obadiah's Warning to Edom...Jacob /Essau pt 4

06-07-21 | Bill Randles

[pastorbillrandles]

For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. ( Obadiah 10)

Time and again, the Prophets of the Bible warn Edom, of terrible judgment coming upon them for the violence perpetrated against His brother , Jacob. It is ironic that 'Hamas' is a Hebrew word for violence.

The book of Obadiah is at first a specific warning to Edom, but in verse 15 it extends to the Nations as a whole of the impending judgment upon them for their treatment of Jacob, (ie Israel).

Like it or not, God has a foreign policy for all of the nations , stated clearly in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, and verse three, when He said to Abraham, “I will bless Him that blesses thee, and curse Him that curses thee…”.

Judgment is coming upon Edom and the nations of the world which have delighted in shedding innocent blood , and particularly the blood of Jews. the Prophet Joel echoes Obadiah, when He proclaims,

But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah,     in whose land they shed innocent blood. Judah will be inhabited foreverand Jerusalem through all generations. Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged?     No, I will not.” (Joel 3:19-21)

Ezekiel also is pointed in his prophecy against MT Seir, (Edom) , whom he indicted for loving to shed the blood of Israel,

Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it,  And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:  Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.Ezekiel 35:2-6

Of course it is Islam, the religion which took up the original grievances of Ishmael and Esau against the LORD and the Jews, which has promoted so very much of this violence. Islam has a tenet which insists upon violence against Israel which is called “the Prophecy of the Tree”,

It is narrated in the hadith that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until you fight the Jews, until a Jew will hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah, here is a Jew behind me; come and kill him – except the gharqad (a kind of thorny trees)

The demonic “Prophecy of the Tree” anticipated by so many of Esau’s spiritual offspring, is eerily reminiscent of other terrifying experiences in which Eau took advantage of Jacob in the darkest days of previous calamities, such as in the time when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the nation was taken off into captivity. Edom rejoiced in that day and took no pity on His brother Jacob.

In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.  But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress.  Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity; 1Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.(Obadiah 11-14)

The God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob saw this. Notice the Divine reproof, “You shouldn’t have…” stood by idly, (and gleefully), in the day of their calamity, nor should you have taken their possessions, nor spoken proudly (gloating?). What else shouldn’t they have done? They shouldn’t have entered into the ruined Jerusalem, and plundered it in the darkest hour, nor should they have helped the Babylonians by blocking the escape of any fleeing Jews, and they certainly shouldn’t have turned in those whom they did capture,

But Edom did do all of those low and hateful things, they couldn’t do otherwise because of the deep hatred that they nurtured in their hearts for centuries against Jacob, and Jacob’s God. Edom would do this again and again also, such as when Romans besieged Jerusalem. They would do the same hateful things against God’s people. The same happened in the days of the Muslims and even recently in the time of the Nazi’s. The largest group of Waffen SS was recruited by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was a personal friend of Hitler. Even today, in our time we hear Edomites such as Mahmoud Abbas, the planner and financier of the slaughter of the 1972 Israeli Olympic team, call for a “Knife Jihad” saying, “We welcome every drop of blood shed in Jerusalem”. Edom is consumed by something called “The everlasting hatred” and only submission to the God of Jacob can deliver him from it.

The vision of Obadiah spreads out to all of the Nations, for in the wrestling of Jacob and Esau the entire world is required to choose a side and identify with one or the other of the twins;

For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.  And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.( Obadiah 15-18)

“As ye have done, it shall be done unto thee…” The nations of the world have a choice to make, either blessing or curse, according to their treatment of Israel, God’s prodigal children. It is frightening that as we approach the time of Judgment, the “Day of the LORD” , an irrational Anti-Semitism is sweeping the world and consuming millions of otherwise reasonable people with hatred for the Jews.

“You have drunk upon my Holy Mountain…” the most sensitive piece of real estate on the planet is the 35 acre platform known as the “Temple Mount”. Currently Esau inhabits it, and for the most part the United Nations supports them in their desecration of it. “Drinking on the Holy Mountain “ seems to suggest some kind of religious use of it. Every Friday Hatred spews forth from the Mosque there, in the place that in the time of Solomon God says HE placed his very name forever. God will turn this profane drinking of Edom and the Nations into a “cup of trembling” which they will all, drink deeply to their own destruction.

Zechariah agrees that Jerusalem will be one of the contentious issues of the final Judgment, and Day of the LORD,

The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.  Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1-3)

God will use the Jewish people to execute Judgment upon Edom, and ultimately , Jacob will possess all that the Edomites currently call their own. Currently Edomites are squatters on Zion, the Holy mountain, profaning it every day. They also claim the western coastland of Israel, GAZA, and the fields of Ephraim and Samaria as well as Gilead, the eastern coast of the Jordan River. All of this is Land God bequeathed to the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by an everlasting covenant. It is amazing the Obadiah anticipated those usurpations and specifically assured Jacob that God would cause him to possess them once again.

And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.  And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.  And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south. And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. (Obadiah 18-21)

[gov_bean_ counter]

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

Golda Meir

[sauropod]

Thanks for posting this, pastor. I always learn something from your posts.

[Fungi]

Did Golda know this?
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/israel-has-oil-shale-deposits-similar-to-saudi-arabia-knesset-learns/2020/07/08/

[Jan_Sobieski]

Have you heard of the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields off the coast of Haifa. Game changers in the Natural Gas world