Pride Is A Deceiver And A Liar - Obadiah 1-9

Pride as the Deceiver in Obadiah

There once was a man who built his house high on the edge of a cliff. Now from his windows, he could see storms coming long before they arrived. He could see travelers far below, and he could see everything around him.

Over time, he became very proud of where he lived. When people would warn him that the cliff was slowly eroding underneath his house, he would scoff and laugh and say, look how high I am, nothing can reach me up here.

Basically, he was saying, who are you little peasants to tell me anything about my house? Well, one night, after years of erosion that he couldn't see but that he was warned about, the ground beneath his house finally gave way.

And everything he trusted collapsed in a moment. Pride deceives people today. It convinces them that their success, their position, their intelligence, their stability, their houses, their goods, their things that they have, make them safe.

And look, and to a degree they do. There's certainly nothing wrong with having these things like a nice roof over your head when it's raining and all these things. In and of themselves, none of these things are wrong.

But if you put your trust in them, that's where you've gone off the rails. Anything built without humility before God stands on eroding ground. It brings us to the book of Obadiah this morning. And we want to find this morning that sinful pride is a deceiver and a liar.

Now, the word Obadiah simply is a Hebrew word that means servant of Jehovah. So there have been many Obadiahs throughout history. In a sense, we could say that we are Obadiahs. We're servants of the Lord.

Now, we don't know from Scripture with any level of certainty who this specific prophet is or was. There's some scarce people that will say we think this or that, but we don't know anything for certain.

But we know that he is likely to have written this book between 580... Well, certainly after 586 BC when Babylon came in and destroyed Jerusalem and took the people off into Babylonian captivity for 70 years.

But he would have written this before 553 BC when Edom fell at the hands of Babylon. Excuse me. Now, there is some good argument, and I actually wrestled with this. And I texted my pastor, Pastor Jay, and asked him about it.

And he's like, I don't know. He's like, it sounds like you've done a good amount of study there. Just go with your guts, son. I was like, but you're supposed to have all the answers. But you know what?

That's humble Jay. If he don't know, he ain't going to pretend like he knows. And I appreciate that about him. But there is really good arguments to be made. And good Christians can disagree over this.

If someone had a different view than me, that'd be perfectly fine. It doesn't change the truth of the book. But there are some that think it was written earlier, back in the mid -800s, about 848, 841 BC.

And there were some issues going on with Edom there and things of that nature. In my view, the other supporting texts that we're going to look at this morning, and when you look at what Obadiah himself says, I think it's most consistent with the later date, after the Babylonian captivity, but before Babylon comes back in to deal with Edom.

And that is how we're going to look at this morning. So Obadiah, I was just about to say Obadiah chapter 1, verse 1, but you don't really need to do that because there's only one chapter. So Obadiah 1, 1.

The vision of Obadiah. And you'll notice many of these prophets, their books that they would write would come from visions. In this vision of Obadiah, it says, Thus says Lord Yahweh concerning Edom. Now, before we move forward, and this morning we're not going to look at the whole book, but before we can move forward, we need to discuss, at least for a minute, who?

Edom. Okay? Great. Who is it? Where is it? What is it? We need a little background here. So, let's take just a few minutes and set the stage here. Thus says Lord Yahweh concerning Edom. This goes all the way back, if you want to turn with me, to Genesis chapter 25.

In Genesis chapter 25, we see the account of the birth of Jacob and Esau. You have no doubt heard of these people throughout your time at church. Well, concerning Edom, it says in verse 19 of Genesis 25,.

Now, these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham became the father of Isaac. And Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel. And it goes on to say in verse 21 that Isaac had treated Yahweh on behalf of his wife because she was barren.

And Yahweh was moved, and so Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And notice that the children struggled together within her, and she said, If it is so, why then am I this way? So she went to inquire of Yahweh the Lord, and the Lord told her, Notice this here, two nations are in your womb.

