Jeremiah 48:11, commentary and pictures

Moab had long lived undisturbed from youth, never poured from vessel to vessel and never taken into captivity, so his character and flavor stayed exactly as they were. To be settled on the lees is to remain a long time in one place and condition, clinging to old habits and customs, former methods of working, and one's own plans and ways. To be poured from vessel to vessel is to let the Holy Spirit reform and refine the mind after the divine order and mold the character into full conformity to God's will apart from inherited and cultivated tendencies. God therefore changes the situation, labor and position of His workers and removes them from friends and acquaintances to break up the settled order and bring them into closer association with Himself. Gathering together in one favored, comfortable place instead of scattering to needy fields, and resting in selfish indolence while souls perish, is that same ease of Moab and must be broken up by awakening, renovation, and immediate work in the harvest field.

Moab's Undisturbed Condition

Moab is pictured as long comfortable and undisturbed from youth, settled on his lees, never poured from vessel to vessel and never taken captive or carried away, and therefore with taste remaining in him and scent unchanged. Staying always in the same condition leaves character stagnant, unreformed and making little progress, a failure that does not know how to work for God. That settled, unchanged ease is doing the work of the Lord deceitfully and negligently and keeping back the sword from blood, and it brings a curse and severe denunciation and wrath in judgment against sin, deception, hypocrisy and pretended piety covering unjust dealing and inhumanity. Therefore days come when wanderers are sent to cause wandering and to empty vessels and break bottles upon wrongdoers led from light and truth into darkness. The same description represents churches become spiritually complacent, knowing truth without practicing it, failing duty to advance truth and righteousness, showing no growth or zeal or spiritual life, with a lifelessness that can spread to others.

To be settled on the lees is to stay a long time in one place and in one condition, holding to methods and customs previously followed. It is clinging to old habits and customs, to previous methods of working, and to one's own plans, place and way of working, refusing to be diverted from them. Such a monotonous life is not conducive to spiritual growth and keeps a person from the highest standard of spirituality, from moral greatness and spiritual soundness. It refuses decided change, refuses to receive light and let the Holy Spirit mold and fashion character anew into a vessel unto honor. Teachers who remain in that unchanged state hold those they instruct down to their own low level and are accountable for the good they failed to do.

Never being emptied from vessel to vessel and never going into captivity is never being moved out to establish new centers of influence and never coming into another condition of things. It is staying comfortable in one consolidated mass in a favored place, centering tithe and influence to build up one place while other places lack facilities, instead of being broken up and spread out so light is diffused into dark corners of the earth. Those kept years in one position without change become stagnant in character and work and frequently need to be moved. Long continuance in the same place produces that stagnation, and a man long in the same place who has not come up to the position God wants him to reach needs to be emptied by being yoked with other workers, learning something besides his own mind and ways, correcting errors, reaching as high a standard as possible, and coming where another atmosphere is around his soul so he can discern what he might be and what God can do with him.

Taste remaining and scent unchanged is character left stagnant, self-satisfied and unchanged, without change from character to character. It means hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong are not purged and the heart is not cleansed from defilement, with the old self and self kept inside because there has been no inward work of grace writing the law of God in the heart and proving it in conduct after the divine similitude. It rules out a cheap class of Christians gathered in without practical character building, requiring that holiness unto the Lord and the law as the standard of righteousness be kept before sinners and the degraded so their ideas of what God requires are lifted. It also means a dulled sense of wrong and spiritual blindness that cannot discern Satan's work from Christ's, failing to defend the right and condemn the wrong, excusing oneself from the painful duty to reprove sin and failing to sustain those God calls to reprove it, as when Saul failed to smite Amalek utterly.

Spiritual Meaning of Change

To be poured or emptied from vessel to vessel is to yield to the Holy Spirit to reform, refine, elevate, ennoble and regulate the mind after the divine order. It is to have character molded and fashioned on a plan different from inherited and cultivated tendencies and natural inclinations, into entire conformity to God's will, so that a man becomes another man. Remaining undisturbed preserves what is already within, and clinging to old habits while refusing light keeps the Spirit from thus shaping the character.

Refusing to be emptied is resisting the Spirit, refusing to hear counsels and admonitions, and taking the regulation of conduct into one's own hands. It is refusing to correct defective traits of character even when work, privileges, opportunities and advancement have been plainly pointed out. It is clinging to defects because breaking up old ways and transforming ideas and methods is too much trouble. It is failing to examine self closely, to seek clear and distinct light, and to pray in humility while living the prayer by understanding and doing duty.

