Book of Obadiah - Vs. 6-9 (07/24/2022)

Good morning, everybody. It's working. Great.

Well, I was working on what I thought would be today's lesson yesterday, getting all excited about it, finding some cool stuff,

I was excited to share. I don't know why I'm hearing myself twice. Pop -up, you might have to turn the volume down on that computer back there too.

Yeah, on the computer itself. Anyways, I was getting everything ready, and then

I remembered at some point yesterday, I still have half of the lesson from two weeks ago left. I don't even know if we'll be getting to any of what

I was working on yesterday, but looking forward to getting into it nonetheless.

Let me see here. If you all recall, we were in Obadiah a couple of weeks ago, and we read through the first five verses.

We will do just really quick review for a second, and then we'll start with verse 6, pick it back up with verse 6.

Again, the main purpose of going through it in the first place, as I told you guys a couple of weeks ago, what initially piqued my interest was reading through it and just catching some of these attitudes toward God, toward God's people, toward His word,

His morals, all those kinds of things. I'm like, you're reading through it, and it's all about the Edomites and what will eventually come of them.

I was like, wow, there's some interesting parallels there, especially within the context of when I was reading through this, which was sometime through June, which if you guys recall, is known as or referred to as Pride Month.

There's just stuff everywhere. It's practically unavoidable, whether you're watching the news or not, you can go to the coffee shop downtown

Corsicana, and there's going to be rainbows everywhere. It's everywhere, it's just in your face, and it's very frustrating, makes you not want to leave the house for a while.

In the midst of that, I go through Obadiah in our Bible through a year, and then I'm like, oh, wow.

What we're doing is we're looking at some of the parallels between the Edomites' pride, the pride that the

Edomites had, and basically what was the result, or the ingredients, if you will, to what would become their downfall, and the specific parallel, of course, is with those attitudes that we're reliving today.

It's really interesting that in this book, but throughout all the

Old Testament, Edom, the descendants of Esau, are used over and over again as kind of the prime example of just the heathen as a collective, and their attitudes toward, again,

God and his people, and his moral standards, his statutes, all of those kinds of things.

And then Genesis, of course, as we talked about, outlines really well the fact that that enmity that did exist between Israel and Edom, Esau and Jacob, it literally started in the womb.

These twin brothers are in the womb of their mom. There was a struggle happening at that point already, and we read the passage there, but that ultimately extended through their respective lineages as well.

And so we'll just kind of read through the first five verses of Obadiah again, and then we'll pick back up with six.

So these are the verses we covered a couple of weeks ago. Obadiah one starts with the vision of Obadiah, thus saith the

Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a rumor from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen.

Arise ye, let us rise up against her in battle. Now, we talked a little bit a couple of weeks ago about how, in this case, that phrase, an ambassador is sent among the heathen.

This isn't the first time that we have a pretty explicit example of the Lord doing this, where he's essentially stirring up the nations or basically accomplishing his will ultimately, but by proxy through these other agents.

We read a passage in Chronicles, which was interesting, where he used a spirit to put a lying spirit in the prophets of an evil king.

And so we looked at that. And in this case, again, he's sending an ambassador among the nations to kind of stir them up against the

Edomites and to destroy and humiliate them ultimately. So we looked at that. Verse two continues, behold,

I have made these small. We covered that that word literally is just insignificant, unimportant.

This great, this nation that considered themselves really great, and they did have a really strong start.

Like from the time Esau left his parents, Jacob is over there doing his thing.

Esau created a really strong nation kind of right out of the gate. And ultimately, that's where a lot of their pride came from.

But in contrast to that, verse two, the Lord says, I have made these small or insignificant or unimportant among the heathen thou art greatly despised.

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground?

So verse three, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, that's kind of the crux of the whole thing. Their pride was super unbearable.

It was this, it was their pride that eventually caused their fall. And to intentionally contrast their pride, the

Lord not only destroys them, it wasn't necessarily just a quick snuffing them out like Sodom and Gomorrah type example, rather he humiliated them first or will humiliate them as we'll see and then destroy them.

And so he made a point to contrast the pride that they had, the things that they prided themselves on prior to their total destruction.

Verse four continues, though thou exalt thyself as the eagle and though thou set thy nest among the stars, this will, as he answers their question the previous verse,

I will bring thee down, saith the Lord. So despite their apparent safety and from their perspective, they're thinking physical, strategic, geographical, they were in a prime spot.

And I don't know if we'll get to this. I don't think I even included any of this in the lesson, but basically it's really interesting where they were in this area of Mount Seir.

It was one of the nations that would eventually come in and kind of take part in Edom's destruction was the people that would eventually carve out what is now known as Petra, which is really interesting because as we know, that's gonna be a special place for God's people later in time.

This is where the Edomites were and where they were, I don't know why the echo is so bad.

We can mess with my computer, Dave. I have the volume all the way down and yet I still hear myself echoing over there.

And so this is where they were. So it makes sense that they were really hyped up on their apparent safety from their physical enemies, but what they didn't account for obviously was what the

Lord says in verse four, when he says, I will bring me down. So the Lord takes up the battle in his own hands. Sounds good now.

