I was thinking I was going to
have to be prone to wander, but I did find some water down there,
so. I have to say that I probably
feel the least prepared I ever have for any message and thought
about what I was going to say the most over the last week since
Eric asked me to come speak. But pray that the Lord would
bless us, and he has to anyway. It's not going to be about how
eloquent anyone who comes up here and speaks speaks. It's
going to be, is it the truth of God? Does it feed the people
of God? Does it encourage the people
of God? I was thinking last time I was
here and taught from Psalm 2, I had done a lot of background
reading related to that and the idea of the king on Zion's holy
hill. That thought came to me and just
started thinking about kind of the promises that God had made
to his people, the contrasts that are set in the word of God,
how things don't always seem fair to at least the estimation
of the world. And yet we know that it's not
a wonder that so few are saved or that only some are saved,
it's a wonder that any are saved at all because by nature and
by action we all deserve the wrath of God. And yet God in
his marvelous grace and mercy for some reason in his eternal
counsels chooses some and passes by others, and those who are
passed by are passed by justly, their condemnation is just, and
those of us who are saved by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
his atoning death, and his resurrection of life, the gift of the Holy
Spirit given to us, those of us who are saved in that way,
we also fulfill God's justice, not by our works, but by his
once for all completed work. Now, I had James read from Hebrews,
and there actually was just one part of that that I was mainly
looking at, but as I looked at that passage, there was a bit
more in there, and we'll look at that. And we're gonna look
at Obadiah, and if you haven't thought about Obadiah the prophet,
I'll tell you what we know, it's a nice short list, and what we
don't know about it. First of all, it is the shortest
book of the Old Testament. And it's a vision that was given
to the prophet to comfort his people about Edom, and a bit
more about Edom here in a moment. It's very similar and there's
some overlap here in what's found in Jeremiah and Amos and Joel
and some of the other prophets. But what we don't know is in
spite of the fact that there are a dozen or more people named
Obadiah in the Old Testament, there's no way of knowing for
sure which Obadiah it was who wrote this book. We also aren't
100% sure of the date, but if you're familiar with the history
of Israel, it's definitely after that some of the tribes had been
taken into captivity and Jerusalem had fallen because of, and we
know that because of some of the themes that are there. So
why study this book? Well, I believe, first of all,
broadly, all scripture is profitable. One of the hardest things for
me is knowing there's so few churches out there that really
have a desire to teach the word of God. I'm not even talking
about a particular type of theology or a particular belief about
certain doctrinal matters that I would agree with. I'm just
talking about just straight up Their goal is not to tell funny
stories or anything like that, their goal is just to teach from
this book. But more specifically than that,
and I think the thing that sets this church apart and other like-minded
churches apart, is we see that the necessity for everything
to point to Christ, and it's not something we come up with
on our own, it's something that Jesus himself said, He said that
they searched the scriptures to see if they could find life
and these are the scriptures that speak about him. He said
that all the Psalms and the prophets spoke of him. So we know that
this book As short as it is, as disturbing as it is, and if
you weren't disturbed, read it again. I'll make some references
here to some of the passages. If you weren't disturbed, I would
say you weren't paying attention. There's some disturbing thoughts
in there. But Christ is in Obadiah. We have to find Christ there,
and we need to understand the book properly and in its context
to the best of our ability, but most importantly, we need to
see Christ. So you might ask, and it's fair
to ask, is who was Edom? Well, the book itself, Obadiah,
he talks a bit here, if you look at verse six, he makes reference
earlier in verse one to Edom, and then he says Esau interchangeably
with that, and same with verse eight, we have Edom and Esau
used interchangeably, and there's a few other references, I believe
verse 10 and so on. And if we were to go back to
Genesis, and we're going to look a little bit here at Genesis
to get some background. If you look back at Genesis,
it's stated pretty clearly that in Genesis 36, and I'm forcing
myself to do this the manual way. In Genesis 36.1, if I get
there. All right. We read in Genesis 36.1, this
is the account of Esau that is Edom. So he's talking about the
descendants of Esau when he talks about Edom. And we know from
the prophecy that was read, it was speaking about the destruction
of Edom. But why is this important? Well,
who Who was Edom? Who was Esau? Well, Esau was the twin brother,
not identical, but fraternal twin of Jacob. And if you're
in Genesis, if you turn back in Genesis 25, Verse 24, it says, when the time
came for her, and this is Rebecca, married to Isaac, when the time
came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red,
and his whole body was like a hairy garment, so they named him Esau. And then verse 26, after this,
his brother came out with his hand grasping Esau's heel, so
he was named Jacob. So in the history of the people
of God, we know going all the way back to Genesis 3, and I
did this the last time, we talked a little bit about this, we have
