Hello, this is Elder Brandon Hartfield. We're thankful to have this opportunity to come and be on the radio broadcast again this week. We certainly desire the prayers of those of you that know the Lord, and by the Lord's help, we certainly pray that we could be used of God to be a blessing. Before we get started with the message today, we do want to look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we come to you this day, Lord, we're just so thankful for the many wonderful things that you've done for us. Father, we pray that you would lead and guide us by your Holy Spirit. Strengthen us where we're weak, Father. Help us to be the people that you would have us to be. Father, that we would live your Word, not just speak it, but Father, that we would live your Word every day. Accomplish your will and be the light in this world that you've taught us to be according to your Word. Father, help us not rely upon our own strength, our own merit, our own minds, but Father, help us rely upon the truth of your word, that Father, we can accomplish your will, and Father, that lost souls could be saved, and Father, that we could be the encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Christ that we need to be. Father, we ask these blessings, and we ask it all in the name of Jesus, for he is worthy. Amen. As we come today, we're going to turn to the book of Obadiah, If you're not familiar with the book of Obadiah, you need to find Amos and Jonah, and it's the one page in between those two books. Obadiah is not a long book, but I'll say this, it's an important book. It's a book that deals with Edom. Now the Edomites, or Edom, they were the lineage that came off of Esau. Now, if you know your Bible, you know that Jacob and Esau were brothers years ago. And of course, Jacob took Esau's birthright. It was in God's plan that it came about that way. But nevertheless, some of Esau's children later on didn't really like it. And they would even later make war with Israel, join its enemies, and do a lot of damage that some of that we'll even read about today. But God decides that He's going to judge Edom, or Esau's lineage. And I'll remind you that when Esau and Jacob When they were reunited, Esau was very content. You know, he told his brother, you know, I have enough. I don't need all these other gifts. He had made his living. He was a strong warrior and really kind of made a living from that and became a very powerful man. And in all honesty, a lot of his children were very strong fighters that were very knowledgeable. And a lot of things about warfare and things of this nature and even where they would hide and protect themselves They were very strong people. I do not know the population of Edom. I'll go ahead and tell you that up front But I will tell you this it's about 1100 years That's a long time 1100 years since Jacob and Esau's day of reuniting and their time period of all that that's going on. 1,100 years. And I think upon that and I hear some people say, well, you know, some people can hold a grudge. Can't some people get over this and over that? And I wish they could. Don't get me wrong. But the Edomites were so grudgeful. And so bitter and it's been 1100 years and they're still blaming the Jews and Jacob for his wrong that he did to Esau And they can't get over it 1100 years later, and that's a long time to carry a grudge But they did and so after all this time and especially after they choose sides against Israel God finally says you know what I've had enough with you and I've been patient with y'all, and I believe 1100 years is pretty patient. And God's got to the point after seeing how they've gone against their own kin of the flesh, the Israelites, and the way that they've done them, God says, you know what? I'm going to bring you down. I'm going to bring judgment upon you. And so that's what we have here in the book of Obadiah. And he says in verse 1 of the book of Obadiah, the vision of Obadiah, thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a rumor from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen. Arise ye and let us rise up against her in battle. Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen. Thou art greatly despised." Now notice how God starts this off with Edom. He says, listen, I'm gonna let y'all know right now. You're a small group of people. Again, I don't know the size. I don't know if it's just tens of thousands of Edomites or if it's hundreds of thousands. I don't know, but the other nations surrounding them were bigger. We know that. And not only were they smaller, He says, you know what? People don't like you. God just comes to him and says, I'm going to tell you this, people don't like you. You're despised. And see, at this time, that's very important because they think, well, we have all these friends around us and we're just joining with them so that we can, you know, go against Israel. And he's letting them know, he says, you're not liked like you think you are. The pride of thine heart. And that's one of the main subjects dealt with here, is man putting their faith in man, their strength, their might, their confidence. And he says, your pride is your problem. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee. Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, that sayeth in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?" Notice their statement. We're strong. We're up here in the mountains and we live in maybe the caves or something or we have our places built with such fortification and we have the high ground. Nobody's taking us down. There's some people, for them, their high ground is money. For some people, their high ground is a strong military. For some people, their high ground is their muscle and their strength. Some people, it's their intellect. I'll tell you, if you'll study through history, you will find that some very smart people have fallen victim to some very foolish things because of pride. You go back and study Germany in World War II and look at all the inventions they had. In fact, America's space race, a lot of it was performed by people who built rockets for Germany. We gave them asylum and we were like, oh yeah, come and help us build things. Germans, I tell you what, back in World War II they had some of the best scientists in the world. the bombs that they built, the guns that they built, the transportation they built, the autobahn. I mean, you just look at a lot of the things that they saw. Listen, our interstate road system is based upon the road system that Hitler had built throughout Germany and throughout the European nations that he overtook. That's our interstate system. It's from the blueprint of Germany. And I'll say this, a lot of even how the Russians grew in technology and stuff, they got from German scientists that they gathered up after the war. A country with so much centralized intelligence lost. Know why they lost? Pride. Pride can tear down a whole lot of knowledge. And it's happening even in our day and time. Pride can do a lot of damage to strength. You know Goliath sat down and he looked at a boy and he said this boy can't stop me and he let down his guard and he took a stone between the eyes. He forgot that he was human. You know a lot of times when you go back and study the the wild, wild west here in America, which it wasn't what all the books and movies said it was, but of course there were some wild parts to it, no doubt about it. But if you talk to the gunslingers, they didn't fear necessarily somebody else. They knew that was when they let their guard down and somebody would walk up to them behind the back. Or they'd let their pride get so heavy that they think they could defeat anybody and they didn't know who they were facing and they got beat. Somebody had a quicker draw. Or sometimes in those fights you would draw and you might miss with the first shot and the other guy might hit you with his first shot. You might have shot quicker than him. But you might have missed. and the other guy shot, gotcha. When we put our faith in our strength, in our muscle, in our might, some people have sat back and said, well I have billions of dollars, I have millions of dollars, I have plenty of money. How many times have we heard people that have had millions or even billions of dollars go broke? How many times? It's happened over and over again, hasn't it? Throughout history. We stopped being wise. But these people were lifted up in pride and they said, who shall bring me down to the ground? We're strong, we're smart. And God says, but your pride hath deceived thee. He said, though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. God says, I'll do it. I'll set it up and you will fall. If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, how art thou cut off? Would they not have stolen till they had enough? If the grape-gatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes?" He says, your protection is not what you think it is. How are the things of Esau searched out? How are his hidden things sought up? All the men of thy confederacy, have brought thee even to the border. The men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee and prevailed against thee. They that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee. There is none understanding in him." He says, the people you thought were the closest to you are the people looking for a place to put the knife. People that are eating bread at your table are going to be those that turn on you." He said, your confederacy, in other words, your group of compadres, your alliances. He said, they're all going to turn on you because they despise you. They don't trust you. And he said, they're going to prevail against you. He said, shall I not in that day saith the Lord even destroy the wise men out of Edom? and understanding out of the mouth of Esau. He said, when that day comes, he says, your wise men, those that you think are so intelligent, he said, they're going to die. He said, those that you think have understanding and knowledge and can direct you in battle, he said, they're going to die. And thy mighty men, O Taman, shall be dismayed to the end that every one of the Mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter." Not just a few. He said, it's going to be a slaughter. And he said, everyone's going to be cut off. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever. God says, I'm going to cut you off forever. Why? Because you went to war. You made violence against Jacob, against Israel. And the day that thou stoodest on the other side, and the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou was as one of them." He says, you were united with them against your own blood, against your own kin. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger, neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction, neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress." He says, you sit there and laughed, you sit there and enjoyed it, you sit there and took part, of the destruction against Israel. This is your own flesh. This is your own blood. And yet you took part in this. You laughed about it. God says, I noticed. You let your pride, your envy, your jealousy, you let it come to the place that you joined the sides of the enemy against your own flesh. And God said, I paid attention. He said, Thou shouldst not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Yea, Thou shouldst not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. He said, You gathered what was theirs. You came into their cities. You took of the spoil. Neither shouldst thou have stood in the crossway to cut off those of his that did escape." See, there were some that had escaped Jerusalem and escaped these places and were fleeing for refuge. And Edom, they caught them and they turned them over to their enemies. He said, you wouldn't even let the remnant escape. You wouldn't even let the remnant get away. That's how cruel you were. God says, I noticed. Neither shouldst thou have deceived, delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. Not only that, they evidently searched for those that still remained. God says, I saw what ye did. For the day of the Lord is near. upon all the heathen, as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee." God's saying, I'm going to recompense, I'm going to repay you for this. And I'll remind us, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God says, I saw what you've done, and I'm going to recompense, I'm going to repay it. You thought you were making yourself richer? You thought you were getting revenge upon them for what Jacob did? And He says, I'll show you what's happened. He said, it's going to be done unto you the same way it was done unto them. Thy reward shall return upon thine own head. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually. Yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. But upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness, and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions." God's saying, I'm going to restore Israel. I'm going to bring them back. But for Edom, a different subject. He says, y'all think that Israel and Jerusalem and Judah's destroyed. He said, but I'm going to restore unto them. I'm going to give them the inheritance of Jacob as I've promised them. He said, the house of Jacob shall be afire, and the house of Joseph aflame, and the house of Esau for stubble. There's a huge difference between flame and stubble. And they shall kindle in them, and devour them. And there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken it. That's a powerful statement, isn't it? He said, there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau. Again, I don't know if there were tens of thousands of Edomites of this house of Edom, of the house of Esau. I don't know if it was hundreds of thousands. But God is saying, your existence upon this earth is going to be gone. That's a powerful statement, isn't it? That would be like going to a town and saying, every Smith or every Jones, and we know there's a whole lot of Jones in this world, a whole lot of Smiths. You can't open up a phone book anywhere without finding a pile of them. And he said, that's like God going to not only one town or one city, but across the whole places wherever they live. And God says, listen, I'm going to remove you where there's not one of you left. Can you imagine a group of tens of thousands or possibly even hundreds of thousands of people? Because they've had 1100 years to grow their population as a family. That's a long time to grow a population. And God says, I'm going to wipe all of you out. Because of what you've done, there'll be nothing left. You know, I think back and sometimes you look in wars and some families had their whole families wiped out during war. Some might send, you know, three or four boys off to war and none of them returned. And so the father had nobody to leave his inheritance to. Or the father was dead and the mother was the only one still living. She had nobody to care for her in her elderly age as far as her children. She had no grandchildren to look forward to. They were completely wiped out. That lineage, that line, was gone. God's saying, I'm taking the whole line of Esau, and even though they're in the thousands, tens of thousands, possibly even the hundreds of thousands at this time, God says, I'm going to wipe you off from the face of the earth. He's saying, there won't be a one of you that remains. That's a strong statement, isn't it? And God says, it's going to come to pass because I've spoken it. And the person that has the power to do that is God. Because He can not only do it through the slaughter of war, He can then come with disease and He can make the women barren and a lot of different things that God can do. He said, y'all thought y'all got gain for yourself, you thought you got revenge. He said, you're going to find out what it is when I bring judgment upon you. You know, when man puts his faith and his own strength and his own ability and his own wisdom and knowledge, and we start to think, well, who's going to bring us down? We're strong, we're mighty, we're great, and we can do whatever we want to do. God says, you might want to rethink that. Because I don't know if you've studied this or not, but have you studied what God's going to do in the book of Revelation? What prophecies are coming? that God is going to judge this world in righteousness? You know, it's amazing that he puts in here that they hide themselves in the clefts of the rock. The rocks of mountains and the high places that men think of. Oh, this is a strong place. This is a strong defense. This is a great place. The Bible says that when the Lord returns to bring judgment, that people are going to try to hide themselves under the mountains. They're going to try to hide themselves under rocks and different things. And yet, there was found no place of escape for them. Now, I'm