Book of Obadiah - Vs. 10 | Parenthetical on Pride Conclusion (10/02/2022)

All righty guys, good morning. Dave was giving me a hard time last week because I spent a solid five minutes or so doing review and then for the first nine verses and then

I never got to verse 10. So I'm not going to do any review today because obviously we need every bit of time we could get.

I do have my watch on today. So that should help as well. Yes, Dave is often. But last week,

I mean, we did a little bit of review. Obviously we're still in Obadiah. We did the first nine verses. We reviewed all nine verses last week, but then we kind of broke off into this little parenthetical, if you will, of just toning in on the concept of pride because obviously that is a big part of the first section of that book.

And it's kind of funny because I already told you guys one of the reasons why we picked

Obadiah in the first place was simply because like just at a quick glance, you can see a lot of parallels, a lot of similarities between what the

Edomites were doing at that time and the, as we say, the heathen around us today, right?

Just the people that are kind of going nuts everywhere, doing all kinds of crazy things. Good is evil, evil is good kind of thing.

And it can kind of bring us down a little bit and especially if we're immersed in it to a certain point.

And when you're in those kinds of times, at least for me, sometimes it's interesting to see, read these passages where it's talking about those kinds of people, the results of the attitudes they have, in this case, it's pride specifically and how

God handles it. So that's how it started. But what I wasn't expecting until we started getting into it was to do a little bit of a closer look into literally pride by definition.

And obviously last week we started this kind of little, this little side thing where the question is, are there any cases in the

Bible period where by definition, pride is used in a positive context?

And we looked at one interesting passage last week, but so far what we've kind of concluded is at least in the context of humanity, people, pride is not necessarily something that we need to engage in,

I guess, for lack of a better term. In other words, while obviously we're all aware that there has always been kind of a negative sense of pride because there are so many passages that talk about the arrogant, the haughtiness, pridefulness, all those kinds of things.

There's also that positive spin that has been put on it. I don't even know how far back it goes. I haven't looked into that yet, but at some point in the

English language, it kind of became, it kind of started carrying a positive connotation and we covered that as well to the point where all of us, myself included big time, and I'll get to more of that in just a second, carry that over into our own vocabulary to describe that kind of feeling of joy, of satisfaction, of pleasure with either something we've done ourselves or with maybe one of our kids is obviously a great example, but it could be anyone in the family, friends, anyone within our circle.

It could be our sports team that we're proud of for crying out loud or something. I think it got really loud up here, guys.

I don't know if I hear just a little bit of feedback. No, that's perfect. But anyway, so it's like, all right, so how did that happen?

So that's why we started kind of digging into this a little bit. And me and Ash last week, we were pulling into the house after church, having a good laugh, because I'm seeing this stuff,

I'm really enjoying the conversation and stuff. Last week was a blast. And Ash, we looked at each other, we barked, and we're like,

I wonder if everyone thinks we're like legalists now or something, because we're telling everyone they shouldn't be proud of their kids or something.

And I could definitely see how it could possibly come across that way if I wasn't as specific as possible.

But that's not the case, obviously. In fact, I will many times in the future say

I'm proud of my kids with a good conscience because it'll slip and I'll know the intention was correct even though it was the wrong word to use.

And the thing is, the reason why it has struck out so much for me is because as I'm reading through it and that question popped in my mind and the question

I ultimately wanted to ask you guys is I was like, it is unreal how much in my short lifespan so far, the things that I do, the things

I want to pursue, and even the way I want to deliver news has an enormous amount of it has been motivated in that sense of pride.

Having that, what's that modern definition we were talking about? Just that satisfaction with one's own accomplishments, that sense of it, that's the modern definition.

It's still very self -focused. It sounds nicer than the biblical definition, but it's still very self -focused.

And I started kind of going through, and I mean, our family laughs at us, me and Ash, because we have this tendency to kind of spring big news on everybody.

We like to wait until the perfect moment, whether it was announcing that we were pregnant with Gemma, our first kid, we had a big story behind it, the whole story behind it.