the promise in Genesis 3 of the seed of the woman who would bring
salvation through his line. And further on in Genesis chapter
12, we read about Abraham, or Abram as he's known, and Abraham
was taken out of Ur of the Chaldees, out of paganism. Joshua makes
reference to the fact that they worshiped other gods. God calls
him and leads him out of that country and makes a promise to
him. And if you remember the story, Abraham had two sons also. And his first son was born of
a maidservant, and his first son was Ishmael. But it wasn't
the son, the first son, the son born of the flesh, but it was
the second son, Isaac, who was called by God. Same is true here
with Jacob and Esau. Back in chapter 25, When Rebecca was pregnant with
the twins, they fought in her womb. She asked and inquired
of God, why is this? This is 25, 22. And the Lord
says to her in verse 23, two nations are in your womb and
two peoples from within you will be separated. One people will
be stronger than the other. and the older will serve the
younger. So there was a definite word
from God, a prophecy from God about Jacob to receive the lineage,
the blessing, the inheritance, the preeminence over his brother. And as you read through the story,
at best, it's neutral. A lot of people, and myself included,
for a long time, I never understood, you know, why God did you pick
Jacob? And Joe liked to pick on us. In our naivete as young Christians,
we named our son Jacob. I still think it's a good name. A biblical name, not all biblical
names are good, but I think it's a good name. But it means heel
catcher. And if you look at some of the
dealings that Jacob of Scripture did, he wasn't a very honest
guy. And if you read the account kind
of at face value, he doesn't come off too well. He comes off,
maybe it's a little bit too strong, as a mama's boy. And Esau is,
you know, I was listening to somebody, he's like the guy in
the Brawny commercial, if you remember that, where he wears
flannel, he goes hunting, he drives a four-wheel drive truck,
right? He's the guy who, by looking
at him, I would look at Esau and I would say, there's a person
I would follow, there's a person my flesh is drawn to, there's
a person I would see as a leader, And you look at Jacob, and it
said that he stayed back with the women. Verse 27 of 25, Esau was a skillful
hunter, man of the open country, Jacob was a quiet man, stayed
among the tents. Now, as often happens in these cases,
and tragic as it can be, Isaac, the father, loved Esau, but the
mother loved Jacob. And there's this transaction,
this occurrence that happens here in chapter 25. Once Jacob was cooking some stew,
Esau came in from the open country famish. Verse 30, he said to
Jacob, quick, let me have some of that red stew. Verse 31, Jacob
replied, first sell me your birthright. And Esau says, I'm about to die,
what good is this birthright to me? But Jacob says, swear
to me first. So he swore an oath to him, selling
his birthright to Jacob. So, In this transaction, I would
have thought, and there's no clear indication that this is
a case, that his mother and probably his father knew about the promise
that was given him, and yet he wanted He wanted the birthright enough
that he wanted to make sure that he was doubly sure. He wanted
to have a legal contract, an oath that bound his brother to
do what God had already promised him. Jacob doesn't come off looking
very well here. He doesn't come off as someone
who you would trust. Then if you look ahead in chapter
27, as Isaac gets older, he realizes he's no longer going to be able
to lead the family and he wants to pass on to his sons a blessing, but he decides that
he is going to bless the older son, in spite of what
God had said to his wife. And his wife, Rebecca, instead
of listening or trusting the promise, concocts a scheme with
her son to trick Isaac, whose eyes were weak, that he couldn't
see, that he would trick him in order to obtain the blessing. Well, the story goes on, and
I'm not gonna read all of it. Some of you are very familiar
with this. Isaac suspects some trouble. He suspects that it could be
Jacob, but he gives the blessing anyway. And Jacob leaves his
presence, and then Esau shows up. And Esau shows up, and he
says, hey, I'm here with the food that you asked for. Where's
my blessing? And Isaac said, he who came before
you, I blessed him and indeed, verse 33, he will be blessed. In verse 34 of chapter 27, when
Esau heard his father's words, he burst out with a loud and
bitter cry and said to his father, bless me, me too, my father. But he, Isaac, said, your brother
came deceitfully and took your blessing. And Esau said, isn't
he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two
times. He took my birthright and now
he's taken my blessing. And how interesting it is that
the father says there's no blessing to give And he says, essentially,
you're going to have to fight your way out of it. You're a
man of the world. Your dwelling is going to be
away from the earth's richness. You'll live by the sword. You'll
serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you
will throw his yoke from off your neck. So going all the way
back, way back before the time Obadiah wrote, we have this prophecy
and this essentially message to Esau that Jacob was the one
who was blessed and that he would have to fight. Well, as we move forward in time,
and you think about the time of the people of Israel, we recently,
fairly recently, about a year ago, finished Joshua. And after Joshua, you have the
time of Judges. And if you look in the book of
Judges, you read that every man did that which was right in his
own eyes, and God had to discipline his people and then later on
they wanted a king and Saul became their king and then after that
David and then Solomon but after the time of Solomon the kingdom
