Book of Obadiah - Vs. 10-14 (10/09/2022)

All righty, guys. Y 'all can turn over to Obadiah 10, and we'll get her started.

We got past all of the sidesteps last week, so we can just jump right into it this time around.

We kind of got into it a little bit, into verse 10 just a little bit, mainly so that we could say we did, but now we're gonna start there again, but then move through, hopefully, all the way through verse 14.

Obadiah is split into kind of four sections. Obviously, the first nine verses that we covered about as well as we could,

I guess, are all about Edom's pride, obviously, and how that leads to kind of the next phase, which this particular section is now about the sins that followed.

Well, obviously, the pride was a sin, but more specifically, what followed was sins against God's people, so that's kind of where the pride took them, and then eventually, we get to Edom, the nation of Edom in the day of the

Lord, and then it kind of finishes, the whole book finishes with the

Lord talking about how the Israelites will eventually inhabit the land that the

Edomites were so proud of for so long, so those are kind of the four sections in there. We're still in the second one, or we just started the second one, actually, at the very end of last week, so we'll just, again, pick it right up where we left off there, and it kind of, the second section, it's about the

Edomites at this point now turning their focus to God's people, and it's kind of split into two little subsections, if you will.

It's only like five verses, but it starts with showing us how they had this kind of sinful attitude toward God's people, but with the attitude and kind of harboring this evil in their hearts led to the actions against God's people, all in these like four or five verses here, so verse 10, which is what we read last week, says,

For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever.

So, we mentioned this last week, but not only is this intentional violence, but it's not just some violence, not just some feud between nations.

We kind of, last week, were like, you know, mentioned a couple of examples, border disputes, trade differences, you could name any given thing why nations might attack each other back in the day.

It was more, a little more potent than that even, because what this was, is it was the hatred between these brothers, more specifically

Esau's hatred toward Jacob. I don't think Jacob hated Esau, but Esau certainly hated Jacob, and that sentiment carried over, it began with literally the brothers, and carried all the way through each of their respective progenies, all the way down their lineages to where we are here in Obadiah.

That hatred is still there, and the hatred led to violence, and then again, Obadiah here is specific to tell us, against thy brother.

So, he got really specific, and really highlighted the fact that this wasn't just some, you know, standard dispute between nations here.

This was a really dramatic feud between brothers, between blood relatives, and it's pretty crazy.

Esau resorted to violence against his own twin brother Jacob. He knew only hatred toward him, and of course, it's interesting because not only was that true between the

Edomites, the Israelites, but it was literally true, and we kind of said this last week as well, between the brothers themselves.

We looked at Genesis 27, 41. It says, and Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, the days of mourning for my father at hand, then

I will slay my brother Jacob. So, it goes all the way back, and even when they were literally in the womb of their mother, in the womb of Rebekah, it says they struggled in the womb of their mother.

So, that struggle was there from literally the beginning of their existence, these two brethren, and so that hatred was there.

That hatred was harbored in the hearts of Esau's lineage, and now here we are in Obadiah, and then we read a couple of passages and psalms last week.

We looked at Psalm 137 and 83, which is essentially just David pointing out, you know, it goes back a little bit before even

Obadiah's prophecy, and is talking about how, you know, much the

Edomites wanted Israel gone. Wanted it gone as a nation. Psalm 83, 4 said, let us come off from being a nation.

The name of Israel may it be no more than remembrance. So, really, really intense feelings, obviously, that the

Edomites had toward Israel. So, that hatred that Esau had toward Jacob, it remained there for sure.

So, today, let's pick it up again. We just read verse 10, but let's just kind of continue the history just a little bit before moving on to verse 11 in terms of the relationship these two nations had.

If you want to go over to Joel for a second, Joel 3, and this is another one of those minor prophets that talks quite a bit about this nation of Edom, and specifically the violence that they showed toward Israel here.

So, Joel chapter 3, starting at verse 19, says, Egypt shall be a desolation, and here comes

Edom, Edom shall be a desolate wilderness for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their hand.

So, I'm sorry, in their land. So, we see a couple of things here. Obviously, the violence against Judah is reaffirmed, but we also get just a little glimpse of what's coming to them because of the violence against God's people.