We eloped and no one knew we were married until we told them we were. So that was a big one.

And then even, I mean, even all the way up to like work. I blame my family for me being this way because working with your big sister, especially when

I first started joining, but it has lasted for the past nine years. I'm almost 27 years old. I mean,

I am 27, I'm almost 28 and I still do this, but I love being able to accomplish something that I think

Katie will be proud of and then be like, hey, Katie, guess what? I did this. But what is that? What's the motivation there?

Now, it might be totally fine. It might be totally innocent. Again, I'm not saying I'm this terrible person that's a hundred percent motivated by pride by itself.

I'm just saying, it's just this interesting thing that when you start putting it into perspective and you think, okay, so like, what is, are those things, are those things that I did, was the motivation, was the motivating factor to eventually get to the point where I'm throwing the glory back to the floor?

Because that's kind of what we concluded last week is it's a fine line. And the way you know which side you're, whether or not you're on the right side is simply by whether or not you're giving the glory to the right, bringing the glory back to the right source.

And so it's really just a matter of, it's a small difference, but it's a huge difference at the same time.

Like, it's a small difference in the side of like, what's tipping the scales, but, and so there's that.

And, oh gosh, I had another thought a second ago. It slipped my mind, but it'll probably come back in a second.

But anyway, and so again, it just comes back to, and then

Dave brought up that passage last week that made it, it kind of made the point even clearer to be where, okay, we have these scenarios where we would normally attribute the word for pride.

It's not necessarily the right word. It's, again, like we agree in the thing.

It's something we could have joy in. It's something that, I mean, again, like right now

I'm wanting to use the word to be proud of because it's just the word that has totally permeated our vocabulary.

And so it's just a matter of possibly refining the speech a little bit, because if you look at it by definition, not our intent, take our intent totally out of it, what we mean totally out of it.

If you look at it just by definition, the question remains, is it like, are there any places where it's appropriate to use that word in a positive context by definition?

And so anyway, that's what we've been on. And that kind of is what led to this little side thing that we're doing.

And we'll finish it up here in just a second. We did most of it last week, but last week we looked at the joke passage where Leviathan, his pride was in his scales.

And of course it's describing this great creature. And what we kind of concluded there is, yes,

Leviathan was proud of its stature, of everything that made it who it was. But, and we also kind of looked at the fact that the reason

God was describing, it was God that was describing Leviathan as he is. And the fact that Leviathan, his pride is in his scales and in his tail and all these different things.

And we kind of concluded twofold. Number one, God was super descriptive with this creature and the fact that it was pride to bring the glory back to him, because he was the one that made this incredible thing, this incredible creature.

But two, God can create creatures and he can create humanity and put them in certain places where they could be prideful, legitimate, by definition, pride.

The question is, or it's not even a question, the reality is humanity is held to a higher standard than the animal kingdom.

So the fact that Leviathan, that the pride of Leviathan was in his scales and in all of those different things, yeah,

I mean, he was an awesome creature that God created and this animal obviously had a sense of pride because of how awesome he was.

Then contrast that and maybe brought this up and I wouldn't even think about this, but contrast that with the way the Edomites were acting in the going back to the book of Obadiah, they were in a very similar situation, but as humans rather than this animal, this animal had like the full package within the animal kingdom.

He's the king of the children of pride, remember? And that word pride there is literally talking about majestic wild beasts.

The Edomites from humanity side of things where they had, we've rehashed this so many times at this point, but the strategic advantage, the geographic advantage they had, militarily they had all these wise men, all these things.

So they were put in position by the Lord to be really awesome as well. The problem was humanity is held to a higher standard than the animal kingdom and therefore they weren't allowed for their pride to be within the situation they found themselves in.

They had a mandate to throw it back to the Lord, which they didn't do. And that brought us to where we are here.

And so it's all pretty interesting stuff. So we looked at that last week. Joe, there was one more passage that I found looking to see if there were any other passages in the

Bible where pride by definition was used in a positive context. Before I go there, did anyone else happen to find any other that, you know,

Dave had a good one last week that we talked about. Were there any others you all wanted to throw out? Did they all,

I don't know, may have stumbled across. Well, I'll go ahead and throw mine out there and see what y 'all think.

