Obadiah

[00:00:07] Amen. Let's pray. [00:00:09] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the forgiveness of sins. We rejoice at being called holy ones, covered in the blood of Christ, knowing that we belong to him now and forever. For he has entered into the heavenly places and presented himself as a worthy sacrifice which you have received for us. Lord, we ask that you would bless us now as we come to hear more of your word read and preached, that you would be at work in our hearts and in our lives, bringing forth the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of your Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:58] Please remain standing and let's turn to the little book of Obadiah. [00:01:05] This is in the Old Testament. This is where your memorized Bible book songs comes in really handy. At least it does for me. [00:01:18] I won't do it now. But I still sing in my head when looking for books of the Bible. [00:01:25] Joel, Amos, Obadiah. [00:01:29] Obadiah is one of what we call the minor prophets. Not minor because it's unimportant, but because it's small. It's one of the. It is the smallest book of the Old Testament, but a very important one, which I will introduce to you this morning and bring you God's word. Let's hear God's word now from Obadiah. [00:02:05] The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edomdez. [00:02:12] We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations. Rise up. Let us rise up against her for battle. [00:02:22] Behold, I will make you small among the nations. You shall be utterly despised. [00:02:28] The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground? [00:02:39] Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. [00:02:50] If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night, how you have been destroyed. Would they not steal only enough for themselves. [00:02:59] If grape gatherers came to you, would they leave? Would they not leave? Gleanings, how Esau has been pillaged, his treasures sought out. All your allies have driven you to your border. Those at peace with you have deceived you. They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding. [00:03:25] Will I not on that day, declares the Lord. Destroy the wise men out of Edom. An understanding out of Mount Esau. And your mighty men shall be dismayed, o tammon. So that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter because of the violence done to your brother Jacob. Shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. [00:03:48] On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for JERusalem, you were like one of them. [00:04:01] But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune. Do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin. Do not boast in the day of distress. [00:04:15] Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity. Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives. Do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. [00:04:37] For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deed shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all nations shall drink continually. They shall drink and swallow and shall be as though they had never been. [00:05:01] But in Mount Zion there shall be. There shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy. And the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be afire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble. They shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau. For the Lord has spoken. [00:05:26] Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephalah shall possess the land of the Philistines. They shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria. And Benjamin shall possess Gilead. The exiles of this host of the people of Israel, or the exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath. And the exiles of Jerusalem, who are in shepherd, shall possess the cities of the Negeb. Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau. And the kingdom shall be the Lord's. [00:06:07] Amen. Please be seated. [00:06:34] The book of Obadiah deals with a very serious subject. [00:06:41] Even if you are confused about the names and places and who's saying what and what's going on, I think that we can all get a sense that this is a very serious message. [00:06:54] It's stated in various ways through the images, through the condemnations through the way it comes as this vision to Obadiah from the Lord. It's all very serious, and it deserves to be taken seriously. [00:07:14] One of the reasons for considering the work that the Lord does here and the vision that he speaks to Obadiah is because he addresses a concern that we still have in our world today. [00:07:29] Though this isn't a place that perhaps many of us are unfamiliar with, with names and geographical terms that are confusing, the core issue here applies in every place, in every time. [00:07:47] It's this core concern that we have about things like the phrases that we might use today would