We are nearing the end
of a challenging and rewarding series on the minor prophets. Obadiah is so short
that we read the whole book this morning! I will begin with the setting in
which Obadiah speaks the word of the Lord, then consider Obadiah’s message.
Finally, we ask how that message carries us deeper into God’s heart, and how we
are to respond to God’s heart of love.
Background
Obadiah speaks to Edom,
that is, to the descendants of Esau. Remember Esau? Isaac’s first son; Jacob’s
older twin. In Genesis 25, their mother (Rebekah) received this prophecy: “Two
nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one
people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
So it was. Jacob took the promised land, and Esau lived in the hills South of
Israel – the beginning of a troubled relationship.
Jacob cheated Esau of his
inheritance and stole the oldest son’s blessing. When Esau pleaded with his
father for his own blessing, Isaac said, “Your dwelling will be away from the
earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword
and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his
yoke from off your neck.”
Jacob fled from his
brother after gaining their father’s blessing and went north to Paddan Aram,
where he established his family. When he returned to Canaan, he made a partial
reconciliation with his brother, but there was no trust between them. They saw
each other for the last time when they joined together to bury their father,
Isaac. You can read the whole story in Genesis 25 to 36, which finishes with a
list of the descendants of Esau (the Edomites). The list shows that the
Edomites accommodated to the customs and gods of the land long before the
Children of Israel (Jacob) did. They were still children of Abraham, but no
longer children of the promise.
In the years that
followed, the Israelites and the Edomites had the kind of relationship one
could predict from their beginning. When Israel walked the Exodus route from
Egypt, Edom would not help them. When Babylon carried the southern kingdom of
Judah into captivity, Edom cheered. During the exile, Edom took over many of
the towns of southern Judah, which the Children of Israel took back in the
period of the Maccabees just before the time of the New Testament.
Obadiah spoke his prophecy
just after the end of the southern kingdom of Judah. He was probably a
contemporary of Jeremiah, who spoke so eloquently about the judgment coming
through the Babylonians.
The troubled
relationship of Israel and Edom survives in the New Testament in the person of
King Herod the Great. He is called Herod the Idumean. Idumea is the Greek form
of Edom, so the Herod who tried to kill Jesus in Matthew 2 was Herod the
Edomite. You may recall that the Jews claimed that Herod was not really their
king – because he came from Edom (Esau) not from Israel (Jacob). Given this
long and troubled relationship between Israel and Edom, we turn to Obadiah’s
prophecies.
The Text
·
Verse 1 sets the stage.
The nations (in this case, Babylon) are getting ready to destroy Judah (that
is, God’s Chosen People).
·
Verses 2 to 7 describe
Edom’s own destruction. Edom lives among the rocks (that is, in the mountains –
Petra, the great rock fortress, is in Edom), but their almost inaccessible home
will be no protection against their foes. Even their friends will work against
them.
·
Verses 8 and 9 describe
the Day of the Lord, a glimpse of the final judgment, in which Edom will be
called to account and destroyed.
·
Verses 10 to 14 detail
Edom’s sins: They could have stood with their brother, Jacob, when the
Babylonians attacked, but they stood on the side and rejoiced over Judah’s
fall. Then they entered Judah’s towns and ransacked them, handing over any who
had escaped the Babylonians to the invaders. “Because of your violence against
your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed
forever” (verse 10). This prophesies a more complete destruction than is
usually spoken of, from which we can conclude that to betray one’s own brother
is worse than to fail a stranger. I suggest also it refers more to a final destruction
in the Lord’s Day than to destruction in the present, since the Edomites in fact
continued in the land with the Israelites.
·
Verses 15 to 18 observe
that the judgment at the End will bring a complete reversal of present
fortunes. Those who trust in God will be elevated; those who fight against
God’s people will be destroyed.
·
Verses 19 to 21 prophesy
Esau’s final failure when everything belongs to God.
We can summarize all of
this quite simply: God judges Edom for celebrating Judah’s downfall. This
judgment suggests a basic principle: Don’t rejoice in your enemy’s distress.
Rather, reach out and help where you can. God will judge everyone alike,
restoring those who choose God, and destroying those who refuse God.
