It Will Be Mighty Sore Where The Eagle Soars! Obadiah 1:1-21 Pastor Barry Kerner
It Will Be Mighty Sore Where The Eagle Soars!
Obadiah 1:1-21
Pastor Barry Kerner
Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, but it covers a lot of ground in only twenty-one verses. Obadiah’s name means a slave or bondservant of Yahweh, a form of Jehovah. Paul called himself a bondservant of Christ and we are to be the same. In that, we have a kinship to this writer.
According to the Talmud, Obadiah is said to have been a convert to Judaism from Edom. He’s said to be a descendant of Eliphaz, the friend of Job. He is identified with the Obadiah who was the servant of Ahab, and it is said that he was chosen to prophesy against Edom because he himself was an Edomite. Moreover, having lived with two such godless persons as Ahab and Jezebel, without learning to act as they did, he seemed the most suitable person to prophesy against the Edomites who were the descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau.
Obadiah is supposed to have received the gift of prophecy for having hidden the “hundred prophets” from the persecution of Jezebel. The story of which can be read in 1 Kings 18. It is said that he hid the prophets in two caves, so that if those in one cave should be discovered those in the other might yet escape.
Obadiah was thought to be very rich, but all his wealth was expended in feeding the poor prophets, until, in order to be able to continue to support them, he had to borrow money at interest from Ahab’s son Jehoram. The Talmud goes on to say that Obadiah’s fear of God was one degree higher than that of Abraham; and if the house of Ahab had been capable of being blessed, it would have been blessed for Obadiah’s sake.
Some folks do not like to study the Old Testament. They see no use for it since we are now living in New Testament times which are the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Besides, we are Gentiles and do not need to know all that ancient Hebrew history. This is not a new thing. There was a move among the early church to burn the Old Testament and forget it completely. Fortunately, God raised up many men to preserve the Old Testament for us.
Those that discount the Old Testament forget 1 Corinthians 10:11 where it says, “These things (The Old Testament) happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. They neglect 2 Timothy 3:16 which tells us that, “All Scripture (Including the Old testament) is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” Those passages tell me I am not supposed to throw out any Scripture including the Old Testament. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” In the Parable of the Dragnet, Jesus told His disciples, “ the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things.” Jesus was speaking of the Old Testament and His New Testament teachings. We need to know both the Old and New Testaments to be approved and to correctly handle the word of truth.
With that said let’s read the 21 verses of Obadiah’s prophesy against the nation of Edom.
The Edomites were kin to Israel because they were descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau. Now, we know that Jacob and Esau had a bit of a family feud over a birthright, but they worked it out. Their descendants did not do as well. There was a constant rivalry and just plain bad blood between them. Sort of like the generational feud between the Hatfields and McCoy’s.
Verse 3 reads, “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?”” The Edomites felt mighty secure in their mountain fortress called Sela’. The Edomites refuge is modern day Petra on Mt. Seir. Petra, meaning “Rock” in Greek, is a deserted city south of the Dead Sea in Jordan. In antiquity it was known as Seir, metropolis of the Edomites. In later times, the Nabateans settled in the mountain stronghold of the dislodged Edomites and called their capital Petra. The city is situated in a rift valley which extends from the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem through the Dead Sea and further south. Indications are that an earthquake and volcanic activity occurred here, forming a big canyon with rocky ravines and steep cliffs. The remains of the spectacular city consist of temples, tombs and dwellings carved out of the sandstone cliffs. The only entrance to the city is through a narrow gorge almost two kilometers in length, which can easily be guarded and even blocked if necessary, thus rendering Petra a very safe refuge.
Some end times prophesies have the remnant of the Jews fleeing to Petra during the Tribulation. In fact, one group has placed sealed New Testaments in the caves of that city so that when the fleeing Jews get there they can read them and be saved. Now that is putting shoe leather to your faith.
With what seemed like an impregnable refuge, the Edomites got to be a mighty proud and haughty. Who could touch them? To attack was certain death and defeat. They most likely even got to believing that God was on their side. But in 2 Chronicles 25:12 and 2 Kings 14:7 is found one of the Old Testament’s colder and more brutal episodes, King Amaziah of Judah (c. 801–783 B.C.E.), after having slain nearly 10,000 Edomites in battle near the southern end of the Dead Sea, is said to have thrown another 10,000 captives from the top of nearby Sela, where they were “dashed to pieces”
Traditionally, when kinfolk were attacked the rest of the family jumped in on the fight. But the Edomites disliked the sons of Jacob so much that they did not come to help them when other nations fought with Israel. Not only did they not help but verses 12 and 13 tell us that they jumped into the fray, gloated over Israel’s misfortune and seized some of Israel’s wealth for themselves. Kings and Chronicles show us at least three times when the Edomites were against Israel when they should have been by their side. The lowest blow of all is found in verse 14 where they caught the Israelites that were escaping and turned them over to the enemy. Some of you might have relatives like that and understand what Israel must have felt like at these times.