be basic human rights, the importance of the law of God, basic human dignity and responsibility to one another, and more. [00:08:09] We'll consider some of the things that Edom did, that Esau did this morning, and why the Lord is so angry with them, and why he is angry with all people who do the things that they did. [00:08:25] We'll also think not only about what it is that Edom did and why the Lord is promising his wrath against Edomdez, but how we can think about hope, how we can have hope on both. For as we discussed earlier in psalm ten, those who are oppressed, and for those who find themselves to be the oppressors. [00:08:49] To understand the book, though, it does help to have a little bit of background, a little bit of understanding of what's going on here. [00:09:00] So let me just note a few things as we start. [00:09:03] The first thing is Obadiah means one who serves Yahweh. We have a servant of the Lord. [00:09:12] Notice this is how it begins, the vision of Obadiah. This is a vision that was given to him. And in verse one we have where it comes from. Thus says the Lord God. In your bibles, you'll see something interesting here. [00:09:28] Many times in the Old Testament, the word Lord begins with a capital l and then has small capitals for ord. Right? And that is meant to indicate that the Lord's name Yahweh, or Jehovah, depending on how we pronounce it, that the Lord's name is being used there. Right. But here you notice that it's not the word Lord that has the small case. It's the word God that has the small case letters, so capital g, o and d. That's because the word God here is where his name is being used, so we could read it this way. Thus says the Lord Yahweh. Concerning Edom, they did this probably so that our bibles didn't say, thus says the Lord Lord. [00:10:23] Just how they decided to do that. But I'm making it clear to you that's what's going on here. So the Lord announces himself as the beginning, as God, as the God of Israel, the covenant keeping protector, steadfast God of Israel. He has something to say. [00:10:43] He also identifies himself as the Lord, as Adonai, as the one who is a ruler. And at the end of the book, we are reminded that everything begins and ends with God. For there his name appears again. The kingdom shall be Yahweh's, shall be the Lord's. There you see that in small caps again. [00:11:06] So everything that we have in between the first and the last verse belongs to the Lord. It is his intentions, it is his understanding. He is speaking, and he's speaking with a lot of clarity. [00:11:22] Now he gives this division to Obadiah. And he gives it, we are told, concerning Edom. So again, we're in the first verse here. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. [00:11:37] Now, Edom is a small. [00:11:41] That's relative, I guess I shouldn't say that. Is a country just southwest of Israel. [00:11:50] If we think about our own geography, if we wanted to be the good guys in this story, so to speak, and we were Jerusalem, Edom would be Sierra Vista. [00:12:02] If we saw ourselves as the bad guys in this story, Jerusalem and we were Edom, Jerusalem would be Cassegrande. But roughly those kind of distances. I say that just so you get a sense of the geography and how close these places are. So close to the. It touches on the southwest border of Israel. [00:12:29] Yes, of the southwest border of Israel. [00:12:32] The other thing to know about Edom that you might have picked up from this. But it'd be hard if you didn't know the background is that Edom is sometimes referred to as Esau. [00:12:43] And that's because in the same way that Israel is sometimes referred to as Jacob. [00:12:50] That's because this story that we have here in Edom or in Obadiah goes back a long way, back into Genesis. These two brothers, Jacob and Esau, both children born under the covenant. But Esau rejects the covenant promises that were given to him. He rejects his birthright through a very complicated story, which we'll have to get into another time. But he rejects it. And from that point on, Jacob and Esau remain brothers, but kind of frenemies and sometimes much, much, much worse. But their closeness, not only in terms of Geography, but their kinship or their relationship as brothers and as sort of Brother countries, continues for a long time. So in deuteronomy, when Israel. When Jacob, when Israel and the people of Jacob are going into the land of Canaan. They're given instructions not to abhor Edom. And the reason is, this is in deuteronomy 27, I believe. The reason is that. The reason that is given is that because he is your brother, there's this Grounding, this Understanding of a Relationship. They're not just people, and that's a big deal in and of itself. People in the image of God, made in the image of God. But there is this long history Together. [00:14:22] And so there are a number of terms here for the land of Edom that helps us to understand this letter. We have Edom. We have Esau in verse nine, Otomon, which is one of the sons of Esau and likely a place in Edom. [00:14:42] And then also Mount Esau is mentioned as well for Jacob. We have Jacob, we have Jerusalem. [00:14:54] We have Mount Zion mentioned. So these are the two countries you want to think of. You can think of them as two brothers because they are, in a way, of peoples coming from these two brothers, Jacob and Esau. But they are also these countries. Israel and Edom. Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Mount Esau in Edom. [00:15:20] Now, toward the end of the book, again, we're kind of doing a little geographical introduction here. Toward the end of the book, there are a number of other places mentioned throughout the land of Israel. And the basic point there is that Israel and the kingdom of the Lord is going to expand, not just to take over Mount Esau, but all of the land kind of moving south, where Edom is up through the north. It's a promise about the expansiveness of God's kingdom and what he's going to do through Israel. [00:15:54] The last thing I will mention in terms of background, and then we'll dig into some of the specifics that we find in Obadiah, is that this is happening between 586 and 553 BC. Remember that these dates before the Lord, before what we call year zero, run kind of backwards to how we think. So, as you start in 586, you get earlier as you get to 553. So kind of try to. Maybe it's this way. 586 to 553, 586 is significant because that's the fall of Jerusalem. That's when this other large empire, Babylon, comes in and destroys Jerusalem. 553 is when edominal will be destroyed also by the Babylonians. [00:16:51] So this letter, this vision is given to Obadiah, is given to the people of Israel and likely to the people of Edom as well. In between this period of time, in between the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Eden. [00:17:07] What does it say? [00:17:10] Well, it addresses a situation that is mentioned in verses ten through 14 in particular, what has happened? [00:17:20] What is the instigating event, the catalyst for this letter? We read it in verses ten through 14. [00:17:28] And if I could summarize it this way, I would say that what has happened is that when the Babylonians came in and destroyed Jerusalem, Edom cheered. [00:17:39] They rejoiced at the fall of their brother. They plundered their brother and other things. Let's read and consider these verses, verses ten through 14. [00:17:50] The first thing we mention is that violence is done. Not just done, but done to your brother Jacob. That's in verse ten. Verse eleven says that on that day you stood aloof, you didn't care, you stood back. A reminder that sometimes we are not only called to not do harm, but we are called to do good. [00:18:14] Standing beside, not doing anything is also a response sometimes and a wrong one. On that day you stood aloof on the day that strangers, the Babylonians, carried off his wealth. [00:18:29] It describes more what they were doing towards the end of that verse. [00:18:34] And it says, you were like one of them. [00:18:37] Verse twelve tells us that they gloated on that day. Gloating has this sense of pride, doesn't it? A sense of I'm better than you, I beat you. Right? We see this in our families, unfortunately, brother to brother, sister to sister, these times when one of the other children, and this is true of adults as well, gets something or doesn't get something, and we feel in ourselves, yeah, I got it. I did better. [00:19:10] That's what they were doing. They were gloating over the day of their misfortune. They were rejoicing over the people of Israel in the day of their ruin. They were kicking them when they were down. We might say they were hurting them when they were on the ropes. Do not boast in the day of distress. [00:19:29] This. [00:19:31] Let me continue. Verse 13. [00:19:34] Not only did they stand aloof, not only did they gloat and boast and rejoice, they also entered the gate of the people in the day of their calamity. [00:19:43] Notice from a literary standpoint what's happening here. It begins as a reason for what has happened, the reason for God's wrath. Because you did these things and sort of transitions into a command, right? It begins because you did this. Because you did this. And then do not, do not, do not. [00:20:06] Kids or adults, if you've ever been yelled at by your parents, you know exactly what this is like. [00:20:13] Why did you this? And this. Do not ever. Do not, do not right. These things all come together as the pronouncement of judgment is coming down. [00:20:24] Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity. Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. And then, perhaps worst of all, verse 14. