Book of Obadiah - Vs. 15-18 (10/30/2022)

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Well, I'm just going to start walking through some of what we did last week to lead into where we dropped off, because we dropped off at kind of the halfway point of last week's lesson.

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So, we started talking about, obviously, we're in Obadiah 15, and we only got through half of that verse.

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And the specific part that we were focused on was, again, it's Obadiah 15, it says, for the day of the

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Lord is near upon all the heathen. So, first, we looked at that phrase, the day of the Lord, and we saw the significance there from, well, from a couple of angles.

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One, from the, we started with Peter on his, during his servant at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, talking about that same day that Obadiah is talking about.

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And he described it, of course, as this great and notable day of the

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Lord. And he was quoting specifically a passage in Joel, which is another parallel passage.

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It's interesting how many of the minor prophets, if not all of them, talk about this specific day. I remember as a kid,

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Revelation was my favorite book, just because it seemed so out there. And just,

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I loved the idea that it was talking about things that hadn't happened yet, even in my future. I thought that was cool as a kid.

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And then, got a little bit older, and when I realized that Daniel was talking about the end times too, I was like, whoa, that's crazy, because Daniel happened a long time ago.

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He was talking about that. And then eventually, like Ezekiel was talking about it. And then, you know,

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Zechariah, and then you start realizing, of course, pretty much every, all the major prophets, and all, if not, or many, if not all of the minor prophets talk about it as well.

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So, you have all of these parallel passages that are connecting, and you can glean new information from it. So, we read that Joel passage last week that Peter was quoting.

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Then we went to Matthew and looked at Jesus's description of what that day will be like.

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And then, we looked at the first mention of that phrase, day of the Lord. We went all the way to Isaiah chapter two, where it specifically talks about that day being reserved for the proud doers, which of course is no coincidence, and seems specifically of interest, given that we're in Obadiah, and talking about the

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Edomites that, of course, dealt, or exhibited that terrible problem, that spirit of pride.

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And so, it was interesting that the very first mention of this day ever is specifically talking about bringing the proud doers low, humbling the proud doers, and that the

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Lord will be the only one exalted on that day. So, that was all really cool stuff. And then, we got to the phrase, all the heathen, in that same verse in Obadiah, where the day of the

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Lord is near upon all the heathens. And so, we determined that this, of course, is talking about the second coming of the

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Lord. It's not a near prophecy that Obadiah was giving us information about.

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It was, in fact, a very far prophecy that hasn't even happened in our timeline yet. And, it's going to be a day when all of the collective non -Hebrew heathen, that's what we eventually were able to determine based on the specific words used, are going to be gathered together.

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And then, Revelation 16 .14 says, let's see here, for they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth.

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These are the same heathen we were talking about, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

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And, of course, that is the great battle of Armageddon. So, from there, we went through this kind of linear secular historical timeline to say, all right, well, obviously, there's quite a few things talked about in Obadiah up to this point.

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Which of these things have happened yet on an historical timeline, or in the historical past?

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And, what are the things that are to come? And so, we went through all of that that is recorded in Josephus' work,

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The Antiquities of the Jews, where he talks about the specific points in time when the Edomites were attacked.

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The first case being by their own allies, the Nabataeans, who became the great stone carvers of Petra.

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Then, they were later exiled and were absorbed by the Edomians, where they lived up until all the way through Jesus' lifetime, even after.

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In fact, we also talked about the fact that Herod, the very quote -unquote Jewish king that killed all of the children trying to kill the

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Messiah, was a descendant of proselyte Jews, that being the

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Edomians. So, King Herod was an Edomite. He had Esau's blood running through him when he was killing all those children, trying to stop the line of the

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Messiah. And, there's no coincidence there. And then, ultimately, 70 AD was when the

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Romans, and ruled by, or I should say, the particular, you know, squadron, or whatever it is that was controlled by Titus, came in.

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And, they took out, basically, obliterated what was left of the Edomites, or they were now known as the

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Edomians. And, at that point, they kind of faded throughout history. So, that was just a quick summation of last week.

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But, again, we're picking up right where we left off. So, I wanted to kind of go through all that. And so, at this point, we get, at this particular point in the

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Book of Obadiah, there's a transition that starts taking place, which moves us, again, beyond the historical reality of the

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Edomites, which is what we covered in detail at the end of last week, as an ancient nation, and what they specifically did to God's children, to then looking, again, at the totality of the heathen, as is talked about in verse 15, from times past all the way into the future.

