come to pass in his lifetime, and then another wave would come in Jeremiah's prophecies concerning Moab, for example. The nations are people, made up of people, and mostly they have been against God.
Ultimately, it is not overlooked. Sovereign justice looms over those who insist on making up God. Well, verse 1, chapter 15 of the prophet Isaiah, the burden against Moab, and he goes on to say that Moab is laid waste and destroyed.
See, that's how I'm going to try to skip some of the verses or words to let us move through a little bit more quickly. Moab is in modern Jordan, so if you're looking at a map of Israel, to your right, which would be the east on the map, there's the Jordan River, and right across that river is Jordan. You can stand in Israel, you can look over, and you can see Jordan. And in the days that Isaiah lived, it was not the kingdom of Jordan. In his days, it was Ammon and Moab and Edom. They were on that side, these different peoples. Well, those peoples are gone now and have been assimilated into the Arab peoples, and the Jordanians are essentially Arabs.
So, they factor in big to the end time, and hopefully we'll get to that. And these, again, Moab is mostly Judah's neighbor, because the northern kingdom to the north, Moab's territory, was more to the south on that side. And when Israel and Judah were strong, well, they dominated and they controlled the region, but they messed up because of their idolatry. Now, the Moabites, as with Ammon, to the north of them, these were the creation or the outcome, the production of Lot and his incestuous relationship, though it wasn't voluntary on his part. That's covered in Genesis 9. Most of the time, the Moabites were the enemies of God, and we've got to stay on them a little bit, because the Moabites come up in chapter 15 and 16, and these are the people that sound like they're ready for a snack. Moabites. Okay. You might remember, moving right along, King Balak, he was a Moabite king, and he tried to get the Gentile prophet, Balaam, to come curse the Israelites, and it just wouldn't happen.
It kept backfiring. And, of course, Balaam was the prophet that spoke to the donkey, and the donkey spoke to him. I have no problem believing that story whatsoever, and he ended up being killed by the Jewish people because he became an apostate prophet. He was never a prophet of Israel, but he was a Gentile prophet. The Bible calls him such. I know some like to debate, well, was he really a prophet?
Well, I just gave you my answer. Anyway, the Moabites, or the people of Moab, well, that's where Ruth came from. She was the great-grandmother of King David. So, they have a part in Israel's history, a big part. The book of Ruth takes place mostly, or at least in the beginning, it takes place in Moab, their territory. Of course, they worshiped man-made gods, they were idolaters through and through, not Ruth.
You know Ruth, that speech she makes in the first chapter is just one of the magnificent verses in all of Scripture. But, as I mentioned, many of the judgments occur in Isaiah's day, but we should not forget who Moab is because they factor in to the end time story. Pride was what brought these judgments on them. What is interesting about this prophecy in these two chapters on these people is that all the other judgments God hurled at the peoples in that region for their evil, with Moab, there's this emotional pathos, this sadness, empathizing with Moab over her self-inflicted judgment. God is saying, you know, I've got to judge you. Justice demands judgment on you, and it breaks my heart. You were that close to being with my people, but you turned against them.
So, that's why we're going to come across that. Just looking ahead at verse 6 of chapter 16 in Isaiah, we have heard of the pride of Moab. He is very proud of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath, but his lies shall be no more. God is saying, you maxed out your grace, now it's going to be judgment.
Other prophets talk about them, too. Verse 2 of Isaiah 15, he has gone up to the temple of Dibon, to the high places to weep. Moab will wail over Nebo, on all her heads will be baldness and every beard cut off. Verse 3, in their streets they will clothe themselves with sackcloth, and on the tops of their houses and in their streets everyone will wail, weeping bitterly. Verse 4 now, moving ahead, therefore the armed soldiers of Moab will cry out.
His life will be burdensome to him. And so here the prophet is expressing the grief that is going to be upon these human beings when the Assyrian invasion gets to them. They will go to their temple and pray to their gods, but it will not help them. Now, what I like about this mention is Nebo. Mount Nebo is in Moab, right across the Jordan, and it is where God took Moses and said, look at the promised land. If you go to the temple mount, you can, in Jerusalem, you can see Mount Nebo.