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives. Do not hand over his survivors in the day of his distress. [00:20:49] Babylon comes in destroying Jerusalem, and it's bad. If you want to read what that's like, you go read the book called lamentations. [00:21:00] Go read lamentations and what that day was like and the destruction and the bloodshed and all that's happening. People are running. People are fleeing, trying to get out, trying to save their lives and the lives of family. And there Edom just draws his sword and says, I'm ready for you, brother. And then cuts down. Not the armies, not the soldiers, the fugitives, people that were running away, the survivors who just barely managed to escape this great violence that had come upon the city, these people who barely escaped. That's who Edom decided to destroy, to cut off and end. [00:21:51] And Edom had nothing to do with this. [00:21:54] Edom is not Babylon. Edom is not Jerusalem. That has its own context, which we'll have to think about another time. But here they come. [00:22:05] And to cut off the escape routes of their brothers. [00:22:12] These are what we call atrocities. [00:22:17] These are what we. When we read about in the news and they knock the wind out of us. Can you believe what happened? These things that are so unjust that they sort of. They boggle our minds. [00:22:35] We make documentaries about them and we say, how did this even happen? How could this be? How could a people, a human people do something like this? And to their brother, these are the things of things, like I said, that we still experience in our world. [00:22:57] We experience them on a personal level. Sometimes when someone does some really, really horrible thing against us, against our families, against our cities, our country, we experience this on a national level sometimes when perhaps we've not experienced it personally, but someone attacks from outside and does an atrocious, horrific thing. [00:23:26] These things still go on today. And one of the solid reminders of Obadiah is that the Lord sees, the Lord knows, and the Lord is just. [00:23:42] One of the other important things about Obadiah is it not only reminds us that there is this natural order which undergirds everything that God has put in place. And God will keep people accountable for. [00:23:55] But he also gives us insight into the mindset of the evildoer. And if we are honest with ourselves, as we hopefully were when we read psalm ten, they give us an insight into our own mindset, our own thinking, our own psychologies, and the things that go on in our hearts, sometimes very quietly, sometimes very subtly, and sometimes very obviously. [00:24:23] Perhaps all of us have a letter, an email, a recording or someone does of something that we would be ashamed of, where we said or pretended that we were so in control, so powerful, that we could just do whatever we wanted, awful things. Let's hear about what goes on in the hearts of those who do such things. [00:24:52] The Lord talks about this in verses three through four. After announcing what is going to happen, judgment is coming. He says, behold, I will make you small among the nations. You shall be utterly despised. Then he gets into the reasons for this. [00:25:09] Why did they act in this way? Why do we act in such horrible, terrible ways? The pride of your heart, verse three. The pride of your heart has deceived you. [00:25:25] You got tricked, you got fooled, not by someone else, but by yourself. You got tricked, you got fooled by the pride of your heart. And then he describes specifically what was happening with them. You who live in the clefts of the rocks, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground, though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. [00:25:57] This likely refers to fortresses, strong places, perhaps in rocks or cliffs, perhaps strong buildings. There is this sense in which we build or not a sense we build. Humans build fortresses, right places to protect ourselves, and rightly so. [00:26:16] But if we take pride in our own strength, if we take pride only in the things that we have, believing that we can do whatever we want because we happen to be strong, because we are secure, we are foolish, the scripture says, we are prideful and deceived and in danger. [00:26:40] James four six says, therefore scrolling the scriptures, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Doesn't matter how thick you build the wall, how many archers or guns or satellites you place around you. [00:26:58] God opposes the proud, and you cannot battle God, you cannot protect yourself from God. You cannot keep yourself secure from him and his wrath. [00:27:19] Verses five and six, as I continue through the book now can talk about the punishment that is coming. [00:27:29] I won't spend a lot of time here. There's some interesting things that the Lord is doing and the ways that he's speaking, but he points them to this plundering that is going to happen. [00:27:40] He talks about thieves, he talks about grape gatherers. [00:27:45] Perhaps pointing to the fact that they themselves, when they did their wicked thing, they cut off their survivors. [00:27:55] I think what might be happening here in verse five is when he says, when the plunderers came by night, would