Immanuel Sermon Audio
Obadiah (31:66)
our last Wednesday night over the summer and we will pick up in September right after Labor Day I believe with the book of Jonah so we'll pick up right where we left off tonight we're gonna look at Obadiah. We'll start off tonight talking about Obadiah what do we know about this guy or really I guess I should say what do we think we might know about this guy because some of it is kind of debated so Obadiah his name literally means servant of Yahweh and so whoever his parents were named him with the hopes or the expectations that he would grow up in that he would serve the Lord so his name means servant of Yahweh this is the shortest book in the Old Testament anybody read it this week shouldn't have taken you very long to read it Obadiah would you say up there I could joke up there no read it work you read it at work nice very nice shortest book in the Old Testament his name means servant of Yahweh Jewish tradition says that Obadiah was an Edomite who converted to Judaism and was a descendant of Eliphaz friend of Job Jewish tradition so you can go back and read in Job Job had some buddies who showed up and were not very helpful in giving him advice one of them was Eliphaz and tradition says that Obadiah was a descendant of this guy an Edomite keep that in mind on your on your notes you just circle Jewish tradition is that he was an Edomite who converted to Judaism that's not in the Bible you understand that that's just Jewish tradition orthodox tradition and by orthodox I mean sort of the Eastern equivalent of the Roman Catholic church right Orthodox churches they believed that he was the official who found Elijah during the drought you remember Elijah was sent to declare that there was going to be a drought that it wasn't going to rain and it didn't rain for a long long time and so he was the guide that was sent by the king to find Elijah and also tradition says he was the third soldier sent to Elijah by a Hiziah so you can look up you can look up those stories in first Kings 18 and second Kings one if you remember the the first story Elijah shows up and he tells the king it's not going to rain you guys are wicked God is punishing you and then he takes off and they're looking for Elijah and they can't find him nobody knows where he's at and these different people get sent and there's a man named Obadiah we don't know if it's the same one some people think it was this guy named Obadiah gets sent to find him and he finds him and Elijah says to Obadiah why don't you go back and tell the king I'm here and he says I can't do that and Elijah is sort of like well that's what you're here to do to find me you found me go tell him you found me and he says no no you don't understand we've been looking for you and every time we think we found you you disappear and everybody who comes back to the king and says we found him then we lose you gets in trouble so if I go back and say I found Elijah you're going to disappear and I'm going to get my head chopped off and Elijah says I promise I won't do that to you and so some people think that this was the guy there's another story in second Kings one where a Hiziah is sending messengers to Elijah and they're going with soldiers and every time somebody goes and gets close to him they die they get blown up by God and finally Obadiah gets sent and we don't even know if these are the same two Obadiahs but it's two guys with this name Obadiah and it's pretty close together and so tradition says that this guy shows up and before he gets blown up he says please please please don't blow me up so you're gonna read that story for yourself that is tradition that it was this guy the problem with that tradition although it's nice stories about Elijah is that if this was our Obadiah he would have had to live a long long long long long long long time to be the guy who wrote this book so again take that with a grain of salt I think I looked this up this week and I didn't I should have wrote it down I think there's 12 people named Obadiah in the Bible and so maybe he's one of those guys maybe he's not maybe he's just his own Obadiah and when you study something like this that's just one example of the danger of relying too heavily on a concordance if you know what a concordance is it lists all the words in the Bible sometimes people study the Bible by looking up all of the occurrences of a word in the Bible and assume that they're all talking about the same person or they're all talking about the same thing so when I was a summer missionary one summer this pastor was gonna show me how to preach sermons and he said it's easy you just pick a word in your passage and you look it up in the concordance and you find all these verses that have the same word in it and then you talk about those verses in your sermon that's all you got to do like well what if those verses are not talking about the same thing or it's different doesn't matter it's the same word you just look it up and that's how you take five minutes get your sermon ready and his sermons were about as good as a five-minute sermon would you would expect to be so don't do that here's the honest truth we don't really know anything about this guy other than that his name means servant of Yahweh that's what we know for certain ok the important part of this book is not who Obadiah was but it's the message and you ready for this the message of Obadiah centers on God's enemies now you know that we live in a day and age where a lot of people get the cold chills and goosebumps when you even suggest that God would have enemies and some people are really uncomfortable with that and some people are so uncomfortable with it they try to separate the Old Testament and the New Testament and say well look the picture of God in the Old Testament is a guy that was angry and he had enemies and he was grouchy and petulant and vengeful but in the New Testament Jesus shows up and it's way way different Jesus had enemies we've seen that in Luke Jesus warned his enemies about serious serious things we're gonna see that this Sunday morning when Jesus warns his enemies about help