This episode of Through the Bible takes you deep into the prophecy of Obadiah, as Dr. McGee sheds light on the real issue behind Edom’s downfall: pride. Listen as we dissect how pride is perceived in the eyes of God, compared to sins like drunkenness and theft, and discuss how the scripture emphasizes humility over self-reliance. A special segment on the World Prayer Team invites you to join a global community in prayer, embracing the impact of God’s word moving around the world.
00:00:03 Esau’s Rejection and Descendants’ Arrogance
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
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When Esau despised his birthright, he declared that he didn’t care about God at all. And 1,200 years later, when his descendants had become a great people, they followed in his footsteps, declaring their ability to live without God. Welcome to Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz. And our teacher, of course, is Dr. J. Vernon McGee. And he’s going to tell us how God deals with this type of arrogance through the very unusual prophecy of Obadiah. But first, Through the Bible’s president, Greg Harris, is here with me today to talk about our core values, one of them specifically.
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Which, of course, is that we don’t just teach the Bible, we teach the whole Word of God. And we’re in Obadiah. How many Christians, as you say, are those pages stuck together? So we got some great letters that prove the value of this. You want to start this first one?
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Yeah, it’s Jackson in Georgia who let us know what Obadiah means to him. Well, amen to that. I have learned more from Dr. McGee than from all my Bible courses in college and seminary. Seminary, wow.
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And then he goes on, please use the enclosed as you see fit to continue Dr. McGee’s work. I thank all of you for your good work. And that’s powerful because this is a man that probably was in ministry of some vocational ministry. Now, Don from Mississippi also wrote us about the book of Obadiah. Mm-hmm. After college, a friend and I used many of Dr. McGee’s study guides in our weekly Bible study. However, I did not consistently listen to the teaching programs until they became available on the Internet. I’m retired now, and I listen to the programs on the app. Yes, we love that. He goes on, I really appreciate Dr. McGee’s genuineness and his emphasis on having reality in our Christian life. It would be so easy just to go through the motions, especially when things are going well. I am a member of the World Prayer Team, and I am pleased to contribute to the ministry in a small way. It does not buy a tank of gas, but it might cover some spray to clean the windshield. All right. Thank you so much for that letter, Don. We appreciate it.
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Yeah, and thank you for joining the World Prayer Team. If you want to join Don and myself and thousands of others on that team, just go to ttb.org forward slash pray. You’ll get an email Monday through Friday that will transform the way you go through your inbox. with testimonies of how God is moving around the world. Greg, would you pray for us?
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Father, thank you that you gave us your whole word and that we have the privilege of studying all of it under Dr. McGee’s teaching. We thank you that your word speaks to us wherever we are, at any place in your word, and we pray today that you would speak to us from the book of Obadiah. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.
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Now here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee to guide us through Obadiah on Through the Bible.
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Friends, as we come back to the little book of Obadiah, I left off last time by turning to the last book of the Old Testament and reading a very strange statement that is there. God says, I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, in what way hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau. Now, one thing we need to get firmly fixed in our mind. God did not say that when the boys were born. He did not say that when they became man, and both of them really very miserably failed. One Esau despised this birthright, and Jacob down underneath that crust of cleverness and crookedness, there was that desire for the things of God. And he went about getting the birthright in the wrong way, that which God had vouchsafed to him and actually gave to him in a right way. And before he could become not Jacob, but Israel, why, God had to break him. And God broke his leg in order to get him. And the man limped the rest of his life. And you find him way down in Egypt, dying, leaning on that staff that he had leaned on so many years because of the fact that God finally got that man and brought him to himself. Now, God never said that he hated Esau, nor did he say he loved Jacob. But you come now to the last book in the Old Testament, and one is a nation, a nation of several million people. And the other, likewise, was a nation. And you see now, Israel has been mightily used of God down through the centuries up to this point. There’s come in their history a man like Moses, Joshua, and Samuel. and David, and Hezekiah, and then Nehemiah and Ezra, and on down the line. But Esau, the nation that came from him, became a godless nation and turned their backs upon God. But what was it that caused God to hate him and to hate the nation? Now, last time I left off by putting Esau under the microscope. And when you put something under the microscope, it’s enlarged. And instead of having one man, you have a nation now. And Esau has been enlarged into a great nation. And you begin to see the defect. You begin to see that thing that is the real problem. I know that when I had cancer, they took some of the infected part and They put it under the microscope. And you couldn’t see it just looking at it, but putting it under the microscope, they told me what they could see. Well, we have here now a look at this man Esau, and Esau is Edom. That was repeated about three times back in the book of Genesis. Now we are looking at Edom, but we see Esau, and we see this great nation. Now, what was the sin? Well, let me read now verse 2. He says, “…Behold, I have made thee small among the nations. Thou art greatly despised.” Now, this great people… Because they were a great people, as we are going to see in just a few moments. But they now have been brought down, are going to be brought down. This, I think, is a prophecy that looks to the future. And where we stand today, it’s been fulfilled. Now, I want to look at that. What was it? Well, I read verse 3 now. