Obadiah, the shortest book in the Old Testament, is the pronouncement of doom against an ancient and long-forgotten nation, the land of Edom. But there is more to this book than that. The Scriptures have that beautiful faculty of appearing to be one thing on the surface, but on a deeper level, yielding rich and mighty treasures. That is certainly true of this amazing book of Obadiah.
As I share this message today, it is the first part of 5 sermons on lessons from Obadiah. In this first part today, I will deal with the overview, historical context of the book and the first lesson of five.
Let’s start with understanding who Edom was as a nation. Every nation in the Bible is a lengthened shadow of its founder, and the two men behind the nations Israel and Edom were the twin brothers - Jacob and Esau. Jacob was the father of Israel, and Esau, became the father of the Edomites. The Bible pitts Jacob and Esau in perpetual antagonism. We read in the book of Genesis that even before they were born, they struggled together in their mother's womb. That antagonism marked the lives of these two men as recorded all through the Bible, and, consequently, the lives of their descendants, the two nations of Israel and Edom.
The nations carried on this same conflict, and all the way from Genesis through Malachi there is the threat of struggle and unbroken antagonism between them. We will cycle back to this struggle and antagonism in a bit, but for now, we should keep in mind that in the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, God says, "Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated" - Malachi 1: 2b - 3a (ESV) Why did God say this? The book of Obadiah makes this very question clear to us.
Now, who was Obadiah? Obadiah, whose name means either “servant of Yahweh” or “worshipper of Yahweh” was amongst at least 10 others named “Obadiah” in the Old Testament. As a result there is not enough evidence to connect the author of this minor prophetic book to any of them with certainty. It is further difficult to determine the exact date of the writing, as the book itself does not give any specific indicators, such as the rule of a king. This may be because there was not a king sitting on the throne at the time, which leads many scholars to believe the book was likely written in the mid 580’s B.C; after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem around 586 B.C., but before the Babylonian conquest of Edom in 583 B.C.
This date would make Obadiah a contemporary of Jeremiah. This may be why Jeremiah seems to quote Obadiah on 9 occasions. For example, Obadiah 1:5 is found in Jeremiah 49:9; Obadiah 1:6 is found in Jeremiah 49:10; and Obadiah 1:8 is found in Jeremiah 49:7.
A second possible date for the writing would be during the invasion of Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians during the reign of King Jehoram, sometime between 840 and 825 B.C; although I believe this is less likely, it would mean that Obadiah was quoting Jeremiah. But most historical, literary and archaeological evidence points to the former date and these make Obadiah a contemporary of Jeremiah.
While we do not know for certain who Obadiah was or when he lived, we do know one thing for certain. The purpose of his writing and message. This is where we cycle back to the struggle and antagonism between Israel and Edom. We have seen what Malachi says about Esau and Edom. Similarly, in the New Testament we find that there is a perpetual antagonism within the nature of the Christian. This culminates in Galatians 5:17 where we are told that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; they are opposed to one another.
God being the great illustrator He is, always uses pictures for us so that we can understand the truth more easily, more graphically. We are children in this respect. We like to have a picture. Hence the Lord is always painting a picture for us through the words of the biblical writers. There are certain names and figures, or metaphors and similes that, once used to symbolise a thing, maintain that characteristic and that reference all the way through the Bible, wherever they are used. We know how this is true of certain items, certain material things, like oil. Wherever oil is used symbolically in Scriptures it is a picture of the Holy Spirit. Wine is always a picture of joy in the Scriptures. Leaven is always a picture of evil. Similarly, God has taken these two men and the subsequent nations that came from them and used them through the Bible as a consistent picture of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit -- Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom. These two men, Jacob and Esau, and the nations Israel and Edom, always appear as a picture of a struggle between the flesh and the spirit that is going on in our own lives as believers. Esau lusts against Jacob, and Jacob against Esau; the two great principles are irreconcilably opposed to one another.