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And, of course, God's punishment of the Edomites for what they did extends all the way to the same heathen that we're dealing with today, which was ultimately why we started this book in the first place.

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And so, we can learn a lot about both what the heathen are capable of, and specific things that we might, unfortunately, have to look forward to in the future.

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But, the good news is, ultimately, with how the Lord deals with it. And, that's kind of the good part that we're dealing with now.

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We covered just the first half of verse 15 last week, and we're going to continue with that here.

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And so, again, the question is, how does the Lord handle it exactly?

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What is, how important is it to him to fix this problem that his children have been dealing with since the beginning, practically?

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Certainly, not too long after the fall. Certainly, after the time

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Abraham is on the scene, and his lineage begins populating specific areas to eventually take over the promised land and all that good stuff.

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Of course, eventually, you get Jacob and Esau, and then that's where things really pick up. So, how important is it to the

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Lord to take care of that for us? Well, in Obadiah, in this verse, the

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Lord is reminding us of something. When he talks about the great day of the Lord, and that it is going to be coming down on the

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Edomites, as well as the rest of the heathen, he's reminding us of a very specific promise, and something that he promised going all the way back to the days of Moses, when

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Moses was still leading his people prior to his death, before they ultimately, you know, went into the promised land for the first time.

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And, what's interesting about it is the promise that was given from God through Moses was reaffirmed in Romans with Paul.

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So, we know that this promise extends to us as well, but let's go ahead and take a look at the very first time this promise is given.

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And, we got quite a bit of reading to hear about, you know, a little over 10 verses. So, y 'all go over to Deuteronomy, if you will,

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Deuteronomy 32, and we're going to be reminded of a very specific aspect of how

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God handles things, and something that we need to be reminded of ourselves when we're faced with these kinds of battles, and trials, and all this kind of stuff, because we can get pretty upset about it.

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We can want to take matters into our own hands, in some cases, possibly. Certainly, that has been the case throughout history, just, you know, by virtue of our human nature.

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But, let's read this here and see what the Lord has to say about taking care of the heathen for us.

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Deuteronomy 32. Let's start at verse 31. It says, For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

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For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall.

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Their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

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Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance, and this is the promise that we're given, that again extends all the way up to us here in the

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New Testament as well. To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

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For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left.

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And he shall say, Where are their gods? Their rock is whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings.

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Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no

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God with me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

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For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever. If I wet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment,

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I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. It's interesting that he used that phrase, because we talked about that phrase several lessons ago at this point.

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I will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, and that with the blood of the slain, and of the captives, from the beginning of revenge is upon the enemy.

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Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and this is what we have to look forward to ourselves, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

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Okay, so this is why we don't need to worry about the heathen raging around us, as we learn in so many places.

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All the way, I mean, obviously, this is something that David talked about, something that that he was depressed about pretty often, but it's something, it's a problem that we're dealing with as well ourselves, so we don't need to worry.

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We don't need to get too stressed out, too depressed when the heathen are raging, or the the turmoil that they will put us through, because God's promise to, quote, avenge the blood of his servants, was extended to us all the way into Romans, and in Romans 12 .19

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is when Paul quotes that same passage in Deuteronomy, and lets us know the same is true for us in this age as well.

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The day of the Lord has so much wrapped into it, but one of the things, of course, is the day that he has been telling us about, and that we have been looking forward to for so long, which is when the vengeance will be his.

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Now, of course, there are going to be times when he punishes his enemies, when he spews certain people out of their land because of their gross sins, or whatever it may be, but in terms of it being a, you know, the said and done event that wipes out all of the people that hate him, hate his children, persecute us, want to kill us, all of these things, that is certainly wrapped into this great day of the

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Lord that Obadiah, verse 15, has been talking about. So, with that being said, let's move right on back to Obadiah.

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Yeah, Obadiah. We'll continue 15 and move into 16 as well. Let's see here.

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So, I'm just going to read the whole verse now. Verse 15, for the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen.

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As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee. Thy reward shall return upon thine own head.

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So, that's the end of verse 15 there, and remember, we looked at that passage in Psalm.

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It was Psalm 31 -23 a few lessons ago where he said he would render a reward to the proud doers, and so that phrase is repeated here to kind of reaffirm that concept.

