Well, let's look to this Lord who is so good, a holy God, yet a gracious God, Obadiah. I'm just going to read verses 17 and 18. But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance and there shall be holiness. The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau shall be stumbled. They shall kindle them and devour them, and no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. Amen. Father, we thank you that your word is true. When you speak, none can contradict it, and it is fulfilled. And we want to continue to worship you as we look at the magnificence of this book of Obadiah. In Jesus' name, amen. About a month ago, I read a mini history of family feuds in America, and I was astonished at how many bloody feuds there were here. I had heard about bloody feuds in Scotland amongst the clans, and I had heard of the Hatfields and McCoys and the Appalachians. Who hasn't heard about them? But this history was just showing feud after feud, just tons and tons of feuds in Scotland and in America that led to murder. And we're not talking about feuds between different factions of the mafia or gangs or other criminal types. We're talking about respectable people who had resorted to this feuding because of two things that were common. This history went through all of the range wars in the West. I think there were like 14 feuds in this Western region, even more in the Appalachians. One of the things I was struck with as I read through this history Two things that we're in common with absolutely everyone—pride and bitterness. pride, and bitterness. Those two sins can destroy an individual and can be passed on from generation to generation. Well, Obadiah addresses a longstanding feud that had been going on between Edom and Israel for centuries, and surprisingly, this feud actually started 1,250 years earlier, at least on my dating of the book. There is debate on how you date when this book was written, but I agree with those. Slam dunk, I've looked at all of the different arguments that this was written in 586 BC. I think this makes for the second longest, at least that I'm aware of, feud in history. There's been a much longer one. It's all the descendants of Ishmael who have been feuding each other in the Middle East since that time. But by calling the nation of Edom Esau six times, and by calling Israel Jacob, Obadiah wants us to understand that the hatred that the Edomites showed to Israel in 586 BC can trace its history all the way back to the pride and the bitterness of Esau in Genesis 25, 1,250 years earlier. Let me give you just some of the scattered details of how this happened. Isaac and Rebekah conceived non-identical twins. I forget what those are called, but they were definitely not identical. Esau was completely covered with a mat of hair so thick, it was like a mantle, they said. Red hair all over his body. And because it was red, the word edam means red, that and the mess of pottage and there is red buildings, you know, there's a lot of red that's associated with Esau. Well, when he came out, the hand of Jacob reached out and grabbed him by the heel." So they called Jacob, real crazy names, one who grabs a heel. I don't know, how do they come up with these names? That word apparently in the Hebrew is an idiom for supplanter and deceiver. And already the character of these two people was being prophetically lived out. Now, that competitive nature started in the womb, because they were wrestling and wrestling, and Rebekah was asking the Lord, what is going on? Constant movement, fighting with each other already. He said, these two boys are going to be two nations that are going to constantly vie for dominance. Now, you would think that the parents would take this hint seriously, and they'd be very diligently discipling their children out of their sinful tendencies. But sadly, each parent played favorites with one of the boys and coddled them. Esau was Isaac's daddy boy, daddy's boy who could do no wrong, and Jacob became Rebekah's mommy's boy, and they both knew that they were loved less by the other parent, and they resented it. Favoritism generally produces resentment. Now, Genesis 25, then sets up Esau's present-oriented selling of a distant birthright for a bowl of soup that he wants presently very badly. Now, even though Esau didn't really care about his birthright on that particular day, we learn from later chapters that he later resented the fact that Jacob took advantage of his hunger. So even though he willingly traded it, he still resented the fact that Jacob had taken advantage of him. He didn't forget about it. Later, Jacob deceived his dad, robbed Esau of his blessing. Genesis 27 verse 41 shows that this was the last straw for Esau, and he vowed to get even by killing Jacob. To be willing to kill his brother shows that this bitterness had taken deep, deep root in his life. And the bitterness mentioned in verse 34 of Genesis 27 leads to hatred and murder in the heart in verse 41. Here's the thing I get from that. People do not outgrow their sins. Time does not heal all wounds. That is malarkey. If you do not crucify, put to death the pride and the bitterness