The Minor Prophets | Obadiah

So today's scripture teaching reading is the book, the entire

book, which depending on your Bible is like 2 pages of Obadiah

and I will be reading it right now.

The vision of Obadiah thus says the Lord God concerning Edom, we

have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been

sent among the nations. Rise up, let us rise against it.

For battle I will surely make you least among the nations you

shall be utterly despised. Your proud heart has deceived

you. You that live in the clefts of

the rock, whose dwelling is in the heights.

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

ground, though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest

is set among the stars. From there I will bring you

down, says the Lord. If thieves came to you, if

plunderers by night, how you would have been destroyed?

Would they not steal only what they wanted?

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

How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures searched out.

All your allies have deceived you.

They have driven you to the border.

Your Confederates have prevailed against you.

Those who ate your bread have set a trap for you.

There is no understanding of it. On that day, says the Lord, I

will destroy the wise out of Edom and understanding out of

Mount Esau. Your warriors shall be

shattered, O Temen, so that everyone from Mount Esau will be

cut off for the slaughter and violence done to your brother

Jacob. Shame shall cover cover you, and

you shall be cut off forever. On that day you stood aside.

On the day that strangers carried off his wealth and

foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem.

You too were like one of them. But you should not have gloated

over your brother on the day of his misfortune.

You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah on the

day of their ruin. You should not have boasted on

the day of distress. You should not have entered the

gate of my people on the day of their calamity.

You should not have joined in the gloating over Judah's

disaster on the day of his calamity.

You should not have looted His goods on the day of His

calamity. You should have not have stood

at the crossings to cut off the fugitives.

You should not have handed over his survivors on the day of

distress, For the day of the Lord is near against 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 on my holy

mountain, all the nations around you shall drink.

They shall drink and gulp down, and shall be as though they had

never been. But on Mount Zion there shall be

that those that escape, and it shall be holy, and the House of

Jacob shall take possession of those who dispossessed them.

The House of Jacob shall be a fire, the House of Joseph of

flame, and the House of Esau stubble.

They shall burn them and consume them.

And there shall be no survival of the House of Esau, for the

Lord has spoken. Those of the Negeb shall possess

Mount Esau, and those of the Shephalah the land of the

Philistines. They shall possess the land of

Ephraim, and the land of Samaria and Benjamin shall possess

Gilead. the Exiles of the Israelites who are in Hala shall

possess Phoenicia as far as Zarephath, and the Exiles of

Jerusalem who are in Shephart shall possess the towns of the

Negeb. Those who have been saved shall

go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the Kingdom

shall be the Lord's, the word of the Lord.

Thank you Katie for reading all the hard words.

That's why I made her do the whole thing.

Good morning. I'm Carl.

I know most of you, but not all. Something I would love to remedy

after the service if possible. Come say hi or I'll.

I'll look for you if I can. I'm one of the pastors on the

teaching team here. If you don't know me, we're

continuing this series. We've been in on the minor

prophets today. Before we get into that, I know

we just did silence and prayer. We're going to do just a little

bit more just so that I can get my heart ready to do this thing.

OK, so just pray for me quietly or out loud if you really have

to, I guess. Come Holy Spirit.

Amen. All right, so we've been on this

series on the minor prophets. These are the books at the end

of the Old Testament. If you're a Bible Y person,

there's a whole song with the men and with Zachariah Malachi.

And when we started this sermon series, Jared, in his

introduction, he reminded us they're, they're called minor

prophets, not because they're not important, just 'cause these

books are real short. We read a whole one.

This may be the only time in your life you've ever heard a,

a, a sermon on a whole book of the Bible at one go, like in one

sitting. Oh, maybe you guys come from

like we did. The whole book of Matthew took

48 hours. I don't know.

What was cool about these minor prophet books that are shorter

is that they were so small. They could be gathered all into

one scroll called the Book of the 12, which is cool.

It's bummed out that we lost that.

It feels like I would watch that movie, The Book of the 12.

And we have to remember that these books, the Book of the 12

that were gathered together were gathered together for a reason.

They were compiled. In fact, every book that's in

this thing we call the Bible was compiled.

It was put together and canonized and for a reason, I

know some of us were raised that the Bible floated down on a

cloud from heaven one day and we all just made copies.

This is not what happened. I'm sorry, historically

inaccurate. It was, it was, it was gathered.

