Our reading from the Westminster Shorter Catechism is taken from Question and Answer 85 this evening, and the question goes as follows. What does God require of us that we may escape His wrath and curse due to us for sin? Answer, to escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requires of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means, whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption. So the previous question and answer, you might remember, the question is asked, what does every sin deserve? And the answer is that every sin deserves the wrath and curse of God. Even the sins that we perceive as being relatively minor, even the slightest sin is an offense against God's holiness and deserves God's judgment. And so the question that the catechism naturally asks then is, well, what can we do to escape this just punishment that we deserve and the answer we're given is that we need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to repent of our sin, and we must make diligent use of these outward and ordinary means. So we're to believe on Jesus as the saving object of our faith. We're to trust that he is able to save us by his death and resurrection. We're to repent of our sin. You can think of Peter's sin on the day of Pentecost. He's preaching. As the people are gathered there, they are cut to the heart as they realize that they had sinfully put to death the Messiah, and then what does he say their response should be? It's to repent and to be baptized. There's a turning from sin to the Lord Jesus that needs to take place on the part of each one of us. And then thirdly, and interestingly, the catechism says we're to diligently make use of the outward and ordinary means where Christ communicates to us the benefits of his redemption. So what does that mean? We are to seriously, we're to dutifully, we're to purposefully, with resolve, make use of the instruments where Christ has said that you would meet us. We are to make use of his word, reading it in private and attending to it as it's preached. We're to make use of prayer and speaking to the Lord In prayer we're to meet with the Lord at the Lord's table where he's promised to commune with his people and we do that not because these things are the things that save us from the wrath and curse of God, but these things are the means by which we come in contact with Christ as he's offered to us in the gospel, and we are not only brought out of a state of condemnation and into grace, but it's the way that God preserves us and helps us to persevere in grace until he takes us to glory. And so we're gonna look more at this theme in the book of Obadiah as we turn to that tonight. So I'd ask that you stand as we read through God's word this evening. I will say, just sort of side notes here, I am battling a little bit of a cold. That happens sometimes when I go on vacation. I don't know, Kyle, if that ever happens to you. You go on vacation and sickness catches up with you. So I may be drinking a fair bit of water while I'm up here. And secondly, praying for the Vacation Bible School also, Lord willing, my kids will also be joining you for that. And so we're thankful for the work that's been put in to host that ministry here this week. So let's look at the book of Obadiah. It's after Amos. Don't blink or you'll miss it. And we'll read the whole 21 verses. The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. We've heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations. Rise up, let us rise against her for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations, you shall be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground? Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night, how you have been destroyed. Would they not steal only enough for themselves? If great gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings? How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures sought out. All your allies have driven you to your border. Those at peace with you have deceived you. They've prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding. Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau? And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O teman, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter. Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune. Do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin. Do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity. Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives. Do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually. They shall drink and swallow and shall be as though they had never been. But in Mount Zion, there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy. and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble. They shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. Those of the Negev shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines. They shall possess the land of Ephraim, and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites, as far as Zarephath. And the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the Negev. Savior shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. You may be seated. Let's ask for the Lord's help now. Lord, as we come to this passage, it's one that most likely is unfamiliar to many of us, and so we would ask for a special measure of your help, Lord, to wrap our minds around that which seems foreign and distant to us, and to help us understand the word of grace and the word of warning that you have for us through the prophet Obadiah. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to be encouraged that you are a God who cares for your people and will act on behalf of your people. We pray, Lord, that you would also help us to see the importance of fleeing from sin and fleeing to Jesus. We pray that you would work in our midst now as we attend to your word. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so as we read this, as we've read this passage, it's gonna be helpful for you to understand as you have that passage in front of you, that there's several references to Jacob, to Judah, to Joseph, to Jerusalem, all these Js, they're talking about one group of people, they're talking about God's chosen people. So you've got the J's and then you've also got team E, the team of Edom and Esau. These are both terms for a second group of people, God's enemies. So the J's and the E's. Now, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who spoke these words in 1965 in Selma, Now Dr. King was referencing this idea of the arc of history to communicate his optimism that the civil rights movement would successfully achieve its goal of recognizing the equality of all men before the law. The idea that history has a moral arc and is moving in a definite direction is one that has often been picked up in common conversation, at least in our day. We've all heard people say things like, well, so-and-so is going to be on the wrong side of history. There's this idea that history is surging forward and there's a right side and there's a wrong side and history is going to justify certain people and it will not justify others or it will expose others as being fatefully wrong. So the underlying idea when we've heard this is that we'd better get on board with the right side of history before it's too late. We might especially hear that sort of language in the month of June when we have all the various celebrations for Pride Month and the like. Consider how this language was used in things like the discussion on same-sex marriage, so-called same-sex marriage. Proponents pointed to the unmistakable momentum of their cause. They said, you want to jump on the bandwagon or you're going to be left behind. Now, if we think about it, there's of course something powerful about this appeal. A few people like being in the minority. No one likes being wrong or being a left out. But there's a problem with this. Appearances can be deceiving. So for example, if you were alive in America in the 1920s, there's a reasonable chance that you supported a surging social theory that was said to improve community health and reduce various social problems. The theory was promoted by the likes of presidents and prime ministers. The wealthiest people in the country were supporting it, giving money in support of this theory. It was a theory that was taught in classrooms. It was upheld in various measures by the Supreme Court. The movement was the eugenics movement. Now, it was a despicable movement that thought that through selective breeding we could have a pure human species. But if you were in the 1920s and you opposed eugenics, someone would have pointed to all sorts of things to make the case, well, you're going to be on the wrong side of history. So far, at least, that has not been the case, thankfully. The appearance of an imminent victory on the part of the eugenics movement was, it seems, deceptive. Now, the prophet Obadiah would agree with the deceptive nature of appearances. Obadiah was written when God's enemies were riding high and God's people were feeling low. It appeared that Judah, God's people, they were gonna be on the wrong side of history. They had been crushed by the Babylonians. They were now living in captivity, and God's enemies were gloating. And so Obadiah speaks to God's people, and he speaks to God's enemies, and he does so to make a simple point, that no matter how things look right now, God's judgment will tear down those who set themselves against God's people. And therefore, the only way to be on the right side of history is to join yourself with God and his people. I think Obadiah then speaks a helpful word to us this evening. Don't interpret the arc of history according to appearances because there's this great reversal that's coming. And so the book of Obadiah has a warning to the person who is not a believer, and the book of Obadiah is also a comfort to the church. Instead of judging by appearances, Obadiah explains for us the arc of history according to God's perspective. And since God is the one who oversees history, the one who orders history, he is the only reliable guide to knowing what the right side of history is and what that means. And so our path through the text this evening has four stops along the way. First, we're gonna look at a sibling rivalry, then God's enemies, then God's judgment, and then fourthly, God's kingdom. So a sibling rivalry, God's enemies, God's judgment, and God's kingdom. First, the sibling rivalry. If you grew up with brothers as I did, I had two younger brothers, which meant I got to be the bossy one. You know that the relationship between brothers can sometimes be combative, let's just say, okay? And to understand the vision of Obadiah, we need to remember the story of two brothers and a special promise. The special promise