In the book of Obadiah, a very
short book, another prophet, but it's the same message, the
exact same message. You've read the prophets, and
some of you have even commented it's hard to see anything good
in them, any gospel. I watch you all come in here
and you're smiling and you greet each other warmly and smile and
it's obvious you love one another and happy to see one another
and things are going pretty well. Although I've watched Red and
Dan doing this, aches and pains and so forth. But the prophets all They all
preach the message of woe. You know, if everybody in this
room knew the Lord, I wouldn't preach any woe. The message is the same throughout
all the prophets. Woe to an unbelieving world. But salvation, rejoicing for
God's people. God's people. Now, the real story here is hidden
from the world. The real story here, like all
the prophets, the real story is hidden from the world and
from religion. The real story, as our Lord said,
the prophets wrote of me. They are they which testify of
Christ. My pastor used to always say
this, the Old Testament says, someone is coming. Someone is
coming. And the Gospels say he's here. He came. The epistles and the
revelations say He's coming again. That's good news for God's people,
those who know Him, those who look for Him, those who call
on Him. It's good news. But woe, woe unto those who don't. Christ came, and as I said, it's
hidden from the world, and religion in particular. The Jews were
looking for an earthly kingdom, and they still are. They're still
looking for a Christ to come and set up the Jewish kingdom
on earth. Lots of so-called Christians
are looking for the same thing, aren't they? Some kind of earthly
kingdom. But our Lord said, My kingdom
is not of this world. He said the kingdom of God doesn't
come with observation. These stories aren't so much
about the Jews, the nation of Jews, but the true Jews, God's
true people. It's not one outward, but one
inward. The true message that's hidden
is not of the kingdom of Israel, it's the kingdom of God, the
kingdom of His dear Son. It's how Christ came to to set
up this kingdom and the gospel comes and brings all his people
into the kingdom. Edom, look at verse 1. The vision
of Obadiah, his name means servant of the Lord. And thus saith the
Lord God concerning Edom. We've heard a rumor from the
Lord. Rumor means a report. It means something that's heard
and something that's told. It can be the true or it can
be false, right? This is a true rumor, it's from
the Lord. An ambassador was sent among
the heathen. Arise, arise, let us rise up
against her in battle. Behold, I have made thee small
among the heathen, thou art greatly despised. He's talking about
Edom, which is Esau. Esau is Edom, okay? Look at verse 6, how the things
of Esau are searched out, are exposed. These hidden things
are sought out, they're revealed. Verse 8, shall I not in that
day, saith the Lord, destroy the wise out of Edom and the
understanding out of the mount of Esau? So Esau or Edom is Esau. Esau is Edom. The word Edom means
red. Atom comes from that. Red earth. And that's just mankind is of
the earth earthy. All right? You know the story
of Jacob and Esau. All right? That same The story
continues all the way through the Scriptures. Like Cain and
Abel. Cain and Abel in the very beginning. Two religions. Right? Grace and works. Two men. One God's chosen. The other one
reprobate. Right? They still have it. Jacob
and Esau. Jacob and Esau. The last prophet. Go over to Malachi. You know these verses, but you
need to know exactly where they are so that you can give a reason
or give an answer to those that ask you. Malachi 1. Malachi 1. It's fitting that the very last
prophet, he says this. The very last prophet. Jacob
have I loved, and Esau have I hated. Isn't that fitting that the very
last prophet, now that was said back in Genesis, that the very
last prophet, he says in verse 1, the burden, this is the burden
of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you,
said the Lord. This is to Israel. See, Jacob's
name changed to Israel, Prince of God. Why? How? What happened
to Jacob? God chose him. God loved him. God set his love on him. There's
nothing lovely about Jacob. He's no better than Esau, right? In some respects, he seemed worse
to him. I said this before, if you had known both of them, you
probably would have liked Esau better. I know you Franklin Countians
would. He was a hunter and just a rugged
man. Jacob was a mama's boy, sat at
home and so forth. He cheated his brother, you know,
cheated his father, and so on and so forth. But God chose Jacob. Look at verse 2. I have loved
you, saith the Lord. Yet you say, Wherein hast thou
loved us? He said, Was not Esau Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau. That's a fact. And people try
to make, religion tries to make that a national thing. Well,
what if it was? That means he loves one nation,
hates the other? The religion is so confused, aren't they? God said about this, look, and
they say it means hate, it means love less. Oh really? Look at verse 3. He said, here
it is. I laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons
of the wilderness. Is that love less? That's hate. The main word means despise. Why? Well, Esau one day came
in from hunting. And he was real hungry. And Jacob
was fixing some pinto beans. And Jacob the conniving felon
he was, said, sell me your birthright. Now that's the head of the home.
