You want to say something really bad about somebody? Call them and eat them up. I'll tell you why are this edition of KeeLite. Hello, this is Mike KeeLite, Denning your home with freedom, joy, and faithfulness to Christ. Our Bible teacher Steve Brown and his Steve with a teaching for today. Thanks Mike if you have your Bible open it to the book of Opus Daya. And what I'm doing is giving you a mini history lesson about the Edamites. You say, that's really what I need, man. I've got marriage problems, I can't make the mortgage, I lost my job, my kids on drugs. I'm not even sure God's there anymore, and you're going to give me a history lesson on the Edamites. You got to stay with me because God doesn't put anything into Bible, but it doesn't have a reason. And we're going to find some genuinely exciting reasons as we look at what God says about the Edamites. Now, let me continue with the history lesson. Remember I started some 1500, 2000 years before the birth of Christ. We talked about Abraham and Esau and Jacob. We talked about how Israel was formed out of trickery and deception and a lie that would make a gangster proud. And by the way, that's how the church was formed. God took a bunch of really bad people and loved them. So don't get into an anti-Semitic kind of thing. They were stiff necked. You are too, besides you were grafted on his branches. But Israel does not have a wonderful root system. I mean, it was born in some really bad stuff. Now, you've got to say that Jacob tried to fix it, but he didn't do very good with it. Out of Esau came the Edamites, and they got together at their daddy's funeral, but that was it, man. There was a lot of bad stuff. And then we saw that some 500 years later, you've got to remember that Esau and Jacob had gone the way of all flesh. They're with their forefathers. It's over for them. They're dead as doornails. But 500 years later Moses wants to lead the people of God over, you know, remember Joshua was the one who did it. But Moses wanted to do it, never made it. Wanted to lead the people of God into the promised land. Now, in order to get to the place where they wanted to get, they had to cross over the land of the Edamites. So they went to the Edamites, and asked the Edamites if the Edamites would let them cross over. And they said, no. Not only no. We've got armies in your serious trouble. And some really, now over the next 900 years, five times the Edamites joined with the enemies of Israel to invade, sack, and plunder God's people. In Obadiah we see the judgment against the Edamites because they followed after the Babylonians to sack Jerusalem. Now, before we trace this story any further, I want to take a moment to give you a sample of some of the prophecies relating to the Edamites throughout the Old Testament. This is going to be helpful, and you probably didn't know this. I didn't until I studied it, and you began to find them everywhere. Nobody likes the Edamites. If you want to say something really bad about something you don't like and if you were a Christian you wouldn't. After all that Jesus has done for you, but just in case you wanted to say something really bad, call them an Edamite. I mean, that's about the worst thing you can say. I say a 34 or 5 for my sword has drunk its full, and the heavens be old. It descends for judgment upon Edam, upon the people I have doomed. Jeremiah 49, concerning Edam, that says the Lord of hosts, is wisdom no more, and Teaman has counseled parish from the prudent, as wisdom vanished, fleed, turned back, dwell in the depths, all inhabitants. For I will bring calamity. I've e saw upon him the time when I punish him. Lamentations 421, now the writer of Lamentations. And if you've been listening, you know this, is mourning over the fall of Jerusalem. And the thing that really ticks him off is that Edam is rejoicing. Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edam, dweller in the land of us, but to you also the cup shall pass. You shall become drunk and strip yourself bare. Ezekiel 25, 12 through 14, that says the Lord, because Edam acted revengefully against the house of Judah, and is grievously offended in taking vengeance upon them, therefore thus says the Lord, I will stretch out my hand against Edam, and then it goes on and gets worse. Amos 111 among the nations denounced by Amos, to get a crowd thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Edam and for four, I will not revote the punishment, because he pursued his brother with a sword. Malachi 14 through five, that Edam says we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins. The Lord of hosts says they may build, but I am going to tear down, till they are called the wicked country, the people with whom the Lord is angry forever. Your own eye shall see this, and you shall say great is the Lord, beyond the border of Israel. Not going on. That's enough. You get to picture. Matter of fact, Edam is one of the really bad countries in the Bible. You want to insult somebody as I said, especially if you want to insult a Jewish friend, who knows his Bible, call him or her, not goyem, that's bad enough, or going, call them Edamites, and then you are going to be in