SPEAKER_00: Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Friday.
SPEAKER_00: I am really looking forward to this Sunday when we finish up our brief walk through Obadiah.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is God's Word, I hope you have seen how this book, written over 2,500 years ago to a small Middle Eastern nation, has something to say to us today.
SPEAKER_00: Obadiah's theme is divine sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord of history works out his purposes even during the captivity and cruelty towards his people, the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: God will bring Edom down.
SPEAKER_00: He is in control of the plans of men, was what he was trying to tell Israel at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But he's also the God of the future.
SPEAKER_00: There is a coming kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: The king is building his kingdom, and he will prevail.
SPEAKER_00: Mount Zion will be a proud capital again, cleansed from all the defilements of foreign destruction, as Jerusalem was at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But this also points toward Christ and the new Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So I have a simple question for you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord is sovereign, and if the kingdom will be the Lord's, is that King your King?
SPEAKER_00: Are you part of his kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it another way.
SPEAKER_00: When the day of the Lord eventually comes, which it will, will you bow the knee joyfully to the king?
SPEAKER_00: Because that is what you are doing now, in following his commands and loving him faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: Will you greet him with great joy?
SPEAKER_00: Or will you fall in utter terror because you know your day of judgment is coming?
SPEAKER_00: The awful wrath of God against sin has already fell on Christ at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: If we recognize our sin and turn to Him in repentance and faith, we can escape that judgment and wrath.
SPEAKER_00: Self-sufficiency, hard-hearted arrogance, indifferent apathy, and reliance on worldly wisdom will lead to a horrible outcome on that day.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that for you, that rather than the judgment of God on that day, that it will be the joy of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have turned to Him in repentance and faith, I pray that your joy is evident to all today.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.