Moab is My Washpot

“Moab is my washpot.” — Psalm 60:8.

Moab, which had threatened Israel, was to be so completely subdued, and become so utterly contemptible as to be likened to a washpot or basin in which men wash their feet. More than this, however, may have been intended — no, we feel sure was intended by the expression. Let us explain exactly what the language literally means. In the East the general mode of washing the hands and the feet is with a basin and ewer; water is poured upon the hands or feet from the ewer, and it falls into the basin. No Oriental, if he can help it, will wash in standing water; he prefers to have it clear and running. He puts his feet into the washpot, into the basin, and then the clear, cool liquid is poured upon his feet; the washpot answering the sole purpose of holding the dirty water which has already passed over the man’s flesh. Wearing no completely covering shoes, as we do, but only sandals, the feet of an eastern traveler in a long journey become very much defiled; the water, therefore, when it runs off from them, is far from clean, and the washpot is thus put to a very contemptible use by being only the receptacle of dirty water.

When Moab thus became a washpot, it was far other than when it was said, “From her earliest history, Moab has lived in peace. She is like wine that has been allowed to settle. She has not been poured from flask to flask, and she is now fragrant and smooth.” “We have heard of the pride of Moab, for it is very great. We know of her loftiness, her arrogance, and her haughty heart.” What does Moab represent to you and to me? We are the children of Israel by faith in Christ, and in him we have obtained by covenant a promised land. Our faith may cry, “I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valleys of Succoth.” All things are ours in Christ Jesus; “Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine.”

Now Moab was outside of Canaan. It was not given to Israel as a possession, but in course of time it was subdued in warfare, and became tributary to the Jewish king. Even thus our faith overcomes the world, and enables us to say, “this world is ours” — ours for a useful, needful purpose. We set but small store by it; it is nothing but our washpot, but we are content to use it as far as we may make it subserve a holy end. The best possessions we have, outside of the spiritual heritage, we put under our feet, desiring to keep them in their proper inferior position; they are not the crown of our head, nor the comfort of our heart, nor the girdle of our loins, nor the staff of our support; they are put to baser uses far. They yield us some comfort, for which we are grateful to God, but it is only for our feet or lower nature; our head and heart find nobler joys. The whole world put together, with all its wealth, is but a mess of potage for Esau, and nothing more. God’s Jacob has a better portion, for he has the birthright. Our worst is better than the world’s best, for the reproach of Christ is greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.

“We tread the world beneath our feet,

With all that earth calls good or great.”

“Moab is my washpot,” nothing more — a thing contemptible and despicable as compared with the eternal realities of covenant blessings; yet, for all that, there was a use for Moab, a use to be rightly understood. A washpot has its necessary function; and even this base world may be made by faith, in the hands of God, to be the means of aiding the purity of the saints; its afflictions and troubles may work our present and lasting good. The world and its trials can never be compared to the water which cleanses our feet; for that purifying stream we look to a far higher source; but it may be likened to the basin in which our feet are placed while they are being washed.

If we regard Moab as representative of the unregenerate people among whom we dwell, we do well, like the children of Israel, on their march to Canaan, to let them alone, for their heritage is not our heritage, neither are their joys our joys. The less communion we have with them the better. If we ask of them, as Israel did of Moab, simply to be allowed to go on our way in peace, it is all we need. Moses sent his messengers, who said, "Let us pass through your land. We will stay on the main road and won't turn off into the fields on either side. We will pay for every bite of food we eat and all the water we drink. All we want is permission to pass through your land. Let us pass through until we cross the Jordan into the land the Lord our God has given us."

As the pilgrims in Vanity Fair, we only ask a clear passage through the place, for we have no inheritance in it, no, not so much as we can set our foot upon. Yet, inasmuch as we cannot altogether separate ourselves from the sinful, (for then we would have to go out of the world), we are compelled to feel the influence of their conduct, and it will become our wisdom to watch that this become not injurious to us, but be made under God rather to be of service to us than a hindrance.

My object will be to show that, contrary to the ordinary course of nature, but not contrary to faith, even this ungodly world may be made to assist our advance in holiness. As of old the men of Israel went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man his axe and his courter, so may we derive some sharpening from our enemies. We may gather honey from the lion, take a jewel from the toad’s head, and borrow a star from the brow of night. Moab (this ungodly world), may become our washpot.

While this is contrary to nature, it is also unusual in history. In the Book of Numbers we read that Balak, son of Zippor, desired to vanquish Israel, and therefore he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, saying, “Curse Israel, and perhaps I shall prevail against them.” Balaam was not able to curse Israel by word of mouth, but he cursed them in very deed when he counseled the king to make them unclean in God’s sight by sending the daughters of Moab among them, who not only led them into lasciviousness, but invited them to the sacrifices of their gods. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and the plague would have devoured them, had not the holy zeal of Phineas turned away the divine anger.