trouble. Alright, the next incident I want you to see isn't recorded in the Bible. It took place in the inter-testamental period during the Makabean Revolt against Rome. Judas Makabeas fought against the Romans, and I'm not going to go into detail, but they did, and Rome ate their lunch. I mean, absolutely wiped them out. In 55 BC, some 2000 years from the first incident with the two boys, Jacob and Esau fighting in their mother's womb, and Edamite was appointed by Julius Caesar to be the leader of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. In 37 BC, his son Herod became the leader, and had himself crowned the king of the Jews. It was this Herod who slaughtered the innocence and forced the parents of Jesus to flee the Egypt. Some thirty years later, another Edamite by the name of Herod had Jesus brought before him, and for one brief moment had the opportunity to free him, and change history, and to reverse the thousands of years of Edamite history, but he refused. And Jesus was crucified. Now, I'm not finished. One other thing. The year 70 AD, Titus was making his way to Jerusalem from Rome. For its final destruction, the Edamites were by then incorporated into the main body of the Jewish people for all intents and purposes of Rome. They were admitted to Jerusalem to help defend the city, but according to Josephus, the historian, after twenty thousand Edamites were admitted to Jerusalem, they proceeded to revert to form and proceed to rape and rob and kill, sparing either priests or people in their orgy of blood. When Jerusalem fell, the Edamites ceased to exist as a people, and the ancient prophecy of Genesis was fulfilled, made some two thousand eighty years before. The Edam died by the sword, as Edam had lived. So that's the historical lesson. What I'm going to do today, and tomorrow, probably on Friday, is to lift up some lessons we can learn from that. Let me give you one today. The root of bitterness is a lot more important and dangerous than most people suppose. Take God, where I spent the early years of my ministry as an interesting place. In fact, I guess if I were to point to a place that I really, really love and have fond memories of, maybe more than any other, it would be Kate God. I love Kate God. My wife has just gotten back from Boston and Kate God, where she spends some time with some friends that we have after all these years who live on Kate God. But Kate God, when we were there, is quite provincial. I think I told you, the tourist always asked, what do you guys do down here in the winter? The Kate God is always say with one voice, we fumigate. Kate God is love to give the wrong directions, because they just don't like tourists, but the God I have in order to live. But if you live on Kate God, there are family quarrels that go back three, four, five generations. I had a 90-year-old lady in the church that I served on Kate God who refused to become a Christian, refused to be baptized and refused to have anything to do with anybody in the church, because there had been a fight between the seers and the crows, three generations before. Let me take something I've discovered. Everybody else's anger and bitterness is silly, but not yours. I love to be on the outside of a real bad fight, where bitterness is beginning to build up, and preach my sermon against bitterness. I mean, I have a wonderful sermon against bitterness and hostility and anger, the root of bitterness, the Bible calls it, and what it'll do to you how to kill you inside, destroy your walk with Jesus and your witness, you oughta hear me. But you oughta see what happens when I'm the one who's really ticked, who's dealing with bitterness, who's really angry, doubt that is a different matter altogether. The truth is, and this book of Obedoil allows us to see it, that that bitterness that starts in your heart can go for generations, can really hurt people and to destroy the witness who Christ. That's why Jesus said, that it was so important that we forgive as we have been forgiven. So, think of somebody who'd take you off, do something about it. You think about that? I mean, hey listen up, I've got a great booklet for you, free, it's called Christmas Meditations. Now these are things that I've written about Christmas, some familiar, and some not so familiar. We'd love this into to you. Absolutely free. Christmas is coming, and this is the best time to begin to think about it. And you can use this as a devotional base during the Christmas season. Let me give you a number, or an address, or an email, where you can get this, and it's absolutely free. Call 1-800-key-life-24-hours-a-day or write key-life-post-office-box-5000-Mateland-Flarla, 327-94, or key-life-Canada-post-office-box-32150, Cambridge-Intario, in 3-H5-N3, or you can email us at Steve at keylife.org with your regular mailing address, and ask for Christmas Meditations. Hey listen, if you could, help us financially. Oh man, I would be so pleased. Pray about it because I believe that God has called some of you, not all of you, but some of you to stand with us, and in standing with us, to stand with your brothers and sisters and brothers. 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