Third part, the first lesson
was entitled, Were It Not for Grace? And really I should entitle
everyone, because this is what the book is about. Obadiah, he
was a servant. I don't know if this is the same
Obadiah that met Elijah. Remember when the Lord shut up
heaven and it didn't rain for three and a half years in the
days of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel? And it was that same
time period when Elijah called the prophets of Baal to a meeting
before all Israel, and he told Israel, if the Lord be God. then serve him. But if Baal,
then serve him." And then, remember, he had them stack up stones,
and he had them dig a trench about the altar, he laid wood
on the altar, he laid the offering on the altar, and he poured water,
or had them pour twelve, I think, twelve barrels of water on all
that. And then he prayed a simple prayer.
And the Lord rained fire down from heaven and accepted the
sacrifice and turned the hearts of Israel back to himself again.
And then he left running from Jezebel, if you recall, in history. And so Jezebel was a worshiper,
a chief worshiper of Baal with her husband Ahab. This was a
wicked time. And Elijah was, he seemed to
be the only faithful man. In fact, in his prayer he said,
they have, they have torn down thine altars and I alone am left."
And then that's when the Lord said, no, I've reserved for myself
7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
And so the Lord sent Elijah back to tell Ahab that he was going
to cause it to rain. And on his way back, because
Ahab had sent out a, had commissioned everybody in the country to tell
them wherever they might know Elijah was so he could hunt him
down and kill him. And so then Elijah appears suddenly
and Obadiah finds him, his prophet Obadiah. And Obadiah had hid
these people that were faithful to the Lord in a cave and he
fed them with water and food. So Obadiah was a faithful man.
When he met Elijah he said, basically I'm going to paraphrase, he said,
I'm in trouble because Ahab said, if anyone finds you, he's supposed
to tell. And here I am, now I know where
you're at. And Elijah said, now you go to
Ahab and tell him, tell him such and such. So I don't know if
that's the same Obadiah as it is here, but Obadiah means servant
of the Lord. And that's what this is. This
prophecy is a vision of Christ's servant. All scripture is God's
word. It's not the word of men. It
didn't originate from men. God gave it to men for our salvation,
for the comfort of his people. And this book is no different.
But the first 16 verses seem like nothing but doom and gloom.
And they're spoken concerning the nation of Edom. Now, Edom
is just a name for the nation of the children of Esau. just
like Israel is just a name for the children or the descendants
of Jacob. And so the book is really about
these two people, Esau and Jacob's children. and these two men. And so we could look at it from
that perspective, and we would see here that the entire book
of Obadiah is about the contrast between those who are the descendants
physically and spiritually to Esau, and those who are the descendants
physically and spiritually to Jacob. The latter are called
the elect of God. The spiritual descendants of
Jacob or the spiritual children of Abraham are those who believe
the same that Abraham believed. They are the elect of God and
they were called by God like Abraham was called to go out
when he didn't know where he was going, called, given faith
in Christ and Abraham lived his life depending on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so did Isaac, and so did
Jacob, and so does every child of God. They lived their lives
looking to Christ, coming to God by Him alone. But Esau, as
I tried to summarize a couple sessions ago, he lived his life
for himself in the world. In fact, when he had an opportunity
to exchange his birthright, because he was the firstborn, he didn't
seem reluctant. He traded off what was the eternal
inheritance promised to those who looked to Christ, he traded
it for a bowl, a single meal, a bowl of stew. And that's shocking
that someone would be so callous to think so little of God's promises
in Christ that he would consider them worth nothing more than
a single meal. And yet, Edom, or Esau, describes
us as we are naturally. We're just like him. And so we
see in verse three, as we went over last week, it says, the
pride of thine heart has deceived thee. And so pride is the root,
it seems like, of all of our sin. It's this attitude that
we can live independent of God, this attitude that what we are,
what we do, God has to respect. Remember Cain this last Sunday? God did not have respect to Cain
and to his offering. And his countenance fell and
he was angry. And so that's the natural man. Why are you angry? You're angry
at God for bringing upon you what you deserve? You have no
right. no place, no standing, and you
are... So anyway, I'm not going to get
into all the verses right now, but basically this is describing
us by nature in Esau, but it's also describing us in God's eyes
in Christ as Jacob. So we see here our contrast,
and this is why I called the first lesson, Were It Not for
Grace? Because if it were not for grace,
if it were not for God's eternal purpose in Christ, then we too
would be expecting everything God pronounces here on Edom and
Esau. So, Jim Bird commented on Obadiah
as follows, he said this, in short, this book is the word
of God concerning the seed of Jacob versus the seed of Esau. God loved the one and hated the
