Obadiah Messenger
of Judgment

An exposition of the Book of Obadiah

4. The Day of the Lord

"On the day that you stood aside when aliens carried off Jacob's possessions and foreigners entered his land, casting lots for the possession of Jerusalem, you allied yourself with them. You should not have exulted over your brother's fate in his day of misfortune, or rejoiced at the ruin of the people of Judah, nor have boasted yourself in the day of their distress, nor taken possession of My people's territory in the day of their calamity, nor robbed them of their goods, nor stood in the road to intercept the fugitives, nor delivered the survivors into the hands of their enemies" (Vss.11‑14 see Sept/Oct 15 issue).

"He that is not with me is against me" said Jesus (Matt.12.30). Here is an example of that truth. The sin of Edom at the first was not that they manifested open and active hostility to the children of Israel but that they stood aside when their brethren were attacked by the alien and did nothing to help. Not the active doing of wrong, but the abstaining from doing right. That in itself is sin in God's sight. The Edomites could have rendered assistance to Israel at the time of the invasion of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar; instead they preferred to stand aside and witness the agony of Jacob, waiting until the tragedy was over so that they might have some share in the spoils.

This, perhaps, is the explanation of the apparent contradiction between the words of Jesus above quoted and that other saying of his, "He that is not against us is for us" (Luke 9.50). In this latter case He was talking about those who were found casting out demons in his Name yet not outwardly or professedly following him. They were actively doing good works in the name of the Author of all good works, and Jesus gave them credit for their sincerity and good intentions. So that in the sight of God it is better to do good without acknowledging God than it is to stand aside from doing good works whilst professing a show of righteousness. Jesus gave a parable of two sons, each of whom received an instruction from their father. One said "I go", but went not; the other, "I will not go", but he went. Which one did the will of the father? We all know the answer. So the Edomites, no doubt smug in their own self‑righteousness, and reflecting, with good reason, that the Israelites had brought all their troubles upon themselves by their apostasy and unbelief, were condemned in the sight of God because they had failed to remember one very important point; Israel and Edom were brothers.

Much the same has been true with spiritual Edom in this Gospel Age. There has never been a century since the death of the Apostles when some, professed followers of the Master, have not stood by and seen their more earnest and Christ‑like brethren hounded and persecuted and done nothing to help them. "Perils from false brethren" said Paul; yea, and false brethren there have been ever since. The "spoils" that could be gained by standing aloof and in the end becoming allied with the ravening wolves who have despoiled the true Church has so often tempted the cupidity (greed) of spiritual Edom and led them to betray their brethren.

All these verses, up to verse 14, together comprise a vivid picture of base betrayal. "The brother shall deliver the brother to death" said Jesus, speaking precisely of those same things in this Age. And it can be brought very near home to us. Not all the spiritual Edomites are to be found in what some are pleased to call "the systems". How many of us find cause to dissent from our brother or brethren on some matter of doctrine, of activity or of conduct, and allow that dissent to lead us into a condition of active or passive hostility? How many of us exult over our brother's fate in his day of misfortune, or boast ourselves and our superior position in his day of distress, or take possession of that which is rightly his when he is in no position to defend himself, or even hinder and obstruct him in his efforts to deliver himself from his calamities? If in any way we have been guilty of such things, whether materially, or much more likely, spiritually, then the condemnation of these verses is upon us and this is how God views us.

This gives a new viewpoint on the searching question '"Who shall be able to stand in the evil day?" Obadiah's prophecy goes straight on from this point to announce the advent of the day of the Lord upon all the nations. The Edomites are to receive retribution in that day for all the wrongs they have committed. In the literal history that day came when Nebuchadnezzar, having completed his ravaging of Judea, turned his attention to the other nations round about and made them tributary also. That was the beginning of the end for Edom as a nation. In this Gospel Age it comes when at the end the great Time of Trouble breaks upon the nations, "and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble" (Mal.4.1). It is in his final destruction of the powers of this world that spiritual Edoms suffers. If then any who in the past have been blessed with the light of Truth have allowed themselves to become spiritual Edomites then they will share in this judgment, and fall, and lose the great reward. Who will stand in the evil day? Only those who with clean hands and a pure heart have maintained their consciousness of kinship and affinity with those who in sincerity and truth have maintained their consecration to God and their standing as true sons in his sight.

"And now the day of the Lord is at hand upon all the nations. As you have done, so shall it be done unto you; your deeds will return upon your own head. As you have drunk the intoxicating cup upon my holy mountain, so shall all the nations round about drink, and stagger, and be as if they no longer exist." (vs.15‑16).