So this is Psalm 31, if y 'all want to go there. And this is funny,

I've been looking forward to this for a long time back. I've had this specific passage I've wanted to look at with you guys since July.

And then there were some other things I put in front of it. So I'm glad that we're finally here. This is

Psalm chapter 31, starting at verse 23. It says, O love the

Lord, all ye saints, for the Lord preserved the faithful and plentifully rewarded the proud doer.

Now the context of this is pretty interesting because the context of this Psalm is David talking about the saints.

But then it ends with this phrase in the same verse that he is talking about the fact that the

Lord is preserving the faithful. So again, let's see here.

Well, okay, so that's not actually the last verse. Let me read it with the last verse. O love the

Lord, all ye saints, for the Lord preserved the faithful and plentifully rewarded the proud doer.

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. All that hope in the Lord. So what do y 'all think?

It's verse 31. Oh, I'm sorry. Chapter, it's chapter 31,

Psalm 31, verse 23. My apologies, I probably said that. Right.

It's the context of this verse that I thought was particularly interesting because as we'll see in a second, because we have some verses to compare this with, that phrase that Dave is talking about right now has been used at today's point several times where it's used in the sense of like, you owe me something because of your attitude kind of thing.

Well, it doesn't look like it. Go ahead, Dave. Right. Right.

That's what I think. Well, I would agree. And when I was, again,

I am looking through every, of course, Blue Letter Bible helps. I was about to say,

I was looking through every verse of the Bible, looking for verses on pride. I actually just did a word search and it popped them all up.

But I was looking at every verse in the Bible where the word pride or proud was used.

And in every single context, it was used in a negative sense.

The Job passage was different. We covered that one last week. This passage just stuck out to me for a minute and it kind of threw me off because, see,

I wasn't quite where Dad is when I first saw it. I was just looking at the broad context.

And of course it finishes by talking about being of good courage. You shall strengthen your heart. And to me, it was almost sounding like they were all the same people.

And so I was thinking, well, maybe it's a different Hebrew word for, well, maybe it was a weird

English translation. They used the word pride, but the Hebrew word meant something different. Well, I looked it up and the first definition of that Hebrew word, it is a different Hebrew word than what's in Obadiah, for example, is pride.

So I was like, okay, well, that makes it a little bit tough. But the next one is just excellence. And the one after that is majesty.

And so I was like, well, that makes it interesting because it obviously, this

Hebrew word does carry a different connotation than the one in Obadiah because the one used in Obadiah that was translated to pride, the

Hebrew word Zadah that was translated pride, that is all bad. Like it's arrogance, it's insolence, it's presumptuousness.

This one is different. Well, let me read you all just a little bit of commentary because I'll just say right off the bat,

I agree with that at this point, having looked into it for a couple of weeks, that it's a contrast thing.

Spurgeon also agrees. So I guess we're case closed, right? I'm just kidding. Spurgeon agrees that it's for contrast.

I wanted to read something from Matthew Henry though, because what Matthew Henry in his commentary here did was he actually pointed out that a lot of people do look at this is do look at this in a positive sense.

In other words, he's talking about all the same people. Matthew Henry didn't believe that, but he said this in his commentary on Psalm 31.

This isn't Matthew Henry talking about himself, he's talking about other people. He says, quote, some take it in a good sense.

He plentifully rewards the magnificent or excellent. In other words, they're focusing on those definitions that Hebrew word rather than the first definition, which is still pride.

The magnificent or excellent doer that is daringly good, whose heart like Jehoshaphat's is lifted up in the ways of the

Lord. He rewards him that does well, but plentifully rewards him that does excellently well.

So Matthew Henry is saying that's what some people believe, not him. Go ahead, Dan. Yeah, that's in here.

I know. I was getting at that. Well, no, go ahead.

Right. There's faith, dreamers, things, proud.