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Obadiah is going deep on the theme of God's wrathful, and now we know second visitation on the heathen of the earth.

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So, this is when he's coming back for the second time, and Obadiah has moved beyond prophesying what's going to happen to the and we reviewed all that a minute ago.

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He moved beyond that into the grand finale of how

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God takes care of the heathen and restores, of course, his people. Obadiah 16 says, for ye,

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I'm sorry, for as ye have drunk upon my holy hill, my holy mountain rather, so shall all the heathen drink continually.

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Yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

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Here's another quote. I quoted this guy earlier in the study, but one of the commentaries

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I was reading was by a guy named Charles Feinberg. He had a really cool, really concise but thorough commentary on Obadiah, and this is a quote.

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This is a quote from him about that verse that we just read. He says, quote, As the seed of Esau have held their wild carousals with the conquerors in the captured city of Jerusalem in their time, so shall all these nations drain to the dregs the cup of calamity and the wrath of God, which, of course, is what verse 16 was just laying out for us.

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They're all in Jerusalem on his holy hill, on his holy mountain, getting drunk, celebrating the total destruction of God's people, and what is told in verse 16 there and what

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Feinberg is kind of really building up is the fact that while they had their time of celebration, drinking, of being merry, of again celebrating the total destruction of God's people, they are about to drink of the cup of God's calamity and the wrath of God, and so that begs the question, of course, what is this cup of calamity?

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What does that look like exactly? Because, again, this is just another component that is wrapped into this ultimate finale for the heathen, and we get even more information about the severity of God's punishment of his wrath and just how much he takes into his own hands, how devastating he is going to return the favor, essentially, on these people, on the heathen.

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If y 'all want to go to Jeremiah for a second, we'll talk specifically, we'll look at a passage specifically talking about this, quote, cup of calamity that Obadiah is referring to as well as Feinberg here in that comment from his commentary.

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Jeremiah chapter 25 and starting in verse 15.

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Again, this is just really, really hitting home how crazy this day is going to be for those who have been persecuting

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God's people. Verse 15, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me, take the wine cup of this fury at my hand and cause all the nations to whom

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I send thee to drink it. Okay, so that's a pretty epic start there, take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and essentially what we're about to find out is that the nations whom

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I give this cup to drink, they have no choice. They made their choices early on, and now they are going to reap what they sowed, and they don't have a choice at this point to drink of this cup.

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They drank of their cups of wine of celebration on my holy mountain, so now they will drink this cup that I will give them, the cup of this fury at my hand.

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Verse 16, and they shall drink and be moved and be mad because of the sword that I will send among them.

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Then took I the cup at the Lord's hand and made all the nations to drink. I like how first it tells us you will give this cup to the nations that I will send, and then in verse 16,

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I'm sorry, verse 17, I take the cup of the Lord's hand and made all the nations to drink, and to whom the

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Lord had sent me. In a second, it's going to basically tell us all, it's not going to leave any heathen nation out.

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It's going to be all of them. Verse, let's see, verse 18, to wit Jerusalem in the cities of Judah and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, and hissing, and a curse as it is to this day.

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Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people, and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the

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Philistines, and let's see here, Ashkelon, and Asha, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, and then go figure, verse 21 here,

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Edom is thrown into the mix, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, and the kings of Tyrus, and the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the

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Isles, which are beyond the sea. That's an interesting phrase, isn't it dad? Verse 23, Dedan, and Tima, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,

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I mean, he's not leaving anybody out. This is the, again, the totality of the heathen, and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the

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Medes, and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, in all the kingdoms of the world.

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So, he's not holding back here. He kind of implied that there was some exclusion in verse 15, and at this point realized, no, actually, there is no exclusion at all.

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He's being very, he's being very inclusive of, in terms of giving this cup of his fearing to all the heathen.

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All of the kings of the world, which are upon the face of the earth, and the kings of Shishak, shall drink after them.

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Therefore, shalt thou, therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the

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Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Drink ye, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which

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I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup of thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them,

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Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Ye shall certainly drink. They don't have a choice. For lo,

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I begin to bring evil on the city, which is called in my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished, ye shall not be unpunished.

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For I will call for a sword upon the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them,

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The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation. He shall mightily roar upon his habitation.

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He shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes against all the inhabitants of the earth.

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When noise shall come even to the ends of the earth, for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh.

