May the Lord be pleased to bless
us together as we consider his word. Let us turn to the first
book of the Kings chapter 19 and reading verse 9. The first book of the Kings chapter
19 and reading verse 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 hear Elijah? When I was a boy living in London,
we had a deacon who we might consider and describe as a rough
diamond. He was a gracious man, but he
had a rough background. And I've heard him give his testimony,
his spiritual experience on several occasions. And it always commenced
in the same way. And he said, I was digging in
my garden on a Sunday morning. and a word came into my heart. And that word was these words,
What doest thou hear Elijah? Now he'd been brought up as a
boy in a Christian home and he'd forsaken the things of God and
was endeavouring to please himself. So when that spoke to his heart,
it had an effect upon him. and I remember him saying that
he stopped his digging and he went to the shed and threw his
spade into the shed and went indoors and the radio was playing
on a shelf and he turned the radio up loud so that he wouldn't
hear this voice speaking within and well the radio fell off the
shelf on the floor and smashed So there was no more noise from
that. And he had this word. What doest thou hear Elijah?
Now that was the means of bringing him into spiritual life. And
the next Sunday, he went off to chapel with all his children.
And he hadn't told his wife, but on the following Sunday he
said, well we're going to chapel this morning. He picked all the
kids up, they were playing in the garden, put them in a pram
and off he went. and he went to chapel to hear
the preaching of the gospel. Well, that was the beginning
of that man's spiritual experience. You might say, well, why is that
relevant to us today? Well, it is relevant because
the question was put to him, what do we now hear? And he therefore
knew that he shouldn't have been in that place doing what he was
doing on a Sunday morning. But it may have a much greater
worth to every one of us. There may be those things and
those places which we may go to, we may have been to, we may
plan to go to, and then if the Lord speaks in that way, what
do we now hear? And we realise, in reality, we
shouldn't be there. And we may be embarrassed that
we've been found out, as it were. Well, remember, God is in every
place. And remember those words, Hagar
said, Thou, God, seest me. And God sees us in every place. Well, God saw Elijah. And we may think, well, Elijah
was a prophet of the Lord, a very great prophet, and one who'd
been greatly blessed. And we may think, well, surely
such a statement wouldn't have been spoken to a man like that. Well, it was spoken like that.
And in actual fact, it was spoken on two occasions, as we read
later on in the 13th verse. There came a voice on him and
said, what doest thou hear, Elijah? What had Elijah done? Well, we read it together. He'd
run away because a woman had threatened to take his life. And we shouldn't forget what
had occurred previously. He'd been, as it were, as bold
as a lion. There he was on Mount Carmel,
400 servants of Baal, just Elijah. And yet he was very content and
very able to be by himself. And to realise that he worshipped
the true and living God. And that God heard his prayers,
heard his cry. And you remember, The result
was that the servants of Baal were unable to succeed in getting
their God to come and to light the sacrifice. Well, the truth
was, of course, their God was not a real God. It was just a
false God. It was a make-believe God. Elijah worshipped the true God
and the true God came down. and evidence so very, very clearly
that he was the ever true and living God. And you will remember
what happened. It came to pass at the time of
the offering of this evening sacrifice, the Lion to the Prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that
I am thy servant. and that I have done all these
things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou
hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord
fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and
the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was
in the trench. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces, And they said, the Lord, he is the
God. The Lord, he is the God. Who would think, would we not,
such a wonderful favour and blessing that Elijah would be as bold
as a lion. And although Jezebel then threatened
to take his life, she said, she sent a messenger to Elijah saying,
so let the gods do to me and more also if I make not thy life
as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." That
was the servants of Baal who had been slain. And Elijah, what
did he do? He arose and he ran away. Now,
the Lord has graciously left on record such an account so
that we might be instructed by it. And that when things appear
to go against us. As this did here, no doubt about
it, Jezebel was a very evil woman and she meant what she said,
but nonetheless Elijah had a great God who was all powerful and
that God could have easily have delivered Elijah without him
having to run away. And so we have this lesson for
us in this account. He ran away and he went into
the wilderness. And what did he say? He asked
God to take his life. That wasn't a good thing, was
it? He didn't have a right desire. He wanted his life to be taken
so he could escape from Jezebel. You remember, Jonah also ran
away, that he might escape from preachers and Ninevites. And
Job spoke in similar words. They wanted to have their life
taken, just so they could escape the situation in the world. Now, that was not a right desire.