And he vows to bring them down himself, which was again, a direct response to that question that last time we were talking about,

I'm sure they thought was a rhetorical question. They didn't realize that the

Lord would end up answering it and taking care of things himself. And of course, another thing we looked at, which is so crazy is we know that the spirit behind the level of pride that the

Edomites were exhibiting wasn't anything new. We talked about how that has been a battle that the Lord has been fighting since literally before we even really can understand, presumably before we were created.

But at some point after the creation, we read the passage in Isaiah 12 through 14, where it's the whole passage about Lucifer.

I will exalt myself. I will be like the most high. And we kind of contrast, not contrasted, but looked at the,

I guess kind of a parallel, if you will, with what the

Edomites were saying in verse three, I guess. Who will bring me down to the ground?

Let's see here. Yeah, and then in verse four, when it says, though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, that's what we compared to Isaiah 14, 12 through 14, when

Lucifer is saying, I will be like the most high. I will exalt myself. Edomite, it's the same spirit.

So it's not a new battle, and it's not a new battle today either. But yeah, so the

Edomites may be destroyed here, but another kind of point that we'll revisit later is the fact that the spirit, and why there's even a parallel between the

Edomites and the heathen today is because that spirit is certainly still with us.

Verse five says, is if the thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, how art thou cut off?

Would they not have stolen till they had enough? If the grape gatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes?

And so that just kind of shed some light using allegories on just how badly they're about to be destroyed.

It was commonplace, apparently, for grape gatherers when they're in the vineyards to when grapes, some loose grapes would fall off the vine, they would just leave those behind.

They would take the good batches away, and then the poor would come in and get the scraps.

Robbers would come in and they would take what they needed, but they'd get out fast. And what Obadiah is making a point of here using these allegories is that unlike those two examples, where there's some grapes left from the field workers, there are some things left in the house from the robbers, there will be nothing left when the nations come in against you.

And as we know, one of the ways that Lord is going to bring the destruction upon Edom is through other nations, which would eventually come into the

Edomites' land, they would plunder until everything was either destroyed or taken, and there wouldn't be anything left.

Of course, one of the ways in which, well, hold on a second. Okay, no, that was an interview there.

All right, so now that was verse five. So those are the first five verses there that we covered a couple of weeks ago. So we'll just pick right up with verse six here.

And verse six says, how are the things of Esau searched out? How are his hidden things sought up?

So in this context, just like many times throughout the Old Testament, when we see Jacob and Israel used as synonyms, we'll also find certain places like this one, where Esau and Edom are used as synonyms as well.

So it specifically uses the name Esau at this point. How are the things of Esau searched out?

And of course, that's used as synonym for Edom. But just like we saw in a few verses previously, this is actually kind of a, the desolation of Edom is kind of being reaffirmed here in this aspect where it's talking about how the hidden things are sought up, because what's happening is you have

Edom. They prided themselves on their geographical, their strategic location, their physical safety, apparent physical safety, but they also, of course, as you can imagine, prided themselves on their material wealth as well.

And so here, we see Obadiah prophesying against them, even their hidden things, even their most hidden treasures, all of it, 100 % of it is going to be gone.

They're gonna be looted. And so again, that just kind of reaffirms the level, the magnitude at which they are going to be destroyed.

And let's see here. Yeah, so the Lord in verse six here kind of makes a point to ensure that all of it's taken from other nations.

Nothing's gonna be left. There's not gonna be any scraps. It's not gonna be like if thieves come in and leave, only take what they need, leave the rest.

Everything's gonna be gone, even their most hidden things. Now, verse seven goes on and says, all the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border.

The men that were at peace with thee have decided, I'm sorry, have deceived thee and prevailed against thee.

They that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee. There's none understanding in him.

Now, imagine being in a position where your pride is so elevated and you feel so invincible, but then you are put in a position where your own allies are now turning against you and are going to all be kind of coming in on every side of your border all at once.

They begin to turn around, they begin to attack not just you but your vulnerabilities as a nation.

And you can imagine their allies most likely knew what these vulnerabilities were because they were very familiar with their trade routes.

I mean, they were engaged in commerce and things of that sort. And so they probably knew some areas in which the nation of Edom were particularly vulnerable where maybe other foreign enemies may not have been so much.

But again, it's one thing to have your enemies that, you know, like your known enemies collectively start marching toward your borders, getting ready for an attack.

But it's a totally different story when it's your own allies that you believe are there to back you up in a case like that.

So there you are, you know, thinking maybe you know, if we're ever attacked by our enemies, we're surrounded by our allies, we couldn't be safer.

And then all of a sudden, all of those allies that are literally circling your entire border start marching in themselves.

Totally different story there. And it was probably a pretty ominous scene at this, you know, at the point where that starts to actually happen, you gotta know that Edomites were really feeling it, really regretting the level of pride that they had up in that point, regretting the question that they ever asked, who is ever gonna bring us down?

Now, interestingly enough, you know, let me read this part of the verse one more time. It says, verse seven, they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee.