and just jot down on on your sheet if you want to look up a verse about God's enemies James 4/4 which by the way is in the New Testament that says if you want to be friends with the world you will be enemies of God so God does have enemies and so you got to get over that uncomfortableness that is sort of just present in our society and when you get over that you understand Obadiah is a message to and about God's enemies so Obadiah is a minor prophet and there they are he's number four and I've showed you this most of the weeks we've been in the minor prophets but here's the timeline of how these minor prophets fall they don't go exactly in order so Hosea Amos Micah Jonah all before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel okay Nehem Habakkuk Zephaniah after the northern kingdom falls but before Jerusalem in the in the southern kingdom of Judah falls so right there in the middle and then the next group is Joel and our guy tonight Obadiah wrote their books right after Jerusalem fell in about the sixth century BC so that's the timeline we're talking about and then three minor prophets Haggai Zechariah and Malachi after the exile after everybody comes back one more slide after that to put up there's the timeline if you want to see how they fall Joel and Obadiah right after Judah gets taken into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon but before they come back from the exile so that's where they fall in the history of Israel we've talked about this each each and every week it's during the exile okay Babylon comes conquers the southern kingdom haul a lot of the people to Babylon set up their own sort of puppet government and that's when Obadiah wrote his book here's a unique thing about Obadiah Obadiah is the only book in the Bible written to God's enemies not to God's people the only book in the Bible written to his enemies for his enemies not for God's people written to the Edomites lots of other books in the Bible to be clear about this lots of other books in the Bible talk about God's enemies especially in the prophets major prophets and minor prophets but this one is directed not to Israel not to Judah not to God's covenant people but to the Edomites who were enemies of God's people and so you can go back and you can look in I gave you a verse here Genesis 25 you can look at the beginning of the Edomites so if you just go back in your brain to Genesis God comes to a man named Abraham who was married to a woman named Sarah and it's actually Abraham and Sarah I but you know the story and God gives them children miraculously in their old age and Abraham gives birth to two boys one through Sarah one through one of his wife's made servants and his two sons are who Abraham's sons are Ishmael and Isaac and God says Ishmael is not the plan that's not Sarah's son and you tried to do this on your own and that's not the plan Isaac is the plan so the promises go from Abraham then they go to Isaac and Isaac marries a woman named Rebecca and they have sons and their sons are named Esau and Jacob twins the first one born is who Esau and the second one born is Jacob and culture said Esau gets all of it and God's plan was Esau is not my guy and through the wickedness and the scheming and the plotting of Jacob who's not a good guy God didn't pick Jacob because he was a good guy he was a complete jerk but through his conniving scheming plotting Jacob gets the blessing Jacob gets the inheritance he gets all of this stuff from his brother and you can read about that Genesis 25 tells the story tells it again in Genesis 27 so here's what you need to understand Jacob and Esau brothers the promises to Israel flow through Jacob in fact God comes to Jacob and renames him what Israel this is Israel Esau becomes Edom right Edom sounds like red in Hebrew and Esau was a redheaded guy hair all over his body and his family becomes there you go red Edomites and you think just in your brain this begins these two nations begin what they family feud with one brother ripping off the other and it's the good guy we like to think of as the good guy ripping off the bad guy it's Jacob God's man ripping off Esau and so that's how the whole thing begins many many many many years later when Babylon comes and conquers the southern kingdom of Judah and Jacob's family finally the last of them get hauled into exile Esau's family the Edomites are standing right there watching the whole time they do nothing to help their kinsmen in fact they sit back and they laugh at it and they wait until Jacob's family gets hauled out of the land and then they go in and plunder all their stuff and so this is just a feud this is a rivalry these two nations do not like each other they hate each other and the Edomites for the most part lived in the hills and so I'll show you a few pictures anybody know what that is somebody ever been there anybody ever seen Indiana Jones right they go there in Indiana Jones they film they don't go in it but they film outside it and then pretend like they go in it this is Petra and it is in modern day Jordan so anybody been to the holy lands in here one did you guys go to Jordan if you travel to Israel this is what I've been told by people who have gone to Israel if you travel to Israel you have to sneak into Jordan you're you're not allowed to travel between those countries because the border is so tight and so I have a friend who went and he said we kind of snuck into Jordan and then you have to sneak back into Israel which sounds kind of risky to me but they did it because they wanted to go see this and so this is Petra and they just carved cities and buildings and homes and stuff into the rock and so if you want to get to this you have to go down a little passageway that looks something like that that's the same building right and you got to walk down between these two cliffs and then if you're on the outside of this sort of ravine looking in it looks like that and so there's big rock mountains and that's just one example you can google this look at Google images find all kinds of buildings and homes things they built into the rocks so you're the Edomites you live