"God Speaks" Obadiah Sunday Morning Worship Service

My name is Ryan Francis.

I serve as the youth pastor.

So that that might be a relief for you, or you might be thinking, oh brother, but I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus, and I'm excited to be able to open the Word of God with you this morning.

I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Obadiah.

That's right.

Obadiah.

It's not just an Amish name, it is a book in your Bible.

It's in the prophets.

After the big prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and then Obadiah.

It's just one little chapter, frequently overlooked.

But because it is the Word of God, we will read it and we will study it this morning.

What I want to do is I hear you turning there.

I want to read the entire passage, and then we will look at it together.

So as you find your place in the book of Obadiah, would you look down, beginning in verse one, and follow with me as I read from the Word of God.

The Word of God says this in the book of Obadiah, in verse 1.

The vision of Obadiah.

Thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning Edom, we have heard a report from Yahweh, 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 clefts 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 among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares Yahweh.

If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night, how you've been destroyed, would they not steal only enough for themselves?

If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?

How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures sought out, all your allies have driven you to your border, those at peace with you have deceived you, they all have prevailed against you, those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you, and you have no understanding.

Will I not on that day, declares Yahweh, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of Mount Esau, and your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Taman, and every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter, because of the violence done to your brother Jacob.

Shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.

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.

But do not gloat over the day of your brother and 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.

Because 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.

For as you have drunk of my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually, they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been.

But in Mount Zion, there shall be those who escape.

It shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions, the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble.

They shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for Yahweh has spoken.

Those of the Negev shall possess Mount Esau, those of the Sephalah shall possess the land of the Philistines, they shall possess the land of Ephraim, 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 Zarephath.

And the exiles of Jerusalem, who are in Sephirot, shall possess the cities of the Negev.

Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be Yahweh's.

This is the word of the Lord.

In the eighteenth century, there was a famous, at least at the time, British polymath author, literary critic named Samuel Johnson, who once famously wrote that the only end of writing is to enable the reader to better enjoy life or better endure it.

So we might ask the question, if that's the case.

I don't know if it is, but if that's the case, what is the book of Obadiah for?

Is it to help us endure or enjoy life?

And in fact, I think a case can be made that it does both when understood and applied correctly in our lives.

And yet we confess that the book that we just read is not just from a human author, but is from a divine source.

We confess that this word is the word of God.

And the word of God has a categorically different function.

There was another Samuel, who was himself an author and a literary critic, we could say, the judge of the people of Israel, Samuel, who had a different experience with the Word of God.

In 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 21, we read that the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord.

1 Samuel 3 · chapter mention

The Lord revealed not just truth, not just wisdom, not just knowledge, but the Lord revealed himself by the word of the Lord.

That's the function of the word of God.

The function of the word of God is to reveal God to his people.

God speaks in his word in order to reveal himself to you.

And as we read the book of Obadiah, this, the smallest book in the entire Old Testament, the function of the book of Obadiah is that God would reveal himself to you.

This is, as I've said already, an often neglected book because it is a bit obscure in our scriptures.

It is very small.

But in fact, this smallest book of the Old Testament is about one of the longest-running sibling rivalries in the world between Jacob and Esau.

That's who the people of Edom are, who are spoken of in verse 1.

Thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning Edom.

The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob.

And so to grasp the message of the book of Obadiah, we actually have to take a short walk to remember the story of Jacob and Esau.

And of course it begins in the book of Genesis, and in chapter 25, perhaps.

There we go.

Isaac prayed to Yahweh for his wife because she was barren.

And Yahweh granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived, and the children struggled within her, and she said, If it is thus, why is this happening to me?

So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided.

The one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.

And when the days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb.

The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau, and afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob.

And of course, one of the most famous elements of this text, one of the most important elements of this text, is the reality that God chose the younger brother Jacob before they were in the world, before they had done anything, good or evil, as Paul says in Romans chapter 9, though they were not yet born and had not done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

God said the older will serve the younger.

So one of the greatest lessons of the story of Jacob and Esau, of course, is God's sovereignty in election.

And in reading this text, I've often heard that the point of Paul in Romans 9 and the point of the story of Jacob and Esau is that God elects nations, not individuals.

