Anonymity is great! When God isn't, let's talk about it on this edition of He-like. That was student Brown and I'm Mike Kellogg. The program, He-like, a program without an agenda, except to see you grow in grace. Here's Steve with a Teaching for Today. Thanks Mike, if you have your Bible open into the book of Obadaya. You say, I've been looking for it, I can't find it. The problem is it's kind of sandwiched in there. It's just one chapter and it's a small chapter and it goes by really quick. And you thought Amos was short. Well, Obadaya is really short and it's sandwiched between Jonah on the right side and Amos on the left side. And if you're just flipping through the Bible because you don't want everybody to know that you don't know, if you've ever been that way in church and the pastor calls out a text and you don't have the foggiest idea where it is or how to find it. But you don't want to let the people on your right and your left know that. So you start just kind of fanning the Bible, opening you old, hit it. Well, if he calls out Obadaya, forget it. It just didn't go to work that way. It's just a little book and you're in and out of it. Before you even know you were there, it's like a small town where the welcome sign and you are leaving sign is about three feet apart. That's Obadaya. Now, if you were listening yesterday when I just began to introduce Obadaya, the man I said, this is going to be a short lesson because we don't know anything about Obadaya, the man. We don't know where he's from. There are a dozen Obadayas that are mentioned in the Bible, but none of them are this prophet. We can guess at the historical setting and I'll tell you, I told you yesterday that it was probably 587 and it was written around that time the fall of Jerusalem with the Babylonians. And then I said, let me tell you what this book is about and it's really good that it's right after Amos. Now, if you read Amos, Amos is dealing with God's covenant people. Amos is dealing with judgment and wrath of God is directed against the theocracy. That's a nation that is ruled at least ostensibly by God himself. And so Amos is going after people who took the name of God. But you know, you get to think, you beat up on me all the time. Why don't you go beat up on some pagans or something. They're all rich, they're all doing fine. Why don't you express some judgment at them? Well, that's what Obadaya does and it's sort of relief for God's people. Now, at the end of the broadcast yesterday, I was talking about how I had gone to Africa one time and in Africa, we came on a line eating another animal that the lion had killed. And the lion was pretty full so we could get close. Now, if the lion had been hungry, I want you to know I'd been in Philadelphia. But the lion was, I had a good meal so he wasn't out ready to eat preachers and I was so glad for that. But it ain't right. What I said yesterday, and I don't know if I had a chance to get it together, but the interesting thing about that, you noticed over to the side that the mother lion's cubs were waiting to eat until she had finished. But all around the carcass of this line animals were the predators, the buzzards, the hyenas, and they were waiting until the lions got through. And the cubs got through and the children got through. And then as soon as they left, what was left of the carcass they would come. Well, that's what the Edamites had done and this is about Edum. And we're going to see as we go through this book a lot about this nation, it's not altogether unconnected to the whole Arab Israeli thing. But the Edamites are not that kind of hang around waiting to see what happens after God judges these people. Now there are two central themes in the 21 verses of Obadaya, the judgments on the Edamites and the final restoration of God's people. So if you're looking for an outline, this is probably the easiest thing to outline in the entire Old Testament, verse 1, introduction. Versus 2 through 14, Edum, you're in trouble. Versus 14 through 21, Judah, you're going to be restored. Now I want to take some time before we get to the text and I'm going to become your tour directors, we go through this. I want to take some time just to show you some preliminary stuff and observations about Obadaya. And I want to mention today one that is really important, we'll talk a little bit more about it tomorrow. I want you to see Obadaya as the symbol, the metaphor, if you will, of the anonymous servants of God throughout the ages. You know, I've often said when I was a pastor, you guys when things go well in this church and we're growing and the bills are paid and thousands are saved and hundreds are healed, they say, Steve, you are so good. And then I smile and say, but God knows the truth. And I said when we're in financial difficulties and nobody's been saved for five years, nobody's been baptized and no life has been changed. Everybody says, Steve, you did it really bad, you made a mess out of it and then I'll smile and say, but God knows the truth. Because in fact, God's people are by and large, anonymous people, they're like Obadaya. We don't know who he was, we don't know what he did, we don't know how he went about it, we've got these few verses that he wrote, but that's all we know about him. We find that in every church in America and I want you to know when we get home, we're going to find out that the people who were the celebrities, the people who got the PR, the people who stood tall, the people where they always ushered them to the front of the line and the church supper, they're going to be in a shack off in the corner and people you never heard of, people who were faithful servants of God are going to shine like the sun. You think about that, I'm in. On Wednesdays I take some time, we get thousands of questions here and we love to get your questions and you always get an answer from me or on the broadcaster in the magazine or from Pete, but you got to write them down. Send them the key life post office book and by the way take these addresses and phone number and email address down because I'm going to say some other things. 