And I believe, and we believe at Central Vineyard that the the

writings in these books are God inspired.

God put his hand on the people who were writing these things,

and for me, I put a ton of faith because the Bible can be hard to

understand. In the compilers, the people

that brought it all together, they said this is him and this

is him. We're taking this and this and

canonized it. Because for me, the only way to

read this thing is in the context of all the other pieces

of it. So we can best understand this

God who is so great and these us people who are so complex.

So the book of the 12th, this section, we got to ask

ourselves, what's its purpose? What do we have this book for?

Right. And it's a little challenging

the the 12. These books are books of

prophecy. And when we're looking at books

of prophecy, there's the plain reading of a book of prophecy is

a prophet. A person said, Hey, this thing

is going to happen. And that's the reading.

Like, hey, you guys, later I'm going to 711.

It doesn't even there's no, the story doesn't even happen in the

book, right? They say it's gonna happen and

that's it in a very, very plain reading, right.

And so we might, if we're reading the book, we might say,

oh, but these are the keys to the future.

Maybe we are a people that that like wanna know what the secrets

are, what's all gonna happen, right?

And, and we could read the book as a future telling story.

Unfortunately, if you're looking for the books of prophecy to

tell you the future, a lot of it already happened.

It was prophesied and then it happened.

OK Mark Biddle wrote an article I'm drawing on for this called

The Nature of Prophetic literature in Hermeneutics,

actually called Obadiah, Jonah, Micah in canonical context.

But he says, of course, historically informed readers of

Scripture will recognize with reference to these pieces that

Babylon has already fallen once in the fulfillment of prophetic

predictions. So if we're looking for Babylon

to fall, it already didn't. And we have to acknowledge that.

We can have a lot of conversation offline about how

much of the Scripture in the Bible, Old and New Testament

prophecy has already happened. But we're not going to do that

anymore because I'm out of time. But if it's the case that has

already happened, the book of Obadiah, then what's the point?

Like, hey, this thing's going to happen.

And then it did handshakes all around, early lunch.

Like, what's the point? Why put it in the Bible?

Then again, we return to Biddle. He goes on to say whereas

popular readings of biblical prophecy as apocalyptic

prediction, this is to say what's going to happen in the

future fall short and fail to take history seriously.

Any purely historical reading fails to credit already

fulfilled prophecy with any ongoing canonical authority in

the life of the church. That was a lot.

It's a lot. Let's leave that up for a

second. So what we're saying is, hey, if

you're saying these are the secrets of the future, probably

not like you have to be historical and acknowledge

they've already happened. But if you're saying, hey, it

already happened, handshakes all around, early lunch, then you're

saying this part of the Bible is irrelevant to me.

It's useless. Well, that can't be we all

Scripture is God breathed and useful, right?

So it's got to be in there for some kind of a reason.

So that's what his article is about.

I will give you the gist of it. Prophetic literature in general,

and particularly this book of the 12, this collection of

stories are stories that resonate with us today and them

resonate through people throughout time.

And they reveal God's truth well outside of their specific

instance. They're not just future telling

stories, they are truth telling stories.

OK, so in prophetic literature, particularly the book of the 12,

we find information that that reveals the truth about who we

are as humans. We find truth about who God is

and the promises that God makes. And we find also an invitation

to us, to another way of living. That's what we can do and and

use these books for us. That's what they are.

So the book of the 12, it's a toolkit.

Think of a little wrap with a bunch of wrenches and

screwdrivers in it that we can reach into.

And we have to do a couple of things.

We got to find the right tool for the job.

We're going to say, which of these stories is resonant with

us today in our cultural context, in our place, What's

the right story for the job? OK.

And we picked that out and then we have to interpret it properly

to use it. How does this wrench fit this

story and the situation that we are in today?

OK, so I'm really excited about this because I went from having

a bunch of like things that were sort of cryptic crystal ball

nonsense or garbage to a toolkit I like a toolkit who likes to be

able to fix things, right? It's good.

So we've got some things available to us here.

So let's break this story around.

Let's get Part 1 up. OK, so sorry about the the

translation, the differences. I was late to the party.

I'm using the NIVI think we're using maybe the NASB before, but

this way you guys get more context.

So you're welcome. I'm not sorry.