Interestingly enough, we can kind of get a glimpse as to how they were feeling.

You know, it's one thing to read that like, okay, your allies, the very people that you were sharing bread with that you were engaging in commerce with, they're turning against you.

But how would that have actually felt to them? As they were experiencing it?

Well, interestingly enough, we actually have an example through David of how they were probably feeling. I'm gonna actually turn here and read the whole thing.

You can turn over to Psalm 41 if you'd like. I put in verse nine, but I'd like to read a little bit more than that,

I think. Okay, so again, this is, you know, this is

David here. This is not the Edomites at this point, but the Edomites were still human. They still had, they probably still experienced a lot of similar feelings that we had.

And here they are, the people that they shared bread with are now coming and attacking their borders. David, in Psalm 41, is considering his enemies.

He's considering his trouble. He's asking the Lord to preserve him, to keep him alive, that he should be blessed upon the earth.

He's asking the Lord to strengthen him upon the bed of his languishing that, let's see here.

He asked the Lord to be merciful unto him, to heal his soul. And he confesses sin in verse four.

I'll start at verse five here. It says, my enemies speak evil of me, and they say, when shall he die?

In his name perish. And that's really interesting. That later on, we'll get to another verse where that is a pretty interesting insight there.

When will his name perish? Maybe put a pen in that if I can remember to come back to this verse. And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity.

His heart gathereth iniquity to itself. When he goeth abroad, he telleth it. All that hate me, whisper together against me.

Against me do they devise my hurt. An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him.

And now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more. And here's the key verse I was getting at here.

Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat my bread, have lifted up his head against me.

And then he finishes by remembering that, even despite that, the Lord is still with him.

But thou, O Lord, be merciful unto me and rise me up, that I may requit them.

I think that's how you pronounce that. By this, I know that thou favors me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

And he continues. And so, again, he points out just the utter feeling of despair that his own friends, the people that he put his own, that he put his trust into, that he shared his bread with, have turned against him.

And that's what's happening to the Edomites here. And so they were probably, I mean, it goes without saying that they had feelings of desperation, but it's just interesting, the detail that Obadiah goes into in describing just how terrible it is going to be for this nation.

Again, he's prophesying some of these things, we assume haven't happened yet. Again, we don't really know when Obadiah was written.

And so some of these things may not have even happened to them yet, but they're going to happen. And it's just going to be really, really bad for these people.

Of course, they were asking for it. Now we'll continue in verse eight of Obadiah, if you guys want to go back there. Verse eight says, "'Shall

I not in that day, saith the Lord, even destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of the

Mount of Esau?' So you're being attacked from all sides, including from your very allies.

And you previously go from having this feeling of total invincibility, right?

That's how the Edomites were feeling from their location to their treasures, to their military.

They felt invincible. And you go from that to your allies are turning against you and you are now on the verge of total destruction.

If you find yourself in that position, who would you naturally turn to just as a collective people? You know, just the citizenry of Edom at this point.

They see their allies are coming in, but it's hostile. They know they're being attacked.

You would naturally, who would you naturally turn to? Well, you would think that the common man, just the common citizens there would have turned to their wisest men, get some advice, figure out what are we going to do about this thing?

Are we actually about to be destroyed here? Or can we get some help? Can we figure something out? Can we employ some kind of contingency plan?

And surely we got something, right? But here the Lord makes another point to not only destroy the wise men, so they're gone, but he continues in the second part of verse eight, he takes out, he destroys the understanding out of the

Mount of Esau. That's talking about the collective people. So he not only destroys the wise men who normally you would go to and turn to in a time like this to get some advice, figure out a game plan, try to survive and prolong your people.

But he's also removed all the understanding from the Edomites in general, like collectively, he removed all of their understanding.

So they have no strategic ability. They have no one to turn to for help. Their wise men are gone. At this point, by the time you get to verse eight, there's only chaos.

And just a couple of verses earlier is when they were asking the question, who's going to bring us down?

And so it can really, really turn pretty fast. Now there's a parallel passage, Jeremiah 49, seven.

I'll just read this really quick. Concerning Edom, thus say the Lord of hosts, is wisdom no more in Teman?

This is hilarious to me. So think about it. This is the Lord asking these questions. He's the one that just took out their wisdom and removed all understanding from that Esau.

And then he asks, is wisdom no more in Teman, which is the capital of Edom? Is counsel perished from the prudent?

Is their wisdom banished? He's the one that took it away. Like he is literally, it kind of goes back to what

Dave was talking about last week. In a way, he's mocking them a little bit, but of course they're worth being mocked.

I mean, they were just unbearably prideful people and they didn't hide it, they flaunted it.

And again, what are we even here in the first place think about the parallels of the heathen around is how frustrating it can be when they are out there flaunting their total disregard for what we know to be a proper,

I keep using this phrase, but a proper moral foundation or a way to just live life, having the right kind of restraints so that there isn't chaos and actually believing

God's word, which that God's word existed even at this point. I mean, the

Israelites were a testimony to the whole world as to who the one true God actually was.

And they saw example after example of his provision for them and they still totally disregarded all of his ways.