That's the key is if you go up, see the last,

I think, five verses, he's only talking about the blessed, the faithful. Well, at least you think at first glance, but then

David, one more time, slips in the proud doer at the very end. So unless you go up far enough, you don't see the contrast that the dad's talking about.

And let me finish with Matthew Henry here, because you'll see Matthew Henry also agrees. He says, now he's talking from the point of view that this is for contrast, that the proud doer is a bad person.

He says, we must love him, not only for his goodness, because he preserves the faithful, that's the first part of the verse, but for his justice, because he plentifully rewards the proud doer.

And listen to this, who would ruin those whom he preserves if it weren't for his justice.

That's a cool way to do it, isn't it? Cool way to put it. Let me read that one more time, because I left one little part off in the end.

He says, he preserves the faithful, but for his justice, because he plentifully rewards the proud doer who would ruin those whom he preserves according to their pride.

So it brings it back to the pride there. So Matthew Henry also agrees that it is for context there.

And so beyond that, let's just kind of bring this thing home for a second and compare that verse with some other comparable verses.

Psalm 94 .2, listen Dave, you're the one that brought this up, so you listen good.

Here's that same phrase. It says Psalm 94 .2, lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud.

So it's not the first time that that phrase is used, because remember when I first saw it, and I'm kind of talking to you guys from the vantage point of me reading through this for the first time,

I was like, man, reward is the proud doer? It's kind of weird. Well, it's actually a pretty common phrase in that context as well, talking about the pride of rendering a reward in the negative sense.

In other words, to Dave's point, they will pay, they're gonna pay for the attitudes that they've had.

The Lord will destroy the house of, oh, I'm sorry, that's the next verse. This is still Psalm 94 .2,

lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud. And the context there is David imploring the

Lord to avenge his people. So that's David's phraseology for asking the Lord to avenge his people, render a reward to the proud.

So it's the same, it's David. It makes sense that he uses similar phraseology talking about those people just in Psalm 31 there.

And then just for more comparisons, we don't have to go there. These are just single verses, if y 'all wanna just listen.

But Proverbs 15 .25, this is also kind of giving us a picture of what the Lord thinks about pride in the proud.

The Lord will destroy the house of the proud, but he will establish the border of the widow.

Proverbs 16 .5 says, everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the

Lord. This doesn't leave a whole lot of room. And this is by definition. And think about this for a second. So obviously the biblical definition is pretty nasty.

I mean, these are character traits no one would want to carry, the presumptuousness, the insolence, all that kind of stuff, the arrogance, the haughtiness.

But even the modern definition, having pleasure in the accomplishments of one's own self, bringing it all back to self.

I feel like that would pretty nicely fit under that same umbrella in terms of everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the

Lord. Now, the Lord knows everyone's hearts. Obviously, like any one of us could go out today and say, man,

I'm sure I'm proud of my kids. And even with this conversation, I'll probably say it at some point.

But thankfully the Lord knows our hearts and he knows what we mean. So does that mean we're an abomination to the

Lord in that moment? No, it just means we're using the wrong word because we're not being precise enough, perhaps. I don't know.

I'm still not hardline on that or anything. This is just me thinking out loud from up here.

You guys got to keep it. Oh, go ahead. Right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That is in Webster's, the way that's worded? Sure. Right.

In English, right. I've heard so long, but it is proud, right, it's proud.

You see that it's almost like God's children talk about saints in short aircraft.

Mm -hmm. So God's children are like this. The saints is, the world's filled with crap.

Are there any words that can be found where it's clear that I'm sure the

Lord is giving to everyone? I'm not able to see where it is, but.

Well, here's the thing. For God's children. The thing is, perhaps, the thing is,

I was looking for the English word. So in other words, to your point, there may be a place somewhere in the

Old Testament where one of the Hebrew words, where the King James translators then brought out the word pride in these negative contexts, that same

Hebrew word is somewhere else in a positive sense, but they just translated it to a different English word, such as joy or something.

Perhaps. Right. And that kind of goes back to last week.