I said last week that
the grim warnings in Nahum are the soil in which Jesus’ teachings grow. A life
of violence begets violence; those who live by the sword die by the sword.
Jesus teaches a path of peace in place of Assyria’s violent ways. Obadiah also
is the soil in which Jesus’ teachings grow. Jesus says that those who mourn
will receive blessing. In Romans 12: 9-21, Paul expands this blessing with
words that Nahum could have spoken directly to the Edomites:
Love must be sincere.
Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.
Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your
spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction,
faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice
hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice
with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one
another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low
position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to
do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it
depends on you, live at peace with everyone. …
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Living with the Prophet
So, God judges Edom for
celebrating Judah's downfall. This judgment suggests a basic principle: Don’t
rejoice in your enemy’s distress. Rather, reach out and help where you can. God
will judge everyone alike, restoring those who choose God, and destroying those
who refuse God.
We have been calling
these warnings “God’s heartbeat of love for God’s world.” God loves eacg person
so much that God will do everything possible to bring that person back into
right relationship with God. God wants us also to love with God’s love. What do
we do with this call to respond to God’s love, and to love the world around us with
God’s love? A few words first about what we mean by love.
Some people think of
“love” as a warm fuzzy emotion that bathes the recipient in a glow of warm
acceptance. To put it another way, sometimes we confuse “love’ and “like”. Of
course, loving someone and liking that person are closely related. If you say
to me, “I don’t like my wife, but I do love her”, I will conclude that you may
need to learn to like her again. Loving and liking often go together, and they
should.
At the same time, loving
and liking really are different things. “Like” is an emotion, a feeling, a
response to people that comes and goes. There are times when parents don’t like
their children, and when children don’t like their parents. But love continues
throughout the whole relationship. What then do we mean by “love”?
I mean two basic things.
One: I care what happens to you. Whatever hurts you also hurts me. Whatever
brings you joy also brings me joy. Love includes a basic recognition that we
belong together and that whatever happens to you also happens to me. This means
that real love costs something. To commit myself to love you is hard, because
now I can be hurt when something bad happens to you. Loving you makes my life
richer, and loving you places me more at risk.
Two: I want God’s best
for you. I am not satisfied with anything less than God’s best in your life. I
want you to succeed – which means, find God’s will and live God’s way in all
that you do. That is why I pray for my sons, “Lord, teach them to know you, and
to love you, and to serve you.” My life is bound up with theirs, and all of our
lives are bound up with God.
When we understand love
this way, we see it is a choice that we make to love the other person.
Sometimes our feelings are in sync with our will, and sometimes they aren’t,
but we love consistently and completely. I can imagine the Edomites saying,
“Why should we put ourselves in danger for the children of Jacob? Jacob cheated
our father, and his children deserve whatever happens to them.” Through
Obadiah, God says, “Love your brothers and sisters. Act for their good. I know
that you have bad feelings about them, but they are your brothers and sisters,
and you care for them.”
Love is a Choice
You see then that love
is a choice we make, not a feeling that overwhelms us. Of course, sometimes feelings
accompanying love do overwhelm us, and our culture has an idea of romantic love
that sweeps you off your feet, but God’s love is deeper and more profound than
a simple understanding of romantic love. God loves us, and so we love God and
each other. God cares for us, and so we care for God and each other. God hurts
when we hurt, and so we hurt with each other. God loves it when good things
happen to us, and so we celebrate when good things happen to people we love.
This means, of course,
that God wants us all to love God and live with God. Peter, a disciple who
lived so close to Jesus, wrote in 2 Peter 3: 8 and 9: “Do not forget this one
thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a
thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as
some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Jesus wants everyone to live! God
loves everyone. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten so,
so that whoever believes on [trusts in] him should not die, but have eternal
life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save
the world” (John 3: 16f).
This truth raises really
difficult questions. If God loves us so much, why do bad things happen to
anyone? This question gives birth to another hard question: Why do we not
receive from God what is good? God does not want us to suffer. God wants us to
know and experience good, but God has also given us the incredible power to say
no to God.
John Wesley wrote a
powerful hymn asking why people do not turn to God: “Sinner turn, why will you
die?” He wrote 13 verses. Here is just one:
Sinners, turn: why will you die? God, your Savior, asks you why.
God, who did your souls retrieve, died himself, that you might
live.
