Obadiah 15-21

“God Will Silence His Bitter Rivals” Pentecost 10 – August 8th and 9th, 2009 Obadiah 15-21 The sports world sure has its share of bitter rivalries. Here in the state of Michigan, the rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State is always heated, as well as the football rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State. Michigan fans have stories about traveling to Columbus and being spat upon by Buckeye fans. In the National Football League, you’d be hard pressed to find two bigger rivalries than the Packers/Vikings, and the Cowboys/Eagles. In the baseball world, there is no bigger or more bitter rivalry than the one in the AL East between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. College basketball’s biggest rivalry has always been Duke and North Carolina, and in the NBA, the Lakers and the Celtics always find themselves locking horns in fierce battles. Everywhere you look in the sports world, there are rivalries that are intense, and if you are a fan on a particular side of any rivalry, there is nothing more satisfying than when you beat your biggest rival. Michigan fans can watch their football team have a mediocre season and live with it as long as they beat Ohio State. Red Sox fans can deal with not winning the World Series as long as they proved themselves better than the New York Yankees. In any rivalry, there is nothing more satisfying and gratifying than beating up on your most bitter rival, silencing their cheers and jeers once and for all! The sports world isn’t the only place where rivalries exist. There were bitter rivalries in the Bible, too! One of the most strained relationships was the one between two brothers, Jacob and Esau, a sibling rivalry that had farreaching implications. Even during the time of the prophet Obadiah, the bitter rivalry that began with Jacob and Esau was still being played out between the descendants of Esau, called Edomites, and the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob. And in this book of the Bible, the Edomites were disgracing the descendants of Jacob and desecrating God’s people and God’s land through disgusting idol worship, gloating all the while about their temporary superiority over the people of promise. The rivalry between Jacob and Esau was so pronounced that it became a pattern, a picture of the rivalry that continues to exist between believers and unbelievers today, “the house of Jacob” representing the children of faith, and “the house of Esau” representing everyone else whose hearts are hard towards the gospel. What we’ll learn from this obscure text is that even though it seems to us today, as it did to Obadiah in his day, that the enemies of God are the ones who are victorious and prospering, in the end, God silences his rivals, those who set themselves up against God and the True Christian Faith by rejecting his Messiah. Despite what our eyes may see every single day, the enemies of God will meet a crushing defeat, and the victors in Christ will ultimately win the day! I.

The enemies of God will meet a crushing defeat

In the sports world, there is nothing worse for a hometown fan than when a bitter rival struts around and gloats on your home turf. I remember back in 1999 when Terrell Owens, who is notorious for gloating, played for the San Francisco 49ers. And after he scored a touchdown in Dallas, he ran to the center of the field, where the big Dallas star is and put the football in the middle of the star and stood there, shooshing the crowd, gloating about his

great catch! For the Dallas fans that day, there was nothing worse than seeing the enemy standing in middle of their territory, standing in the middle of their home turf, gloating about his personal victory! That’s exactly what was happening at the time of Obadiah the prophet. The enemy, the Edomites who had turned away from the covenant promises of Yahweh, were gloating in the backyard of the Israelites, profaning the sacred places in Judah by becoming drunk, carousing, engaging in all kinds of sexually deviant behavior all on the holy hills of Jerusalem that were meant for worship. That would be like someone entering our sanctuary on a Sunday morning and having a college drinking party right here in the church proper! It’s unthinkable!! Think about how you would feel if you knew that was going on in your church building! You’d be embarrassed, disgraced, humiliated, because the one place that is supposed to remain separate from the vile practices of the unbelieving world, which is supposed to be dedicated to worship of the Triune God and supposed to be a blessing for God’s people, instead was being used a place to worship the unholy Trinity, the devil, the world and the sinful flesh! How ashamed we would be. That’s exactly what was happening in Jerusalem! The Edomites, the descendants of Esau, were humiliating the descendants of Jacob by desecrating their worship life. The prophet Obadiah, speaking by the Holy Spirit, offered this message to those enemies of God, the Edomites, who were gloating about their superiority over their sibling rivals: “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 the house of Jacob will possess its inheritance. 18 The house of Jacob will be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame; the house of Esau will be stubble, and they will set it on fire and consume it. There will be no survivors from the house of Esau.” The LORD has spoken. How clear Obadiah’s message was to the enemies of God: “You’re gloating now...but you just wait! Even though you seem to be the victorious ones now, there’s going to come a time when you will no longer gloat, a time when God’s people of faith will win the day – on the great and glorious day of the Lord!” Look around you today, in this world which has summarily and corporately rejected God and his Word and his Christ! To the naked eye, does it not seem that the enemy is winning the battle on God’s own turf? God created this world. He created it so perfectly that he, when he was finished said, “It is good!” But now, because of sin, what we see is the desecration of God and his Word! The majority of people in our world have rejected Jesus as the Christ. False teachers are going out left and right and telling people to put their trust in anything but Jesus for salvation– false gods, false prophets, human intellect, human feelings, and so on! Churches that teach the truth of God’s Word are relatively empty, while religious groups and movements that obscure the truth, pervert it, and lead people away from the cross of Christ can’t seem to find enough parking spaces for all the cars! To our eyes, the enemy is standing in the middle of the field and shooshing us, gloating about how strong and prosperous they are, and how weak and helpless we are! Let’s not let our eyes deceive us! God is in control! He is more powerful than the enemy that opposes him. And in the end, on that great and glorious Day of the Lord, which Obadiah references, two things are going to happen: Those who are on the opposing side, who have rejected Jesus as the Christ, they will be crushed in defeat as God will make them drink the wine of his judgment, sending them away from his presence for all eternity, and those who are on the side of truth will receive blessing from God, eternal blessing, because all who are connected to Jesus through faith are on the winning side and will share in his victory over the great enemy! II.