That's the spiritual leader of the home. That's the things pertaining
to God. It's kind of like saying, give
up your profession of faith in God. Give up all of your religion. Give it all up for this bowl
of beans. I'll give you a bowl of beans
for all that pertains to God. He said, here, take it. I don't
care. What's that to me? Give me something to eat. God
was his belly. Doesn't that describe everybody
by nature? Everybody? But God. He chose, so he hated
Esau. Esau hated God. Didn't care about
God. Didn't. He chose a bowl of beans
over the things of God. That's just a fact. Isn't that
everybody by nature? That was me. But God. He said, I love Jacob. I've chosen
Jacob. Jacob is mine. And Jacob was
a sinner, but later on the Lord came and wrestled with Jacob.
The Lord came, it was Mac's favorite story. The Lord came and got
Jacob down on the ground and said, now what's your name? Jacob. And wrestled with him, revealed
himself to him. I'm going to bless you. This
is what I've come to do. I've come to reveal myself to
you. I've come to bless you in spite of you. And this is what
all I'm going to do for you, because I've set my love on you.
And the Lord right then and there changed old Jacob, and Jacob
was wrestling back with him. Jacob laid hold on the one who
laid hold of him, and he said, I won't let you go until you
bless me. And from that day forward, Jacob
was a seeker of the Lord, a follower of the Lord, a lover of the Lord,
a believer in the Lord. Why? Because God loved Jacob
and chose him and came to him. Now that's salvation, isn't it?
I love all the sons of Jacob, all those loved by God and chosen
by God, love that. They love that. They know if
He hadn't chosen me, I wouldn't have chosen Him. If He didn't
love me, I wouldn't love Him. If He didn't lay hold of me,
I wouldn't lay hold of Him. If He doesn't keep me, I wouldn't
be kept. If He didn't make a covenant concerning me, I'm gone. That's
everybody. Now the world hates that. Esau, go back to our tape. Edom
represents the world, the unbelieving world. Romans 1. Romans 1 is
all about the unbelieving Gentile world. They think this is ridiculous,
a holy and righteous God who punished his sin. They don't
even think there's a creator. They don't even think there's
a person whose sovereign God is a person. The Gentile world
doesn't believe that. They believe evolution. If there
is a God, he or she is just like us, and is not in control of
anything or anyone, and you're just hoping it all turns out
okay. And it's up to us. See, we're little gods, and it's
all up to us. That's what the Gentiles believe.
Chapter 2, the Jews thought, well, we're God's people. Why?
We keep the law. Yeah, we keep the law, don't
we now? And when Christ came to reveal the law, which requires
perfection, they hated Him, exposed their sin, that their religion
was all tradition, duty, superstition. We drove by that Catholic building
today. The parking lot's full of people.
What are they doing? They're going through the rituals,
they're going through the motions, they're going through the traditions.
And buildings everywhere, all over the land, are full of people.
What are they going to hear? What are they seeing? What are
they doing? Is it Christ? Are they worshiping God in the
Spirit? Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ? And there's no
flesh in their worship? Those are rare people that have
those three. That's the true concision. That's
the true Jew. We're going to over-die, aren't
we? It's the same message throughout. It's the same message. One message. God has a chosen
people. And the rest he leaves to themselves. Esau hated Jacob. He said, I'm
going to kill him. Didn't he? Look down at verse
10. God said concerning Edom or Esau,
the violence against your brother Jacob is going to cover thee. What you're determined to do
against your brother Jacob is going to come back on you. And God's people have been hated
and maligned and persecuted all through some beginning of time
since Cain and Abel. Our Lord said it in the Garden.