Will you let Him die in vain? Crucify your Lord again?
Why, you ransomed sinners, why, will you slight his grace and die?
This is deep mystery.
There are answers, but they are not easy to express or to grasp. All I can say
this morning is that God endured our grief and pain on the cross. God enters
into our suffering and hurt at the deepest levels. Last Sunday I told you the
story of Kim Phuc, the Napalm Girl. You remember her words as she considered
the story of Jesus: “I had never been exposed to this side of Jesus—the wounded
one, the one who bore scars. I turned over this new information in my mind as a
gem in my hand, relishing the light that was cast from all sides.”
One part of the mystery,
then, is the question, “Why do humans choose evil?” This ability to choose is
remarkable and dangerous gift. God evidently thought it worthwhile to let you
and me choose to do God’s will and love with God’s love. Or not. We can decide
to live for God, or to live for ourselves. As C.S. Lewis put it in a book on
Heaven and Hell called The Great Divorce:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to
God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be
done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be
no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.
Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.
That’s what the prophets
are getting at: The heartbeat of God is the heartbeat of God’s love, and God
wants us to say yes to God and love with God’s love.
Conclusion
God has put us here to
sing and play God’s music. Jesus lived and taught and died and rose to bring us
into the great choir (or orchestra or band) to sing God’s song. The trouble is
that we are a generation that wants God to say, “your will be done” and does
not want to say to God, “Your will be done.” We want to sing our own song, not
God’s song. As one of favourite groups, the Mamas and the Papas, sings,
Nobody can tell ya there's only one song
worth singing,
They may try and sell ya, ’cause it hangs
them up to see someone like you.
But you’ve gotta make your own music, Sing
your own special song,
Make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along. (1968)
This
is hard. I see real value in individualism, but it must be my own song within
God’s song. Jesus put it this way in John 12:25, “Those who love their life in
this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world
will keep it for eternity.” Or, to put it in terms of singing the Lord’s song,
those who insist on singing their own song and not harmonizing with God’s song
will find that they lose the gift of music altogether, but those who sing God’s
song will have an eternity to make the most joyful music of all.
Obadiah
describes what happens to people who insist on living only for themselves.
Jesus shows us another way, loving God and loving each other with perfect love
– caring for each other and desiring God’s best for each other. Love is a
choice, and God wants us to choose love.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
Obadiah’s
Vision
1 The
vision of Obadiah. This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom—We have heard a message from
the Lord: An envoy was
sent to the nations to say, “Rise, let us go against her for battle”—2 “See,
I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised. 3 The
pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the
rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can
bring me down to the ground?’ 4 Though you soar like the
eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you
down,” declares the Lord. 5 “If
thieves came to you, if robbers in the night—oh, what a disaster awaits
you!—would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to
you, would they not leave a few grapes? 6 But how Esau
will be ransacked, his hidden treasures pillaged! 7 All
your allies will force you to the border; your friends will deceive and
overpower you; those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, but you
will not detect it.
8 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“will I not destroy the wise men of Edom, those of understanding in the
mountains of Esau? 9 Your warriors, Teman, will be
terrified, and everyone in Esau’s mountains will be cut down in the slaughter. 10 Because
of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with
shame; you will be destroyed forever. 11 On the day you
stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his
gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. 12 You
should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor
rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor
boast so much in the day of their trouble. 13 You
should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor
gloat over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seize their
wealth in the day of their disaster. 14 You should not
wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their
survivors in the day of their trouble.
15 “The day of the Lord is
near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your
deeds will return upon your own head. 16 Just as
you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually;
they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been. 17 But
on Mount Zion will be deliverance; it will be holy, and Jacob will possess his
inheritance. 18 Jacob will be a fire and Joseph a flame;
Esau will be stubble, and they will set him on fire and destroy him. There
will be no survivors from Esau.” The Lord has
spoken.
19 People from the Negev will occupy the mountains of Esau, and
people from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines. They will
occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will possess
Gilead. 20 This company of Israelite exiles who are in
Canaan will possess the land as far as Zarephath; the exiles from Jerusalem who
are in Sepharad will possess the towns of the Negev. 21 Deliverers will
go up on Mount Zion to govern the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will
be the Lord’s.
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