SPEAK, LORD
Preached: January 25, 2026 (Love’s Chapel)
June 22, 2025 (Canton First)
Scripture: 1 Kings 19:9-19a
The older I get, the more I find myself identifying with the Prophet Elijah. Not in the sense that I think that I’m a prophet but in the sense that Elijah’s “work” … what he was called to do … was certainly not easy … and his response to those difficulties feels, well, very familiar to me. Maybe they feel a bit … more than a bit … familiar to you too. The underlying truth, however, is that God comforted Elijah in his distress over and over and over again. He provided for Elijah, took care of him in miraculous ways, and was exceptionally patient with His prophet. So, too, God is comforting and patient with us. Thank God, amen? Our Creator and Savior’s quiet calm brings us peace and comfort when the world around us ... or inside of us … is nothing but turmoil and upheaval.
Let’s spend just a couple of moments reviewing what had led Elijah to the point where he is hiding in a cave. God had called Elijah to be His prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel which had broken away from the Southern Kingdom of Judah after the death of King Solomon. While both pieces of this fractured nation left a lot to be desired spiritually, the Northern Kingdom was an especially rough place. Never did they have a truly believing king rule over them … and eventually they would be completely wiped out by the Assyrians.
Before that happens, however, we see God’s grace over and over to His unfaithful and apostate people. The existence of Elijah’s ministry is proof of that. Despite the nation largely not caring about what God said or did, He continued to send messengers with His word to call them back to Himself. Whether it was to the people or to the rulers, God sought the souls of those people precious to Him. He didn’t want them to be led astray by their sin. He didn’t want their devotion to false gods to be their eternal undoing ... and so, God sent prophets like Elijah to bring to warn the people, the rulers, and the nation if they continued on in their sinful and selfish ways.
How DOES God speak to us?
Sometimes He speak through nature. When God spoke to Moses, it was through a burning bush. When God entered into a covenant with His newly-liberated children at Mount Sinai, the mountain was covered with a thick cloud. There was lightening and thunder. When God appeared, the whole mountain shook violently. When Moses spoke, God would answer him in thunder (Exodus 19:16-19).
As God led them through the wilderness towards Canaan … the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey … God appeared as a ‘pillar of cloud’ during the day and as a ‘pillar of fire’ at night (Exodus 13:21-22).
When Solomon dedicated the newly completed Temple and invited God to come and live among His people, fire came down from Heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the LORD filled the Temple. The priests could not enter the House the LORD (1 Kings 8:10-11).
Sometimes when we pray to God, we expect Him to speak to us in some powerful and dramatic … or in a very clear and unambiguous way, right? Oh … we don’t expect Him to crush mountains or set the sky on fire … but we do expect Him to speak in some unmistakable way. And … as Elijah knows … as we should know … God can speak to us in powerful and dramatic ways but He can also … more often than not … speak to us in such loving, gentle ways too, can’t He? And if we are not paying attention, we might miss it, amen?
Let’s picture Elijah right now. Alone … frightened … hiding in a cave. We kind of bust ourselves, don’t we? Whenever we read about Elijah’s experience on Mt. Carmel or we hear a sermon on this passage, we get focused on the dramatic, exciting parts, don’t we? Like Elijah, we expect God to speak to us in the “Great Wind” or tornado, yes? But God wasn’t there. A bit of a let down for Elijah … a bit of let down for us … maybe?
Ah … an earthquake! Surely God is going to speak to Elijah now, yes? Nothing. Again, God didn’t speak … and we begin to wonder if God is even there or if He is coming or knows or cares where Elijah is or what he’s going through.
A raging forest fire! Yes! Surely God is going to speak now! All the elements are there … wind and earthquakes and fire … just like when He appeared on Mt. Sinai or His Presence entered the Temple.
But … nothing … “sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12). Not just ‘silence’ but a ‘sheer silence’ … a deep silence … an unusual silence … one that causes Elijah to wrap his face in his mantle and go out and stand at the entrance of the cave and see what, if anything, is happening.
When God does speak, however, what? He speaks in what has come to be called “a small, still voice.” It doesn’t say that in the scripture, however. It just says that a “voice” spoke to Elijah (1 Kings 19:13).
Hmm … what do you imagine? Picture yourself hiding in the cave. God commands you to go out and “stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11) … and suddenly, after all the commotion of a “great wind,” a raging forest fire, and an earthquake everything goes still … silent … a deep silence. You cover your face. Why? Because you are about to enter into the Presence of the Holy. Elijah covers his face just as Moses covered or hid his face when he stood in the Presence of the Most Holy God. You go to the entrance of the cave, face covered, not knowing what to expect … and then you hear … a voice! Don’t you wonder … don’t you want to know what that voice sounded like? Or maybe you know what that voice sounds like because you’ve heard it it at some point in your life.