We do have, however, thankfully, the complete opposite. We have
the Apostle Paul, who desired to depart, not to escape the
situation on this earth, to depart and to be with Christ, which
is far better. So we have the two comparisons. And Elijah fell into this snare
of the devil, thinking that he would therefore have to face
death. and therefore he desired God to take away his life. Well
God doesn't hear such prayers. Well he hears them but he doesn't
work them out. God has his plan. God has his
way. And so we know that Elijah lay
down and went to sleep and an angel touched him and made him
get up and to eat the cake and the water that was provided for
him and then to do it again. And we read, and he arose and
did eat and drink and went in the strength of that meat forty
days and forty nights. Some of you will remember on
Friday evening, that's one of the things we mentioned of the
number of times in the word of God the number 40 occurs. Here is one of those examples. He went 40 days and 40 nights
unto Horeb. Another name for Horeb of course
is Mount Sinai. I'm sure we're familiar with
Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai was a place where
God came down and met with Moses. And Moses was given the law of
God. So this was the same mountain
that Elijah went to. And here he was then, he came
to this cave. He went into this cave and he
lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord
came to him and said unto him, What doest thou hear, Elijah? Now, Elijah began to make excuses. And perhaps if you and I have
gone to a wrong place. Perhaps our conscience has been
pricked and moved, and we may begin to make excuses. We realise
we're no better than Elijah, but it's good if the Lord is
gracious to us and just prods us, as it were, and asks the
question, what are you doing here? What are you here for? What doest thou hear, Elijah?
But Elijah came and said, I have been very jealous of the Lord
God of hosts, the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant,
thrown down thine altars, slain thy prophets with a sword, and
I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away. Well, he was trying to make excuses. And perhaps we often try and
make excuses to God when we want to do our own will. We want to
do things which please ourselves. We have our own little plans,
our own little way that we want to go and the things we want
to do. And we may be, we get a nudge in our conscience, but,
well, we try and justify ourselves and we say, well, I'm doing it
because of this and because of that and because of the other.
And we need to remember Words like the Lord spoke through the
Apostle Paul when he said, all things are lawful for me, but
all things are not expedient. What does that mean? It means
that some of the things that he could allow himself to do
were not really profitable for his soul. And that's a good test
for us in our lives. to see whether the things that
we are doing, we may think, well I can justify them, we may be
making excuses to God. We have to come and say, are
they really benefiting me? Are they really spiritually profitable? It's a good test, isn't it? For
us in our lives, to be able to analyse it in that way. So here,
Elijah made these excuses to God, But God really ignored what
he said. He just said, go forth and stand
upon the mount before the Lord. Stand now and listen to what
I will do and what I will say. We have a number of illustrations
here of what Elijah had to face. The Lord passed by. and a great
and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks
before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And again, perhaps in our lives
we expect some wonderful revelation like this to suddenly occur in
our lives. He was told, go and stand. And
the Lord then passed by and that was the result. But the Lord
was not in the wind. And after that, the wind and
earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And again, sometimes we think that, as it were, people enter
into what we might term an earthquake experience. It's going to have
a tremendous effect in their spiritual life. Well, here we
have the result. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. Again, our natural minds tend
to run this way that the Lord will appear and work some great
powerful work that will be a means of conversion or a means of bringing
back or a means of direction. But it may not be so. We may
have seen sometimes People may be involved in serious accidents
and you may think, well, now that's going to have an effect
upon that person. But it may not have any effect.
We can very quickly draw our conclusions. And that's why we
have the Word of God to just keep us in ourselves and not
allow our minds to wander on and assume that certain things
are going to appear and are going to occur because of a situation. And so the Lord was not in the
earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. Well, a fire is a very evident
thing again, isn't it? And we can see fires and we think,
well surely that speaks. No, we read here, but the Lord
was not in the fire. There's three instances here
that were very amazing, but the Lord was not in them. That means
he didn't speak through them. He obviously caused them to come
to pass, but he didn't speak through them. And then we read,
and after that fire is still small voice. Now that's a word
of instruction and encouragement for us, because what it means
is we shouldn't expect in our lives an earthquake or a great
hurricane or a great fire in our spiritual life, so as it
were, bring us to our senses or to give us a very clear direction. No, here was the very opposite,
a still small voice. We are told not to despise the
day of small things. And we might perhaps be tempted
to despise a small voice, a small voice from God. We might almost
discount it. and think well that wasn't very
powerful and that wasn't really what I expected and we might
say that wasn't what I wanted but it may have been what God's
purpose was. So we need to have an open mind
and open heart to the Lord God and remember here was Elijah
a walking concrete of God. He'd had a wonderful experience,
a wonderful testimony of God appearing to eat up and burn
up that and consume that sacrifice. And now, the very opposite. But it was still from God. It was still powerfully from
God. So we should realise that when
the Lord comes like that, not to discount it. And the Lord
came clearly to Elijah. It had an effect upon him. When
Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and he went
out and stood in the entering in of the cave. The Lord came
and repeated the voice, repeated the words that he'd spoken before.
