Obadiah - Measure for Measure

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

All right, well, Shabbat shalom everybody. We're continuing, but we're getting close to the end of our Homeward Bound series. We started off exploring the exilic prophets, the prophets that kind of surrounded the exile and we just kind of kept going because there's such a rich aspect to each and every single prophet and how God's word was funneled through them. And the different traits and the different characteristics of each of the prophets was major and minor. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Zechariah, Haggai, every one of those prophets, has been opening up some piece of what it means to live faithfully in a world, that's going sideways, in a world that's ignited with the Sheol, you know?

And this morning we're going to explore the shortest one, I believe, Obadiah. 21 verses long. Can't even Can't even consider it a commitment to read. It's just so short. And so my hope, just as every single message is, I'm excited about the word, I'm excited about the Bible, not only for its implication spiritually, but also because it's just a really awesome collection of books that tell us wisdom, especially as believers. And there's just so much richness in it. And so, my hope is that after each message, you guys go home and you dive into the word and I hope that you're excited that you'll see the richness and the depth of what God has done in his word and in the scriptures.

And so, Obadiah his name means servant of Yahweh. And we know nothing about him. Happens. There's no commission story, there's no call story, no biography, just a man with 21 verses. You know, unlike Jeremiah that God knitted him and his spirit of prophecy and his vocation in his mother's womb. That's why Jeremiah was a little resentful throughout his career. He was forced on him. But he couldn't do anything about it because the word was burning in his bones. All we have with Obadiah are 21 verses of a vision. But don't let the length fool you because it contains something. It contains a principle that we see the thread of through the entire scriptures.

The King Under the Table

But before we dive into Obadiah, I want to jump over to one of the darker books of the Bible, Judges, in chapter 1. And of course, Judges opens up. It's right after Joshua dies and Israel is still finishing up the conquest of the land. Right? The tribes of Judah and Simeon, they go up against a Canaanite king and his name is Adoni-bezek. It's a fun name, right? Adoni-bezek. And they catch him. And the very first thing they do, before anything else, is they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. I mean, that's kind of brutal, but like but why? Why would you do that? Just to make a point? Why on earth, right?

Would you do that to a prisoner? Well, we keep reading. Oh, can someone bring me the clicker? It's right there. I knew I naked. I felt different. Didn't have it. Thank you so much. And Why would they do that? And then we see in verse seven where Adoni-Bezek himself answers the question. We're going to get caught up with technology here in just a moment. He said, "70 kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. God has repaid me for what I have done." And then they brought him to Jerusalem where he died. He looks up from the dirt and he says, "As I have done, so God has repaid me."

70 kings under his table with no thumbs and no big toes. Because you can't grip a sword without a thumb, right? And I've never tried it, but I think you have trouble running very efficiently without big toes. You'd at least kind of wobble a bit, I guess. He took conquered kings and immutilated them just enough to make them harmless. And he kept them as pets underneath his table. And he tossed them scraps the way you would toss scraps to your dog. Yeah, got real dark, didn't it? And he did this for who knows how long. 70. They had to pick up scraps with the like chopstick fingers.

And in the day Judah caught him, what did they do? They cut off his thumbs and his big toes. Exactly the same thing. Word for word. And he's the one that names it, which is significant. It wasn't a leader of Judah, it wasn't Simeon. It wasn't the Hebrew prophet standing over him with the scroll. It was a pagan king, a Canaanite. The one who built the table and threw the scraps. This king has temples to Baal Hadad in his city. He has asherah poles, probably in his garden. He's never read Genesis. He's never heard a Psalm. He's He's He doesn't know anything about this, but in this moment in this moment, his own blade comes back on his body.

And he names God. Not Baal and not Asherah. Not the gods of Canaan. The God of Israel. The God he's never served. And so the principle you're going to see is so woven throughout scripture. But here it's so woven in how the world works that even a pagan king feels it in his own body and knows whose hand he's under right now. The God of Israel is not just the God of the people that pray to him. He kind of runs the books over everybody. Adoni-Bezek figured that out on the way to his grave. And the message, the question for you and me when we read this is are we going to figure it out on the before we get to our grave?