They will be a desolate wilderness because they have shed innocent blood in their hand. Verse 20 there says, but Judah shall dwell forever in Jerusalem from generation to generation, but I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed for the

Lord dwelleth in Zion. Now, remember that Edom is a very specific example of Satan's children persecuting

God's children. That's kind of part of the overarching theme that we've been talking about here as well. One of the reasons why

I wanted to go to Obadiah is because we can kind of glean some information in terms of, obviously,

Edom and Israelites are very specific, but the more broad picture is you have, let's just say, the heathens of the world and God's people, goats and sheep, if you want to look at it that way, and what does that look like?

What does that relationship between very contrasting groups of people look like? And so, that's one of the reasons we went there.

Edom is a great picture of Satan's children and the level that Satan's children will go to persecute

God's children. So, you consider the violence that has been done toward Christians, toward Jesus' sheep, the shepherd sheep over the last couple thousand years, a lot of it is a mirror image of how the

Edomites and even the Ishmaelites as well, other nations persecuted God's people beforehand. And that violence has never really gone away, but there is definitely a significant shift that, to my knowledge, again, kind of bringing it closer to home, hasn't been observed before, at least on this scale, and that is, of course, more of an outward violence or at least, to use kind of a strong word, at least an incitement in some way in this specific country or in the western world in general toward God's people.

And again, that's why we landed on this book in the first place and the timing of all of it.

I mentioned a couple times, but it was right around pride month. And there's certainly intense, like the most intense, sometimes unbelievably intense verbal persecution already between that group of people and God's people, the heathens of the world,

God's people, sheep, goats, however you want to look at it. Even, I guess in some cases, there could be cases where there's some lost sheep that just don't know where they're at yet, and they can say some pretty nasty things too.

But again, we're looking at this as an example specifically of Satan's kids, the goats as we would call them or as Jesus would call them, versus God's people.

And the physical persecution may not be there just yet. The verbal persecution is certainly there.

And as we read along here in Obadiah, as we get back to verse 11 in a second,

I think we could start to see that the violence, while it might not be there just yet, is certainly being harbored.

It's being nurtured in the hearts of the people that are already verbally persecuting anything that stands in the way of what they want to do.

And that, of course, the crux of it or the root of it is the Lord's morals, his moral standards, which of course are all derived from his word, so essentially his word.

And I mean, that has been a battle that's gone on for, I guess, all of humanity at this point. Satan plants that in his kids' minds, in his people's minds, that whatever is put forth from the word of God, whether it be the original law, all the way up through now we're in the age of grace, but yet still our soul warrith against what our body does, what our flesh wants.

And everything that happens, everything that happens in front of us is certainly there for a reason, and it's put there to make us stumble as much as possible.

But one of the biggest stumbling blocks are going to be the actual people themselves.

And again, the Edomites are a great picture of that. Eventually, what's interesting is it said at the end of Joel there, no,

I'm sorry, yeah, verse 19 in Joel that we were just looking at, it said that, Edom shall be a desolate wilderness for the violence against the children of Judah.

What's interesting, okay, so that's the physical picture of the spiritual enemy that we have that is using these people as a tool for the persecution.

What's interesting is that eventually the world, this world, and we know that it was kind of initially taken by conquest by the devil, who's the little little g god of the world, when he caused

Adam and Eve to sin. Jesus took ownership back when he died on the cross, but since then he's been usurping the ownership of this world.

And kind of think about this as his habitat, if you will, as his habitation, especially if you want to go out like way into the future, and you consider the point where we'll get to where he can no longer go into heaven anymore to accuse the brethren.

He can no longer be our accuser. He's cast down permanently and can no longer, at least, he can no longer leave the earth in the sense that he can't go up to the third heaven and accuse us anymore.

At that point, it totally becomes his habitation. What's interesting is Edom, if you consider it being used as this picture of our spiritual enemy and their habitation will be desolate, our spiritual enemy's habitation will be desolate as well.

It'll be like a desolate wilderness. And it's interesting because not only that, but it'll eventually be totally destroyed and replaced.

And that being the habitation of our greatest enemy, we kind of casually sometimes talk about how this isn't truly our country.

Our country is in heaven. It's in a higher place, and we are pilgrims. In fact, this is,

I believe, in the passages dad read last Sunday in Peter, where we need to treat our life here like we're pilgrims, strangers traveling through.

And so if you consider that and take that to its logical conclusion, that is currently the earth is truly the habitation.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, dad, but it would be truly like the habitation of the devil and the heathen around us.

