And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

The video of the Bible Project is a good summary of the book of Obadiah and of understanding how God set up a complicated but consistent God’s Plan, His Sovereign Ways, His Judgment of all, and how Jesus did and will uncomplicate the worst of complications by defeating the evil that goes against God. God’s ways are MUCH higher than our ways.

Video of Obadiah explained here:

One complication we know is of within our families – and small scale complications feels big scale in small units. Nation against nation is big and complicated too, especially when we know people within them who are friends and even family. To God, all people are family, and it’s all been complicated from the start. Adam’s children Cain and Abel, then the history of the lineage of Israel’s Jacob from his brother Esau is life being complicated and sticky. This continued in Jacob and Esau’s descendants Israel and Edom folks, where Edom took advantage of Israel being captured by Babylon. God promised judgement on any nation against Israel, and that’s a huge conversation that can still be discussed to this day. God’s family dynamics are just as (much more) complicated than ours!

However what’s even bigger in God’s power and realm, is His Plan to get us past all the problems. And the end of Obadiah speaks to this 

“The pride of your heart has deceived you” – this pertains to all of us and we could judge situations and others, and God could and will judge us. This is yet another reason for us to praise the gift of grace in Jesus. Not just what we get from Jesus, now, but what we already got – we got God’s plan planned out, our job is to follow through in faith. We also get the mercy for not being punished as we could be. And what we WILL get, is to watch all nations bow down to God one day, and all evil fall, knees down, to be humbled before the Lord who will destroy evil once and for all. (See the book of Revelation.)

Life will get worse before it will get better, so hold onto the hope which is holding on to you.

And family dynamics? Best to grin and bear it, in the holidays and always. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Love never fails.

Amen 

Obadiah

New King James Version

The Coming Judgment on Edom

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”):

“Behold, I will make you small among the nations; You shall be greatly despised. 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?’ 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.

“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?

“Oh, how Esau shall be searched out! How his hidden treasures shall be sought after! 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.

“Will I not in that day,” says the Lord, “Even destroy the wise men from Edom, And understanding from the mountains of Esau? 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

“For violence against your brother Jacob, Shame shall cover you, And you shall be cut off forever. 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.

“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. 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. 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.

“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. 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

“But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, And there shall be holiness; The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. 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.

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. 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. Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion To judge the mountains of Esau, And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.