I'm going to invite you to take your Bibles and open to the book of Obadiah. It's the smallest book in the Old Testament, which if you don't know how it goes, it goes Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. If you hit Jonah, you've gone too far, turn back. If you hit Jonah, repent and go back to Obadiah. There you go. I was asked to preach at Village Church last week. As some of you may know, Rod Hull has been quite sick and he'd taken a month off and got sick and is still sick, I think, last I heard. And so he said to me, just don't worry about preparing a new sermon, just preach something you've done before. and save yourself the work. And as a general rule, I don't like to do that. I feel like even if I preach a sermon from a text I've preached before, I'll take the sermon, I'll get rid of all the filler, if you like, that's the wrong word, all of the content and take the exegesis and work through it again. Because the simple reality is as we grow up in the Lord, we learn new things. And a sermon that I wrote three years ago, I've learned a whole bunch about the Lord in the last three years, and things that I would have said that way back then, I might say differently now, and I might understand something better now than I did back then, so I don't like to just repeat things. And so I went from one sermon to another, following Rod's advice, and nothing hit me. And then, as I started to pray about it, which should have been my first step, I admit it fully, The Lord laid the book of Obadiah. The name Obadiah just came to mind almost immediately. And I went back to the book of Obadiah. And you know, when you go to a church to preach and you're invited, you generally want to speak something that's quite uplifting and encouraging and joy-inducing and so on. And you read the book of Obadiah and it seems to be none of that. It just seems to be very hard and it's a very heavy book at times. And so as I work my way through it, I realize how much I had to say, not so much to Village Church maybe, but certainly to me. has to deal with the issue of pride is probably one of the biggest themes in the book. Not a major theme, but it's certainly one of the biggest secondary themes in the book. And I finished that, and in the course of the week, our friend Andy had passed away, and we knew we had a funeral to go to. We were very privileged to go to Sebastian and Azaniah's wedding. I got to conduct part of the service, and it was a beautiful service. Met some lovely Christian people, including Sebastian's family, and then I needed to go to Portland on Thursday and spend some time with Cameron. And so my week just kind of went away. And as I was thinking about that and thinking about the message and how much it hit me, I thought, you know, I think it's something that we need to hear as well. And so, again, I opened my notes and I went back through and I took things out and I reworked some things and added some things. The Lord laid on my heart between now and then. And you know, sometimes as a pastor and a preacher, you're looking for confirmation. Lord, is this really what you would have me to preach on Sunday morning for your people? And yesterday, I just happened to be printing out, working on the paperwork for this morning. We have all kinds of notes and stuff up here for people who are reading. And I saw the reading Wes was gonna do. And it was all about God's judgment on people. And it was like, yep, that fits perfectly with Obadiah. And yesterday afternoon, I picked up a book I have on pastoral ministry, and Joel Beakey was writing a section of the book. He's an expert on the Puritans, and he was talking about the Puritan ministers, and one of their biggest things was defeating pride. And once again, I thought, wow, Lord, you're just amening and stamping what you've already laid on my heart, and I appreciate that. So my prayer is that my own heart would hear the things that I have to say, and my life would be shaped to Scripture. And my prayer is that for all of us, all of you as well, that you would hear what God has to say to you from the Scriptures. So let's read together. I'm gonna ask you again to stand with your Bibles out of respect for God's word and we'll read scripture together, the book of Obadiah. And I'm reading, in case you didn't know, from an NASB, and it was updated in 2020. So if you have an NASB, which is the 95 or the 77, you'll see some differences where they've made some adjustments. So Obadiah, beginning at verse one, it says this. The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord God says concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations saying, arise and let's go up against her for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations. You are greatly despised. The arrogance of your heart or the pride of your heart has deceived you. The one who lives in the clefts of the rock on the heights of his dwelling place, who says in his heart, who will bring me down to earth? Though you make your home high like the eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. If thieves come to you, if robbers by night, oh, how you'll be ruined. Would they not steal only until they had enough? If great pickers came to you, would they not leave some of gleanings? Oh, how Esau will be searched and his hidden treasures searched out. All the people allied with you will send you to the border, and the people at peace with you will deceive you and overpower you. They who eat your bread will set an ambush for you. There is no understanding in him. Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, eliminate wise men from Edom and understanding from the mountain of Esau? Then your warriors will be filled with terror, teeming so that everyone will be eliminated from the mountain of Esau by murder. Because of violence to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you and you will be eliminated forever. On that day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cost lots for Jerusalem, you too were as one of them. Do not gloat over your brother's day, the day of his misfortune. and do not rejoice over the sons of judah on the day of their destruction yes do not boast on the day of their distress do not enter the gate of my people on the day of their disaster yes indeed or sorry you indeed do not gloat over their catastrophe on the day of their disaster and do not lay a hand on their wealth on the day of their disaster. Do not stand at the crossroads to eliminate their survivors and do not hand over the refugees on the day of their distress. for the day of the Lord is near for all the nations. Just as you have done it, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head. For just as you drank on my holy mountain, all the nations will drink continually. They will drink to the last drop and become as if they had never existed. But on Mount Zion, there will be those who escape and it will be holy and the house of Jacob will possess their property. and the house of Jacob will be afire, and the house of Joseph aflame. But the house of Esau will be like stubble, and they will set them on fire and consume them, so that there will be no survivor of the house of Esau. For the Lord has spoken, and those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of Shephela, the Philistine plain. Also they will possess the territory of Ephraim, the territory of Samaria, and Benjamin, the territory of Gilead, and the exiles of this army of the sons of Israel, who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev. The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will be the Lord's. Loving Father, again, as we have opened and read your scriptures, Father, we pray yet again, that you would speak to us, that we would have ears to hear and hearts to obey and submit to your word. Father, help us as we would hear a difficult word, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Please have a seat. Sometimes life just doesn't seem fair, does it? Injustice seems to be everywhere that we look. A heinous, vicious crime is committed, and people are hurt. The guilty go free on a technicality or some slick legal maneuvering, and we watch and we cry out, that's wrong, that's unfair, that's unjust. Lives are ruined by all sorts of violence, physical, sexual, emotional, and the guilty suffer little, if any, punishment, and we cry out, that's injustice. At times, it seems the laws of our land are more interested in protecting criminals and punishing the victims. And again, we cry out, that's not right. It's unjust. For the Judahites, the time of Obadiah's writing, Edom's actions, unjust actions, would have added insult to injury. To understand it, we need to survey a bit of Old Testament history. And if you go back in your Bible, you'll see in 927 BC, that Israel had been divided into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Both kingdoms had been unfaithful to the Lord their God over their history and God's patience for the northern kingdom of Israel had ended and they were invaded and conquered and exiled in approximately 724, 725 BC. And God's patience had then ended also for Judah, and they were invaded and conquered, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BC. And during that final devastating events, the Edomites, the neighboring brother nation to the Judahites, had gloated and boasted and watched with amusement and taken advantage of the situation for their own profit and their own gain. They'd even waited for fleeing fugitives to hinder them and kill them. And it seemed as if the Edomites would just get away with it. It was injustice. But then Obadiah's vision comes and it's proclaimed to the Judahites, both the remnants in Israel, sorry, in Jerusalem and the exiles in Babylon. And there was indeed hope. because God's justice was surely coming against Edom. And beyond that, God's justice would certainly come against all the peoples and all the nations. And we see that in what Wes read this morning, and we'll see it in our text. Every sin, every wrong, every crime, every injustice committed will be perfectly and justly dealt with by the highest court in all of existence. the living God who will serve as prosecutor and defender and judge. And the righteous will be justified and the guilty will be condemned. There'll be no legal maneuverings, no behind-the-scenes deals made, no lessening of sentences for time served or anything like that. God will act as prosecutor and defender and judge. And Obadiah was written not just for them, but it was written for us as well. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. It's written for us as well. And from the text, I want to make three points this morning. You should have that little sheet I emailed out last night or from the front door this morning. Three points. Number one, God's justice against Edom. Number two, God's justice against pride. And number three, God's justice for salvation. So firstly, God's justice against Edom. And in verse one, we have the author given to us. His name is stated as Obadiah. There's no history, no parents, no background given to give us some kind of context. In fact, the name Obadiah literally means a servant of the Lord. And some scholars would speculate that Obadiah wasn't actually his name. It's just a title given to the one that wrote the book. But the author of the book, as we see, it comes from the Lord God Himself. He is the author. The source of the vision, of course, is the Lord, Yahweh. That's His covenant name. God is the covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. He made or He cut, literally, a covenant with Israel. And part of that covenant was a stipulation that if they continued in sin and rebellion against God, that God would eventually evict them from the land. But He also promised that He would preserve and return a remnant to the land. God is also the sovereign Lord and authority with all power to accomplish all His will. As a supreme ruler of all existence, He's punished Israel and Judah for their sin. He's now calling the nations to come against Edom. He will punish Edom and He will punish all the nations. None will escape Him. God is also the all-knowing, all-seeing Lord. You can see it in the text. He knows hearts. He knows attitudes. He sees all and no one, no thing escapes his all-pervading gaze. I know something else here. The vision was not written and given to the Edomites. But to the Judahites, you say, so what? What's the big deal with that? Oh, it's highly significant. Why would God tell the Judahites what he was going to do to the Edomites? It helps us to understand that the vision's main purpose is to give the Judahites hope. not only of repossessing the land, which comes up in verses 19 and 20, but also that justice will prevail against their oppressors. Obadiah serves to give all believers hope of God's justice. The righteous will be justified by God through Christ, and the wicked will be condemned by God. I want you to remember also the history of Edom and Israel. It's a tale of two brothers, two brothers that are at war with each other. And we just kind of smile and shake your heads because it's nothing new, right? I mean, the very first two brothers that were in existence, Cain and Abel, what happened? One killed the other one. There was jealousy there. There's Ishmael and Isaac. The older laughed and mocked the younger. So Abraham, their father, drove Ishmael and Hagar away. And they have been at war ever since. the Arab nations in Israel. Esau and Jacob, brothers who became nations, Edom and the United Israel. God promised that Esau the older would serve Jacob the younger, but Jacob plotted and succeeded in stealing both the birthright and the blessing from his brother. And so Esau planned to kill Jacob who escaped to Laban and Haran. And we have an illustration from Out of the Fat Into the Fire as Jacob had to deal with his father-in-law over 14 years. He learned a few lessons, I think. And while Jacob was there building a great family, God sovereignly gave the land of Seir to Esau and Edom. And 500 years later, Israel exits out of Egypt and the family feud resumes. In Numbers 20, Edom denied Israel's request to parse through the land. In 1 Samuel 14, King Saul and Israel fought against Edom. In 2 Samuel 8, King David and Israel fought and conquered Edom. But in 2 Kings 8, in King Jehoram's reign, Edom rebelled and became an independent monarchy again. And then in Jeremiah 27, we discover that Edom allied themselves with Judah, their brother nation, against the Babylonians in 594 BC. But eight short years later, in 586 BC, they double-crossed Judah, allied themselves with Babylon, and committed all the actions for which Obadiah is written. Notice the vision itself. In verses 1 to 9, we have descriptions of God's partial judgment coming against Edom, which was carried out roughly 500 BC. They were wiped off the map, never to be seen or heard of again, essentially. In verses 1 to 9, we see in verse 1, the Lord summons nation to battle against Edom. In verse 2, the Lord says, I will make you small. In verse 4, I will bring you down. In verse 5, the Lord says, oh, how you'll be ruined. And in verse 6, oh, how your hidden treasures will be searched out. In verse 8, the Lord says, I will eliminate or destroy wise men. In verse 9, everyone will be eliminated and destroyed by murder. God's judgment against Edom for their prideful sin was coming. And then we see in verses 10 to 14, Obadiah recounts the reasons for Edom's judgment. Edom's scorn and hatred and violence during Judah's day of distress. Notice verse 10, he says, it's because of violence done to your brother. In verse 11, they stood aloof. In other words, they stood back with their arms folded and just kind of looked down from their high mountain place. And I think they kind of nudged and smiled and scoffed as Jerusalem was burning. They were one of those who came together and cast lots for Jerusalem, dividing up the plunder with the other nations. And then in verses 12 to 13, we have a very