Notice the sovereignty of God on display here. This is not just two sons. This is not just another birth that is occurring. There's two nations in your womb. Two peoples will be separated from your body, and one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.

And her days to give birth were fulfilled, and behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came forth red all over like a hairy garment, and they named him Esau. Now, the Edomites, of which we get from the people that would call Edom home, and Edom is the southern countries.

If you look at a map and you see Israel and all that here, Edom is down here in the southeast on the map there. It's a southern country. So these Edomites trace their origin all the way back here to Genesis 25 with Esau.

And Esau is also called Edom because Edom simply means red. Now, this owes to what we're going to read here in a minute when he sold his birthright in exchange for some red stew. And then Esau would later settle in a region of mostly rugged mountains south of the Dead Sea, hence the southern area here, called Edom.

And so you see, what we read in Scripture throughout what is a lot of historical information in the Old Testament, when you look at 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, even in Genesis, you get a lot of historical data of what happened.

Real people, real places, real events. And you see, if you were to track your life and go back and say, okay, something I did in my teen years, there were events in my 20s, events in my 30s, and you see different people and different events and how they interconnect and interweave to produce who you are today.

These people were no different. They would teach their history. We go all the way back to Esau. We go all the way back to this, that, and the other. And so we see here in verse 27, it says, The boys grew up.

Esau became a skillful hunter. He was a man of the field. But Jacob was a peaceful man. Now, Jacob was a peaceful man, but he still was a sinner. We're going to see this a little bit. He works and conspires to take the birthright from Esau.

But he was a peaceful man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he had an appetite for hunted game. But Rebekah loved Jacob. Now, Gene and I don't have this problem because we have one child, so we both love Hannah.

But, you know, you hear of these parents where one's a little bit more fond of the other and so far, like you say, you've got the same thing here. Isaac's like, yeah, Esau, my boy. Go out and hunt. Get some game.

Rebekah just loves Jacob. Maybe Jacob was a little not into the outdoors or things like that. And so Jacob cooked some stew. Esau came in from the field and he was famished. Now, this wasn't just, you know, I haven't ate in a couple hours.

This was, I mean, he was getting very close to death. He had not eaten for a long time here. And Esau said to Jacob, please give me a swallow from the red stuff. This red stuff for I am famished. Therefore, his name was called Edom because Edom meaning red.

And Jacob says, first, sell me your birthright. Esau said, behold, I'm about to die. Of what use then is the birthright to me? He's saying, look, okay, fine, whatever. I mean, I'm about to die. What use is a birthright going to be if I'm dead?

Fine. Well, Jacob says, first swear to me. He swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And so Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew. He ate and drank and rose and went away. And thus Esau despised his birthright.

So here you have the origin, the starting place, for what would then bring us all the way forward through all the things that go on and one of the reasons Obadiah is written. Now, we're going to fast forward just a little bit.

If you go to the book of Numbers chapter 20, the book of Numbers chapter 20, and we're not going to look through all the times that Edom attacks or confronts or persecutes Israel. We certainly don't have time to do that.

Just suffice it to say, there's probably their biggest adversary, the one that pops up the most. And you can see how it would happen. You got two brothers, sibling rivalry. They become two peoples. And you're either on team Jacob or you're on team Esau.

And so you've got this going on here. But then you fast forward in time. Now the land of Edom has been settled. The people are coming out of Egypt through the Exodus. And then in Numbers 20 verse 14 it tells us that from Kadesh, Moses then sent messengers to the king of Edom.

Thus your brother Israel has said, you know all the hardship that has befallen us. Notice this here. You're going to see this language brought up here, but you're also going to see it probably next week in Obadiah.

But even though these two sons created two peoples, have settled in different places, have different cultures, different everything, God still addresses them as a people and treats them as if they're harming the original brother.

So he says, Moses is telling the king of Edom. Now the king of Edom at this time is not Esau. But he still says to them, your brother Israel. You still have a connection to us. He's entreating him based on this connection that goes all the way back to Genesis 25.