in the hills you have this kingdom sort of in the rock and if an army wants to come besiege your city what do they have to do this big army has to go single file and march down this hallway to get in and walking around it was almost unconquerable especially when you think about how ancient nations fought wars right they got a whole bunch of people together they went up against a city that had walls and they got buckets of dirt and they started piling the dirt up at the bottom of the wall guys getting shot with arrows stuff dropped on their head they didn't care just start piling the dirt up and you pile it up and you pile it up and you pile it up till you have a nice ramp and then you just walk up the ramp into the city you lost a lot of people doing that but that's how they got into these walled cities we can't really do that here you just got to take your big old huge army get in a line and walk in and the Edomites would sit inside the city inside the hills and the rocks and just pick you off one at a time as you walk down there so if you're the Edomites they had this feeling like nobody can conquer us we're not the biggest we're not the strongest we're not the richest but who's gonna come conquer us no army can march in here we're untouchable and they had this mindset that they could not be conquered and so keep that in the back of your brain let's read Obadiah not very long beginning in verse one says the vision of Obadiah thus says the Lord God concerning Edom we've heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations rise up let us rise against her for battle behold I will make you small among the nations you shall be utterly despised the pride of your heart has deceived you you who live in the clefs of the rock 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 a set among the stars from there I will bring you down declares the Lord if thieves came to you if plunderers came by night how how you have been destroyed would they not steal only enough for themselves if great gatherers came to you would they not leave gleanings how Esau has been pillaged his treasure 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 said a trap beneath you you have no understanding will I not on that day declares the Lord destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau in your mighty men shall be dismayed O team and so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter here's the motivation behind this warning of judgment because of the violence done to your brother Jacob shame shall cover you and you shall be cut off forever 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 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 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 for the day the Lord is near upon all the nations as you have done so shall it be done to you your deeds shall return on your own head for as you have drunk on my holy mountain so all the nations shall drink continually they shall drink and swallow and shall be as though they never had been but in Mount Zion there shall be those who escaped and it shall be holy and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions the house of Jacob shall be a fire in the house of Joseph a flame in 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 those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau and those of the Sheffalah shall possess the land of the Philistines they shall possess the land of a frame in the land of Samaria and Benjamin shall possess Gilead the exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as zerafath in the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sheffarad shall possess the cities of the Negeb. Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau in the kingdom shall be the Lord's so I know in that short 21 verses there's a lot of places that you're not familiar with we're not going to try to pin all of those down you can look up a map in the back of your Bible or or find resources online you can try to pinpoint all of those if you like to I know there's some nations and some peoples that maybe you're not exactly familiar with that's okay we're not going to focus on the details of all of these people we're going to look at the big picture and the big picture is God is saying to the Edomites when my people your brother got carried off into exile by the Babylonians used to buy and laughed and clapped and cut them off as they were trying to flee you finished off those who weren't killed by the Babylonians you went in once they were gone and you stole all their stuff you rejoiced in their day of calamity therefore calamity is going to come upon you it will happen I'm promising you that I'm going to destroy you that's the message of the book here's the big lessons that you need to take away from Obadiah okay these are kind of lessons that might apply to us today number one God hates people who are proud you can see this in Obadiah you can see it in the book of Proverbs you can see it from the beginning of the Bible to the end God is not the least bit amused with pride and we have a tendency to tolerate it and we tolerate it in ourselves because no one else can see it so we're not always shamed by it we can let our pride sit in our heart and nobody necessarily knows that it's there and nobody thinks poorly of us because we don't put that on display for the world to see like we would put on display a heroin addiction or murder or adultery it's just sort of a secret thing that lives in our hearts and the book of Obadiah reminds us that God hates people who are proud Obadiah one two to three thus says the Lord concerning eat them I will make you small the pride of your heart has deceived you you sit up in the rocks and you say no one can conquer us you're a fool you're prideful and I'm gonna get you God is angry about it Edomites were prideful because of geography in the United States we may feel safe and secure and be prideful because of money because of military because of maybe even geography in the United States that we feel somewhat isolated from other nations who may be a threat to us maybe we take pride in family you say