Elijah ran to the mountains in fear for his life. There he watched as wind, earthquake and fire tore the mountains apart before his eyes, but the almighty voice of God came as a gentle whisper...
The Still Small Voice
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
SONG – ON the Mountain – Selah
Sometimes God shows up with a mighty voice. Sometimes as a still-small voice. For the prophet Elijah, he didn’t need the winds, the quakes and the fire. He needed to listen and hear.
Swell
Welcome to HT, I’m CM sharing the GS that’s all about Jesus and a program called “The Still Small Voice”. In the next few minutes, we will look at two mountaintop experiences in the book of 1st Kings. We’ll look and see how the times of the prophet Elijah fit with the times of our lives today. We still have spiritual experiences related to mountains. On the line with us from Nashville, is Todd Smith with the music group Selah. Todd, welcome back to HAVEN Today.
Smith clip
SONG – On the Mountain - Selah
Two mountains and God shows up both times, just like he shows up in every mountain as well as valley experience of life. We’re looking at the life of the prophet Elijah and turning to the story from 1 Kings. I don’t have time to read all of 1 Kings 17, 18 & 19, but I would suggest you read it all yourself to get the context and see how this relates to your life and the times we are in. And if you have children, this is a great passage to share, but make sure you relate the story to our day and time and then also relate the story to Jesus.
The first mountain top experience happens on Mt. Carmel, which is in the north of modern Israel. I’ll be there on the Haven tour to Israel next year and from this mountaintop you can see for many miles in every direction. The Mediterranean is not far to the west. The valley of Megiddo. Armageddon is to the east. The Israelites under King Ahab and his wife, Queen Jezebel, are worshipping the pagan god Baal. Elijah, the prophet of the Living God, is not popular in the royal court. And that’s an understatement. In the name of the great I AM, Elijah proclaims a drought on the land and he goes to a place outside Israel … a place called Zarephath in Sidon and stayed there. It’s here that a wonderful story of God’s providence takes place. He walks up to a widow and asks for some water to drink and then some bread to eat. She reveals she has just enough flour and oil to make one last loaf for herself and her son and then they will die. Elijah promises here that if she feeds him, the Living God will feed her, providing a continuous supply of oil and flour until the drought ends. So it happens. There’s also a story in the story of the son getting sick, growing worse and worse, and finally he dies. Elijah takes the boy’s body to the upper room where he was living and cries out to the Lord and the boy is brought back to life. While this famine was severe, Ahab wife, Queen Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Living God. And Elijah is sent back to confront the King with his following the false god Baal, which was the source of the drought and famine in the first place. Elijah issues a challenge, but through all this stories … really a collection of stories … there is this confrontation with the cult of Baal. We see the hand of the Lord, even when Elijah thinks he’s the only real prophet left, even he grows afraid and runs away. God grants provision for Elijah by a brook east of Jordan and then by the widow that I just mentioned. The healing and raising from the death of the widow’s son, brings faith to a foreign woman and the prophet is confirmed as a man of the great I AM. Then he issues a challenge to Ahab. Bring 450 prophets of Baal to the top of Mt. Carmel and build an altar. Elijah says he will build an altar to the Living God. Then the gauntlet is thrown down. If fire comes down from heaven on the altar to Baal, then that is god. If fires rain down from heaven on the altar Elijah builds, that is the true and only God. You know the rest of the story. The prophets of Baal cut and pierce themselves with knives and spears and this goes on for hours and, still, no fire. Elijah builds his altar with a symbolic 12 stones for all the tribes of Israel. He has a trench dug around the altar and water repeatedly poured on the sacrifice and stones and filling the trench. Then he prays. And fire comes down. It’s a fire so strong, that even the stones melt and the water does no good. Then he orders the 450 false prophets of Baal to be killed. Let’s pick up the story from 1 Kings 19:
1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
The LORD Appears to Elijah
And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
God’s Word from 1 Kings 19. I remember hearing this as a child and wondering how could King Ahab and the people not see they were worshipping a false god and continue to do so after the demonstration of the Lord’s power on Mt. Carmel. Here’s where we need some background and we can see this working even today. The cult of Baal against which Elijah battles is in essence a religion of materialism the rule of Baal and the appearance of fall and winter rains were crucial to agricultural success and the economic success of Israel. King Ahab’s wife – Queen Jezebel – was from Sidon and she was already a worshipper of this cosmic god of prosperity. Opposition to Baal is regarded as the cause of the bitter famine that drives the people to the point of starvation. Elijah is regarded as a traitor disturbing the tranquility and prosperity of Israel. Baal is worshiped for his powers of providing wealth, but during the time of Elijah that worship does not bring about the desired results. The conclusion might be that Baal is unhappy with Israel and has withdrawn his life-giving power, or that his power over the forces of nature is being thwarted.
