A Message Concerning the World

Well my apologies, you must remain standing. Instead I was supposed to have you sit while you sing so I could have you stand in honor of God's word.

So forgive me, I failed to remember to have you sit. But so without introducing, I will simply read the text that we're going to preach from this morning, or this afternoon, which is

Obadiah 1 -14. It's found on page 772 if you're using the

Pew Bible. Those of you who said, oh my goodness, these can read 14 chapters, know it's 14 verses of a 21 verse book.

Obadiah, beginning verse 1. The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the

Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations.

Rise up, let us rise up against her for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations, you shall be utterly despised.

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground?

Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the

Lord. If thieves came among you, if plunderers came by night, how you have been destroyed.

Would they not steal only enough for themselves? If great gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?

How Esau has been pillaged, his treasure sought out. All your allies have driven you to your border.

Those at peace with you have deceived you. They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you.

You have no understanding. Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau?

And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Taman, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.

Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth, and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.

But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune. Do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin.

Do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity.

Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity. Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off the fugitives.

Do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations.

As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your own head.

Now please be seated. Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we come again, assembled before you, to again, by your

Spirit, declare your word. And Father, may your word have good effect. May your word declare to sinners and saints alike the goodness of God.

And may the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart, be pleasing in your sight and useful in this church. In Jesus' name, amen.

So you just heard about two -thirds of the shortest prophecy in the

Old Testament. And it's rivaled for brevity only by a few books in the New Testament. The book of Jude comes close to this brevity, it's 25 verses.

Obediah is only 21. Then 2 and 3 John will actually be a little shorter than this book.

But this book, despite its shortness, despite its brevity, is a very meaningful and powerful book.

If we wonder, does God know what I've been through? Well, most of us would say yes.

And the hope that goes along with this, a derivative hope of that, is does God know what people have done to me?

Does God know what this world has brought upon me? The troubles it's brought to me.

The anguish it's given me. The harm that has been done to me. And will

God ever do anything about it? Well, this was the cry of the people to whom

Obediah preached, this short book that we have, these 21 verses. This book was written, this prophecy was given to a people who were exiled from their homeland in Israel.

The people were called exiles and they were in Babylon. Some 10 years before, Babylon had conquered

Jerusalem and taken the people captive to Babylon. Now that happened in 586

BC, you don't have to remember that date. It's somewhere between 6 to 10 years later, while they were in Babylon, that Obediah wrote this prophecy and it answers the question that I just posed to you.

Is God ever going to do anything about the harm that was done to them by others? Is God ever going to judge them?

You know, Psalm 137 was also written to these same exiles. Let me read just the first verse to get some context, get some of the feel, some of the emotion that's behind this book of Obediah and that was with those people in Babylon.

And an emotion, an angst, a concern that you may have today.

Will God ever do anything about the wrongs that were done to me? Psalm 137, by the waters of Babylon we wept, for there are captors, those are the

Babylonians, for there are captors required of us songs in our tormentors mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion, just rubbing it in how they had lost their homeland, how they had lost their place.

It's like, sing us a song of mirth, entertain us, O conquered ones, make us, the ones who took you out of your homeland, entertained with your old songs.

And the last three verses of that song, we won't go through the whole psalm, just trying to give you a feel for the emotions and the feelings of the people who were there in Babylon to whom

Obediah preached, we'll get to him in a moment. That psalm 137, the last three verses, end with a blessing upon anyone who would take the children of Edom, of all people, and dash them upon the rocks, because of what

Edom did to Judah, or Israel, when they were conquered by Babylon.

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations, like the

Babylonians, saying, sing us a song. Well, here's the Edomites, and we'll define them a little more clearly in a few moments, cheering the

Babylonians on. And Psalm 137 would then call the Edomites daughters of Babylon.

And Obadiah 11, which I just read to you a moment ago, says, for you were like one of them, maybe one of the

Babylonians. And then the prophecy goes on to tell how God is going to deal with them for having added to Judah's misery.

Do you ever have that feeling, that wondering, am I ever going to see God take care of those people who've done these things to me?

Does God even know about them? Well, understand something about this book that I just read to you, because the answer is this for us.

Because Obadiah was not written to Edom. It does not tell Edom what their sin was particularly.