And this is the central theme to understanding Obadiah. Obadiah turns the spotlight first on Esau, who is the man of the flesh, and Edom, the proud nation that came from the flesh, and he answers the question of why God hates Esau. The trouble with Esau is recorded by the prophet in verses 3 and 4: “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, Or of Sela in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.” - Obadiah 1: 3 - 4 (ESV)
The trouble with Esau is pride. Pride is the root of all human evil, and pride is the basic characteristic of what the Bible calls the flesh that lusts against, wars against, the Spirit. The flesh is a principle that stands at stark contrast to God's purposes in human life and continually defies what God is trying to accomplish. Each of us has this struggle within us, and its basic characteristic is revealed here as pride. This is the number one identifying mark of the flesh.
We see this in Proverbs 6:16 as it reads, “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him” (ESV) And what is number one on the list? Haughty eyes or a proud look. And everything else that follows is a variation of pride. Those that are swift to run after mischief, he that spreads lies and slander and discord among brothers -- all these things are manifestations of that single basic evil, pride. This is the satanic nature which was implanted in the human race; all who are born of Adam have this congenital twist of pride, the independent ego that evaluates everything only in terms of its importance or its unimportance to self. The universe centres around self, the rival god. That is pride. That is Esau; that is Edom. It can appear in our lives in ten thousand ways, but you will find some common expressions of it here in this book of Obadiah.
What was Edom proud of? Let me show you a picture to explain the reason for their pride. The city of Petra was the capital of the nation of Edom. The Edomites boasted in it’s security. This amazing city is approached through a tremendous fissure that runs for a mile or more right through the rock, a narrow file only a few yards wide that brings you at last into an open place where temples have been carved out of the living rock.
It was difficult to get to the capital city of Petra to say the least. Little of the land was suitable for attacking the nation, but Petra was the pinnacle of their great defence system. This gorge is about a mile long and is on average only about 15 feet wide. In some places two horsemen can barely ride next to each other. The sun is shut out from the place because of the high sandstone cliffs that rise hundreds of feet on both sides of the gorge. At times the sun is blocked out to the extent that it gets dark at noon.
From the mountain tops in the region, there is no hint of civilian life in the area, but nestled down in the valley of that land is a gorge that today is known as the valley of Moses.
We might recognize this picture from several movies, including Indiana Jones and Transformers. Once you travel through the gorge, it opens up into a level valley of slightly less than one square mile surrounded by many mountains. There are no freestanding homes or buildings here, because everything is carved right out of the rock. The great temple Al-Khazneh is one such building. It is carved right into the face of the cliff and runs about 130 feet high. It has doors that are 25-30 feet high. Now think about an invading army coming into that city. It would be extremely difficult to launch an attack, assuming they could even find the city, and if they did, their entrance into it would be so slow that they could be slaughtered as they entered. This city, accessible only through the narrow canyon within cavernous mountain walls, made it almost impossible to attack and conquer - or so the Edomites thought.
The Edomites further boasted in their wisdom. The men of Edom – especially of the city Teman – were noted for their wisdom. The phrase men of the East across the Old Testament often refers to men from Edom, and passages like 1 Kings 4:30 declare the great wisdom of the men of the East. As well, Jeremiah 49:7 says of Edom: Concerning Edom. Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?” (ESV)
The Edomites finally boasted in their alliances and trusted in their allies – their confederacy. They thought that their alliances made them strong, and they were proud because of that strength; which they felt kept them protected enough to do as they pleased and live as they wanted.
It is this city that Obadiah refers to in verses 3, 4 as the people who live in the clefts of the rock, Or of Sela in your lofty dwelling… It is to these people the Lord prophecies that though they soar aloft like the eagle, though their nest is set among the stars, from there they will be brought down. With Obadiah’s prediction coming true in the fifth century B.C. when Edom was removed from Petra, the Edomites would later disappear from history completely, marking the total destruction of one of Israel’s enemies. The Edomites were forced to move south of Israel in an area that would become known as Idumea. In the New Testament, Herod, who commanded the murder of all boys two years old and younger in Bethlehem as recorded in Matthew 2, was an Idumean.
Obadiah reminds us in verse 3 that “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” Pride is deceptive. Pride makes us think we are independent, self-sufficient, invulnerable. But Pride is based on a lie. The person who yields to the temptation of pride surrenders their capacity to think and feel and act without deception. Pride distorts every area of thought and life. My own conviction is that most of our perplexity regarding moral and theological issues is owing to the distortions caused by our pride, not to the complexity of the issue.