If we're pilgrims, if we were to treat this life like we are pilgrims traveling through and our true country is in a higher place with the

Lord, this earth is theirs. Right? Well, just like with the

Edomites losing their habitation, becoming like this desolate wilderness, so will that happen to the devil and the heathen as well.

In Revelation 21, it says, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven, and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.

So eventually, it's like this is not only going to be a desolate habitation for our enemy, but it's going to be totally gone, and they will have no more habitation ever, aside from, of course, the eternal damnation that is promised for their sins against God and his people.

And so again, there's so many parallels between that physical picture of the Edomites and our spiritual enemy.

And yeah, it's really interesting. Again, several minor prophets go into a lot of detail. We read that Joel passage a second ago, but in Amos and other books, it goes into a lot of detail and really fleshes out this physical picture that we have of that centuries -old battle between the devil and just everything that he attempts to do to persecute

God's children, to stop us, to slow us down. He can't do anything to God himself, obviously, but so what does he do?

He goes to the next level down and just tries to disrupt our lives to the point where he gets us to,

I guess, cast away our faith, as he tried to do with Job, as he thought he would be able to do with Job, and he was unsuccessful there, but he continues to do that.

And in many cases, he does it through the people around us that he uses as his tool.

Obadiah 11, if you guys want to go back there, we'll just pick it up and read the next couple of verses. The next couple of verses just continue the theme of the sinful attitudes that the

Edomites had toward God's people. Hasn't quite turned to violence just yet, but we're not too far from it.

So Obadiah verse 11 says, In the day that thou stoodest on either side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou was one of them.

So Edom has gone from at this point that it starts to shift a little bit here.

They have gone from being just joyful onlookers of Judah's destruction to eventually they're kind of starting to make their way into taking part into the spoil of God's people.

So whatever time in history that Obadiah is prophesying here, the

Israelites, the children of Judah, are getting hit pretty hard. The Edomites are there and they're watching, and from the human viewpoint, theoretically they could have stepped in at any point and helped, and that was kind of the point of Obadiah specifically reminding us that these are brethren that we're talking about here.

These are brothers, and rather than stepping in and helping out their blood relatives, they stood back and they were just joyfully watching as they were destroyed, as they were taken captive, as they were being looted, but now they're about to start taking part in that themselves.

The Edomites are about to start taking the spoil of God's people as well.

Verse 12 says, But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother. Here we are again reaffirming this relationship.

The dynamic is so much closer. Let's see here.

In the day of thy brother, in the day that he became a stranger, neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction, neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress.

Okay, so up to this point, obviously there we get a great picture of their attitudes.

They're speaking proudly. They're proud of the fact, coming back to that attribute that they had so much of, they spoke proudly of the fact that their brothers, the

Israelites, were now in distress. They rejoiced over their destruction, and God himself is sitting here saying thou shouldest not have done that, essentially, and we'll see why, of course.

I mean, we know why he was pointing this out to them, but he's about to make them aware of why he's pointing out to them as well pretty soon here, but up to this point, for the most part,

Edom stood in kind of a state of indifference as these other nations were coming in and destroying the

Israelites, taking them captive, taking their possessions, and all this stuff. They kind of were just indifferently standing around as these four nations were plundering the lands of God's people, and again started taking captive their own brothers, their ancestral brother, but it's about to turn even more here, starting at verse 13, because that indifference eventually spiraled into explicit, not only gloating over the misfortune of their own brother, but some of the violence we've been kind of referencing as well.

It says in verse 13, thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity.

Okay, so now they're not just watching. They're not just standing back. They're no longer indifferent.

They are now entering the gate. They're now coming in themselves and are about to take part in what's going on, what they've been witnessing.

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're taking their stuff. They're going in. No regrets.

In fact, they're reveling in this opportunity. The Edomites went from, again, onlooking, rejoicing, to then they started insulting and eventually taking violent action themselves in conjunction with these other foreign nations as well.

They weren't the only ones, but they were taking part in it. They took part in the spoil of God's people because they were being destroyed.

They were being robbed. They were being taken captive. What began, again, kind of as an evil attitude eventually turned into these actions.

So again, what can we take from that? What do you think?