Now, they had some sins, and I read through them, and we'll get to those in a few moments. But understand, in the very opening verse, thus says the

Lord God concerning Edom. Not to Edom. Concerning Edom.

This book was written to Judah about Edom. And that's very important.

Obadiah is not written to Edom the tormentor, but to Judah the victim. And it's a short step, it's well -traveled by commentators,

I'm not being an innovator here, to see in Edom a picture of the world in general, and to see in Judah the church.

So how the world would torment the church and bring troubles upon you as a declarer of faith in Jesus Christ.

The message of Obadiah is as fresh and applicable in 2023, here in Sunnyvale, as it was in about 576

BC, there in Babylon. You see, the Lord knows the suffering that we endure at the world's hands.

The Lord knows, and will do something about it. We may not see it in this lifetime, but by faith, and by a scripture such as this, we know that he will.

Now verse 15 is key. This morning we're just going to go through the first 14 verses. And not even every verse, we're just going to get a flavor for the whole thing.

But verse 15 is sort of a key for the whole prophecy here. For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations.

As you have done, this is speaking to Edom. And this is speaking to Judah about Edom.

And what the Lord will tell Edom. What you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds will return on your own head.

It requires just a little bit of explanation here. Our ESV in verses 6 and 7, it has it in a past tense.

It says how Esau has been pillaged. That sounds like punishment, right? They've been pillaged. And then verses 12 to 14 sound like present tense.

But do not gloat. Do not stand. Well, the New King James, the New International Version, and the

New English Translation, they all do a little better job here than our ESV. It's sort of unusual, but they do. Not how

Esau has been pillaged, but how Esau will be pillaged. When this was written, they hadn't been pillaged yet.

And then, not do not gloat or do not stand, but you should not have gloated.

You should not have stood. And that brings it coincident with Psalm 137, where it talks about what they actually did.

So what do we have here in this prophecy, these 21 verses, 14 of which we will look at this afternoon?

Well, the first two verses tell Judah that Edom will indeed suffer at God's hands for what they'd done, or what they had not done.

Edom is going to be conquered. They're going to be made small. This is what happened to Judah. Judah was conquered.

Judah was made small. It's going to return on their own head for what they did in Edom. And you might think as I say that, as we read this prophecy, you might think, well,

Edom just taunted them, didn't they? Didn't they just stand at the roads and taunt and sort of make fun?

Sort of like kids in the school ground going, nah, nah, nah, nah, you got in trouble. Well, it's obviously a lot more tense than that, but that sort of thing.

And it was Edom who did that, but it was Babylon who conquered them. And it was Babylon who then engaged in this orgy of excess that we discussed last week from Jeremiah 25, this violence and this pillage they went through.

So Edom is paying dearly for what might seem to be to some of us sort of a petty crime.

Standing by the wayside and just watching them be taken off into captivity. Well, in the

Lord's economy, Edom was like one of the Babylonians. The way the

Lord sees it, what they did or what they didn't do made them like one of the Babylonians.

Obadiah calls him a daughter of the Babylonians, or it was, excuse me, Psalm 137 says you're a daughter of Babylon.

Obadiah says you were like one of them. And we need to understand this even today.

That the Lord looks at those who persecute the church. Remember, persecution could be murder.

Persecution could be being put out of your home, as happens in many places in the world. Persecution could be standing at the water cooler and being held in derision because you stand for Christ.

The Lord knows and the Lord will one day bring about his vengeance upon them.

This is a comfort to those in Babylon. And it's also restraint for us today. What does the

Lord say? Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. We cannot execute vengeance.

And Paul even says when you do, well, it's over. And you've left over a place for God. God's going to say, okay, you wanted it, it's taken care of there.

Well, Edom transferred themselves, as it were, from being Judah's brother, the one with no brotherly love, to being a daughter of Babylon.

They were like one of them. And this is one of the reasons Edom is held in such high accountability.

If you look back in Genesis, Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Well, Jacob is the one from whom came the line that became

Israel. In this message we call it Israel or Judah, it means the same thing. But they came from Jacob, Isaac's son.

Well, Isaac had another son, Esau. And from Esau came this nation of Edom, which lay just a little bit southeast of Israel.

And that's why Edom in the scripture is called Judah or Israel's brother. And so there's more accountability for what they did, or as we're going to see is very important, what they didn't do.

Verse 11, on the day you stood aloof. On the day you stood aloof.

