Obadiah reminds us that the Lord is sovereign. He is able to use pagan nations in order to accomplish his will. No matter how strong a pagan nation might think they are, no one can fight against God and win. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth and no one can hold back his hand or say to him, What have you done?
Nothing happens without God willing it to happen before it happens, and willing it to happen in the way that it happens. When we confess the Apostles Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty,
we are acknowledging that God is sovereign over all things.
God’s sovereignty is an important truth that he has revealed to us in the Bible. It is a mystery that God can be in control of everything and yet still hold men and women responsible for their sins. God used the people of Babylon to judge the people of Israel but then he also held the people of Babylon accountable for their violence. This is a mystery we cannot fully understand. We must simply believe what God’s Word tells us.
Edom may have thought that their god Qaus was in control over their land, but this was not the case. Their god was an idol, it did not exist. The Lord was in control not only over the land of Israel, but also over the land of Edom.
The fact that God is in control over everything should keep us from becoming proud and thinking that we are primarily responsible for our intelligence, our physical strength, or our salvation. God has made us who we are, and by his grace he has given us gifts and opportunities that other people might not have had. By his grace he has made sure that we grow up in a time and place where we have heard the gospel. Whatever skills and abilities we have today, they are due to God’s gracious provision and not due to our ingenuity or cleverness. This does not mean that we as human beings are not responsible for our actions. But it does mean that we must not pretend or think that we are in any way better than other people and that God has shown mercy to us because we are good when other people are bad. Except for the gracious care and provision of God, we would have nothing.
1 The vision of Obadiah.