What do you guys think in terms of, if we look around today, we're still in a place right now where we aren't, well,

I don't know. I guess it depends on where you are. Not super concerned about going out and because I'm a churchgoer, because I would profess that Jesus is

Lord, that any of us would do that, that we would just talk about him in our day -to -day conversation, that we would be concerned that there would be any violence taken up against us.

Yeah, we're going to get some attitudes come out in some people, depending on where we are.

Again, you guys, where you got, well, you've been here for a little while at this point, but not that long ago, y 'all were living in a place where, unless you were kind of in the mood to just take some junk from other people, giving you a hard time about your beliefs, about your worldviews and stuff, you had to put up with that.

The question is, we can put up with it, sure. It's an inconvenience. It's annoying. And we may even, in some cases, we may even try to turn that into an opportunity to witness.

But obviously, there are some cases where that can get kind of ugly, too, depending on these people's spirits.

But we can put up with it. The question is, how different is that from the attitudes that the

Edomites started with? I mean, you see, right.

Yeah, seriously. Right. Thankfully, I mean, obviously, there have been laws in place for a very long time that prohibits the kind of violence that we know will be super prevalent, especially during the end times.

But still, they are looking for ways and every opportunity they can get, they're going to look for ways to strip away the livelihoods of those that they hate.

Again, that hatred is being harbored in the hearts, just as it was for the Edomites for a couple centuries. And eventually, that attitude turned to action.

And that was one of the things that caught my eye when I was reading through this the end of last year, possibly, well, it wasn't for the first time ever,

I would well, actually, no. 2021, I think was the first time that I recall ever reading

Obadiah. And that was one of the things that caught my eye, were some of those parallels.

Obviously, they're different because of the cultural differences, but the spirit of it is all the same.

It's the attitude that eventually progresses into the action. And so when you look at when you're considering that, you think, okay, well, there's plenty of attitude problems around us right now, where, again, there's a very, very hostile spirit toward God's people and the tenants of their faith, of our faith, of whether or not we're, depending on how outspoken we are about our faith, and what the word says, and why certain things just aren't okay, because we are told from an objectively true source that it's not okay.

Attitudes toward that have been hostile for a while, I would say. I mean, certainly in my lifetime, and probably back in good ways.

And so when you consider that, and then you look in this particular example of where those attitudes took the

Edomites, when the opportunity arose, when the opportunity presented itself for them to take it a step further, and they took it with joy on its face, that could be a concerning feeling.

I mean, you could think, yes, times are different, but it's humanity. It's still the human race, and the spirit that is behind all this is the exact same spirit that said,

I will be like the Most High, the same spirit where iniquity was found before humans even existed,

I presume, maybe not, but if and if Adam and Eve were here when that took place, still, it was super early in the history of the world.

That same spirit has been with us the whole time. It's no different. There may be cultural differences, times may be different now, there may be laws in place that make us feel pretty safe at the moment, but the point being is that when the opportunity arises, that spirit turns ugly really fast.

It's already really ugly, but it can get a lot uglier, and on its face that can be a little bit concerning, but the cool part about reading books like Obadiah and going through some of these minor prophets and trying to find what the application might be for us today when it's talking about all of these foreign nations, some of which don't even exist anymore.

Again, we talked about that. Edom isn't even around anymore, so where is the practical application for a book like Obadiah today?

Well, all the pride stuff we talked about in the last couple weeks, I feel like there could be lessons pulled from that.

It can be practically applied, but even more so is what happens to these, what happens to this spirit, what happens to these enemies, what is the guaranteed conclusion to this battle that we're going to be right in the middle of at some point in our lives and that God's people have been right in the middle of for all of human history at this point, and when you get to that, it gets really exciting because we're reminded that, especially for us in this age, because again, we're still talking about the

Israelites here, very ancient people in the book of Obadiah, but if you want to pull something out of it, and that is eventually the victory, if from Obadiah's perspective, eventually the victory will be the

Lord's. Well, from our perspective in this age, we know the victory has been long won, and it's just a matter of the

Lord, through his long -suffering spirit, I want to say waiting for the right time.

I mean, he knows when the right time will be, but I mean, he's waiting for the predetermined time to step in and take care of all this force where we don't even have to worry about.