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He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth, and the slain of the

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Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth, even into the other end of the earth.

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They shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried. They shall be dung upon the ground.

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Now a whole lot is covered in that passage. For one, obviously, Edom is right in the middle of it. So there is our reference back to Obadiah in talking about their ultimate end, as they drink the cup of this calamity.

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But for our benefit, every other heathen nation is mentioned as well. And I say to our benefit, because again, we're dealing with the same problem that the people of Judah dealt with when the

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Edomites were, in all of their terribleness, taking part in their destruction. And so this passage here, it covers a lot of things.

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And God is specifically talking about some of his people who turned away from him as well.

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But by the end of it, I believe it's talking about this great day of the Lord. At the end, once again,

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I mean, those last like four verses seem to make it pretty clear. And it's, again, talking about a period in time when not a single one of these nations will be able to refuse to take the cup of his wrath as a, what's the word

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I'm looking for here? They can't refuse to take from the cup of his wrath, because they got what they're asking for, essentially.

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That's not the way I want to phrase it. But they reaped, and now they will sow. And again, they're not going to be able to refuse it.

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There were a couple of verses there that mention that when this cup is given to them, they will plead to not take of it, but they won't have a choice.

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So those nations will be so completely destroyed when Jesus returns to the earth, it'll be as if they had never existed.

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And unlike, if you guys remember Brother Bill talking about Nineveh earlier this year, he mentioned how the book of Nahum is prophesying against Nineveh, and they were ultimately destroyed.

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And for centuries, people assumed that the books of Jonah and Nahum talking about the city were just,

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I guess, fictional. I can't remember the exact history that Brother Bill went into, but essentially they believed it was just biblical tales, and for the sake of pulling a story out of it and all this stuff, until the turn of,

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I believe, the 19th century, may have even been the turn of the 20th century, there were some archaeological findings that basically uncovered the entire city of Nineveh.

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And what they determined was that it did exist, and that it was destroyed, and they realized that it was destroyed to such a degree that that is one of the reasons why it was so hard to find for centuries.

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Well, that's interesting in and of itself, but unlike Nineveh, these nations are going to be so destroyed that there won't be any archaeological findings of them after the fact.

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They're going to be totally wiped out. And I mean, I struggle to find a phrase that is worthy of describing exactly how much they will be destroyed.

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It'll be as if they never existed. As the passage said a second ago, there won't be any remnants left of it, and within all those nations,

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Edom is going to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons why, again, this passage,

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I believe most of it is talking about the second coming as well, that passage we just read, Jeremiah, because Edom was included.

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They haven't been utterly destroyed yet, and we'll get back to that as well as we move forward.

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So, because even though Edom ceased to exist as a nation when the Romans conquered Edomia, which was part of our kind of historical timeline last week, some of the

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Edomites' descendants will populate their land one more time in the future. And we get that in Obadiah because, again, they're being prophesied against all the way forward into the second coming of the

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Lord. But there's another passage in Daniel. It's Daniel 11 .41. I'm not going to read it, but it's another passage that's talking about after the

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Great Tribulation, as the great battle of Armageddon is coming, the nation of Edom is mentioned there too.

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So they're going to be around again, which is kind of crazy. They were essentially wiped out by the

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Romans in 70 AD, but the blood of Esau is still alive and well, even to this day.

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And at some point, some of those parts that the Edomites once lived, some of the geographical locations where the

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Edomites once lived there, they'll live there again, and they are going to be part of this great day.

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Now, let me see here. I think I might skip some of that. I might get back to it if I have a little bit of time, but I'm going to keep moving forward for now.

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There's a really interesting thing in the Hebrew for the word Edom. I'll go ahead and cover it because it's just kind of interesting.

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It doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the study other than it's just one more reminder of how the

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Lord is in all the details, I suppose, because there's a lot of irony in the fact that Edom will drink of this cup of calamity, and that they will eventually take part in such a calamitous end to such a strong degree because their own name means calamity in the

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Hebrew. And the reason that I believe, well, actually, let me keep going for a second because their name doesn't,

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Edom doesn't mean calamity. Edom means red, but when

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I was reading one of the commentaries for, you know, this study way back when I first started this, way back in July, I'm reading one of these commentaries, and I came across this little, just one little sentence right in the middle of this whole thing, and it read the

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Hebrew for, quote, calamity, the word calamity, as in verse five of Obadiah, is

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Ed, similar to Edom, which is the Hebrew for Edom, and that was all it said.