He said that the seed of woman is going to be a conflict with
the seed of Satan as long as the earth exists. That's where it started. The
whole battle started. But this whole prophecy, like
all the others, is, woe to an unbelieving world, but oh, rejoice,
the Deliverer, the Redeemer is coming for His people. The Lord's
going to come and save His chosen people out of this wicked world
that God's going to destroy. That's the first message this
morning. The second message this morning. And we always say that, you know,
the gospel is not gospel. It's not good news unless you've
heard the bad news. The gospel's only gospel if you're a sinner.
Mercy. The love of God doesn't mean
anything to anybody if you think you're lovely. You know? And people all over think God
loves them. They think He ought to. I'm a
pretty good person. But when the Lord wrestles you
down to the ground like old Jacob, and you find out what you are,
and you loathe yourself, and you realize He's come for you,
He's set His love on you, He's set His affection on you, He's
purposed to save you, you say, me? And that's what makes the gospel
good news, doesn't it? Mercy for the guilty. Romans
9, go over to Romans 9. Obviously, we're not going to
go through every person, I hope we die, but I'm giving you the general
message. As I said, it's the same everywhere.
Romans 9, here it is, it's the same message. Romans 9, the story
of Jacob and Esau. Romans 9, this is what God's
people love. This is what God uses to save
His people. Tell me. Did you not find out
who God was and what you were and what salvation is and who
Christ is and who he did it for when you read, when you heard
Ephesians 1, Romans 9? Romans 9, look at verse 8. This is the children of the flesh
are not the children of God. Children of the prophets. Right? People born, not the sons of
God. They're not the children of God.
No, no, no. The sons of Adam. The sons of God are born again. You must be, our Lord said, born
again. Except you gotta be born in the
flesh and then you gotta be born in the spirit. And that which
is flesh is flesh. Those are not the people of God.
And we're not natural born sons of God, we're supernatural born
sons of God. All right, verse 9. Now this
is the word of promise, and it goes from Abraham down. At this time I'll come, Sarah
shall have a son. Not only this, but Sarah had,
you know, Isaac. Sarah had Isaac. Well, but Abraham
had a son named Ishmael, from Hagar the bondwoman. And many
of you know what that means. It's the law. And God said, kick
her and that son out, Ishmael. That's the whole Arabic world.
They claim Ishmael as their father in the faith. They claim Abraham
and they make no apology for being the sons of Ishmael. God
says, kick him out. He said, he said, Isaac is my
son. Isaac's my son. Not him, Isaac. Well, the Arabs hate that. And
the Jews say it. And the Arabs hate the Jews.
Right? Well, we say that to some people,
vessels of wrath, and to some, vessels of mercy, according to
the purpose of God. The world hates that. We love
it. Read on. And Rebekah came, had
two sons, twins, by our father Isaac. Children, verse 11, being
not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand, is not of work, neither having done good or evil, but
it's of him that calleth. God said to her, the elder shall
serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. What's after that? A period. That's not right. Whether you
think it is or not, it's so. That's Bible. If you don't believe
that, throw your Bible away. Is there unrighteousness with
God? He said, God forbid. Verse 15, He said to Moses, I
will have mercy. You see, neither Jacob nor Esau
deserved mercy. Mercy, by definition, means not
getting what you deserve. The wages of sin is death. The
mercy, the grace, the gift of God is salvation. Mercy is always
sovereign. You can't say to someone you've
offended, so I've decided to let you have mercy on me. Oh,
well, hold on now. It's not up to you. And if that
person does show mercy, they're merciful like me. They don't
have to. Right? Don't have to. I will have mercy. Now, that's
a marvel. That's a wonder. That is God's
great glory. He doesn't show mercy on anybody.
He says, on whom I will. It's up to Him and His will.
It's His mercy. It's His will. It's His choice. Man insists on his will. Man insists on his choice. He
insists on his right to do what he will and choose what he will.
He just absolutely insists on it. And he gets mad if you insist
that God's will. God has his will. What is that
but rebellion against God? Nothing less. It's rebellion
against God. It's hating God to be God. It's
wanting to be God. And that's what Satan did. And
that's what Adam and Eve did. The message is the same. Read
on. He said to Moses, verse 15, I
have mercy on whom I will, I have compassion on whom I will. It's
not of him that willeth. How plain is it? Or him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Verse 18. So he has mercy
on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. Now
go back to Obadiah. This is the message. Edom hated
Jacob. And the violence against and
the hatred of God's people has been from the beginning since
Cain and Abel. And it's the same way here. And I was going to go through.
