Who Will Bring Me Down? | Pride Will Bring You Down (Part 1) | Obadiah 1:1–9
2026-05-17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-IsFIEsOzs

That's where we are heading over the next three weeks. So we're gonna go ahead and pray. You can also follow along with the screen, and additionally, with the handouts there in your bulletin. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and for grace and for hope, and we thank you for this vision that you have given to the prophet Obadiah. We just ask that as we take a look over the next three weeks at these 21 verses that you would help us to see the reality and the danger and the deception of pride. That you would help us to see that if left unchecked, pride will harden our hearts. It will take us to places we never thought that we would go on our own. And that you oppose pride and that most of all, you would help us to see that your kingdom is the

only true kingdom. And all the little kingdoms we try to set up and we try to control and we try to find hope in them in your presence. So we ask that you would put our feet on the rock. Like Moses, you would put us in the cleft of the rock and cover us with your hand. Be with us this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So growing up, I grew up in a family full of church people. The unfortunate side effect of that is whenever you do something dumb, there is a verse for that, is what I found out. I remember once I was swinging on the swing set, and I think actually Uncle Brian and Aunt Becky were there as well. We had this really cool set of swings underneath our fort, which was up in the air, maybe 10 or 11 feet. And so I realized that I could jump off the swing and grab one of the support beams and hang off it.

I was really cool, and probably the words that my mom hated to hear growing up was like, "Hey mom, watch this." And so of course I do it. I've done it successfully like a million times before that. She turns and looks, and immediately I fall on the ground and crack the growth plate in my elbow. And now my mom had the grace to not say anything at the emergency room. She did later on, and we talked about this, go, "Pride goes before fall, and the haughty spirit before destruction." And there was a lesson from the book of Proverbs, and my sort of broken arm, and from my mom. Now if we had to summarize the book of Obadiah, Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 18 is really the place for us to go. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. This is the reality of the book of Obadiah. It's about pride, and it's about

the oncoming destruction, and the haughty spirit being opposed by God. In fact, let's begin with just verse one. "The vision of Obadiah, thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations. Rise up. Let us rise up against her for battle." And I just want to start at the very beginning with Obadiah. In Scripture, there's a lot of Obadiahs. I think there's 13 Obadiahs in total. The name means servant of God. And what we find in verse one is he received a vision from God. And in terms of Obadiahs, this is all we know about this Obadiah. None of the other 12 that are found in Scripture, their time periods don't match up. And so all we know about the guy who records the vision from the Lord, this Obadiah, is that his name means servant of the Lord. God came to him in a vision.

He wrote it down, and that's all we know. And the reality is, for a vision that concerns God opposing pride, it doesn't get more perfect than that, that the messenger sort of just disappears into the background, focusing us on the Word of God. And so Obadiah records this vision of God concerning Edom. Edom is a nation that traces its lineage backwards. Back to Esau, the grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac, brother of Jacob, and his name means red. And we'll talk about that a little bit. And this nation is a brother nation to Israel. And so in terms of the nation of Israel specifically, in this case, the tribe of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, when we talk about the nation of Edom, we're not talking about some random nation that lived along their borders or they had heard of or diplomatic relations were established with another country.

We are talking about family members. Remember, Abraham is called by God. He has a son named Isaac. Isaac has two sons named Jacob and Esau. And both of these sons, Jacob and Esau, go on to found nations. One, the nation of Israel, which includes the tribe of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, to whom this letter is written. The other, the nation that comes from Esau, is the nation of Edom. So much so in Deuteronomy, as Moses delivers God's instructions, we find this given to God's people. You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. So this judgment that is coming upon Edom, here in this little short vision, 21 verses long, is not really a picture of diplomatic relations, but a picture of a family problem. And so what happens, the Edomites, they will live in the mountains sort of south and east of the Dead Sea.

They are going to carve their strongholds out of the sandstone of the cliffs. It's difficult terrain, there's deep gorges, there's narrow passages, and it gave them a level of security because big armies can't march to them because they have to go sort of narrow to get through these gaps. And so a small amount of men, armed and trained well, can defend their cities, and if they have to retreat to their city, their city is built high in the cliffs and into the rock. And what we're going to find is the vision that God gives Obadiah. It outlines, first of all, their pride in the first nine verses, which leads to their treatment of Judah in verses 10 through 14, which results in the judgment of God in verses 15 through 21. And this judgment is not hypothetical. Notice what God says, "A messenger has been sent out among the nations.