And that phrase, "Ka'asher asiti", as I have done. We're going to put a pin in that cuz we're going to see other places in scripture where that comes about. And we're going to see it in Obadiah, verse 15, chapter 1, verse 15. And Yahweh is going to say almost the exact same phrase back to the nation of Edom. "Ka'asher asiti ya'asekh lakh", as you have done, it shall be done to you. Same verb. The pagan king said it about himself with his thumbs in the ground next to him. And now the God of Israel uses it as a verdict against an entire nation. And they're about 7 or 800 years apart. Because the pattern that we see here is real.

Measure for Measure

And the pattern is everywhere. And even the later rabbis had a name for it. Mida keneged mida. Mida means a measure. Like it's word for a measuring cup, I guess you could say. A portion, a measure of grain. Keneged means it corresponds to or it's set against, right? So, mida kenged mida, a measure for a measure. Equal weights and measures. The portion that you give out is going to be that the portion that comes back to you. It's like Jewish karma or karma. Thank you. All right. I was hoping that would land. I thought it would. So, in a later work of Jewish work that we know about that was written after the time of Yeshua, it's called the Talmud.

And it's a collection where rabbis discuss and argue Jewish ethics and also protocols that happened during the Second Temple era. And in tractate Sanhedrin 90A, it states this as a principle. And here's what they recognize in the scriptures and how God works. It says, "All the measures taken by the Holy One, blessed be he, are in accordance with the principle of measure for measure." The concept is what we just reviewed. God is the one who's keeping tabs. He's the one He's the accountant over everybody. The measure that you have used against other people is going to be the measure that you're going to receive.

All right. We see this in the New Testament as well. What you reap is what you, right? It's all fun and games when it applies to a pagan king, right? Now, the thing about this is it's not quite the same as what we would think of Eastern societies and karma. Where you have kind of a nuanced system that's impersonal and the universe is kind of rotating the different weights and measures back to you in different forms. This is this is not that. This is personal. This is covenantal. There's someone behind the wheel that's keeping tabs. There's a person, Yahweh. It's the same God who made the covenant with Abraham and Moses.

Three Stories of the Same Pattern

He's the one that's returning the measure. It's not simply a balance sheet. It's He's a person with a covenant and memory and attention that's driving this. The deeds return on your head because he's paying attention. Adoni-bezek did not say the universe paid me back for all the bad things. No, God has paid me back. He named the person. And once you kind of start to see this it you start to see it in multiple stories throughout the narrative of the Bible. All the way through. Page after page. Genesis 27. Jacob, the younger of the twins, right? Jacob and Esau. Jacob, the younger, he wants the blessing of the firstborn.

But there's a problem. He wasn't the firstborn, right? So his mother, good mom, his mother dresses him up in his brother's clothes and then he wraps the skin of a young goat around his arms and the back of his neck to deceive his blind elderly father. It's not a good look for Jacob or his mom, right? And he goes into his father and he'll feel the hair where there shouldn't be hair. Scripture actually says that it describes Jacob's skin as slick, right? Like snake skin. Because he's slithery like a serpent. He's deceptive. So he covers his arms to pretend like he's his brother. And Jacob walks into the tent and he meets his father and his father knows something's up.

He even says it. He's like The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are Esau. And so even his father is like, "I don't know, but the hands end up winning and Jacob falls for the deception and gives him the blessing. Jacob deceives his father with the skin of a goat. We're good? We got that story. We're familiar with the story. Then we turn two chapters later to Genesis 29. Jacob is now fleeing for his life from his brother for this reason. And he's gone to go live with his uncle Laban. And he sees old Rachel and he is mesmerized by the beauty of this girl. He thinks she's hot. And he makes an agreement that he's going to work seven years for Laban in order to marry Rachel.

And so the wedding night finally comes. Laban brings the bride to his tent. It's dark. And Jacob does what bridegrooms do. And in the morning behold, it was Leah. In the Hebrew it's kind of it almost In the Hebrew vayehi Leah, right? It almost is like dun. It's Leah. And so Jacob is up frustrated. That's an understatement. And so he stumbles over to Laban the next day and he says, "Laban, why have you deceived me?" And listen to Laban's response because this is where the Bible gets rich. It's in verse 26 and he says he says this, there is Leah. What have you done to me? Wasn't it for Leah that I worked for you?