was split because once again the people went into idolatry
and God raised up Babylon and others to afflict his people
to discipline them, not to punish them, and I think it's so important
here as we look at this, he disciplines those who he loves, that was
in the reading from Hebrews, he disciplines his people and
in one of the And one of the attacks against
the nation and the attacks against Israel in particular, I'm gonna
turn over to Ezekiel 35 verse 15. What it says here of the
Edomites that they rejoiced when the inheritance of the house
of Israel became desolate. O Mount Seir, you and all of
Edom. So while Esau never was able
to kill Jacob, he had a hatred for him. And I pass that over
in chapter 28, Esau 28, 41 held a grudge against Jacob and he
says, The days of mourning for my father
are near, then I will kill my brother Jacob. It was more of
a lack of opportunity than it was a lack of desire to kill. And later on, as God is judging
the nation for their sins, you read, as I just did in Ezekiel,
that they rejoiced when they saw the fall, the Edomites, the
descendants of Esau rejoiced when they saw the fall of the
house of Jacob, the house of Israel. And in Psalm 137, verse
7, the psalmist says, remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell. Tear it down, they cried, tear
it down to its foundations. So there was a rejoicing, there
was an encouragement. In Joel 3.19 it says, Egypt will
be desolate, Edom a desert waste because of violence done to the
people of Judah in whose land they shed innocent blood. So
we see this progression here that goes on and then in Amos,
Chapter one, verse 11, this is what the Lord says. For three
sins of Edom, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath
because he pursued his brother with a sword, stifling all compassion
because his anger raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked. And if you look at Obadiah's
prophecy, and you look at Obadiah's judgment against, it agrees with
that. You see, beginning with verse
10, Because of the violence against
your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame. On the
day you stood aloof, verse 11, while strangers carried off his
wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem. You were like one of them. You
should not look down on your brother and so on. You should not seize their wealth.
You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives.
Kind of like we've seen from time to time in rioting that's
gone on in this country and in other places, you know, people
aren't necessarily the first ones there to be participants
in these riots and these disturbances, but then as they see opportunity,
in a, I would say, a cowardly fashion, they participate in
the destruction and even are as bold in some cases to cut
down those who are stragglers, who are trying to get away. Essentially, they're cowards
that are there. So how different a picture that
is of what we see Maybe at first glance, looking at Esau, we might
see somebody who is attractive, who is strong, who looks like
a leader. And yet we know from scripture
that both by God's word, but also by his own choice, Esau
It says in Genesis, and I believe in Hebrews, despised his birthright. He didn't care about the things
of God. He cared about the physical elements
that were there. And as I believe it was Martin
Luther pointed out, what's very interesting about the story in
Genesis is Isaac eventually ends up blessing
Jacob, and then he sends him away, and Esau continues to enjoy
the physical elements of the blessing, even though it's no
longer his. And Jacob is the one who's sent
away, as somebody says, to get Gentiled by Laban, to get cheated. The cheater got cheated in his
working seven years for his wife. And what does it say? Behold,
there was Leah, not what he was expecting. But in the scheme
of things, this grudge continued and grew. And that's the nature
of mankind. Left to our own devices, left
to our own sinful nature, we would be no different than Esau. And those of us who are saved
by sovereign grace, we're no better than Jacob. We might be
able to point to some noble acts that we've done from time to
time, but if we're honest with ourselves, if we look at our
own heart, we've done things that we rather nobody ever knew. We've cut some corners on some
transactions. Maybe we've ignored some things
where we thought we should help and we didn't. We have sins of,
as they say, omission and sins of commission. And yet, for some
reason, God chose to save a people. And the promise of Obadiah is
not only that God will deal with and judge according to the law
of retribution, verse 15 of Obadiah, as you have done, it'll be done
to you. There isn't much hope in that. Where the hope is, is
in verse 17 and in verse 21. on Mount Zion on God's holy hill
where his king is it will be holy and the house of Jacob will
possess its inheritance. And there of course those who
look at a passage like this and they said well you know people
who are of the reformed persuasion, people who aren't dispensational,
they'll say there's no future for ethnic Israel. And I'll say
to the extent, if there's any extent that this hasn't been
fulfilled yet in history, God will honor his word. But we don't want to be like
Esau. We don't want to be like those
who want someone like Esau over them and only look at the physical. Because the whole point of there
being a seed, the whole point of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
and Judah and David is to bring us a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. and the promise, the hope that
we have, the desire we have is for not a piece of land. I'll be quite honest with you,
every picture I've ever seen of the holy land, there's no
land there that I'm really that excited about getting, right?
