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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
The Old Testament prophets were primarily forth tellers rather than foretellers.
They communicated the message of God to the needs of the day.
“Listen to the Major messages of the Minor Prophets’ is the title of the series we will be working through for the next few weeks.
Today we are talking about Obadiah, Possessing Our Possessions.
Text
Obadiah 17 NKJV
“But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance,
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
Scripture Reading
Obadiah 1-21 NKJV
The Coming Judgment on Edom
1 The vision of Obadiah.
Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom
(We have heard a report from the Lord,
And a messenger has been sent among the nations, saying,
“Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle”):
2 “Behold, I will make you small among the nations;
You shall be greatly despised.
3 The pride of your heart has deceived you,
You who dwell in the clefts of the rock,
Whose habitation is high;
You who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’
4 Though you ascend as high as the eagle,
And though you set your nest among the stars,
From there I will bring you down,” says the Lord.
5 “If thieves had come to you,
If robbers by night—
Oh, how you will be cut off!—
Would they not have stolen till they had enough?
If grape-gatherers had come to you,
Would they not have left some gleanings?
6 “Oh, how Esau shall be searched out!
How his hidden treasures shall be sought after!
7 All the men in your confederacy
Shall force you to the border;
The men at peace with you
Shall deceive you and prevail against you.
Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you.
No one is aware of it.
8 “Will I not in that day,” says the Lord,
“Even destroy the wise men from Edom,
And understanding from the mountains of Esau?
9 Then your mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed,
To the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau
May be cut off by slaughter.
Edom Mistreated His Brother
10 “For violence against your brother Jacob,
Shame shall cover you,
And you shall be cut off forever.
11 In the day that you stood on the other side—
In the day that strangers carried captive his forces,
When foreigners entered his gates
And cast lots for Jerusalem—
Even you were as one of them.
12 “But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother
In the day of his captivity;
Nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah
In the day of their destruction;
Nor should you have spoken proudly
In the day of distress.
13 You should not have entered the gate of My people
In the day of their calamity.
Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction
In the day of their calamity,
Nor laid hands on their substance
In the day of their calamity.
14 You should not have stood at the crossroads
To cut off those among them who escaped;
Nor should you have delivered up those among them who remained
In the day of distress.
15 “For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near;
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you drank on My holy mountain,
So shall all the nations drink continually;
Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,
And they shall be as though they had never been.
Israel’s Final Triumph
17 “But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance,
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the Lord has spoken.
19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau,
And the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As far as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
Shall possess the cities of the South.
21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
Prayer
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Introduction
Fighting among brothers is deplorable, and the results are disastrous.
A great example is that of Esau and Jacob.
Although the two brothers were later reconciled, the feud between their descendants went on for generations as the memory of ancient wrong was perpetuated.
Petty meanness and open hostility marked Edom’s attitude toward Israel.
Outbursts of their hatred toward one another punctuated the history of both nations.
On the Israelites’ journey to Canaan, the Edomites refused Israel permission to pass through their territory.
Later there was hard fighting between the Edomites and King Saul.
David took stern measures against them, as did Solomon.
Rigorous repression, however, only served to widen the gap and intensify the hatred between the two peoples.
Under King Jehoshaphat there was a renewal of hostilities as Moab and Ammon formed a triple alliance with Edom to invade Judah.
Under Kink Amaziah’s punitive hand, Edom suffered a crushing blow.
Petra was taken, and many of Edom’s fighting men were slain.
Still unsubdued and implacable, Edom cherished its unpaid scores.
Hatred lived on, intensifying as the years passed.
In 587 BC when Jerusalem fell before Nebuchadnezzar, the Edomites played the part of the jackal to the Babylonian lion, praying upon the stragglers and rejoicing over the ruin of Jacob.
The writer of Psalm 137 remembered that the Edomites said, probably of the temple, “Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”
This opens up the meaning of the prophecy of Obadiah.
This brief prophecy has three parts.
Firstly it denounces the pride of the Edomites, who felt secure in their mountain fortress.
Obadiah reminded them that no fortress is secure for those who deserve the judgement of God.
Second, Edom’s treatment of her sister nation is described and condemned.
Obadiah’s God was the protector of Israel, and to betray her was to defy Him.
And the third part is the prophet’s message of hope for dispossessed and exiled Israel.
This prophecy says in effect, “The world will be ruled in righteousness. The sovereignty of God that guarantees the destruction of Edom assures also the eventual restoration of Israel.”
Obadiah’s eye of faith looked beyond the darkness of the day and saw the clear light of God’s dawn.
Verse 17, “The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.”
Was this not Israel’s problem throughout their history?
They had not, in any real sense, possessed their possessions.
Is this not our problem as a great nation?
As we apply this thought, three questions can be asked.
- What are our possessions?
We have material possessions.
We live in a land where wealth accumulates.
Where a labourer can enjoy not only the necessities of life but a fair share of the luxuries as well.
We have political possessions.
We are born, reared, and nurtured in the tradition of government “of the people”, we are a democracy!
We don’t know and can’t grasp the full meaning of the tyranny that others know.
The right to vote, to choose those who will serve us in government, to approve those who serve well, and to dismiss those who don’t.
What a treasure this is and we take it for granted!
We have social possessions.
In Australia we have no royalty, no commoners, no aristocracy, except that of superior ability.
The ideal of a society where neither class, caste, creed, gender, nor colour shall divide, and where a person shall be accepted on the face value of their demonstrated worth, that is the structure of the society to which we are committed.
Even though is has not always been practiced, the ideal that all humans are created equal before God is in the very roots of the first principles of our social order.
We have religious possessions.
Our spiritual heritage is that of a free church in a free state.
No religious institution shall be favoured over any other, and there should be no approved state religion.
Imbedded deep within our history and culture is the guarantee that every person shall have the right to worship God.
What a possession the is!
These are our possessions, but have we possessed them?
Do we appreciate them as we ought?
Do we use them for the best and highest advantage?
Do we know what to do with them?
2. How shall we possess our possessions?
Its a matter of appreciation.
If, in the highest sense, we have not possessed these wonderful possessions, it is because we have not appreciated them for their true worth.
Its a matter of utilisation.
What we use we keep.
It multiplies.
But what we fail to use we lose.
This is true of all our great blessings.
My hope and prayer is that we raise up a generation genuinely interested in politics, a generation that will sincerely participate in the political process.
We have blamed politics for many of our problems when we ought to have blamed ourselves.
This is just an effort on our part to cover our failure to participate.
It is a matter of correct utilisation.
Having a lot of money and a huge house and nice cars won’t make you happy.
Making money doing something that helps people will give you much more pleasure.
That is possessing your possessions.
3. What if we do not possess our possessions?
Our material possessions may possess us.
How deadly is that!
It may be said of many people that they have money and land, houses and cars, stocks and bonds and securities.
These things are legally theirs, but they do not actually own them.
Their possessions own them and use them and enslave them in terrible bondage.
How many people work their entire life to get stuff, and then retire and are dead within a short time!
We may lose our possessions if they are unappreciated and unused.
This is a case of use it or lose it.
If our possessions are misused, they may destroy us.
Our country has an arsenal of weapons to be used for war.
We may ask, Will we use this possession correctly or, incorrectly, will it destroy us?
Conclusion.
Let us pray that we might be able to possess our possessions for the glory of God and for the good of our fellow humans.
Let us be on guard lest our possessions enslave us and abuse those around us.
Until next time
Stay in the Blessings
Giving
I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.
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2022 IS A YEAR OF REPENTANCE AND BLESSINGS
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