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Like, it was just that sentence, and then he moved on. I was like, well, that's kind of interesting. So, the Hebrew word for calamity is similar to the

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Hebrew word for Edom. So, I wanted to kind of see exactly what those similarities were. So, I wanted to look into that just for fun, and after looking into the

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Hebrew a little bit myself, I found that when you take the actual Hebrew letters and place them side by side, what happens is, you're looking at the comparisons, the words, the first two letters of both words are exactly the same, but there's one additional letter added to the, to the word that is

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Edom, and that, and if you guys remember, well, I don't, the McKees, you guys may remember this, and Zach and Robin, hopefully you guys will get to hear

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Brother Myron one of these days. I'm sure he'll come back one of these days soon, but this awesome guy, Brother Myron, goes all the way back with my parents long before I was born, family, friends, but he's an awesome preacher and stuff, and he gets super into the

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Hebrew sometimes, and it's really cool, and he'll pull out some stuff, like, where the Hebrew is basically pointing directly to Jesus, which, of course, is no surprise to us, but it's just really, really cool stuff.

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Well, he was telling us about the significance once of just adding and taking away a single letter in Hebrew totally changes or adds a lot of meaning to a specific word, so you have these two words side by side.

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They, they, the first two letters are identical, but you add one more letter to, to what spells out

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Edom, and it's the Hebrew letter mem, and that letter is an individual letter means mother, and so, you know, you, you could, it's interesting because you can assume that the

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Hebrew word for calamity, and dad and I were talking about this a few weeks ago, the Hebrew word for calamity would have existed prior to the nation of Edom being established.

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Well, the nation of Edom, they were, they were a pain to a lot of people around them. They eventually established some allies and things of that sort, but they were a pretty brutal nation, and so, and so when this name was given to them, it was actually a secondary name to Esau.

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It was given to Esau as a secondary name when he was still alive. It's interesting that when you combine the letters that spell out calamity with the final letter in that word, you eventually, you basically get to mother of calamity, and again, this, this nation was so brutal.

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They caused a lot of calamity to other nations throughout their existence, especially the, the children of Israel, and so, again, there's a lot of irony baking in the fact that they are going to be basically living, or basically meeting such a calamitous end themselves, and so I just thought that was interesting.

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I don't know, maybe, like, maybe that is, you know, looking, I don't know.

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It does, there's no whole lot of takeaways from that other than it's just kind of neat that that is how the language spells out in Hebrew, and of course, the

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Lord ultimately is the one in control of all the details, and so there's no, there's no coincidence there.

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The mother of calamity eventually will meet the calamitous end that we've been reading about up to this point, and their total humiliation, ending with a, again, utmost calamitous end, foreshadows what the

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Lord will do to all the nations who have mistreated his people in a really similar fashion, so if we consider kind of what we've learned so far in the earlier verses of Obadiah, we can see that the

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Lord's judgments of Edom correspond with the crimes that Edom has committed themselves, what the

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Edomites have done to God's people, as it tells us, will be turned on their own head, and so just to kind of conclude that the section that covers verses 15 and 16, we start to see some of these, some of these things that correspond with each other in the sequence of God's judgments in all of it, so you have

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Edom that looted Jerusalem in verse 13 of Obadiah, thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity, yea thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity, so again they are causing the calamity here, but eventually the calamity will be turned on their own head, so they looted

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Jerusalem in verse 13, so God brought looting upon them. Earlier in Obadiah, it says, how are the things of Esau searched out, how are his hidden treasures,

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I'm sorry, how are his hidden things sought up, so eventually they will be looted, and that's reaffirmed to Jeremiah as well.

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Next, Edom killed all the fugitives of Judah that attempted escape, and they did that in verse 14, it says, neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway to cut off those of his that did escape, and so what happened because of what they did there is

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Edom eventually is slaughtered, as the Lord tells us in verse 8 of Obadiah, shall

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I not in that day say that the Lord even destroyed the wise men out of Edom in understanding out of the mount of Esau, even their mightiest warriors were cut off early on, and that right there, what's interesting is, so basically the way the the book of Obadiah is structured is it starts with Obadiah's pride, then it talks about some things that the

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Lord is going to bring upon them because of their pride, then after that it starts going into some of, it reminds us again some of the things that they did that caused the

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Lord to basically retaliate, and so the way it's structured is you can read kind of what they did later in the book of Obadiah and then go back in the earlier verses that we read like way back in the beginning of the study and and see how all of these things are corresponding, they handed over the survivors to the enemy.