He says, we've had hardship. Our fathers went down to Egypt and we stayed in Egypt a long time. And the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly. So we cried out to Yahweh and he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt.

And now behold, we are at Kadesh, a town that is on the edge of your territory. So you might think of something like Weldon, right? Weldon's right there on the edge of Roanoke Rapids. They say, hey, we're coming through town, okay?

He says, please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard. We will not even drink water from a well. We'll go along the king's highway. There was a nice road there they called the king's highway where a lot of commerce and things took place.

He says, we will not turn to the right or to the left until we pass through your territory. So Moses is saying, look, we know you don't like us. We know the history. We know you're Team Esau or Team Jacob.

We know you're not going to be happy about this, generally speaking. We just want to get through safe. We won't bother you. We won't even drink your water. You won't even know we were here. We're just going to pass through and we'll be gone.

Well, Edom, however, said to him, you shall not pass through us lest I come out to meet you with a sword. Meaning, if you try to go through our land, we're going to take you out. Again, the sons of Israel said to him, we will go up by the highway and if I and my livestock do drink any of your water, I will pay its price.

Let me only pass through on my feet, nothing else. So his second response is like, look, maybe you didn't hear me. I just said we're coming through. We're not going to bother you. But hey, I'll up the ante a little bit.

Let's say there's some Israelite that goes off on their own. We don't see them. We don't know what they're doing. They drink your water. They mess with your cattle. Something like that. If you find out it did, I'll pay you for it.

I'll compensate you for it. There, see? You won't have any skin in the game. You won't have any reason to complain about this. Verse 20, but he said, You shall not pass through. And Edom came out to meet him with a heavy force and with a strong hand.

Thus Edom refused to allow Israel to pass through its territory. So Israel turned away from him. And then they set out from Kadesh, and the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, and came to Mount Hor.

So you see, this is the record here. If you've ever heard about Edom and their history and the time when they wouldn't let Israel pass, this is where you find that account. And so we've got this issue here.

Now, fast forward again. Just one verse in question here, but fast forward to Psalm 137. Psalm 137. And now this is where these next two places we're going to go in both Psalm and Ezekiel. This is where you start getting some of the texts that I think make it clear that Obadiah had a later date in the 500s.

I think these texts make it clear and consistent of the later date. And that's where I would build my argument for that. But in Psalm 137, in verse 7, it's talking about Edom here,.

And it says,.

Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem... It's referring to the day when Babylon came in, destroyed the temple, killed them off, killed many of them, and any survivors were dragged into captivity.

That day of Jerusalem, Edom was saying,.

Tear it down.

Tear it down to its very foundation. Tear it down. What it was saying, Edom would then try to pass it off like, Oh, hey, hold on now. We're not the ones that came in your city and destroyed you. We didn't tear down your temple.

We were just over here to the side, and I know we were enjoying it, but it ain't like we did it to you. They're sitting there and they're applauding it. They're rejoicing over it. The Edomites were happy to see this come, and there's a whole lot of history we see here going all the way back to Genesis 25 that can explain why these people had such hatred in their hearts.

My friends, let me pause and tell you, if you have such hatred in your hearts for anybody that you would rejoice and applaud over their demise, something is wrong with you. So much of what we talk about when we say something as simple as love your neighbor as yourself.

Do you ever stop and wonder why did the Lord Jesus say, first and foremost, you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, but then he says you can hang all the law and prophets on this, love your neighbor as yourself.

Why did he tell us that? Because we struggle with it. Man so naturally has anger and hatred in his heart. So much so that these people of Edom, at the time when this happens, they're applauding it. They're cheering on Babylon.

Yay, Babylon! Tear it down! Yeah, get them!

Now look, today's Super Bowl Sunday. People watch football games, and if their team's winning, yeah, we're like, yeah, get them, take them down. It's not the same thing. It's how many who are not wishing that the other team would be killed off and demised.