Why have you deceived me? Laban responds, it is not the custom in our country to give the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn. Mhm. So good. That's his defense. Jacob spent 7 years working for Rachel and his very first morning as a married man Laban serves him a wedding that uses Jacob's own theft against him as a defense. And now Laban Here we go, right? The thing that fooled Isaac was what? A covering. It's the cover of the arms. The skin of a goat over Jacob's arms. That's how he deceived his father. The thing that fooled Jacob was what? A covering. It was a covering over a veil over Leah's face.

Both tricks were a covering. The deceiver was deceived by the very tool he used to deceive. The Bible is doing this on purpose. Midah keneged midah. Measure for measure. It's another story. Pharaoh in the Exodus, right? Exodus chapter 1. Pharaoh is afraid of the Hebrews. They're multiplying. They're multiplying faster than he can keep up and it's a national security threat at this point. So he tries slavery. Can't contain them. He tries hard labor. He even tried to get the midwives to help him do the dirty work. Nothing is working and they won't stop multiplying. So he issues a decree. You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.

Every Hebrew baby boy that is born, throw him into the Nile. Drown them. Make the river a graveyard. And you have to understand the thing about the Nile is in Egypt, the Nile was not simply a river. It was the economic lifeline of the nation. It was the god of Egypt. It was the religious calendar. Every time the flooding cycle came in. It was like money in the USA. And Pharaoh takes the source of Egypt's life and turns it into the grave of Israel's children. 14 chapters later, the Hebrews are running for the Red Sea. The Exodus has taken place. They're escaping Egypt, but now Pharaoh's chasing them with the chariots and they're coming faster and faster.

And Moses lifts up the staff and what happens? The water split. And Israel walks through the night on dry land. And the Egyptians follow. And then the waters It says, "The water came back and covered the chariots and horsemen plus the entire army of Pharaoh that had gone after them into the sea. Not even one of them survived." Egypt drowned. The empire that drowned Hebrew babies in the Nile drowned in the Red Sea. The water was their weapon and the water became their judgment. And Yeah. And here's the line. So, in Exodus 18, we have after the fact, we have Moses' future father-in-law, Yitro, Jethro comes.

And here's what Jethro says. He comes out to meet Moses in the wilderness and he hears the whole story and he says this, "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods because he did wonders when the Egyptians acted arrogantly against Egypt." Verse 11, should continue, because the very thing in which they dealt arrogantly, he was above them. In other words, in the very matter that they exalted themselves arrogantly over Israel, that's where God met them. Not by inventing a new form of judgment, but by turning their own weapon back on them. Now, Jethro was not a Hebrew. Jethro was a priest of Midian.

He was an outsider. And the outsider is the one that kind of sees through it. This is how God works. How about the dark comedy of irony we call the book of Esther? Haman is the second most powerful man in the Persian Empire. And he hates one Jew, Mordecai. And throughout the story, his hate metastasizes into this plan to wipe out all of the Jews in Persia, in the empire. And he buddies up with the king and he gets the very ignorant, foolish king to sign off on it. All right, let's kill them all. Let's do it. The date is set and Mor- and not Mordecai, Haman is just stoked about it. And in his impatience, he commissions gallows to be built 75 ft tall, the tallest gallows in the city, spikes that you would put kebabs on, right, people?

And he cannot wait to hang Mordecai on these gallows. He can't wait so much so that he puts them right out front of his residence. He wants to watch every day. He wants to watch him slide down. I mean, he's a sick man, right? Very dark. He can't wait. So, he goes ahead and builds them right before the date. And then, in the story, if you're familiar, the banquet comes, and Esther stands up and exposes him to the king, and the king is so confused and irate he can't process it cuz he can't really process a whole lot if you read the story. So, he gets overwhelmed and overstimulated, and he walks out of the room.

Haman panics. He doesn't know what's about to happen. So, he throws himself on the couch across the lap of Esther almost, and he's begging her, "Please, save my life. I'm so sorry. I didn't really mean it. My bad. Please." The king walks back in and sees Haman on the couch with his wife and loses it. He thinks that he's assaulting his wife now. And the attendant kind of leans in, right? And he's like, "Hey, sir, you know, you know, he built a really big gallows and out front for Mordecai. You know, the guy who saved your life?" And what's the king say? "Perfect. Let's hang Haman on them." They hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.