that you find in your heart, it's going to grow and grow until it becomes a monster that's out of control. Hebrews 12, 14 through 15 uses Esau's bitterness as a warning that we must crucify these sins. It says, "...pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled." Well, the root of bitterness in Esau did indeed defile many, many people. The Scripture is quite clear that Esau passed on his antipathy to Jacob, to his descendants, so that the Edomites became a symbol of the world that fights against God's people. And it's an amazing symbol in the book of Obadiah. Now, I hasten to say that not all of Esau's descendants shared in his pride and in his bitterness. Remember, in the book of Job, Job was a descendant of Esau, And yet he was a very humble and a godly man. So he had cast off this poison of bitterness that had been passed on. So it's saying you don't have to be just like your parents, right? You can put that off. It's not a foregone conclusion, but it does seem like the two sins of pride and bitterness kept stirring up conflict between the descendants of these two brothers for hundreds of years. just type in the word Esau and Edom into your computer cordons, which hopefully by now you've bought one, and you will see. It's astonishing. It's just a legacy of constant hatred, bitterness, antipathy to each other, even though Israel did many times try to bridge that gap. They did so a number of times. The narrated Bible gets the chronology wrong. By the way, that's one of my favorite chronological Bibles is Les Lagarde Smith, a narrated Bible. But even though they get the chronology wrong, thematically, it is so powerful. He puts Obadiah right after Israel has been attacked by these soldiers, God blinds them, and some king there wants to kill them all. He said, no, that's not the way God's people do it. They fed them, they clothed them, they're treating their enemies with love and sending them back, and that actually pacified the king. There's no more war that came from that. But then comes Obadiah, which is such a blank contrast to what was going on there. So even though it's chronologically inappropriate, thematically it's great. In any case, there are many examples of Israel trying to stop the feud with Edom. Jacob tried to pacify Esau when he came back to Canaan. And I'll skip over their unsuccessful attempts to get together, but I'm going to give you just a sampling of scriptures from later history that shows that this feud persisted. And I believe Obadiah expects his readers to already have all of this background information in their minds when they're reading the book. That's why I'm giving you this longer introduction. He expects you to know what's going on. I'm just going to give a few highlights. 198 years after Jacob died, you would think that the Edomites would have totally forgotten about Israel. After all, they're in a distant nation of Egypt, far, far away. And yet, the stories get passed on from generation to generation in a way that kept the bitterness going, just like some people today are ready to fight with you if you disagree with them over the war between the states. When I was at Covenant College, I had just come from Canada. I had no idea people were still fighting this war. But there were Christians who were ready to get into fistfights over this disagreement on the history between that war. And some people who hear this sermon might get in a tizzy over the fact I called it the war between the states. Because that is in part saying, I at least agree with secession, even though there were faults on both sides. There was definitely hotheads on both sides. So what is it that happened 198 years after the death of Jacob? Well, the exodus of Israel out of Egypt happened. And interestingly, Exodus 15 verse 15 says that Edom was dismayed that Israel had escaped from slavery in Egypt. Why would they be dismayed? Why would they even care? You know, they're so far away. In fact, you would think anybody would have this as a heartwarming story. Here is a nation that escapes out of slavery, and yet 198 years after Jacob and Esau had died, the descendants of Esau didn't want anything good to happen to Israel. It bothered Edom that Israel had gotten out of slavery. It's a feud mentality. In Numbers 20, Moses asked the king of Edom if he could pass through the country, promised they would stick straight to the main road, they'd pay for anything they needed, they wouldn't harass or bother anybody. King absolutely refused, threatened war if they tried. In Numbers 24, 18, God promised that Israel would one day inherit all of the territory of Edom, but that would not be for most of its history. That would be in the latter days, latter days that Obadiah refers to. In the meantime, God's instructions were, don't antagonize Edom. Don't mess with them. He says, you are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, and they will be afraid of you. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully. Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land. No, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. So Israel tries to be real sensitive to Edom and not to antagonize. They offer to be friends and brothers. No deal. No deal. Eden's not going to go along with that. They refuse. Count forward another 339 years, and you come to Jephthah. That's counting from 1491, the true date of the Exodus, if you want to get into a fight, the true date of Exodus, all the way up to 1152 BC. Jephthah was astonished at the feud mentality and the resentment and the hostility that was still being exhibited by Eden, Moab, and Ammon. Jephthah asks Ammon why they're invading their territory. And the king of Ammon hotly says, because you stole land from us 300 years ago. And you know, we Americans who are reading that 300 years ago, what is he talking about? But this was still a hot issue. And by the way, Jephthah says he got his history wrong. It was totally wrong. And this frequently happens in these feud warfares. They have different versions of history. But the effect of this bad history produced the same hatred for Israel that Edom had, and in trying to stop Ammon's aggression, Jephthah recites the history of how respectful Israel had been to Ammon, Moab, and Edom, how Israel had tried to reach out to them, tried to be friends with them, had not done anything evil against them. In fact, he says, look, we're brothers. But if you've got bitterness and pride, you're going to be blind to the attempts of others to stop the feud and to reach out in conciliation. And throughout Israel's history, Edom had been a major problem. I'll give you one more verse. Amos 1, verse 11, castigates Edom for past cruelty, saying, for three transgressions and for four I will not turn away its punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity. His anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. That, in a nutshell, was the problem with this feud between the two brothers. He kept his wrath forever. Unresolved anger guarantees defilement, and that's why Paul warns us, do not let the sun go down upon your wrath. You got to get it over with. You can use it to motivate you to deal with issues, but if you can't deal with that, you've got to deal with your anger. If you nurse the anger, you nurse the grudge, you are on the pathway of these two brothers. Anger that continues day after day, week after week, without being resolved shows there's something wrong with your heart. And the first objection is, yeah, but you don't know the problems that those evil people did to me. Well, Jacob and Esau were both bitter, and both had done evil to each other, but it was Esau who harbored it, never got over it, and allowed that evil of other people to control his life. We can't let others control us. But if you're angry perpetually, that means others are controlling you. Anyway, back to Obadiah. In Obadiah, the exile had just happened, and Edom watched from a distance with glee as Israel was being reduced to rubble. And then they dove in to share in the spoils. In fact, Edom encouraged Babylon that Babylon was not being nearly tough enough on Israel. He said, you've got to be a whole lot tougher. And Babylon acted like they didn't really care. And so Edom acted in a way that tried to guarantee that Babylon would care. All of these refugees that were scattering to other countries, Edom rounded them up, either killed them or handed them over to the Babylonians. This is when Psalm 137 was written. That psalm remembers the mocking and remembers Edom's cheering. Verse 7 says, Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, Raise it, raise it to its very foundation. So though Judah was evil, it had done nothing to Edom in that day to warrant such hatred. But all of this bitterness sprang from past history, and this is why Obadiah singles out Edom for a special judgment from God. They had pridefully sided with Babylon, little realizing that Babylon would turn upon them within just a few years, six years to be specific, and destroy them as a kingdom. I know it's a long introduction, but it is really critical background for understanding this book. Let me give you a brief overview of the book. before making some applications. If you look at your outlines, you will notice that the book is once again patterned after the Hebrew chiastic structure of an A, B, C, D, C, B, A structure, but it's a chiasm with forward movement in terms of timetable, and it's a contrastive parallelism. Verse 1 is almost identical to Jeremiah's words against Edom in Jeremiah 49, verse 14. Who quotes whom is hugely debated. You know, is it possible that Jeremiah is referring to Obadiah as the one who's giving this message to the nations, or is it Obadiah who quotes Jeremiah? In one sense, it really doesn't matter. I take it that it's Obadiah quoting Jeremiah. But either way, A lot of the pride that Jeremiah amplifies upon is dealt with in the first A of the chiasm, where God resists the proud, and then we see that He gives grace to the humble in the second A, so it's a contrasting parallelism. Though Edom's pride was abominable to God, God used that pride to humble Israel and to purify Israel. Now, the cool thing about this, you don't justify the pride, you don't justify the evil, but God used that very