They must have gotten even cockier each time they looted Israel, but they forgot who was keeping accounts. They found out whose side God was really on and that He does avenge His people. In fact Romans 12:19 says, “Avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” In verse 4 Obadiah prophesies, “Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord.” It would get mighty sore where the eagle soars because God was not going to pull any punches.
The Edomites got a lesson in greed. Verse 5 says it’s because they could never get enough and left nothing whenever they spoiled their kinfolk. Verse 10 tells us that God would cut them completely off and destroy them.
They got a lesson in disloyalty. In verses 6 and 7 Obadiah let them know that because they had been disloyal to their family, the groups they had broken bread with and had made treaties with, the enemies of Israel, were the ones that would be used to bring about their demise. Job 18:18 says, “He is cast into a net by his own feet — By his own choice, design, and actions. And he walketh upon a snare.“ Psalm 69:22 warns, “The table set before them will become a snare; it will become retribution and a trap. And, Proverbs 1:31 says, “They will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.” God has been known to allow the wicked to be punished by the very thing they enjoyed doing to others.
They got a lesson in trust and dependence. They trusted in their military, their wise men, and their geography, not their spiritual heritage. God made sure that all three failed them. They should have sought the God of their fathers and asked Him for wisdom. Then they would have reconciled with their kinsfolk and prospered instead of perished. Their trust and dependence would have been in God and they would today have a place in Israel.
They received lessons in what treachery and lack of mercy brings to the perpetrators. Every thing they did, their gloating, rejoicing and boasting over the troubles of Israel; their looting of Israel’s wealth; and the lack of mercy shown to their Israelite prisoners would come back to haunt them. What they did to Jacob would come back upon their heads. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, what goes around comes around. Galatians 6:7-8 warns, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
They also learned that God is in control and that He does avenge His people. His timing may not be fast, so the wicked think God is dead, getting senile or that they are just too slick. Then God makes His move and He does it swiftly. His enemies are consumed in an instant. There are numerous examples of this throughout the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we have the wicked laughing at the concept of Christ returning since He has delayed His return. Therefore, they think Christians are idiots. They think that they are in control and have nothing to fear. But Psalm 2 reminds them, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? You, my Son, You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” And, 2 Peter 3 warns, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.” In the end, judgment will come to scoffers and evildoers as swiftly as it did to those who perished in the flood. God always gets the last laugh.
The mountain folk in Edom learned it was not good idea to party and plunder on God’s holy mountain. Because of their evilness He would to let the heathen nations party and plunder them on His mountain. Verse 16 tells us that when the party is over, it will be as if the mighty mountain men of Edom had never existed. Great would be their desolation!
In the end, God’s people get deliverance. You see God’s people needed some lessons here as well. I am sure that they cried out to God every time these Edomites and others had plundered them. I am sure they wondered where was the God of Israel. Their enemies asked them that as they conquered them and at those desperate times, they had to have had their own doubts.
Deuteronomy 32:25 explains, “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” Sometimes God tarries but in due time, His time, He repays. Israel learned patience. God avenged them, but in His own time. They learned dependence and to trust in Him. In none of those times did their wisdom or military might deliver them. When they finally did achieve a military victory against the Edomites in verses 17-19 they knew it was from God.
All of this seems to have taught them obedience and repentance since holiness was a part of the deliverance and possession of Edom. They learned again the lessons of Job. They had lost things in the past, but in verses 19 and 20 we see that when God did His work among them, they, like Job, would receive much more than what they had lost to the Edomites.
Finally, in verse 21, Israel, the saved ones would be judges and rulers in the land of the Edomites but the kingdom will be the Lords. It was not really the Israelites’ kingdom. It is God’s kingdom. He gave it to them and He could take it away. They were merely stewards and recipients of His gift.
Okay, you say, the history lesson was fine. What has all that to do with us? Christians definitely need to learn the lessons that the Israelites learned. We are often as forgetful and as doubtful as they were. Christians and this nation need to learn from the errors of the Edomites as well.