thankful that I serve a God of mercy. I'm thankful that I serve a God who's long-suffering, who's forgiving. But I tell you something that is forgotten about a lot about God, is there comes a time where He says, I had enough. It was 1100 years of Esau's lineage going on, but they finally behaved themselves to the point where God says, you know what, I've had enough of this. and mankind itself is going to come to the place one day that they behave themselves in such a way that God's going to turn and say, I've had enough. In fact, when he studied the book of Revelation, he starts to send plagues and things to them, and they still would not repent of their sins, of their fornications, of their idolatry, of their murder. And you know what God says at that? When they wouldn't repent, it's not written in these exact words, but it's what you see in the Scripture. God says, OK, I've had enough. And then He starts to pour out His wrath upon this earth. Esau's lineage got to the place that God had to tell them, He said, you know what? I've had enough of you. And He said, because of that, I'm going to remove every single one of you off the face of this earth. He said, "...and they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau, and they of the plain, the Philistines, and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria. And Benjamin shall possess Gilead, and the captivity of his host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath, and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sephiroth shall possess the cities of the south." And what he's declaring here is he says everything that y'all have owned, that y'all thought you had power of, he said somebody else is going to have it. All that it took Esau's family 1100 years to gain, God declares somebody else is going to get it. You're going to be wiped out. and other people will take what you worked for. And Savior shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. God is saying, I'm going to give it to who I choose, but it won't be you. We need to be careful with our choices. We need to be careful about putting our faith in ourselves and our strength and our intelligence and in our mind, because when pride comes within our heart, the strongest can be torn down. When pride comes into our heart, the most intelligent, the most wise upon this earth can be brought low. We need to remember that it is foolishness to put our faith in men instead of God. When they sat back and got comfortable and said, who's going to come against us? We stand strong. We stand upon this hill. We have wisdom. We have strength. God said, OK, I'll bring you down. And where are they now? And man is about to that place again. Everywhere you turn, man is saying, well, we trust in this, and we trust in that, and we trust in our wisdom, and we trust in our own might, and we don't need God anymore. And we can just live however we want to, and we can throw away all the things that God has given us. We don't need it. We'll remove Him every way we can. God says, go ahead. It's not that God wants to bring judgment upon us, but when we get so arrogant in pride, and the pride of our heart gets so lifted up, and we put our confidence in ourselves instead of in God, God says, I'll let you make that choice. But He's also warning us, you might want to get ready for the consequences, because all your strength, and all your might, and all your wisdom, and all your knowledge, you will find out that it's not near as strong and as mighty and as wise as you thought it was. We need to be careful. We need to learn the lesson of the Edomites. We need to learn the lesson of Edom, of the lineage of Esau. And we need to take heed to it before God is declaring, I'll bring judgment upon you. We need to learn We need to pay close attention before it's too late. Before God says, I will remove you from the face of the earth. And His salvation is in Jerusalem. His salvation is in Christ. And turning by faith and trusting in the promise of God. and then following His commandments, judgments, statutes. Please do not forget this. Please learn this lesson. This is the burden that God has given us today. If you would have anything upon your heart, you feel free to call or write us at your convenience. Our number is 601-544-7920. You can write us Brandon Hartfield 8 Smith Drive Hattiesburg, Mississippi 3 9 4 0 1 You can email us our email address, bro Brandon H at a well.com B ro B r a n d o n h at aol.com We pray again that this could be a blessing to you. Also, you can look us up on a website we're affiliated with, faithwaymissionarybaptist.com. That's all one word, faithwaymissionarybaptist.com. Again, we pray this could be a blessing. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that You'll take this message. Father, we pray that You would use it to Your honor and glory. And Father, we pray for those of us who are even saved, Father, that we would not be lifted up in pride, that we would not be lifted up in self-righteousness, that You would have to judge us, because we know that judgment begins at the house of God. Father, we pray that you would help us to be the humble people we need to be, help us to depend upon your promises, and Father, help us to follow your righteousness each day, Father, that your will could be accomplished, and that we as your people could be the light that you would have us to be. Father, we pray for the lost. Help them to see their need to turn and trust in your Son before it be everlasting too late. And for the good that is accomplished, let us step aside and give you the praise, for it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.