Rise up. Let us rise up against her for battle." That's a biblical way of saying that God's already acting on this judgment. That this judgment that is coming from this vision is not a "Maybe this will happen. It might happen. You better be careful or I'm going to get you" kind of picture. That this is a judgment that is in progress. Now this vision likely takes place in 586 BC when Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Babylonians. We'll read from the context of Obadiah that Jerusalem is parallels with the book of Jeremiah. There's references to exiles. Which leads us to a really big and really important question. Why does this matter to any of us? Sometimes I say this. Not my clowns. Not my circus. Not my horses. Not my rodeo. How is this little book of 21 verses, how does this have any impact on my life?

Think about what we just talked about. Just a few introductory moments, right? We have a prophecy concerning a family conflict between the descendants of two very dysfunctional brothers. And when we say dysfunctional, we don't mean like the kind of, we put the fun in dysfunctional. But guys who tried to kill each other at one point, it takes place 2,600 years ago in a place that's far, far away. How does this little book have any impact on my life? Why would we spend three weeks bothering with the book of Obadiah? It's a family conflict, doesn't involve me. It's far away, it's a long time ago. What impact does this little book have on our life? At the heart of this vision is God's description of and his judgment against pride. And we go, "Great, that's their pride."

I think God would say, "Well, it might also be your pride." You see, pride is not a new problem. The destructive nature of pride is recorded throughout all of Scripture. Think about Genesis chapter 3, how the serpent in the garden appeals to Adam and Eve about the fruit. If you eat more than what you are now, and God doesn't want you lifted up, and he's jealous of this opportunity that you have, and it's their pride calling them to partake of this fruit. Go a few chapters later, and there's some guys who go, "You know what? We'll build a tower to the heavens." And the picture of this tower, and we read in the book of Genesis, was to keep them from being scattered, that we can hold it all together by the strength of our own hands.

God calls Abraham, and during a famine, instead of trusting God, Abraham packs up and takes his family to Egypt, and it turns out he doesn't just do this once, he does it twice, and he gives away his wife each time, trusting in his own plan rather than God's, right? The struggle between Jacob and Esau was for primacy and place in the family, a struggle of pride. Joseph's brothers, their pride's not just present, but it ends up with them looking down on Joseph. Here comes the dreamer, and they were going to try to kill him, but they end up throwing him in a pit, selling him into slavery. Pride's not just present, but it's a wrecking ball of destructive force, and we're not even through the first book of the Bible. And if you follow it through the pages of Scripture,

it's one problem after another, and it's not just a problem that's out there for them, it's a problem that's in there for us, because our tendency is to look at this and go, "Yes, I can easily spot pride out there." Is that we see in Scripture that the problem isn't just out there, but it's in here as well. In the book of James, it's a book that's written to Christians who are scattered because of persecution. And James writes them a letter. And in his letter, you move through the book of James, what you find is that almost every issue he's addressing, chapters 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, all these issues, at the heart of them, there are pride. And that even sometimes in suffering, pride is the problem. In fact, take a look at James chapter 4, verses 6 through 10.

He gives more grace, therefore, he says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched, and mourn, and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning, your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. James, writing to Christians who were scattered and often struggling, writes to them, and in many cases, their struggle and their heartbreak and the conflict they were having within their churches was ultimately pride. And he'll tell us that God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble, and ends this section here saying, "Humble yourselves before the Lord." Let me give you one more reason.

There's a linguistic link between Adam and mankind, right? When Adam is formed out of the dirt of the ground, the red clay, find his name given as Adam, also the word that ends up being used for mankind is also the word at the root of Esau and of Edom. It's not just the name of a guy who is the son of Isaac, but ultimately this picture linguistically traces its roots back all the way to the beginning and has a picture of all mankind in it. So we want to come this morning and begin to think about pride. And in our section this morning, what we find is both a description of pride and then a call to hope in God. And what we find is this, very simply: Pride likes to look down. Listen to this from Obadiah, verse 3:

"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?'" And so we start with the physical geography of Edom, and it gives you a picture of their attitude of pride, right? High in their safe cities, protected by limited access. Edom, literally, if you look out the window of your city, right, you're looking down on everyone. And while it's wonderful, and we want to have a nice view when we look out our window, we like to be up high and look out over the valleys, and it's a wonderful thing. The problem happens when it stops being a physical looking, and it becomes a spiritual and emotional looking down on others. What you find is, in Scripture, this is not a new problem.