evil to purify Israel. And to me, this is one of the keys that helps us to not get bitter over the evils that other people do against us. Yes, we can ask God to deal with their evils, But we also realize God is working all things together for my good, even the bad, even the slander that's happened to me. It's maybe crucifying my own pride. Verses five through seven are the second part of the chiasm, and they deal with how Edom was completely blindsided by its allies, fooled into complacency, and then ended up being plundered by its former allies about six years later. This is contrasted in the second B section, that's verses 17 through 18, with how Israel would regain what it had lost and would plunder Edom in the distant future, leaving no survivors within its borders. The first C section of the chiasm, verses 8 through 9, shows the slaughter of Edom. The second C section shows the slaughter of the nations that sided with Edom, or rather that Edom had sided with. The central D section, verses 10 through 14, is a tenfold indictment of Edom. And since it's the heart of the book, I'm just going to spend a little bit more time on that section. If Obadiah was a referee in a football game, he'd be giving 10 fouls. And I want to list those fouls to show why God says this is totally unfair, totally raw deal. The first foul was needless violence. God's not against violence. He is against needless violence. And verse 10 says, for violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. Edom was related by blood, but they had engaged in violence against Israel. Foul too, identifying with Babylon when there's absolutely no requirement to do so. They were meddling in a fight that was not theirs. And this could be seen in the first phrase of verse 11. in the day that you stood on the other side." In other words, the other side of the battle. Commentators point out that the Hebrew word is a hostile standing. It's not a neutral standing and observing. They had joined in this battle and the other side of the fight. So they weren't required to fight by Babylon. They voluntarily did that. For their own gain, they entered into league with Babylon. Foul three, profiting from Israel's gain and pain. Verse 11 goes on to say, in the day that strangers carried captive his forces, when foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were as one of them. Now, whatever demerits there were in Babylon's imperialistic war against Judah, they were at least at war. Edom had absolutely no reason to be involved. They were like a vulture swooping in to take advantage as lots were cast for slaves and for some of the booty in Jerusalem. Fall four, gloating over Judah's suffering. First phrase in verse 12 says, but you should not have gazed on the day of your brother in the day of his captivity. Now 10 translations translate gazed as gloated because the Hebrew word indicates a gazing with a sense of satisfaction and smugness that Judah was getting what it's deserved. And you think, well, yeah, God said that Judah was getting what it deserved. So why is God blaming Edom here? Well, I believe it's because of Edom's prideful motives. There was no zeal for God's law or God's glory in this gloating. It was a self-satisfaction that a competitor had been taken out. It was revenge stroking their bitterness. Related to this is foul five celebrating Israel's defeat. They didn't just gloat. They danced on the graves, so to speak. Verse 12 goes on to say, Nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Now, why is this a problem? Again, the Scripture says Judah totally deserved this. This was a judgment that came from God. Well, Lamentations tells us why. Lamentations is a godly man's response to exactly the same conflict that had happened. Jeremiah totally admits when he wrote Lamentations that Judah got what it deserved. He had prophesied, this is what God says is going to happen to you. But it made him weep. He was grieved that they had not turned to the Lord. He did not dance on their graves. He was not rejoicing over that. Proverbs 24, 17 says, do not rejoice when your enemy falls and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles. Scripture calls us to be saddened by such sinful wars, not to rejoice in them. Fowl six, speaking proudly or arrogantly at Israel's fall. And this is the last clause of verse 12. It says, nor should you have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Pride was at the root of Edom's bad attitudes, and it implies that they thought they were better than Judah was, when in reality, they were worse than Judah. They were not better. But prideful people rarely recognize their own sins. This is one of the surprising things about pride. They are very quick to see the sins of others, but they just can't see their own sins. And this is not the only place that pride is mentioned. Fowl seven. entering where they did not belong. Verse 13 says, you should not have entered the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction in the day of their calamity. Now, why was this a foul? Because it was not their war. They were just piling on. Foul eight, taking plunder. If the previous