I mean, obviously that's awesome. Like we should have joy. And I'm glad you read Webster's because the modern definition

I had been coming off of was Oxford. And Oxford doesn't have that in there. Webster's does.

And so, I mean, my question, my question now is, so obviously, obviously the

English word, going back to the English for a second, Hebrew aside, the English word carried at least predominantly a negative, if not exclusively, a negative sense when the

King James translators were using that word. Fast forward a little bit, and at some point in our

English language, it evolved to the point where the word pride and proud then carried a positive and a negative, which is what

Webster's pointing out. Yeah. Sure.

Right. Right. And that's happening to a lot of words.

And so then it begs the question, is it given just our

English dictionary, for the sake of our English dictionary, is it appropriate for us to use the word? And I would say it's probably fine because based on the

Webster definition that dad just read, we know that we can at least bring it back, our intent back to what we mean is we have joy in what our kids are doing.

And in the same breath, obviously you and the kid can throw all the worry back to the

Lord, which is again, the difference maker. Yeah, for sure.

Right. Right.

Right. Right.

Sure. I would agree. Just do the opposite.

Don't try to stop. Right. Right. Sure.

Sure. Right. Exactly.

That's an interesting thought too. We'll see in right there, what

Mimi just said is exactly, is exactly why maybe it is meaningful to spend some time nitpicking your language a little bit.

Because in this is exactly why, this is exactly why Otis was so like, he was always eliminating words from his vocabulary.

If he got to a point in Bible study, he would, he'd use it for 80 years with a clear conscience.

And then through Bible study realized, well, maybe it's just the wrong word. It's not like the past 80 years, he was an abomination.

Exactly. That's exactly what I was getting at. Well, let me give you guys really quick before we actually move back to OpenDaya, because we still got to get the first, go ahead,

Pop Pop. Right.

Right. Sure. If you take what we are saying, we have to be proud of these efforts as if we are the source of good, that was your mom for us to do.

That was your dad for us to do. You see, your dad, it's hard, it's really hard to be prideful in that whole sense.

If we're going to do it, there's no higher, greater, greater God, he couldn't even swear by anyone's name, he had to swear by his own name.

So, if God was saying, I'm going to be prideful in loving my children, I'm going to be really, really just in doing what

I'm doing. That's why he's still giving credit to God. He's giving credit to his people. Where? He's giving credit to his people.

That's why I don't put my life at risk. There's no one else that can do that for your dad.

Right. Sure. Actually, I have a question that's been brought to my mind.

One of the things it kind of goes to is from the child's perspective, we see the parents and the richer of the class, that's how it's all pictured.

And at that stage of being in the school master's zone, we're just trying to learn how real

God has been for us. You know, that it's invisible to us. Even though it's a quality that we have not been able to get up to, how do you sometimes make decisions because you want to make the next person proud?

Sure. It's all pictured and...

And it's obviously all used for a purpose too. I mean, again, even if the motivation wasn't 100 % perfect in my teen years, still, to your point that like, if you have a healthy fear of the

Lord and a healthy fear of your parents, you will want to do things to bring honor to them and to make them proud of you.

And is there anything wrong with that? I know, certainly not in the grand scheme of things, but what

I would say is it's also because you are maybe not fully matured yet. Because later, as you can imagine yourself as a younger

Christian in your teen years, it's like in the Romans 14 chapter that dad just finished up.

Everyone's at these different levels all the time, and it's okay. Like, it's okay for a person to be bothered by you eating meat that was offered to an idol, even though from Paul's perspective, that's child's play.

It's perfectly fine for them to have that concern, to his point. And so for any person to want to make your parents proud of you or the people around you proud of you is perfectly fine.

And then one day later down the road, you may realize, well, I probably could have given more glory to the Lord in that moment than I did, but I'll do that from this point forward.

So again, it's really, I mean, you could go all day long and it's just about where you're at kind of thing,

I guess. I mean, I don't know. Let me read you guys one quick verse from the

New Testament and then we'll move back to Obadiah. First Peter 5 .5, it says, likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.