I mean, individual salvation is a matter contingent upon one's free choice.

God elects nations and works through nations, and yet I think Jacob and Esau would beg to differ.

The purpose of Jacob and Esau is to illustrate God's sovereign authority to choose whom he will choose.

And yet, as we read the rest of the book of Genesis and the rest of the story of Jacob and Esau, as it continued through the centuries, we see that God's sovereignty does not neglect human responsibility or human action.

And so immediately, even upon God's electing Jacob over Esau, Jacob and Esau come into the world, and immediately they get to scrapping.

So the very next text that we read in the book of Genesis says that Esau comes from the field, famished.

Jacob is cooking some red stew, and he asked him, give me some of that stew.

It happened to be a red stew.

And so Jacob gives him the stew in exchange for the birthright, and the story says that because of this, Esau rather was known as Edom from then on.

Edom, of course, being a word that means red.

Now, as we continue through the rest of the story of Jacob and Esau, we know where this is going.

Think of the beginning of the story of Jacob.

Jacob is a shepherd.

He's poor, struggling to survive.

It doesn't take very long for his descendants to wander into Egypt and end up as slaves.

In fact, slaves for 400 years.

Esau, on the other hand, is strong.

Jacob is kind of a conniving, cowardly mama's boy, and Esau is a strong, manly.

I like to think of him as a wild, bearded, redhead who would have played for the Washington football team.

And so naturally, he thrives in the world.

And immediately his line grows and they develop a kingdom, and they settle in the southeast of the modern-day land of Israel in the modern land of Jordan, and they develop a small kingdom, so that by the time God redeems Israel out of Egypt and brings them on the way to the promised land, they must pass through the kingdom of Edom.

And God instructs the Israelites to ask Edom for passage, and the way that they respond is like this.

Numbers in chapter 20, Moses says to Edom, please let us pass through your land.

And we will not pass through your fields or vineyards or drink water from your well.

We will go along the king's highway.

We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we've passed through your territory.

But Edom said to him, You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.

That was not a good decision.

Then God brought Israel out of Egypt and brought them through Edom into the promised land.

And at the front door of Edom, God said, Let my people through, and Edom said, No can do.

And they should have known how the story would end.

But at the time it seemed like a wise decision.

This seemed like common sense political bargaining.

And yet, in spite of this treatment between Edom and Esau, Israel was called to a different standard.

In Deuteronomy chapter 23 and verse 7, Moses tells the Israelites, you shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.

Deuteronomy 23 · chapter mention

Israel was called to a holy standard.

And of course, they did not live up to that either.

Neither the Edomites nor the Israelites lived up to God's standard.

And so the history of the descendants of Jacob and Esau is one of violence, it's one of backstabbing, it's one of subjugation.

So that by the time we reach the fifth century, excuse me, the sixth century, when the Babylonians come to the city of Jerusalem and they sack it, and they carry off the survivors into captivity in Babylon, Edom is well positioned to profit from their brother Jacob's destruction.

That's the message of the book of Obadiah.

The message of the book of Obadiah is God's word against the Edomites for their participation and their profiting on the destruction of their brothers, the Israelites.

In fact, Edom, though to us often a neglected component of the biblical story, Edom is actually spoken of in more of the prophets than any other nation.

Edom is spoken of in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, Malachi, and here an entire book dedicated to God's word against Edom for their actions.

That's the book's subject, is it's God's denunciation of Edom for their participation in the destruction of Israel in the Babylonian invasion.

That's the subject.

But the source of this material is actually more important.

And the source of the material in Obadiah, you see in verse 1, it says the vision of Obadiah, thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning Edom.

This is a book that is a from God.

This is a divine book.

That's what this little text claims to be.

It claims to be a word from the Lord.

And just notice one little thing about verse 1.

If you look in your Bibles at verse 1, the first thing we read is, Thus says the Lord concerning Edom.

We have heard a report.

And you should scratch your head and say, Thus says the Lord, we?

What?

This title, Thus Says the Lord, is not introducing any direct speech from Yahweh.

Thus does the Lord stand as the heading over the entire book.

We are supposed to see the entire book of Obadiah through the lens of this is a divine revelation concerning Edom.

This is God's word concerning Edom.

And I think that raises an interesting question.

Were Edom listening?