They hated his people intentionally. They hated him intentionally to the point where their pride bubbled up and it was just coming out everywhere.

Like they weren't holding it in. They were again, flaunting that pride and asking questions such as who will bring us down.

And then one of the ways the Lord does that is he totally takes their wisdom away. And then he asks, is wisdom no more?

It's great stuff. Verse nine in Obadiah continues, "'And thy mighty men, O temen, shall be dismayed to the end that every one of the

Mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.'" So here is the period to section one.

The Lord sends an ambassador. Okay, first the Edomites are prideful. The Lord sends an ambassador to stir up the heathen.

The other heathen nations to all rise up against them which happened to be their allies.

So now their allies are marching against them. Then their wise men are gone. Then all understanding is cut off. It's been prophesied that they will be plundered to the point where even their most hidden treasures will be gone.

And then verse nine, which is kind of the end of this first section, which is essentially talking about their pride and what that would be a result of, finishes with every one of the

Mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter. Now it specifically mentions

Teman here. I mentioned it a second ago, that's Edom's capital. So when it refers to Teman, that is the capital.

It represents all of Edom. And so when it says mighty men of Teman, you will be dismayed.

Maybe I think that's probably talking about their warriors. Like even their, whatever military power they had, it'll just all be all over the place.

So everything at this point is gone. Again, total humiliation, defeat for a nation who's, you know, they had built up a pretty significant foundation on their pride at this point.

Their pride was built on their geographical advantages we've covered. That couldn't save them.

Their wise men couldn't save them. Their warriors, as we looked at in verse nine, were in total dismay. And they were about to meet their dreadful end, which we're gonna learn more about.

But before we learn more about their ultimate end, Obadiah goes into more detail as to why the

Lord is so fiercely against them at this moment in history. And so we're about to get into section two here, kind of to, again, verses one through nine.

That was all what I was supposed to cover a couple of weeks ago. That is kind of its own section.

And just to kind of conclude that a little bit, we now know that one, the strife between the children of Jacob and the children of Esau is this perfect physical picture.

I mean, again, it's no coincidence that Edom is a nation, but also Esau is in his lineage. It was used all throughout the

Old Testament. I think we talked about this a couple of weeks, but no other foreign nation, any nation other than Israel were prophesied against in the context of the

Lord's vengeance as Edom. There's more prophecies against Edom and the

Edomites in the Old Testament throughout the whole thing than any other foreign nation. So we can kind of conclude just from that information alone, but as well as everything we've read,

God is using this specific nation as a picture, as a physical picture of what our, you could say our physical enemies kind of as a collective, all of the heathen, all of the goats that are out there persecuting us intentionally.

It's a physical picture of that aspect of it, all of our physical enemies, but also our spiritual enemies as well.

So physical picture of our spiritual enemy that remains to this day, but who we will ultimately conquer, of course, through the

Lord. So you have this great picture between God's children and the heathen of the world, and the word

Satan's seed that Jesus talks about in the parable of the wheat and the tares. And so this section of Obadiah, it begins with Edom's nationally inflated ego permeated the whole nation.

They had a false sense of security, both military, geographically. They had private hearts, presumably within every single citizen of the nation, man, woman, boy, and girl.

Similar to Nineveh, if you think about it, because Nineveh was at that state before Jonah came, of course they repented, but prior to that, it was all of them.

And again, as we learned through Brother Bill's recent study in Nahum, the same thing happened in it again 100 years later, but that time they didn't repent.

And so here you go, every citizen of the nation have just full of pride in their hearts.

So consider their sense of security for a second. We're gonna go back to that parallel, why we're here in the first place. Consider their sense of security, economically, militarily.

Parallel that with the sense of security from not necessarily a geographical standpoint or an economic standpoint or military.

Those aren't necessarily the kind of things that the heathen around us at this moment seem to care a whole lot about, but think about the sense of security that they have from a social viewpoint within the hearts of the heathen today.

Their hearts, again, no different from the Edomites here, are full of pride.

Let's see here. They're full of pride, which gives a false sense of security, just like it did with the

Edomites, and they flaunt their pride as if it were a virtue, fresh off a pride month.

What's funny is that that is just, I mean, every month is pride month, is the frustrating thing, but they just have to have their staple holiday or whatever it is, because you see this stuff all the time.

It's not just in June of every year, but it certainly abounds in that particular month.

And so they're flaunting their pride as if it's a virtue, and yet they act as if they don't know this, but you gotta know they know it, because every human is born with a conscience.

The number one ingredient for downfall is pride. We read Proverbs 16, 18 a couple of weeks ago, but pride becomes before the fall.

I mean, it's like one of those things that everyone knows, and yet, again, it's now considered a virtue rather than a negative.