Now here is where we can start to relate the story to today and our world we live in … with many of us understanding drought and many of us understanding economic hardship. Materialism has the power to bring about a strange kind of double-mindedness. Desire for wealth displaces allegiance to God, though loyalty to God is sometimes claimed just the same. King Ahab blames Elijah for the drought that has overtaken his land, apparently oblivious to the implicit irrationalism of doing so. If Baal truly had the power to rule the rains and bring wealth, as was supposed, Ahab’s zeal to the extent of killing the prophets of the Living God with his wife, Queen Jezebel, should have brought prosperity, and Elijah should have been powerless to cause famine in the land. Recognition that Elijah’s devotion to the great I AM has brought about famine is in itself a concession to the fact that Baal did not have control over the rains. The failure of Baal … a religion of prosperity … doesn’t change the policy of the king. He is determined to promise the cult of Baal, apparently with the belief that this course of events will make Israel wealthy. The fact that Elijah can temporarily interfere in his course of action only stirs up resistance rather than a change of mind. Even the defeat of the Baal prophets and the downpour of the rain predicted by Elijah do nothing to incite Ahab to change his own course. Ahab does not support Elijah against he threats of Jezebel, perhaps he powerless to do so. Now the Greek Septuagint adds a little phrase in 1 Kings 19 … a phrase that I think is important. It’s line from Queen Jezebel: “you may be Elijah, but I am Jezebel”. Doesn’t that make you shudder? What a statement in keeping with the dominating and self-confidence depiction of Jezebel.
Materialism also has the power to trap its followers in a web of circumstance from which it’s virtually impossible to get away. This may have been part of Ahab’s dilemma. Israel does come to wealthy in time. Several generations after Elijah, the prophet Amos denounces the wealth and luxury of Israel because it was gained at the expense of the poor and through the corruption. In the midst of this wealth, Amos speaks of a famine in the land --- not a famine from drought but a famine of inability to hear God’s word. Doesn’t that sound like today?
What can we learn today? What application from these two mountaintops can we bring into our lives today?
First, even when we are afraid, the Lord never leaves us. Sure the Living God was there on Mt. Carmel, but the angel of the Lord led Elijah to another mountain, Mount Horeb where as the King James puts it, Elijah heard the still small voice of the Lord.
Second, though materialism like that of the cult of Baal is present in our world today, the voice of the church is a hope in the midst of the spiritual famine. Worship of Baal, or as Jesus says, the god of Mammon will lead to destruction. Greed is unaware of the spiritual drought we’re in, a drought that will lead to the decimation of an entire society. Christians today may feel threatened and despised like Elijah, but the Word of God is still present and may be heard as that still small voice. We live in a day, just like Israel did, when many pay lip service to the values of the kingdom of God, while being deceived in an attempt to serve two masters. Jesus said it. We should believe it. You can’t serve two masters. You can’t love and serve both.
Third, Elijah has come. What do I mean by that. Well yes, the prophet Elijah came and didn’t die. He was translated into heaven and replaced by the prophet Elisha. Judaism has taught that Elijah had to come again in order for the Messiah to come. Elijah is mentioned when grace is said after meals. “May God in his mercy send us the prophet Elijah.” At a circumcision the child is placed on a seat and a ritual is said calling the chair the throne of Elijah and calling for the salvation of the Living God, Yahweh. Elijah plays a significant role in the Passover. An empty chair is kept and a wine glass filled for the prophet. But I said a moment ago, Elijah has come. By that, I’m taking the words of the angle in the New Testament to Zechariah, indicating Elijah would be John the Baptist, preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah. Elijah has come, the Messiah has come. The Messiah we know is Jesus.
SONG – Be Still and Know – Steven Curtis Chapman
