Obadiah Message 2

Intro:

Today we turn now to spend some time in this small little prophecy of Obadiah.

A little book with BIG connections!

The book of Obadiah can be broken down into 4 or 5 major sections. In 1-4 we see God’s indictment of Edom, in 5-9 we see God’s description of the coming judgement, in 10-14 God tells us why this destruction is coming, and then in verses 15-21 we have as we have seen in many of the prophets a passage about the future restoration of God’s people which can be broken down into two sections, one about the Day of the Lord and one about the coming Kingdom.

PRAY & READ

If you remember from our last time together in Obadiah we took a look at the historical context of the book, the key being the animosity that existed between the people of Edom and the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob and his brother Esau.

This long simmering animosity we saw had boiled over to the point that when Babylon had come in and destroyed the people of Judah the people of Esau, of Edom, hadn't lifted a finger to help their brothers and had even, as we will see today, taken part in the slaughter of God’s people.

As we have mentioned before, one of the keys to understanding a prophecy is to not just understand the words but to be able to understand the feelings that undergird the prophecy, these people would have been feeling something when they heard Obadiah deliver this message and i believe that we can get a great glimpse into how they would have felt if we turn briefly to the Psalms, there in Psalm 137, the first 7 verses we read:

English Standard Version Psalm 137

By the waters of Babylon,

there we sat down and wept,

when we remembered Zion.

2  On the willows there

we hung up our lyres.

3  For there our captors

required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4  How shall we sing the LORD’s song

in a foreign land?

5  If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

let my right hand forget its skill!

6  Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

above my highest joy!

7  Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites

the day of Jerusalem,

how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,

down to its foundations!”

These were a people in mourning, they had been conquered in what had been a horrifically gruesome conquest and carried away into a land far from their home. And we see here in Psalm 137 that the people of Edom had played a role in this, we get an even clearer picture of what transpired if we turn to this prophesy in Obadiah.

Verses 10-14

We are going to jump to verses 10-14 and there we see what it was that Edom had done.

The indictment begins in verse 10 with the declaration that violence had been done to his brother Jacob. Obadiah will develop this but we see that as a result of this violence shame is going to cover Edom and they are going to be cut off for ever, these are pretty general terms that are often used to describe divine judgement.

Verse 11 tells us that when the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried the people of Judah and their wealth off the people of Edom stood aloof. To stand aloof is like when you see your sibling struggling with some task and you just kind of stand back and watch with a not my problem sort of look on your face. Edom wasn't going to put their neck on the line for the people of Judah.

But not only that, we see at the end that this aloof attitude began to switch and not only did the people of Edom not come to the aid of the people of Judah but they actually began to participate in the destruction, they became like one of the Babylonians.

As an interesting side note we do even have some historical evidence though how reliable is of questions, but there is evidence that the people of Edom even participated in the burning of the Temple!

In verses 12-14 we have this drum beat of “do nots” the intent here is to highlight exactly what the people of Edom did. Don’t mistakenly think that this is a warning for Edom not to do these things, the prophet is saying these are things that ought not to be done and he is saying that precisely because Edom has done all of them!

It is in these verses that we get the clearest picture of what Edom had done.

They gloated over the people’s misfortune, the celebrated the people of Judah’s destruction, they boasted, likely that they were not experiencing he same destruction, they entered the gates of Jerusalem, they looted the wealth of Jerusalem, (this would have been what was left after Babylon had taken what they wanted), and most heinous of all, when the people of Judah were fleeing from the destruction, as they sought to pass into the land of Edom the Edomites either cut them down or blocked their entrance to their land and handed them back over to the Babylonians!

Verses 1-4

This is what Edom was guilty of and so now we jump back up to verse 1 and we find God issuing His indictment against Edom for these things.

God has called out into the nations and is bringing people against Edom who will destroy them.

Notice here that God is the primary actor here. We have seen this time and time again in the prophets but, especially as we see the vast instability among the nations in our own world today it is some comforting an reassuring to be reminded that our God is the God who rules the nations. When He calls, even nations who do not know or believe in Him do exactly as He desires them to do! Israel’s God now moves the nations to come and lay waste to Edom for their mistreatment of His people.

verses 3&4 the security that Edom felt

Verses 5-9

In verses 5-9 we then see Obadiah describe the extent of the judgement that God is bringing on the people of Edom. sure they felt secure but when God moves against a people there is nothing that can deliver them from His hand!

the pictures of verse 5

Pillaged

Friends turn on them

destroy the wise and the strong (The two areas that men are often tempted to trust in and boast in the most)

SLAUGHTER!