other. He chose the one and did not
choose the other. Even so, the Lord has a people
chosen unto salvation in Christ before the foundation of the
world, and there is also another group, the rest of people, who
are left in their sinful unbelief to reap the just wages of their
rebellion against God. And there we are, were it not
for grace. Thus the echo of Romans 9 verse
13 says, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated. Now, that text of scripture, if you
look at it in Romans, chapter 9. I'm going to read the larger
context in verse 13 of Romans chapter 9. It says, As it is
written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And immediately
the Apostle Paul raises this question as an objection. He
says, What shall we say then? If Jacob have I loved and Esau
have I hated, and this is God's pronouncement before either child
was born and having done any good or evil, what shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? That's a reasonable objection. At least it seems reasonable
to us, to our natural thinking, doesn't it? But men have tried
to soften it. They've said, well, it means
that God loved everybody, but he loved Esau less. But that can't be true. The same
word is used in scripture when God told, when Jesus told the
disciples, he said, if you don't hate father and mother, then
you are not worthy to be my disciple. And he used a strong word, hate,
in order to indicate the contrast between following Christ above
and in preference to all others. And so if that's not what that
verse meant, then the word hate doesn't mean hate here, but it
certainly means hate. And people have used that verse
and said, well, he didn't really mean to go out and hate your
mom and dad. But no, he used that strong language in order
to emphasize that there is such a contrast between what your
parents want you to do in this world They want you to live and
support them and all these things. Those are good things, but when
it comes to Christ, there's one who is our Redeemer, one who
is our Lord and our Master, and we're gonna follow Him even when
our parents oppose us following Him. So we have to, in their
eyes, it seems like we hate them. And so God used that word here.
In fact, if the objection raised by the apostle as a question
here, if it weren't raised, then we might assume that. But here,
because he raises this very objection, what shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? We would never have a question
of unrighteousness with God if he just said, well, he loved
Jacob, and he didn't love Esau as much as Jacob. We would say,
like parents, well, sometimes I understand that. I love one
of my children, and some of them I really love, but I kind of
love this one a little bit more. But that's not the point. The
point here is that God actually loved with a supreme love, immeasurable
love, eternal love, unfailing love, a saving love, even. A
love that means the highest love in the highest possible sense,
where he gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Love,
the apostle Paul describes as immeasurable in height and depth
and breadth and length. And so that's the kind of love
God has for his people. Anything less than that would
be unworthy of the love of God. The resume of God's love is he
gave his son. That's what God commendeth his
love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Romans 5, verse 8. So love here
means a redeeming love, a regenerating, an adopting love, an eternal
love. And that's why he says, nothing
can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. And so, also, because the objection
was raised here, hate also means to hate in the most holy and
just sense. Esau proved that he deserved
God's hatred, even though when God said this, he was not yet
born. And so what does this mean? Well, it means that God did not
choose to love Jacob because of what he found in Jacob. But he chose to love him out
of God's nature, out of his will and purpose, because anything
else would be an influenced love. And if it's influencing God,
then God is not sovereign and his love might change if we can
influence God's love. But it's not influenceable because
it springs only from his heart without any regard for who we
are. for what we've done. Someone, a lady was said to have
heard Spurgeon talking about God's eternal love for his people,
that he loved them before and chose them before they were born.
And she said, it's a good thing he did. Because after I was born,
I certainly wouldn't be. But that's the point. God, he
sees all things, the present and the past and the future,
as if they're right in front of him. But God is holy, we know
he's holy, he's the only one who is holy, and all he does
is right. If he gave us what we deserved,
if he did not love us according to his own heart, none of us
could be saved. If he didn't love us with a holy
and a righteous love, where else are we gonna find a holy and
a righteous love? But he grounded it in the blood of his son, and
that's love. But he's gracious, and he loves
uninfluenced by all that is outside of him, and that is befitting
of him who is the sovereign Lord God." Right? And so we see that
to be the case. If God also did not choose to
hate sovereignly, then we might not know what it is, what holy
hatred is, would we? We understand something about
hatred because we hate, but God's hatred is holy hatred. How can
you describe it? You can describe it this way.