So just as Israel experienced centuries of persecution from their brother, their physical brother, Edom, Christians today, the

Lord's people, the believers around us, all of us collectively, we receive the same persecution from the heathen around us who are physically and spiritually mimicking the exact same antics that the

Edomites did. Now, obviously, we know that's not a coincidence. Everything that happens that was written there was very, very specific, preordained purpose, yet we still know when we read things like the

Obadiah passage here, there's still something so uncanny about just the comparisons, the parallels that I've been talking about between the

Edomites being that physical picture of our actual spiritual enemy. Now, if the Edomites can be a collective physical picture of all the heathen throughout history, but more specifically are also a good picture of our spiritual enemy,

I kind of want to take a little sidestep here before we jump into section two and start off with verse 10.

I want you guys to consider this following couple of passages, and you guys can turn here. You can go over to 1 Samuel 21.

We've been kind of talking collectively here, but let's get a little bit more specific for a second and bring a little bit closer to home.

And so, consider how crazy the world is, how easy it is if you start kind of stepping away or separating yourself, even if it's very subtle, even if it's subconsciously from the tenets of our faith, from the word of God, from his moral values, all these kinds of things, and you start kind of engaging a little bit, engaging in the world system, so to speak, just a little bit.

And in your mind, you're holding fast to your standards, your values, but over time, some of that system starts to creep in a little bit.

And in some cases, as we can see, it can creep in a lot of it, and then eventually turn into you,

I guess what you would call a backslidden Christian maybe, or whatever, or someone who is probably,

I mean, is a sheep by all accounts. They were, they proclaimed their faith.

They bore fruit for many years, but they let that system, the world system, they let their spiritual enemy get a foothold.

I mean, we know that even, I mean, like we know that saved people can experience that. Look at Solomon, who started so, like the beginning of his life of his kingship was just like top notch, gave one of the greatest dedication prayers in all of history when he was dedicating the temple, super close relationship with the

Lord, and then he ends with just a devastating ending to his life. And so we know that the world system, that our spiritual enemies can get, can infiltrate lives, the lives of our brothers or sisters, even our own, if we're not on watch for this stuff, and can mess us up a little bit.

Well, there's another great example, I think of, again, a physical picture of what that can look like in a

Christian's life in King Saul. So we're gonna go over to 1 Samuel 21, seven, and you'll see why

I am bringing this into this kind of overarching study about the Edomites here.

1 Samuel 21, seven, we're just reading one verse here, and then we're gonna skip one chapter. Now, a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the

Lord, and his name was Doeg, an Edomite, okay? So here we have yet another descendant of Esau, another member of this nation that we have been talking about over here that is full of pride, that is absolutely terrible, and here he is, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul.

So you have one of the most renowned enemies, one of the most prolific physical enemies of God's people that were ever there,

Esau's descendants, for crying out loud, who battled in his mother's womb against his brother, and his descendants continued that battle.

They would not let the Israelites have safe passage through their land when they were trying to get to the land of promise. It's like, it's a textbook feud, and yet King Saul makes this

Edomite, Doeg, the chiefest of his herdmen. So you kind of get where, I mean, you kind of see where I'm getting at here, how this, again, can be a great physical picture of how, on an individual level, we can let the heathen around us, the spiritual enemy, or our spiritual enemies, get a foothold and possibly do some damage, as we're about to see happen on a grand scale.

So now skip over one chapter, 1 Samuel 22. So now we know that Doeg exists, that he is an

Edomite. So now let's see what happens in this specific story. 1

Samuel 22, starting at verse nine. Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, okay,

I gotta give you a little bit of context really quick. So David is running from Saul. He is on the run.

Saul is going absolutely bonkers again, and is just convinced that David is just this terrible person.

It's gonna kill him. And you know how dad always talks about Christians are schizophrenics, new man, old man.

Saul was, like, I think, medically a schizophrenic. Like, I'm pretty sure we could have given him that diagnosis at one point.

He was crazy. And this was one of the times where he was at his craziest, and he was just, like, all he cared about was getting

David. David's on the run. He's scared. Well, at one point, David goes to the priests, and they help him out a little bit. They give him a sword.

They give him some help, and then he's on his way. So that happens. Then verse nine. Then answered

Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, Ahitub, and he inquired of the

Lord for him, and gave him, I don't know how to pronounce this word. Vittles? Is that how you spell it?

I pronounce it. Gave him vittles and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine, which is just another, this is crazy.

Like, details like that are so awesome to me. I mean, they keep Goliath's sword as a relic of David's great victory.

Now David has it back again. I don't know. Verse 11 says, then the king sent to call

Ahimelech the priest. So Doeg just ratted out the priests. It was like, they helped

David. So now the king calls Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all of his father's house, all of his father's house together, the priests that were in Nob, and they all came to the king.

And Saul said, keeping in mind, everyone, that he is absolutely crazy, hear now, thou son of Ahitub.

And he answered, here I am, my lord. And Saul said unto him, why have ye conspired against me, thou in the son of Jesse?

Of course, he's talking about David there. In that thou hast given him bread and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him.

How dare you inquire of God to protect him and bless him, that he should rise against me to lie in wait, as at this day?

Then Ahimelech answered the king and said, and who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son -in -law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honor able in thine house?

Like, are you crazy, king? Is your son -in -law, he has done your bidding at every turn.

Who is more faithful than any of your servants? And you're asking me that I conspired with him? Did I then begin to inquire of God for him?