OK, next slide. So this is the part where God is

mad at Edom. OK, this story's a little

different because lots of times we say, hey, straighten up or

you're in big trouble. This is like you done messed up

and here's what's going to happen.

Then we start off with the you're already doomed portion.

OK, So like, you know, your, your pride has deceived you and

you think you're hidden and in the heights and you're not going

to get away. You're going to try to fly and

I'm going to bring you down. Go ahead.

And this part, this part is particularly nasty actually.

It's like, hey, if thieves came by, they would steal some of

your stuff. But you know, they would just

take like what's out the silver and kind of move their way on.

And like grape pickers, they would steal your grapes.

But of course, they don't have time to hang around and take

every last grape. Moving on, it says, but what I'm

going to do to you, I'm going to get everything.

I'm going to get to your hidden stuff.

I'm going to take every last grape.

Like I'm taking all your stuff, all of it.

In fact, you people who are your friends, they're going to trick

you and the people you have dinner with, they're going to

trap you. How about that?

Like it's super doom, doom language.

OK, what's next? Right.

Again, we have, you know, even the wise, those who are of

stature and wisdom among you hidden in the mountains.

I'm coming for them too. Forget about it more years.

We'll be terrified. So it's very doomy.

And and then this is a transitional piece.

This is a verse 10. It's the first time we start to

talk about why, which is next. Because of the violence against

your brother Jacob, you will be covered in shame.

So This is why this is happening.

You will be destroyed forever. The day of the Lord is near for

all Galatians. Briefly, the day of the Lord is

a day of judgment, like when everything's going to be

reckoned. So you better mess up and sort

yourself out. All right, next.

These are a little bit later on, 15 and 16.

So as you have done, it will be done to you.

There's some clever fun word play here.

I was confused by this myself. So just as you drank on my hilly

hill, you'll keep drinking, which sounds like good.

I like drinking. I was already drinking.

The concept here is that we're playing with metaphors.

So just as you literally, when you were pillaging, were

drinking all the wine, you're going to drink the cup of wrath

and you're going to keep drinking that cup of wrath.

So we're back to this very doomy language here.

You like drinking? Drink this kind of thing.

All right, what's next? Oh, good.

OK, So that's Section 1 is sort of you are doomed, real, real

bad, doomed, negative, not good stuff.

Next step is why we're going to spend the most time later on

this section. We'll zip through it right now.

So because of the violence I really liked in the other text,

it said stood aside. I like, stood aloof like it's

got nothing to do with me. Carried off the wealth, gloating

over misfortune. Keep going.

Yeah. So it's just This is why we're

going to get into that. More later.

This is what this is what you did, Edom.

You know what you did, and I'm telling you what you did.

Last section. This is the promise.

This is where we learned about God's promise for restoration,

which. Go ahead.

So Mt Zion will be holy again, Jacob will possess his

inheritance. Jacob will be fire just of a

flame. It's interesting, this stubble

piece, we don't have time for it.

This stubble language, the stubble here is like little bits

of bracken sticks, stuff like that.

Undergrowth. This has appeared in, I think,

every text that we've studied so far.

The word stubble, I didn't look it up, what it is in the

original language. You do it report back to me but

I think fascinating so we we have here a refining fire right

that burns away all of the waste making things holy and right

again and a little little extra doom no survivors from Esau

moving on the people so this is about God's people will come

back into the land right because this piece is about exile.

It's about people who were taken away from by the Babylonians

into exile. They're going to come back and

this is just a very you get this and you get that you get this in

ways that are about restoring things to the way they were

ordained to be is the meta concept.

Next more of that. Go on.

Oh, and all the Kingdom will be the Lords.

There you go. So that's the book.

That's that's how that shakes out.

Probably have notes somewhere. OK yeah.

Shape of the story a little different, as I said.

So if we're going to take this thing apart as a story, we need

to understand we got the shape, OK, you're doomed because you

did this thing and people are going to be restored.

That's the shape of the story. OK, We need now to think about

who are the characters? And we're going to think about

this literally, but also figuratively, right?

If we're going to be able to use this tool or toolbox, it can't

be just about literal ancient peoples or it's useless to us.

It needs to be about peoples and and characters that we

understand in a story. Shape makes sense.

OK, so we have literally this is about the the land of Judah, the

people of Judah. This is the southern part of

what was the nation of Israel, some of the remaining faithful

tribes of God's people. OK, that's Judah.