And then the king's anger was subsided. He felt better. I love it. All right. They hung The Persian carpenters who had built the gallows did not realize they were building them for the man that was commissioning them for. Right? I love the irony. This is how This is like God's love language throughout the Bible. And in the real world, I think, but I digress. Measure for measure. We even have in wisdom literature. They understood this. The one who digs a pit will fall in it. And whoever rolls a stone, it will come back to him. It's not a fluke in the narratives that all these stories have this in common.

The Brother on the Cliff

It's a feature in the world of the biblical authors across 1,000 years of how it took to develop these stories. Everyone understood this. The pagans understand this. We even understand this. Religions all over the world understand this because they see it play out. The measure you put out is what you're going to get back. And that's really scary. So now we're ready for the little book the prophet Obadiah. Because Obadiah has this entire principle aimed at one specific nation for one specific reason. And it's Edom. Now, who is Edom? Well, do I have a slot for Edom? The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord God has said about Edom.

We have heard a message from the Lord an envoy has been sent among the nations. Rise up and let's go to war against her. Edom is not a random pagan nation on the other side of the world. Edom is a family that grew just like the Israelites. And they grew out of the descendants of Esau. Jacob's older brother, the twin. Right? The same womb, the same father, the same covenant family. They split in Genesis 25, of course, when Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of red stew. Red. Edom, Adam in Hebrew. The name itself of the family is the color of the stew that their ancestor traded their future for.

It's kind of cool, right? Irony. Anyway. And the story, of course, does not end with the stew incident. It gets worse because as we've already reviewed in Genesis 27, Jacob, prompted by his mom, dressed up in his brother's clothes, wrapped the goatskin around his arms, and he steals the blessing of the firstborn from his blind father. The blessing that was supposed to go to Esau goes to Jacob. And Esau comes back from hunting, and he walks into the tent, and he finds out what happens. And the text says that he cried. He mourned with an exceedingly great and bitter cry. Big, red, hairy hunter warrior man on his face sobbing like a baby, grieving.

How? Why? And he begs his father. He says, "Dad, is there anything left that you can give me? Say there's something." And there's nothing left. The blessing's gone. The future is gone. His brother took it. And the very next verse says that Esau hated Jacob. And Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand, and then I'm going to kill my brother." That's the wound. Oh, wounds are so powerful, aren't they? Gosh, wounds develop mentalities, develop rumination, develop triggers, develop a new reality of how you see the world. Wounds hurt. This is the wound at the bottom of the family tree.

A stolen blessing and a grieving brother and a murder plot. And Jacob, of course, runs for his life. Good thinking. And when they finally meet again in Genesis 33, after 20 years and Jacob's wrestling match with God, Esau came running and fell on his neck and they wept. That's just a powerful scene. And it looked like reconciliation, but they still ended up going their separate way. Esau went his own way. He went south and he settled in the cliffs. And he carried something with him. Whether he intended to or not. He carried that wound. How do we know this? Because a thousand years later when as we've discussed Babylon came and burned down his brother's house in Jerusalem.

His descendants were the ones in the cliffs watching and cheering. Now, let's look where they lived. This is where we believe the lived. Southeast, right below the Dead Sea area, right? Mountain country, red sandstone cliffs. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where he goes in that cave with all the traps, is Petra, right? In Jordan. That area, if you will, is where we believe was Edomite territory. And if you've looked at the pictures or you've ever been there, the cliffs are 100 ft high. A small force could hold off an entire army with these type of natural defenses around their territory. Edom was essentially unconquerable.

And Edom knew it. That's why they were there, right? Let's see. What do they say? Here's what Here's what Edom says. "Your arrogant heart has deceived you." Speaking to Edom. "You who live in the clefts of the rocks in your home on the heights, who say to yourself, 'Who can bring me down to the ground?'" Who will Who can bring me down? That's That's not a question that they're asking legitimately. It's their slogan cuz they know the answer. You can't touch us. We're up high. We'll roll rocks on you, bows and arrows. We'll get you. It's You can't touch us. We're untouchable. And Yahweh answers Edom's slogan with one phrase.

Mishan adrecha in Hebrew. From there, I'll bring you down. From the exact place that you think makes you safe, I'm going to bring you down. The cliffs that you are so fond of are not too high. You're going down. I'm yelling timber. But the cliffs The cliffs aren't the worst part. The pride that Edom has, I mean, it's a little arrogant, but that's not the indictment here. The cliffs and the pride are kind of like the setup. The indictment is what Edom did with all of that. In 586 BC, Babylon attacks Jerusalem, and they invade Judah, and they come over the walls, and the temple is destroyed and raised and burned, and the walls are crumbling, and the people are slaughtered, and who's left is dragged off into exile into Babylon.

