Hello again, and welcome to our program. Today, we're going to talk about 100 useless prophets. Useless means not fulfilling their intended purposes, and their purpose was to be a proclaimer of the will of God. They weren't proclaiming anything. They were hiding in a cave. We're going to have a look at it. Stay tuned. Our story today is found in 1 Kings chapter 18, where we have 100 useless prophets hiding in a cave. The Bible says 415 times, thus saith the Lord. It is important to understand there's a difference between teaching and preaching. Both of them are important, but preaching is to herald the word means, and it's like the fella comes in on his white horse and he's the herald, he says, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king. He's not there to dialogue, he's not there to have a teaching lesson, he's not going to come into town and soft pedal the message in case somebody leaves town, he's just there to say what the king had to say, and that's what it means to preach. And so we find Elijah up on a mountain preaching, and we find this cowardly prophets, a hundred of them, hiding in a cave. The three key players in this story are a monarch, that's Ahab, a mountaineer, that's Elijah, and a middleman, his name was Obadiah. Now Ahab was the most wicked of all the kings of Israel. Elijah was the best example of a believer that God had on the face of the earth at that time. And we got 100 prophets who are pretty well, well, they call themselves fundamentalists. They believed everything that was fundamental. They were just too cowardly to say anything about it. Obadiah, who was an example of the one Jesus referred to in Revelation 3.15, where he said, I would thou were cold or hot. Imagine, he even puts cold before hot. Christ prefers the cold over the lukewarm, because everyone knows where someone like Ahab stands. So this fellow Obadiah was Ahab's governor. We read in 1 Kings 18, verse number three, and Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. Obadiah was a servant of the most wicked king ever found in Israel's history. In chapter 18 and verse three, we read Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. Now we might at the top think that means that he really loved the Lord, feared the Lord. No, the word means he was afraid of God. The Hebrew word translated feared here in this verse is spelled H-A-R-E, and it is translated fearful in Judges 7 and 3. It is also translated afraid in three other places in the Old Testament. I'd be afraid of the Lord greatly, too, if I was spending my life doing the biddings of Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel. and then hiding prophets who should have been up on a mountain standing with Elijah. Well, we read in 18 and 5 of 1 Kings, and Ahab said unto Obadiah, go into the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto the brooks. Peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and the mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. Save the horses? People were starving to death, but he's concerned about horses. It had not rained for three and a half years and they were concerned about horses. Ahab knew well the law of God that included Israel's kings were not to gather horses together. For the kings to gather horses was like us gathering tanks or missiles and so on. It was God's plan that Israel trust God to fight her battles. We read in Deuteronomy 17 and 16, but he shall not, that is the king, multiply horses to himself. Isaiah 31 and 1, woe unto them that go down to Egypt for help and stay on horses and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. Psalm 20 and verse 7 says some trust in chariots and some in horses. but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." Well, that's all changed as we got these wicked kings in there. And so we read in verse number six that Obadiah was out looking for places to get water for the horses when he met Elijah. Now, in verse seven, it says he knew him. Sure he knew him. No doubt he was there when Elijah comes storming in from Ahab three years earlier, and he said in 17 and one of first Kings, we read that Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dune or rain these three years, but according to my word. Well, concerning Obadiah, we read when he found Elijah, he fell on his face and said, art thou my lord, Elijah? Elijah was not taken by this smooth-talking hypocrite. We read in verse eight, his immediate response to Obadiah was, go tell thy lord. Behold, Elijah is here. Well, we see the focus of Elijah. It's interesting to note that he had no concern whatsoever as how Elijah had managed to survive in the past three years of the drought. He simply focused on himself as most lukewarm professed believers do today. And so through verse 9 to 14, we read how he focused on himself. He said, what, have I sinned? Ahab's going to slay me if I do what you say to do here. We read in verse 12, and it came to pass as soon as I am gone from thee, that the spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whether I know not. And so when I come to tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me, but I, thy servant, fear the Lord from my youth." No, you don't fear the Lord at all, you hypocrite. Verse 13, it says, was it not told my Lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, and how I hid an hundred men? Verse 14 again, he says, he shall slay me. All focus on himself. What do we know about Obadiah? We know he was a servant of Israel's most wicked king. We know he did not trust God. He did not trust Elijah. He was totally self-absorbed. He influenced prophets to hide in a cave. He nor the hundred prophets showed up on Mount Carmel. and he is never heard of again. What do we know about the hundred prophets? We know nothing. We don't know their names or any accomplishments they made. We only know they were hiding at a time when they were needed. Some of that going on today. First Kings 18.4, for it was so when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifty in a cave and fed them with bread and water." 1 Samuel 13 and 6 says, and when the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait for the people were distressed, then the people did hide themselves in the caves. A lot of that going on today. So we see the story of a hundred useless prophets not fulfilling their intended purpose not proclaiming the will of God. They're hiding in a cave. A monarch, a mountaineer, and a middleman. The Bible tells us in the New Testament that these things are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Let's be admonished today. We need to be standing up like Elijah did, like never before. Be sure and be with us for our next program.