The Most Dangerous Thing a Nation Can Lose

Obadiah 1:7-9 – “All your allies 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. Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of Mount Esau? Your mighty men shall be dismayed…so every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.”

The Edomites were descendants of Esau and close relatives of the Israelites. They should have been treating one another like family. But the tension between Jacob and Esau, recorded in Genesis, had become a generational problem. What began as conflict between two brothers had grown into hostility between two nations.

When Israel sinned and incurred God’s wrath, the Lord sent armies against them to attack, plunder, and take some of their people into slavery. Did Edom step in to protect their relatives? Did they show compassion for their suffering?

Absolutely not!

Instead, they eagerly helped Israel’s enemies find and capture the Jews who were trying to escape. They didn’t just stand by and watch their relatives suffer; they made their suffering even worse.

That is why God had Obadiah deliver this prophecy against Edom. Their wickedness toward Israel had not gone unnoticed. They had taken advantage of their own relatives in their moment of greatest weakness, and now God’s judgment was coming upon them.

But what I find particularly interesting is how God describes the destruction of Edom.

Reread the verses above. What is the first thing God says He will take away from Edom?

Wisdom and understanding!

Before describing the destruction of their mighty men, God declares that He will remove the nation’s wisdom and understanding. He would leave them to the consequences of their own ignorance and foolishness.

Think about that for a moment. Edom would be left to make personal, military, and political decisions without the wisdom and understanding necessary to make good ones. They would be unable to recognize the foolishness of their decisions or understand the consequences of their actions.

They wouldn’t even be wise enough to recognize how foolish they had become.

And that was enough to bring an entire nation to destruction!

The frightening part is that Edom’s downfall didn’t begin with the destruction of its armies. It began with the loss of wisdom and understanding. Once those were gone, the rest would follow.

It doesn’t take a prophet to see the comparisons between Edom’s situation and what is happening in our world today. I look around and see a tremendous need for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. I see it in our nation, in our leaders, in our churches, and, if I am honest, in myself.

Perhaps we need to stop asking God merely to bless our decisions and start asking Him to give us the wisdom to make the right ones in the first place. We need to ask Him to give His church discernment, to give our nation’s leaders understanding, and to give each of us the humility to recognize how much we need His guidance.

After all, what good is it to have all the knowledge in the world if we lack the wisdom to know what to do with it? What good is it to have the freedom to make our own decisions if we lack the understanding to recognize where those decisions will lead?

Edom’s fate should be a warning to all of us. A nation doesn’t have to lose its armies, its wealth, or its influence before it begins to fall. It can begin with something far more dangerous: the loss of wisdom and understanding.

Are we asking God for the wisdom we desperately need, or are we so confident in our own understanding that we don’t even recognize how foolish we have become?

Without wisdom and understanding, Edom’s fate could easily become ours.