Obadiah 2
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Major Lessons from Minor Prophets
Obadiah.
Obadia is a simple little book. Its the shortest book in the whole OT, in facts its only 1 xhapter of 21 verses and its not very broad in its scope.
Its basically a prophecy against the people of Edom. Edom being the descendants of Esu, Jacobs brother who sold Jacob his birthright for a bowl of soup.
So the message of Edom is very plain. Powerful, but plain.
However in my study of the book i came accross an intresting line, one that caught my intrest.
17 But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.
I found the wording intresting.
Israel wont just have their own possesions, but they shall posess their own possesions.
And the more i looked into this the more fascanating it became.
Turns out there is a difference betwen having something and posessing it.
Posession include the enjoyment of the thing you have.
You have have something but not posess it, if you dont get to enjoy what it is you have.
I remeber reading about Celebs who won amazing car collections:
Mariah Cary the singer owns: a Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe, a custom pink Porsche Cayenne, a Maserati Quattroporte, a Maybach 62 Luxury Sedan and a custom matte black Range Rover.
robbie williams owns Porsche, a Ferrari, a Mercedes, an Aston Martin.
An amazing selection of cars.
But guess what? They own them, but these celebs dont have drivers liceneces. They may own them, but they cannot drive them.
They own them but they dont posess them.
They have them, but they actually enjoy them.
This led to seek the wisdom of the Preacher, the wisest man to live: King Solomon in his book Ecclesiasties and lets look together at what i found:
Riches without enjoyment
Riches without enjoyment
1 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind:
2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.
What a seeming tragedy it is to have all the resources for a satisfying life and yet not be able to enjoy them for one reason or another.
More than one person has worked hard and looked forward to a comfortable retirement only to have a heart attack and become either an invalid or a statistic.
Or perhaps the peace of retirement is shattered by a crisis in the family that begins to drain both money and strength.
Why do these things happen?
Solomon mentioned this subject in 5:19 and hinted at it in 3:13.
19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.
13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
To him, it was a basic principle that nobody can truly enjoy the gifts of God apart from the God who gives the gifts.
To enjoy the gifts without the Giver is idolatry, and this can never satisfy the human heart.
Enjoyment without God is merely entertainment, and it doesn’t satisfy.
But enjoyment with God is enrichment and it brings true joy and satisfaction.
The fact that God gave Solomon riches, wealth, and honor made the account even more meaningful to him.
How fortunate a person would be to lack nothing, but how miserable if he or she could not enjoy the blessings of life.
What would prevent this person from enjoying life?
Perhaps trouble in the home.
16 Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.
17 Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.
The person described in verse 2 had no heir, so a stranger acquired the estate and enjoyed it.
It all seems so futile.
What is Solomon saying to us?
“Enjoy the blessings of God now and thank Him for all of them.”
Don’t plan to live—start living now.
Be satisfied with what He gives you and use it all for His glory.
Verses 3–6 surely deal with a hypothetical case, because nobody lives for two thousand years, and no monogamous marriage is likely to produce a hundred children.
3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.
4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered.
5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he.
6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place?
The Preacher was obviously exaggerating here in order to make his point:
no matter how much you possess, if you don’t possess the power to enjoy it, you might just as well never have been born.
Here is a man with abundant resources and a large family, both of which, to an Old Testament Jew, were marks of God’s special favor.
But his family does not love him, for when he died, he was not lamented. That’s the meaning of “he has no burial”
His relatives stayed around him only to use his money (5:11), and they wondered when the old man would die.
When he finally did die, his surviving relatives could hardly wait for the reading of the will.
The rich man was really poor.
For some reason, perhaps sickness, he couldn’t enjoy his money.
And he couldn’t enjoy his large family because there was no love in the home.
They didn’t even weep when the man died.
Solomon’s conclusion was that it were better for this man had he never been born, or that he had been stillborn.
Among the Jews at that time, a stillborn child was not always given a name. That way, it would not be remembered.
It was felt that this would encourage the parents to get over their sorrow much faster. “It [the child] comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded” (v. 4, NIV).
In my pastoral ministry, broken-hearted parents and grandparents have sometimes asked, “Why did God even permit this child to be conceived if it wasn’t going to live?” Solomon asked, “Why did God permit this man to have wealth and a big family if the man couldn’t enjoy it?”
Some would argue that existence is better than nonexistence and a difficult life better than no life at all.
Solomon might agree with them, for “a living dog is better than a dead lion” (9:4).
But the problem Solomon faced was not whether existence is better than nonexistence, but whether there is any purpose behind the whole seemingly unbalanced scheme of things.
As he examined life “under the sun,” he could find no reason why a person should be given riches and yet be deprived of the power to enjoy them.
The ability to enjoy life comes from within.
It is a matter of character and not circumstances.
look what Paul said:
11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
The Greek word autarkes, translated “content,” carries the idea of “self-contained, adequate, needing nothing from the outside.”
Paul carried within all the resources needed for facing life courageously and triumphing over difficulties.
So what is required for true contentment on the inside so we can enjoy all the things on the outside?
1: God.
1: God.
Without God all is meaningless.
This is something that the preacher experimented on and discovered.
10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Whatever i wanted i got. I had the resources to obtain whatever my eyes say and my heart wanted.
from unfathomible wordly riches to over 700 wives and 300 concubines.
That means that he could have a different sexual partner each night for just under 3 years.
To many people that sound like a dream come true, the reality: Meaningless.
This is nothing more than a person trying to find satisfaction without God.
2: Thankfulness
2: Thankfulness
Thankfulness is absolute key to enjoying life and the things God blesses us with.
Yet, it is the most neglected of all.
Jesus pointed thi out when he healed 10 lepers one day.
He healed them, gave them their lives and families back.
Yet:
15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;
16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?
18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
This encounter with the 10 was not arbertrary, it gives us a universal ratio of all who should give thanks.
The universal ratio is 1 out of 10. In all instances of people giving thanks and being thankful, only 1 out of 10 ever will.
Are you th 1?
3: Contentment
3: Contentment
When you are thankful you will learn contentment.
Contentment is not setteling. Contentment is not in compitition with your hopes and dreams.
I believe that contentment is understanding the place of seasons in our life and learning all we can in each season, not waisting it waiting for the next better season.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain,
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
The 2,000-year-old man and the stillborn baby both ended up in the same place—the grave.
Once again, the Preacher confronted his listeners with the certainty of death and the futility of life without God.