Being emptied also means being yoked with other workers to learn something besides one's own mind and ways, to have errors corrected, to reach as high a standard as possible, and to come where another atmosphere is around the soul so one can discern what he might be and what God can do with him. It means being led step by step deeper and still deeper into painful humiliation in the valley. That path brings into close communion with Jesus in His life of humiliation and into knowing fellowship with and partaking of the sufferings of Christ.

Such settled ease is doing the work of the Lord deceitfully and negligently, keeping back the sword from blood. It is failing to defend the right and condemn the wrong, excusing oneself from the painful duty to reprove sin, and failing to sustain those called to reprove it. It dulls the sense of wrong, leaves taste and character unchanged, and blinds spiritual discernment so that Satan's work cannot be told from Christ's. It brings a curse and wrath and severe denunciation against sin, deception, hypocrisy, and pretended piety covering unjust dealing and inhumanity, as when Saul failed to smite Amalek utterly. Therefore days come when wanderers are sent to cause wandering and to empty vessels and break bottles in judgment upon wrongdoers led from light and truth into darkness, with punishment on those who say the Lord will not do good nor evil.

Remaining unchanged brings its own ruin. It leaves one a failure who does not know how to work for God, who is not made a vessel unto honor, and who is unfitted for sacred ministry because he cannot communicate what he has never received. Staying comfortable and undisturbed from early life without submitting to God's training and humble service means hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong are not purged and the heart is not cleansed from defilement. Refusing decided change and refusing to receive light to be molded anew keeps the flavor and smell unchanged. A teacher in that unchanged state holds those instructed down to his own low level, rejects the cure that would make him ready to serve with kindness, forbearance, long-suffering, gentleness and patience, and is left in strife with self and others while accountable for the good he failed to do.

Call to Move and Work

God changes the situation, labor and position of His workers to break up the regular order and bring them into closer association with Himself, taking them away from friends and acquaintances when they need a purer atmosphere in another place. This moving is His transplanting process, like a gardener transplanting plants to gain the best results, and reorganization that moves workers is not a loss of service. So He moved Elijah from place to place when preparing him for translation, that he would leave behind old methods and customs and not settle on his lees, and that his influence would become a power to help many souls to a more perfect experience. A monotonous life staying long in one place and holding to methods and customs previously followed is not conducive to spiritual growth and keeps a person from the highest standard of spirituality, from moral greatness and spiritual soundness.

Those kept years in one position without change become stagnant in character and work and frequently need to be moved. Remaining settled and never moved leaves character and habit unchanged through clinging to one's own plans, place and way of working. The remedy is willingness to accept change of places, to let the mind be turned from its own laid plans, and to trust and work with helpers God sends instead of rejecting them from fear they will spoil the work or act on different ideas.

Gathering into one favored place like Battle Creek instead of scattering to needy fields is this ease, staying comfortable in one consolidated mass while centering tithe and influence to build up one place while other places lack facilities. Never being poured out and never going away is never being moved out to establish new centers of influence and never meeting the change and hardship that would purify character, leaving spiritual life stagnant, self-satisfied and unchanged. Such settled believers may show zeal flaring briefly in a struggle, but their light then goes out like a meteor unless they are broken up and spread out so light is diffused into dark corners of the earth.

The same condition represents churches and members spiritually complacent, at ease in selfish indolence and sleep while souls perish around them with no excuse for negligence. They know the truth but do not practice it, fail in duty to advance truth and righteousness, rest in inaction with talents rusting and show no growth, and their lifelessness can spread to others. There must therefore be a decided inconveniencing change to the ease-lovers, an awakening and renovation raising the temperature of piety, with plans devised and executed for spreading truth to all nations before fitted laborers can be sent into the field. Hundreds idle must sense the importance of the time and use the present day as the golden opportunity to go to work in the harvest field at once, coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty without expecting wages in this world but trusting abundant reward in the next.

Standing against the work for the South, discouraging help for Nashville, diverting donated money, and tearing down the work by unjust criticism and evil surmisings is this unchanged condition from lack of submission to God's will. Such ones place a mote close to the eye until it becomes a mountain, pick at straws, and cannot see the glory beyond or the way the Lord regards their attitude. Their own spiritual condition depends on themselves, and removing the mote and submitting to God would be mercy to themselves, but until they do the description remains true of them.

The verse rules out a cheap class of Christians gathered in without practical character building and without change from character to character, who keep self in themselves and keep the old self inside because the inward work of grace has not written the law of God in the heart and proved it in conduct after the divine similitude. Rescue of the degraded must keep holiness unto the Lord and the law of God as the standard of righteousness before sinners, or the work will lower what God requires instead of lifting their ideas of what God requires and producing true inward change.