Bitterness Poured Off, MacArthur

...we invariably get into trouble when we don't have problems because we don't really grow. In Jeremiah 48:11, God is preparing to judge Moab, and He says,

Moab has been at ease since his youth;
He has also been undisturbed on his lees,
Neither has he been emptied from vessel to vessel,
Nor has he gone into exile.
Therefore he retains his flavor, and his aroma has not been changed.

     The people of Moab had had it so easy and so smooth that they had become rancid. The analogy Jeremiah uses is from winemaking. Winemakers in Jeremiah's day put crushed grapes in a container and let them sit. Eventually the bitterness and the sediment--called the lees, or the dregs--would settle into the bottom. The winemaker would pour the wine off the top into another vessel, and the remaining bitterness would settle into the bottom of the second container in more sediment. Then he would pour that wine into another container, and another, and another--and over a period of time, all of the sediment and its bitterness would be removed (they used it to make vinegar), and the wine would have the aroma of sweetness that the winemaker wanted it to have.
     Moab had never lost its bitterness, because the people had never been poured from difficult situation to difficult situation, where the bitterness could be purged out.
     We are better off in life if God pours us from trial to trial, because each time we're poured into a different trial, each time we're confined in a different undesirable circumstance, a little of the bitterness of life is removed. Finally, one day God pours us out of the last trial and all that remains is the sweet aroma that He was after all the time--the bitterness is all gone.

From The Ultimate Priority, chapter 14 "Worship as It Was Meant to Be," pp. 152-153. Written by John MacArthur.