God dedicates an entire book in his scriptures to a word concerning the Edomites.

And we might ask the question, were they paying any attention?

We could also ask a corresponding question.

Does their attention or lack thereof to this word concerning their story make any difference concerning the truth of this declaration?

And of course the answer is no.

God's word stand is objectively true, and God's words will come to pass, whether Edom listened or not.

And that raises this third and final question before we get into the text.

Are you listening?

To the words that God speaks about your life?

Are you listening?

To the way that God speaks into your story and to your life.

Are you listening to the way that God reveals himself in the Word of God?

Because that's the function of the Word of God, is that God through His Word will reveal Himself to you.

And that's the question for us this morning.

Are you listening when God speaks?

So this morning, as we study the book of Obadiah, I think what this book shows us is three ways that God speaks into our lives.

Three ways that God reveals himself through his word into our lives.

And the question is whether we will listen and respond to the revelation of God in his word.

The first way that God speaks to us through the book of Obadiah is that God speaks as a sovereign judge.

This is in verse 2 through 9.

So if you look down at your Bible in verse 2, we read this in verse 2 Behold, this is the word of the Lord.

I will make you small among the nations, you shall be utterly despised.

This is God's sentence that he has passed against Edom, and it's simple and it's concise.

It's even more simple in the Hebrew, which is a tersed language that communicates with brevity powerful message.

This powerful message.

Obadiah delivers this in what's sometimes called the prophetic perfect.

It's translated in English as a future.

I will make you small.

The sense of the verb tense communicates that this is a done deal.

God has uttered a decree.

Edom has been judged.

It's over.

It's short and simple.

And yet it's important for us to appreciate, from the perspective of the ancient audience, the perceived impossibility of this sentence actually coming true.

Edom was not in a position to feel afraid.

And in this text, the Lord details four reasons that Edom felt secure and would have found this declaration against them laughable if they were to have listened to it.

There's four reasons that they felt secure.

One of those is their military might.

You see that in verse 3.

Verse 3 says, The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say, Who will bring me down to the ground?

And there's a little wordplay going on here in this clefts of the rock.

Or you might have a footnote in your Bible.

I have a footnote in mine that says, This word rock is the word Selah.

That's the Hebrew word for rock.

It's a wordplay on the capital city of Edom.

The center of the heart of the kingdom of Edom was a city, Selah, that was in this impregnable canyon.

The terrain that the kingdom of Edom occupied was impenetrable, rough, mountainous, impossible for a military to traverse, and at the heart of their kingdom was their capital city, which was absolutely impregnable in the ancient world.

This is a world, remember, pre-Tom Joyce, there were no jets.

The only way to access this city was to pass through a crag in the rocks with sheer cliff faces on either side that was a mile long.

And in many places, this crag was only 15 feet wide.

Only a few soldiers could pass at a time.

Some historians estimate that only a dozen men could have defended the city against an army.

They felt really good about themselves.

And you'll notice in verse 9, this city in the middle of this impregnable canyon is occupied by many mighty men.

They're warriors, they're rough and tumble descendants of Edom.

These are the sons of Esau.

They are not afraid because they are invincible.

Secondly, not only are they mighty, but they are wealthy.

If you notice in verse 6, where God says, Esau's been pillaged and his treasures have been sought out.

And in fact, the kingdom of Edom was known as a wealthy kingdom.

They occupied a strategic location.

Because it was perhaps not the best for agriculture, but it was settled on the middle of one of the most important trade routes in the ancient world.

It was sat on the King's Highway.

You remember in numbers that we just read on the screen a moment ago, the Israelites wanted to pass through the King's Highway.

The King's Highway was one of the major ancient trade routes that connected Africa to Europe and the Middle East.

Caravans would pass north and south along the King's Highway, carrying their treasures for trade, and Edom occupied that territory and so would tax any passing caravans, and they profited greatly on the trade that flowed through their territory.

They were a very wealthy kingdom.

Third, they were protected by many allies.

Notice in verse 7.

Verse 7, all your allies have been have driven you to your border.

Those who are at peace with you have deceived you, they've prevailed against you, those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you.