The Day of the Lord

If the book of Obadiah ended there it may well have not been preserved for us. God delivered many messages through His prophets that were not recorded and handed down and preserved though God’s providence as His Word preserved for His people, the scared scriptures. However, here in these last verses Obadiah takes this short little prophecy about retribution on Edom and connects it to the broader reaches of redemptive history and what God is doing in the world.

It is not as though we couldn't get glean worthwhile and edifying material from the previous verses, we have already seen what they show us about God’s rule in the world and we noted in our last message and will note again today how this prophecy answered the most pressing question these people sitting by the waters of Babylon likely had, that being “are we still the people of God?” “Is God still for us?” or “Has he now left us and moved on like He threatened to do so long ago in the wilderness, after all there was no Moses here now to intercede for the people.”

It is here though that I encouraged you to see if you could take what we have learned about the Day of the Lord and about the kingdom and apply that understanding to this prophecy.

One of these days I am going to do a message or two specifically on these two subjects and do a survey of the relevant texts in the prophets to try and tie all of this together.

For now though I want us to see how it is that Obadiah uses these big themes to lift the eyes of his audience above one people and one set of wrongs done to them at one moment in time to see above all time their Great God working to bring about His foreordained end to all of human history.

Verses 15-18 deal with the Day of the Lord!

READ

The prophet Joel is vital for understanding these verses. It could even be that Obadiah is counting on his audience to call to mind the prophecy of Joel as he here makes just a summary and quick mention of some of the faucets of the coming day of the Lord.

Obadiah notes that the day is near. This could be near as in the nations are ripe for judgement or it could be that this is time from a divine perspective in which these events are drawing close.

This Day though as we see here is not just a day for Edom but a day for ALL nations. Think of Joel’s valley of decision where all the nations are gathered for judgement! We also see here the same theme of judgement that we see in Joel chapter 3, that being that in this judgement God is going to bring the wicked deeds of the nations back on their own heads.

This is pictured of Edom as it seems to imply here, perhaps in validation of those historical sources that note Edom’s participation in the burning of the Temple, that Edom drunkenly celebrated the destruction of Jerusalem and now though they are going to in turn have to drink of the cup of God’s wrath. The imagery these words create in Hebrew is quite graphic as what we read here as “swallow” really conveys the sense of drinking nosily, or slurping and gurgling as the cup is poured continually down their throats. This is not a pretty picture and it conveys the sense of what it will be like for these nations to finally receive the just due for their wickedness!

Also as we saw in Joel we see here the dual realities of this day of the Lord. There is judgment and destruction for the wicked but there are those who will be saved and that salvation will come from Jerusalem, the mountain of Zion, it will be a holy place and there God’s people will possess their own possessions, they will be restored.

The tables will be turned and as a result of God’s blessing His people will:

A. Be united… House of Jacob, House of Joseph (South & North)

B. They will overcome their enemies. Babylon had come in and consumed, literally burned Jerusalem to the ground and Edom had likely participated, now Edom will be reduced to stubble in a flame and will be consumed no more to rise, unlike Israel who though they experienced the severe discipline of God, yet because of His own faithfulness to His covenant were restored!

THE LORD HAS SPOKEN… These things will come to pass!

The Kingdom

Finally we see in verses 19-21 the imagery of the Kingdom restored.

There are a lot of names and places mentioned in this section some of them we aren't even quite sure where they are but the overall picture that is being conveyed is that these people who have been exiled are being brought back and restored to their land. Also we see that the boundaries of the land are at least in part being expanded, the lad of Israel did not include the land of Edom but we see here in verse 19 that the land of Esau is now a part of what God’s people will possess.

Now, there is a key difficulty here, that is what is being spoken of here? The people did indeed return from exile and they did settle back in their land but as with many of the passages about the restoration of Israel these things seem to not have been quite fully fulfilled in the return to the land, especially when we see verse 21 that talks about the ruling of the world from the city of Jerusalem and the Kingdom being the Lords.

This brings me to a key hermenutical point that we need to be able to use to rightly understand these things.

Key Hermenutical point: The promises of restoration which bring about God’s Kingdom are often given in a language and with expectations that these people could easily understand. These people could understand the repossession of the land, and indeed they would regain the land, however we need to understand that in the context of the promise of the Kingdom of the Lord these things point us beyond simply the repossession of the land to the greater and ultimate fulfilment of these things in that God’s people will possess, not just the land of Israel, but all things as God in Christ the Messiah rules until All things have been put under His feet!