You ever been in that situation where somebody could have helped you? And they just sort of said a tsk, tsk, tsk, poor person.

I have in my hand a glass of cold water I could give you to help, but I won't. I'm just going to watch and see how you muddle on through your misery here.

Someone who could have come along and maybe put a couple of bucks in your hand so you could get something to eat. Well, most of us not been in that kind of situation.

But you understand what I'm trying to say is those people who just watch could take action, but don't.

Could help, but refuse. They have good they can do, but they don't give a cup of water.

They don't give any solace. They give three jeers against you. Sort of like what Babylon did on the day they stood aloof.

Like three jeers for the Jews and three cheers for Babylon. Or they're being held in high accountability for the day they stood aloof.

When Babylon had conquered Judah and pulled the people out and marched them off to Babylon and there to be exiles and serve

Nebuchadnezzar, that king. You know, Jesus' parable of the good

Samaritan really applies here. It is a Samaritan there who cannot pass by the man in need.

He's not the one who stood aloof. You recall that first a priest and then a Levite went by? Well, those two had every right, and by right

I mean right in the strictest sense, to go on about their business. They didn't have to stop and help.

They had things to do. They're going their way. But the exercise of that right to stand aloof made them and the worldly Pharisees who were listening to Jesus tell the parable the villains.

They became daughters of the robbers who assaulted that unnamed man in the parable and they became like one of them.

You see, to do nothing against evil is to give assent to it. The Edomites knew the excesses that Babylon had committed against Jerusalem.

We spoke about that from Jeremiah 25 last week, how Babylon was sent by God to bring his vengeance upon Judah for their sins against him, but they went further than God told them.

They went and took more liberty against Jerusalem, more violence. And so they became, and so Edom who helped becomes like one of them.

And those men in the parable who walk by become like the robbers who did the evil against the guy.

To do nothing is to give assent. To do nothing is to, in God's view, actively add to the suffering.

In the movie Ben -Hur, while Ben -Hur is being marched into the galleys as a galley slave, Ben -Hur is given a drink of water by someone who risks even his life because the

Roman guards didn't want Ben -Hur to have water, making him suffer more. And this man you see only from the back gives him a glass of water, risking his life against that Roman guard to give it to him.

Well, you only see his backside, and it turns out that that's Jesus, and that's another story, but he did something.

It's fiction, but it's a great scene. He risks his life to give. He doesn't stand aloof while this man is suffering.

It was the Samaritan in the parable who would not stand aloof and walk by the man who had been beaten by the robbers.

See, when you're able to stand against evil, you must. Eden's going to learn that in the most harsh way.

But when you're able to stand against evil, when we can stand against evil, you must stand against evil.

When you're able to help those who are being led off to slaughter, we must stop and help them who are being led off to slaughter.

You know, kinship with Babylon, cruel and mighty as they were, is where passive assent leads.

This is why our principles against abortion, for example, lead us into the streets. Even in California, where the streets are lined with Edomites shouting to womb -wrapped babies being transported into death caps.

Something like, goodbye, child. Choice means more. Goodbye. Three cheers for choice. We can't become like one of them by doing nothing.

And we don't. We do something. We support those ministries. Our dear brother

Ken, he hasn't been able to for a while, but when he can, he stands faithfully on that sidewalk and preaches the gospel as people go into the abortion mills.

God says, as you have done, so will be done to you, and he promises Judah that Eden will one day be conquered.

Now for that nation to be conquered must have sounded incredible to the exiles. Edom was southeast of Israel, and it was known for its high crags and mountains, and they lived on top of all that.

In other words, they had the high ground, and any invader who would come to them could be seen from miles away.

And wherever they were going to come and attack a city in Edom, the Edomites could see where they're coming and prepare for them.

It was high, very difficult ground to get up. It would exhaust any army to get there. They were safe.

They were impregnable. All advantage was to Edom.

They had the high ground. Like General Sam Hood complained when on the second day of Gettysburg he was told to attack

Union troops who had that same advantage of high ground, he said, they don't even need guns to defend that.

All they have to do is roll rocks down on us. Well, that was Edom. And for the exiles in Judah, or in Babylon, to hear that Edom would be conquered and made small would have been incredible.

Who can get up there? Who can do that? The church said, the

Lord. The Lord can do anything. Edom took great pride in their lofty cities, and they felt impregnable, they felt safe, even against God.