Be it far from me. Let not the king impute anything unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father, for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.

How could I know I was conspiring? He's your greatest servant. Like, don't get onto me in my house.

In verse 16 says, and the king said, thou shalt surely die. This guy was nuts.

Man, Ahimelech, thou and all thy father's house, not just you, but your entire house is about to die because you unknowingly conspired against my greatest faithful servant, my own son -in -law.

I know you didn't know any of that, but you're gonna die anyway. And the king said unto his footman, this is where it gets interesting, that stood about him, turn, and this is

Saul talking, and slay the priests of the Lord. Are you serious? It's like, what are you talking about,

Saul? You were the one that was anointed. You have had conversation with the Lord. You knew Samuel, and you are about to have your footman slay the

Lord's priests? He continues, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and they did not show it to me.

This is so whiny. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand. And of course they wouldn't to fall upon the priests of the

Lord. Talk about fear. Of course they wouldn't turn upon the priests of the Lord. I mean,

I could not even imagine the amount of fear that were in their hearts when the king gave them that, because now they're certainly, what's the saying?

Between a rock and a hard place or whatever. You got the king who is like angry as ever, crazy as ever, will probably behead them, is probably what they're thinking, if they don't do what he says, but he's asking them to slay the priests of the

Lord, and they have seen all of his majesty and miracles, or at least they know about him at the very least.

So they wouldn't do it. Then verse 18, and then the king said to Doeg, turn now and fall upon the priests.

And Doeg the Edomite turned with no problem at all, and he fell upon the priests, and he slew on that day four score and five persons.

That's 85, right? 85 people that did wear a linen ephod.

So the priests and anyone else, like anyone related to the priesthood, anyone wearing a linen ephod, 85 of them killed them all.

And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings and oxen and asses and sheep with the edge of the sword.

This is what this one man did, Doeg, this Edomite. The king says, fall on the priest, and he took it upon himself to, and the devil that was within him took that opportunity to slay all of, like the entire city, the entire capital of the priests, all of the babies, all of the children, the women, those that were in no way affiliated with the priesthood other than the fact that they were related to the priests.

So pretty heavy little passage there. If Saul represents a carnal or weak Christian, which I believe he is a perfect example of that, why did he have such a crazy life?

We can look back, and he is that picture. So he could be an Old Testament example of kind of a modern

Christian that is weak, that is allowing the spiritual enemy around him to infiltrate his life and to influence all of his decisions and relies, in the case of Saul, relies on that spiritual enemy.

I don't know what kind of parallels you can draw from that. I didn't get that deep. But like, what are those implications? That Saul was using this guy as like his right -hand man and was having him act out his own wickedness.

I don't know. There's a lot there. But point being, Saul represents a carnal or weak Christian, and Doeg, an

Edomite, represents our spiritual enemy, again, infiltrating our lives and the damage that that can do in our individual lives when we allow that to happen.

And again, Doeg, he can represent our spiritual but also our physical enemy. So our spiritual enemy oftentimes, or probably most of the time, manifests itself in people around us, right?

In those people influences. And if we let our guard down and if we get a little comfortable hanging out with whoever,

I'm gonna keep it pretty vague because obviously this can apply in so many different ways, hanging out with the wrong people, just constantly dwelling on things that stray from the word and things of that sort, this very thing can happen to us as well.

Now, this is a very explicit graphic physical story of the way it could play out in our spiritual lives, perhaps.

The point being, Edom, the Edomites, whether it's on a national level or down to an individual man, acts as a just fantastic picture of exactly the kind of enemy we're dealing with, even to this day.

So while all of that can be pretty disturbing to us, if we look around us and we see the heathen around us raging and we see them doing things and perhaps not at the point where they are engaging in violent actions yet, but certainly in hostile attitudes, when all that's happening around us, yeah, we can get kind of sad, we can get down.

Certainly a lot of uncertainty enters the picture, fear, maybe even depression, but the

Lord, which is the whole point that we're looking at this and the second half of Obadiah that we're about to get into, what does the

Lord do about those people? Are we gonna be left depressed and laying around and just like surrounded by these people?

Actually, the Lord does not look any differently on those people or much differently, if at all, than he did upon the

Edomites that we're reading about in Obadiah, which is not so different than how he looked upon Lucifer when

Lucifer was the one saying, I will be like the most high. I will exalt myself in the sides of the North. He looks at our enemies that are literally around us at this moment in this city, in this county, the state, all around us.

He looks at them that are exalting themselves and lifting their pride up as a virtue and possibly even in their hearts, inciting violence against God's people, even though it might not be to that point yet where they're acting it out.

We know that those feelings are gonna harbor the evil that will bring that someday. That's happening around us, but it's okay because big picture here, the

Lord is going to be looking at them the same way that he does, the same way that he did on the

Edomites with Lucifer. And I'm gonna read one more passage here and then I'll open it up for some comments.

We still have a little bit of time. So go to Psalm 52 for a second. So we just read a really heavy passage and I magnified the heaviness by making those connections, the parallels, the comparisons between people as evil as Doeg or people as evil as the

Edomites in general with the heathen around us today and what we're dealing with. It can be a little bit depressing.