Yea, all of you be subject one to another, be clothed with humility. That's kind of a key phrase there, be clothed with humility for God resisted the proud and giveth grace to the humble.

So now we have a Greek word versus a Hebrew word. Man, I don't think I can even come close to pronouncing this.

It's like seven syllables, that Greek word. But the Greek word for pride there or proud, it means showing oneself above others.

Kind of goes back to the Webster's definition that David was just reading. Overtopping, conspicuous above others, feeling preeminent.

Isn't that weird? Isn't that crazy? I mean, talk about being on a high horse. This is where the Edomites were, by the way.

These were the feelings that they were exhibiting big time. They were feeling as if they were preeminent above others with an overwhelming estimate of one's means or merits.

And then it finishes, and this is all one definition, like these are commas, these aren't semi -colons with different, this is all one definition of the word, despising others or even treating them with contempt, haughtiness.

So that's the Greek word behind that word proud in the New Testament. God resisted those attitudes, that kind of pride.

So anyway, I just wanted to throw all that in there in conjunction with those two others. Go ahead, Deb. Go ahead.

Yeah. Oh, it was a huge battle. And that's Peter talking to them.

Right. They were dogs. Right. Really interesting stuff.

Here's the thing, this is funny, because when I was looking for all the verses where pride and proud were used,

I was also looking in verses where the word haughty was used and arrogant in the same

Hebrew words in many of those contexts. The difference is, of course, we're never gonna use those words in a positive context. So I didn't even include those.

But yes, haughty or arrogant is another great one. When you're using those words, without a doubt, everyone around you is gonna know you're talking about a bad character trait within someone else or yourself.

And so those, yeah, those are great English words. And those are used pretty often in the KJV, too, that they threw pride in there with those words.

It's interesting. Let me do one more thing. Yes, I think that was an evolution of the

English language. Who knows how many years later, hundreds of years later, before it got into Webster's.

Right, well, I mean, and I mean, and think about just us as Americans.

We're proud to be an American. You know, it's like, it's literally in our songs. I mean, like, it has become a virtue.

The positive side of it. The thing is, it's also like the, it's very crafty, the specific words that have quote unquote evolved within the

English language to now carry a positive connotation. It's all really interesting. Go to Genesis really quick.

Brother Paul sent me this passage last week, and I wanted to throw it in, Brother Paul, because it actually sums it up pretty well.

Something I wanted to kind of use to conclude that. Go to Genesis 41, chapter 14. And Brother Paul texted me this after last week's lesson, and he was saying, here's a good example of like the opposite of that.

In other words, in other words, doing what we should do, considering the circumstance we find ourselves in, that is throwing the glory back to God.

It says, verse 41, 14, this is in Genesis. Brother Paul sent me this last week.

It says, then Pharaoh sent out and called Joseph, and this is starting in verse 14, going to 16. They brought him in hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself, changed his raiment, came in unto

Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it. And I have heard, yeah,

I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And then Joseph answered

Pharaoh, saying, it is not of me, or it is not in me. God shall give Pharaoh an answer to peace.

So here's an example where Pharaoh, the most powerful person on the planet, is showing awe to Joseph of this special thing he has, in quotes, and Joseph quickly turns around and says, it's not me at all, it's my

God, using me as a tool, essentially. Now, this comes back, think about this. So Joseph is doing what we're all agreeing we shouldn't do, right?

If something great happens in our lives, we should throw it back to God. But think about, let me finish this thought real quick.

Well, actually, you go ahead, because I don't wanna lose. It's his first thought, he went there immediately.

And what you just said, think about the context in which that is true. This ties it right back to that topic we were discussing on peace and tribulation.

Because in this moment, it's the first thing out of Joseph's mouth. And then from the human viewpoint, which

I know is kind of silly, but from the human viewpoint, do you think that would have been the first thing he said when he was back at home with his dad before any of the tribulations happened in his life?

He probably struggled with a little bit of arrogance. He was his dad's favorite, and Jacob wasn't even trying to hide it.

He had the special coat. He was having dreams already. He was annoying the heck out of his brothers. But think about it.