Now, here’s the really cool part … as if things haven’t already been cool up to this part. As I said, we get busted … our expectations exposed. We expect God to speak from burning bushes and burning forests. We expect God to speak with thunder … to shake the earth. And yet, why ARE we surprised when God just … well … speaks to Elijah, amen?
Think about it. We don’t know anything about Elijah’s call to become a prophet … but in order to become a prophet, God must have spoken to him at some point, don’t you think? If his call to be a prophet had been heralded with thunder and lightening, fire and earthquakes, don’t you tink that the Bible would have mentioned it? Or that Elijah would have mentioned it at some point? The Apostle Paul never failed to mention his Damascus Road experience whenever his authority as an apostle was challenged, amen?
I mean, that’s what a prophet does, right? He … or she … speaks the word of God to the people … delivers God’s message to the people … and the prophets can hardly do that if God doesn’t speak to them and give them the words to speak, right? If God didn’t give them the words, then they are not God’s words but the prophet’s words … and that would mean that they weren’t prophets at all because they would be speaking their own words and not the words that came from God. That make sense, right?
We also know that God had already spoken to Elijah many times before this. God told Elijah to tell the people that there was going to be a drought (1 Kings 17:1-4). God also told Elijah to go to the Wadi Cherith and wait there for God to “speak” to him … and, like God did for the children of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness, he provided meat for Elijah to eat … delivered by ravens … and provided Elijah with water from a dry creek. Now … wadis are typically dry except for periods of heavy rainfall … and yet, there is water in the wadi even though there is no mention of thunder or lightening or rain. In fact, just the opposite was happening. God had caused the rain to stop, causing a drought in the land for three and a half years.
When it is time for Elijah to move on to the next part of his mission, God “speaks” to him and tells him to go to the village of Zarephath and “live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (1 Kings 17:8). Again … no thunder … no lightening … no earthquake … no fire. But what happens is pretty amazing and powerful.
We need to stop here for a second. God spoke to Elijah and told him to go to Zarephath where he will meet a woman who will feed him for the duration of the drought … over three years … but God apparently spoke to another person … the widow ... because God said that He had “commanded” a widow there to take care of him … and, as we know, in the process of taking care of Elijah, God took care of the widow, her son, and Elijah all during the drought.
Because of the drought, the widow and her son were almost out of food …. they only had a handful of grain and a tiny bit of oil left in the bottom of a jug … enough to make one last meal for her and her son.
Now … we have to pause here again. Up to this point, God had provided Elijah with food in the wilderness to keep him alive and He provided food for the widow and her son right up to the very second that Elijah shows up. The handful of grain and the tiny bit of oil left in the bottom of a jug … enough to make one last meal for the widow and her son … and God makes that handful of grain and that little bit of oil last for the entire drought and sustains Elijah, the widow, and her son for three years.
Here is further proof that when it seems like all is lost and God is nowhere to be found, He provides, amen? Maybe He doesn’t shower us with bread and meat from Heaven but He does provide us with enough … with daily bread and water.
When the widow’s son becomes ill and dies, God brings him back to life and heals him of his illness … again, providing for a poor widow who, without a male heir to provide for her, would have to beg for food and struggle to survive. No fire … no thunder … no earthquake … but a pretty impressive display of God’s powers and compassion, amen? A widow’s dead son brought back to life!
And then, after three and a half years, God speaks to Elijah again. And again, no thunder … no lightening … no fire … no earthquake … but what He says to Elijah is pretty terrifying none the less. “Go … present yourself to Ahab. I will send rain on the earth” (1 Kings 18:1).
What’s to be afraid of, amen? That’s good news, right? To tell the king that God has promised to end the drought by sending rain? Except that Ahab’s wife … Queen Jezebel … had started killing the prophets of Yahweh.
When Elijah appears before King Ahab … he calls Elijah a “Troubler of Israel” (1 King 18:19). Elijah responds by saying that the real “Troubler of Israel” has been Ahab … and more specifically, his wife, Jezebel. “I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and followed the Ba’als. Now therefore have all Israel assemble for me at Mt. Carmel, with four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:17-19)
When God “speaks” at Mt. Carmel, this time, He doesn’t speak a word but there is plenty of fire and lightening, amen? After literally blowing Ba’al and Asherah away, Elijah seized the prophets of Ba’al and executed them.
