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Pastor Ed Pruitt
1 Kings 19:9-12
9 And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away
[1 Kings 19:9–10].
The Lord is dealing with Elijah.
He is overwrought and needs real psychological help.
I have been asked if I believe in going to a psychologist.
I think there are times when a person needs to consult a psychologist.
Most of us, however, could solve our problems if we crawled on the couch of the Lord Jesus Christ and told Him everything. We wouldn’t have to be running around telling everybody else about our troubles and problems if we would just talk them over with Him. We ought to tell Him everything.
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake [1 Kings 19:11].
First of all there was a great and strong wind that split the mountains and broke the rocks.
Oh, did he love a good wind storm!
Then the mountain rolled and shook under his feet. He loved it—he was that type of man.
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice [1 Kings 19:12].
After the earthquake there was a fire.
After all, he was the man who brought fire down from heaven on Mount Carmel.
He liked that too.
But wait a minute.
God was not in the strong wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire.
After the fire came a still, small voice.
If there was one thing that Elijah did not like, it was a still, small voice.
I am sure Elijah did not have that kind of a voice, but he had to learn that God moves in a quiet way—how wonderful it is to see God moving in this way.
He was teaching Elijah a great lesson.
The battle was not actually won on top of Mount Carmel by fire coming down from heaven.
God moves in mysterious and unostentatious ways His wonders to perform.
God moves in a quiet way.
God uses little things to accomplish His purpose.
As someone has said, “Great doors are swung on little hinges.”
God uses small things to open mighty doors. That is what Elijah had to learn.
GOD SOMETIMES WHISPERS
Sunday August 20, 2006
The young man had lost his job and didn’t know which way to turn.
So he went to see the old preacher.
Pacing about the preacher’s study, the young man ranted about his problem.
Finally he clenched his fist and shouted, "I’ve begged God to say something to help me.
Tell me, Preacher, why doesn’t God answer?"
The old preacher, who sat across the room, spoke something in reply -- something so hushed it was indistinguishable.
The young man stepped across the room.
"What did you say?" he asked.
The preacher repeated himself, but again in a tone as soft as a whisper.
So the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher’s chair.
"Sorry," he said. "I still didn’t hear you."
With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more.
"God sometimes whispers," he said, "so we will move closer to hear Him."
WE ALL WISH THAT GOD WOULD SPEAK TO US LOUDLY AND CLEARLY.
We all want God’s voice to thunder through the air with the answer to our problem.
We wish that God would:
• Rent a PA system and drive down our street, shouting the answer to our question so that we would have no doubt as to what we should do.
• Rent a billboard out on Interstate 40, and post the instructions step by step that we need.
• Wish we would sit down at our computers one day and open our E-mail and see a message from God, simply entitled ANSWERS.
Wish we could buy today’s edition of the Chronicle and discover that God has taken out a full page ad with the directions for our life listed clearly and concisely.
We all wish that God would just bust into our world and give us some concrete answers to the nagging problems of life!
We wish that He would just tell us why:
• He has not chosen to heal us yet
• He has not chosen to meet the financial need yet
• He has not chosen to save our lost loved ones yet
• He does what He does!
We just wish there was no guesswork involved, we wish that He would just yell out the answers to us so that we could escape the cloud of confusion and doubt that surrounds us!
It’s frustrating to just not know what God is doing or what He wants me to do, if He would only shout it out, then I would know what to do.
MANY TIMES WE FEEL EXACTLY LIKE JOB DID IN:
Job 9:32-33,35
32 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
33 Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
35 Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.
A daysman was a referee, or a mediator.
One definition was “interpreter”.
Job said, “Because God is not speaking very clearly to me right now, I am afraid I am misinterpreting some things He is saying!”
“I wish someone could come down here who could hear God, and then tell me exactly what He is saying, because right now, I don’t have a clue!”
If He would shout, I would understand!