They were wishing, kill them all. Burn it down. Tear it down to its foundation. And now we already read it this morning in our scripture reading, so I'm not going to reread this now, but if you fast forward once again to Ezekiel 25, verses 12 through 14, we see this judgment decree that Lord Yahweh says, Edom, they've acted against the house of Judah, taking vengeance.

So in those verses I read for you, the Lord uses means in His sovereignty. He uses the very evil intentions of Edom and these other places, specifically Babylon, to come in and do what they did. But He's going to hold them accountable for it.

And so with all that, we've set this stage here. So next week, and if we do go three weeks, we won't have to rehearse this again. We've set the stage of the origin and why these people exist, where their hatred of Israel comes from, why they do what they do.

And now we come back to the book of Ovidiah. And for the rest of this message and the time that we have, we're going to look at the beginning of this book, and I want to, in light of everything we've just covered in setting this stage, I want to focus in on pride for the rest of this morning.

And I want you to understand that one can either live a life trusting God or trusting in themselves. Remember the man that built his house on the cliff? He had very many well-intentioned people that were telling him, you've got problems.

There's land that you can't see eroding. We're trying to help you out here. But he had so much trust in his status and his high position, they didn't even take the time to consider what they were saying to him.

I'm sure many of you have heard this text your whole lives, how you can build your house on the sand or the rock. Sound familiar? I think it's apropos to what we're looking at this morning. In Matthew chapter seven, verse 24,.

It says,.

Therefore, everyone who hears the words of mine and does them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain descends, the rivers come, and the winds blow and fell against that house.

And yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock. And everyone hearing these words of mine and not doing them may be compared to a foolish man. You could say this man had lacked intelligence.

Foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rain descends, the rivers come, the winds blow, slamming against that house, and it fell. How many of you have seen these videos of these houses on the coast of North Carolina going down?

Y 'all seen some of them? I mean, look, I hate it for the people. In a way, I kind of almost want to tell them, you do realize you built your house on sand at the coast, but, I mean, I'm in insurance.

Let me tell you something. You can try to insure one of them homes, you'll go broke just trying to pay for the insurance if you can get insurance on them homes. But you see them, you watch them collapse, right?

It's amazing to watch it, because, you know, it didn't just happen in a moment, but all the time with the water and all these storms, and you see it kind of break, and it kind of wobbles, and then just, boop, crashes.

It's the picture here. That's what's going on. You'll either build your life on the foundation of Christ, or you'll build it on a foundation that will fall beneath your feet. And so let's look at some things about pride really quickly.

Pride Will Convince You That You Are Untouchable

First, let's see, pride will convince you that you are untouchable. Obadiah 1, he says, Thus says the Lord concerning Edom, We have heard a report from Yahweh, and an envoy has been sent among the nations, saying, Arise, and let us arise against her for battle.

So now the time has come, and God's going to send judgment against Edom, and He's going to bring together an envoy of multiple people that are going to come and execute this judgment. But then we see here, verse 2, it says, Behold, I will make you small among the nations.

You are greatly despised. Edom spent so much of their history despising Israel, hating people, and now He says, You are greatly despised. But notice here, He says, The arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

If that's the only inspired words we have from God, it'd be enough to teach a thousand sermons. The arrogance of your heart has deceived you. Take it from a man that lived a portion of his life living in great pride.

Take it from a man who knows what it's like to have the arrogance of his pride deceive him. You think you're untouchable.

You see,.

These Edomites, they lived in difficult mountain terrain, much like our gentleman that we talked about at the beginning of the sermon. Now these peaks were somewhere as high as 5 ,700 feet. In fact, their capital city, Petra, that's literally a city carved into a mountain.

Any of you ever seen the old Indiana Jones movies? Last Crusade, where they go in to get the cup of the Lord in that mountain city? It's Petra. They had all this. In their minds, they were virtually inaccessible.

Now we're going to see later in this book that there was still a way to get to them. But in their minds, they had a false sense of security. People in their pride convinced themselves that they are not sinful, they don't need a Savior, and that their sin won't find them out.

