Jeremiah 48:11 says, "Moab has been at ease from his youth;/And he is settled on his lees/And has not been emptied from vessel to vessel;/Nor has he gone into exile. Therefore his taste remains in him,/And his scent is not changed." Are you clear what this is saying?
This is the problem with many who have not passed through trials. The passage describes those who have never suffered any chastisement or sufferings before the Lord. The Moabites had been at ease from their youth. They experienced no suffering or pain. What did such ease produce? They became like wine settled on its lees. If a person brews liquor from grapes or other kinds of fruit, the wine surfaces to the top, while the lees settle to the bottom. The wine floats, while the lees sink. In order to clear the wine, it has to be poured from vessel to vessel. If the lees remain at the bottom, sooner or later they will spoil the taste of the liquor. In making wine, a man must first allow the grapes to ferment. After the grapes ferment, he transfers the wine from one vessel to another. If he is not careful, he will pour the lees out as well. This is why he has to pour carefully. But one pouring is not enough; some lees are bound to escape into the other vessel. This is why he has to do this again. A second time may still not clear the lees, and he has to pour the wine into a third vessel. He has to keep pouring until no lees are left in the wine. God said that Moab had been at ease from his youth and had settled on his lees. He had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, and his lees always followed him. One must be emptied from vessel to vessel if he wants to do away with the lees. He has to be poured out again and again until one day the lees at the bottom are gone. Moab was full of lees; although he was clear at the top, he was not emptied at the bottom. Those who have never gone through trials and chastisement have never been emptied from vessel to vessel.
Often it seems as if God is digging a person from his roots. A brother may experience God's uprooting through his consecration; everything that he owns may be completely uprooted. A brother may experience God's uprooting through his sufferings and trials; he may be stripped of everything he has. This is to be emptied from vessel to vessel. God's hand will crush us thoroughly. He does this in order to clear away our lees!
To be at ease is not a good thing. Brothers and sisters, God wants to purify us. This is why He disciplines and scourges us. Never consider ease and comfort to be something good. Moab's ease caused him to remain Moab forever!
Here are some sobering words: "His taste remains in him, /And his scent is not changed." Because Moab was not emptied from vat to vat, from pot to pot, and from vessel to vessel, and because he was never disciplined and dealt with by God, his taste remained in him and his scent never changed!
Brothers, this is why God has to work on you. He wants to take away your taste and change your scent. God does not want your own taste and scent. I once said that many people are "raw" because they are still in their original state. They have never changed. You had a certain kind of taste before you believed in the Lord. Today you may have been a believer for ten years, yet your taste is still the same. Your scent remains the same as it was before you believed in the Lord. The word scent in Hebrew means "smell," which is the flavor of something in its original state. You had a certain smell before you were saved. Today you have the same smell; there is no change in you at all. In other words, you have not experienced any of God's constitution and carving.
God's discipline is indeed precious! He wants to uproot us and to empty us from vessel to vessel. God disciplines us and deals with us in many ways so that we may lose our original smell and yield the peaceable fruit. The peaceable fruit of righteousness can be translated as "the peaceable fruit, which is the fruit of righteousness."