interesting section. It's stated like a present command, but the way the Hebrew is structured, it's actually, it won't mean anything to you, but it's a justive verb. You say, what does that mean? It's kind of the idea of possibility. And one Hebrew scholar said you could paraphrase those words as, take do not gloat and make it you should not have gloated. So it was the Lord's condemnation of all their actions. So verse 12 is you should not have gloated in the day of misfortune. You should not have rejoiced in the day of destruction. You should not have boasted in Judah's day of distress. In verse 13, you should not have entered or marched through their gates taking advantage of Judah's disaster. In verse 14, you should not have stood at the crossroads try again, to destroy the fleeing fugitives. Edom had acted with a superior prideful hatred towards Judah, standing aloof, gloating, rejoicing, boasting over them. They all display a superior prideful attitude. By the way, did you notice What Obadiah did is repeated use of the word day, day of misfortune, day of destruction, day of distress, day of disaster, and so on. Obadiah uses that word day to link Edom's sinful actions with the Lord's infinitely greater judgment coming against them and all the nations. It's like the Lord saying, you acted in prideful, sinful, unjust behavior in their day, but I am bringing a day of perfect, just judgment against you. In verse 15, he says, for the day of the Lord is near. Just as you've done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head. And we see the perfect justice of God. He doesn't unfairly mete out his justice. Every action is perfectly and fairly judged. It is the day of God's justice carried out to all nations. What else does the Bible say about this day of the Lord? To give you a little sampling in Zephaniah 2 in verse 2, it is the day of the Lord's anger. In Joel 3 verses 14 to 21, it's a climactic future judgment of the whole world. The Bible describes it as a day of gloom and darkness and judgment accompanied by celestial signs in the heavens. And in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 8, it's called the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's the day of God's judgment on all nations. That's a hard little piece of biblical truth. God is going, it's a hard one, but it gives us hope, and we'll see why. God will gather every person ever conceived, and God will judge them by separating all humanity into two groups, the saved, those who are called and justified and sanctified and glorified by God, and the lost, those who are defiant and rebellious and refusing to believe in God. refusing to obey his command to repent and believe. For those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, it's our hope of the realization of the full salvation. We know what it is, right? To be saved. We know what it is to trust the Lord, to have that forgiveness, that sense of peace and joy within. But that day we stand there with the Lord Jesus Christ, us to his right, and we watch as an uncountable number of people are cast into a lost eternity, and we recognize there but for the grace of God go we. We will understand our salvation to an infinitely greater degree in that day. And brothers and sisters, that's a day for us to hope in, and we'll see why. For the lost, it is a day of eternal destruction and condemnation in hell. It is what Romans 1 talks about, the God's wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That day is coming, and it will finally fall. So to summarize it, God conveyed his vision to Obadiah to give the Judahites a hope of God's justice against Edom for their hatred of the Judahites. And God is bringing perfect justice, not just against Edom, but on all the nations for all the injustices ever committed. Take a moment to stop and think about that. Every single injustice ever committed will be put right. Every wrong ever done to us and every wrong we've ever committed will be dealt with fully and perfectly and fairly. So we look back at some of those events I began with, the injustices that we see in our world, and we wonder what's going on. I've been reading, Marcel Enriquez gave me a book about Richard Wormbrown. I've been reading his story a little bit. It's hard to read. It's literally a blood-soaked book. He tells a story of a pastor who was taken and arrested and they brought him in and they were beating him and asking him to give them the names of other Christian leaders in the church around where they were and the pastor refused. One day he heard a scrabbling and scuffling and marching of feet down the hallway and the key in the lock turned and the door flew open and they dragged his son in, young man, and they tied him by his hands and hung him from the ceiling and they began to beat him. And they leaned over and they said to the pastor, it wasn't Richard, it was a different guy, said to the pastor, if you tell us the names and addresses and phone numbers, we'll stop beating him. I cannot imagine what that dear brother went through in those hours, that hour probably. And he started to waver and he was gonna give him the names and from hanging from the ceiling, his son begged him not to. And he pleaded with his father not to give up the names until he died, and they beat him to death. And as a piece of us, it says, that's unjust. Where