What got him to the point where the first thing he did was throw it back to the Lord? He was thrown in a dungeon.

He was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was purchased as a slave. He worked as a slave.

Then he was accused wrongly of infidelity and then thrown in a dungeon for years. And then he comes out of the dungeon for the first time, and I don't remember how long.

And in that moment, he's humbled beyond belief. And the most powerful man on the planet is giving him credit for this gift that he has.

And all he can do is immediately say, it's not me, I promise. I promise you it's not me.

It's the God that's in me. And so going back to that topic, just to kind of tie it into this a little bit, when we ask the question, why do we go through tribulations?

Why do bad things happen to good people? The question that Job asked, well, it's because it's going to serve a purpose.

We might not know what that purpose is just yet, but one of them will always be to humble us and get us to a point where we're not so quick to take credit for things.

We're a lot quicker to throw the glory back to the Lord. So thank you for sharing that last week, Brother Paul. That was a cool way to kind of conclude that little section because it's great contrast for, obviously with the

Edomites had a big problem with. So now we're gonna begin and we might get one verse in and then I'll stop it.

So we got about 10 minutes, but at least we can say we were in Obadiah this week. So this begins section two of the book of Obadiah, which is sins against the

God and his people. And this is split into a couple of different sections in and of itself, but it's basically verses 10 through 14 of Obadiah cover these sins.

And of course, I don't want us to lose focus, especially since we've taken a couple of weeks kind of on the side talking about pride.

I don't want to lose focus while we're in the book in the first place. And of course it always begs the question when you're reading these minor prophets, how does this prophecy against a nation that hasn't even existed in well over 2000 years apply to us today?

Why would we read some of these books? Like how does that apply to our lives practically? And as we read through the following five verses, we're gonna be covering 10 through 14, starting today and then

I don't know when, but what we'll see is we're gonna listen to some, I mean, we're going to catch some very familiar violations if you want to put it that way that we often see around us today happening around us at this moment, maybe not right this moment, but like outside of this building, in this town, in this county, the state, all around the world.

That is one of the ways that this book can apply to us practically today, but we're gonna see a lot of those. So verses 10 and 14, again, overall, it's talking about sins against God and his people, but you can break it into two distinct kind of like sub parts, if you will.

And the first being starting with having sinful attitudes toward God's people, so an attitude specifically, and then that leading to performing sinful actions against God's people, which is really interesting.

So we're gonna start with kind of that first bit, the sinful attitude toward God's people, and let's start in verse 10 there.

And this might be the only verse we read, but that's okay. Obadiah 10, for thy violence against thy brother

Jacob, shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be cut off forever. So at this point in Obadiah, going back to the

Edomites now, you have intentional violence, you have intentional cruelty being done by the

Edomites. And just to bring the reality of this relationship really close to home for readers like us 2 ,000 years after the fact or more, from when this book was written.

Obadiah at this point in this verse, when he says violence against thy brother, he's reminding us that this isn't simply just a feud between nations with different worldviews or whatever it may be, different worldviews, border disputes, or all that kind of stuff.

This is a dispute or a feud between brothers, blood relatives. The type of violence being exhibited here between these blood relatives takes kind of the drama up a notch, if you will, in terms of the dynamics that are at play.

But it also reminds us of the implacable spirit within these people, because it's the spirit within them that's causing this.

We battle not against flesh and blood. And it reminds us just how bad that spirit is, because it can turn even brothers against each other in the most gruesome ways, as we see here.

So Esau is resorting to violence against his own twin brother,

Jacob, and hatred toward him. And this is interesting big time, because this was literally true, not just between the

Edomites and the Israelites, but between the brothers themselves. Genesis 27, 41, going all the way back to the beginning of this story, says, and Esau hated

Jacob. So this hatred, this feud, literally existed between the brothers themselves, which of course continued through their respective progenies,

Israelites, Edomites. 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 are at hand, then I will slay my brother

Jacob. I mean, it's as bad as you can get in terms of a feud between brothers.