is the promise which was made by God to Abraham. As part of God's plan to rescue a world that had fallen into sin, God enters into a covenant relationship with Abram and God promised Abram that his family would be the one through whom God would rescue the world that was under the curse of sin. And so in Genesis chapter 12, God tells Abram, I will make you a great nation. I am going to bless you and I will make your name great. I am going to bless those who bless you and those who dishonor you, I am going to curse. But God's big point is that Abram, you are going to be the channel. You are going to be the conduit through which my salvation blessings flow out to the world. So in Genesis 12, we have in embryonic form the promise of salvation, that salvation would come through Abram's line and through the form of a promised Messiah. Now there's a key principle at work here. It's one that the apostle Paul helps us to understand. It's that if you're to experience the blessing of God, then you must believe the promise of God. And that promise was of the coming Messiah. So Paul says in Galatians 3, it's those of faith who are sons of Abram, and who can thus expect the promised blessing of Abram. So this story, the story of the Bible, is not about blood, but it's about promise. And the promise was not about the Jews as an ethnic people, but about Jews and Gentiles as a believing people. So those who are of faith are blessed along with Abram, the man of faith, as Paul says. And so this promise came to Abram, and then it came to his son Isaac. And Isaac would eventually have two sons, brothers, as you might recall, Esau and Jacob. And these brothers were in a struggle right from the start. We're told that even in the womb, Jacob and Esau struggled within Rebekah, their mother. And the Lord told Rebekah, he said, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one will be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So God had chosen the younger brother, Jacob, to be the one through whom this promise of blessing to Abram would continue to the world. And if you know your Bible history, you know this wasn't because Jacob was particularly good. In fact, Jacob had many shortcomings, as the book of Genesis tells us, but it was because God had chosen to show his grace through Jacob, whom he'd later rename as Israel. And this relationship between Jacob, the brother of the promise, and Esau was quite fractious, contentious, combative. Esau sells his birthright to Jacob in a moment of desperation. His blessing from his father is stolen by the conniving Jacob. And Esau hated Jacob. And so Jacob runs away. Now eventually the two will make up and God blesses both Esau and Jacob, their families and their possessions. They continue to grow so numerous that Esau moves to the hilly region south of the Dead Sea. And Esau's descendants would come to be known as the nation of Edom. But throughout the Old Testament, we see this ongoing struggle between Israel as the children of the promise and Esau. So Esau and Edom, they scuffle in the desert when Edom won't let Israel pass on their way into the promised land after the exodus. King Saul defeats the Edomites in 1 Samuel 14. King David strikes down 18,000 Edomites in one battle, and he installs military bases in the land of Edom. And so we see throughout the history of the Old Testament that these brother nations, they don't like each other very much. Now here's why all this backstory matters for understanding Obadiah. Obadiah is a prophet of Judah from the line of Jacob. In 586, Babylon attacks and defeats Jerusalem. This was God's judgment on Judah for her ongoing sin. It was a devastating event. So if we're trying to think of a modern parallel to this, you can think sort of of the October 7 attacks in Israel, but on a much larger scale. The army of Babylon comes, lays siege to Jerusalem. And for months, the residents there are surrounded by this foreign army. The residents are starved. Children are killed right in front of their parents. Many others are put to death. And finally, a great many Jews are taken from the land. So this was a traumatic event for Judah. Like we think of 9-11 or 10-7, this was Judah's moment of infamy. But that's not how the Edomites saw it. To the Edomites, this was a glorious day. They are thinking, man, our younger brother, so to speak, got what they deserved, finally. The Edomites were singing, they were celebrating in the streets. That's what we see in verses 10 to 14. As the Babylonians descended upon Jerusalem, God charges Edom in verse 11. He says, you stood aloof. As Jerusalem was plundered and pillaged, as she was treated like spoils of war, Edom joined in the assault. Edom showed himself to belong to the enemies of God and the enemies of God's people. The Edomites gloated over the misfortune of their brother and rejoiced in his ruin. There had been centuries of conflict and subjugation, but now, with glee, Edom looks upon the suffering and stumbling of Judah. In fact, in Psalm 137, it's a song written by the Jews in captivity, they explicitly pray in Psalm 137, remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare, down to the foundations. So they were, Edom was the sneering kid standing behind the bully, taking cheap shots. They were the online troll liking the footage of the devastation on their social media feed. In verse 13, God accuses Edom of assisting the plunder and looting of