It's holy. It's God. God did it. It's right. So trust the Lord. And when we
read this, recognize here that God's hatred against Esau is
described in what Esau deserves. So it's not like he was seeking
the Lord. He wanted salvation. No, he sold
it for nothing. Be like if your dad gave you
a brand new Cadillac or some really expensive gift, and you
went down and traded it for a bag of marbles to your friend at
school. That's the way. You despised your father's gift. So Esau had no regard for God,
no regard for Christ, no regard for salvation by his blood, no
regard for the love of God, for his eternal choice. And so, not
only that, but even after he learned that God had chosen Jacob,
he didn't come with a repenting heart saying, okay, Jacob, what
do I need to do to be saved? He didn't think that way, like
the Philippian jailer. He hated Jacob. He went on hating
him. And that's what this is about
here. The natural heart of man, left to himself, will damn itself. And that's it. All right, so
the first two verses here, I'll read those. The vision of Obadiah,
thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a rumor from
the Lord, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen Here's
the rumor. Here's what the ambassador is
saying to the heathen. Arise ye, and let us rise up
against her in battle. So the heathen are being stirred
up. What are they being stirred up to do? To go against Edom. To fight. And who are these? Well, they're the heathen. Who's
stirring them up? The Lord, a rumor from the Lord,
an ambassador is sent among the heathen. Do the heathen realize
that this is the Lord's ambassador? That this is a rumor that God
has put into their minds and their motives? No. They're acting
out of their own will. They're doing what they think
is what they want to do. They're just thinking, oh, look, let's
go against Edom in battle. And verse two says, behold, The
Lord says, I have made thee, Edom, small among the heathen. Thou art greatly despised. The
heathen think, oh look, look at those puny people over there.
They're weak. They got a lot of stuff. Let's go beat them
up and take their stuff. What's God doing here? He's bringing
the enemies, or at least they will become the enemies of Edom,
against them. Verse three, he talks to Edom
now. The pride of thine heart hath
deceived thee. Thou that dwellest in the clefts
of the rock, whose habitation is high, that sayeth in his heart,
who shall bring me down to the ground? So in these first two
verses, what do we see? We see that the Lord hates and
brings against those he hates a destruction. The Lord in his
providence is using the heathen, unbeknownst to them, to bring
a destruction on those he hates, which is Edom and Esau. And in
the next verse, verse three, we see that the natural man,
the natural heart of man, the pride of thine heart has deceived
thee. Consistent with Jeremiah 17.9,
the heart of man is deceitful above all things. Deceitful because
of pride. These six things the Lord hates,
pride. right at the top of the list, and pride deceives us.
That's what Satan appealed to Eve. Has God said that this is
not good for food? God knows that in the day you
eat of this, you'll be wise to know between good and evil. And
so she took it and ate it. Pride, again. And so every temptation
is a temptation of pride, isn't it? What is covetousness but
some thought that I am entitled to something I don't have and
should have it? Covetousness may be a possession.
It may be a covetousness for power and admiration of others.
And when we don't get it and somebody else does, we envy them
and hate them. Pride, it's the root of all of
my problems. This pride that put the Pharisee
in this attitude of, God, I thank Thee I'm not like other men are. Pride causes us to think highly
of ourselves and low of others because we base our estimation
of others on our own estimation of ourselves. And pride deceives
us. We think we're great. And so pride has this attitude
of self-righteousness. And this is the problem. This
is the seed of every problem in the heart of man. Look at
Romans chapter 10. I want to show you this verse
here. It's near the conclusion of the entire book of Romans.
Starts out, you know, cataloging men's sins in chapter one. But
here, notice how, in contrast to the elect of God, notice what
God says here after going through Romans 9 and talking about the
God will have mercy on whom he will. He will harden whom he
will. He has vessels of mercy. for
his glory, and he has vessels of wrath also for his glory,
but in a different way. And so he says in the end of
Romans chapter 9 verse 30, what shall we say then? This is what
we say, that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness,
by their own disobedience and disregard for God, they've attained
to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith. But Israel, which followed
after the law of righteousness, meaning their own personal obedience
in order to be accepted before God, They have not attained to
the law of righteousness. Wherefore? They failed. They
fell short of the glory of God. Why? Because they sought it not
by faith. In other words, they tried to
come with their own. They didn't look like able to
Christ and Him crucified, as every believer does. They didn't
bring the only offering God provided and accepted, which is faith
in Christ. But as it were, it says here, they sought it by
the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone,
which we know is Christ. Verse 33, As it is written, Behold,
I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever
believes on him shall not be ashamed. Verse 1 of chapter 10,
Brethren, The Apostle Paul writes, My heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them
record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. They don't understand the law,
they don't understand the gospel, they don't understand God and
His holiness. For they, verse 3, being ignorant
of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God." What would you submit yourself to, your own or God's?