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In verse 14, we already read that one, and so the Lord brings Edom's own allies in to expel them out of their place, and that we learn that in verse 7, when the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border, the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and you know that eventually is going to be, as we learned last week, the

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Nabataeans that come in, they were welcomed in the gates, they were eating together, and then they turned killed all of their guards, killed all of their generals, and the

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Nabataeans eventually expelled the Edomites, so that happened. Edom rejoiced over Judah's losses.

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In verse 12, it says, but thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother, reminds us of the the connection there between Esau and Jacob, in the day that he became a stranger, so they rejoiced over Judah's losses.

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It says later that they boasted over their destruction, and so then what does the Lord do? He covers them with shame and destroys them, which we learn in verse 10.

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It says, for thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever, and then ultimately, which is what we just kind of finished up talking about,

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Edom is brought back as a nation, even in our future, to take part in God's ultimate judgment of all the heathen, where their reward will be turned on their own head, and the calamity that they caused the people of God will be returned,

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I say a hundredfold, but again, I mean, it's there, you can't really describe it. It's on an infinite scale, perhaps, of how devastating it's going to be for these people.

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Again, bringing in the whole concept of they're reaping what they have sown, so that's kind of the end of the third section of Obadiah, kind of the natural third section that's talking about the day of the

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Lord, and we're about to move into section four, which is a really cool section in of itself, because it turns our focus away from, okay, you have the heathen, you have the persecution they have caused on my people, here's what

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I'm going to do about it, and now here's what I'm going to do with you, talking about his own people, which of course, as we'll see, because it's talking about something that has yet to happen, we will be included in, which is really cool as well.

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I don't know if you guys have any comments or anything, we still have a little bit of time. Do you have anything back there, dad, on the comment thing or the chat?

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Well, it's really interesting stuff, and again, I'm hoping we can kind of use a lot of what we just covered in that section, specifically talking about the day of the

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Lord. It's kind of a reference point for some future studies I'm hoping to tackle, because again, so many of the minor prophets, all the major prophets are talking about it as well, and just give us a little bit more detail in different ways as we move forward.

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So, let's go ahead and move on to verse 17. We'll cover maybe perhaps even a couple more verses, and then we'll close this one out.

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So, this whole section in the remainder of the book of Obadiah, the last, I don't know, four or five verses, are all about now

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God's people possessing the promised land. The heathen persecuted us,

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God answered, and now he's going to usher us in to the place that that he has prepared for us all along, and of course, that was to his people, but us by extension through the

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Abrahamic covenant and all that good stuff. Obadiah 17 says, but upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance.

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So, we just finished talking about the epic nature of Edom's destruction, and now verse 17, but upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness in the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

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So, talk about contrast. You have Esau's total destruction in verses 15 and 16.

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Now you have Israel's total deliverance, which is what they're experiencing here. It says in Mount Zion, which is kind of synonymous with Jerusalem based on some other passages, other parallel passages

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I was reading. You have Jerusalem here. They had been desecrated. It had been desecrated by Edom, which we learn in verse 13 of Obadiah.

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The men rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not for the sea. Oh, that's weird. I'm reading

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Jonah. How did I do that? My page turned. What was that? Verse 13. That was hilarious.

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I was like, wait a second. Did not cover this. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate in the day of their calamity, looked on their affliction the day of calamity, put your hands on their substance the day of their calamity.

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So, they were totally desecrated by Edom, but despite that, despite having been desecrated, the holy and promised land will be occupied by the house of Jacob, and a total turn of events, a massive turn of events, which of course, it just makes for such an unbelievable story, let alone our eventual history here.

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So, this is a reminder that not only does God keep all of his promises, because that is one of the most ancient promises ever made, that they will occupy their land, the promised land.

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Not only does he keep his promises, and in this case, again, one of the most ancient ones ever, but they are also delivered in his perfect timing.

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And this is important for us, because again, this comes back to how is this book of Obadiah applicable to us today.