It's the worst day in Israel's history up to this point. That event is what the entire biblical narrative of the Old Testament orbits around. Because that's when the Old Testament started to come together based on that event. Everybody in Babylon began producing the stories, because they wanted to teach their children who they are. This is the birthplace of the Bible as we know it. It's amazing. And on Israel's worst day, when all of this was going on, where was Edom? They were across the valley watching, and they were doing something far worse than simply watching. Though you seem to soar like an eagle, and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down is the Lord's declaration.

Eight Accusations

So, verse Here we go. You will be covered with shame and destroyed forever because of violence done to your brother Jacob. Verses 10 through 14 in Obadiah list eight specific accusations against Edom. These are the indictments. And I want you to listen to the escalation cuz we're going to read through them and I know this is kind of dense today, but I feel like it's important and there's only 21 verses in the book, so we can be studious today if you will. Eight specific accusations. Because Edom is not even accused of attacking Judah. Edom is accused of something worse. And we'll start with verse 11.

It says, "On the day you stood aloof, on the day strangers captured his wealth, while foreigners entered his city gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them. You were just watching. You were like the Babylonians. You did nothing and that's the same as just joining in. You stood by with pleasure. Standing on the cliff watching your brother burn made you part of the burning. Do not gloat. Do not rejoice. Do not boast in the day of distress. Watch the escalation here. Do not boastfully mock your brother. We went from standing there gloating over their brother's destruction. It's like a smile there.

There's a satisfaction now. Now they're kind of happy about it. You didn't just do nothing out of apathy, you did nothing because it brought pleasure to watch. Do not enter my people's city gate in the day of their destruction. Yes, you, do not gloat over their misery in the day of their disaster, and do not appropriate their possessions in the day of their disaster. Don't loot your brother's stuff. See, now Edom isn't just watching with pleasure, now they're going in after the destruction. And they're going through the houses of the people that were slaughtered, and they're taking their clothes, and they're taking their gold, and they're taking their nice clock on the mantel, and they're they're harvesting their brother's possessions for their own gain.

Taking what's left. Standing on the cliffs was pretty bad, right? I mean, that's that's pretty bad. Gloating and finding the pleasure and satisfaction of that darkness inside of them, that's pretty bad, too. Walking into the burning sitting into the burning city and looting your brother's house, that's that's next level. And then verse 14, it's kind of the peak. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off their refugees. Do not hand over their survivors in the day of their distress. So, the people who escaped the city, who got out with their lives, are running. They're refugees now. They're trying to find a way through the wilderness.

And Edom is standing at the cross holds crossroads, capturing them and handing them back to the Babylonians. They're picking the refugees off as they run, and they're collecting bounty. They're selling their brothers back to the empire that just sacked the city. Eight accusations. Watching them, gloating, rejoicing, boasting, entering the gates, looting, and selling survival survivors back at the crossroads. They went from standing on a cliff to handing fleeing refugees over to the Babylonians. Never be those people. It's so easy to justify a scenario like this, I guess, if you're in it. Don't be those people.

God hates these people. This is the arc, the peak, the climax of one family members hatred to another. And Edom carried it full. Psalm 137 remembers what Edom said that day. Remember, Lord, what the said that day at Jerusalem, "Destroy it. Destroy it to its foundations. Kill them all. This is great. Pass the popcorn." By the rivers of Babylon where the exiles sat and wept, the psalmist remembers Edom cheering across the valley. This was written by someone who was in Babylon who saw it happen. Tear it down. Don't even leave a stone. And Obadiah is the answer to that prayer in Psalm 137, "Remember, oh Lord, against the Edomites."

Yahweh remembers. For the day of the Lord, Obadiah 15, "For the day of the Lord is near against all the nations, as you have done, it will be done to you. What you deserve will return on your head. There it is. Do you hear it? We recognize it now. I know that was a lot of build-up just to get to verse 15. That's it. Adonibezek said it about himself when his thumbs were on the ground and his toes. K'asher asiti, as I have done, and now Yahweh says the same phrase to a whole nation. As you have done, the pagan king named the principle and the God of Israel uses it at the verdict. 800 years apart.