1-800 key life, you can call 24 hours a day, or you can write key life post office box 5,000, mateland Florida, 3-2794, or key life Canada post office box 3-2150, Cambridge Ontario in 3-H5 and 3, or you can email us at steveatkeylife.org with your regular mailing address. Don't use the 1-800 key life number for questions. You can make a contribution, you get the magazine, you become a part of key life days, you get the free pamphlets and booklets that we offer, but you got to write your question down. Now a couple of items, housekeeping items, I want to get done before we turn to these questions and the first is don't forget about the pooped pastures conference. Or if you don't like that name you can call it existential and ecclesiastical renewal in the context of postmodernity, but it's really a pooped pastures conference. And we're going to have absolutely a great time and you will want your pastor to be here, sermons are going to be a lot better, he's going to be a lot freer and he's going to be freer with you. So tell your pastor about it or give us a call, we'll send you a brochure or you can get all the information on our website, www.keylife.org. A lot of neat stuff on that website. Now the pooped pastures conference is January 23rd, 24 and 25, and it's going to provide a soft place of encouragement for your pastor. Trust me on this, your pastor is going to love it. And then a reminder key life is a member of the Evangelical Council for financial accountability in the states. And in Canada, we're a member of CCCC, the Canadian Council of Christian churches. Those organizations suggest and oversee that we are faithful with your gifts, financial accountability. Let me see if there's anything else. No, let's turn to some of these questions. By the way, my pastor P. Dalwinson will be in on Friday and we'll answer some others. This is from Texas, our images, pictures are portrayals of Jesus, a violation of the second commandment. No, it's not idolatry unless you worship him. I mean, if you've got a picture of Jesus hanging in your bedroom and you kneel down in front of it and pray to that picture expecting them, that's going to do anything for you. Yeah, that's idolatry. But if it reminds you of the king of kings, then it's done a good thing. If it points to heaven to the real God, it's a good thing. And that's why I think the Puritans, and by the way, they've gotten a bum rap. The Puritans were wonderful. I'm reading Puritans and pray still am for my devotional time in the morning. And I want you to know, I've never seen such an understanding of grace. We've lost it somewhere. I mean, these men and women really understood. So don't judge Puritans by reading Jonathan Edward sinners in the hands of an angry God or reading or watching those movies about the Puritans. They're simply way off base. But one of the places where the Puritans got it wrong was they were so plain that in believe in symbols, that in believe in crosses, that in believe in stained glass windows. And I think they lost something because they thought it was idolatry, and I don't believe it was unless you worshiped that window, unless you worshiped that piece of wood. I don't think you violate the second commandment. This is from Florida. What was the Bible teach about purgatory? Nothing. This is from Alabama. Well, let me go back and say something about that. If you're Roman Catholic, you have a doctrine that says that there's a place of purging in between heaven and death. And that's the place where you're purged. And there's a lot of stuff that surrounds that. You've got to know I'm a Protestant. I don't believe that. However, I do believe what C.S. Lewis says in 1 Corinthians 3, he calls it the Protestant purgatory, where the wood and the hay and the stubble are burned up. But that, which is forever Jesus, the foundation that was laid remains. And so there is a sense in which that is the purging. I tell you, I don't know if I want to stand before Jesus the way I am. I mean, there's stuff about me. I want that to kind of get fixed before I stand before him. And I think whatever 1 Corinthians 3 refers to, it refers to that. But in terms of the traditional view of purgatory, I do not think that the Bible teaches it. If we disagree on that, we can still be friends. This is from Alabama. Why are so many people offended by the grace of God? I don't know. But believe they are. You tell people that God loves them. And they get upset. You tell them that God's not angry. And then they get mad. You ought to see the letters. Right. And I'm not too sure. Maybe I'll talk a little bit more about this next Wednesday when I ask answer questions. But I think that in order to accept grace, you have to know you need it really bad. And if you know you need it, that means that you're not this wonderful, nice, religious person you thought you were. So if I say about grace, it requires something that people don't want to admit. Hey, I got to go. But first I got to say, he life is a missionary supported production of key life network.