It's only 30 miles away, that, and you can see mountains from many more miles than that. Anyway, you can see Mount Nebo. It's this looming judgment of the law over Jerusalem, over all Israel, you know, and you would think that the Jewish people would look at Mount Nebo and say, that's where God took Moses, to show him this land. That he forfeited entrance because of his misrepresentation of God in the position of leadership.
You would think that that would be an effective reminder. In Israel, you look at Mount Nebo from Jerusalem, you get chills. You're like, look at that. That's where God took Moses. What an amazing, an amazing situation. God, and God knew. He could have took him to other mountains. You didn't have to take him to any mountain. But he takes him to Nebo where the people could, they're just lingering monument of Yahweh. Anyway, Isaiah, he heaps up the names of these places that I will try to skip as we go through it, characteristic of Isaiah, because he was a knowledgeable man.
He knew geography, he had geography down packed in that part of the world, and he lets it out. But he creates the impression with the troops crying, the Moabite troops crying here, this impression of this widespread disaster that is coming upon these people as a judgment. Verse five, my heart will cry out for Moab. This is the prophet speaking, but it is Yahweh speaking through him. His fugitives shall flee to Zor like a three year old heifer, for by the accent of Lewith, they will go up with weeping, for in the way of Horonaim, they will rise up a cry of destruction.
Now these places, they're not, we don't need to pause on where this one is and that one is, that's not the big part. What's big about this is Yahweh's grief. He does not delight in this judgment on evil, but the alternative is worse, to let evil go unjudged. And so he himself, God, empathizes with the Moabites. Now the three year old heifer implies it's in its full strength and so that's what they, that culture, they would have understood that connection. But now, you know, the sackcloth, in verse 14, God will say in three years this is going to happen, Isaiah will say, it will take three years before these things come to pass from the time that he utters these prophecies. God is not the cause of suffering, but he has also not obligated himself to stop all evil. He will ultimately, but in the meantime, sin is manifest in creation. When you consider, you know, nature, nature's violent, it's very violent.
We miss out on that a lot because we live in, you know, developed areas. But when you think about, let's just say a grizzly bear, a male grizzly bear will kill the female grizzly bear if he has to, so he can eat his own cubs. Not all the time, else there wouldn't be any more bear. But this happens. And this is crazy, it's insane, it's evil.
And it's not the only animal doing crazy things like this. This is sin. This is what Paul meant when he said, we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Paul is saying, accept this fact, you have to accept it. Sin has done its work and now we are in damage control mode. The objective is to get to heaven and bring as many people as we can bring.
And the way to do that is by submitting to God through his son, by the time the New Testament comes along, of course, through Messiah, through Christ, and this is our mission. So when you, you know, there are those people that think that they, you know, are going to go hug a tree and nature's, and this is the essence of paganism. Paganism is the worship of creation without even calling it creation. They call it nature.
Again, there's no such thing as mother nature. So, anyway, in this section, Isaiah uses 14 different references, some sort of lamentation. It bothers him that these people are going to be judged. And as a Christian, I can't lose sight of this. You know, I'm not supposed to have, I'm not looking to dance on the grave of my enemies when they die. God warns against that attitude. However, I can be certainly relieved that they're no longer a problem.
But I'm not going to throw a party. Anyway, verse 6, For the waters of Nimrim will be desolate, for the green grass has withered away, and the grass fails, and there is nothing green. Well, that's scorched earth. That's just devastation.
How could you live in that environment under these conditions? Verse 7, Therefore the abundance they have gained, and what they have laid up, they will carry away to the brook of the willows. And still here they are, this picture of frantic refugees trying to, you know, take what's important to them as they abandon their homes and their, you know, their cities, and it's not going to help them. Verse 8, For the cry has gone all around the borders of Moab, its wailing to those places there. Verse 9, For the waters of Daimon will be full of blood, because I will bring more upon Daimon, lions upon him who escapes from Moab and on the remnant of the land. So, of course, the great slaughter, the carnage, because of the Assyrians, the lion is used as a descriptive title for the human rulers that will be fierce and merciless and unstoppable. Chapter 16 now, now we come to the continuation of Moab's judgment, and we see Moab as a type of those who almost enter the kingdom of God, but opt out.