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It's important for us to remember that, because oftentimes, his perfect timing, in this case, it's going to involve a very climactic conclusion, which of course, was ordained from the beginning, and it was specifically for his glory.

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I mean, come on, we're talking about the second coming here, him being ushered in to his kingdom to rule with all of his people.

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It's specifically for his glory, but also for the joy of his people as well, who have persisted through all of the tribulations that preceded the glorious day, which is his second coming.

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We said it last week, but it's going to be the worst day in all of human history for the heathen.

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It's going to be the greatest day in all human history for his people, and it's all been mapped out that way because of the amount of glory that's going to be exhibited.

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It's going to all be worth it. All of the tribulations that we may go through, all of the tribulations and calamity that our ancestors, that the saints of the

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Bible, of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and all of the martyrs over the last 2 ,000 years, anything that we could go through in the next generations, all of that will be worth it because it's all within his perfect timing, and it's going to be a glorious end that, of course, will point to him first and foremost, but it's going to bring all of the joy that we could ever imagine to us.

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And so the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. Really great contrast between what's going to happen to Edom and what's going to happen to God's people.

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Verse 18 says, in the house of Jacob shall be a fire, in the house of Joseph a flame, in the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them and devour them, and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau, for the

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Lord has spoken it. Dad, just make sure my watch is right. It's 10 till, right? Okay.

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Okay, so this is really interesting, and I'll probably end with this verse here because Obadiah is kind of all over the place.

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We've already talked about what Obadiah did. We've now talked about what the Lord did, telescoping all the way into the second coming.

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Now we're talking about God ushering in his people to the promised land, but here Esau is back once again, except in a little bit of a different context.

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The house of Jacob in the house of Joseph will be like fire, like a flame, to the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them and devour them, and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau, for the

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Lord has spoken it. This is a really interesting concept because this is something

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I've never thought about before, certainly never seen before, and what happens is, so you have

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Jacob, which is represented kind of like the southern kingdom. You have Joseph, the northern kingdom.

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They're going to be reunited, and that is talked about in Ezekiel chapter 37.

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That whole story is laid out, the reuniting of the kingdoms, and they will destroy

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Edom like a flame, easily consuming stubble. Now what it appears here to me, and this is the part that was really cool, like new to me, that I had never seen before, but it appears here both in verse 18 of Obadiah and in a following passage that we'll read here in just a second, and again we'll end with this, that the children of God will actually physically take part in at least a portion of the final battle before Jerusalem is restored.

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Now dad, growing up, I remember you telling me about how, you know, Jesus comes back, and what happens prior to that is we basically go up into the clouds with him.

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We get our glorified bodies, right, and he descends upon Armageddon to fight the armies, and we're there with him, but in reality we're not even needed.

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We're more going to, even though we're his army, we're going to be more observers because he's going to take care of all of it, right, and I mean to some degree that absolutely is true, but this gives us, this is telling us that some of God's people, specifically the

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Israelites, the reunited kingdom, are actually going to physically take part in some of this battle too.

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Well, first of all, it tells us right here in verse 18, we're talking about the people of Esau in the future.

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Jacob and Joseph will be a flame to Esau for stubble, and they will devour the remaining of the house of Esau, but go over to Zechariah really fast, and this will be where we end as well.

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This is another passage that gives us a hint that the Israelites are actually going to be fighting some of the battle alongside

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Jesus, and I don't know if it's only specifically against Edom, which would be kind of interesting, because it's almost like God is allowing for the blood feud to reach its final course.

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I don't know if it's going to be just, like if Esau is going to be the sole focus of the house of Jacob and the house of Joseph, or if they'll be taking part in all of it.

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I'm not sure about that, but let me read this really quick, and then we'll call it quits for the day. Zechariah chapter 12, and the first six verses.

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So, it starts with the burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, sayeth the

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Lord, which stretches forth the heavens and lay at the foundation of the earth, informeth the spirit of man within him.

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So, it's starting with just the greatness of God. Verse two, behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling into all the people round about.

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When is, like you already start to kind of get an idea of what's happening. All of the people are surrounding

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Jerusalem at this point, and as we'll move down, is why

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I believe this is happening. Jesus, I believe, is descending at this point. The armies of the entire world are surrounding

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Jerusalem. I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling into all the people round about, when they shall be in siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

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The nations of the earth are in siege surrounding God's people, and in that day will

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I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people. All that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

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So, at this point, it becomes a little more clear. All the people of the world are gathered against it. This is talking about the big finale here.