But even if it were my personal ideal of a piece of property,
that is not ultimately what I want to do. I don't want to gain the
whole world and lose my soul. I don't want my inheritance,
my deliverance, my justification to be, well, in the end, he got
his and the other guy didn't get theirs. No, what I want is
I want deliverance by the Holy One. I want the inheritance of
eternal life. I want there to be, and our translation
says, delivers here, but literally in verse 21, its saviors will
go up on Mount Zion, or judges, to judge the mountains of Esau,
and the kingdom will be the Lord's. I want that culmination of spiritual
blessing, not physical inheritance. Yes, I too do not like to suffer. I do not like it when I physically
don't feel well. I do not like uncertainty about
my finances. I do not like any of those situations
where I'm taken away from comfort. But we do not want to be like
Esau. Hebrews says, for a single meal,
he sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. And even though
he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring
about no change of mind. Probably this is speaking of
his father, Isaac, but ultimately is speaking God, though he sought
it with tears. There is a way. that you can
feel sorry for your situation, you can feel sorry for yourself,
and what you're really sorry about is not you don't have Christ,
you don't have salvation in him. What you're sorry for is that
your situation is not what you expected. You had hoped at this
point in your life that some great thing would happen. You would hope that you would
be able to get past all the difficulties. I remember our, and this isn't
trying to lift myself up, but actually to show you my own folly
in these things. I remember when our children
were small, things were tight. Paula had to kind of rein me
in. I won't bring up all the scenarios, but let's just say
she wasn't excited when I went to see her working at the drive-thru
at Burger King because I was spending money. And we didn't
have any money to spend, but I wanted to see her. That's my
spiritual reason, right, or a justification for it. The fact that I was getting
onion rings or whatever was just a blessing on top of it. But the thing is, we looked at
those times and we kept looking for, boy, won't it be great when
our kids are older, maybe when they're out of home, we'll finally
be able to get out of this situation of things being tight financially. Well, as you know, Or maybe I'm the only one, but
I think as you get older, you realize you just have bigger
things to worry about. Instead of worrying about, do
you need that dollar? Do I need that $100? Or even
apart from inflation, do I need this or do I need that? There's
always going to be a physical thing that's going on. And in
some cases, and Hebrews talks about this as well, Sometimes
hardship is discipline for us. And we need to hear this rightly. For those who are lost and apart
from Christ, who've never trusted in him, they're being punished
for their sins. And certainly if we do things
that are ill-advised, we can reap the consequences of those
things. But God doesn't allow us, or let me rephrase that, we should
never look at anything that God brings into our life, either
through our own stupid sinful actions or due to the deceit
and treachery of others, God brings, allows those hardships
as discipline. He's treating us as his children,
as sons. And the writer of Hebrews says,
verse 8, if you're not disciplined, then you're illegitimate and
not true sons. But the reason for this, the
reason for this disciplining is different in the case of believers. He does it out of love, just
the same reason a father would take a child and pull it away
from a hot stove and scold the child for trying to touch the
stove, keep him away. The child might see it as, no,
I need that. Why are you keeping me from that?
But God is disciplining us in the same way. We think we need
something. We think we have the answer.
And what he wants for us is he wants us to see that we have
come to Mount Zion We've come to the heavenly Jerusalem. We've come to deliverance in
Christ. We've come to a kingdom that
God provides. God is the one who has to deliver
us from this. In fact, the so-called Lord's
Prayer, that is what it's about. The disciples ask, Lord, teach
us to pray, and he says, pray after this manner. Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. And how interesting it
is, we think about worldly kingdoms, And I'm thankful to the extent
that government follows after the rule of law and follows after
godly principles. But as Obadiah writes here, the
kingdom will be the Lord's. Our prayer should not be whichever political party or
whatever political issue comes to pass, our prayer should be
that the Lord Jesus would be magnified and that his kingdom
would come and that his will would be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And it is being done for those
of us who belong to him. He's bringing it about. We don't
see it. We don't discern it the way that we should. We don't
see the deliverance that's happening in these things. And yet, God
methodically throughout history brought about everything that
was needed to secure our salvation. And it isn't through anything
that we are or that we do or that we earn or that we merit,
but it's all through the finished and completed work of Christ. Don't lose heart when bad things
happen. Don't lose heart when, using
the analogy here, someone from your own family does you wrong. It happens. It wasn't just a
biblical one-time occurrence that a brother or sister or parent
or child fought with one another or even did despicable things
and yet we know that the promise here is that afterwards God will
deliver us. We may not see it in this world. We may leave this world wondering
right up until the very end why certain things happen, but the
promise The whole reason that Christ came was to redeem and
deliver a people. There will be deliverance. And even though the wrong is
oft so strong, take courage that God is the ruler yet. James.