“My heart cries out for Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah. For at the accent of Luhith they go up weeping, on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction.”
– Isaiah 15:5
Isaiah 15:5 is astounding. Really. Breathtaking in a sense because God is showing just judgment upon Moab. Judgment that Moab deserves. Moab is undergoing His wrath and yet as Moab undergoes His wrath God says, “My heart cries out for Moab.” So we see in the midst of judgment, God’s mercy for Moab. His desire that they not experience his judgment. I just think about that picture applied all over the world, not just in Isaiah’s day but today.
We deserve the just wrath of God and yet He loves us and shows us mercy in the midst of judgment.
Isaiah 15:5 Tells Us that Many People Deserve God’s Wrath
So many people who deserve the just wrath of God, the judgment of God in sin, and yet God loves them. His heart, in a very real sense, cries out for them, He desires their salvation. It’s what we see all over scripture, our God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, He desires all to come to repentance 2 Peter 3:9. “His heart cries out for those who are experiencing His judgment.” And even those who deserve his judgment.
I think about this in my own life. I praise God that though I deserve His wrath in mercy, His heart cried out for me, He saved me from my sin and I’m just provoked to pray then.
Isaiah 15:5 Explains that Because of Christ God Shows Mercy
God, show Your mercy to more, more and more people. Show your mercy in the world to people who deserve Your judgment. I think about people around me and my country and my culture. And I think about people around me in my city. I think about people far from me among the nations, people who deserve Your just judgment. Oh God, I trust Your heart cries out for them. You desire their salvation. You desire their repentance. So God I pray that You bring about their salvation, bring them to repentance.
This Verse Remembers God’s Mercy
In Your judgment remember mercy, show, shower mercy on more and more and more people, just like You did in my life. And God use my life toward that end. May my life be an instrument of Your mercy. Use me to proclaim Your mercy to people around me who are at this moment under Your just judgment. God I pray for that in my own life, I pray for that in the lives of those who are listening. Lord, today help us to proclaim Your mercy to people around us, bring people who right now are under your judgment to be saved by Your love, by Your grace, by Your mercy today through us. God may it be so, we pray. In Jesus name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