Clearly it needs to be God's. Verse 4, for Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Aren't
you thankful for that verse? When you read the Old Testament,
what is your reaction, especially in the law? You think, I gotta
get busy. I'm falling so far short, but
I gotta bring myself up to that level, that standard. It's a
high standard. I admire it. It looks good. I
gotta bring myself to it. I can't be pleasing to God if
I don't. But that's the point of the law, is to beat you down
and actually kill you. make you guilty and condemned
under the wrath of God in order that you might see, my only hope
is if God saves me and he has to provide for me what he requires. And he did that in Christ. But
pride is the opposite. Pride is what the The nation
of Israel did because they were not those in that nation who
remained in their unbelief, who were never converted. They were
in the deception, the darkness of their own pride. Remember
what Jesus told the blind man, the Pharisees in John chapter
9? He says, if you were blind, you
would have no sin. But now you say, he told the
Pharisees, we see, therefore your sin remains. You see, when
God saves us, he breaks our heart, he breaks our spirit so that
we're contrite and we say, I am corrupt. I have no business doing
anything with God. But he has done something in
order to save me by Christ. That's what I'm trusting. And
so I come to God pleading as the publican, Lord, look upon
your son. He is the propitiation. And he
must be my propitiation or I have no hope. and that persuasion
of having nothing, being corrupt and sinful, even unable to believe,
like the father in Mark chapter 9, 24, Lord, I believe, help
my unbelief. I need, what I need, I can't
provide. What I need, I can't even describe.
But your word tells me that I find it, that you found it in Christ
and provided it to him. That's what I need. That's what
a humble man does, and God has to do that. But pride is the
opposite. Pride is independence. Pride
is self-righteousness. And pride does everything. It
deceives us. It makes us think we deserve
something. We're entitled to something.
God must respect us. And we're offended when we hear
things like, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. No, no, that's
not right, that's not fair. Oh, you're saying that it's fair
if God, I mean it's not fair if God brings justice upon you? Aren't you a sinner? Well yeah,
but I'm not that bad. And God would be, if he's gonna
save anybody, he's gotta save me. That's pride, you see. That's exactly, it reveals what
we think. So the pride of thine heart hath
deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose
habitation is high, that saith in his heart, who shall bring
me down to the ground? The heathen that God stirred
up in the history of the book were going to come and attack
Edom. But he thought that no one could overtake him. He thought
that he was impenetrable. They lived in this mountain called
Mount Seir, and it had high clefts and high rocks, and they were
strong people. And so they trusted in their
own strength. And they trusted in their own wisdom. In verse
nine it says, and thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed.
Teman, the Temanite, was one of those men who counseled Job.
one of Job's three friends. He was a demonite, and he was
wise. But here God says, you're mighty men, they're gonna be,
their understanding is gonna go away. They're not gonna have
any, because God's gonna bring you down. Verse four, Obadiah
1, verse four. Though thou exalt thyself as
the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence
will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. Now, here the Lord
is describing, again, what we are by our natural self. Let's look at these words. After
God declares the destruction, of the Edomites, then the prophet
Obadiah goes on to explain why Christ must utterly destroy them. He speaks first about the condition
of their heart. He calls them proud and deceived
by their heart. And by this he refers to their
innermost beliefs as a natural man. Every natural man adamantly
insists that he is righteous, that he is good enough that God
must respect him. And so the natural man looks
for righteousness, where? In himself. That's the only thing
he can think of. And his heart's pride is itself,
in itself is blind. It blinds him from seeing his
own sin. It blinds him, it prevents him
from seeing that he deserves God's wrath. And so he has no
fear of God. The natural heart of man fools
him. where he says here, thine heart
has deceived thee, into believing that he deserves to receive God's
love, as I've been trying to say from Romans chapter 9. And
so Obadiah speaks about the Edomites elevating themselves here. By
this he describes their belief that they have put themselves
into heaven. Notice how he puts it, whose
habitation is high. They believe that their works
put them in a relationship with God that they could justify themselves
in the court of heaven. And the natural man also lives
believing his works put him above the corruption of this earth,
which is contained in these words, thou that dwellest in the clefts
of the rock. The natural man also compares
the magnitude of his self-righteousness to the height at which eagles
fly, where it says, though thou exalt thyself as the eagle. And
the natural man compares his self-righteousness, his perception
of his own righteousness, to the height of stars above the
earth, when he says, thou that set thy nest among the stars. And what's God's response? This
is the pride of Satan. thence will I bring thee down.
