Obadiah 1:1-21, Revelation 4:1-11, Psalm 132:1-18, Proverbs 29:24-25
Today is the 13th day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian, it is wonderful to be here with you today as we continue the journey forward.
Introduction to the Book of Obadiah:
We have a brand-new book that we are encountering today in the Old Testament another of the grouping known as the minor prophets. This book is known as Obadiah and it is the shortest book in the Old Testament. So, we will read the entire book of Obadiah today and it’s probably hard to notice that we aren’t moving rapidly because we’re moving through shorter passages of Scripture. So, it’s easy enough because we’re doing this all-in-one day to just, ah, just kind of glance across it, just glaze over it, because we can get in the mindset, these are just ancient prophecies there…there things that were important, there things that God did, there things we should pay attention to but they happened a long time ago. And that would be true about Obadiah, but the theme, what’s being talked about in Obadiah is very current, very relevant to us today and also gives us a chance to, look back at some of the territory that we will remember moving through earlier in the year. So, the book is called Obadiah. Obadiah identifies himself as the author of this work but nobody knows hardly anything about who Obadiah was, his name means servant of Yahweh, but it seems that Obadiah wasn’t an uncommon name and so trying to date this prophecy has its challenges. Most scholars, kind of come to the conclusion that Obadiah was a prophet and probably contemporary with Jeremiah and that he’s prophesying using the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as his context and if that is a…a correct assumption, then that would date Obadiah to the late 500s BC when Babylon did conquer Judah and destroyed Jerusalem. That is some territory that we have been looking at for a while now and so we’re…we’re fairly familiar with the exiles and the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests. But what Obadiah is dealing with is much, much longer running problem, a much deeper issue, actually, it’s a family issue. And there’s only 21 versus and Obadiah and so he gets right to the point because Obadiah is essentially a prophecy against the Edomites. And so, let’s remember our journey, let’s go back to Genesis, let’s remember the people, Jacob and Esau, the brother’s. Remember Jacob steals the birthright. Jacob steals the blessing and has to flee from Esau and they are reunited decades later, and in the process, Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and that’s how his children became to be known as the children of Israel. But Esau also had descendants and they also prospered and flourished and they became known as the Edomites. So, we have the descendants of the two brothers, family. And as we know eventually the children of Israel ended up in slavery in Egypt and then God freed them from their slavery in Egypt through the plagues and then they began to wander around waiting for God to send them into the promised land, the land that had been promised so long ago. And so, they had to move around in the wilderness, but at times tried to navigate around other nations and many times the nations would not allow them to pass, even though they’re like we will stay on the road, we will pay for the water, we will pay for anything, we just we only need to get through we don’t have any plans. Well, the Edomites were one of those nations, their brothers and the Edomites would not let their relatives pass through their land as they went on toward their own land. And there are other points when Israel is in the promised land, but they’re being attacked and they’re at war and the Edomites would not come to the rescue of their brothers. They stood by and allowed them to be attacked, passively. But they weren’t always just passive. The Edomites, brothers to the children of Israel were…were willing to pillage their own family while they were suffering. And so, we’ll see that Obadiah is prophesying the destruction of Edom. Where this becomes really immediate to us is that as believers in Jesus, as Christians we believe we have been redeemed through Jesus and that redemption, of no merit of our own, has made us children of God. And so, all of us who have been accepted into the family of God, we are family. We are brothers and sisters and it…it’s part of our church history that this has been going on all along, but it is very evident today. It’s very easy because of technology to see the family at war with itself, to be violent toward each other with our words. And often enough, we see this stuff going on and people being hurt and we stand by silently, just let it happen. Just bear witness to it or we might pillage or we might even cross our arms and shake our heads at the people who are suffering and say they’re getting God’s judgment, they’re getting what they deserve, as if we would now and as if we would have any say what so ever. The way that this plays out in the Bible, especially in this book that we are about to read is that God rejects that posture and hates that posture enough to send a prophet to tell the Edomites that they’re gonna fall apart. God takes no pleasure at all in that kind of behavior, that should be a little bit of an “ouch” and an opportunity for reflection and repentance. So, let’s read together in its entirety Obadiah.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for what we encountered today in the book of Obadiah and the things that it causes us to consider because we remember those stories as we went through them earlier in the year, the Edomites. Now, as we approach the end of the year, we see in Obadiah how you feel about family, on family hatred and we confess because it’s obvious we are still dealing with some of these issues. So, we invite Your Holy Spirit into our space, into our hearts, where is this lingering in us. Because this is where the change begins when we take ownership and responsibility for ourselves and our own actions. And as we approach the holidays we need this message, we need to remember this and so Holy Spirit would You plant this in the soil of our lives that it can linger, that we can continue to meditate upon it through the remainder of this year. And we thank You for what we read today in Revelation and so this is what our prayer is, this is what we say as we conclude today Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. There is none like You God, which is a silly understatement to say the least. But there is none like You and that You have grafted us into Your family and adopted us as children. What do we say besides Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come? We worship You. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com that is home base and it’s Christmas time around here. So, everything is Christmas around here like everywhere. I can’t, it's…it’s next week so we have come to sort of the end of when we can ship, we will ship as long as we have resources available to ship but we are kind of past the deadline for any kind of international arrival. Although we will certainly ship all the resources your way. Domestically, I would say we’re right there. So, if you want to check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop and check out the Christmas section, find the Christmas box for 2021 there, Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible there, as well as any other resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Check those out. Some of them make for really unique and well-timed Christmas gifts. So, check that out.