This is the grand climax to the book of Obadiah. All the pretensions and all the schemings of the Edomites have availed them nothing. The day of retribution comes at length when Divine judgment sweeps away all that is out of accord with God's holiness and leaves only his own true people standing approved. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father." Long, weary centuries have had to run their course before this final vindication could be, but now it has come and all the ends of the earth see the salvation of God.

There is a tendency, at times, to think of this Divine judgment in the Day of the Lord as an arbitrary infliction of punishment upon the world for all their sins, as though God had at length lost patience and summarily cut short the reign of evil by a series of catastrophic visitations emanating directly and solely from his own Almighty power. "The Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity" is the kind of text that would form the theme of such a sermon. But we have to look deeper into the nature of things before we can accurately understand the underlying causes of this Day of judgment. "Your deeds shall return upon your own head." There is a law of creation at work here which is at the same time, as are all the laws of creation, the Law of God. Natural retribution, or what men now call "poetic justice", overtakes the world at the last. The judgments of the Last Day are nothing more or less than the inevitable consequences and harvest of mankind's course in history through the ages. As men have sown, so shall they reap, and there is no escape from that destiny. It is not that God would not relent. It is that God could not relent. The coming of the Day of the Lord, with all its attendant judgments, was made inevitable on the day that Adam sinned, and as the gates of Eden closed behind the guilty pair it became only a question of time before that Day should dawn.

So all the vivid language describing the impact of this Day of the Lord upon the nations is but the poetic expression of God's own attitude toward the sin and evil which the Day of the Lord will bring to an end. The catastrophic ending of the power of man in a Time of Trouble such as was not since there was a nation is an outward and visible witness to God's abhorrence of sin and the determination that it shall be banished forever from his creation. So we have the vivid metaphor in Isa.34. "The indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter...For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon ldumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment...for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of ldumea...For it is the day of the LORD's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." (Isa.34.2‑8). The final and absolute character of this last judgment upon "this present evil world" can hardly be described more eloquently than in this picture of the Divine sword sweeping the heavens as it flashes over and down upon the guilty earth waiting to receive the death‑stroke. But although it is thus described, the world has brought its trouble upon itself, and no other end is possible.

"As you have drunk the intoxicating cup upon my holy mountain." The idea behind this phrase is that after the children of Israel had been taken into captivity and Jerusalem itself left ruined and desolate, the Edomites took possession of the land, entered into the city—the "holy mountain"— and gave themselves over to all kinds of excesses on the site where Israel had formerly worshipped God. In the larger fulfilment this pictures false professors of Christianity usurping the place which ought to have been occupied by the true Church in the sight of the nations, and indulging in a riot of false doctrines and blasphemous representations of the Divine character. "He, as God, sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God" is St. Paul's definition of one such aspect of this usurpation. "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken." (Jer.51.7). How true it is that many who do believe in Christ hold a miserably distorted conception of the Christian faith and the character of God. How true it is that the golden cup of stupefying liquor with which Babylon has intoxicated not only herself but all around her is responsible for that conception. Men are stupefied, bemused, unable properly to comprehend what God is saying to them at the hand of his ambassadors, and it is all because of the stupefying cup. So it is very true, as God says by the mouth of Obadiah, that the nations round about "drink, and stagger, and be as if they no longer exist"—not "be as though they had not been" as in the Authorised Version. This verse does not teach, as some would make it teach, that those therein spoken of are condemned in the moment of drinking the cup to eternal annihilation, the Second Death. The verse is not talking about the ultimate penalty for sin at all. It is talking about the condition of the world, both professing Christendom and everyday paganism, at the Time of the End. The expression "they shall be as if they no longer exist" is merely the definition of extreme intoxication. They drink, they stagger, and they lose consciousness altogether—a drunken sleep. Thank God it is a sleep from which they are to be awakened in God's good time, when they will be introduced to a world in which no golden cup of intoxication is found any more, when Babylon has fallen and vanished away, when the Edomites are no longer in possession of God's holy mountain. They will come forth to a world in which saviours have come up upon Mount Zion and the Kingdom has become the Lord's. That is the final sunlit scene of Obadiah's prophecy, a scene which is illumined by the Son of righteousness shining down upon a vast concourse of liberated captives returning to take possession of their heritage. After judgement, comes conversion, reconciliation to God, and the establishment of everlasting righteousness

(To be concluded)

AOH