The victors in Christ will win the day!

When I think of great, victorious moments in sports, I immediately think of things like the last out of a World Series, the final kneel-down at the Super Bowl, the last seconds running off the clock at the NCAA Basketball tournament, or the last few ticks of the clock in the Stanley Cup finals. Those are great moments, because not only has a great achievement been accomplished, but everybody on the victorious side gets to celebrate. Think about the last out of the World Series. It’s always a great moment! When the last out is made, what usually happens? You don’t just have the nine players on the field celebrating! Everybody on the winning side goes crazy! The whole team rushes the field, whether they played in the game or not. Even the fans, who never stepped foot on the field, and never contributed one bit to the attaining of victory go crazy, because even though they physically didn’t do anything to help the team win, because of their connection to the team, they were victors too! When God speaks through the prophet Obadiah, he makes two points about the great and glorious Day of the Lord, the Last Day: 1st – All who are on the opposing side, who appear to be victorious and prosperous now, will drink the cup of judgment for their wickedness, sin and unbelief, and suffer crushing defeat. 2nd – All the children of faith will be on the winning side, even though we personally had nothing to do with winning the victory over sin and the devil. Everyone on the side of faith will be invited to celebrate victory for all eternity in the LORD’s heavenly kingdom. Verses 19-21 tell us: “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.” What our eyes see is that the enemies of God are prospering. But in the end, the children of faith will win the day! And like a sports fan whose team just won a championship, we will be able to celebrate victory forever, not because we ourselves did anything to win victory. The Great Deliverer of verse 21, the Deliverer par excellence, Jesus, who ultimately is in sight here, won victory for us! Time and again, we lose the battle with sin. We lose the battle with the devil, who successfully tempts us into all kinds of shameful vices. But the blood of Jesus, the Deliverer, washed away all sins of all people for all time. The blood of Jesus was accepted by the Father as payment for all of our transgressions, and when Jesus rose from the dead, that was his declaration of victory. And it’s his promise, a sure promise to all of us, that whoever is connected to Jesus by faith, through the work of the Holy Spirit, they will share in his victory celebration in heaven, even though we had nothing to do with obtaining the victory. Because Jesus won the victory over sin, death and the devil, anyone who is connected to Jesus by faith has also won the victory! So much for bitter rivalry! In the end, a rivalry ceases to be a rivalry when one side wins all the time! Fellow victors in Christ Jesus, the victory over sin and the devil has already been achieved by the Great Deliverer! And the day is coming when the rivals of God, his enemies will be silenced forever, the great and glorious day of the Lord! And how apropos that the final verse of Obadiah, the concluding thought is also the fitting conclusion to all history! “The kingdom will be the LORD’s.” Rejoice, fellow Christians! On that day, you who are connected to Jesus will be on the winning side, and your victory cheer will be loud and clear: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah!” Amen.