And so the Lord says to this man, actually he says it, notice
what he says here. Where is this? Oh, look at verse three. The
pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the
clefts of the rock whose habitation is high, that sayeth in his heart,
Who shall bring me down? See, out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth speaketh. Naturally, what we think in our
heart is we have this attitude that Esau had here of our own
standing before God that we can do something to please God by
our own works. All right, the next thing we
see here is that the natural man blasphemes God. He blasphemes
God. I want to read this verse to
you from 2 Thessalonians 2. This is a well-known verse, 2
Thessalonians 2. He's talking about the man of
sin. He says, I'll read from verse
one of 2 Thessalonians 2, now we beseech you brethren, the
apostle writes to the Thessalonians, we beseech you brethren by the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together
to him that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither
by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the
day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling
away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition."
Here clearly is a reprobate man. Verse four, who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped,
so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. Well, so the man of sin, what
does he do? He's full of pride. What does he try to do? He tries
to take the place that belongs only to God. He tries to take
the place that God set up from eternity to be occupied by one
man, Christ. He's called Antichrist. He's
called a man who is a substitute Christ. He substitutes himself
in the minds of others as one who would receive only what Christ
deserves to receive. And what is this? Well, this
is the very spirit of false religion. Antichrist religion. That's why
we see this throughout the book of Revelation and elsewhere.
This whole attitude of pride. And when we find what we believe
leaves us with a high opinion of ourselves, we know we have
the wrong gospel. And so it's a painful thing.
It's a painful thing. Blasphemy. The natural man blasphemes
God, as we just read there in 2 Thessalonians 2. What is blasphemy? Well, blasphemy means it's an
act of gross irreverence. toward the one who is worthy
alone, who alone is worthy of esteem. It also is the act of
applying a sacred name to an unholy thing. God is holy. He alone deserves and demands
all glory, but the natural man who has no righteousness wants
to be in his place. That's blasphemy, isn't it? Here
a filthy scumbag is trying to occupy the place of Christ. The
natural man is unholy, and yet he believes in his heart. He
is high, as it says here. He exalts himself like the eagle. He sets his nest among the stars
in his mind. He's elevated in his mind. This
is called conceit. He believes he is holy, holy
enough to reason with God, holy enough to sit in judgment of
God's word and of his judgments. Have you ever noticed how in
the Psalms it talks about God's judgments? And the psalmist always
praises God for his judgments, his righteous judgments. His
judgments are so high. The natural man takes God's holy
character, which is when scripture speaks of his name as his character,
and he takes that name and he applies it to himself. He blasphemes
God by giving even some glory to himself instead of giving
all glory to God. And so man puts himself in the
temple of God and on the throne of God, and he makes himself
to be like God. That's blasphemy. That's what
we do naturally. But God is supreme and he won't
tolerate other gods. He says in Isaiah 48, 11, I will
not give my glory to another. And so anyone who opposes God
shows himself as a natural man to be this way. Let's see. What else can we say here? I
want to go back actually a little bit here because I missed this
part. When the Lord raised up the prophet
Obadiah, what's he doing here? He's talking about the Edomites
being destroyed, about God humbling the Edomites by the heathen coming
against them, humbling them in their own eyes, conquering them.
What's he doing here? Well, notice how the Lord is
showing his church what? He's showing them that throughout
all time, throughout all time, he's going to bring their enemies
to destruction. That's the first thing. He's
showing them that it was his determined purpose to destroy
their adversaries, because the Edomites were the adversaries
of Jacob. In these two verses, the first
two verses, the servant of the Lord, the servant of Christ,
Obadiah, proclaims that the Lord Jesus Christ is sovereign. He
does what He wants, and He controls all things. Notice how He caused
the heathen to carry out His will, and that's a comforting
thing. So even though in these verses
we're seeing God speaking only of destruction of the Edomites,
it's meant to be a very comforting thing to the Lord's people, to
the weak, to the timid, to the trembling. to the fearful, to
the one who has no strength, who, like a blind man, couldn't
see. I'm blind, Lord. When Jesus asked
the blind man, do you believe on the Son of God? He said, who
is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And then Jesus said,
is the one who's now speaking to you." And so he said, Lord,
I believe. And so that's the way the Lord
comes to his people. He reveals himself to them when
they have nothing. And it's a very comforting thing
to see that Christ opposes our enemies. He opposes our enemies. Do you have strength against
your enemies? You don't have any strength against your enemies.