Thus it is clear that Moab of old was foremost in polluting and defiling Israel. It is a great feat of faith when the thing which naturally defiles is turned into a washpot. Behold the transformations of grace! This ungodly world outside the church, the world of wicked men, would naturally pollute us, but faith turns them into a washpot, and finds in them motives for watchfulness and holiness. We sigh, in the words of the old psalm —

“Woe’s me that I in Mesech am

A sojourner so long;

That I in tabernacles dwell

To Kedar that belong.”

As we cannot sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, so neither can we very readily keep our garments unspotted in a land deluged with uncleanness. With difficulty do we save ourselves from this corrupt generation. And yet faith learns the secret of overcoming the ordinary tendency of things, and of making that which might injure us, an auxiliary to our advantage; fulfilling that ancient promise, “Foreigners will be your servants. They will feed your flocks and plow your fields and tend your vineyards.” The defiling world may be made helpful to us in the following ways.

I. First of all, ungodly men, if we are in a gracious spirit, may be of solemn service to us, because WE SEE IN THEM WHAT SIN IS. They are beacons upon the rocks to keep us from danger. The lives of many men are recorded in Scripture, not as excuses for our sins, much less as examples, but the very reverse. Like murderers in the olden times hung in chains, they are meant to be warnings. Their lives and deaths are danger-signals, bidding those who are pursuing a career of sin, to come to a pause, and reverse the engine forthwith. They are our washpot in that respect, that they warn us of pollution, and so help to prevent our falling into it.

When we learn that pride turned angels into devils, we have a lesson in humility read to us from heaven and hell. When we read of profane Esau, obstinate Pharaoh, disobedient Saul, apostate Judas, or vacillating Pilate, we are taught thereby to shun the rocks upon which they made eternal shipwreck.

Transgressors of our own race are peculiarly suitable to act as warnings to us, for we ought ever to remember when we see the sins of ungodly men, that “such were some of us.” Whenever you see a drunkard, if you were once such, it will bring the tears to your eyes to remember when you too were a slave to the ensnaring cup, and you will thank God that his grace has changed you. Not as the Pharisee will you pretend to thank God, while you are flattering your own self, but with deep humiliation you will confess what grace has done.

When we read in the newspaper a sad case of lasciviousness, or any other breach of the laws of God and man, if we were once guilty of the like sin, and have now been renewed in heart, it will make us blush; it will humble us, and cause us to admire the power and sovereignty of divine grace. Now the blush of repentance, the shamefacedness of humility, and the tear of gratitude, are three helpful things, and all tend, under God’s grace, to set us purging out the old leaven.

Remember, O believer, that there is no wretch upon earth so bad, but what you were once his equal in alienation from God and death in sin. In outward acts there may have been much difference, but in the inner man how little! The seed of all the sin which you see in him lies in your corrupt nature, and needs only a fit season to bring forth and bud. You were once in that fire of sin, in which he is consumed by his passions; you have been plucked as a brand from the burning, else you would be there still.

Yonder is a prodigal, all bespattered from head to foot, but we also once were plunged into the ditch, until our own clothes abhorred us, and we would be sinking in the mire even now, if the mighty hand of grace had not lifted us up from the horrible pit, and washed us in the Savior’s blood. We were “heirs of wrath even as others.” “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Our sins are different, but we were all without exception shaped in iniquity, and as in water, face answers unto face, so the heart of man to man.

When you see the wickedness of an ungodly man, make him your washpot, by remembering that you also, though you are regenerate, are encompassed with “the body of this death.” Remember the words of the Apostle: “I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.”

The old nature so remains in us, that, if we were to be deserted by God, we would even yet become such as the ungodly are. Need I quote to you the speech of John Bradford, one of the godliest of men? When he saw a wretch taken out to Tyburn to be hanged, the tears were in his eyes, and when they asked him why, he said, “There goes John Bradford, but for the grace of God.” Ah, and when we see a prodigal plunging into excess of riot, there goes the best among us, if we are not preserved in Christ Jesus. Ay, and when the damned go down to hell, there must I go, unless the same grace which restrains me now from sin, shall uphold me to my last day; and keep me from falling.