Do you remember David and his wife, Michael, as he brings the Ark of the Covenant finally with the Levites into the city of Jerusalem? And he is just absolutely absorbed in worship, and he's dancing before the Ark of God, just overjoyed that the presence of God is coming to his city. And what does he do? He gets home, and his wife, who's been looking out the window, goes, "Oh, how the King of Israel has distinguished himself today." Not in a nice way, but in an absolutely sarcastic, cutting way, looking down on him as he prays God. Or if you remember, there's a guy by the name of Naaman, and he has leprosy. His servant girl, likely taken as a slave from the people of Israel, so there's a prophet who can cure your leprosy. And so Naaman goes to the king, who sends him to Elisha, and he goes up and he knocks on Elisha's door, and Elisha's busy.

So he sends his servant out and goes, "Go dip yourself seven times in the Jordan River." And Naaman, this very important military leader, jumps back in his chariot, and he's mad. First of all, he's mad because the prophet couldn't come out and talk to him himself. He's like going to the doctor, and you have an appointment with your doctor at your doctor's office, and the nurse just opens the door and hands you out a prescription and goes, "There you go." "Well, I want to see the doctor." "No! Just go do this." And then he's mad about the river. "Don't we have better rivers back home than the muddy Jordan River?" And he almost turns his back on the healing God provides because he looks down on how the prophet treated him, and he looks down on the rivers of Israel.

Think about Goliath and David who looks at David and says, "Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks and stones?" Well, probably one of the most familiar pictures of looking down, he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves and treated others with contempt. Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, another tax collector. Listen to what the Pharisee does. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed this way, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extorting unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get." And here he is looking over the tax collector and looking down on him. What pride does is it causes us to look down. C.S. Lewis says this,

"A proud man is always looking down on things and on people. And of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." And he goes on to talk about how in our pride we can't look and see God. And pride doesn't always have to be loud. Right? It can be in our heads, in our commentary about others and their decisions, and what they're doing, and how they're doing it. And it doesn't always have to be scornful. Right? Pride can find itself in our attitudes and our words and our thoughts. "Well, I wouldn't have done it that way." Pride looks down. That's the problem with Edom. It's not just their cities are high up, but their attitude toward everyone who surrounds them. I wouldn't have built my city there.

I'm a city like that. I'm safe. I'm secure through my strength and my power. And the rest of you are weak, and you are small, and what you find next. It's something probably all of us have experienced, maybe not with pride. Have you ever bought something that turned out to not match with what was advertised? I remember this was probably 12 or 13 years ago. It was longer than that because it was back before I was married. One of my buddies and I were getting ready to grill some food, and we were walking through Walmart. I don't remember if any of you saw the infomercial for the slap chop, right? It's like you got this thing, and you put like an onion in it, and you slap it, and the onion's all perfectly diced. You put a tomato in it, and you slap it.

Tomato comes out perfectly chopped. You put a jalapeno in it, right? It's like, "Hey, let's make some salsa to go with our steaks." So I get home, and I like put an onion in it, and I slap it, and nothing happens. I was like, "Maybe if I hit it harder, right?" And I just get squished onion. And then I was like, "Oh, you know what? Well, tomato. Tomato's nice and soft, right?" And I got tomato juice. Here is this thing that if you'd ever stayed up late at night watching TV, this guy's just out there, and he's like, "Tap, tap, tap. Here's a great salsa." And here I am with like a hammer, and it's just not cutting anything. And I remember I was like so disappointed over this thing that I got off the clearance aisle because I had such great expectations.

This is what pride does, right? Pride deceives. It's very clearly stated in our text. The pride of your heart has deceived 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 among the stars, from there I will bring you down," says the Lord. Notice that this, in verse 3, takes place in the heart. "Who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground?" It's not a press conference. It's not a declaration. It's self-satisfaction in the heart. And here is the promise of pride. I'm safe. I'm secure. I live up high in the rock. Nobody can attack me. I'm too protected. I'm too close to the stars.