they not steal only enough for themselves? [00:28:04] Even somebody who breaks into your house, they're after the stuff that they want. [00:28:10] The implication is, edom, you just took everything. [00:28:15] You went into the house and you just take this tv and the Xbox and the computer. You went after the cereal and the Kleenex boxes and the old socks on the floor. What is the matter with you, right? How controlled are you by your own pride and your own greed and your own hatred of your brother that you would go this far? Even the grape gatherers leave gleanings. They don't pick every little tiny thing. [00:28:45] And here you go in after Babylon has destroyed everything and loot your brother. [00:28:53] Your brother. [00:28:56] Then in a way that, again, to help you understand how not only Obadiah works, but some of the other prophets, the Lord speaks in this fascinating way in which he anticipates the future by talking in terms of the past, by presenting the future as if it had already happened. I'll give you an example of this, but let's read it first. In verse seven, he says, all your allies have driven you to your border. [00:29:33] Those at peace with you have deceived you. They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding. [00:29:43] The pride of their heart has deceived them to thinking they're secure and they are nothing secure. And he says that these things have happened now. These things have not happened yet. They are coming. It's a threat about what is to come. The way I kind of think about it is imagine a really scary scenario where someone receives a death threat. This is the best example I can think of. I'm sorry, it's nothing quite perfect. But imagine receiving a death threat and it has a picture of you on it. And it says you are dead. [00:30:28] Right? It's written in blood or something, right? You receive this. You wouldn't be like, I'm not dead. That's weird. Throw it in the garbage. [00:30:35] You would be very concerned, right? You wouldn't say, oh, this person is very mistaken, right? I'm not dead. I'm alive, right? No, you would understand what's happening. They're speaking of something. They're speaking as though it has happened as a way to threaten something in the future. [00:30:54] I think something similar is going on here. Now. This is where my example breaks down. [00:31:03] We're imagining a scenario where you just all of a sudden get something in the mail and you didn't do anything wrong. We're talking about a situation where the Lord is speaking and they have done wrong. It's not an injustice that is happening here or a random thing that's happening here. He is Obadiah. You could think of him like a legal prosecutor, like an attorney making the case. But also, we have in here the judge saying the sentence, that's what's happening here. [00:31:30] And it's put in the past tense because of the certainty that this is going to happen. [00:31:39] We know this not only from the history of it, but from the way Obadiah speaks in verse eight. Future will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau, these things in which you have thought yourself secure. It's coming to an end, is what he's saying. Your mighty men shall be dismayed, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter. [00:32:10] So here we have up to this point. Now we have the explanation for what's happened. We've understood the insight of their heart. What has gone wrong. Their pride has deceived them. What is coming. The Lord's judgment and wrath on them. [00:32:34] Now, let's skip to. We've covered ten through 14. Let's go to verse 15 now. [00:32:40] After prosecuting the specific crimes in 1014, verse 15 then says, for the day of the Lord is near upon the nations. [00:32:53] As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your own head. [00:33:01] All right, so it's at this moment that if you've been sort of sitting back, relaxing, hearing an interesting story about someone else's crimes, your ears should perk up, because what he says, he says, edom, this judgment is coming for the day of the Lord, which is a reference to the Lord's judgment day is near upon all the nations. [00:33:28] So all of a sudden, in this moment, we get swept into this story. We become a part of this because we belong to all nations. [00:33:39] The day of the Lord is upon all nations. And what is the principle on which we will be judged? A very fair one. [00:33:50] As you have done, it shall be done to you. [00:33:55] Very, very fair. [00:33:58] Very, very terrifying. [00:34:02] Because we know what we have done. [00:34:05] We know the things that we have done individually, corporately, at every level. Family, church, nation, city, your deeds. [00:34:18] Your deeds shall return on your own head. [00:34:22] Perfect justice. Right. Perfect justice. [00:34:29] And that's terrifying. We can recognize the goodness of the Lord in that. We can recognize the fairness of the Lord in that. [00:34:38] But we also see, as I said, the terror in that because