It's not really a battle we ever have to fight. It's a battle we have to witness and have to put up with, like I mentioned a second ago, but really, the battle isn't ours to fight because, number one, it's been won already, and number two, the

Lord that won the battle will eventually swoop in, scoop us up, and I don't want to cut to the chase too much because we're about to find out in this book, maybe not today, but by the time this book is over, we're going to get a clear picture of how exactly the

Lord handles these types of situations, the spirit behind, the pride that led to just further attitudes and rejoicing in the destruction of his people to, as we are here at this point, the violence against his people.

What does he do about that? And so, yeah, I mean, it can be pretty heavy stuff, but big picture, it's unbelievable the way this is going to play out, and we're going to, again, we're just going to keep getting more and more into it as we go through this.

There's only like 21 verses in this whole book, and it's amazing how broad of a picture we can take from it in the grand scheme of everything, of how

Satan has used his people against God's people throughout history in the form of different nations and how the

Lord takes care of it at the end. So, there's that attitude, and it eventually turns to actions.

The attitude problem is something that we can see around us today, in the heathen around us today, for sure. It hasn't turned to action just yet.

We're going to get a glimpse of what that action can look like, but more importantly, we're going to get a clear picture of how the

Lord handles those actions himself. So, again, we kind of already asked this question, but if we were to be within the same cycle, what stage would we find ourselves in, and we kind of concluded that, assuming that it's the former, that's the attitudes and the heathen around us today kind of simply have these attitudes toward us and not necessarily the action, again, that's toward our standards, toward our worldviews, our child rearing, our ministry work, our testimonies, ultimately toward God himself, and again, they can pretty quickly take it to levels that kind of beyond our comprehension, that they feel comfortable, levels that they feel comfortable taking it.

It usually ends with these attitudes toward God himself. The question, of course, is how much longer will it be before those attitudes turn into the sinful actions, and it's certainly a question worth pondering.

It's something that is worth us watching for, looking out for, for the sake of just our individual families, for sure, but again, we just have to keep in mind that, well, everything

I said a second ago, that the battle's been won, and that the Lord is with us there the whole time, for sure. Now, in verse 13, it's interesting that there was that phrase that we saw several times, like three different times of verse 13, where it said, in the day of their calamity, there that was kind of a repetitive phrase there, in the day of their calamity, it was repeated like three times of verse 13, and that gives us just one more glimpse, going back to specifically the

Edomites versus the Israelites, the people of Judah. It gives us another glimpse into kind of the magnitude of the violence that is going to be put forth against God's people here, and in stark contrast with that violence, which of course infers great tribulation for God's people themselves during this specific time that Obadiah is prophesying about, great tribulation, peril, really great distress, and I mean, it mentioned that in verse 12 as well, thou shouldest not have spoken proudly in the day of their distress.

They're going through all these crazy things. We learned that the Edomites were reveling in the moment, and the violence in their hearts harbored the evil actions that are about to take place.

In verse 14 of Obadiah, it says, you should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble.

So it started with the simple attitudes. It led to actions. They entered the gates. They started looting, and now finally in verse 14 here, it says they take a stand at the crossway to totally cut off the retreat of the

Israelites that were attempting to flee, and they literally handed them over as prisoners, as it says, in the day of their trouble or in the day of their calamity.

And so at this point, again, the Edomites have just permeated every area that they possibly could to make this as hard as possible on the

Israelites. They're in there. The Israelites are being slaughtered already by other nations.

Looting has already taken place. Now the Edomites have taken part in that, and now the Edomites have taken it upon themselves to wait at the crossroads so that any fugitives, any of God's people that are trying to retreat and get away from the madness, are taken captive and handed right back over to the same enemies that are pillaging their lands already.

And so really, really crazy stuff in terms of the level that the

Edomites were taking this. So again, with the end of 14 there, it kind of concludes the second section before it starts getting into how the

Lord is going to take things into his own hands, but we kind of can see the sequence of Edom's actions here.

So in verse 10, in this section that we just finished reading, in verse 10, you have violence against their own brothers.

It says, for thy violence against thy brother Jacob. That turns to, well,

I'm sorry. Okay, so it starts with the violence against thy brother Jacob, which has been like an historical landmark of these two nations from the beginning, from the time the actual two brothers were going through all of the craziness between their birthright and the blessing and all these different things.

So since then, there have been violence between these two nations and intentionally trying to make their lives hard.

When Moses was trying to bring the people to the promised land, at one point, they could have kind of taken a shortcut through the land of Edom.

