A Still Small Voice

Text: 1 Kings 19:9b-21

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I shared with the Thursday morning group that gathers to worship in the chapel that I’ve had a number of mountaintop experiences. Some literal, and some figurative. Actually climbing mountains and having the satisfaction of getting to the top and the experience of seeing the beauty of God’s creation from above is a literal mountaintop experience. But others that don’t require all that physical exertion can be incredible as well. There were plenty of them at camp as God worked in the lives of kids. In just a few weeks I’ll be taking a few of my kids to the National Youth Gathering and I remember what a formative experience that was for me as a 15 year old as I realized that the church was much larger than my little congregation in Connecticut. But even the things that seem small in comparison can be the greatest mountaintop experiences. Every time I receive the Lord’s body and blood in the sacrament of the altar I marvel at the pinnacle to which He has taken me as He sustains me in my walk with Him. It’s all a reminder to us that

SOMETIMES GOD COMES TO US IN MARVELOUS AND AWE-INSPIRING WAYS AND SOMETIMES HE COMES TO US IN A STILL SMALL VOICE.

Elijah surely had a mountaintop experience nine hundred years before Jesus. This is Elijah, the prophet who never died. Who was taken to heaven in a whirlwind by God’s fiery horses and chariots. God gave Elijah many incredible experiences. And we’ve all had them too – those mountaintop experiences that remind us that God is not far from us. But not every day. Not for Elijah, and certainly not for us. So, what do we do when we’re not feeling God near or seeing His work in our lives?

You probably remember some of Elijah’s other incredible experiences with God. God introduced Elijah into the biblical story when he sent the prophet to his wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives . . . there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” For three years, the Lord protected Elijah. First, God fed Elijah with ravens delivering him bread and meat. Then the Lord sent Elijah to the foreign widow at Zarephath. About to starve, the poor widow baked her last meal. But as she shared with Elijah, day after day her cooking oil and flour never ran out. And then after the widow’s son dies, God works through Elijah and the boy is raised from the dead.

We could go on and on, but one of the most incredible experiences with God that Elijah has is when all Israel’s people gather at Mount Carmel. Elijah challenges the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 of Asherah. “You call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” Even with all their fanfare, the other prophets can’t get Baal to send any fire. So then Elijah rebuilds the true Lord’s altar. He drenches the slaughtered bull and altar with water three times and cries out, “O Lord . . . let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and stones and even licked up the water in the trench. And the result was that the people fell on their faces, shouting, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

We thank God for every day when He gives us one of these experiences. Days when we can’t help but shout and sing our praises to the one who so marvelously makes Himself known to us. Today’s text, however—from the very next chapter of 1 Kings, tells about a whole different day.

Things have seemingly turned around. Elijah believes that God’s wondrous work is done. All these things that God has done and all the protection Elijah has been given seem to be over. He feels like he’s the only faithful one left. And he asks, “Why did you send me? Why did your fire devour the sacrifice? Why have you roused Jezebel to kill me?”

We believers can often wonder “Why?” Why is life so difficult? Why did you allow my loved one to die? Why is it so hard to be a disciple? Why do others persecute me for what I believe? And in all that questioning we often take the easy road. We run away and hide. We forget the strength and the love of the one who has given us such incredible experiences as soon as we face a hardship. It’s the ugly side of the mountaintop experience. The crash on the other side when we realize that this sin sick world doesn’t allow us to live at the top of the mountain forever. God requires that we come down to the valley and live.

Elijah’s run down that mountain took him all the way to Horeb, to the same Mount Sinai where six hundred years before the Lord had met Moses. And there he prayed, “Take away my life.” There Elijah hid in a cave, seeking to avoid the Lord, but “the word of the Lord came to [Elijah], and said to him, ‘What are you doing here?” Of course, the Lord knew what Elijah, was doing, but did Elijah know?

