“For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been. But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.” - Obadiah 1: 15 - 18 (ESV)
Today as we get into the 4th part of this 5 part sermon series on the book of Obadiah, let’s briefly review what we’ve learned so far from the earlier parts, A State of the Heart, A Violent Indifference and The Many Sins of Edom. We learned that the book dealt with God’s judgment on the nation of Edom for its sin of pride. Edom is the nation that descended from Esau, the brother of Jacob. The two brothers maintained great animosity toward one another for many years, and though they seemed to finally make peace, the two resulting nations continued with these feelings of animosity. Remember that Edom refused to allow Israel passage through their land when they were trying to reach the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses.
God said in Malachi that He hated Esau, and the reason He hated Esau, or Edom was because of their pride. They were proud of their national defenses, their strong allies and their superior wisdom, and that pride was manifested in their treatment of their brother Israel when the Babylonians attacked Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar. When Babylon descended on Jerusalem, the Edomites stood by watching. They laughed and mocked and even encouraged the enemy to destroy the place. When the battle was over they went into the city themselves to steal and loot anything that was left behind, and then in a final display of hatred they rounded up all the refugees they encountered and handed them over to the Babylonians.
As with any prophetic book and any true prophet, Obadiah starts with forth telling the actions of Edom with which God has a grievance and then goes on to deliver judgment as a result of those actions. We see this judgment starting in verse 15.
Now, let us notice the first little word in this verse 15. It is the word for. It means because. This is a continuation to the ‘you should not have dones..’ that we see in verses 12 - 14. Obadiah tells the Edomites quite plainly that they shouldn’t have acted so violently toward their brother Israel, and why? Why should they not have done all they did? Because the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.
That’s quite a statement. If we think for a moment that God doesn’t remember our behavior, we ought to think again. The Edomites practiced this animosity toward their brothers for centuries, and while they might have thought they were getting away with it God was keeping His record.
Ecclesiastes 8:11 reminds us, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” Why doesn’t He always execute judgment immediately then? Because like the Bible tells us in Psalms 103, 145, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Why doesn’t the Lord execute judgment right away? Because He is longsuffering and He gives us space to repent and turn toward Him. This is the same reason He didn’t just wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah when He first wanted to. This is the same reason He didn’t just clean the city of Nineveh right off the face of the earth. This is the same reason He bothered with Jonah. Because His desire is repentance, not judgment.
Edom would not repent though, and because they wouldn’t repent, Obadiah told them that the day of the Lord was near upon all the nations. Now, we consider this a split prophecy, because it had an immediate fulfillment on the nation of Edom, but its ultimate fulfillment will take place when the Lord returns.
Edom, which was once a very rich and prosperous nation, is now a barren land. It is a wasteland and its people are gone. Let us notice one of the laws of God that we don’t pay much attention to the latter part of verse 15, “As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.”
How often do we think of that? We know the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as we would have them do unto us.” But we need to remember this rule as well – whatever we do to others will be brought back to us. Can we be certain God holds us to that rule? Let’s look at James 2:12-13 for a New Testament example of the Lord’s teaching. What does James say about our actions toward others being returned upon our own heads? He said that if we are unmerciful to others, we can expect the same treatment from the Lord. Isn’t it funny that we want God to punish others for their sinful acts, but when we sin against Him we cry out for mercy? Isn’t it funny that we hold on to anger and bitterness because of the sins of others against us, but then we sin against God and expect Him to forgive us?
This doesn’t just apply to Edom, or even to us, because Obadiah said that the day of the Lord was near upon all the nations. It is a tragedy of nations that their people somehow think themselves exempt from the judgments that have overtaken others. The day comes when God will judge everyone.
Verse 16 therefore goes on to say. “For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.”
When Jerusalem fell, the Edomites entered the city and began to rejoice, plundering the goods. In other words, they went into God’s capital city and partied – they “drank on God’s holy mountain.” Then we read something interesting. Just as Edom went in and drank on God’s holy mountain, all the nations will drink continually and they shall be as though they had not been. What does that mean? Our answer is in Jeremiah 25: 15 - 17, 27 - 28: “Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.” So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand, and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it…“Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.’ “And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: You must drink!”
Edom, Obadiah says with poetic justice, along with the other nations, is going to drink again. But this time the cup will not hold wine. It will be the cup of the wrath of God. If we are to learn anything from all of this, it ought to be that Edom wasn’t singled out for its enmity against God’s people Israel, which was really enmity against God Himself. Whatever form wicked pride takes; pride is an affront to God, and God will judge all who refuse to humble themselves.
It is therefore that Isaiah 2:12 reminds us, “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it:” On a similar note, Ezekiel 30:3 reminds us , “For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.” There are a number of other places in the Scripture that speak about the day of the Lord, and many of them mention another fact that Obadiah points out – the day of the Lord is near.
Now, here is a problem for some people. Obadiah wrote this almost 600 years before the birth of Christ, and now it has been around 2600 years since he wrote it. How could he possibly say that the day of the Lord was near when he wrote it that long ago and the Lord still hasn’t returned?