And that's okay because that ties into that lesson I did back in January on peace and tribulation. Jeremiah in Lamentations, Job in Job 3,

David in many Psalms, they lamented, they got depressed, it's fine, but it doesn't have to be the end game for us.

Check out Psalm 52. And this Psalm was written while David was on the run from Saul and he got word back that Doeg just did this thing.

David finds out that Himalek and all the priests that just helped him out and just gave him a sword and bread and blessed him and prayed for him, that they were just slaughtered by Saul, by this man, by proxy through this man named

Doeg. Then David writes this Psalm about Doeg. He says, this is

Psalm 52, starting at verse one, "'Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? "'The goodness of God endureth continually.'"

Why are you so prideful about your mischief? Do you even know who God is or like where that's gonna take you?

"'Thy tongue diviseth mischiefs "'like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. "'Thou lovest evil more than good "'and lying rather than to speak righteousness.

"'Woe,' as David would say, "'say a lot.'" That's what David said. "'Thou lovest all devouring words and thou deceitful tongue.'"

You love the fact that you have a deceitful tongue, that it's like a sharp razor, that it diviseth mischiefs.

You lovest all your devouring words. Verse five, "'God shall likewise destroy thee forever.'"

Again, do you even know where this is going? Do you even know where this is gonna take you? Do you realize what you've done in these people that you just slaughtered?

"'God will destroy you forever. "'He shall take you away "'and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place.'"

That's interesting because it might be talking about Doeg as an individual there in his specific dwelling place, wherever that was in,

I guess, Jerusalem. If he was Saul's right -hand man, but that also parallels with what we read in Obadiah that talks about, or I actually haven't gotten there yet, but as we will read in Obadiah, God taking the

Edomites as a whole out of their dwelling place. It's interesting that that is a result of this kind of attack on God and God's people.

And I think that will always be true both on the physical or physical enemies and eventually our spiritual as well.

Their dwelling place is currently this earth and eventually they will be cast out of their dwelling place.

And he says in verse five, "'And I will root thee out of the land of the living.'" So not only will you be cast out of your dwelling place, you're gonna be just gone, totally.

It says, Selah, once again, verse six, "'The righteous also shall see in fear "'and shall laugh at him.'"

Again, very interesting parallel here because to that passage in Isaiah 14, where Lucifer's getting all cocky.

He's like, I will exalt myself, I'll be as high as the Lord. And then it ends with Isaiah prophesying and said, you will actually be cast into the side of the pit and the kings of the earth are gonna laugh and say, that's the guy that stirred us all up.

That's, this is the devil that caused all this stuff to happen. He's just chained up, he's just in chains.

And then here, the righteous, talking about Doeg, "'Shall see you in fear and shall laugh at him.

"'Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength.'" Oh, you can't make this stuff up.

"'But trusted in the abundance of his riches "'and strengthened himself in his wickedness.'" So again, you can apply that to all of the

Edomites, that trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness.

That's the premise of all of Obadiah where we're in the first place. But here we are talking about an individual

Edomite. Verse eight, "'But I am like a green olive.'" So now David is reminding us what his position was in this big picture.

And of course, what we could take from it is what our position is, right? "'I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.

"'I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. "'I will praise thee forever because thou has done it.

"'And I will wait on thy name "'for it is good before thy saints.'" Patience, long -suffering.

It's no coincidence either that the Lord has this long -suffering spirit, this attribute of long -suffering, and we're supposed to have it too.

David says, "'I will wait on thy name "'for it's good before thy saints.'" There's gonna be guys up there slaughtering your priests and trying to kill me and trying to remove my name from the land, but I'll wait,

I will trust in your mercy. Verse four of Obadiah, "'Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle "'and though thou set thy nest among the stars,'' which is exactly what

Noah was doing, which is exactly what Lucifer did, which is exactly what all the Edomites did or are doing, "'thence will

I bring thee down, saith the Lord.'" So that's the end of the first section.

Again, I just now finished what was supposed to be all a couple of weeks ago. You guys have any comments or anything of what we've covered so far?

Because I've been talking a million miles an hour and haven't given anyone an opportunity to say anything. I got to get used to the process here,

I suppose. Certainly want to hear from you guys. Do y 'all have any thoughts or anything of all of that? It's crazy.

It's my sinister laugh. He will laugh at them.

I mean, I am laughing, but it's really, it's not because I'm like, oh yes.

It's in anticipation of the justice, but it's also the laughing is in anticipation of the justice for sure, because I mean, again, we're getting depressed by all this happening around us.

Is that justice that keeps us going? So yes, but you also kind of chuckle because you're just like, is this real life here?

Like, are they really this, are they really this like defiant and is the spirit that's within them, which of course is

Lucifer himself, the devil and all of his minions, are they really like, they really believe they're going to do something here?

And it's just like, no, as we see. Yeah, John, almost.

Goodness, man. It's just, I think we're onto something here. We're finally learning.