What are the weapons? What are our weapons against
our enemies throughout Scripture? Is it a .45? Is it a .38? Is
it a 9mm? Or is it an atom bomb? What are the weapons that we're
going to use? Sometimes you think, man, the government is so corrupt,
wouldn't we like to be able to overthrow it? Is that our weapon?
Is that what we're supposed to do? Listen to the way the Lord
sees it. He says, finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on
the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil. That's our enemy. We wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Verse 13 of Ephesians
6, Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you
may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to
stand. Stand therefore, having your
loins girt about with truth. Your legs, that's what you stand
up with. Stand with what? How are you going to stand? How
are you going to be protected? The truth. And having on the
breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith
wherewith you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked. Faith. and take the helmet of
salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of
God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the
spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication
for all saints." So our weapons are the truth of the gospel,
the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the
shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
of God, and praying for all saints. This is what we do, isn't it,
as the body of Christ. You don't think of it as a battle,
do you? Because we think of tanks and
machine guns and stuff like that. other things, billy clubs and
stuff, but we fight with the truth. When we preach the gospel,
what are we doing? We're invading the kingdom of
Satan and taking spoils because Christ overcame. In Colossians
2, 14 and 15, He nailed the accusation that was against us to His cross.
And the court of heaven said, justified. Where are my accusers? There's none here, Lord. Why?
Because Christ died. And I hold that forth. And the
devil can't do anything about it. His head has been crushed
by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. He overcame the devil. He's the strong man who overthrew
him. So the enemy, the enemy is all that would oppose our
being with Christ in heart, in mind, in purpose. And the way
that we wage war, like Jesus, when the devil came to him and
tempted him, turn these stones to bread, I know you're hungry.
No, man does not live by bread alone. but by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God. Here, the fiend of hell
stands before him, and all he does is say, this is it, this
is it. Go ahead, take your best shot
here. Take the word. You cannot overthrow what God
has said. Like Jehoshaphat in his army
says, Lord, we have no power against this enemy, and we don't
know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. The Lord said,
you don't need to fight this battle. I got this. So here we are. The Lord's bringing
destruction against her. And that's a comforting thing.
This is Christ telling his people throughout the time of this sojourn
on this earth, your enemies, your sin, the kingdom of Satan,
this world, the accusing and condemning law of God, which
is the law killeth, right? But the spirit gives life. Death
itself, the grave, Christ has overcome all. He sits on the
throne of glory. He's going to what? First Corinthians
15, 57. He's going to give us the victory.
We're more than conquerors through him that loved us. Again, the
Lord tells us about the destruction of Edom, not only to show his
power over the proud heart of natural man, but to show his
power over all things in this world for his elect people. He's going to use even the heathen
in this world to work all things together for our good. But what
about my sickness? What about it? What about death?
I might die from this sickness. So what? What about death? What about your sickness? What
about the world? The world is yours. What about
Satan? He's been overcome. Let me read
it to you. As it is written, no, he says
this, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation
or distress? I'm really distressed. Or persecution. They're going to take my kids
and they're going to throw me to the lions. Or famine. I don't
have anything to eat. Or nakedness. Or peril dangers. Or the sword. The government's
going to kill me. as it is written, no, for thy
sake we are killed all the day long. For thy sake we are killed
all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. Christ is
our captain, for I am persuaded at neither death nor life, and
I'm so glad he put that one in there, because life is the one
that seems to be my hardest issue. It's one thing, like Spurgeon
said, it's one thing to face the fire you're gonna get thrown
into and burnt up instantly. It's another thing to get slow
roasted over it. It's one thing to say, I can
take a bullet. It's another thing to get sawn
with a wooden saw, nice and slow. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, it doesn't
matter how high they are, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
because all that's a creature is everything outside of God,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. The book of Obadiah is about
Christ's victory over our enemies and his victory over the natural
man because he chose us in Christ and gave us to him. Redeeming
love. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for your mercy to us that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we
are more than conquerors to him that loved us. And he has obtained
the victory. He sits in glory and all things
are subject to him. And he's going to give us the
victory in our experience. Now we have it by faith. Now
we expect it by hope, and we shall have it. Lord, we pray
that you give us this patience of hope by your Spirit so that
we might wait for the hope of righteousness, that expectation
of receiving through ourselves what you determined to give from
eternity and purchased by the righteousness of our Savior.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.