God abominates pride and will bring it down. As Jesus says in Luke 16:15, "For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God." (ESV) Therefore proud nations and proud individuals will reap what they sow. It is therefore in verse 15, Obadiah states “As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head” (ESV). If we choose in our pride to live without God, then He will grant us our independence on the day of the Lord. And He will not be our refuge or our righteousness on that day. And our self-confidence will be like a feather in a hurricane when God's wrath is revealed from heaven (cf. Psalm 76:7).
Edom was living in a false security. In their pride they felt that they did not need God anymore, and they bowed Him out of their civilization. When a mere man, a little creature down here, gets to the place where he says, “I don’t need God,” God says, “That’s what I hate.” The message is clear across the Bible. Those who live in self-intelligence, who pride themselves in their learnings and find their security in what they have, are perverting the literal sense of the Word. Such people will be combated by the Lord Himself because they imagine themselves more intelligent than God Himself and take pride in the same.
In stark opposition, the thing that characterised the Lord Jesus Christ and marked him as continually opposed to this spirit of self-sufficiency was his utter dependence on the Father. This is of course the way we understand the inner workings of the Trinity. We Christians have to learn that if there is any area of our life where we think that we've got what it takes to do without God, it is in that same area that we are manifesting the flesh, the pride of Edom.
Their great security couldn’t save Edom, neither could their wisdom and learnings or their alliances. This is what we need to keep in mind when we step into our workplace / college on Monday morning. We may have been a fine Christian on Sunday and all through the weekend, but on Monday morning if we say, "Now I am in charge. I know what to do here. I don't need the Bible. I don't need God. I don't need my religion to help me here. I know exactly how to live my day," we are manifesting this same spirit of Edom, the spirit of self-sufficiency. In many areas of our lives we Christians live as though God were dead, we believe in God, but live as though He were dead, we live without any sense of dependency upon His wisdom and His strength. And therein lies our folly. But God calls us to be different and mirror Him. To be humble in service and devotion to God; knowing nothing is ours. Not what we have, not what we know, not whom we know.
Charles Spurgeon, who is commonly referred to as the prince of preachers from the 19th century is known to have said, “Pride is the maddest thing that can exist; it feeds upon its own vitals; it will take away its own life, that with its blood may make a purple for its shoulders: it sappeth, and undermineth its own house that it may build its pinnacles a little higher, and then the whole structure tumbleth down. Nothing proves men so made as pride. For this they have given up rest, and ease, and repose, to find rank and power among men: for this they have dared to risk their hope of salvation, to leave the gentle yoke of Jesus, and go toiling wearily along the way of life, seeking to save themselves by their own works, and at last to stagger into the mire of fell despair. Oh! man, hate pride, flee from it, abhor it, let it not dwell with thee. If thou wantest to have a madman in thy heart, embrace pride, for thou shalt never find one more mad than he.” You see, for God, The State of the Heart matters. And nothing changes the state of our heart more than pride. It makes us useless to the Lord because our heart is full of ourselves and has no place left for God. It is therefore that the Bible reminds us “Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honour” - Proverbs 18: 12 (ESV).
I will end today’s reflection with an excerpt of a poem called Human Pride by Karl Marx (the same person who caused the revolution with his Marxist ideology), a poem in which he explains the folly of human pride and he seems to allude that the only way out for our soul is for it to let down it’s pride:
“No giant column soars to Heaven
In a single block, victorious;
One stone on the other meanly woven
Emulates the timid snail laborious.
But the Soul embraces all,
Is a lofty giant flame that glows,
Even in its very Fall
Dragging Suns in its destructive throes.
And out of itself it swells
Up to Heaven’s realms on high;
Gods within its depths it lulls,
Thunderous lightning flashes in its eye.
And it wavers not a whit
Where the very God-Thought fares,
On its breast will cherish it;
Soul’s own greatness is its lofty Prayer.
Soul its greatness must devour,
In its greatness must go down;”
Let us examine our own lives. Is there any area of our lives that we pride ourselves on and find our security in? Is there any part of our lives where we are keeping God out because of our pride? Do we pride ourselves in anything but our being saved through the Lord?
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