And then we have a little foreshadowing of things to come. Elijah tells Ahab that the drought is over. “Go up, eat and drink for there is a sound of rushing rain” (1 Kings 18:41). Elijah goes up to the top of Mt. Carmel and … as he is praying … asks his servant to go and look towards the sea and tell him if he sees anything. The servant come back and tells Elijah that he doesn’t see anything. Elijah tells him to keep looking. One day, the servant reports that he saw a cloud on the horizon. Not much of a cloud. A teeny, tiny cloud about the size of a person’s hand rising out of the sea. No thunder … no lightening … but God turned that teeny, tiny cloud into a thunderstorm that not only ended the drought but prevented Ahab from arresting Elijah and gave Elijah the chance to flee.
What a victory for the truth! What a high point in Elijah’s ministry. Well … sort of … because that event was really the lead-in to today’s scripture reading. Queen Jezebel … a devoted follower of Ba’al and the equally fake or false idol, Asherah … vowed to kill Elijah after the showdown at Mt. Carmel and put a price on his head.
So, in fear and desperation, Elijah runs away. Traveling for a day into the wilderness, Elijah sits down under a broom tree and prays to die. “It is enough,” he laments, “now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4b). The the bible says that he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. God answered his prayer … but not in the way that he expected. No thunder … no lightening … no earthquake … no fire. God didn’t kill him but kept him alive like he did at the Wadi Cherith … only this time it wasn’t ravens who brought him food or a wadi that provided him with water but an angel who brought him food and water. He ate and drank and lay down again. “The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said: ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He sat up, and ate and drank. Then he went on the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. At that place, he came to a cave, and spent the night there” (1 Kings 19:7-9).
Again …. no fire … no thunder … no earthquake … no lightening. This time, God spoke to Elijah through an angel which, to me, is an impressive as if God had spoken to him from a cloud with thunder and lightening.
Now … before all the dramatic events that are about to happen, did you notice something? Before the whirlwind … before the earthquake … before the forest fire … God spoke to Elijah. “What are you doing here, Elijah” (1 Kings 19:9b). Can you hear the question behind the question? “What are you doing here, Elijah, hiding in a cave like some frightened fugitive on the run? Didn’t I just perform a great victory for you and for Israel? Did I not show you and the nation how much greater my power is than King Ahab or Queen Jezebel and the priests ofr Ba’al and Asherah? What or whom do you have to fear? Why are you afraid of the enemies that you just saw me conquer in such an amazing and powerful way? Go … return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, I have things for you to do, messages for you to deliver … to meet and anoint your replacement … Elisha … and kings to anoint in my name.”
You know … I feel that Elijah gets a bum rap for his response. “I have been zealous for the LORD, the Lord of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsake Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10). What Elijah does is important to us and our prayer life as well. Yes … Elijah appears weak … frightened … but he is praying openly and honestly from the heart … a heart that is troubled and frightened.
Elijah’s assessment of his situation isn’t entirely wrong. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel want to see him dead and are willing to pay a hefty bounty to see it done. But … as I have done so many, many times … like Elijah, I look at my problems with human eyes. Hiding in a cave … that IS his perception … his reality … at that moment. In his heart, he truly believes that he is alone. In his heart, he truly feels that God’s enemies have won the day and there is nothing to stop them from taking his life. In his heart, he believes that his faithfulness and dedication to God have come to nothing. Yes … he was there when God took care of Ba’al’ and Asherah’s servants on Mt. Carmel but now he has to flee and hide because there is a price on his head.
At this point, God could have shook His head, shrugged His shoulders … given up on Elijah … and found another prophet because … despite what Elijah believed at that moment … he was NOT the last and only prophet of Jehovah Sabaoth … the LORD of Hosts … left in Israel by any means.
After this exchange comes the whirlwind … then earthquake … then a forest fire … and then … silence! [LONG PAUSE]. Silence! [PAUSE AGAIN.] A deep silence! A profound silence! “When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave” (1 Kings 19:13).
When did Elijah go to the entrance of the cave? When it was silent because it meant that God was about to speak. It was as if all of nature stopped to listen.
Why did he wrap his face in his mantle? Because he as about to stand in the Presence of Yahweh … Elohim … Jehovah Sabaoth … the LORD and Supreme Commander of the entire spiritual forces of Heaven … the one who who sent ravens and an angel to give him food and water in the wilderness … who started the drought and brought an end to it … who made a handful of grain and a few drops of oil feed him, a widow, and her son for three and a half years … who raised the widow’s son from the dead … who consumed Elijah’s soaking wet sacrifice in an instant with blinding power?