The Mirror That Reflects Back

21 verses in this entire book. And verse 15 is sitting right where? In the middle. It's the peak, right? The peak. This is the point of the book. This is what everything revolves around, the justice of God. That's the spine. And this one line is pointing all the way back through all the stories that we just went through with the pagan king and Jacob in the wedding tent and Pharaoh at the sea and Haman in his gallows and the pit digger and the pit in Proverbs, all of it gathered up right here. As you have done, so it will return on your own head. Now here is where we make room for the gospel to boil to the surface.

Because we have kind of a problem or at least a kind of a big concern here. Because if the equation of middah k'neged middah is real, measure for measure, and I believe it is, every one of us is in trouble. None of us are going to come out clean of this. I have stood on the cliffs. And I know every single one of you has stood on the cliffs. I mean, let's be real. We have all gloated over someone else. We've all enjoyed. We know what that pleasure feels like. That's right. He deserved that. Oh, praise God, you know, it's We're human. We've all gloated. Our news media does this for us. It baits us and provokes us to join in every single day telling us who our enemy is and who we should hate today.

It's so good at it, too. And we're so good at receiving it. We have all walked through the same gate that should have stayed closed. The mirror reflects back on all of us. And that picture in the mirror is never flattering to look at. Especially when you start remembering. Whatever you send out is coming back. Adonibezek didn't have a way out. Pharaoh didn't have a way out. Haman Edom Neither do we. We're on the same treadmill moving forward. The cycle keeps running. And the cycle keeps producing more victims if you haven't noticed. It produces more victims who become more perpetrators who become more victims who become more who become more who become more become more.

I was in Ireland last week and, and I got in the car with a cab And I know what I wanted to do because I really wanted to know from a perspective of someone in Ireland. And I looked at him as ignorantly as I could and I said, "Hey, we're in free Ireland right now, right?" Cuz you have northern and right and the unionists and the nationalists. A long history of brutality of a people. And he says, "Yes, we are in free." Oh, he's all jazzed up. "Free Ireland." And I said I looked at him and I said, "Why isn't all of it free?" It was a wonderful cab drive and to be honest, I got what I wanted and I had a much better understanding of what this people had been through.

And he just went for century by century by century and decade by decade by decade in the 1900s and he was like, "Yeah, even 8 years ago we had an incident where there was a Catholic school, but it was kind of in a mixed neighborhood and there were protests and there were things thrown at kids and people in masks throwing up throwing things. Ain't throwing. And I looked at him and said, "Is there ever going to be an end to this?" And he says, "There should have been an end to this a long time ago." I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "My generation, this generation doesn't have to keep fighting, but it's our grandparents.

Remember what they did to Uncle so-and-so. Remember what they did to Remember what the Remember the wound. And so the younger generation has an obligation to keep fighting on each side. And it produces more victims who produce more perpetrators who produce more victims who produce more perpetrators. This is how the world works that we live in. This is how it's always worked. But as Christians, we believe that something changed when Yeshua walked into the cycle. Now, Obadiah, look at verse 16 here. As you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp down and be as though they had never been.

Edom drank a cup the day Jerusalem fell. While the temple was burning, Edom was up on the holy mountain drinking wine, drinking celebration, drinking down the destruction of their own brother. And the cup Edom poured was the cup Edom was going to drink. Middah k'negid measure for measure, all the way down to what's in the wine glass. And that image of the cup is a pattern throughout the Bible. We see it pop up several places. Jeremiah chapter 25, we have Isaiah 51, all over the Psalms where it's described as a cup of foaming high gravity alcohol that we just kind of love to drink, but it makes us stumble.

The Cup at Gethsemane

It's God's wrath, right? What's coming to us. The cup that is the literal liquid form of as you have done, so it will come back to you. And now we take that image of the cup, the cup that everyone has to drink. And we're going to walk it into a garden one night about 600 years after Obadiah was written. And the name of that garden is Gethsemane. And there we find a construction worker turned prophet, the Mashiach, the king, on his knees in the dirt. And he's sweating drops of blood. And what does he pray? Father, if it's possible, let this cup, singular cup, let this cup pass from me. This cup.