So God's going to reverse their relationship with their allies, but in their minds they had allies, they had covenants, they had people who ate their bread, who benefited off of their wealth, who served them, and in the course of the history of Edom, they had trade agreements, they had military contracts with Aram, with Ammon, with Babylon, with the Philistines, with the Ethiopian.

The Edomites proved in the course of their history they were really good at picking the winner.

And they were really good at siding with the winner.

They were very wise.

They were very tactical.

And they were very good at siding with the winner.

They had military might, wealth, allies, and finally, number four, they had wisdom.

If you notice in verse 8, verse 8 says, Will I not on that day declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom and the understanding out of Mount Esau?

Finally, these are not just warriors, they are, we could say, cosmopolitan warriors.

Because in the center of this trade network, there's not just wealth flowing through, there's wisdom and the exchange of ideas and technology and advancements.

And Edom was strategically located to profit from all of this.

And so Edom was known as a not just wealthy but wise kingdom that was advanced militarily.

In fact, Solomon, who we know from the biblical story as the wisest man in the world, and we know that he's compared in the scripture to the wisdom of Egypt.

But did you know he is also compared?

He's also the mark of his being the wisest in the world was that he was even wiser than Edom.

First Kings chapter 4, verse 30.

1 Kings 4:30

Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt.

And Scripture, the people of the East, typically synonymous with Edom.

Mighty, wealthy, well allied, and wise.

This seemed impossible, and yet we know from our perspective, thousands of years later, the reality.

What seemed impossible became all too real.

Edom is no more.

Shortly after.

After generations, just short generations after the destruction of Jerusalem, a Babylonian king called Embedidus, at the end of the 6th century, sacked the Edomite cities, ending their independence.

And by the end of the fourth century, an Arabian people called the Nebataeans had driven out the Edomites from their land.

By the time of the Muslim conquest, all of the Edomite territory became uninhabited as it is to this day, except for Bedouin tribe and a few modern Jordanian military outposts.

What seemed impossible became entirely real.

And we should ask why.

And the reason is simple.

It's because God is a sovereign judge, and what he speaks will come to pass.

It's not contingent on our approving it, it's not contingent on our reason, it's contingent on the reality that God is God.

He's the sovereign judge of the universe, and when he speaks, he will bring it to pass.

The only thing that keeps us from seeing this is in verse 2.

Excuse me, rather, let's look at verse 3.

Verse 3, this is what keeps us from seeing this.

The pride of your heart has deceived you.

You who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground?

Pride precedes destruction.

Pride blinds to the truth of who God is.

Pride goes before a that's what I thought too.

Pride goes before a fall.

But the Proverbs actually speak even more powerfully.

Proverbs 16, 18 says, Pride goes before destruction.

Pride precedes destruction.

This is not just karma, it's not just the way that God has built the world.

Pride invites divine judgment.

Because pride is rebellion against a holy God, it invites divine judgment.

Proverbs 6 in verse 16, the famous passage in which God says there are seven things that the Lord hates that are an abomination to him.

And the first thing in the list is haughty eyes.

It's pride.

Pride precedes destruction because pride is always against God.

What is pride?

Well, in verse 3 we see it's this attitude, one in the heart, it is an attitude in your heart that says, Who will bring me down to the ground?

It's the attitude in the heart that says, I am high, I am wise, I am strong, I am good, I am true, I am God.

Pride precedes destruction because it has no respect for God.

It does not fear God, it does not believe God, it does not submit to God, it does not see God.

It invites God's judgment, and we don't even know that it's coming because we're blinded to the reality of God.

And that's the way pride functioned in the life of Edom.

You notice in verse 5 that they don't even realize judgment is coming.

You see in verse 5, notice the rhetorical wordplay here.

In verse 5, we see if thieves come to you, if plunderers come by night, then there's this interjection.

How you've been destroyed.

Would they not steal only enough for themselves?

This interjection here in the middle of a sentence is functioning as this you don't even know it's happening.

Your judgment is settled, it's coming, it's sure, it's immovable, it's inescapable, and you don't even know it.

And again, in verse 7, all your allies have driven you to your border, those at peace with you have deceived you, they've prevailed against you, those who eat your bread have set a trap, and you have no understanding, and you don't even know.

This is God through it said through Moses.

God sets them in slippery places, their ruin comes suddenly.

So it is with those who are proud in their hearts.