God was not in the powerful whirlwind … the trembling earthquake … or the blazing forest fire. He spoke to Elijah … His frightened prophet … with a soft, whispering voice. “Why are you here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9b). God asks Elijah a second time: “Why are you here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:13). His question to Elijah is the same as it was before … and Elijah’s answer is the same as well: “I have been zealous for the LORD, the Lord of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsake Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:14). Despite seeing the whirlwind, despite seeing the earthquake, despite seeing the forest fire nothing has changed for Elijah. Elijah’s perspective is the same. Everything is bad and he is doomed and his heart is still very much afraid.
Ahhh … but we must remember! God’s perspective is not the same as Elijah’s … and for good reason. God is omniscient. He knows the future … and He knows the future because He is the one in control of the future. God knows that things are not as bad as Elijah thinks and feels that they are … and Elijah’s situation is nowhere near as dire as he thinks or feels that they are. And because of this … because there is no way for Lijah to now what God knows … He doesn’t scold Elijah … He doesn’t rebuke him … He doesn’t chastise him or dismiss him as His prophet for thinking or feeling the way that he does. He lovingly reassures Elijah and gently re-directs him back to the work that He has for Elijah to do… work that He will no doubt empower Elijah to do and give Elijah what he will need just as He equipped Elijah and gave him what he needed in the past.
What about Elijah’s claim that he was the only believer left in the Northern Kingdom? I can’t imagine how overwhelming and frightening that must have felt. The problem is that it wasn’t true! How often have you felt like that? All alone … no sign of help on the horizon … only to find out that God was not only aware of your situation but help was already on the way … that God already had the problem well in hand?
God informs Elijah that he is NOT alone … that he is NOT the last true believer in the Northern Kingdom. It turns out that there were seven thousand true believers in the North Kingdom just like him. How could he know that? He didn’t … he couldn’t until God told him. Seven thousand out of a nation of over a million people. How could Elijah know that there were seven thousand other true believers? But is it any surprise that God knew that? God … who knows every single hair on every single head and knows the thoughts of the hearts of all His children.
So what about us? What would God have us learn or take away from Elijah’s experience on Mt. Horeb? Well, for one thing, we can … to one degree or another … identify with Elijah … seeing God’s greatness … and yet finding ourselves unable to trust Him.
We know what this lack of trust deserves, amen? God could have just turned His back on Elijah … walked away … and found another to be His prophet. He had, as He told Elijah, seven thousand other potential people from which to choose. He already had one picked out … Elisa. He could, if He needed, find another and empower them as He had empowered Elijah. But that’s not how he treated Elijah and that’s not how He treats us, amen? He could do the same with us … just shake His head, shrug His shoulders, and just walk away … but He doesn’t, does He? He doesn’t come with hurricane-force wind … ground-shaking earthquakes … blinding lightening and deafening thunder … or raging fire to destroy us. He can and sometimes does … but most of the time He speaks to us with a gentle voice and His words of encouragement and comfort.
It is noteworthy that throughout Jesus’ ministry, He had plenty of opportunity to address people who had clear sin in their lives. He was only harsh with those who were proud of their sin. Most of the time Jesus gave quiet, gently encouragement to convince people to leave the life of sin behind and, instead, repent and serve God with their whole hearts, their whole strength, their whole minds, and their whole lives.
His message is the same for us today as well. He quietly but directly points us to the truth. We deserve hell for our sins … but He saves us. His life and His death in our place means that we have the forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life in Heaven with Him and with God. Jesus told us not to let our hearts be troubled. God has not abandoned us to the elements … we are not lost to Hell … because Jesus has saved us.
And so, when we are guilty of a lack of trust, like Elijah, we know that this sin too is forgiven. Our God loves us and quietly … gently … notes our sin … assures us of His forgiveness … and then points us in the direction that we should go. In Elijah’s case, it was to leave the cave and head towards Damascus where there were things that God needed him to do … and He calls us to leave our caves of safety and head towards the future where He has things for us to do and will provide us with what we need to accomplish His plans … be it through us or through somebody else. May it be through us, amen?
When it feels like everything is crashing down around you …when you feel like you’re the only one who cares about what God has said or done … when you feel alone and abandoned … when guilt overwhelms you … seek refuge in your God who comforts you with His quiet calm.
Let us pray:
Thank You, LORD, for this amazing truth … that neither death nor life … neither angels nor rulers … neither things present nor things to come … nor powerful forces … neither height nor depth … nor anything else in creation … will be able to separate us from Your love.
In the name of Jesus who loves us and cares for us in spite of ourselves, we pray … and would we show our love and faith in God’s promises by saying: AMEN!