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Verse four, in that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse. So, it starts here with the

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Lord fighting the battle, the great day of Armageddon, I believe. In that day, saith the

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Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment and his rider with madness, and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah and will smite every horse of the people with blindness and the governors of Judah.

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So, now here are the people, the house of Jacob, the house of Joshua, I'm sorry, of Joseph that we just talked about in verse 18 of Obadiah.

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The governors of Judah shall say in their heart, the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength, and the

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Lord of hosts their God. In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood and like a torch of fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the people round about on the right hand and on the left, and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place even in Jerusalem.

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What do you think about that, dad? Do you think I'm overlooking something here, or is this

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Judah taking part in the physical battle as well alongside the

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Lord? The exact opposite of that. Right. And sure,

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I suppose many of us would be confused. I think perhaps it's because when the

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Lord comes, he doesn't last, but he's the best, and perhaps it's because, you know, every time there is, you know, there's still things to be accomplished.

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Right. Right. So they don't have the glorified bodies yet.

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Verse four, the Lord shall smite the horse, every horse. The Zechariah chapter was 12, and then we read the first six verses.

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Chapter four, I mean, sorry, verse four is when it says the Lord will smite every horse. It says all the nations here.

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Right. And at this point, presumably, they see the

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Lord because he has done his thing first, so they're saved now, right? They see

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Messiah. Right. But they don't have a glorified body, so they're physically down there with swords or their weapons.

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Right. Right. Well, I this is this is cool because I've never like I always think about us.

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The Lord coming. We are, you know, quote unquote raptured we have our glorified bodies and then we're we're observers of the great battle of Armageddon.

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But I've never thought about the Jews that aren't glorified yet because they weren't saved until they saw him physically at that point.

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At that point with the raptures already happened. And then they're all saved based on what

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Paul tells us. And so the Lord still has a physical army on the ground that is going to be fighting and it says and let me just read it one more time.

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In verse 18, the house of Esau will be there. So the Israelites, the house of Jacob will have vengeance on what

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Esau has done. For all of human history, practically, I mean, obviously, right now, the

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Edomites are not really anywhere to be found. But for thousands of years, that struggle that started in the womb all the way through, at least after Jesus was alive, they get a little bit of vengeance themselves almost .

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It's like they get to avenge their their blood that was spilled in the past. And I'll read this verse one more time and then we'll pray and be done in the house of Jacob shall be a fire in the house of Joseph, a flame in the house of Esau for stubble.

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So it specifically points out Esau and they shall kindle in them and devour them and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau for the

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Lord has spoken it. And this is in the context of the day of the Lord taking place already. And that was

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Obadiah 18. So pretty interesting stuff. Well, we I think we only have a little we only have a few verses left.

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We probably will be able to finish this thing up the next time. But that little part was super, super interesting to me.

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And oh, yeah, go ahead, dad. Sorry. Hmm.

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Sure. Right.

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But you know. He's going to be.

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Mm hmm. And just.

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Mm hmm. But. Right.

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Right. Mm hmm.

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Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Right.

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Mm hmm.

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It's. Right.

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Right. Right. Right.

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Sure. Right. Well, and.

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Right. Mm hmm. In the fighting itself.

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Right. Well, right. Do they need to?

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Perhaps not, but he uses them as a tool, as an instrument. For part of the destruction. And I've also never thought about that last thing you said in terms of like they're not going to know what's going on in the sky, like I always think,

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OK, Jesus is descending. Everyone sees it. Some people believe in some get scared and hate them all the more for whatever reason, but perhaps it's more like a

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Paul on the road to Damascus thing where everyone except for him just sees beaming light that's so bright.

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It's painful. They have no idea what it is. They're just freaked out. Whereas he. Right. Really interesting.

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Well, I took up way too much time, so I'll go ahead and dismiss this, but I appreciate everyone coming this morning.

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And yeah, I'll pray real quick and we'll be done. Dearly father, Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful morning.

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You blessed us with this great day so far. Thank you for bringing us all together. Once again, this week, we ask you to please continue to protect

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Katie, Dave, Mimi, Pop Pop and all the kiddos as they are on the road as we speak, heading back, bring them home safely to us.

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And we ask you to continue to be with all the services today. And we ask all these things in your name. Amen.