is the justice for that young man? And this is the hope we have in the scriptures, that God will deal justly with every one of those wrongs committed. For the Judahites, as they thought about their brother nation and what had been done to them, this gave them hope to know that God had not forgotten. God had seen every wrong and God still sees every wrong ever committed and God will deal with it in justice, perfect justice. Nobody goes to hell saying, it's not fair. I don't deserve to go here. In fact, the Bible makes it absolutely clear that every person that's committed to hell will say, he's Lord. He's right and I'm wrong. So God gives this vision to the Judahites to give them hope of God's justice. For the worst injustices and all the evils that we experience, there's a hope that true divine justice will take place. In the worst of the tortures and martyrdoms, like I just talked about, there is justice coming. God has not forgotten. For all our brothers and sisters in places like Iran, where they're killed for their faith, God doesn't forget. He will deal with it. So the main message of the book is God's judgment of Edom for their prideful hatred, and God will judge all nations for their prideful sin against him. But there's a secondary message, which is my second main point, and it's kind of the main point of the whole sermon, really, God's justice against pride. And here's where it got really uncomfortable studying this, because I realized how all-pervading pride is. You can see Edom's pride described in verses two through nine as a pride that deceives into a false sense of security. In verses three and four, the arrogance or the pride of your heart has deceived you. They assumed their rocky mountain terrain would protect them from any and all attackers. Beware, friend, if you think you can escape God's judgment. You cannot. God says, though you set yourself not just in the mountain heights, but if you set yourself as high as the stars are above the earth, I will bring you down. The Lord our God is the infinite, all-powerful God, and none can escape his justice and his judgment of pride. as pride in material possessions. In verse 6, Edom had accumulated treasures in its secure mountain fortresses. But God says Edom's treasure will be searched out. God, the sovereign, all-knowing, all-seeing God, knows every secret treasure, physical and otherwise. God sees us in every place we go, in everything we do. We cannot escape his gaze. God will expose every secret thing for God judges our pride. There's pride and accumulated wisdom and understanding. In verse 8, God says, your wisdom and understanding will be destroyed. In verse 7b, the people at peace with you, your allies will deceive you. In the day of God's judgment, their wisdom is removed and they're deceived and fooled by their own allies. Sound familiar? Just as they had double-crossed the Judahites and sided with the Babylonians, so their allies will turn against them. And God deals in justice. There's pride in their strength and their might. In verse 9, God says, the mighty men, their warriors, renowned warriors, will be filled with terror, no longer a mighty fighting force. As wisdom and understanding are destroyed, their confidence to fight is removed. Pride is judged and military might is terrorized. God judges our pride. There's pride that leads to gloating and boasting and rejoicing in Judah's destruction and downfall. Those attitudes all display a prideful, superior attitude, but God judges pride. And we can all see from the text what the Bible says, that pride leads to destruction. Obadiah serves as a great warning for us all of the danger of pride. We're all prone to it. We all struggle with the sin of pride. The sad reality is some struggle less, and so pride gains a foothold. Dr. Joel Beeky. summarized the Puritans' understanding of pride like this. He said, he was compiling quotes of theirs, sorry. Pride is a devastating sin and is complex. Most sins turn us away from God, but pride directly attacks God. It lifts us up above and against God, seeking to dethrone him by enthroning ourselves. This is what Spurgeon said. The demon of pride was born with us and it will not die one hour before us. He said of his own pride, my pride is so infernal that there is not a man on earth who can hold it in, including himself. Pride is our sin, our attitude of heart and spirit against God. Pride is one of six things that God hates in Proverbs 6, 16 to 17. The Bible says in Proverbs 21 verse 4, haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked are sin. The Bible in Romans 1 and verse 30 in describing the ungodliness says, there are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, and boastful. Six descriptions of which three have to do with pride. It's all pride, brothers and sisters. The Bible says in James 4 verse 6 that God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. The Bible gives us so many examples of pride. You can go back in the Old Testament and the New. You can see in 2 Chronicles 26 and verse 16, but when Uzziah was strong, he grew proud to his destruction. You remember the story, don't you? Uzziah goes into the temple. He's a proud man. He's going to take the place of the priest. He will offer the offering on the incense altar. He goes in there and he starts to do his thing. And the priest, what