Look, here's a reason why God hated Edom and His wrath came
down on Him. Verse 3, pride. The pride of
thine heart. Verse 4, you exalt yourself,
but I'm going to bring you down. And that's all mankind. I was
going to have you turn to Isaiah 1 and 2 and 3 that talked about
pride. The lofty looks of man shall
be brought down. There's never been a more proud
generation than now. The Lord said that in the last
days men shall be, first thing, lovers of self. Proud. Blasphemers. God's name. They
don't have any fear whatsoever of God. They just call His name
the name of Jesus Christ. Only name whereby we can be saved,
must be saved. And men use it as a cuss word. Now you tell me what God's going
to do with this world. That's his beloved son that this world
did not deserve for God to send him here, but he did in great
mercy and great love to some people, and people to use that
blessed name in any way they want to. Now you tell me what
you'd do if they did that to your child. God ought to hate people. He
ought to hate me. Such were some of you. But God. Verse 8, you've read these verses
in Romans. He said, Shall I not destroy
the wise men out of Edom, the understanding? Where is the wise?
Where is the prudent? That's 1 Corinthians 1. You want
to destroy it all. God's made foolish the wisdom
of this world. Romans 1, professing themselves to be wise. They're
an absolute fool. Why? No God. No God. And it goes on to say,
hate God. And it goes on to talk about
the affliction, the persecution of Jacob, of God's people. You know how, we need to read
what has happened to our dear brothers and sisters down through
the years for just believing God and worshiping God. My, my.
Well, we live in safety and ease. Why? Because of them. Because
they laid down their lives. Hebrews 11. Read it again. Verse
15. Here we go. Now the day of the
Lord is near, Obediah said. The day of the Lord is near.
This was written several hundred years before Christ came. But
he said it's near. See, because a day is a thousand
years and a thousand years is a day. Inside the Lord is nothing. Okay? And we spend our days,
our years, as a tale that's told, like a weaver's shuttle. A weaver's
shuttle. How fast is that, John? Like
asleep. You go to sleep, seventeen, you
wake up at sixty-seven. It's that fast. It really is
that fast. Our Lord, He said a short work is going to make
on the earth. These are in the last day. 2,000 years ago when
our Lord walked on this earth, it began the last days. A day
is a thousand years, a thousand years a day. It's prophetic.
It also shows us the brevity of time, how quickly. When you're
really young, you think, man, I've got, if I'm 16, I've got
54 years. And you wake up and it's over. It really hasn't quit. Every
adult in here should nod their head. So what's important? Oh, that they were wise, we consider
the latter in. Teach us to number our days.
We might apply our hearts to what? Not what, who. See, Christ is made unto us wisdom.
God is, he's the wisdom of God and the power of God. He's shown us that some of us,
we were young and carefree and whole life ahead of us, but God
arrested us like old Jacob. The day of the Lord came for
us. We were a heathen. You remember Dan Parks? His son,
Dee, was a baby and in that foreign country had to
register them as citizens and all that. And you had to tell
what your religion was on the application. And they said, what's
your son's religion? He said, he's only six months
old. He doesn't have any religion. We say, he's got to have religion,
we've got to put something down here. And he said, all right,
put heathen. He's heathen. Meaning, doesn't
know God. Doesn't believe God. Doesn't
even know where he is God. Doesn't care. Not calling on
God. He's just a heathen. No God. And that's all of us,
by nature. Our children, heathen. On the day of the Lord, when
Christ came, he came to save some of these heathen. I don't know. We may look at
Armageddon. If we meet on Wednesday, we may
look at that. I told you I was going to from
the Book of Joel. I believe all that happened on
Calvary. Calvary. That's where the great
battle was fought. by one person. And all the forces of evil gathered.
And the whole world gathered against the Lord and His Christ. And I'm telling you, I know who
won. That the battle is over. The warfare is accomplished.
And our captain won. And what we're hoping is that
He's going to win our sons and our daughters the way He did
us, our heathen. Verse 17 says, "...on Mount Zion
shall be delivered." Mount Zion, Mount Zion, Mount Zion. What's
that? That's the church. We are Mount Zion. Here we are. Rocky Mount? Yeah, Mount Zion.