we have sinned. [00:34:46] Obadiah then comes not just to Edom. It is concerning Edom, but it is a letter to Israel. [00:34:53] It is a letter to us. [00:34:55] It is a letter to all people to know that the Lord is just, the Lord is fair. [00:35:04] And we must take this to heart. [00:35:08] He comes back and he focuses on verse 16 in verse 16 on Edom. [00:35:14] And he says, as you have drunk on my holy mountains, so all the nations shall drink continually. [00:35:21] Now, drinking sometimes has positive imagery, cheerfulness, camaraderie, gathering around the table, these kinds of things. Sometimes it has negative connotations, staggering in drunkenness in particular, staggering, abuse, violence, these kinds of things. [00:35:43] It's the negative one that is intended here. [00:35:47] And sometimes in the Bible, the image of drinking is connected not only with the violence and the evil that is done, but also with the wrath of God that is coming. [00:36:00] The wrath of God. The picture is the wrath of God. When God brings his fair judgment on people, it puts us in a state similar to drunkenness. Staggering, confused, bewildered, over and under ourselves, right? This sort of a sense of being lost, disoriented, in danger. All of these things, these images are coming together here in verse 16, as you have drunk on my holy mountain. This kind of. This sort of evil rejoicing, this way of acting in, this unholy way of desecrating the Lord's holy ones, the Lord's holy places, this image of exuberance and joy over terrible things turns then at the end of 16, into this image of judgment. [00:37:05] As you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually. You're maybe not entirely sure where this is going, but then he says, they shall drink and swallow. [00:37:18] And then, if you're not clear yet as to what he has in mind, he says, and shall be as though they had never been. [00:37:27] If you weren't sure where this image was going, it lands there. And it's clear now. [00:37:33] Some scholars will talk about the Lord's judgment as a kind of decreation. [00:37:40] Similar with Noah. When the Lord's judgment came and swept across the world, when the Lord's judgment came upon evil people for doing these kinds of things, there was a kind of decreation that happened, a return of the animals, a return of wildness and vines and things in which civilization falls apart here. These great cities, these great strongholds, these mighty nations. These people should be as though, as they had never been. [00:38:12] This happens around the world. You can look and look on a map and they'll say, such and such great city was here. Ten thousands of people and gardens and castles and this and that. And you're looking there and you're standing there like I just see a bunch of shrubs. [00:38:28] How could this be, you know? And then they dig and they find things. But there is a way in which the wild can take over again. [00:38:37] And the Lord can do this. Just as he brings something out of nothing, he can bring a something to nothing again. [00:38:49] He can take something great and make it small. He can take something high and make it low. He can take something alive and make it dead. [00:38:57] They shall be as though they shall never be. They shall drink, and they shall swallow the Lord's judgment. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Drink it all. [00:39:12] This reminds us perhaps of our Lord in the garden of Gethsemane, wondering out loud if the cup of wrath could pass from him. [00:39:26] It reminds us of James and John saying, we want to be at your right hand and your left hand in your kingdom. Don't tell the other disciples. [00:39:35] Jesus says, can you drink the cup that I drink? Oh, yeah, we can drink it. [00:39:40] You will drink it, he says to them, this wrath that comes in the case of Jesus, not for his sins, though for our sins. [00:39:54] In the case of Jesus, he had to drink the cup of God's wrath. Not because he was as evil as edom or evil as Jerusalem. There's a reason that Babylon came or as evil as me or you. [00:40:07] But because he wasn't wicked, because he was righteous. [00:40:13] Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath not because he needed to be punished for his sins. [00:40:21] But because God was taking our sins upon himself. [00:40:28] Brothers and sisters, this is our hope. [00:40:31] We are not escaping judgment. We are not escaping justice. The Lord is fair. The Lord sees. The Lord is powerful. There is no escape. There is nothing that we can protect ourselves. And if you think that you can escape, the pride of your heart has deceived you. It has deceived you big time. And you will fall, perhaps in this life. And most certainly on the day of the Lord when the Lord Jesus returns. [00:41:08] There is hope, though, that is offered for you. And there is hope that is offered for Edom. Amazingly, after just saying, they will be slaughtered. There is hope that is offered for Jerusalem. There is hope that is offered