We are a greedy people. Americans consume most of the assets of this planet. We have so much more than anyone else does and yet we demand more. Sadly, Christians are not immune from this sickness. We need to reassess and determine to make our needs equal to Scriptural principles and our priorities those that affect eternity.
As a nation, we have a history of disloyalty. We have made many treaties and broken many promises to our own people as well as to our allies. Christians too have broken many promises. To God, to each other, and to the lost that looked to us in trust because of our profession of faith.
As a nation, we trust in the eagle. We thought ourselves invincible because of geography until technology brought war to our shores in 1941. Now death and destruction can come from anywhere by many more means than ever imaginable in the history of mankind. We trusted in our intellect. Now our education system struggles to even give us functionally literate high school graduates. We trust in our military might yet even our best technology has had failure after failure in battles and conflicts around the world.
American Christians trust in the same things. They think this is a Christian nation. That is true only in name. In practice, we are as pagan and as far from God as ancient Rome or Greece. We are polytheistic worshiping many gods and idols. We worship sports idols, movie stars, sex, money, power and much more. The list is truly unending. Someone recently told me that the great tragedy is that the church pursues happiness instead of holiness. The cause of our problems is our loss of focus and our dependence and trust in things other than God. 2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us that until that changes our nation and churches cannot be healed nor delivered. All those things failed the Edomites who trusted in their eagle’s nest. May our eagle not have to learn the same lesson or suffer the same fate. God can make it mighty sore where our eagle soars as He did in Edom.
As a nation, we have had treacherous politicians and business magnates that have shown no mercy. They have lived for their own profit and programs and woe be it unto any that stood in their way. We may never know the truth about many things that have happened even in our lifetime and we know history has often been revised to protect the guilty. Many loyal workers have been disposed of like leftovers when it suited the company. Politicians have casually broken many promises. We live in an age where none of them are trusted. Although God has always despised child sacrifice, unborn children have been killed and cut away like warts or parasites because their own mothers and lawyer-politicians have no mercy.
When our brothers and sisters err or sin we gloat over them and boast of our own self righteousness. We who have received mercy show no mercy to our own or the lost. Pastors build their kingdoms and not His kingdom, abusing and scattering the sheep they were meant to feed and protect.
We need to relearn the sovereignty of God and not party and plunder in His Church. We are supposed to be a nation built on the foundations of His Word. Yet we have kicked Him out of our schools and courts. Is it any wonder that we have crime in the schools and no justice in the courts? We are a nation built on the right to religious freedom and yet we cannot pray where we want or speak our faith when and where we please. Courts and schools abridge and deny our “inalienable rights.”
Have friends over for Bible study on a routine basis and if the city finds out you will be ruled as a church and be fined for breaking zoning laws. However, a neighbor can have friends over every weekend to drink and watch the game and no one would raise an eyebrow. Our motto is, “In God, We Trust” but, seldom do we rely on Him instead we depend on our own power. Separation of church and state meant that the state had no control over the church not that the church is banned from any influence on the state.
Christians see God as a big Buddy and not the Lord. Men dare to make merchandise of Him and fleece people in His name. We treat Him like a big fire escape and a Divine gift dispenser. We have no fear or awe of Him. Instead of conforming to His image, we have Him all figured out and molded Him into our image. We have His pager number and He is on call 24/7 – just for us. We have no true understanding of sin.
Many Christians just play church. Our fellowships are just parties with a devotional or a prayer tacked on to make it Christian. We have taken control of His church from Him. Many services are sporadic and emotionally dictated. When it is not fun anymore or we are no longer fulfilled we quit. If we are not fed we whine and try a new playground.
The Lord leads us into green pastures. He expects us to feed ourselves and as long as we play and whine, the grass will not be greener on any side of the fence.
No man or organization can replace the King and Shepherd of our souls. He is still seated on His throne. We have just set up a new one and put ourselves on it. We’ve forgotten that His Son is still seated at his right hand with the nations as His footstool. The party that never should have been must end and we must return to fall on our knees before His throne. We need to seek His grace and His help in our present need.
The Book of Obadiah is just twenty-one verses from a servant of God long dead to a people long gone. But, it is full of teachings and warnings directed to America and His church. The recipients of Obadiah’s message learned nothing from it and they perished. Will we take note and learn anything from it? If we ignore it, our eagle may cease to soar and Christians may up end mighty sore. If we repent of the sins of the Edomites and learn the lessons of the Israelites we will know national and spiritual prosperity. May God help us to do so!