points are true, then it was not Edom's place to plunder Israel. So verse 13 goes on to say, nor laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. It was not lawfully their worth, so it was not lawfully their plunder. Follow nine, cutting off the only way of escape for civilian refugees. Verse 14 says, you should not have stood at the crossroads to cut off those among them who escaped. Now, several commentators say that the word cut off means that they killed these refugees. when they were trying to escape. So they were guilty of murder. Foul 10, enslaving people after Babylon had left. Now the New King James rendering is not as clear on this, but the word for delivered up means to put somebody in a cage. or to imprison them. So even after Babylon had left the area, Eden was taking advantage of helpless people that were left behind, were imprisoning them, possibly selling them into slavery. So those are the warnings that constitute the heart of the book. And I think they're warnings that we ought to study. If we are trying to deal with these sins, we ought to study and prayerfully ask God to work them into our hearts. Now, because there are so many opinions on the dates of each section, I want to date them for you. And I've worked hard at making sure that every single clue is taken into account. You can find commentaries who agree with me, who disagree with me, but I'm not going to try to prove it. I'm just going to give you the conclusions. Verses 1 through 4 prophesy a judgment that is not as severe. So you cannot lump all of these paragraphs together as so many commentators do. For example, later paragraphs speak of a total annihilation, not one survivor left, whereas verse two speaks of only making Edom much smaller in power than it once was. They're different judgments. The one happened within six years of Jerusalem's fall, and it happened under Nebuchadnezzar in his campaign against Tyre. So Edom was conquered. Eden was subjected, but Babylon was fairly generous with them. They continued to function, but they did not have independence. And so I've put 580 BC beside verses 1 through 4. Verses 5 through 9 deal with a slaughter that would take place in 552 under Nabonidus, a later emperor of Babylon. Because verses 10 through 14 are the heart of the book, it actually covers all of the dates of the book. It deals with God's opposition to Edom covering the entire period. So verses 10 through 14 predict perpetual opposition that the Edomites will receive until they are annihilated. or as verse 10 words, that until they are cut off forever. So this is covering everything from 586 BC all the way up to 8070, 8070, when the last surviving Edomites were killed. But it starts during the Babylonian Empire. The next section predicts the end of the Babylonian Empire itself. Verse 15 makes a transition to when all of the nations in the Babylonian Empire will come under judgment. So it's probably a reference to Cyrus' conquering of Babylon and the beginning of the Medo-Persian Empire in 536. Verse 17 shows that Israel would reoccupy all of Israel, all of the region of the Edomites during the Persian times. So this is a reference to Ezra and Nehemiah, post-exilic prophets. I've put 500 BC next to verse 17. Let me just read that. But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, There shall be holiness. The house of Jacob shall possess all their possessions." They were really remarkably successful in gaining back all of the territory God had given. They were not possessing somebody else's stewardship. God had given that stewardship to them. They were repossessing it, and thus it was consistent with holiness. And in the decades and centuries following that, the remainder of Obadiah was fulfilled. Beginning to read at verse 18, The house of Jacob shall be afire, the house of Joseph aflame, but the house of Esau shall be stubble. They shall kindle them and devour them, and no survivor shall remain at the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken." Malachi 1, he's a post-exilic prophet. Malachi 1, 3-5 says that in his future, so this is post-exilic future, Edomites would continue to be a problem, but no matter how many times the Edomites rebuilt, they would be torn down. God would tear them down. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Edomites were called the Edomians, I-D-U-M-E-A-N. 2 Maccabees records Seleucid general, who was the governor of Edomia, Judas Maccabeus, went to war with him, conquered his territory in 163 BC. And because of continued hostility, the Edomites or the Edomians, a later governor by the name of John Hyrcanus forcibly converted them in 125 BC. You know, forcible conversion is not the way to go. They usually don't work out very well. Just to give you one idea, one example, Herod was one of those Edomians who outwardly pretended to be a Jew, outwardly worshiped the same God as the Jews, but actually continued this feud mentality, was an enemy of everything that God stood for. But if you trace the history of the Edomians, you see a perfect fulfillment of verses 19 through 21 in the years from the Maccabees all the way up to 8070 when the last of the Edomians was killed. I'll just go ahead and read those. The south shall possess the mountains of Esau and the lowlands shall possess Philistia. They shall possess the fields of Ephraim and the fields of Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead. This cannot be in our future because these are very specific tribes that no longer exist. Verse 20, and the captives of this host of the children of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath. The captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south. Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau. The word savior just means deliverer. such as military leaders. And so from the Maccabees on, Edom was ruled by Israel for the rest of its history until every Edomite was killed off in the siege of Jerusalem in 8070. In fact, the Edomians were the main reason why Jerusalem was destroyed. They were a thorn in the flesh right up until the last of them was killed. But the bulk of these verses refers to the heirs of the Maccabeans possessing their possessions. So it's not surprising that when Edom ends, the kingdom is declared to be the Lord's, since Edom is repeatedly used as a symbol of the world which is passing away. The first century kingdom of Christ is such an appropriate place for that statement, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. It's the only messianic statement in the book. And remember we saw, we had proofs, every book of the Old Testament speaks of Christ. There's got to be something in Obadiah that speaks of Christ. I believe this is the messianic statement that either refers to 8030 or more probably my view is that refers to 8070 when the last of the Edomites was killed. But either way, it's a reference to the world losing out to Christ's kingdom. I think it's a great way to end the book. Now, let me end my sermon by giving you five further applications. One of the first lessons that the New Testament teaches us from the life of Esau and Edom is the danger of nursing bitterness in our hearts. I've already read the verse, Hebrews 12, 15, tells us, if you have the bitterness that Esau had, It has the potential, bitterness has the potential of doing four things to you, and those four things are so scary, it ought to motivate you to deal with it, not hold on to it. First, it makes us fall short of God's grace. Now, all by itself, that ought to convince you, I'm not going to hold on to bitterness. I do not want to fall short of God's grace. We need God's grace day by day. Second, it grows up or springs up like a noxious plant. It never stays static. If you do not kill bitterness, it will continue to grow and grow until it takes over your life, kills your spirit. Third, it causes trouble. Now, obviously other people are troubled when we're bitter. But our own hearts are troubled. That's the point here. It's a poison. Fourth, it spreads to others and defiles many. So if you don't want clan warfare in your descendants, nip bitterness in the bud. If you don't want permanent alienation from generation to generation, nip bitterness in the bud. Esau and Edom are a warning to all of us. Now, of course, this means we've got to cry out to God for His grace because bitterness is endemic to every human heart. Even as a pastor, I struggled with bitterness. And I have to have to crucify it. I have to put it to death. Romans 3.14 describes the natural man as having a mouth full of cursing and full of bitterness. Now, you might not think of yourself as a bitter person. I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter at all. But here's the thing. What are you doing to conquer bitterness? That's awesome, that's wonderful. If you don't have bitterness, what have you done to conquer it? Because if this is natural to every human heart and you're not fighting against it, it's probably there. It's just there in a deceitfully disguised way. Being in the church is not enough. Peter baptized Simon Magus into the church and then quickly realized he was full of bitterness. He told him, you are poisoned by bitterness, bound by iniquity. Wow, poisoned by bitterness right within the church. And because he never got rid of bitterness, church history tells us Simon Magus became the leader of a cult. that was one of the most virulent anti-Christian cults of the first century. So your first lesson from Esau is that you must put off bitterness, and you must coach your children on how to put off bitterness. If you don't know how to do it, contact me. I can give you steps on how to put off bitterness. The second lesson from Obadiah is that God hates pride and opposes it wherever He sees it. James 4, 6 says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Well, that means we better take pride a whole lot more seriously than we tend to. We tend to ignore this as one of those polite sins. It's not so bad. No, it is the mortal enemy of our soul, and it guarantees that God will resist us. Now, how do we get rid of pride? Well, first of all, you've got to recognize it. And there are forms that help you to recognize pride in your life. Prideful people rarely recognize that they are prideful, sort