He's looking at the cup the prophets had been pouring all this time. The cup of returning measure, the cup that holds Adi Bezek 70 kings and Pharaoh's drowned babies and Edom's gloating on the hill and it holds your sin and it holds my sin. It's the closed system all in one cup. And he drinks it. Not because the Father needed someone to punish, but because the only way to break a closed system is to walk into it without owing it anything and let it close around you. He drinks it. Yeshua is the only one in human history who walked into the cycle of returning evil without ever having put anything into it.

He had nothing coming. So when the cycle came for him anyway, it ran out of fuel. It exhausted itself on someone it had no claim on. It shattered the mirror. Isaiah 53. For he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities, punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. Paul follows this exact thing up in 2 Corinthians. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Isaiah saw it 700 years before it happened. By his wounds we are healed. Not by the Father punishing the Son, but by the Son walking into the wound the whole human race had been making for centuries and allowing it to close in on him.

The closed system got a door because the only innocent man in history let the cycle run all the way through him and out the other side. And Paul calls this becoming sin. Again, not that the Father saw the Son as sin and punished him, but that the Son took on the entire weight of as you have done humanity. And he walked it to the cross. And he let it die there with him. So that on the other side of the resurrection, there is a door in the mirror. A door that we didn't build, but it was a door that was hung open from his own body. Guys, if the universe is just a structural wheel, there's no one driving.

And nothing can stop the wheel from turning and crushing us all. But midah k'neged midah is different. Measure for measure because it is personal. Because there is a person who can walk into the wheel without owing it a thing. And he did. The cross is the place where the returning measure ran into the body of Yeshua and it stopped. The closed system was open now. Guys, that's that's the gospel. That's the gospel. The gospel is that the cup that was coming for you got drunk by someone else. The gospel that the equation that was going to crush you got intercepted. The gospel is that the door in the mirror was hung open from a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem and it has never been closed since.

And every single one of us in this room who has trusted him has walked through that door without earning a single inch of that passage. And if you have ever felt the weight of what Yeshua did, walk through Obadiah this week. Read through it and feel it again. He drank what Edom was supposed to drink. He drank what Adoni-bezek was supposed to drink. He drank what you and I were supposed to drink. He took the cup of every gloat from every cliff and every generation and he drank it down. That is who you belong to. That is whose name is on you. That is what your baptism is pointing at. So, if you've ever been baptized, then that's the door going in and coming out.

Saviors on Mount Zion

Washed clean. The last verse of Obadiah, verse 21, it says this. It says, "Saviors." See the S? "Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau. And the kingdom shall be Yahweh's." The book ends with very similar phrase that Yeshua starts his ministry with in Mark 1:15. "The kingdom of God is at hand." Saviors, plural. Moshiach, right? Moshieem, in Hebrew. Not one savior, not one rescuer, multiples. Now, in its original moment, Obadiah was probably looking at the military deliverers of Israel or maybe the judges or the post-exilic leaders coming back. That's the historical reading. That's good.

That's fine. Bible's layered. But, here's the long interpretive tradition both in Jewish and Messianic circles that reads this verse forward. Some Jewish commentaries connect it to the days of the Messiah. The Jerusalem Talmud, again, a much later Jewish work, reads it as pointing to the Messianic age. In the Messianic tradition, the Christian tradition we stand in has long read these moshiim as pointing forward to the disciples of Yeshua. The one sent up the mountain to do what he did, to follow him up the hill. We're standing in that tradition here today on this Shabbat. People who deliver. People who choose to rescue because they've been rescued.

People who now refuse to stand and just watch. Obadiah is looking down a long tunnel of history at a kingdom where the people of God do not look like Edom on the cliffs any longer. They look like rescuers at the crossroads. People going up the mountain and people doing the actual work. And that's where that's where we've arrived this morning. Because midah k'neged midah is not just a warning about what comes back on your head, it's also the job description. It's the structure of how God uses a human being. The measure that you give, the portion you pour out, the cup you hand to other people, that is the raw material God works with.

And so here it is. This is your job. You are not a spectator as a follower of Yeshua. You are not standing on the cliff, you're not supposed to be gloating and be apathetic. You're certainly not supposed to be gaining pleasure at watching people be hurt by the wheels that are crushing them any longer. That's beneath you as a follower of Yeshua in every way, shape, or form. Don't be those people. One chapter in the New Testament Yeshua yelled and to those people. And do you know who they were? They weren't the sinners. They weren't the pagans. They were the most faithful in practice only followers of God.