And when we have Edom, OK, Edom is a Kingdom that's just to the

South of Judah, occupying part of what was once Israel, mostly

a little further South. And in this story, Judah is the

victim, right? So Judah, Babylon comes in and

takes Judah and, and destroys them.

And Edom is not so much the perpetrator of the violence,

which is interesting in this story.

It's not like you came and did this thing.

Edom is the bystander. Edom is the one who stands by,

who stands aloof, who stands aside.

And then maybe kind of, well, as long as it's a pillage, maybe

I'll take a little something for myself.

That's Edom in the story. Still the bad guy in our story.

OK. If we looked at the text more

often than the words Judah and Edom, we see some different

names. You guys remember what names we

saw in the place of Judah and Edom, Jacob and Esau.

That's right. Jacob and Esau.

So the people of Edom were believed to be the descendants

of Esau. Now, this is the audience

participation portion. Congregational participation

portion. What can you tell me about Jacob

and Esau? Shout out, brothers.

Yes, Jacob and Esau are brothers in the story.

Very important. OK.

Who was their dad? Isaac Oh, this is going well.

Who's Isaac's dad? Abraham.

So if you're churchy people, this, the God's promise to

create a people is to Abraham, whose son is Isaac, whose sons

are Jacob and Esau? What's Jacob's other name?

Later on, Israel, right? So we have here a story of

brothers and a story of neighbors.

Jacob becomes Israel, Esau becomes Edom.

We have a brother who is also a neighbor in this story.

And we think of these characters.

We have brothers, and one brother is attacked, right?

And the other one stands by and watches his brother get attacked

and taken away. Obadiah 111 through 14 on the

day you stood aloof. On that day when they came, you

stood aloof while stage strangers carried off your

brother's wealth. And the enemy entered your

brother's gates and cast lots for your brother's great city.

This is to say, they were having so much fun, they had to gamble

for who was going to get what. You.

We're like the enemy of your brother.

Go ahead. You should not gloat over your

brother in the day of your brother's misfortune, nor should

you rejoice over the people of Judah, your brother's people, in

the day of their destruction, nor boast bragging about it in

the day of your brother's trouble.

Next slide. You should not March through the

gates of of your brother in the day of your brother's disaster,

nor should you gloat over your brother in your brother's

calamity in the day of his disaster, nor seize his wealth.

You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down your

brother's fugitives or hand over your brother's survivors on the

day of his trouble. This is your brother.

The brother, Edom Esau, stands aloof.

He gloats. He seizes his brother's wealth.

He hands over those who survived this calamity to the enemy.

And God says for this there will be judgement.

And he says that the first brother will be restored.

That's the story. That's how it works, and that's

the tool from our toolkit that we're working with today.

How do we apply it? OK, We're centering this into

brothers so that we can understand this symbolically,

emotionally, right? But it is not about one person.

The story is about peoples, OK? And the peoples are God's people

and the brother who lives next door to God's people.

OK, so if we're going to understand that, if we're going

to stand God's people and the neighbor to God's people, we got

to deal with what that is. So who are God's people?

Let's look in Genesis. This is when God comes to

Abraham and says, I'm going to make you a people, his people.

Our first introduction of people, the Lord said to Abram,

go from your country and your people and your father's

household into the land. I will show you, I will make you

a great nation. I'm going to make a people and I

will bless you. I will make your name great and

you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless

you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on

earth will be blessed by you. So within the paragraph where

God makes his people, He says the purpose of you, it's to be a

blessing to all the people. I'm making you a people so you

can make everybody my people. Amen.

Next slide from Isaiah, Don't let foreigners who commit

themselves to the Lord say the Lord will never let me be a part

of his people. Don't let people come.

Say that I will bless foreigners who commit themselves to the

Lord, who serve Him and love His name, who worship Him and do not

desecrate the Sabbath day of rest, and who hold fast to my

covenant. I will bring them to my holy

mountain of Jerusalem and fill them with joy in my House of

prayer. I will accept their burnt

offerings and sacrifices because My temple, my house says the

Lord, will be called a House of prayer for all nations, for the

sovereign Lord who brings back the outcasts of Israel, will

bring back others beside my people, Israel.

When I restore my house, I'm bringing everybody and everybody

who wants to be a part of my family and my nation observe

what it is to be a part of my thing.