But God says to them, the pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rocks in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who shall bring me down?

The answer is, to those who are weeping by the waters of Babylon, God will.

Just as he called Babylon against Judah, so he's going to call nations against Edom.

We're going to avoid the historical details, but in less than 200 years, Edom was gone. Displaced by the

Nabataeans, and many Edomites took refuge in, ironically, southern

Judah. And long after that, a man named Antipater had a son, and he being an

Edomite, had a son named Herod. So it's rich with irony.

But that's what happened to them in 200 years. After all those centuries, up there being safe and impregnable, their pride building up, they thought they were so wise, and God tells the exiles in Babylon, he's going to take them down.

Now are we not, in the church, in the same line of prophecy? Our Bible tells us that God will make all things new, that his enemies will be forever vanquished, and his children will live forever in a new heaven and a new earth.

That Jesus is going to return, not meek and mild as in his first advent, but as a great warrior on a white horse with a bow, and he's going to be sent conquering and to conquer.

Someday, church, those who persecute the church, those who have harmed you, particularly because you believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, will be avenged by Jesus Christ himself. And he knows what we've been through.

He knows when you've been beaten for the sake of the gospel. He knows when you've been rejected. Our dear brother, our fellow pastor

Brian, he's spoken from the pulpit here so I can remind you, that he said how he was shunned by his family.

His family will have nothing to do with him because he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is one day going to make that right.

Just as God tells the exiles in Babylon that he's going to make right what the Edomites did against them, their brother did against them.

If there's anything that God despises, it is pride. The pride of life, as the

Apostle John says, is of the world, not of God. And Edom had grown proud because whatever they did, they could retreat to their mountains and weather the revenge.

Well, in the end, they did not escape. They are no more. The world will not escape. They will be no more. Don't worry that the world doesn't believe this any more than Edom would have believed it.

Obadiah's message was for Judah conquering Edom. Edom would not have believed any more than most of our neighbors would believe if you told them what

Revelation says is going to happen if they don't repent and believe in Christ. So church, we need to hear what

God says to us concerning the world around us. These things that you have gone through, the persecutions that you've endured, the harm that was brought to you, particularly because of Jesus Christ.

Hear what God says to us concerning the world. He says, because of the violence done to your brother

Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.

You see, the shame they added back to Judah when they were marched away will cover them.

God's going to turn it around. Jesus put it this way. He said, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

He's speaking to his disciples, but the principle remains that God will make it right, and that the way we judge, it will be judged back to us, and the way the world has persecuted us will be measured back to them.

It's a principle there. Now, Edom didn't tear down Jerusalem's walls.

God did. Well, God did, but Babylon did. And once they pillaged the city and the temple, what happened?

Well, these Edomites swooped in like a plague of locusts, like hopping locusts, like destroying locusts, to borrow

Joel's language. They were like those ghoulish people you see in the movies who strip the bodies that are dead on the field after the battle.

So again, the Lord knows the trouble the world has put upon us. He knows those snickers around the office water cooler.

He knows those condescending pats on the head, the abandonment you knew because of Christ. Have you ever felt that sting of tear him down or tear her down?

Have you ever felt that shame that they try to bring upon you? Know this, that the Lord knows, the

Lord sees, and he takes it as against himself. And one day, the shame poured out on you, or at least they tried to pour it on you, and you're going to be turned into a crown with a crown if we remain faithful to Christ.

That's the Babylon, that the exiles in Babylon were told that one day this would all turn around and that God would make these things right.

So the apostle John tells us in Revelation, that's the new heaven and the new earth. That's the saints in Revelation 6 crying out, how long,

O Lord, will you not avenge us who have died for the word of Christ? And they're given those white sheets. They're told just a little longer, just be patient, because God will do it.

God will send his son, and he will make these things right. God tells the

Edomites that shame will cover them because of the shame that they tried to increase against Judah.

You think of the shame they already felt. They've lost the battle. That's one thing. Their walls of their beautiful city have been torn down.

That's shameful. The temple had been pillaged. That's even more shameful. Their daughters and their sons have been taken into service if not killed in trying to defend the wall.

Shame? Now they're being marched back to Babylon to serve the king.

Shame upon shame upon shame upon shame. And here's Edom bringing more.