the city. They were kicking Judah while he was down. Verse 14, while the Jews attempted to flee, the Edomites blocked their way of escape. They turned the escaping Jews over to their Babylonian attackers. See, the Edomites saw an opportunity. The tides of history were changing. The misfortunes of Judah would seemingly show it, and the so-called people of God, they were losers. This proved it, right in front of them. They could see it, right? So why not get a few well-earned shots in along the way as Judah's ship went down? Judah was just gonna be a historical footnote. Like some of the other nations, they would just disappear from the pages of history. Or at least that's what Edom thought. So this was the first of Edom's sins. He engaged in violence against his brother. But there's another sin of Edom that is mentioned in our text, and it's Edom's pride. Really, Edom's pride took the form of carnal security. We see this in verse three. The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground? Now the region in which the Edomites lived was characterized by rocky and craggy hills. I don't know if anyone ever been to Petra, the site of Petra, where you can maybe Google Petra when you get home. It's a world historical site and there, if you Google it, you'll see carved into these Pretty significant cliff faces are temple faces and buildings, and it's a very rocky, craggy sort of terrain that the people of Edom lived in. And for Edom, there was a great sense of security in this, because they were tucked up in these hills. They felt untouchable. They felt safe, out of reach. They were like an eagle soaring in the sky. No predator could touch them. And no doubt, this kind of emboldened Edom in its violence toward Judah. They were in a position of strength, and Judah was in a position of increasing weakness. So Edom's thinking, we've got nothing to fear, and it's okay for us just to set ourself against the Lord's people. But they were wrong. And this brings us to our third point, God's judgment. This is why God speaks through Obadiah. He speaks a word of warning and a word of judgment against Edom. No matter how removed from danger Edom felt, God declared, I'm gonna bring you down. Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, God says, and you shall be cut off forever, in verse 10. So Obadiah speaks of God's future judgment. But what does God's judgment against his enemies look like? Well, we're gonna consider three things from our text. First, God's judgment is final. It's permanent. That's what we see in verses nine and 10. There is a final judgment that God will bring upon his enemies that will be the end of the matter. There's no second chances, there's no do-overs, there's no retakes. When God's final judgment comes against his enemies, it will come with a period, full stop, not a comma. Second, God's judgment is exhaustive. It is full in its extent. God uses the example of thieves and gatherers in verses five and six to amplify this point. If someone were to break into your house at night, they might steal your TV or your AirPods or your computer or something like that. They'll steal what they need, what they want, but whoever's breaking in, they're not gonna steal everything, right? They'll limit their thievery. When someone goes picking grapes in the field, they'll take some grapes, but some grapes will be left over. But by contrast, God says, when I come in judgment, I will not be like the thief or the gatherer, overlooking some. But he says his judgment against Edom will be exhaustive. There will be no holes in the net. His judgment will wipe Edom out. From the greatest to the least, every man from Mount Esau will be cut off, verses eight and nine. will not relent. God's judgment is exhaustive. But God's judgment won't come just against Edom, and that's the third aspect of God's judgment to note. God's judgment is also broad. God's judgment is against all who do not belong to his people. So in verses one to 14, the focus is on Edom, but in verse 15, the day of God's judgment expands now to include all of the nations, our text tells us. So, though Edom had drunk what they thought was the cup of victory in Mount Zion in Jerusalem, they, along with the rest of the nations, will be forced to swallow the cup of God's wrath, in verse 16 we read. God's judgment is against all who stand outside of his people. Judah may be in exile, but God turns to Edom here and he says, don't think you've won. Don't think you can escape. My judgment is coming. Now, what's significant is that God's promise of judgment is true, but it is also not yet fully realized. Now it's true from a historical point of view that Edom has been cut off. It is no more. You're not going to go look at a map and see Edom printed on your map. The Edomites experienced military defeats in the 5th and 3rd century, and then in the 2nd century they were defeated by Judas Maccabeus, and the Edomites were effectively swallowed up by the Jewish people. By the 1st century, Edom as a people fades from history, as one commentator put it. But this prophecy is not just about Edom. The day of the Lord in verse 15 is a reference to a future day of judgment on all of the nations, not just Edom. The day of the Lord refers to the time in which the Lord breaks into history to deal decisively with sin. And for this reason, we need to realize that Obadiah isn't just warning Edom, but Obadiah is also warning us