of like bad breath, right? You gotta ask other people, do I have bad breath? Do I have pride? And they might be a little bit timid about telling you, but yeah, you need to be willing to receive input. Pride deceives us. Obadiah 3 says, the pride of your heart has deceived you. You know, it took a powerful work of God's grace back in 1994 before I even recognized that I was a prideful, prideful person, let alone even starting to crucify that pride. And I still see pride rearing its ugly head, and I'm very quick to stomp on it and put it under the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to that. It's deceitful. It pulls the wool over our eyes. But here's the point. Such pride can destroy you. Think of it this way. We already have an array of enemies against us that's pretty formidable. The world, the flesh, and the devil. If you've also got God resisting you, you're in a hopeless cause. Okay? So the point is, take this seriously. You need God's help. You do not want your descendants to turn out like Edom. This is a book that exposes God's war on pride. Verse 4 says, Though you ascend as high as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord. He brings down prideful people. Third, the laws of harvest guarantee that you will reap what you sow. Verse 15 words it this way, As you have done, it shall be done to you. The whole book of Obadiah shows that Edom reaped what it sows. Now, repentance can reverse the degree to which you get a bad harvest, but it never does away with 100% of that bad harvest. That's something we need to remember, and it ought to make us less cavalier about sin and repentance. you know, God's forgiveness. A lot of people just treat it so cavalierly. Oh, I'll sin. I'll just ask God's forgiveness. Well, yeah, you'll be forgiven by God, but you're still going to have a lousy harvest that's going to come into your life. Though God forgave David of his sin with Bathsheba, he still reaped a harvest. It was a reduced harvest from what it could have been, but this is one of the unalterable laws of harvest, which I probably ought to preach on again sometime. There are eight laws of harvest which you will never get away from. One is you always reap what you sow. Guaranteed. And the other is you're always going to reap a multiplied increase. And it's going to be in a different season. And when you go through all eight laws, it motivates us to pursue holiness. Verse 11 gives another lesson. It indicates that benefiting from the evils of others makes you as one of them. This is why the scripture did not allow the wages of a prostitute to be brought into the temple because it not only endorsed that sin, it profited from that sin. It made them involved in that sin. Okay? Implicated in that sin. Now, the last lesson is a very encouraging one. Since Edom stands as a symbol of the world, Edom's passing away stands as a symbol that Christ will gain the victory in time and in history. I love this. He actively fights against the world so that his kingdom will eventually triumph. But it doesn't happen overnight, it was gradual. Total annihilation of Edom symbolizes the total triumph of Christ. And by the way, every symbol of the world has the same thing in it. Let me just give you three. Genesis 3.15 speaks of the enmity between the two seeds, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and who wins? Jesus wins. He not only crushes the head of the serpent, but eventually converts the world, seizes it from Satan. A second symbol of the world is the struggle between Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis 21, 9-11 and Galatians 4, 29-30. And who triumphs? Well, Paul tells us that Ishmael is disinherited and the sons receive the inheritance. In other words, Christ's kingdom will eventually win and the meek shall inherit the earth. The third symbol of the world is the Amalekites in Exodus 17, verse 14, Numbers 24, 20, Deuteronomy 25, 19. They too had an irrational bitterness against Israel. But who wins? God does. God slated Amalek for destruction in the Pentateuch, and the last Amalekite was killed when Haman the Agagite lined up the world against Israel in the time of Esther. There were no more Amalekites after that. Well, in the same way, verse 21 of Obadiah affirms that the spirit will eventually triumph over the children of the flesh, where sin abounds, grace abounds, much more. Verse 17 affirms that there can be holiness in history. Verse 21 ends by contrasting the destruction of Edom with the kingdom being the Lord's enduringly. That is the message of Obadiah. Amen. Father, we thank you. for this message, the warnings that it gives, but also the promises and the encouragements that it gives. We thank you that you are Lord over history. You are Lord over our lives. You're Lord even over our hearts. You see into the deepest recesses of our hearts, and we want to increasingly be purged from the pride and the bitterness that tends to reside there. Help us, Lord, to be stewards that you could say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Bless this your people, Father, with increasing grace in this coming week. In Jesus' name we pray.