God will bring judgment, he'll bring it swiftly, and we won't even see it.

Because this is the way pride works.

Pride makes us feel that we are justified when we have no excuse.

Pride makes us feel like we are right when in fact we are dead wrong.

It makes us feel like we're wise and sophisticated when in fact we are fools.

Pride makes us feel like what I'm doing and the way I think is entirely rational, entirely reasonable, when in fact it's the craziest, most disconnected thing from reality to live apart from the real and true God.

Pride goes before destruction because it deceives the heart and blinds us to the truth that God is a sovereign judge.

And the only solution, do you know, to pride?

Because what pride does is it effectively blinds us to the truth of God.

The only solution to pride is to see God.

And we see this in the scriptures in Isaiah in chapter 6.

Isaiah says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated on a throne, and the robe filled the temple.

And when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, when he saw God as the sovereign judge that he really is, then he finally rightly saw himself, and he fell to the ground and cried out, I am a man of unclean lips, and only when you see God will you see yourself and open yourself up to receive the revelation of God.

I wonder as we're reading the Book of Obadiah, this entirely obscure book.

I wonder if any of the facets of Edom's pride are reflected in our own lives.

And when you imagine your future successes that you're dreaming of, your future goals that you have for yourself.

I wonder how much of your confidence, I wonder how much of your excitement is really directed towards you, your strength and your wealth, and your allies and your wisdom.

How much is directed towards the reality that you stand before a sovereign God who holds you in his hand?

How much of your energy and foresight and your thoughts are directed towards the reality that God is a sovereign judge.

Do you see God?

God speaks as a sovereign judge, but secondly, in this text, God also speaks as a holy lawgiver, as a holy lawgiver.

It's in verse 10.

You notice in verse 10, we have a shift here from the sentence in verse 10 to the conviction.

In verse 10, God says, Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.

Verse 10 was the sentence that God is going to execute judgment, and excuse me, verse 2 is the sentence, and verse 10 is the conviction.

Why is God going to bring this?

Here's the charge.

Edom is guilty because of their participation in Jacob's destruction.

And verses 11 through 14 detail the charges.

And I want you to notice, we'll go through verses 11 through 14 very rapidly, but I want you to notice the main thing in these verses is the progression.

How it starts so simply.

An unnoticeable flaw snowballs into such an obvious, condemnable offense.

Look at verse 11.

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.

You were like one of those participating because you stood aloof.

You didn't do anything.

This is the sin of omission.

God had requirements for Edom to treat their brother Jacob in a particular way, and they didn't do it.

And what begins as inaction, slowly through the hardening of the heart, develops into full-fledged action.

You notice in verse 12, there's the beginning of this progression.

Verse 12, do not gloat over the day of your brother, that's the sin of the eyes.

Do not rejoice over the people of Judah, the sin of the heart.

Do not boast in the day of distress, the sin of the mouth.

And so it starts with inaction, develops into a hard attitude, a prideful elevation, they're getting what they deserve, a gloating over it and enjoying it, a gossiping about it, and a boasting that I'm not like them.

And because I'm not like them, and it's entirely justified what they're receiving, their hands begin to participate in verses 13 to 14.

Do not enter the gate, verse 13, of my people in the day of their calamity.

Don't gloat over their disaster, do not loot their wealth.

So now they're actively participating in the destruction of Israel.

And their actions become only increasingly brazen in verse 14.

Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives, do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress.

So as people are fleeing Jerusalem, fleeing the destruction, they're actually standing at pivotal crossroads and handing over those survivors to the invading Babylonian army, probably for a prophet.

You see the progression.

But what is important for us to reflect on is the way that this progression in Edom is reflected in our own hearts.

The nature of human conscience is that pride and selfish ambition blind us to the truth that God is a sovereign judge and that he is a holy lawgiver.

And bit by bit we justify ourselves and justify ourselves and justify ourselves until we find ourselves doing things that we never imagined we would have done.

Front page sins always begin with small steps.

And what we must see is that God cares about the first step.

God is just as serious about the first tilt in your heart towards injustice, towards apathy, towards laziness, towards untruth, towards selfishness, towards pride, towards lust, towards jealousy.

God is just as zealous about the first step in your heart towards the road of iniquity as He is about its conclusion.