What doest thou hear, Elijah? Sometimes we need the Lord to
speak to us, to correct us. We're a bit stubborn, aren't
we? Often. Especially when we're trying to do our will. We don't
really want to acknowledge that what God said was for us. Well,
the Lord is very gracious here to Elijah. And let us not forget
Elijah was a man of God. He was a very gracious man of
God, but we see how just for a time he was, as it were, left
to himself. We shouldn't think we're going
to be any better. We shouldn't think, well, of course I'm a
child of God and therefore what I'm doing and thinking and saying
must be right. We have our own nature. We have our own spirit. And it's difficult sometimes
to not let our own spirit dictate the terms that we want. Whereas God gives us his terms
in his way. And here it was then. What do
we have here? Elijah. Well, you think, well
Elijah, what are you going to do now? Well, he repeats it again. The excuses he'd said before,
he brought them to God and went through them again, saying that
he'd been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the
children of Israel had forsaken thy covenants, thrown down thine
altars and slain thy prophets with a sword. We were thinking,
well, that's a very good thing and a thing to justify himself. And I, even I, only am left,
and they seek my life to take it away." Well, what was the
response from Almighty God? He said, go and return. Go back. Go back, Elijah. You shouldn't
have come here. Go back. There's work for you
to do. There's things for you to do. He told him to go and to anoint
Hazael king over Assyria and Jehu the son of Nimshi shall
be anointed to be king over Israel and Elisha the son of Shaphat
of Abel Mahola shall be anointed to be prophet in thy room. Well
the first two we don't read of in a direct position but we do
read of course that Elijah did go back and called Elisha to
follow him. But he also said this to Elijah. And what a rebuke it was. Yet,
I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which
have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed
him. And Elijah thought he was the only person left. He said
so. And yet, you see, there were
7,000 in a relatively small amount of people. 7,000 the Lord had
reserved unto himself. Well, the lesson here is that
we should not judge a situation. We can very easily fall into
a trap and think, well, it appears that, well, it's a time of There's
nothing at all. It's a desert and there's no
one that seeks the Lord. Well, it may be true. But on
the other hand, it may be false. And it was false in this situation. So we have the evidence here
of the prophet of the Lord making a big mistake. A big mistake. Yes, a well-known, able, blessed
prophet of the Lord. making a big mistake, thinking
that he was the only one left, and yet there were 7,000. Well, these are very important
lessons for us, aren't they, really, in our life today, to
not be left to fall into the same kind of trap that Elijah
did. Really, we come back to the basic
understanding The fear of man bringeth a snare. We would think
that the fear of God would have overcome that situation. It should
have done. But no, poor Elijah was ensnared
by the words of a woman who had intimated that she would get
his life taken. And that was what put him on
this downward road, as it were. and he ran away, not only ran
away from the place, but really was running away from God. He
tried to escape. Well, you may remember that in
the days of Daniel, Daniel didn't live in a very easy time, did
he? He lived in a place in Babylon, a foreign country, He'd been
placed there, one of the captives, and yet the Lord appeared to
him very wonderfully in that place and he was greatly used
of God. But as we come down right to
the end of that book, we read what God told him. And he was
told to stand in his lot. He wasn't told to run away and
to escape and to go somewhere else. No, he was told. God told him. And what a blessing
it is if God comes and speaks to us. And he said, Blessed is
he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and
five and thirty days. But go thou thy way. till the end be, for thou shalt
rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of thy days." He was
to stand and stay in that place that God had appointed for him. How important it is, as we read
such an example of Elijah not staying. You see, God had placed
him there, he'd been blessed there, and now he was escaping
or trying to escape. because it looked like as though
things were going to get a bit hot. They were going to get a
bit difficult. No, Elijah, you should have remained
where you were. And so the Lord comes and tells
him, go return on thy way. He had had a hard journey, you
know. He travelled for 40 days and 40 nights across the wilderness. It was the same place that Israel
had walked those 40 years in the wilderness. And now he was
there for 40 days and 40 nights. I want to just draw a wonderful
analogy really in this picture. Because we see that Elijah was
in this cave on this Mount Sinai and you will remember that this
was the place where the law of God was given to Moses. that law, which is a righteous
law. My friends, it was a very hard
law. And the law was to do this and
to live. And of course, Israel and the
Church of God are not capable of keeping that law in a perfect
way. And so, it's interesting that
Elijah had to go back to this same mount where God had come
down. And when the Lord came down on
that mount, you remember, the mountain quaked like an earthquake
and there was fire and the people were afraid. Well, they saw there the justice
of a holy God, the righteousness of a holy God. And we can almost
see the same picture being worked out again as Elijah was told
to go and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And the Lord
passed by in those three ways, that great wind and the earthquake
and the fire. But what do we read? And after
the fire, a still small voice. The voice of the gospel. The gospel is a voice of love. There was the harshness of the
law displayed to Moses and perhaps displayed to Elijah and then
the voice of the gospel, the still small voice. How effective that was. My friends,
how effective it is in our lives today, the voice of the gospel. You see, the law condemns. The
law doesn't bring us any freedom. No, we find ourselves under the
law and we fall down under it. The gospel lifts us up. The gospel
raises us. from my lowest state. So often it is like this, a still,
small voice. The Lord comes to us then. He
came to Elijah. He comes to his people today.