But it will.

Have you ever been around someone that's just utterly prideful? They walk with this air about them, that they can do whatever they want to anyone. They can say whatever they want to about anyone. There's no consequences to them.

They're going to get away with it. I can say what I want, do what I want. I can harm you however I want. It's your deal, not mine. Nobody's going to confront me or deal with it. My friends, I don't care how long you get away with sin in this life, God's either going to deal with it and with you in this life or in the next.

There is judgment. There is a day of the Lord, and thankfully for those of us that have been saved, the day of the Lord, the wrath against our sin was meted out on the cross of Calvary so that we stand justified before the Father, knowing that our sins have been forgiven.

But pride will convince you that you're untouchable. And the thing is,.

You know,.

This is an apples-to-apples kind of thing, I guess, but in a sense it's kind of like when I had my fall in the ice. I weren't living sinfully prideful, mind you, but in a sense it's like that. The prideful person is like me.

I'm going out there to meet Gina to make sure she gets in okay. And yes, of course, I would admit to you right now, she had Taco Bell. And after I got up from my fall, I made sure to carry the Taco Bell in safely.

But putting Taco Bell.

To the side for a minute,.

I'm going down our grass very carefully, but then for a brief moment, I guess you can call it pride, call it whatever you want, I forget about the fact there's ice, don't think about it being a danger, and I go just take a couple normal steps, plant, bam,.

On the ground.

That's what prideful people do. They have a way about them. If you've been like this, you know what I'm saying. I was like this. I had a false sense of security. I was untouchable. I can go through life and it really doesn't matter what I do because I'm going to be okay.

The good Lord had to humble me and that fall in the ice certainly was very humbling. Well, pride also creates that huge fall, much like falling on the ice. He says, the arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

You who dwell in the cliffs of the cliff, in the height of your habitation, speaking to the terrain in which they lived here, notice this, who says in his heart,.

Who will.

Bring me down to earth?

Man, I hope this isn't.

How I was. I hope I wasn't this bad, but it's possible. I know I've been around people like this and I certainly lived a period of my life where I was very prideful. You think,.

Man, I'm.

Great. Ain't nobody bringing me down. Now you think about being in, you know, sports. You know, you hear these, I mean, 1 of human beings make it into these leagues and you hear some of them talk about, you know, I'm talking about the great of the greats, Michael Jordan, all these people and you ask them, say, you know, how do you get to be at this level?

Some of them will honestly tell you, to a degree you have to tell yourself, I am the best and I'm going to destroy anybody who's in my path. Now, you know, they mean it in a harmless way, of course. They're not going out there to look to hurt people, but they want to show everybody, I'm the king and you're not.

Well, if you put that in real life, people that would treat others that way because they have this air about them and think there's something special about them and you need them, but they don't need you.

And they're saying, well, who's going to bring me down? How many times do we hear of these world leaders doing anything they can to prolong their lives? Because that's all they have. And it moves on to verse 4, it says, God says, though you build loftily like the eagle, meaning up high, though you set your nest among the stars, from.

There I.

Will bring you down, declares.

The Lord.

Pride creates a huge fall. We've all heard it and said it, right? Pride goes before what? A fall. Coming straight from the wisdom of.

God. The.

Lord will not be robbed of His glory, and while it may seem that one is getting away with sin and pride for a season, the Lord will bring them down just like He brought down Edom. A whole sermon for another day, we don't have time to get into this, but you look at sometimes with churches, there's some churches that get pretty prideful.

Look at our building, look at our budget, our bank account, or our youth program, or music, or whatever,.

You know, or all of it.

And you see, I mean, you look at independent fundamentalism at the height of some of these, I'll say so-called preachers, you know, untouchable, they thought, and then they get caught up in some type of sin, and it brings the whole world down.

Pride Will Leave You All Alone

Pride also will eat you.

Up and spit.