Because God is a holy lawgiver.

And it's only pride that blinds us to this.

The pride that says, I'm not like that.

The pride that finds some arbitrary standard to compare ourselves to.

So that we justify ourselves and bit by bit we find ourselves in the place we never began.

We never imagined that we would get when we began.

And yet the scripture is revealing to us the reality that God is a holy God.

Does God care about this little step?

God is a holy God.

Of course, He cares about that little step in your heart.

Of course, He cares about the secret recesses of your desires.

Of course, He cares about every inclination of your heart.

He's a holy God.

God is a sovereign judge.

A holy, sovereign judge to whom we will give an account, and before whom every intention of the heart will be laid bare.

God cares about all of you.

There's one last little thing in this section that I think is important for us to see, and it's part of what makes Edom's sin, in particular, so despicable is in verse 10.

Where the particular way that he describes this action is in the form of betrayal, verse 10, because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, there was a familial responsibility that Edom owed Jacob.

And I just wonder if maybe we would reflect for a moment on where our familial obligations lie.

And it is not my job, nor my responsibility, nor am I capable of applying the scripture to every particular way in which we are responsible for those in our household and those in the family of God.

But as a youth pastor, might I make one suggestion?

Having spent time with our students, might I make the suggestion that you as parents, whether your kids are in the cradle or about to go off to college, or if your children are adult children, they are still your children, might I make a suggestion?

I think one of the easiest ways that I see parents miss an opportunity to serve the Lord is in this very first step that we see in the progression of Edom.

It's in apathy.

It's in the apathy to take the responsibility to nurture our children in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.

And it manifests in there are kids in this church who hear more about Jesus from me 30 minutes a week on a Sunday than they do in their own home.

It's apathy.

God cares about our apathy.

God wants us to be holy as He is holy.

He wants us to love God with all our heart and soul and mind.

And if we do, it will flow into our relationships.

It will look like fathers instructing their sons in the way of the Lord that they love.

So if you find yourself in a position where you recognize apathy in your life, might I, as a brother, encourage you that the word of God not only reveals our flaws, but it also reveals a Savior who forgives our flaws and empowers us to fulfill our obligations.

And in fact, that is the third way that God reveals Himself in this book.

God is not just a sovereign judge and a holy lawgiver, he is also a gracious Savior.

A gracious Savior.

Notice in verses 15 through 21, we get a major shift in verse 15.

You're looking down, look down at your Bibles in verse 15, it says, For the day of Yahweh is near upon all the nations, as you have done, it shall be done to you.

Your deeds shall return on your own head.

The scene shifts to the day of the Lord.

Judgment on Edom and judgment to all in the world who are outside of covenant with God.

And then in verse 16, there's a shift in who God is speaking to.

Look at verse 16.

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 had never been.

And we should ask our question, what is he talking about?

And in order to understand verse 16, I think we need the help of a literary language called Southern English.

So in the Southern translation of verse 16, we would read, For as all y'all have drunk on my holy mountain.

Or if you're from the Northeast, for as you guys have drunk on my holy mountain.

You didn't know these American dialects are so literarily sophisticated, but what we get in the Hebrew is a shift from the first, from excuse me, the singular to the plural.

This is the only plural second person addressed in the whole text, and it signals a shift in who God is speaking to.

He's been speaking to Edom as a collective whole, and now he shifts to Israel and says, Israel, as you all have drunk the cup of my wrath on my holy mountain.

That is, when Babylon came, that was God's judgment on Israel, for they're breaking his covenant.

But now he's shifting and he's saying, Yes, I use them as an instrument for my judgment, but I am going to keep my covenant promises, and I will preserve you, and I will redeem you and I will save you.

Just as you have drunk my judgment, they all, the instruments of my judgment, will suffer their final judgment because they're not in relationship with me, and their judgment will be as though they had never even been at all.

And the following verses, 17 and 18, demonstrate this dramatic reversal of Israel and Edom's fortunes.

In Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

So those who escape.

Verse 18 the house of Jacob shall be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, the house of Esau stubble, and they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor from the house of Esau.

Absolute reversal.

Exactly what Edom did not want to happen is exactly what will happen.

God will preserve his people.

Then verses 19 through 21 continue to expand the scene.