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And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
I’ll call myself WWW that’s Western Wyoming Warrior. I’ve been listening for about the last four years, off and on. And until about October it’s been steady. All the trauma and tragedy I’ve heard, it’s so sad. There’s also the triumphs, praise our Blessed Father in heaven. I just praise Him. I just came from the doctor yesterday with the devastating news that my injury from my break in my hand is not healing. The bone is said to look like Swiss cheese and it’s very painful. I’m gonna have to have major surgery but it’s gonna take a year of recovery. And I just can’t afford to that I live by myself and don’t have the insurance that I need. I’m a medical assistant and mainly a phlebotomist and I really need my hand. And I’m just asking for God’s favor. God’s will be done. I praise my God in heaven for an answer and a head of this request. And I just pray for healing. Thank you all DABers for your prayers and I praise God for all you out there, I pray for you every day. Blessings everyone.
Hello DAB family, this is Cassie from Arizona. I’d like to request prayers for myself and my household, also as well as my best-friends household. Shealynn and Vinnie, her husband has a pre-existing condition and we’ve all come down with COVID19. If you guys could just pray for us that we all make it through this okay. And we get through this together. I thank you and I love you all. Thank you for your prayers.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is New Eyes in Tennessee and I have really continued to enjoy you all calling in and lifting each other up. And so today, I have a prayer request that I would ask that you would lift me and my family up. My daughters are struggling and they have been believing lies and my husband and I are desperately trying to just affirm them, love them in the love that Jesus. We are walking in the truth no matter what our daughters believes as teenagers, about themselves or about the world or about us, even as their parents. We are believing Jesus and the Bible and the truth that it speaks. And we are just asking for wisdom, I could really use wisdom. I feel like, I have said a lot of things that I regret and I’ve confessed to the Lord and I believe that He is able to redeem, even the things that I’ve said that I regret but I would ask that you guys would lift up our family and speak against the lies of the enemy that confuse and entangle our young people and that we would have peace in our home. And that God would be glorified and that my children will be made whole. Thank you, guys. I love you.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family I want to just come in, this is Willa. I just want to come in and thank God’s Chosen for her prayer. I heard her prayer this morning, it’s Thursday, December the 9th. And I want to thank you for praying for all of us intercessors and I praise God that you were obedient in saying your prayer. And I ask God, in the name of Jesus, to continue to bless you and to continue to give you those things that you need and encouraging you along your journey. And for those who I have not prayed for on the line, I whisper Daily Audio Bible on a daily basis. And Brian I want to thank you and your family for your faithfulness and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the Christmas music from your son and from your wife and I just thank you for continually being faithful to what God is telling you to do because it is very encouraging and this is Willa from Marietta signing off, have a great day everyone.
Good morning DAB family this is Paula, the Child Advocate from the LA area calling. I’m calling in today specifically to pray for those who are incarcerated. Last weekend my husband and I took a trip to Colorado to a small town and every day on our way to the place that we stayed we passed a correctional facility, it was a regional correctional facility. And it just broke my heart to see all that barb wire and the towers. And then on our way to church, on Saturday, we went through another town called Florence and we passed a federal penitentiary. We came to find out that there are seven prisons in this small region. And seeing all that barbed wire and the towers and all the walls it made me so sad for all the inmates. They were not able to go to the Christmas tree lighting that we went to in this small town, they weren’t able to see the Christmas parade with the fire engines and the bands and the cement trucks and I just really had an impact on me and so I wanna pray that Lord Jesus, please come to those who are incarcerated. Please send someone to them to bring in the light of Christ. Please send someone to bring the joy of the Christmas season to them and please Lord help them come to you so that when they’re released, they could start a new life in you. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Thank you DAB family, I love you all, I listen every day, I’m a long-time listener and I’m gonna keep listening into 2022. Love to all, bye for now.