They wouldn't let him do it. So at every turn, the Edomites were going to make life hard on his brother

Jacob, and in some cases, outright violence. Now in verse 11, we kind of start seeing those hostile attitudes toward him.

It said, and foreigners entered into his gates, cast lots upon Jerusalem. Even thou wast as one of them.

So there's where the attitude problem started setting in. That eventually led to just outright rejoicing, joy in the calamity that was taking place for God's people there.

In verse 12, it said, neither shouldst thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. And then also in verse 12, there was boasting in the fact that the distress was taking place.

Neither shouldst thou have spoken proudly in the day of the distress. So they're just, at this point, outright boasting, proud of the fact that God's people and the people of Judah were going through what they were going through.

And in the middle of that, in verse 13, is when it kind of shifts more toward these physical actions, when they started spoiling

God's people. Thou shouldst not have entered into thy gate, to the gate of my people, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity.

And that led to the prevention of their escape. In verse 14, neither shouldst thou have stood in the crossway to cut off those of his that did escape.

And eventually, of course, they handed them right over to their enemy, finishing off in verse 14 as well.

So all of this starts, you know, we read through this little section pretty fast, that it's only about five verses before it shifts to some really epic stuff, which we'll get to next time, where the

Lord starts talking about how he's going to be handling this on behalf of his kids.

But isn't it interesting how quickly, from verse 10 to verse 14, these things transpired from the attitude toward the gloating, from the attitude to the gloating, to the spoiling, to the prevention of their escape, to handing them over, essentially to either be slaughtered or be taken captive.

Most of them were slaughtered. It was just a remnant that was taken captive. Isn't it crazy how quickly we got to that, whereas prior, the first nine, ten verses, or the first nine verses of the whole book is talking about, it started with the pride problem.

And so it goes without saying, you can see these parallels, just to rehash this one more time, the parallels, the,

I was about to say contrast, the comparison is the word I'm looking for, the comparison between the early parts of this book and the people around us today, the people that are specifically looking to persecute

God's children in any way that they can. It doesn't look any different from that. We haven't quite gotten to where, like, if you want to look at this in terms of using the

Edomites as a picture here, joy in their calamity, I would say we're there. If stuff happens to churches around the country,

I'm trying to think of a specific example. I know there are some good ones. I mean, well, first of all, the fact that all the churches were getting shut down,

I guess that's a pretty good one. I mean, there were people that were outspoken in terms of that being a good thing.

For that period of time in 2020, people weren't able to go hear the, what's the phrase that was used?

Well, the divisive rhetoric, for sure. I'm trying to think of some of the specific phrases that were used when they were discussing the fact that it was a good thing that, for example, we'll use

MacArthur's church as one example. He never stopped going to preach from the pulpit, but there were a couple of months where he didn't have anyone in his congregation.

They were streaming it, of course. He was going, and he was behind the pulpit throughout all of it, but there was a while where there weren't anyone there, and that was really bothering him because he knew that the spiritual well -being of his congregation was being hindered because of what the world, the fear that the world was imparting in them.

There was flat -out celebration that people couldn't go to church during that time. So, well, you can look at the parallels of the pride problems through verses 9.

You can look at the attitudes. We have that that's covered verse 11, the joy in their calamity.

Maybe we're not at a point of calamity just yet, but certainly joy in any kind of distress that we may encounter when we are no longer able to be together.

For example, when the fellowship of churches around the country, around the world during that particular time couldn't happen, there was joy in that in the people that intentionally tried to do the opposite of God's word.

So, you could say we're there boasting in the distress of God's people. Possibly.

It depends on the level of it. Obviously, even if there were people in this country today that felt it in their hearts,

I don't think very many people would flat -out say that they thought it was a good thing if there were

Christians somewhere being persecuted to the degree that was happening here.

We're not there just yet, but there's certainly some boasting in terms of if there are laws passed that everyone knows is in total contrast to what the word says.

The whole reaffirming of Equal Marriage Act or whatever that was just a couple of months ago.

We know the Supreme Court already ruled that homosexual marriage was legal in all the states, however many years ago that happened, but then it was reaffirmed recently in Congress.

I can't remember what caused all that. Total celebration, and there's boasting in that for sure.

There's the essence of the Pride Month that we just came out of that started this study in the first place, and what we see in the world, the new level that it's taken every single year.

We're already to that point. Are we to the point yet of prevention of our escape, the spoiling of God's people?