And before we just go through verses 19 and 21 very quickly, let's ask, what is this talking about?

Is this talking about the reality that right now there's no more Edom?

And just a few miles to the west, there's Israel.

Well, I think that modern-day reality is just a precursor.

It's just to assure us that God's word is true.

But this text is actually speaking of something even greater, further in the future.

This is speaking of the Messianic kingdom.

Well, God will restore Israel as a worshipping people who worship the Messiah, and the Messiah will regather them in the heart of Jerusalem, and will constitute a worldwide kingdom with Israel at the center.

That's exactly what we see in verses 19 through 21.

Look at those verses.

Those of the Negev, that's those in the south, they shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephalah, so that's in the west, they shall possess the land of the Philistines, and the land of Ephraim, and the land of Samaria, in the north, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead, and the exiles of the host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath.

And the exiles of Jerusalem, shall you have both Israel, the ten tribes of the north, and Jerusalem, the Judah kingdom in the south.

They'll be brought back from exile, even from Sephiroth, which is Spain.

That is the farthest flung corners of the earth.

God will bring his people back, and they shall possess the land.

And verse 21 Savior shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

That's the future.

Messiah will come, he will rule the nations, he will judge those who are not in covenant with him, he will reconstitute his people, and all those who have trusted in him will be with him forever.

It's Isaiah 11.

It's all the messianic promises in the scriptures tied together and are detailed in Revelation 7 and 14 and 20 and 21.

But I want to close this morning by looking at just one other text about Edom.

And one of the texts that spells out the judgment that God is promising here on Edom is in Isaiah in chapter 63.

Isaiah 63, we read a few verses.

A prophet says, Who is this who comes from Edom?

In crimson garments, from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.

It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.

Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads the winepress?

I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me.

I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath.

Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel, for the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come.

You see what this is?

This is a picture of the Messiah coming to fulfill his promises, to judge those who have rebelled against him.

And as we see in Obadiah, verse 15, the day of the Lord is near, it's imminent.

We don't know when it's going to break into the world when God will bring the promised judgment.

And so even in Isaiah in chapter 64, the prophet says, Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire kindles brushwood, and the fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence.

That day is imminent when God will rip the heavens open, and he will come down, and he will bring swiftly judgment against all evil in his world.

And the people of Israel know this.

And so they're waiting for the day when the heavens will be torn open.

And do you know, not too long, a few hundred years after the writing of these books, there was a day when the heavens were torn open.

Read in Mark in chapter one.

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John on the Jordan.

And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens torn open.

Exact same verb.

The heavens being torn open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice coming from heaven, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.

And so we ask, so this is it.

The heavens are coming open, judgment is coming, finally, the reconstitution of the kingdom.

It's here.

And then you look up and you see a dove.

And a voice that says, I'm well pleased, I'm not angry, there's no judgment, there's just pleasure.

And so when Jesus came into the world, the sword didn't come down as God promised to the people of Edom that he would make them despised among the nations.

That just didn't happen.

The judgment didn't come.

Or did it?

Well, God promised Edom is that they would be despised among the nations.

And you know, that's not a very common word in the scriptures.

There is a handful of times that it's used, but there's one particular figure in the Old Testament who is described in the most emphatic terms as despised.

It's the Messiah in Isaiah 53, 3.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and is one from whom men hide their faces.

He was despised.

See, the truth is that when God sent Jesus into the world, he tore the veil open, he tore the heavens open and sent him into the world.

He came into the world to endure the very judgment that he has promised as a sovereign, holy God he will bring upon all the earth.

In the person of Jesus Christ, God Himself came into the world to endure that judgment on behalf of sinful people, so that he could be a gracious Savior to all who would come to trust in his Son Jesus Christ.

Everyone who comes to him finds that God is a holy, sovereign, gracious, merciful Savior who will be 100% on your side if you come to him.

You see, the scriptures are speaking to reveal us the God of the Bible.

But in fact, the New Testament tells us that God today is speaking to us by his Son.

And when you come to know Jesus Christ and you look into the face of Jesus Christ, and you see all the perfections of God perfectly revealed to you in the face of Jesus Christ, not only are your sins exposed, but they're taken away.

Not only are you brought down to your knees, but you are lifted up and embraced.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.