And what God is going to do is He's going to expose the reality of the deceit of pride, because in pride we deceive ourselves. Right? The reason for their safety is primarily their location. It's primarily their geography. Now their building was great, and it was impressive, but impressive buildings without the canyons and without the mountains don't offer any protection. And so in many ways, by saying, "Look at how high up I am," they are taking credit for what God has already done. But it also, pride also deceives us about our ability. In many ways, what happens in verse 3 and 4 in Obadiah echoes what happens in Genesis chapter 11. They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower. With its top in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."

Here's the reality, right? They're deceiving themselves. You might be building a good tower. It might be a tall tower there on the plains of Shinar. But it is not a tower that ultimately has its tops in the heaven. The same is true with Obadiah. "Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is among the stars, from there I will bring you down," says the Lord. And what's interesting is God's response. In Genesis chapter 11, verse 7, it just simply says at the very beginning of the verse, "Come, let us go down." Here were people in Genesis 11. We're going to build a tower with a top in its heavens. It's going to be tall. It's going to be great. Nobody can scatter us. And God goes, "Oh, look at that cute little tower. Let me go down and see it up close."

The same is true. "You soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars. From there I will bring you down," says the Lord. Pride doesn't just deceive us about what it's able to accomplish. It deceives us about our security. You see, there is some reality in the security of the Edomites. Real rocks, real canyons, real alliances, real wealth, real approaches that can be defended, but it was ultimately not going to be sufficient. So many of their advantages were real, and that's what makes it so deceptive. It takes those real things and tells us that they're ultimate things, and we tend to do the same thing. Here is this good thing that I have, and we hold on to it as if it's our hope, or maybe it's the idea of getting something. If I can do this, if I can achieve this, if I can get this, if I can be here, if I can be there, and we say, "If I get that, life will be good."

And what we've done is the same thing Edom has done, is we've carved something out of the rock, and we said, "This will hold me." We might not say, "Who will bring me down?" But we might live them. Verse 4 is a question. God is answering a question that nobody is really asking, but God's going to give them the answer anyway. 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. Pride doesn't just make promises. It ultimately deceives us about our security. Pride is deceitful. It deceives us about our security and our ability, and it's so quiet and it's so insidious. Look at what he says, "I will bring you down," declares the Lord. This is emphatic. I don't need an army. I don't need a plan.

I'm just simply coming to bring you down. And not only is pride deceitful in all these external ways, it's deceitful in our hearts. Think about this. When we think, for example, that we have conquered our pride and our humility, what begins to happen? Man, I am so humble. I can't believe how I've conquered my pride and my humility is so great. And pride reels its ugly head even in the midst of our supposed humility. I want you to see that God opposes pride. God has just said, "I will bring you down," and it's easy to hear that and say that. Why? Why would God do that? Listen to what we read in James. "But He gives more grace, therefore it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to humble." I want you to understand very clearly that God's opposition is not the opposition of a bully.

It can be easy to think that, right? I'm doing so well and God has to pull me down. The reality is that's our pride speaking. You see, God's opposition for us is for our good. Here's the reality. As a parent, I oppose my kids all the time. Not because I want to hurt them, but because I want to protect them. Because I can sometimes see what's coming and they can't. There's an illustration that I've shared with you, some of you before, that is just stuck in my head. There was a little boy who lived down at this house, and this was back, before I was married, before I had kids. And this little guy loved to ride his tricycle. And one day I look out, no parent in sight. And this little dude is pedaling his trike as fast as he can,

down this little section of double yellow line, heading up the hill, dead in the middle of the road. And over the hill, here comes a UPS truck, and thankfully the guy was driving slow, and he just stops. And this little kid just goes, "Ahhh!" and just starts pedaling faster directly at the UPS truck. And I'm going, "Where are your parents?" Right? And so with our kids, we're like, "Hey, don't go in the road." Right? "I want to go in the road. I will oppose you as you try to go in the road." Right? My opposition to my children is not because I'm trying to hurt them or stop them or steal their joy. Because I'm trying to keep them safe. God, in the same way as he opposes us in areas where we're trying to run into danger, and God says, "No!"