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Now, what was it that God said here that he hated them for? It was pride. Now, I’m sure that the minute that I say that, that it’s taken the wind out of the sails of many listeners. And they’re going to say, is that all? Why may I say that I don’t quite understand that? Pride is bad, but it’s not that bad, is it? Well, let me show you how we have things all out of proportion today. Suppose I told you that There was a certain Christian that I knew that was drinking very heavy. And I would like to ask your advice of what the church should do with him that he belongs to. Now, I’m sure that many of you would say, He ought to be put out of the membership of the church. And if you said that, I would agree with you. Now, suppose I’d say to you that an officer of a certain church was caught the other night in a supermarket by the police, and he was breaking into the safe. He’s a thief. And I say to you, what do you think the church that he belongs to ought to do with him? You’d say, well, I’m sure that he ought to be put out of the church. He ought to be disciplined. And if you said that, I’d agree with you on that. Now, suppose, though, that I told you that I knew a member of a certain church and he was filled with pride, one of the proudest persons that I’d ever met. And I’d ask you, what do you think the church ought to do with him? Now, I dare say that none of you would suggest that he be put out of the church. I think many of you that have a very tender heart, many of you do, would say, well, I think maybe the pastor ought to talk to him or somebody ought to talk with him about that, that it’s wrong to have pride, but that it’s not such a bad sin after all, and it’s one that doesn’t show at least. It’s not like getting drunk. It’s not like stealing. It’s not like lying. Would I surprise you if I told you that in the sight of God, that pride is a lot worse sin? and getting drunk, and the Bible has a great deal to say about drunkenness, and I have been giving in the past few weeks a great deal in that particular field, not only of the condition today, but that which brought down the nation Israel. God said that because of their drunkenness, That’s the thing that brought Babylon down. It destroyed Alexander the Great. It brought Rome down and all of the great nations. It’ll bring our nation down. But may I say to you that in God’s sight, pride is worse than that. Now, this, by the way, is one that gets right down where we live today. And it’s very important because this is right where the bat hits the ball, friends. This is where the plane of your life and my life touches down on the runway of the life of God today. And we are given here a right perspective. I want to say to you that pride is the sin of sins. It’s one of the worst sins of all. It’s something that the scripture condemns above everything. Now, let me give you some scripture for this. God says that he hates pride. And if that’s the thing that Edom’s eaten up with, God can say, Esau have I hated because of that of pride. I don’t say it’s an unpardonable sin, but I’d say that if there’s anything is unpardonable, that would be it. Notice what the writer of the Proverbs says in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, verse 16. It says, These six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him. Number one, a proud look. Number two, a lying tongue. Three, and hands that shed innocent blood. Four, a heart that deviseth wicked imagination. Five, feet that be swift running to mischief. Six, a false witness that speaketh lies. And seven, he that soweth discord among brethren. And you know what number one is on God’s hate parade? A proud look. A proud look when that man or that woman walks into church and looks at some poor saint there that they know has committed a sin. And the man lifts his head, puts his nose in the air, and a woman draws the skirts about her. Of course, they wouldn’t have many skirts today to draw about them, but suppose that she did that. May I say to you, that in the sight of God is worse than getting drunk. And that’s not condoning drunkenness. That’s saying that drunkenness is bad, but here’s something that’s lots worse than that. And that’s not all that God says. God says he resists the proud, but he always is on the side of the humble. God hates a proud look, as we’ve seen. And he says this, that the fear of the Lord is to hate evil and pride. And John tells us that pride of life is not of the Father. Where does it come from? If there’s anything that comes from the devil, that is it. And today, a great many of the saints have pride of race, pride of face, and pride of grace. They’re even proud they’ve been saved by grace. My friends, that ought not to make you proud or something to even brag about. It’s something to glorify God about, but it’s something to humble you. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself that you have to be saved by grace because you’re such a miserable sinner? Well, may I say to you, I wish I had something to offer God for salvation. I have none. And therefore, I have to be saved by grace. And I can’t even boast of that. There are too many boasting today of the fact that they have been sinners. Well, God giveth grace to the humble. And we are told, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Well, what kind of mind did he have? lowliness of mind. He said, I’m meek and humble, and for that reason take my yoke upon you. And that, after all, was the sin of Satan. That is the thing that I think is destroying the testimony of a great many Christians today and have made them very ineffective for God. Although they go in for show, but the thing they’re building is a big haystack and they’re not building on the foundation of Christ in gold and silver and precious stones. And pride today has a great many of the saints down for the count of ten. Pride today has pinned the shoulders to the mat of a great many today. And this is the thing that brought Satan down. He says, I’ll exalt my throne above the stars of God. I’ll be like the Most High. And that was actually Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity. He strutted like a peacock in the palace of his kingdom of Babylon. And I’m quoting scripture now, Daniel 4.30. The king spoke and says, “‘Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?’ And what happened to him? While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it’s spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee. They shall drive thee from man, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And that’s no accident, friends. The psychologists would call that hysteria today. that led to a form of amnesia where this man did not know who he was. And he went out and acted like an animal of the field. Why? Because when a man is lifted up by pride, he’s not lifted up. He has come down to the level of the beasts. And that is the picture of him. And God debased this man, brought him down to the level of the beasts of the field. Now, what is pride? How would you define pride? Well, let me give you a definition of it. I’ve said that I think it’s a form of insanity. But pride is this. Pride of heart is the attitude of a life that declares its ability to live without God. May I give that to you again? This is important. Because as I said a moment ago, this is where the bat hits the ball for a great many Christians. And here is the definition. Pride of heart is the attitude of a life that declares its ability to live without God. And so we find here the pride of heart had lifted up this nation of Edom. And just like Esau, who despised his birthright, and he thought a bowl of soup, even in the home of Isaac, where there was plenty to eat. But he liked that bowl of soup, and he liked it more than he liked his birthright. He didn’t care. For God at all. And when he despised that birthright, he despised God. And now Esau has become a great nation. And you have a nation now that declares its ability to live without God. Listen to them. Verse 3. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock. whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Now, he lived in a very unique place. Actually, he lived in that Rocky Mountain fast. of the rock-hewn city of Petra. It’s still in existence today, and it can be viewed. Many are just overwhelmed by the size of that city, a ready-made city, a city that is there today, hewn out of the rock. And it’s protected by the entranceway, which is called El C, very narrow in places where a horse and rider can get through, but with just a bit of twisting and turning. And actually, it was a city that could easily be defended. And it was a city that had become a place where the nations of the world found out that they were safe there. Everything was secure. It was like the first national bank. And many nations deposited vast sums of gold and silver there because they felt that that city could not be taken. They dwelt in the clefts of the rock. What a picture that is. They were living in these great buildings that were hewn out of solid rock inside in this great canyon, and there are a couple of canyons there, and up and down the sides of it and they were perfectly secure. At least they thought they were in that particular place. And they actually signed a Declaration of Independence. They had a false security there. And they severed all relationship with God, even if they had any before. They seceded from the government of God. They revolted and rebelled against him. And now what’s God going to do in a case like this? Well, let’s look at the next verse. In verse 4, God says now, “…though thou exalt thyself as the eagle…” And though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. Though they would exalt themselves like the eagle. Now, the eagle is the symbol of deity. They were going to overthrow God, as Satan attempted to do, and they were going to become deity. They were going to handle the business that God is supposed to handle. How many people today are attempting to run their lives as if they were God? They don’t need God. They live without him. And the interesting thing is that the way God has made all of us, he hasn’t put a steering wheel on any of us. You know why? Because he wants to guide our lives. He wants us to come to him for salvation first. Then he wants to take charge of our lives. And when you and I run it, we’re in the place of God. We’re in the driver’s seat. We’re the one that’s the captain of our own little ship and our own plane. And we’re going through the water and through the air just to suit ourselves. May I say to you, that is pride. And anyone that reaches that position is committing a sin, if they continue in it, that is fatal because it means they go into a lost eternity. Now, take a good look. Will you come now and look down in the microscope again? Eat them now. is the incarnation of Esau. And there stands Esau. What do you see now? You see a human animal. And here is animalism in the raw and the terrifying ugliness of it all. Now, the doctrine of evolution is taught as a fact of science today. I consider it the greatest delusion of the 20th century. And I think that there are many outstanding men that are beginning to get away from it. It’s accepted by the average man as truth. And there are strong and, I think, intelligent objections by reliable scientists. Unfortunately, they are largely ignored. For instance, there is Mr. Edwin Conklin, the biologist. He says the probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop. May I say to you that there are many scientists that would agree with him. But I’m going to break off right there today, and I’ll pick right up there next time. May God richly bless you, my beloved.
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Thanks for getting on the Bible Bus. I’ll look forward to sitting with you next time, and we’ll see you soon. Until then, to be in touch, visit ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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Through the Bible exists to take God’s whole word to the whole world. And we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God’s word go today?
