“Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid on their substance in the day of their calamity.” The day of their calamity is the day Christ died. Remember God sees us now as Edom. “Even though thou wast as one of them.” ‘Israel’ represents only the children of God, born of the Spirit, getting their life from the Cross of Christ. Esau represents only the natural man. Edom is bloody. We were quick to take the benefits of the peace with God so sorely won for us at Calvary, we snatched at the blessings conferred on us by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but we regarded them as spoils of war, as legitimate gains which would serve to foster our materialism and human values. The Sacrifice was despised, the inheritance plundered for gain. Instead of upholding the Cross we became allies of those who first crucified Jesus. It had been better that we never had tasted that the Lord was gracious, than that we should have tasted and despised. The riches of God’s grace, revealed to us at Calvary, have been plundered and spent. The word rolls through eternity, crashes down the corridors of time, comes to us by the hand of Obadiah – “Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom …. thou shalt not!” Woe to such a people! “Thou shalt be cut off for ever.” What will it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.
“Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.” God was dead, so why should His people live? It was a truly ignoble thought! Did we merely stand and look on in the day of distress? No, we went further. We helped! But we helped the wrong side, we aided the wrong ally. Our care was not for the people of God but for those who came against them. We took sides against the Lord our God, aiding and abetting in the destruction of His people. Should we wonder then that God Himself is now against us? Should we be amazed at our own calamity? He is not against “the heathen” – He is against us, against Edom, the bloody people. Could we not have been content to stand aside, to take no active part in it? To be merely spectators would be bad enough, but to assist the enemy…..? Surely we have gone as far as we can on the wrong road, surely we have gone too far this time. God has nothing good to say of us, not one word, and we need not wonder that He has decreed that we should be cut off. We have assisted in the destruction of His people, we who were the brother of Jacob, and we have only ourselves to blame as we come face to face with the anger of God. There is nowhere for us to flee, nowhere to hide. He has stirred up “the heathen” against us, and our day of reckoning is at hand. “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and – thou shalt be cut off for ever.”