He's not doing it to hurt you. He's doing it to save you. And additionally, especially here in Obadiah, God's opposition is just. For a minute, remember this situation. Judah has been attacked. Jerusalem has been destroyed. The best and the brightest have been taken to Babylon. And here is Edom in their fortress. They're gloating. And they're not just gloating. But you're like going to do something with your brother, and he trips, falls, knocks himself out, and you steal his wallet and run off. Right? That's what Edom, ultimately, in their pride, is going to seek to do. And if you are in Jerusalem and you're hearing this prophecy, right? What's happening is God is promising to protect and to stand up for you and to watch over you. You see, pride builds a kingdom that proclaims good while destroying everything it touches.

And that's what's happening, and that's what God protects us from as he opposes. And I want you to see just very quickly how God opposes this pride. I'm just going to read through this. If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night, how would you, how you have been destroyed? Would they not only steal enough for themselves? If grape gatherers came to you, how would they not leave gleanings? How Esau has been pillaged and his treasures have been sought out. And what God is saying here is take a look at your wealth. It was just an ordinary thief. He's not going to be able to carry everything, but my destruction is going to take everything that you have. If the harvest comes, they don't always get everything. There's stuff left on the side. But I'm going to take everything that you have. Your allies have been driven, have driven you to your border.

Those at peace with you have deceived you. They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding. Not only is your wealth going to be taken from you, but your alliances as well. Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and the understanding out of Mount Esau, that your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Temin, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter. The destruction God lifts here. Wealth, alliances, wisdom, and strength. Everything is opposed by God. He says, "Everything that you have trusted in and hoped in, I will take away." And the reason God is doing it is because every single one of these things has become a load-bearing wall in their life.

And when we do that, and we trust those things as opposed to God, it is mercy when God begins to take them away. Let me direct you to the goodness of God. But He gives more grace. Therefore, it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." It's easy to separate this out, right? We've got grace over here and opposition over there. Grace and opposition are both the mercy of God applied directly to our need. For our proud hearts, opposition is the grace that we need. God doesn't tear down for the sake of tearing down. He tears down so that we're not holding on to those things that deceive us, that we had hoped in. And sometimes the most gracious thing that God can do for you is to not leave you alone, to oppose you.

I want you to understand, Israel was in rubble when the book of Obadiah was written, and they were not innocent, right? Their pride and their exile came as a result of their pride, their rejection of God. Their prophets had warned them, they didn't listen. Jerusalem didn't fall because God wasn't paying attention, but it was intentional, because God was disciplining His own people. And yet, when Edom comes to exploit them at their lowest moment, when they are experiencing the consequences of their pride, when their brother who watched them suffer and looted everything that was left, God turned to this broken, disobedient, humbled people and said this, "I see what was done to you, what is done is wrong, and I will make it right." That's grace upon grace. God disciplines and defends at the same time.

The goodness of grace is that it doesn't wait for you to deserve it. It meets you in the pile of rubble that you made from your own bad decisions and says there's a kingdom for you. It's just not the one that you are trying to build. And so the opposition to pride is to reveal its deceitfulness and its brokenness and to call us to something better. Our text this morning has this remarkable choice. In Obadiah 3, "The pride of your heart has deceived you. Those who live in the cleft of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, will bring me down to the ground." I'm hiding in the rock that I built. I know it's not Christmas time, but they're dwelling upon a throne of lies, and it's going to fall apart.

Maybe some of you already have the connection that's found in this verse, who lives in the cleft of the rock. They had forged out their own place of protection, and God says it's not big enough or strong enough. Notice this, as Moses who wants to see God's glory, he can't, but God says, "I will do this. While my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by." All right, the choice we have in front of us this morning is to try to scrabble, and with everything we have, try to scrape out a place in the rock to hide and to protect ourselves and to build for our glory, or we can seek to know God's glory and to be placed in the cleft of the rock and covered, protected, and cared for by his hand. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for Jesus, and we thank you for grace. Help us to see your goodness even in the midst of discipline, to know that your opposition is not out of cruelty, but out of the love of a Father who disciplines those who need to be corrected. Help us to trust in you and to not place our foundation in other things. Hide us in the cleft of the rock that you have made. Cover us there with your hand. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to go ahead and stand, and we're going to sing about God's grace. We're going to sing by the grace.