Zion means pillar. The way, Mark, church is the
pillar and ground of the truth. How do you know you're one of
God's church? Because we preach the truth. We preach Christ. Yeah, we do, don't we? Do we? That's the church. If you're not preaching Christ
over and over and over again, holding up Christ, the gospel,
every time, always, you're not the church. I don't care what
you're doing. I don't care what you say. Mount Zion, that's where deliverance
is. That's where the deliverer is. Holiness, that's where holiness,
that's where God's people are. Dedicated, consecrated, separated,
sanctified unto Him by Christ. The house of Jacob. I thought
he was Israel. Yeah, he is. He's both. He's a sinner and he's a prince.
shall possess their possessions, meaning the meek shall inherit
the earth. Does that sound familiar? The
house of Jacob, verse 18, shall be a fire. The house of Joseph,
a flame. Joseph. It goes on down to talk
about Benjamin. Would you like to hear the story
of Joseph again? I would. Benjamin, the son with
a silver cup in his sack. But the man on the throne said,
you're not going to see my face until that boy comes with a silver
cup? Boy, that's Christ, isn't it?
Oh, how he's revealed these things unto us. Revealed Christ to us,
isn't it? But the church, God's people, sons of Jacob, though
they be, they're like a fire, not a flame. What's that mean? Yeah, it got written down here
somewhere. God's elect dwell in Him who's a consuming fire. How can you dwell in the flame
and not be consumed? That's what Moses went to find
out. That bush, it burns, but it's
not consumed. The Lord was in there. That's
Christ crucified. You know that. How few people
know that the burning bush is Jesus Christ crucified? You know
how few people know that? We see it plainly, we see it
clearly. How can people dwell with God
who's a consuming fire? How can people dwell with God
who dwells in light which no man can approach unto? God became man. God became man. God who is light. Jesus Christ
is his name. We dwell in him, yet we're not
consumed. God's people go through the fire.
They go through fiery trials, don't they? They go through the
flame, but the flame, our Lord said, shall not kindle on you,
like Hananiah, Azariah, and Machiel. It shall not. You won't even
have the smell of smoke on you when this is all over. There
is no wrath. There is no condemnation. There's
no judgment. There's no hell. There's no... No evil shall befall God's people. No matter what He puts them through,
He's going to bring them through it. They'll not be concerned.
Why? Why? How did they get in that fiery
furnace that destroyed the man that threw them in it? The fiery
furnace, the burning fiery furnace. Destroyed the very man that threw
them into it, the fire. And yet they were not even singed.
How? Someone was in there with them. God's people are like a fire
and a flame. And God's people have the Word of God burning
in them. Burning in their hearts. It's
just the only thing that will consume all the fear and unbelief
and the lusts in us. And it's the thing that we use,
we go out with. Like something that's burning
within us, we've got to tell it. Okay? And he saw me stubble
and kindle. Now the Word's going to devour
the people, going to judge people that don't believe it. That's
what our Lord said in John. He said, One that judges you,
the Word. And verse 19, and so on, it goes
that they're going to possess, God's people are going to possess
the fields of Ephraim and Samaria. Benjamin is going to possess
Gilead. God's going to... I just read...
Oh, you want some good news? Read Isaiah 65 over and over
again. It just talks about rejoicing
that which I created. I create a new heaven, a new
earth, and the former will not come to mind. Be glad, be rejoiced. I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
joy of my people, voice of weeping no more heard, no more weeping,
no more crying, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more sin, no
more death, no more dying. No more separations. No more.
No more. Joy unspeakable. That's Isaiah
69. A new heaven, a new earth. Boy,
I look forward to that, don't you? If you enjoy what you're
doing right now, you just wait. Wait, I say. Verse 21, a Savior. He's going to send Saviors. They'll
come to Mount Zion and judge the mouth of Esau. The kingdom
shall be the Lord's, he said. Saviors. Saviors? I thought there
was one Savior. There is. There is. But when
our Savior ascended up on high and led captivity captive, he
gave gifts unto men. Some prophets, some apostles,
some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers that have the
gospel is able to save. Men that have the gospel of God's
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how God saves people.
That's how He brings them into His kingdom. Because the kingdom
is His. That's what it's all about. This
whole world still exists because God's bringing his people into
the kingdom. And when the last elect chosen one is brought into
the kingdom, it's all over. Look, I can smile when I say
that. Okay.