Obadiah

A New Pity

Everything known about that which is right and that which is wrong is a very small part of the content of God’s Word, whether the source of that knowledge is recognized, or not. Our pride in applying that knowledge to existing conditions is normal, and natural. But when the love of self enters into it, we use our intelligence to justify selfish ways of living, and to condemn the weaknesses in others. This is Edom, and operates to pervert the truth—the sense of the letter of the Word—to uphold our ways of thinking. We readily notice the process when we turn our attention to it, and see the need of subduing a false pride in self antagonistic to the truth. Opinionatedness makes us uncharitable to opposing points of view. Beneath is the secret expectation that consequences will prove that we were in the right. Note the sarcasm in "I told you so," or "I could have told you so!" And so we pervert the Word, and subvert the church in ourselves. With patience this spirit can be cast out of our nature, and our intelligence put to a better use in setting ourselves right with God, and finding new ways and means to lessen the trials and troubles of others. We all learn better how to rectify our mistakes through sympathy and encouragement, than by criticism or any claim to superiority. "Saviors shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s."