And this hatred, of course, remained true throughout Esau's lineage there. Really quick, okay, let's see, it's 10 .54.

Oh, goodness. Oh, I'm not at a good stopping place, but at the same time, if I keep going,

I won't be for a little while. Let's see here. Now I'm wasting all my time trying to figure out what to do.

Okay, I'll tell you what, we'll go super fast. This is actually in Psalm. This isn't even in Obadiah, but it's literally just reaffirming this relationship.

Go to Psalm 137 for a second. I want you to do your time. Too much data, I promise. Psalm 137, and we're actually gonna, we're gonna be here, but we're gonna hop over to another

Psalm in a second. But really quick, focus on verse seven. And this is, again, reaffirming this hatred, the fact that Esau hated

Jacob all the way through their lineage until present day, that being in Obadiah. It says, remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, raise it, raise it, even to the foundation thereof.

So that right there, I mean, think about Obadiah 10 when it says, thy violence against thy brother, shame shall cover thee.

The violence against the brother had been around for a long time. It was now, I mean, we're going back to David talking about the

Edomites at this point, who said, raise it, raise it, even to the foundation. They wanted their brother to be utterly destroyed all the time.

Now, Psalm 83, if you want to turn there as well, really quick, we'll read a couple of verses there. Again, talking specifically about these people, the lineage of Esau, Psalm 83, starting verse one.

Keep not thou silence, O God, hold not thy peace. Be not still, O God, for lo, thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

They have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, come and let us cut off, cut them off from being a nation.

They wanted the Israelites 100 % destroyed. That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

That's what they wanted. Verse five, for they have consulted together with one consent.

They are confederate against thee. Now, this is talking about several nations, but look here at verse six, the tabernacles of Edom.

This is the first one it mentions. The first nation that it mentions is Esau, Jacob's brother, the brothers of the

Israelites is the first nation mentioned that said, we want them to be no more in remembrance.

Cut them off from being a nation. But then it continues, in the Ishmaelites, Isaac's brother, these are literally blood kin to the

Israelites. And it's really interesting, if you think about the parallel of Isaac and Ishmael, both were blessed because both were of the seed of Abraham, but Isaac was the chosen one.

Jacob and Esau were both blessed because both were of the seed of Isaac. Isaac was hated though.

Jacob was the chosen one. Esau, I said, Isaac, Esau and Jacob. Esau was hated.

Jacob was the chosen one. Esau was still blessed materially from the human viewpoint and from the

Lord's viewpoint. He was blessed because he was of Isaac's seed, but he wasn't the chosen one. So it's interesting.

The first nation it mentions that hated them so much that they didn't even want them to be a nation anymore was Edom, that's Esau. The next is the

Ishmaelites, Isaac's brother, then of Moab, which we've been reading about in Ruth, and the

Hagarnes, I think is how you pronounce that. And there's several other passages where we can look at that. Ezekiel 35, that whole chapter's talking about the

Edomites and their hate toward Israel. Jeremiah 49 is all about the Edomites and their hate toward Israel.

Isaiah 34. And it's really interesting. If you guys recall, way back when, when we started this, we mentioned that there is no other foreign nation, there is no other foreign nation in the

Bible that is prophesied against from the Lord more than the

Edomites. And so it just goes right back to that, that reality.

And there's so many different passages where that nation comes into play, and pretty crazy stuff.

Well, we read verse 10. As we keep going, though, it's gonna get more and more epic in terms of how the Lord is gonna handle this himself, which he said he would do in verse four, when he says,

I will bring thee down. We're gonna see how he does that as we continue in Obadiah. So at least we got one verse under our belt.

But the rest of this conversation was awesome. Awesome stuff. I'll go ahead and pray, and then we will be dismissed.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful day you blessed us with. Thank you for bringing us all together and allowing us to study your word together and fellowship together.

And of course, just the honor and privilege of getting to be a part of this church family and get to talk about these things together is such a wonderful thing.

We thank you for that. We ask you to continue to be with us the rest of the day, be with the rest of our services. And we ask all these things in your name, amen.