Well, this goes back, I'll get you a sec, Kyle, but it goes back to what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago, how we have redefined pride.

It's almost as if pride is a bad thing. Well, what's funny about it is in some way, it's not a bad thing anymore.

Let me read this really quick, Kyle, before I lose my train of thought here. I wrote this down, gotta go way back.

So the biblical definition of pride in the Obadiah passage we're in is insolence, presumptuousness, arrogance.

That's what pride really means in the Bible, at least in many of the, in the context where the

English word pride shows up. That's what the Hebrew word means. But our modern day definition of pride, a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements.

It's just wonderful. And of course, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, if you really think about it, that's not even that good either.

It's all narcissistic. It's all based on self. But anyway, what is your thought, Kyle? Well, first of all,

I think you're getting the picture of how we've been growing, how private worldships have captured all my life.

Right. It's been a good thing. And so we've been set some goals, you know, we've been here for a long time, we've been free, we've been absolutely set.

This is my second point. Well, we progress in modern day, but we can't say much about it.

Exactly. And so we've been trying to think about this now. So how can we, I believe that this is the way.

Well, didn't you say the same thing to me yesterday? Well, yeah. I'm saying, we're not out of town right now.

Yeah, absolutely. That's right. Well.

We've got an example of that. Well, one of the things we're going to get to certainly won't be today, because I haven't even started today's lesson yet.

But one of the things we're going to get to is, is there any example anywhere in the Bible where the word pride or the underlying

Greek or Hebrew that made the translators translate to pride is in a positive context?

If you guys want to do some digging, maybe that could be your homework. So now you guys have to come back two weeks from now, John and Brandy.

And I want to know if you find anything, and we'll talk about that. Ah, okay.

Well, I'll be back next week. I've got today's lesson all prepped for next week.

So come back next week. But if y 'all, seriously, take a look. I mean, you use your blue letter

Bible or whatever, what have you, but it's interesting. And I don't want to cut to the punchline, but it's more interesting than you might think.

Looking for examples of, is there ever a positive context for pride?

John gave an interesting example just then, us having pride in the Lord being his workmanship. That is super interesting.

I can't, I'll write that down in a minute. I don't want to forget that because that ties right into a particular passage

I found. But then going back to what Kyle was saying, and for those listening online, if you weren't able to hear him, is basically we were having this discussion of, even in our vocabulary as believers, we often find ourselves using that word or that phrase, like I am proud of my kids or I am proud of a job well done and my workmanship of whatever it may be.

I'm proud of the work I accomplished at the office. But it's like, is that really the type of spirit we have now?

I would argue that it's probably not even where our hearts are. It's just, we're using the wrong word because it's what's around us.

Yeah, so I think the intent is right on, but we're using the wrong word. And so then it's like, well, wait a second.

What did God say of his own son? Did he say, I'm proud of my son? No, he said, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. And that word means have pleasure with, which is interesting because, but it's not pleasure with like my own accomplishment.

It's pleasure with that thing or that person. And that's interesting because the modern

Oxford dictionary definition of pride today is having pleasure with one's own accomplishments. So it's a narcissistic tone, whereas the word pleaseth, for whom

I am well pleased. And that is, God is saying, I have, he is my beloved son in whom

I have pleasure with. It's not pride. Say that again. Right.

Well, you're right. Exactly. I mean, that's the whole point in why everything is set up the way it is so that we can't be prideful because any positive thing that would ever somehow come out of a human, if it were truly good.

And we only know if it's truly good. If it is accomplishing something here is, was actually done by him.

And therefore we boast in what he did. And so then the question is, is it, is it really pride?

As the world knows it, if you are boasting in what someone else did. So that's an interesting thought as well.

Yeah. Ron. Right.

Yeah. I mean, it's a great point because an Ashton actually did quite a bit of reading and a little bit of a study on this as well, a couple of years ago at this point, but it's the concept of like, where is that balance?

Because we can't disparage ourselves. It's not like we go so far. Like if we hate selfishness and we hate pride so much that we go to the opposite end of it and where we, we just.

Almost hate ourselves. It's that's certainly not the answer. We still have to, in some way, and I may not articulate the right way.

I might, I might use the wrong word here for what I'm trying to get at, but we, there is a sense in which we should think highly of the person we are in terms of our identity in Christ.

So if you're a safe person and you know that that's where your self identity comes from in the first place, you should be,

I was about to say proud of that. You should be pleased with that. But at the same time, like Ron said, humility isn't necessarily about thinking less of yourself.

As in like disparaging yourself as in thinking you're just, I, you know, feeling like you need to repent every time you have a thought of, of, of pleasure with things you've accomplished or whatever it may be, or your identity in the

Lord, but rather humility is thinking of yourself less. In other words, just putting people first, putting the

Lord first. It's what Jesus did. And in doing so, you are in no way devaluing your own self worth.

That's virtuous as opposed to pride. It's crazy stuff.

Well, um, yeah, I guess I'll go ahead and cut it off there. We'll, we'll do today's lesson next week.

And, uh, I look forward to it. So, um, brother Ron, would you like to dismiss this and pray real quick?