They're invited everyone. Don't let them say you'll never

be a part of my family. They're not step brothers and

sisters. Next slide this is anybody

recognize this shout it out if you do bonus extra points.

It's a Great Commission then Jesus, you've heard of him came

to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth has been

given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples

of what? All nations, baptizing them in

the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

So we want to know who the people of God are.

We're going to look at what the Scripture says.

The people of God are established from the beginning.

All nations, all nations. God has come.

He made a people to make a blessing to include all the

nations. You get it.

All the nations who are invited to be a part of the people of

God, that's who God is caring about in this story.

Any story we look at in the Scripture, if we want to know

when God's talking about God's people, who he's talking about,

he's talking about all nations, everybody's invited.

So we know who that is in the story.

All nations, God's people. Who's the neighbor of all the

nations then? Well, good news, Jesus has dealt

with this question about who neighbors are in the Bible.

Let's review this story. Little thing called a Good

Samaritan on one occasion, an expert in the law to test Jesus.

Teacher. He asked, what must I do to

inherit eternal life? This was a test, you'll note.

Yes, Thank you. Sorry.

You don't back up even when I'm crazy.

All right. What is written in the law?

Jesus. Like, OK, smart guy.

You, you're you're an expert. What's written in the law?

How do you read? How do you interpret what the

law says? The expert says love the Lord

your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your

strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as

yourself. Jesus says you have answered

correctly. Do this and you will live.

But the teacher of the law, not satisfied with getting a Gold

Star from Jesus, wanted to justify himself.

He wanted to get out of this. Gosh, that seemed kind of like a

lot. Well, OK then Jesus, who is my

neighbor? And reply Jesus said a man was

going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by

robbers. They stripped him of his

clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road and he saw

the man and he passed by on the other side.

Don't want none of that. A Levite, A holy man, came to

the place and saw him, and he passed by on the other side as

well. But a Samaritan, a Samaritan, as

he travelled, came where the man was, and he saw him.

And he took pity on him. And he went to him and bandaged

his wounds, pouring oil and wine.

And he put the man on his own donkey bleeding, cut up mystery

man, put him in his car full of crap and brought him to the end

and took care of him. The next day he took out two

denarii and gave them to the innkeeper.

Look after me, he said, and when I return I will reimburse you

for any extra expense you may have.

Which of these three smart guy do you think was a neighbor?

To the man who fell into the hands of robbers, the expert in

the law replied, The one who had mercy on him, Jesus said Go and

do likewise. Another story, OK, another tool

from the toolbox. We have a parable story tool.

We have our professors, Let's put them together.

We got to look at this one really quick.

Got to go faster on this victim. OK, Israelite person of God for

the audience of the story, right?

So a person of God is attacked. Characters 2 Supposedly holy

people, priest and Levite, who stand aloof, who stand aside.

And the Samaritan. Samaria land north of Judah, a

people thought to be related to the people of God.

We have a brother. We found another brother,

another brother, neighbor, who lives next door.

But this brother, the Samaritan, doesn't behave like Edom, like

Esau. This brother behaves like a

neighbor should. This is a person, the Samaritan,

who is an outsider who is shunned and disliked and reaches

across difference and disgust to care for this person who acts

like a real neighbor. That's what a neighbor should

be. So we've got our tools.

How do we apply them? Going back to our original

story, we got 2 characters to choose from.

We got the people of God. We got the victim.

OK, and we got the neighbor. All right, So let's look, we

could say, do we sit comfortably in the victim seat?

Are we the victim? This is a really important

question. If you're a victim, this is a

story of consolation. Hey, we know terrible things

happen to you. The Lord will restore you.

You will be OK, but there's not a lot to do if you're the victim

but sit around and wait for the Lord to sort things out.

And it's also a really risky headspace to be in if you're

living in a place of I am justified, I have been done

wrong by and the Lord will visit retribution upon my enemies.

I'm going to be pretty sure you're right about that.

So let's check. What is a victim in the story?

What does it take to be a victim?

Well, like I said before, the events that happened in the

stories, the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, right?