are you doing? And they rush in against him and they say, no, Uzziah, it is not for you. And he turns around, the Bible has the idea, in a rage, he stretched out his hand against the priest. And as he stretched it out, you know what God did? Leprosy all over him. And he saw the leprosy. And they obviously gasped in horror looking at his face because of leprosy on his face. And the Bible says the priest did the unthinkable. They seized him, a leper, and got him out. And the Bible says that Uzziah hasted to get out. God judges. Pride. In 2 Chronicles 32, Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. But, the next verse says, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah. God judges our pride, but with humility he brings grace. Just time out for a sec. If you're like me and you struggle with it, here's the promise of scripture. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And he gives us the spirit of God to work within us to help us humble ourselves that we would not fall under his judgment. There's hope. who can forget the Pharisee in Luke 18, stood by himself and prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get. And the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes, but he beat his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone, the Bible says, who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. God judges spiritual pride, but he exalts those who humble themselves. Pride is at the root of all other forms of sin and evil. Brace yourself, this is tough. Pride leads to self-deception. In Obadiah 1, verse 3, the pride of our heart deceives us. In Galatians 6, verse 3, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. And pride leads to spiritual blindness. In Deuteronomy 8, 14, Moses warned the people, when you begin to accumulate wealth and your heart be lifted up, that's the idea of pride, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. all the works of God that God had done for them. And they arrive in a land with houses they didn't build, fields they didn't plant, vineyards they didn't plant, all of that, and they got all of it, and their heart began to lift them up. It was pride. Moses said, watch out. He repeats it over and over again, Deuteronomy, beware lest you forget the Lord your God. And pride causes us to forget that God has given us all that we have and all we enjoy. Pride will not, it cannot remain internal. Pride infects our speech. It infects the way we look at each other. It affects how we behave toward one another. Pride from a wicked heart produces evil intentions and actions. In Psalm 119 and verse 85, the Bible says, the insolent, the proud have dug pitfalls for me. They do not live according to your law. Pride and obedience go directly opposed to each other. Believe it or not, young mom, young dad, When your little guy, little girl, stamps her little foot or his little foot and says, I won't, no, you can't make me, they are exercising pride against God and against you who represent God in that moment. That's why it's so critical that we discipline our young people, our little ones, that they learn to walk in obedience to you and to God. Pride leads to quarreling in Proverbs 13, 10. By insolence or pride comes nothing but strife. Pride leads to violence in Psalm 73 in verse 6. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. In the book of Esther, remember Wicked Haman? He was filled with rage because Mordecai the Jew would not bow down to him. And so he plotted not just the downfall of Mordecai, but the entire Jewish people. One man won't die, I'll wipe him out. One man won't bow, I'll wipe them all out. I know the story. Pride lifted him right up, right up to the heights of his gallows and dropped him. And he suffered God's judgment. Pride leads to contempt. In Psalm 123 in verse four, a disrespect or a disregard for others. We act rudely, dismissively, arrogantly, mocking the other person's words or actions. There's a disregard for them and a total lack of respects. Can I say that? My own words come roaring back at me. You've done that. How often have we done that toward one another? Paul warned us in 1 Corinthians 8, knowledge puffs up. That's the idea of pride, but love edifies, builds the other up. Oh, brother and sister, please. I beg us all, beware the sin of pride. Pride ultimately leads to contempt for God himself. In Psalm 10 and verse 4, the Bible says, in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are, there is no God. An utter lack of respect and regard even to recognize God's creation and existence and government and involvement in His world is pride. Oh, brothers and sisters, I'll say it again because it needs to be repeated over and over again. Beware the sin of pride. I know how susceptible I am to it. I know how susceptible we all are to the sin of pride. Behideful behavior in a home or a workplace will tear them apart. Pride taking root in a church will tear the church apart. And one of the most subtle forms of pride is spiritual pride. And because it's so subtle, it's deadly dangerous. It's pride in the church that begins to think to itself, hey, we're better than everybody else. Well, you know, at least we don't act and behave like those other Christians. We would never do what that church does. Hey, listen, let me tell you, we around here, we know the truth. It's