for all the nations. And we have it here in 17 to the end and well, finish with this. [00:41:27] In Mount Zion, there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy. And the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. In other words, God will protect them and he will keep them. And this is a remarkable thing to say, because remember, Jerusalem has just been destroyed. The temple has been ruined. [00:41:45] So something is going to happen. [00:41:49] He even describes Jacob and Joseph, the Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Israel, as being the means of judgment themselves. These people, so you see it in verse 18, where he says, they shall be a fire and a flame. [00:42:07] This is a picture of end time judgment, in some ways, a picture of hell. And it's saying that the Lord will use the people who were just a moment ago being cut off and slaughtered as they were trying to flee the city. God will somehow be able to rise up, strengthen his people, make them holy, so that they themselves will become part of his judgment, not as those under his wrath, but those who are serving with him as executors of his judgment. [00:42:41] The house of Jacob shall be afire, the house of Joseph aflame in the house of Esau. Stubble. They shall burn them and consume them. There shall be no survivor in the house of Esau. For the Lord is spoken. [00:42:53] So the first thing that is mentioned, the first hope, is that the Lord will keep his promises to his people. [00:43:00] And, beloved, he does that in Christ Jesus is the true Israel. He is that long awaited son of Abraham, that promised prince of David, son of David, who would reign on God's throne forever and ever. [00:43:17] And the most amazing thing is that not only has this, this messiah come, not only has Christ come, this anointed king and son of God, but he has taken this kingdom and universalized it far beyond Israel. [00:43:37] God speaks of the expansiveness of his kingdom when he says in verses 19 through following that those of the Negeb, these people in the southern land shall possess Mount Esau. And the Shephalah, also in the south, shall possess the land of the Philistines in the east. And then moving north, they shall possess the lands of Ephraim and Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead, the exiles of this host of the people of Israel. The exiles, somehow he doesn't say how, yet shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, that's in the north. And the exiles of Jerusalem, who are in the shepherd, shall possess the cities of the negeb, that's in the south. [00:44:22] Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's now, what is happening here is the Lord is speaking, and he's saying that despite the complete destruction of Jerusalem, despite the tearing down of this country, the Lord is going to bring his kingdom to rule again, and he's going to rule from Mount Zion. [00:44:49] Now, the thing that's so important to note here is the Lord is not speaking about a physical place at this point. [00:44:57] He speaks about this physical place, but it's representative of something bigger, just as the temple itself was representative of something bigger all along. [00:45:08] The pattern for the temple was based on the pattern of the temple in heaven. [00:45:13] And the Bible says that when we come to worship the Lord, we come to worship in a heavenly Jerusalem, an ultimate Jerusalem, an ultimate mount Zion that can never be moved, that can never be shaken, that can never come under attack. [00:45:30] It's a kind of end times final eschatological kingdom that is as strong as anything you can imagine. [00:45:39] You can and should call it heaven, a place where Christ rules not just over these places that are mentioned here, but over the entire world, the new heavens and the new earth, where every creature, every human being, every spiritual power is fully subjugated to him. This universal dominion and rule is what's spoken about here in the end. And it is our hope. [00:46:11] It's our hope to belong to this place, to belong to this kingdom, because we belong to Jesus, the ruler of this kingdom. [00:46:22] Psalm 22 28 says, the workmanship belong or sorry, the kingship belongs to the Lord. He rules over the nations. [00:46:32] Psalm 47 seven nine says, for God is king of all the earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. The princes of his peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to the Lord. He is highly exalted. [00:46:52] One of the questions you can ask yourself is, how can I belong to that kingdom? [00:46:58] How can I be a part of Israel? And the Bible tells us, Jesus, the son of God, tells us, trust in me. He's the son of God. He's the king. He's the promised Messiah. We do what he says. And what does he say? How does he say the kingdom is received? [00:47:18] Trust in me. [00:47:20] Trust me. Follow me. [00:47:23] Isaiah 52 seven, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him. Who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. [00:47:40] Our