In Schindler's List, when the people of Krakow, when the Jews of Krakow are taken out of their homes and marched down the street to go to the concentration camp, there's their former neighbors throwing stones at them and yelling at them.

And they said, one lady who's yelling, goodbye Jews, goodbye Jews, and just heaping on the agony, making it as much worse as they can.

What does God say about that? What does God say about those who've done this to you or to me or to the church?

You're like one of them. The Edomites like a Babylonian. Those people in Krakow like the

Nazis. And the people who do that to the church, daughters of Babylon. Know this.

Leave vengeance in God's hands because he will take care of it one day.

Our shame that we endure for Christ will one day be turned into a crown. It'll be turned into a crown because of Jesus Christ who endured the ultimate shame on our behalf.

It says in Hebrews 12 too that we are to be looking to Jesus as the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

He endured the shame of the cross. He endured a criminal's death. He endured the worst, most shameful death that men could devise or ever have devised for us.

The shame that was heaped upon you. Perhaps the shame that you one day heaped upon someone else,

Lord willing, before you came to Christ. That shame was poured upon him.

He endured that criminal's death. He hung helplessly in the tree. He was innocent of wrongdoing in man's or in God's eyes.

And what did they do to him while he hung there? Was there not an Edomite nation walking past and making his suffering as much worse as they could?

Matthew 27 verse 39 says, And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying,

You who destroyed the temple and rebuilt it in three days, save yourself. If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross.

So also the chief priests and the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save himself.

He's the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God.

Let God deliver him if he desires him. For he said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

The shame he endured turned now to the glory of God the Father will be turned on the heads of those who tried to add to his sufferings as Edom did

Judas. One day, God will, when he sends Christ, do to the world that has so persecuted the church.

Even we who have not gone through the active and horrible persecutions that happen in so many lands.

We have to take this word persecution, this shame that they try to bring upon us, and we need to make it a little bit smaller than we often do.

You don't have to be murdered. Your house doesn't have to be torn down. You don't have to lose your job for it to be the kind of persecution the kind of shame that will one day be foisted back upon them by God.

It could be those small things, those little digs. It could be the bigger things. But most of us have not endured those.

Some have, most haven't. But know that in God's eyes what you suffer for Christ's behalf, no matter how small you may think it is, it's bigger than you believe it to be in God's eyes.

Well, verses 12 to 14, and we don't really have time because we will swing back to them next week and pick them up.

Those recount Edom's crimes, gloating over Judah's demise, rejoicing in their ruin, boasting over them in the day of distress, and really boasting in themselves, knowing they're never going to do that to us high up in the cliffs.

When we have this kind of thing happen to us, we do feel like we want to get back, don't we? Proverbs 24, 17 warns us, do not rejoice when your enemy falls and be unglad when he stumbles, lest the

Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from him. Love is the core characteristic of the

Christian, and love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, says the Apostle Paul. We do rejoice in God's justice.

Proverbs 11, 10, when it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish, there are shouts of gladness.

Gladness at righteousness, God's righteousness has prevailed, even

God doesn't rejoice over that, because God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked.

God would restrain himself if he could, but he can't because his justice doesn't allow for that. But there are shouts of gladness when righteousness prevails, when wickedness is gone.

Well, God's anger had turned away from Judah. They were in Babylon. They had suffered his retribution for their sins.

Seventy years of captivity and then he returned them from Babylon back to the land of Israel.

As Isaiah had said, comfort, comfort my people. Tell Jerusalem that her warfare is ended and her iniquity is pardoned, that she is received from the

Lord's hand double for all her sins. He did not forgive Edom.

He took away their land. He sent them wandering. He will not forgive the unbelieving world. He will cut them off forever.

He knows what we suffer. He knows what you suffer and he will one day bring the people who caused the suffering, the world that intentionally brought it upon us, they'll be turned back on their own heads.

We as refugees, as sojourners, as pilgrims in this world, as much as we're the Jews in Babylon need to hold onto that in faith.

We need to hang onto that, restrain our tongues, not give back as good as we got. God will eventually, as he did to Edom, forgive us forever.

Well, let us rejoice and be glad that Christ has pulled us down from our proud heights, that he has shown us the shame that we deserve, but that he bore for us.

And let us rejoice knowing that he sees all that we endure for the sake of the gospel of his name and that one day he will make all things right.