Brother Christian, you carry much combustible matter in your nature, be warned when you see your neighbor’s house on fire. When one man falls, the next should look to his steps. You are a man of like passions, remember yourself, lest you also be tempted. In these days of epidemics, if we knew that a certain house was tainted with disease, and if we saw a person who had come from it with the marks of the disease in his face; what would we feel? Would we not take it as a warning to keep clear, both of the house and of him; because we ourselves are as likely to take the disease as he was? So when we see a sinner transgressing we should say to ourselves, “I also am a man, and a fallen man, let me abhor every evil way, and guard myself jealously, lest I also fall into sin.” In this way Moab may be a washpot. By remembering what we are, and what we were, we may, by taking warning from the evil courses of others, avoid the like condemnation.

There are certain sins which we readily detect in others, which should serve as loud calls to us to us to correct the same things in ourselves. When a man sees the faults of others, and congratulates himself that he is far superior to such, he evidently knows not how to extract good from evil; he is proud, and knows nothing. But when we perceive errors in others, and immediately set a diligent watch against falling into them ourselves, then Moab is rightly used, and becomes our washpot.

For instance, as to the matter of bodily indulgence– the sinner is a man who puts his body before his soul, and his head where his feet should be; he is therefore a monster in nature. Instead of the world being under his feet, as it is with every holy man, he inverts himself, and places his head and his heart in the dust. He lives for the body which is to die, and forgets the soul which lives forever.

When therefore you see a drunkard, or an unchaste person, say to yourself, “I must mortify my members, and give my spiritual nature the predominance. For this I must cry mightily to God, the Eternal Spirit, lest the body of this death prevail over me. I must keep under my body, as the Apostle says, and bring it into subjection, lest I too become a prey to the same animal passions, which lead sinners captives.”

I see the ungodly man putting this poor fleeting world before the eternal world to come; therein he is a fool; but let me take heed that I in no measure imitate him. Let me never in my business live as though to make money; to get a competence, to earn the wherewithal to eat and drink, were the first thing with me. Let me not fall into his error, but ever seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and believe that other things shall be added to me.

The ungodly man disregards God. God is not in all his thoughts. He says in his heart, “No God.” Now when I know that the ungodly man does that, it should be a warning to me not to forget the Lord, or depart from him in any measure. Alas, we are, all of us, more or less atheistic. How little of our life is given to God! You who love and fear him are not always near to him, though he is always near to you. Do you never enter upon your enterprises without him? When you begin your business with him, are you not apt to forget him in the middle passage of it? Or when you have gone on to the very center of a work with him, are you not liable to leave him before you close? Is not this to learn the way of the wicked and to be like them in wandering away from the living God? To have God always with us, to lean hourly upon him, and to feel each moment that he is all in all to us — this is the true condition in which our minds ought to be continually. The atheism of the outside world should warn us against the inward godlessness of our naturally atheistic hearts.

We select these sins as specimens of the general principle, but it is applicable to all forms of evil. Did you ever meet with a vain man, who boasted loudly, and evermore talked about his own beloved self? Was not that a lesson for you? Surely it will help to preserve you from acting so ridiculous a part. Did not I hear you, the other night, laughing at the boaster for his folly? Let us hope, then, you will never set others laughing at yourself.

You know another person who is morose, he always speaks sharply, and makes enemies. Be you of another spirit; be courteous, cultivate the grace of cheerfulness and good temper as a Christian. The moroseness of the churl should enforce upon you the duty of godly gentleness. Moab will be your washpot.

You know a certain person whose hands appear to be paralyzed if they are required to bestow a contribution. How unlovely his stinginess makes him! Will not the miserable exhibition of stinginess, which he presents, lead you to avoid all covetousness?

Another person of your acquaintance is very soon irritated. You can hardly say a word to displease him but he makes a crime of it immediately, and falls into the temporary insanity of anger. Well, then, learn yourself to be slow to wrath. Seek that charity which is not easily provoked, thinks no evil. May be your friend’s blood is warmer than yours, and there is some excuse for him; but since you see how unwise and wicked it is in him, seek much grace with which to overcome the propensity in your own case.

If a man should fall into a pit through walking unwarily along a dangerous path, his fall should be my safety, his experience should be my instruction; there can be no need for me to roll over the same precipice in order to know experimentally how dangerous it is. How sad a fact it is that very few of us ever do learn by the experience of other people!

Madam Experience must take each one of us into her school, and make us personally hurt under her rod — we will not learn else wise. Warnings are neglected by the foolish. The young sluggard sees the huge thorns and thistles in the older sluggard’s garden and yet he follows the same lazy habits. One step follows another into the shambles. Flies see their brethren perishing, in the sugared trap, and yet rush into it themselves. The Lord make us wise and prudent, and from the errors of others may we learn to steer our own course aright; then may we truly say, “Moab is my washpot.”

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