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, remember that the day of the Lord he is speaking of is the one referred to in 1 Thessalonians 5, the day when Jesus returns to this earth to execute judgment on the nations. It is the day when He returns to set up His kingdom and establish righteousness. It is the day when people will see Him not as the Lamb of God but as the Lion of the tribe of Judah with a rod of iron in His hand. On that day the nations of the earth will be destroyed and all earthly governments will be put down. This is directly alluding to what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2:44-45, “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
So, the nations will be destroyed on the day of the Lord, but getting back to what Obadiah said, how can it be that His day is near? Certainly for Edom it was. Edom was most likely put down when Nebuchadnezzar marched through that land to get to Egypt. They probably used the same route that the Israelites tried to use when they were refused passage. Knowing that these were a thieving and wicked people, Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t afford to just leave them alone. They most likely subjugated the Edomites, killing off many of them and capturing a good many more, but they didn’t wipe them out because we find that later on in Israel’s history, during the time of the Maccabees that there were still Edomites that had to be dealt with, and then of course during the time of Christ there were still Edomites living, such as the Herods. During the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, when the temple was destroyed, the Zealots, a group that the Apostle Simon was identified with, sent for the Edomites, who only added further torment to the destruction of Jerusalem. After this battle their name disappears from history. Most of them perished during the Jewish extermination that accompanied the siege and destruction of Jerusalem.
But what about the rest of the nations? They were not all dealt with at that time. Author, James Montgomery Boice wrote about this passage explaining this idea of nearness of the day of the Lord.
“…we need to understand that the Bible’s view of nearness is more what we would intend by the word “imminence.” That is, the judgment is near in the sense that it can occur at any moment. Imminent means “threatening to occur immediately, impending.” An imminent event does not necessarily occur immediately, but it could. Therefore one must be ready for it.
“An illustration may help. Imagine that a preacher is talking to a large congregation and that, as he begins, he places his Bible on the pulpit so that it is hanging out over the edge. This Bible is very precariously balanced. Although the preacher is not aware of it himself, the congregation notices what has happened and is anxiously wondering when the Bible will fall. No one knows when it will fall. It might sit there throughout the sermon. But, on the other hand, the preacher might jar the pulpit or even knock the Bible off deliberately. The situation is critical. When the preacher is speaking quietly and is not touching the pulpit, the congregation relaxes somewhat. When he gets louder and begins to thump the pulpit, they become worried.
“This is the sense in which God’s judgment is near, not only to nations but to every one of us. There are times when things are quiet and we do not anticipate the judgment so much. At other times we hear of wars and rumors of wars, the sea of the nations is troubled, and we wonder if God’s final intervention in history may not be just around the corner. We become anxious. But notice: Judgment is no less near in quiet times than in stormy ones. At any moment God may set the wheels of his final reckoning in order. That is why we must prepare for the Day of the Lord and be ready through faith in Jesus our Savior. Jesus himself said, “Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.””
So, with the day of the Lord and His judgment on the nations – what happens to Jerusalem and God’s people Israel on the day of the Lord?. We see this in verses 17, 18, “But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.” While Edom could only look forward to doom and destruction, verse 17 says that there’s going to be deliverance on mount Zion, which is sort of a poetic name for Jerusalem. When is Obadiah talking about? When is this time that God is going to give deliverance to His own people, bless them and enable them to possess all this land mentioned in verses 19-20? It is the time of the millennial reign of Christ! It is the time that follows the day of the Lord, when Christ our Savior is going to put down all nations and exalt His own people and sit on His throne!
Those days will be characterized by true holiness. There is no true holiness in our world today – we can write all the laws we want and govern people with an iron fist, but sinful people will be sinful people and no matter what we do, we can’t change that. Even God’s people in His churches struggle daily with real holiness. We always have! You can’t find a period in all of history since the fall when the world hasn’t been characterized by lawlessness and wickedness, but in that day, the day when God will bring deliverance, when the kingdom shall be the Lord’s, the Bible says that Christ will rule and reign with righteousness!
Obadiah saw the Hebrew nation resettled in the Promised Land. Their sifting time would be over forever, the Jewish people will fully possess all the territory that God promised to Abraham. Holiness will be established throughout the kingdom, and the teachings of Jesus will stand as good and right for all the world. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the day that Christ returns and sets up His kingdom. I’m looking forward to the day when God is going to sort things out and punish unrighteousness. Sometimes we can feel like Asaph when he wrote Psalm 73 – he noticed that the wicked and unrighteous enjoyed good lives and godly people were stricken, but God’s Word tells us and Obadiah shows us that in the end God is going to sort all of that out and His people will be eternally blessed!
Why hasn’t the Lord returned yet? Why hasn’t He come to judge the nations? We already saw - it is because God is so gracious – every moment He delays His coming is a moment for people and nations to repent – even people like you and me. God is delaying the ultimate working out of His judgment on many nations until those who respond to the gospel in faith come to Him of their own free will.
So, what are we to learn from today’s portion? Vastation is defined as the great emptying out of concepts formed by self-intelligence and self-love. We all have to go through varying degrees of vastations at various times. What comes to mind is that parable in Matthew 13: 24, about the enemy coming to sow seeds of darnel while the owner slept. The owner of the field told his workers to wait until harvest time. If they had pulled the tares out too soon, they probably would have pulled out the good with the bad. So, the Lord remains patient. Question is, are we ready for our vastations, so that we will truly and daily take up our cross and follow Him?
For when we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done” whether we realize it or not, what we’re actually praying for is that the Lord’s Kingdom takes root in our hearts to begin with and in all the world as a result. And His Kingdom takes root in our hearts when we truly and completely surrender ourselves to Him daily and take up our cross and follow Him, of our own free will.
Let us pray!