They may have had to face the fiery law of God. It would have
brought no comfort. It would have brought no deliverance. What it would have done is to
have brought condemnation Well, Elijah had to face that
first. And no doubt we had to face that
first. And we realised perhaps how we run away from God. We
disobey God. We follow our own inclinations. And we don't find any relief
at Mount Sinai. We don't find any relief under
the law of God. But then the Lord comes and speaks,
a still small voice. It had an effect upon Elijah.
Yes, he wrapped his face in his mantle and he went out and stood
in the entering of the cave. When the Lord speaks to his people,
it has an effect. Elijah, you see, wrapped his
face in his mantle. As it were, he hid his face from
Almighty God. He realised how wrong he'd been,
how he'd failed, how he'd sinned, how he'd turned his back upon
his God. He wrapped his face in his mantle. The Lord then
had spoken to him in a still, small voice. The Lord speaks
to us in that voice of love. Love to our soul. You see, it
was really love to Elijah's soul that he was asked that question.
What doest thou hear, Elijah? What are you doing here? And it was to speak to him and
to encourage him and to direct him. He wasn't left. A still, small voice had spoken
to him and he was told to go and to return and to have the
evidence. The Lord was with him still.
Well, I wonder this morning if you and I have heard a still,
small voice from God. Yes, just perhaps an encouraging
word, a comforting word, something which was unexpected as it were. We may have expected the wrath
of God. We knew we deserved it. And the
Lord comes and speaks a word of comfort to our hearts. Well, as the Lord may come, and
speak to us in that way, it will be, I'm sure, to direct us to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we will feel guilty and
helpless ourselves, because we would have offended Almighty
God like Elijah had. And we can't redress the situation
ourselves. But if we are partaker of the
love and mercy and grace of the Saviour. And He comes to us in
a still, small voice and encourages us and directs us to Himself. Yes, we may have almost forgotten
God, and yet the Lord hasn't forgotten us. And He's come to
us and He directs us in this way, this still, small voice,
and we behold the Lord Jesus Christ. And there we see what
a suffering Saviour has done for us. What love! Yes, there is therefore now no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The flesh runs away. But those who are after the Spirit
stand in their lot. They're directed by the Spirit
of God. The Lord comes to them where
they are and blesses them. Yes, Elijah wasn't forsaken. And God's people are not forsaken,
although they may have walked contrary to God. Yet he's gracious
to them and he brings them back. with those bands of love. Those cords of a man are drawn
to the Lord. Elijah was drawn. He went. He obeyed what the Lord said. So, he departed then and found
Elisha. Yes, he departed and found Elisha. What was he doing? He was obeying
the voice of his God, the still small voice. He was obeying it
and therefore he departed and found Elisha. Elisha was moved
by the same Spirit of God to hear his voice and to follow
his instructions. Yes, he left the oxen and ran
after Elijah and said, let me, I pray thee, kiss my father,
my mother, And then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go
back again. But what have I done to thee?
And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and
slew them, and bore their flesh, and instruments of the oxen,
and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose,
and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." Well, we see, don't
we not, the wonderful providence and outworking of God's plan. not to be thwarted, but to be worked out in accordance
with his purpose, for his honour and for his glory. And we should
never forget that in our little lives. We may have walked contrary
to God. The Lord may have said to us,
what doest thou hear? He may have demonstrated to us
the harshness and the hardness of the law, We found we were
guilty under it and then we see his love, his grace, his mercy
in that still small voice and it has a good and a gracious
effect upon us. We do not resist it. We hear
his voice and we run after him. May God bless us and instruct
us from these accounts for the good of our eternal soul. Amen.