today. Because Obadiah's point is that there are two groups of people, and there are only two groups of people. On the one hand, there are the people of the promise. They are the true heirs of the promised blessing made to Abram in Genesis 12, the blessings of salvation. In Obadiah's day, that was the people who looked ahead to the Messiah who was to come. Today, we look to the Messiah who has come and who's coming again, Jesus. He is the promised rescuer of Abram's line. He is the dividing line. But the second group of people are those who reject or slight the promise. This group is referred to as the nations by Obadiah in verse 15. So let me be clear. If you are not part of Jacob's line, if you're not part of the family of faith in God's promised Messiah, then you belong to this second group, at least right now. And you would need to hear this warning, that God's judgment looms over you. Now this text is like a tornado siren of warning concerning judgment for you tonight if you've not trusted in the promise of God, you've not trusted in the promised Messiah of God. and you need to hear that God's judgment is coming. Now, it's a small service, there's only a few of us here, but this judgment is too severe for me to take the risk of assuming that every man, woman, and child here has fled to Christ in faith and repentance. And so I wanna issue this warning to you, that if you are apart from Christ tonight, don't look at how things appear now, don't look at, say, life is going okay, and assume that you're safe. You need to believe in the promised Messiah, because judgment is coming. But I also want us to think about this warning as believers this evening. Because God speaks this word of warning through his prophet Obadiah as predictive judgment, but also as a predictive warning. After all, right, this verse in, this voice in the text is not merely addressed to God's people, though it is, but it also speaks directly to the presumptive under-judgment Edom. And so this text encourages us this evening, considering the coming reversal, to speak a word of warning to those around us. There is a final, there is a comprehensive, there is an exhaustive judgment from God that is coming. And when God comes to judge, execute his ultimate judgment, he's not gonna grow tired. He's not gonna decide halfway through, you know what, that's actually enough. I'm gonna call it quits for a day. No, our New Testament text, which we read from 2 Thessalonians early in the service, gives us a glimpse of this coming day. It's a day of terrible judgment and wonder when Jesus comes with his mighty army of angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who don't know God, who don't obey his gospel, and they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, cut off from the blessedness of God. We live in a world where family and friends, co-workers and neighbors, the grocery store clerk, the Amazon delivery guy, if they are apart from Christ, they stand under this imminent day of judgment. And so that's why things like a vacation Bible school, which you'll have this week, matter. We're not trifling. We're not just finding another thing to do in our busy schedules. But God's judgment is real. It is exhaustive. It is final. People need to be warned that this judgment is coming. And it's a day, as one scholar put it, a day of judgment that overshadows all human history, and hence, it's always near. And so we must warn people. This judgment is inevitable, except for one thing. There is but one way to escape this inevitable and inexhaustible judgment, and that's by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and by turning to him. Obadiah speaks of some on Mount Zion in the city of God who escape judgment. It's those who have escaped are those who, in faith, have cast themselves upon the Lord, regardless of how things appear in the moment. They didn't escape because they were lucky or because they were better behaved, not in the least, Judah was embarrassed by Babylon and they were embarrassed by Edom precisely because they were sinful. But let me summarize plainly what Obadiah is saying through the lens of the New Testament. You and I can be rescued from the judgment of God that our sins deserve by faith in the Lord Jesus and by turning to him in repentance. Jesus is the promised deliverer of Abram's line. And if we slight him, we will be judged just like Edom. But if we trust in him, we shall be blessed in him. And this blessing is the fourth and final point of our passage, God's kingdom. Obadiah expresses part of what the blessing will be in verses 19 to 21. The people of God shall enjoy the victory of God in the kingdom of God. This then is the other half of this great reversal. The gloating enemies of God's people will receive judgment, and God's people, we shall receive a holy kingdom. Now there's various places mentioned in verses 19 to 20 that might not mean a whole lot to you, but they're mentioned there just to communicate a simple point, that God's people will receive the kingdom that's promised to them. Obadiah's emphasis, his focus here is not on a literal physical space described, but on what it represents. That the people shall receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a heavenly country, the city that is to come, whose designer and builder is God. Now, the church in the Old Testament was in a bad spot, particularly in Obadiah's day. From a worldly perspective, it would have been hard to be optimistic about the future. God's people had been crushed militarily, they had been ripped from their land, they were homeless, powerless, friendless as they passed their days in exile. They appeared to be relegated to the ash heap of history. It was a thoroughly discouraging state of affairs for the church. Sort of like today, really. 