God reigns. [00:47:43] When Jesus ascended into the heavenly places, he made his rule known. When he sits down at the right hand of God, he makes his rule known. And what this means for us is that we must be humble before the Lord. [00:48:00] We cannot be like Edom. We cannot be proud and lofty in our hearts and say, I'm okay. I can do whatever I want to do, I can do when I. When I want to do it. God doesn't see. God doesn't know because he does see, and he does know. And Jesus is coming again to judge the heavens and the earth, to judge all things, to set all things right. And for those of us who are oppressed, those of us who are unfairly persecuted to the church of Christ that is under attack in all kinds of places all over the world, christians can stand firm. Christians can stand strong knowing that they belong to the Lord. [00:48:44] God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble. We need not be afraid if we belong to him. [00:48:53] And for those of us who, like the people of Israel on that day when Peter spoke, said, we've crucified the Lord, the son of God. What shall we do? [00:49:05] Or to put it from the perspective of Edom, I've just attacked the holy city of God, and I'm now God's wrath is coming upon me. What do I do? [00:49:15] The answer is, belong to the house of Jacob. Belong to the people of Israel. And we do that through faith in the son of Israel, the son of Abraham, the son of David, the son of God. [00:49:32] When we put our faith in him, he takes that cup of wrath, he drinks it for us so that we can say, I've already been judged. [00:49:44] I'm not afraid of the coming judgment because it's already happened for me on the cross in Christ. [00:49:53] In him, my sins are forgiven. In him, everything's been covered. In him. I belong to the children of Abraham through faith, and I will receive an inheritance that is forever. I will not come under the wrath of God because wrath has already passed. The Bible says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [00:50:21] It's because of who he is. It's because of what he has done. So when you hear the book of Obadiah, you can be afraid, very afraid, if you want to continue in your pride. [00:50:34] Or you can have hope that you belong to the Lord. That because he has humbled you and given you a heart that can trust him instead of trusting in yourself, you can relax. [00:50:49] You can have security. [00:50:51] You can know that no matter how bad things get in this life, no matter how evil the nations are, no matter how bad that the things are and the atrocities and things that happen, the Lord will set things right. There is coming a day when he will come. Thus saith the Lord. [00:51:11] And that's all there is to it. [00:51:13] Let's pray. [00:51:15] Our heavenly Father, deliver us from the deception of our own pride. [00:51:20] Look into our hearts, Lord, and expose all the places where we say there is no God. [00:51:27] Expose the places in us where we say, I shall not be moved. I shall not meet adversity, Lord, expose the places in our heart where we seek to do harm against our brothers, those who have been made in the image of the Lord, those who deserve dignity, freedom and life. [00:51:54] Lord, let us never say in our hearts that you have forgotten, that you've hidden your face and that we will never see your judgment. [00:52:03] Instead, Lord, let us look upon you through Christ and see that indeed you are judging, that you have begun the judgment already on the cross and that you will bring it to completion as surely as the resurrection has begun, so too the day of the Lord. [00:52:22] As the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead, Lord, so we too shall rise in him, victorious, mighty, reigning on Mount Zion forever and ever. [00:52:33] And, Lord, to the injustice that is in the world, to those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, who do these great atrocities, commit these great atrocities, we ask that you would break their arms, that you would keep them from the evil that they would do, that you would protect those who are weak and struggling and unable to defend themselves. Be their defender. [00:53:02] Be the strength of their hearts. Do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. [00:53:14] Lord, we ask that you would bring these provisional moments in our lives, that you might sustain the world until all of your sheep have been brought in. We ask that you would do as you have promised and not lose a single one whom you have redeemed. [00:53:32] That your salvation would be complete and victorious in every way. So that on that great day when every tribe and tongue and nation from all over the world raises their voices in the praise of God with the angels in heaven, that your glory would be made known in the multitudes who have been saved. [00:53:53] Lord, through Jesus Christ, let your holiness be known. Let your glory be known. [00:53:59] Save us. Through him we pray. Amen.