So what do the Babylonians do? They besiege the city of

Jerusalem. They keep people from getting

resources. They ultimately destroy it, the

archaeological evidence suggests, through carefully set

fires. They burn it to the ground, they

raise the temple, and then they snatch away the people and take

them to service in Babylon. That's what a victim looks like

in our story. OK, if if you want to know if

you're a victim in this story, have you lived through the

slaughter of your people, the pillaging of your property, the

end of your nation as you know it, and you now live somewhere

else in exile? That would make you the victim

in this story. OK, maybe you are.

If you are living here as a refugee from another place, you

might be the victim, particularly in Ohio.

If you want to check to see who's sitting in the victim

seat, people from Somalia, Haiti, Ukraine, Afghanistan and

others, these would be good candidates for victim.

But I think for me, I don't sit in that seat and you know, I'll

tell you what else you know, if you sit in the victim's seat

because you don't give a bother about it, you don't care because

you're busy surviving. You're not looking for

justification right now, you're just trying to get by.

OK. If you're looking for self

righteousness and justification, you're probably sitting in the

neighbor's seat. So understand if we are the

neighbor, then we have a choice on what kind of neighbor do we

want to be good neighbor, good sibling or not?

Edom or Samaria, what can we do? How can we be a good neighbor?

And what does it look like to be a good neighbor in times when

even your government appears to be taking on the role of Babylon

of the victimizer? In their book Jesus and the

Powers, NT Wright and Michael Byrd wrestle with this question.

When do we appeal to Caesar and submit to governing authorities?

And when do we tell Caesar that we must obey God rather than

human authorities and pray for the government to fall into

divine judgment? Next slide.

Can we disobey divinely instituted government?

Can that disobedience even go so far as passive and active

resistance? It's a great book.

It's really thoughtful. It's so thoughtful, it really

bothers me. I would love it for it to be

more straightforward, but it's it's really complex.

The answer to this question. Next slide.

The answer is yes for two reasons.

No earthly institution, whether monarch or magistrate, possesses

absolute authority. The authority of the state is

not an invioluble, inviable position, but a performance of

service to lead us to serve, a service rendered to God, an

exercise for the people. Next slide.

The government's authority is then conditional upon its

performance to meet God's standards of righteousness, and

when the consensus, the people and how they wish to be governed

accordingly. Oh, excuse me a second.

While government is divinely instituted for the common good

and should be paid in principle, not every governor is good.

I've lost my place entirely. What's the next slide?

OK, great, thank you. They go on to say yes.

For rulers who engage in cruelty, injustice, and avarice,

we they cannot say they do so with divine sponsorship.

By virtue of their office, their legitimacy is forfeit, for only

good government can claim the mantle of divinely appointed

authority. Accordingly, God brings order

through the government, but does not ordain every individual

ruler. As such, it can be right for

Christians to retort to state authorities.

We must obey God, not human beings, and refuse to be afraid

of the King's orders. So in the course of finding ways

to be good neighbors, according to this book at least, it's

permissible to resist. And I agree, personally

speaking, For for Carl, that's my name.

Whenever we're in places like this, we're talking about things

at this, this level of importance and complexity.

You must turn to your own conscience and the voice of the

Lord within you and within your family and, and community.

So I'd encourage you as you're considering what it looks like

to be a good neighbor, to do that, to take it seriously and

engage with the Lord on it. I would just ask that as you do

that you remember the principle of what does it mean to care for

your brothers and sisters? What does it mean to be a good

neighbor? What does it look like to live

out your faith in real practice? I'll leave you with one more

quote from the book and one from the Bible.

So how do we live, love, pray, work and follow Jesus Christ

under the shadow of governments that deny citizens basic

freedoms, manufacture idolatries and injustice, and act with

impunity in their crimes against humanity?

The answer is that faith is our defiance, and defiance is

contagious. You can stand, the band can come

up, Jesus said to the ruler. Which of these three do you

think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of

robbers? The expert in the law said the

one who had mercy, the one who had mercy on him, the one who

had mercy on the man who was beaten in the street, Jesus told

him, go, we're going to enter into a time

of worship and prayer. It's my hope that what I shared

today will be to you an encouragement and not a stick.

That that is is is here to hit you about the head.

That it is a reminder that we can live out our faith together

in being good neighbors. None of us is doing this alone.

That we are working to be a people of mercy.

So if anything struck you that you would like the Lord to speak

into right now, could we have people, prayer people here

today? You guys can come up and take

your places around the room. Please come and get prayer.