50 years ago, 90% of the American population claimed to be Christian. At least by one study, it's about 64% today. If demographers are correct, it'll be closer to 40% 50 years from now, unless the Lord acts. And that's just speaking of a self-affiliating external profession. By contrast, those same demographers suggest that the religiously unaffiliated, the nuns, may be a larger population in 50 years than self-identifying Christians. Biblical views on abortion, sexuality, and the family are shared less and less. We have in our face celebrations of sexual immorality, like Pride Month. We have churches that are wandering away from the truth, as it's found in scripture. Christianity is being used and has been used as a cheap laugh line by comedians. It's an easy punchline for calmness. So if we were to take all of the religions, all of the worldviews out there, and we were to view them as horses in a horse race, and you were called upon to guess the winner. People, if you're just looking at this, you wouldn't pick Christianity as the expected winner. But appearances are deceiving. Appearances don't consider the God who orders all of human history according to his sovereign plan. And he speaks to Obadiah to give us the program. There is a great reversal that's coming. And on that day, God's people, once exiled, will be home. We will be finally home. Will no longer live as a people out of place? Consider all the things that make Christianity seem so weak and beleaguered now. So think of the Christian at work or in the classroom who's ridiculed for holding to the Bible. Or the church that's persecuted and driven into hiding by oppressive rulers in places like China or Nigeria. or think of how we are a punching bag of jokes, or think of that awful feeling of coercive power being applied by someone bigger than us, pressuring us to surrender the truth. The great reversal that Obadiah speaks of says that all of this is going to be upended. For however meager things look right now, those who belong to the Lord by faith shall possess a kingdom. Now, just a few things to note about this kingdom from our text. First, it shall be holy. There'll be nothing evil or impure or wicked in it. All of the bad or immoral things that plague our life now will be gone, including our own sin. Neither shall there be any enemies or threats in this kingdom. The enemies of God, the nations, shall be as though they had never been, verse 16. Satan and those who offer glad-hearted service to Satan, who hate Christ, who hate the church, they will be finally defeated. and God's people shall rule with him. In verse 21, saviors or deliverers shall go up to Mount Zion to rule. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, he says, you're gonna sit on thrones and you're gonna exercise judgment under me in the new heavens and the new earth. I think the apostle Paul says that the saints, that is Christians, will judge the world. That's always been a mind-blowing proposition to me in 1 Corinthians 6. Christians, under God, with Christ, will judge the world. People who have suffered with Christ, people who have suffered for Christ, now elevated to reign with Christ. And the rule which you and I, as Christians, shall exercise is not unto ourself, but under the Lord Jesus himself. For this kingdom, concludes Obadiah, shall be the Lord's. Yes, Jesus sits on the throne ruling even now. But on that day, every one of his foes will be fully and finally defeated. And all evil and unbelief will be dealt with and we shall turn to him and we shall say, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. This is Obadiah's message to us. Appearances are deceiving. Because history examined without the benefits of divine revelation would paint a bleak picture for the church. But God has spoken, and we need to listen. He has said that there is a day coming when his judgment shall bring his enemies down, and his grace shall lift his saints up. It's the great reversal. So Obadiah would have agreed with Dr. King when he said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It's the justice of God who will rightly judge his enemies and graciously lift up his friends. And this is good news for God's people who are his by faith in Jesus. Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we think about the theme of your just judgment, we can acknowledge that It is sometimes given a bad rap, or we might think, Lord, apologetically about this doctrine. And yet, Lord, you set forth this word of the day of the Lord as a message of hope for your beleaguered, battered people who are living in a world that will not bend the knee to you. And so Lord, for these brothers and sisters who are here, wherever they find it hard to live as faithful Christians in the world today, I pray that they would take comfort in this message of the great reversal that is coming. And you will judge your enemies and ours. And Lord, you will put an end to all evil. And you will lift up the heads of your beleaguered saints that we might reign with you forever and ever.