You out all alone. Look at verses 5 through 9, this is the last set of verses we're going to deal with this morning in Obadiah. Verse 5, If thieves came to you, if robbers by night, oh how you would be ruined!

Would they not thieve only until they'd had enough? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not allow some gleanings to remain? What this verse is saying is while Edom did have a great advantage with their mountains and their terrain and all this, they were susceptible to predators by night.

People that could sneak in in the darkness of night and get them that way. So he's telling them here, don't think you're untouchable. Your pride is going to eat you up and spit you out, Edom. Verse 6, oh how Esau and notice here,.

There's.

No mistakes in scripture. It doesn't say oh how Edom, it says oh how Esau. Esau who remember from Genesis 25 also called Edom, meaning red. He puts it here. My friends they say this goes all the way back to your, what you say is your origin.

You can't detach yourself from where you come. You claim the name of Esau as your heritage. Well guess what, you're going to eat the name of Esau as your heritage. Oh how Esau is going to be searched out and his hidden treasures ransacked.

And then all the men who have a covenant with you, who you think to be your allies, will send you forth to the border. The men that you think are at peace with you will deceive you and overpower you. Even those who are benefiting from you, eating your bread, they're going to set an ambush for you.

Which is one of the ways Edomites were very susceptible was the ambushes. So what he's saying here is even those people in this judgment that I'm sending you, even those people that you think are your friends are going to be used against you.

Verse 8, will I not on that day declare the Lord, cause the wise men to perish from Edom and discernment from the mountain of Esau? What is he saying here? Pride is going to eat you up and spit you out all alone.

All your friends are going to desert you. And in verse 8 what he's saying here is all the so-called wisdom that you think you have is going to perish from your land. All this great discernment and military things that you think you are is going to be vanished.

And finally he says, then your mighty men will be dismayed, O temen, so that each one may be cut off from the mountain of Esau by slaughter. Pride's going to eat you up and leave you lonely. They were not as fully protected as they assumed.

Jeremiah 49 .10, the Lord says, but I have stripped Esau bare. I have uncovered his hiding places so that he will not be able to conceal himself. Edom's left devastated. They think because they're high in the mountains, nobody can get to them.

But what they forgot is that no matter how high on earth they may be, there's still a God in heaven that's higher than them. And he said, I'm going to find you, I'm going to uncover you, I'm going to bring judgment to you and there's nothing you can do about it.

That's why my friends it's a terrible and dangerous thing to fall into the hands of a righteous judge, a righteous God and to be a lost sinner. Which is why we need to be preaching the gospel, teaching the gospel, seeing sinners saved.

And this is their fate, this is who they are. This is who Edom is, this is who Edom was.

Humility Before God and Trusting Christ

In closing,.

Edom was just like that man on the cliff from the story when we first started. They lived high in the rocky mountains, they believed their position made them untouchable. But if you remember in verse 3 of this book, it said, the arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

Pride is a deceiver and a liar. See, Edom trusted their location, their alliances,.

Their strength.

Instead.

Of recognizing God's authority. And pride still deceives people today.

It convinces them that.

Their success, their position, their intelligence, their stability makes them safe. But anything built without humility before God stands on eroding ground. My friends, you have two choices. You can trust God with your life, you can build your life and your household on the rock, the rock of the truth of Scripture, the rock of Jesus Christ.

Will it be perfect? No. There'll be hardship, there'll be suffering, there'll be hard times, and a whole lot of good ones too. Or you can build it on sand, you can build it on your pride, you can live like the Edomites and think you're untouchable.

And I certainly do not wish that fall that's coming your way on you. So we look at this this morning as an example of what not to be. Don't live in pride because it'll convince you're untouchable, it'll lead you to a fall, and at the end of the day it's going to eat you up, spit you out, leave you all alone.

But there's someone that won't. Jesus Christ, God will never leave you alone, never desert you, never forsake you.

Walk in.

Humility, trust the good Lord because He never fails.