No, probably not, but it is so crazy. It depends on the part of the world here,

I should say. I'm talking specifically about the part of the world where we live. There are certainly Christian brothers and sisters in various parts of the world that are experiencing all of this already and have for some time, and that will be dealt with the same way we're going to find out

God deals with the Edomites here, but on a global scale, maybe we're not there yet, but the contrast that we've seen leading up to that is uncanny.

Yeah, Mimi? To that level, we have to conserve the lives of many characters.

Of course. And we have to do all we can to provide the person who's alive and above, spiritually alive.

That's more important than the physical. Right. Oh, absolutely, and to your point in terms of the character assassinations, it goes back to the fact that these people are going to pounce on every opportunity they have.

So as of right now, and thankfully so, there are laws that are going to flat out prohibit outright violence in the sense that the

Edomites and other foreign nations were taking part in, and for as long as that's the case, that's a huge blessing.

So what do they do? They look for other ways that, again, they can tear apart the livelihood of whoever they want to tear apart.

In most cases, someone that is professing either God's word is the standard, or even for people that might not even be outspoken

Christians, maybe not a Christian at all, but are deriving their moral values from the word, and maybe in a roundabout way, they might not even know they're doing it, but the morals that built the

West, which was of course derived from the Bible, even those people are being, their characters are being assassinated, so they're pouncing on these opportunities, and they always will.

It's a matter of when the ultimate opportunity will present itself. Yeah, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop

There have certainly been specific pockets where physical actions have taken place 100%.

It's not on the scale that it will be someday yet. And relatively speaking, it might be a really small scale compared to what we will see hopefully way out in the future.

We don't know. But point being, you're right. There already is in areas where the opportunity can be taken.

It's taken. Yeah, Mimi. I say, he's a very strong spiritual leader.

He doesn't focus on, well, we're not being this good at that, or we're not, and it's more of a cliff than that.

But I mean, look around. The pews in churches are not as clean as they seem.

And there's no reason for that other than spiritual trouble in the pews.

And we don't, it doesn't have to be that way. We have, we still have opportunity to go to the pews, and we need to be, but since COVID cleaned out the churches, whatever people have not returned, it's a spiritual thing.

Well, and what I take from that is it's kind of a perfect storm bubbling up, because where we're at right now is we're right on the knife's edge of, we still have so many of the blessings that came from just the, by virtue of us being in this country, of being born and living in this country, we still have so many of those.

And yet right on the other side, as we teeter on this knife's edge, is what we're reading about, essentially.

And the scariest part is that we're on the knife's edge, but what are we doing?

We're not taking advantage on a broad scale, collectively. We're not taking advantage of the fact that we still can, at this moment, rally together, commune together, fellowship and lift each other up, edify each other, and immerse ourselves in the spiritual things, in the word, not forsaken the assembly, all of these things that we could be doing, and sure, there's a lot of us that will be doing that as much as we possibly can, but certainly not even close to enough, is your point.

So here we are on the knife's edge, but we're not totally on this side of it yet, and yet what are we doing?

We're just lollygagging around, acting like everything's fine, the majority, not everybody, obviously,

I'm generalizing big time, but we're lollygagging around, we are not growing spiritually, our spiritual well -being is put at the bottom of the priority list in terms of all other forms of well -being, and that's going to be one of the catalysts to get us to this point, like everything we read today, when we get to that point eventually, that will be one of the catalysts, is the spiritual weakness around the world, which is why the bride has to cleanse herself during the tribulation.

It's all planned out for a reason, but it was like a cleaning house kind of thing.

Well, yeah, I mean, we know that because of our culture here in the United States and what it was built on, initially the standards of the

Puritans and then up through the 17, 18, early 1900s, we're built on that, so culturally speaking, there's a lot of social advantages to going to church and stuff in our area, and what you're saying is that when the pandemic hit and we all kind of had to disperse, it kind of cleaned the house to some degree, where now people have the excuse, well,

I'll just listen online, because I have that option now, and they can say that whether they do it or not, and the physical attendance in so many churches has not been the same since all that happened.

So, again, it's the way it's all playing out is pretty fascinating. It's obviously all planned out that way for a purpose.

