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Meeting God, Again - Obadiah

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Meeting God, Again - Obadiah 1 Meeting God, Again - Obadiah Today we’re going to get into the book of Obadiah. It’s a short book, but wow! I was shocked to find out how it sometimes gets interpreted. So we’ll talk about Obadiah… why it was written… what it’s about… but this sermon also gives me the chance to talk about proper bible study. ​ ​ Here’s the thing… we need to study our Bibles responsibly. The Scriptures cannot mean what they don’t mean. In other words, the Scriptures we have were written purposefully. They had reasons for writing. They’re written by human beings under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Inspiration doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit took over their bodies and downloaded the Scriptures into their brains. No... God used real historical people… He used their individual talents… He used their passions… He used them in their own culture and circumstances… And He used them in their own contexts to convey the truths He chose to reveal to humanity. So a good rule to remember when studying the bible is that Scripture was not ​ written to us, but it is for us. ​ ​ ​ ​ Let the Bible speak for itself. Don’t fall for the temptation of reading our own modern perspectives and worldview into the Bible. We have a responsibility to read it in its own context so that we can discern the timeless truths that it has for us today. So, before we get into Obadiah, let me give you an example of how not to interpret the Scriptures… ​ Welcome to my Bad Bible Interpretation 101 Class Here’s Revelation 9:1-3 “The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the 2 smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.” ● Remember, this is an example of Bad Bible Interpretation: The Abyss ​ sounds a lot like an underground bunker that opens up… kind of like in the Avengers movie. But then locusts come out of the Abyss… locusts fly, and it sounds like they have some kind of power? What are these locusts? Let’s read on... Verses 7-9 say that the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle [so it ​ sounds like they were armored]. Their heads had something like a crown of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.” ● Bad Bible Interpretation: The locusts John saw must be fighter jets with a ​ detailed paint job! And the power that was like scorpions must be describing stinger missiles! After all… look at verses 4 and 5… Verses 4-5, “They [the locusts] were told not to harm the grass of the earth or ​ any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months.” ● Bad Bible Interpretation: These fighter jets were equipped with GPS ​ guided stinger missiles, that somehow would only seek out Christians. But they must be some sort of chemical weapon, because it causes the Christians to be tortured - or sick - for 5 months. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? I’ve actually heard and read Scripture being ​ interpreted this way. The problem is… well, there are numerous problems… but the main problem with my bad bible interpretation is that I completely ignored the fact that John was using Old Testament imagery to describe what he was seeing - the Old Testament is John’s context! 3 Did you know that the book of Revelation has by far the most Old Testament allusions?… well over 400! In fact, Bible scholars are well aware ​ that just about every verse in Revelation has at least one, if not multiple allusions to the Old Testament. So, it stands to reason that if we’re gonna have any hope of interpreting Revelation correctly, we need to know our Old Testament! Actually, the same is true for understanding the entire New Testament! Knowing our Old Testament is SO important! You would be hard pressed to find one New Testament verse in all of its 27 books that doesn’t somehow allude to the Old Testament. The Old Testament is important. They are the scriptures that our New Testament authors used and were very familiar with. When they talk about “the Scriptures,” they’re referring to what we call “The Old Testament.” And, as if that ​ ​ wasn’t enough, the Old Testament books are the very scriptures that Jesus used! ​ ​ So, if anyone ever says to you that we can unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament like we don’t need it anymore… they couldn’t be more mistaken. We ​ MUST be responsibly diligent with studying the WHOLE bible! That’s why we’re spending a lot of time in the Old Testament on Sunday mornings. By the end of this year, 56% of our sermons will have been from the Old Testament. The reason is because I’m convinced that those of us who follow Jesus need to read and study the whole bible. And as we do that, we need to be responsible with the text by allowing the Bible to remain in its own context. So you’re probably wondering… what were the locusts in John’s vision? Well, I would say that before we make a leap to fighter jets, we would do well by reading Exodus 10 where the LORD sends a plague of locusts over Egypt. We would also do well by revisiting the book of Joel that talks about a plague of locusts, which by the way had the appearance of horses and made a noise as loud as chariots (Joel 2:4-5). Clearly John had these passages in mind when he wrote Revelation 9 - the million dollar question is, why? But that can be for another time! Obadiah 4 Obadiah was a prophet of God. His name means “servant of Yahweh.” Other than that, we don’t know anything about him. There are at least 12 other Obadiah’s in the Old Testament, but there’s no concrete evidence that links any of them with this particular prophet. We do know that he lived in Judah - Yahweh God’s southern nation. We don’t know exactly when this book was written, however it could be the earliest book of the prophets… but it could also be a later book - we just don’t know. We do know that it lines up well with Jeremiah 49, but honestly, when this book was ​ ​ written doesn’t really matter because we don’t have enough information. What matters is the content in Obadiah. Obadiah 1-2 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. Who is Edom? [Map] Edom is a nation situated right below Judah. Their descendants can be ​ traced all the way back to Abraham’s son, Isaac. So we’ll need to talk about Isaac's family in order to figure out why Edom is being judged in Obadiah... Isaac was married to Rebekah, and they became pregnant with twins! The LORD said to her in Genesis 25, “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.” 5 When Rebekah gave birth, verses 25-26 say that “The first to come out was ​ red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.” The boys grew up, and at one point Jacob tricked his older brother Esau into selling his birthright to him. Esau was so hungry for red stew that he actually sold his birthright to Jacob, as long as Jacob would make it for him. So Jacob made the stew, got the birthright, and interestingly they started calling Esau “Edom” because of this - the word Edom means ‘red.’ ​ ​ ​ Birthrights were important in the ancient world because the firstborn son was the one who would get his father’s inheritance. Since Esau was born first, he had a rightful claim to it. But as we saw in previous verses, God said that the older brother would end up serving the younger brother. So Jacob got the inheritance from his father Isaac, and the scripture says in Genesis 27:41 that “Esau held a grudge against Jacob.” And this wasn’t just a little family squabble… Esau wanted to kill his brother! [twisted Cain & Abel] [Map] Eventually the brothers parted ways. Jacob was renamed “Israel” by ​ Yahweh God Himself, and his 12 sons and their descendants became the nation of Israel. Meanwhile, Esau took his family and headed to the hill country of Seir.
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