If He would just come down and tell me face to face, then I would understand, but right now, I can’t hear, or understand what God is saying!
And, we find ourselves in that same situation so many times, wanting to hear God in the shout, the dance, the noise and hubbub, but, God sometimes whispers!
ELIJAH FOUND HIMSELF IN A CAVE ONE DAY, FEELING VERY SORRY FOR HIMSELF.
Now, the interesting thing about this story is not so much that Elijah was having a pity party, that is human nature.
The amazing thing to me is that he is having this pity party after God had sent fire from heaven and destroyed 450 prophets of Baal.
In fact, the very day after this happened, and God had so miraculously opened up the blast furnace of heaven and consumed the saturated sacrifice, Jezebel heard of it and said, “Tomorrow you are dead, son!”
And, Elijah runs into the desert and says, “Oh God, take me now!”
And, an angel appears to him, feeds him, and sends him on a 40 day journey into Mt. Horeb.
And, it’s here that we find our lonely prophet.
And, it is here that God is about to teach Elijah a lesson.
See, Elijah had no problem understanding God when:
• The fire was falling!
• The earth was shaking!
• The wind was blowing!
But, the one place that Elijah had never learned to listen to God was in the “still small voice”.
And, God was teaching him this lesson:
• I am not always going to yell!
• I am not always going to send fire.
• I am not always going to shake the earth.
Sometimes I am going to take you to:
• A prison cell
• A wilderness
• A desert
• A cave
But, I am only doing it because I can see you drifting away from me, and I want to get close to you again!
Sometimes we program God and think that He has to move in the:
• Shout
• Hoop and holler
• Dance
But, sometimes God whispers so that we will draw closer to Him!
PERHAPS THERE’S A REASON. NOTHING DRAWS HUMAN FOCUS QUITE LIKE A WHISPER.
God’s whisper means I must stop my ranting and move close to Him, until my head is bent together with His.
And then, as I listen, I will find my answer. Better still, I find myself closer to God.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892
We live in a society that is inundated with noise, clutter, and confusion.
It’s an age of more information, but less communication.
I recently read a statistic that there has been more information produced in the last 30 years than was produced during the previous 5,000.
I don’t know if we can verify that, but I do know that a weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime during the 17th century.
The first modern computer was built in 1944.
It took up more space than a tractor-trailer rig, weighed more than 17 Chevrolet Camaros, and consumed 144,000 watts of electricity.
It could execute no more that 5,000 basic arithmetic operations per second.
And the 486 processor, which is now outdated, was built on a tiny piece of silicon about the size of a dime, weighed less than a packet of Sweet and Low, and used less than two watts of electricity.
This amazing machine executed up to 54,000,000 instructions per second.
If you have a digital watch, you wear more technology on your wrist than existed in the world before 1961.
Now, how has all this technology shaped our thinking?
• We are used to having what we want when we want it.
• We are used to receiving any piece of information we need when we need it.
• We want to treat God like the internet, just open a heavenly search engine, type in our question, push the button and get the answer.
But, sometimes God doesn’t respond immediately, with a wealth of information like the internet does.
Sometimes God doesn’t scream at us like the commercials on our televisions.
Sometimes, God still chooses to whisper.
Sometimes God still speaks in the still, small voice!
That’s why David said in: Psalm 46:10
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
Paul makes an interesting appeal to the Thessalonian church in:
1 Thessalonians 4:11
11 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
I had never seen this scripture before, but Paul said, we need to study to be quiet!
Why?
Because, when we are ranting and raving, shouting, yelling, moving about lost in a bustle of activity, we can’t hear what God is saying to us.
I DON’T HAVE THE ANSWERS FOR SOME OF YOU TODAY, BUT GOD DOES.
And, I don’t know why, but He has chosen not to reveal them to us through the:
• Fire
• Wind
• Earthquake
But, if you will listen closely, draw near to Him, get very close I know that you will hear what God is saying!