And he condemned them as the worst, as the ones who were truly misrepresenting everything that God had done. Matthew 23. You're supposed to be one of the rescuers going up the mountain following him with the cross. That's what you were made for. To become something to be used by God. And for those of us who follow Yeshua, the word lands different. Mashiach, a deliverer, a rescuer, someone who pulls another person out of something they could not pull themselves out themselves. That word in Hebrew is built in the same root, of course, as you know, as Yeshua. Salvation. It's a root from Joshua, Yasha, to save.

The name of our Messiah is the verb form of what this prophet is talking about. Christ, Christians, little Christs following him, that's us. Little him's, little Mashiachs. People who do, who follow in small ways what he did in cosmic ways. People who walk toward what is breaking instead of away from it. People who pull others through doors that they could not open themselves. And you do not become a Mashiach by trying harder. You do not become one by being a better version of yourself. You become one by drinking from the cup that he drank and following him in faithfulness. By belonging to him, by letting his measure become your measure.

Your hands start to look like his hands. The measure you pour out starts to look like the measure he poured out. And then God, who runs the books, has something he can use. When he said, "Pick up your cross and follow me." we forget where he was going with his. So, the question is not am I a good person today? Am I keeping the Torah good enough? The question is, am I becoming the kind of person God can put his hand on and send? Am I becoming the kind of person who walks toward the gate when everyone else walks away from it? Stands at the crossroads pulling people out instead of selling them back?

When someone three rows over is quietly falling apart goes and prays for them? Because the same question that punished Edom is the equation that fills your hands when you choose to live in the other direction. Measure for measure. You and I You and I get to learn from this from the right end of this. And hopefully there's still time. While the door is still open. While the mountain is still calling for the Moshiach. And so, here's what I'd like to send you off with this message. Two things. One, go read your Bibles. Go read your Bibles. Once you know what measure for measure is, you'll see it everywhere.

It's in the wisdom literature, the narratives, the prophets, the gospels. The Bible is interpreting itself in front of you. Read it and mark it up. Two, become something to be used by God. Now is the time to be the followers who actually hold onto the teachings of the king they claim to follow instead of just wearing it as an identity. Very soon I think we'll be able to clearly see the difference in those two. In fact, I guarantee it. Watch for those who are controlled by fear. And watch for those whose faith gets shaken just because the world looks different. And watch who has no foundation despite claiming to be a seasoned follower.

It's time to look in the mirror. It's time to look at the measure in your own hand. It's time to look at the measure that you're using on your family, and your spouse, on your kids, on your brother, on your friends, on your community, on the person on the other side of the political line that gosh, they're doing a good job to make us hate. It's time to us to see the world for what it is. People that are broken and need rescuing just like we did. And it's time for us to step up and actually do it. That's what we're called to do. So, please stand as we conclude with worship today. And I invite you if you need prayer today, we have a prayer team on either side of the stage.

If you need prayer about something revealed to you in the message or something going on in your life, it does not matter. We're here to pray for you. Maybe you've been carrying something that you'd like to leave here today and not pick back up and not take with you. Now is an appropriate time to set that down, and we have an altar that symbolically you can come and set that down forever. As we're called to be something and it's too easy to take that for granted and not do it. The Bible's clear. We walk through a door and we're changed. And when we're changed, that means we become something else.

And the thing that we're becoming is like Yeshua, being conformed like Yeshua, which means we act like Yeshua, which means we sacrifice like Yeshua, which means we approach people that Yeshua approached even though it's hard or it's uncomfortable. It means that we love people that everybody else says we shouldn't love. Love people that people get mad at you for loving. That's what we're called to be. That's the plan. To overtake the world with God's love. Avinu Malkeinu, our Father and our King, Father, we thank you for this opportunity to run through such a small prophet, such a small vision, but your words.

That the Holy Spirit that you say is within us even now, the same spirit that raised Yeshua from the dead. Father, I ask that it would work to full capacity. That we would let go of the things anchoring us to the ground and allow it to take us places that you would want us to go. That you would allow our faithfulness and our trust in you to guide us through this world. To be the little rescuers following the big one. Conform us, Father. Conform us into the image of Yeshua. That we would walk like him and talk like him. That when people meet us, they would not think about, "Oh, I met so-and-so."