pride, brothers and sisters. To take that one point, and I think it was Wes who said it a few minutes ago, not one thing do we have that God did not give us. Every single bit of understanding of biblical truth is a gift of God You are not, we are not smarter than everybody else because we understand certain things. It's God's grace. It's God's kindness to give us a Bible and to give us tools to understand that Bible. That's God's grace. And spiritual pride rears up its ugly head against God and says, I did it. No, we didn't. God gave it to us. Beware, God is not mocked. God will keep his word. He says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a great fall. And how many Christian leaders have we seen in exactly that moment? Pride has built them up and they've gone tumbling down. Christian heed well the lesson from Obadiah and the Edomites, a proud, defiant people who deceived themselves into thinking they were untouchable, but God brought them down. Edom, established in the land that God gave them, became proud, thinking they were impregnable, protected behind a high, rugged mountain, but God is infinitely higher. God has judged pride all through history. In Exodus, God's judgment came against Pharaoh for his pride. It came against Uzziah and Hezekiah for their pride. It came against Edom, against Nebuchadnezzar, and against Haman. This is a sample. God's judgment will surely come for us for our pride, but yet there is hope. There's forgiveness available for those who humble themselves. I got a picture in my mind of Nebuchadnezzar. You remember the story, right? Look at this great Babylon that I have created. Oh, how great is me, kind of thing. And a voice comes from heaven telling him just how great he's not. And he's driven away from men, and his hair grows like feathers, and his fingers like fingernails, and he crawls on all fours, and he eats grass for seven periods of time, whatever that was, seven days, weeks, months, years, we don't know. At the end of all of that, and I can picture in my mind this man leaning back on his knees, looking up to heaven and recognizing the God of heaven who gave him everything that he had. In that moment of abject humility before God, God restored him and gave him back his sanity and gave him back his dignity. There's forgiveness available for those who humble themselves before God Almighty. There's hope of forgiveness because of God's justice. Third and last point, God's justice for our salvation. Where's the gospel in the book of Obadiah? I'm convinced, absolutely convinced that the whole Old Testament points to Christ over and over and over again. Now, in our text, our passage, these 21 verses, it's not a specific statement, but it is there. Notice verse 17, it kind of stands out by itself, because it gives them a very great hope about not just about getting the land back, but about being back in Jerusalem. He says, but on Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. excuse me, and the house of Jacob will possess their property. Mount Zion, which is Jerusalem, is the earthly place of God's kingly rule. Mount Zion is made holy by God's presence there. In verse 17, is a promise of God and his people's presence there again. And God's presence demands holiness in those who dwell there. Notice also the future tense. It's a promise. There shall be those who escape. Literally, it reads, there shall be those who are delivered from widespread destruction. And something else here. Because they're in God's presence, they shall be holy. How can that be? How does that work? Again, repeat, Mount Zion is the earthly place of God's kingly rule, and as such, it is the place of his judgment on mankind's sin, and it's a place of his provision for salvation for his people. Still can't figure it out? You should be able to by now, hopefully. God's judgment on mankind's sin and the simultaneous salvation for all his people happens at the same time and in the same place, focused on the same person, who happens to be Jesus. Isn't that cool? Jesus Christ endured God's judgment on mankind's sin, and Jesus Christ provided God's salvation for all his people. So brothers and sisters, I'm absolutely convinced that we're saved from God's judgment by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. And the basis for that gracious salvation is God's justice. Our salvation is not an unjust salvation. God does not put justice aside to give us grace. God exercises justice so that he can extend and offer grace. You're not forgiven because God decided to go easy on you. You are forgiven because God enacted His, exacted His full justice on Christ in your place. It doesn't make you sit back and just shake your head and wonder. Every single sin that I committed, Jesus paid for. And I'm one person out of billions. Our salvation, brothers and sisters, is based on God's justice that was exacted and his grace that is extended. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who stood in our place, who suffered God's wrath against us for our sin. He died for our sins, our iniquities, our transgressions, including pride. He died for our sins. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. He was raised again the third day for our justification. And by his suffering and death and resurrection, we have salvation and praise God for such a salvation. Amen. Amen. To tie it all together. God judged Judah for their continual sin and unfaithfulness. God brought Babylon against them in his judgment. Edom pridefully, defiantly joined in on the fun times and did violence to their brother nation of Judah. And Edom's sin is rooted in their pride and arrogance. And God promised to pay Edom, to judge Edom for their sin. And in the coming day of the Lord to judge all nations for our sin. And all mankind is guilty as the same sin as Edom, which is pride. We all stand guilty of the same sin as Edom stood guilty for. But God justly saved us. In Romans 5, verses 6 and 8, 6 to 8, the Bible says, while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Oh, how good, how gracious, how kind is our God to us. How great is his love with which he loved us to send his son to die for us. So how do we respond? Well, first of all, we remember, don't forget, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. So how do we humble ourselves? What's the secret to overcoming pride? You say, well, I beat myself up regularly. That might help for a little bit. Probably not. How do we defeat pride? We look and we see Jesus. Listen to what the Bible says in Philippians 2, the great passage which you know. Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. And being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. We look to the one of highest value, of greatest glory, who veiled his glory, who humbled himself to pay the penalty for our pride. Now just stop and think about that. Next time you rear up your head in pride and that superior attitude begins to creep in, consider that Christ humbled himself, a condescension that no human being will ever fully comprehend. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. We look to Christ to abate his father's will, who for the joy set before him endured the cross and despised the shame. We look and see Jesus in the dark hours of Gethsemane, in an agony, wrestling in prayer, knowing what suffering he faced. We look and we see Jesus beaten and bruised, yet silent before his accusers as they lay charge after charge, but they cannot prove any of them. We look and see Jesus bent over a whipping post as a scourge comes crashing down on his back and his shoulders and his legs. We look and we see Jesus staggering under the weight of the crossbeam as he walks the torturous route to the hill of Calvary. We look and we see Jesus as he suffers and dies on the cross, dying for your sin and for mine. God's justice demanded it. and Jesus Christ in obedience, in love, for the joy, think of that, for the joy set before him endured the cross to save us from God's wrath. He died to appease God's anger against us. He died to secure our eternal salvation. He died to reconcile us to God. My dear friends, stand with the women in the chill of the early morning air at the tomb outside of Jerusalem and see Him as He rises from the dead, declared to be the Son of God with power. Look by faith and see Jesus. Look and repent of your sin. Turn away from it. Look and cry out to God. Cry for His forgiveness of your sin. Pray to Him for help to live in repentance and obedience. Fasten your eyes on Jesus. When pride begins to rear its ugly head, look to see Jesus. He calls us to come, to walk with Him, walk behind Him, to shoulder the load as He shoulders it. and walk with him this life of faith, cause us to turn away from sin and trust in him. He fills us with his Holy Spirit that helps us, empowers and enables us to humble ourselves and live by faith in him. Brothers and sisters, we have a hope, a great hope in God's justice because of God's justice. What a salvation that God has worked. Amen. Amen. Would you stand with me? We're going to pray and then we're going to sing a benediction together. Our gracious God and heavenly father, again, we come before you and Lord, we just hang our heads in shame. For Father, we know. We know full well the pride of our own hearts. Actually, Lord, we know it to a certain degree. In your grace, you don't allow us to see the full depth of it. But Father, we know for a certainty that pride so easily creeps in. And so quickly, Lord, we begin to rear up our heads and puff out our chests in pride and arrogance. Well, we recognize what pride can do. We see what the scriptures teach about what pride does. Father, we see the examples of men that you discipline in the Old Testament and judge them for their pride. But Father, we see the great example of men who humbled themselves. Father, bring us like Nebuchadnezzar at the end of those seven seasons with his kneeling on the ground, In humility, recognizing that all that he has and has and had is a gift of yours. Father, help us. Father, I plead with you to help us to understand and remember. Everything we understand of the scriptures. Everything we understand of your grace is a gift. you have given us and enabled us to understand. Father, I pray, I plead with you, oh God, deal with my own heart. Deal with the hearts of all in this room. Please, Lord, do a great work in this church. Father, we would long to see this church, a powerful church of prayer. Not powerful in ourselves, but powerful because of what Christ has done and is doing. Father, we ask you for your blessing. We give thanks, oh God, for this day, for this service. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.