From the human viewpoint, though, we still have responsibility to grow spiritually as much as we can to immerse ourselves in all the things that you were pointing out,

Mimi, so for those of us that are seeing it and they're concerned about it, we need to be doing that until the very end, and if there's anything that comes from doing that, it will just strengthen our relationship with him where we can get through to the end.

I mean, that'll be what allows us to have the peace to get through that, and that hope is kind of the thing on the horizon that we're joyfully expecting the whole time, right?

So, pretty crazy stuff. Obviously, some of this can be somewhat heavy, but it doesn't have to be because of the fact that we know the victory has been won.

We know that the Lord is going to take all this into his hands before we know it, really, and so that's all really cool stuff.

Does anyone else have any thoughts before we close today? Yeah, I agree.

Right. You know, you're destroying my very notion of trans -Americanism.

Right. Well, what's funny about it is it's anything that's not what we would call traditional.

So, you have examples where fatherless homes permeate an entire community, multiple thousands of communities.

Then you have the gay marriage thing, which, of course, is a huge blow to the

Christian institution that, of course, is derived from the ultimate standard we were given in Adam and Eve, and then even through most of the patriarchs, it's funny, even though some of the kings of the

Old Testament, David, Solomon, polygamy, and all this stuff was going on mainly, maybe it's because of their status as kings, who knows?

The patriarchs gave us the standards. I mean, you had Aboney, but then you have Abraham and Sarah, then you have

Isaac and Rebecca, and what's funny is the first time that that's ever broken, at least among the patriarchs, is with Jacob, and he had

Leah and Rachel, but what's funny about that is that's because of a trick that was played on Jacob. He would have married

Rachel and that would have been his one wife, but because of Laban's trickery, it polluted that picture a little bit.

I won't even say that it polluted it. I don't know if I want to go there because obviously there was, I mean, most of the tribes of Israel came from Leah, so that was supposed to happen, but my point is, even though that picture was changed with Jacob, three patriarchs prior to him, and then obviously starting with Aboney, we have the standard, right?

So you have the gay marriage thing that was a striking blow to that, but then New York just, the courts of New York just passed that polymorphous relationships are of equal standing to couple relationships.

In other words, it's not quite the same as the polygamy that we see in ancient times, but it's where consensually there are more than two partners, well,

I can't even use that word, more than two people within a relationship, and according to New York now, that is of equal, that is looked at equally with any other form of marriage.

So you have these places where every opportunity they get, they're messing up those institutions, and then going back to this, what are they doing?

They're boasting about it. So we are there already. Like you said, it's a form of calamity that they are already boasting in, even though it's not the exact same, it's not the same kind of calamity that the

Israelites were experiencing, but it's a form of calamity for sure, and the boasting has certainly taken place.

It's very destructive, and it's crazy. Again, so many parallels, and here we are in this book that was written like 900 years before Jesus, and it's about a nation that doesn't even exist anymore, and yet we can see all these things, and it's playing out, you know, picture perfect, leading up to where we just covered today, and the next week's going to be a lot of fun, because it starts talking about Edom and the day of the

Lord, and again, it's going to be pretty epic. Yeah, they took lots, cast lots, yeah, right, and that was still when it was merely sinful attitudes.

They hadn't even turned to action yet, and you think about the level of evil that can be reached just in what is going on in people's hearts, and then someday that will play out into the actions where we get to Romans 1, where it talks about the implacable spirit of these people.

There's not going to be a single thing that a conscience would normally tell you that is not even close to okay, because their consciences are seared, and so everything is right in their own eyes.

We're right back to that point, right back to the days of Noah, I mean, as it tells us, so it's kind of crazy.

Let me end with this quote here, because again, all that could be a little bit heavy, but you'll like this, Dad. I haven't found a whole lot of commentaries on Obadiah, but one that I found was in Brother Rocky's library back there.

It was Feinberg, and check out this quote on this. Yeah, he has a really cool little collection back there on the

Minor Prophets. Charles Feinberg is his name, but he had this quote about the section of Scripture we just finished reading, those five verses.

He says, Should not the Lord take account of this? His wrath is kindled with reason.

Edom has merited her punishment. His point being is what's going to happen is total devastation, but it's merited.

They asked for it, and because our God is a just God, should the Lord not take account of what they just did to his people?

And so that's what we're going to be getting to next time, starting in verse 15, and it's going to be, again, pretty epic.

So, Dave, you want to, or actually, you did it last week. Pop Pop, you want to close us in prayer this week?