well my family doesn't have it all together but we were a lot better put together than that family you think my family's crazy you should see the other side of my family they're the crazy ones we look a lot better than them and we sit back and we take pride in that maybe we take pride in our church and we say man did you hear what's going on at that church those people can't get their act together man we just we have pity on them it's poor people they can't get their act together like we do take pride in our church take pride in our jobs in our education in our power in our possessions all sorts of things that we take pride in that that we allow to give us a false sense of security the Edomites took pride in rocks and God said you think you're safe and untouchable because of that and God may look at people in the United States and say you think you're safe and untouchable because of all these other things you're full just like the Edomites here's an example for history okay World War II France on the left Belgium up there on the top in Germany on the right okay Nazi Germany the Nazis start rattling their sabers and threatening to do this and threatening to do that and France says you know we probably ought to do something to defend ourselves here this would probably be wise and prudent and so all along our border you can see there's a solid line on the bottom and then there's a dotted line all along our border we're going to build fortifications right they didn't build a wall like the Great Wall of China but fortifications and military installations and in different things to keep an invading army out the whole length they did this but they put their heads together and they said you know we're friends with Belgium I don't know what you call a person from Belgium anybody have any idea a waffle we're friends with the waffles and they're not that threatening so we'll just put weak fortifications there not to Belgium is not going to invade us Germany is going to invade us so they spent ten years on that solid red line right there on that border with Germany ten years and they built it up big there was no army marching through that solid red line and they got done with that after ten years and they said you know we feel pretty good about this we're safe and what did Germany do did they try to go through the solid red line no they said Belgium doesn't have anything we'll go into Belgium and then we'll go right through your weak fortifications and we'll come right into France easy peasy lemon squeezy nothing to it and here these people are with this master plan thinking we're safe look what's between us and disaster no army's going to march in here and we look back on that and say you're a fool how stupid could you be to not see that this would happen and God's looking at the Edomites and thinking you really don't think one of these days your numbers going to get called just because you live in rocks you don't think somebody's going to figure this out how to attack you how to conquer you how to pillage you how to destroy you your fools and God looks at people in the United States and says you think you're safe you think you're secure you think disaster can't touch you don't be prideful God is not amused with pride number two God hates people who oppose his people hates people who opposes people so in Obadiah that's verse 10 to 14 we read it we won't read it again but the point of all of that is you had a chance to help your brother you had a chance to help my people and instead you left and instead you took advantage of them in their day of trouble he's not amused by that you see the same thing in the Old Testament in the New Testament so there's a man and his name is Saul of Tarsus and he is going around rounding up Christians throwing them in jail standing by at their execution i.e. Stephen holding the coats for people who kill this man right he gets letters to take a road trip and round up Christians and haul them back to prison and on this road trip the road to Damascus Jesus shows up and talks to him and what does he say to Saul Saul Saul Saul why do you persecute me and Saul doesn't say no you it's them because the idea in the Bible is if it's them and the them is God's people it's God Jesus says the same thing what you do to the least of these you do for me I care about them and if you don't care about them then you're not caring about me and the people stand back and they say Jesus we would have gladly welcomed you into our home we would have gladly fed you we would have gladly given you the shirt off of our back and Jesus says yeah but you didn't do it for my people so you didn't do it for me it's the same idea God hates people who oppose his people number three God promises justice for his people and for those who oppose his people for both justice for his people and for those who opposes people the idea here is that God's people will be vindicated in his enemies will be judged look at Obadiah verse 15 the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations as you have done it shall be done to you your deeds shall return on your own head this is really the motivation between excuse me the motivation behind what Jesus means when he says turn the other cheek go the extra mile right hold your spot no badi and look at Matthew chapter five just a few pages to the right Matthew five starting in verse 39 Jesus said I say to you do not resist the one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also if anyone would sue you and take your tunic let him have your cloak as well if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him to give to the one who begs and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you you look at some of those things and you say Jesus do you just want us to forget about justice and what's right no he just wants you to believe that God will make it right in the end it's not your job to make it right now it's God's job to make it right in the end and you see this in the book of Revelation you read in Revelation about Christians in heaven asking God when are you going to go down there and make it right when are you going