It’s like Adam and Eve who felt guilty and hid behind fig leaves as God walks toward then and calls out, “Where are you?” I know you’ve heard your own conscience ask, “What have I done?” It’s a gentle question with the realization that because we’ve turned from the Lord He has every right to strike us down. But the Holy One asks such mild questions. And in them you can hear his mercy. You can hear Him inviting you to turn back to Him.

The Lord doesn’t berate Elijah for hiding in the dark cave. The Lord gently invites Elijah to come to the light, to life. Just as He invites you to his love. And patiently, he listens to Elijah, who says, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Have you ever complained this way? I’ve worked hard for my family, served in the church, tried to be a good citizen, a helpful neighbor. What good does it do?

I had a conversation this week with a man who is quickly growing in his faith. And we talked a little bit about lamentations. Not the book specifically, but about prayers of lament. How God wants to hear our cries in all circumstances. As long as we pray them earnestly, desiring His way and recognizing the help that only He can give. And He’ll respond in patience and love as He does with Elijah. “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” But Elijah doesn’t obey. At least not right away. I think we can relate. When God’s answer to our prayer is something we don’t want to hear. Or something that we don’t yet understand. Why would I do that? What difference will it make?

But eventually Elijah does obey. And what he experiences is marvelous. “Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke 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. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.” That doesn’t mean that God wasn’t there in those things or that He didn’t cause them to happen. They just weren’t the crux of the message He needed Elijah to hear. He’s reminding the prophet that He hasn’t lost His power. He could still crush the enemy in whatever way He might choose.

And He says the same to you and me, “Yes, I could!—crush your enemy. I could fix your bank account. I could heal your body and fill your soul with joy. I could make your friends, your family, even your church all that they should be for you!” And oftentimes, God has done exactly that! Other times, God has a better gift.

After the wind and earthquake and fire came “the sound of a low whisper.” Here’s one place where I prefer the King James translation because it says, “a still small voice.” What did it say? The text doesn’t tell. But it’s that same voice we hear that tells us to get out of our caves of sin and despair. Stop wallowing in it all and listen to what I have for you that’s better than all that.

Luther speaks to this when he says, “God . . . has laid before us, in the Scriptures, many gracious and comforting examples of great and holy saints who of God were highly enlightened and favored, and who, notwithstanding, fell into great and heavy sins. . . . When we feel his anger, which will surely follow upon [our] sins, we should not despair, but remember these comfortable examples, and thence conclude, that, as God was merciful unto them, so likewise he will be gracious unto us, out of his mere goodness and mercy shown in Christ, and will not impute our sins unto us.”

The Lord calls out to us gently, so that we’re not hard on ourselves. Gently God lifts us weak ones with his forgiveness. Elijah heard his Lord’s whisper, wrapped his face in his cloak, and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. It’s a lot like a resurrection. Or the royal priesthood described by Peter when he says that we are “called…out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Sometimes God chooses the mountaintop experiences – the big earthquake, wind and fire experiences to get our attention. And He certainly uses these to direct our paths. The greatest of which was His own mountaintop experience. On Calvary. This sacrifice, where He laid down His life for the sins of the world, affects our lives every day and for all eternity.

And sometimes He comes to us in a still small voice. Whispering your name to call you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Maybe that voice is audible to you, or maybe it’s the voice of another believer speaking the truth of God’s Word to you. Sometimes it’s the word you hear read from that lectern or preached from this pulpit. And sometimes the still small voice comes in the form of bread and wine, carrying the body and blood of your Savior. These experiences can be as powerful as the marvelous and awe-inspiring acts of God. Because they too are marvelous and awe-inspiring, in a different way.

Your lives will be filled with these experiences. Don’t miss them. Don’t hide your head in the sand or live your life in the cave. Listen for that still small voice who wants you to hear Him and heed His word. And when your time on the mountain is through, because you can’t stay there forever, and you have to come down to the valley to live, remember that God is there with you too. He says clearly in Psalm 23, “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me.” He is always with us. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.