Having a form of godliness and never entering or coming into its power. Verse 1, Send the Lamb to the ruler of the land, from Selah to the wilderness, to the mount of the daughter of Zion. So, from Selah, which is again on the east side of Jordan, to the south in that wilderness, that's where the leaders of the Moabites are going to flee, trying to get away. And the prophet is saying to them ahead of time, join with Judah, go to the people of God, send this lamb of submission, you know, in a sort of a token that we are going to submit to your authority. We are going to join with you to avoid the terror of a greater enemy, the Assyrians. Well, they're not going to do that, but the prophet is offering them an opportunity to escape these coming judgments from chapter 15.
He's offering this in chapter 16. This Selah is near Petra, that rock citadel, that natural rock citadel in the territory of Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon, all in Jordan, all factor in to the Jews' future, as I'm going to approach it, and we'll get there in verse 4, but not yet. Verse 2 now, for it shall be as a wandering bird thrown out of the nest, so shall be the daughters of Moab at the fords of Arnon. And you'll notice those are fords, not Chevys. How can you not say that?
It's spelled the same way. Anyway, instead of fleeing to Judah, they're trying to survive, and here the refugees, the women seeking shelter, but not coming over to the daughters of Zion, as mentioned above, or to Zion, which is Judah at this time. Verse 3, take counsel, execute judgment, make your shadow like the night in the middle of the day, hide the outcasts, do not betray him who escapes. Keep a low profile to escape the coming judgment to the refugees seeking asylum, who again will not go to Judah for it. They will be thinned out as a people greatly by the time the Babylonians come out, they will be completely absorbed, but that's later in Jeremiah's day. If they did come into Judah, this is a big point about these kind of studies in the Old Testament, when you come across these ancient peoples being slaughtered because of their evil, and God saying, well, come to Judah. Well, he certainly doesn't mean come to Judah with all your idols and your bags and your heart. Bring them into Judah and leaven Judah.
He doesn't mean that. He wants them to submit to the prophet of Yahweh, to Yahweh as God of creation. What they would have done is, if they could, was they would have come in as they were and spread their idolatry. Well, that did not happen, but it is an interesting point that God makes the offer, but we know that it is all about truth with God and not a green light to remain as you are.
And that's one of our messages to the lost. Listen, we can say to a lost person that doesn't know Christ. It is not God's will that you remain the way you are concerning Jesus Christ. That's what Moab did concerning Yahweh. They remained pagans and Chemosh, their God.
That's who they worship, not Yahweh. And sort of the prophet saying, well, you've been offered. They would have gotten these prophecies to them. The words of these prophets were circulated. Verse 4, Let my outcasts dwell with you, O Moab, be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler. For the extortioner is at hand, devastation ceases, the oppressors are consumed out of the land.
In mercy the throne will be established, and one will sit on it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness. Well, these two verses change everything. A very perplexing section.
Who's the speaker? Translations are a little different here. They take out the personal pronoun, let my outcast, and yet the meaning is the same.
Even if you do not insert that pronoun, it doesn't alter the meaning. This is an outburst of a far fulfillment of prophecy. This is something that goes into the millennial reign. And some of the commentators won't commit to it. I'm going to commit.
I'm not going to sit there, well, it could be. I know what this is, and I'll at least tell you why I'm sure of my opinion. These are good commentators, again. I don't read the bad ones, but I don't agree with all of them. As they don't agree with all of them. That's part of it. That comes with the territory. It's sort of like being buddies on the same baseball team, then you get traded to an opposing team.
You're still buddies, but you're going to play hard against each other. You're still going to try to get, you know, your team to win. It has nothing to do with the appreciation for one another. Anyway, the context comes to the rescue. Which is the case throughout scripture. The context says, okay, this is what I'm talking about. Because if your context out of the text is pretext, it's wrong.
You can't do it that way. Verse 5 rescues verse 4 from confusion. Otherwise, it's just a random insertion. Verse 5 is just a random insertion about Messiah.
No, it's not a random insertion. It is a timestamp for verse 4. It is telling us verse 4 has to do with the end times. Verse 4 has to do with the Messiah and his kingdom. Verse 4 has to do with that child of David. That is the Lord over David. The Lord said to my Lord.
And so we know that. Psalm 110. And so the setting of verse 4 is last days because of verse 5. It's a millennial, messianic verse. Otherwise, again, that's just random.
Why would he bring up the Messiah? Well, I just said why. The only way it makes sense to me. And I'm, again, going to approach it that way.