to bring justice on those who dwell on the earth and God doesn't say oh I'm just going to turn the other cheek it's no big deal he says it is mine to make it right and I will bring justice on them wait a little bit longer and then I'm gonna make it right and so God promises justice for his people and justice for those who opposes people last lesson is this number four God keeps his promises God keeps his promises did you notice in the Lucas can you put the picture up the third picture of Petra those are all tourists right you walk down the cave deal and you go to the carved out buildings you understand there are no Edomites living there today right they don't live in that city anymore they're gone somebody came along and figured out how to attack them and how to conquer them and how to kill them in the same thing that happened Judah being hauled into exile happened to the Edomites right God kept his promises just like he said he would and look at this promise at the the very end of Obadiah Obadiah 1 21 says saviors will go up to Mount Zion to rule the Mount to rule Mount Esau and the kingdom shall be the Lord's saviors going up to Zion to rule Mount Esau and the kingdom shall be the Lord's okay ends with a promise and the promises to the Edomites and the promises you're gonna get conquered you think you can't be you will be and one of these days my people who you just saw get carried out of this land will come back and saviors will go up with them to Jerusalem just like they got hauled out of here by Nebuchadnezzar they're gonna come right back in because I'm gonna bring them in here and the kingdom will belong to the Lord and I think about that the only book in the Bible written to God's enemies ends with God promising there will be a kingdom and it will be mine the day is coming where there will be a kingdom and it will be mine and take your spot in Obadiah and you circle Obadiah 1 21 and you turn to the right just a few pages to the right and you go to the Gospel of Mark chapter 1 Mark 1 14 says that after John was arrested Jesus came in to Galilee probably 20 miles from Petra Jesus walks into town and he says the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel the kingdoms come God said it was coming now it's here and the only book in the Bible written to God's enemies is a book saying one day the king is gonna come he's coming the kingdom will belong to me so you can laugh you can persecute them you can take pride in your in your power your security or all these things you just need to understand one day a king will come and the kingdom will belong to me and Jesus says that's me I'm the king that God promised and my kingdom is here Daniel did the same thing think about Daniel we talked about Daniel a few weeks ago Daniel was one of the guys when Jerusalem was conquered that Nebuchadnezzar hauled out of the land into Babylon so he got hauled out right in front of the Edomites Edomites waving goodbye to Daniel by Daniel have fun in Babylon we're gonna miss you we're going to steal all your stuff at your house audios there goes Daniel right and Daniel while he's there has a vision Daniel seven and the vision is what there's one like a son of man and he has a kingdom and the kingdom extends over all the peoples and all the nations and all the languages and all the tribes everyone and he's saying Daniel in exile to Nebuchadnezzar to these pagan kings I know your kingdom is powerful but you are not the king a king is coming who's going to rule everyone and Obadiah saying the exact same thing that this kingdom that will belong to the Lord will extend over Mount Esau right not just going to be the kingdom of Judah but over Esau and over all of the nations and we understand as believers that that's fulfilled in Jesus and so Obadiah like all of these Old Testament books that we've studied so far Obadiah is pointing us to Jesus driving us to Jesus saying we're ready for the king to come we're ready for the king to come we're ready for the king to come and you turn to mark and the king says I'm here I've come you turn to the book of Revelation a preview of the end and it says that this king is not just the king over Judah but he's the king to rule all kings the king of kings and the Lord of Lords and his dominion is a universal a global and everlasting dominion so Obadiah pointing us straight to Jesus we will end there tonight and we'll end there for the spring and we'll pick up in two or three months with Jonah so we'll just pick up right where we left off I'll pray and we'll wrap up Obadiah Father we thank you for your word we thank you for the lessons that we see in this book we pray that you would guard our hearts from the temptation to be proud we know that there are many things that we are tempted to take pride in and to feel security and other than you and so we pray that you would guard us from that we pray that we would not be found guilty of opposing your people of standing in the way of of your church Father we want to trust you for justice we want to understand that vengeance belongs to you and understand that in the end you will make all things right and we don't have to worry about that or fret about that Father we thank you that you always keep your promises promises to bring your people back from exile we we see that you kept that promise promise to bring judgment on the Edomites and we look back and see that you kept that promise promises to send a king who would bring in a kingdom and we see in Jesus that you kept that promise and we live today awaiting the fulfillment of some of your promises but we know that you keep your promises that you are faithful to your word and so we ask that you would give us faith to trust you and to wait for your timing and to trust that your ways are perfect and your timing is always right Father we love you we thank you for the Bible and how it points us to Jesus Old Testament New Testament all of it that it drives us to the main character which is not us but is your son Jesus Christ and it's through him that we find hope is through him that we pray to you tonight so we ask all of these things in Jesus name amen