English Standard Version Chapter 1

and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

This is where prophecy gets especially tricky because we cant use this tool to simply wipe all reference to the return to the land away, there are prophecies that are fulfilled as the people are brought back from Exile but this return, like the exodus is largely symbolic of a yet to come (for them) larger deliverance of God’s people.

These two themes then that end the prophecy are where this book, again, branches out and connects to a far broader expectation of what was to come!

Closing

As we close our time in this prophet I want us to be reminded again of how wonderful this prophecy must have been to faithful Israelites or to those who were being driven back toward faithfulness as a result of the discipline of the Lord, remember this prophecy answered the most looming question of all, it reassured the people that they were still God’s people!

We have need to be reminded of that from time to time. Because of God’s own faithfulness to His covenant we also can rest assured that, if we have faith in Christ, if we have been brought into the people of God through faith in the shed blood of Jesus on the cross, we are God’s people and nothing at all can take us out of His mighty hands.

Secondly we see here that this prophecy was intended to move these people to live in expectation. Else ware God had instructed the people to settle in the land of Babylon and to live there for a time because the captivity was going to last 70 years but even though they were to settle in that land and live there and seek its good they were always to live in light of these promises that there was, if you might phrase it this way, a kingdom that was not of that world, they served the King of Kings and one day He would move to restore them to the land and move to bring about His kingdom. Now we live in a different point in redemptive History but that admonition to that way of life still holds true for us. Yes we see the Kingdom spoken of here in Obadiah having been inaugurated with the ascension of the messiah to the right hand of the Father but we, like they, live for the moment when the Kingdom will be consummated, when fully and finally as we see in the book of Revelation in chapter 11:

English Standard Version Chapter 11

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16

It is then that the full and final fulfillment of this little prophecy of Obadiah will take place, when Christ returns and there and then these words will be brought to the full:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

God’s Justice

The first attribute of God that we see so clearly in this text is His Justice! This is a text all about God bringing about justice on the people of Edom.

(10) “Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you.”

Wicked men do not often think of God as they craft and carry out their wicked acts. In fact in this world it often can seem like the wicked find blessing while the righteous are left in want. We read throughout the Bible words like these from the prophet Jeremiah, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” The prophet Habakkuk wrestles with God as to how God could use an unrighteous nation to bring destruction and Judgement upon His own people.

However, God calls us to not look only at the immediate circumstances. One of the major themes of the OT prophets is the cup of Gods wrath. We find as we see in this prophecy that God does indeed see all of the wicked deeds done by sinful men and that He will move to bring about justice.

It is a theme that we don't have the time to flesh out this morning but in verse 15 this small little prophecy of Obadiah widens out and connects to the broader theme of the coming Day of the Lord. We find that in this day that God is going to bring their deeds back on their own head:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

As you have done, it shall be done to you;

your deeds shall return on your own head.

We find that there is no nation that is going to escape from God’s coming judgement.

The prophet Joel develops this theme of the day of the Lord as much or more perhaps than any other prophet and there we see that the time is coming when God is going to gather all of the nations of the world together to judge them. It is interesting to note that Joe also is a prophet who uses localized and relevant instances of the mistreatment of God’s people by wicked nations to drive his audience's mind forward to that great day.

So here I would maintain that this prophecy, though it was delivered in the context of the people of Edom’s mistreatment of the people of Israel is just as relevant to us today as we experience the wickedness of the world coming against us in what ever context we are in.

I am reminded of the saints in Revelation who cry out from beneath the alter:

English Standard Version Chapter 6

“O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Ours is the God who says: (Deutronomy)

English Standard Version Chapter 32

35  Vengeance is mine, and recompense,

for the time when their foot shall slip;

for the day of their calamity is at hand,

and their doom comes swiftly.’

36  For the LORD will vindicate his people

and have compassion on his servants,

when he sees that their power is gone

and there is none remaining, bond or free.

While we can not know exactly why it is that God in His providence brings to pass so much of the wickedness that we see in this world, though not in such a way as He could ever be said to have sinned, yet none the less we see all these things happen, we experience evil at the hands of the world just as God’s people in Obadiah’s day did and we ask why and God’s answer is not necessarily to explain the mysteries of His providence but He does assure His people that justice will be meted out fully and finally.

As God’s people we are meant to take great comfort in this glorious aspect of our great God!