This looks to the future relationship. You say, okay, well then tell me how does it connect Moab to the future? It connects it to the Jewish people.
That's how it does it. What's going to happen to the Jewish people before Messiah comes and what does Moab have to do with it? And Petra and Edom's territory and Amnon to the north. Well, I'm going to read the verses that tie all this in. Because Antichrist will try to exterminate Christians and Jewish people when he comes into that three and a half year mark. And absolutely loses it, as we would say.
He just completely goes into darkness on just another level of darkness that opens to him. Now Daniel 11, verse 31. We don't have time to go into all the verses, but I guess some of the primaries. Daniel 11, verse 31. And forces shall be mustered by him and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress. Then they shall take away the daily sacrifices and place there an abomination of desolation. Now this is originally fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes, that Syrian ruler. But Jesus said, long after, over 150 years after Antiochus, he says this is going to happen again.
It's going to happen in the last times. And it's going to be the devil's work. And then the apostles come along and just tie it all in for us. They splice it very nicely.
The splice is so smooth you can't tell where the seams are. Believing Jews at the time that Antichrist defiles the rebuilt Jewish temple, the third Jewish temple. They have Solomon's temple, the ones Zerubbabel built and then Herod expanded.
And that was destroyed by the Romans. And then you're going to have that third temple of the Jews. And Christ, we know that because Christ tells us that there's going to be a temple, it's going to be defiled, and it's going to be the end in Matthew 24, which deals all with the end time.
That context of Matthew 24 says this is all end times, and I'm telling you. So the believing Jews, there will be Jews that will be converted because of the work of the two witnesses and the 144,000 Jews, they're going to be hard at work preaching Christ. The Jews are going to be coming to Christ.
They're going to be leading Gentiles to Christ. The church will be gone. There'll be no more public worship in the true sense to Christ. All the public worship going on will be paganized and Antichrist will be honored. The apostate church will be livened well until Antichrist destroys it because they're going to hate.
That's the whole, the woman rides the beast of Revelation. Anyway, coming back to this, the believing Jews are going to heed the warning of Christ when they see that this abomination of desolation take place in that third temple. They're going to leave Jerusalem. They're going to leave Israel.
Where are they going to go? Let's look what Jesus says because Jesus is the one applying Daniel, which is already pre-fulfilled and fully fulfilled in Antichrist, Matthew 24. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, hey, Daniel just said that, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.
Is it any more explicit than that? Standing in the holy place. And then, then parentheses, whoever reads, let him understand. That's Matthew inserting that because Christ wasn't writing it. He was speaking it. Matthew says if you read this, we were paying attention.
You pay attention. He says, Jesus now speaking again, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Which ones? Israel is non-stop mountains. Which one is he talking about? Well, again, Jesus applies this to Antichrist. Antiochus, you know, he defiled the temple of the Jews in a hundred and thirty, a hundred and sixty-seven years before Christ was born in the manger. Isaiah indicates where they're going to flee. Moab is one of the refuge places for them. Now, remember our verse, verse 4. Let my outcasts dwell with you, O Moab. Be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, for the executioner is at hand, is at an end. Devastation ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. When is that going to happen?
It was going to happen. And then, of course, he kicks right into the mercy of Messiah's throne in the very next verse. So we come back to the scripture. We say, okay, they're fleeing to Moab's territory, east, which is modern-day Jordan.
Jordan fits the bill for this refuge. As I mentioned, now, Edom, Moab, Ammon. Here we go, Daniel 11 41. He shall also enter the glorious land.
He's still talking about this Antichrist and Antiochus. The glorious land is Israel. And many countries shall be overthrown. Remember that little horn rises to power, tramples the other ones.
I mean, he's just, he's a beast. He continues in Daniel 11 41. Many countries shall be overthrown, but these shall escape from his hand. Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon, the Jordanians. You see how prophecy just comes, and Israel and Jordan right now really enjoy a really good relationship with each other. You can take a bridge right from Israel, right into Jordan.
It doesn't take much at all. This is quite remarkable, considering the influence of Islam against Israel in that region of the world. Jeremiah rings in on it. He also prophesies about Moab. Thanks for tuning in to Cross-Reference Radio today. Cross-Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross-Reference Radio. Just search for Cross-Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.
