A Still Small Voice

God's Grace and Initiative in Restoring His Servant

0:07 Let's turn again to 1 Kings chapter 19 as we continue to analyze the therapeutic measures of God with his sick servant.

0:28 1 Kings 19, the chapter which begins, as we have seen in past weeks, with the record of Elijah's running in fear from the threats of this wicked woman Jezebel until he is found out in a wilderness place under a broom tree wishing for himself that he might die. How does God deal with his servant who has so wonderfully stood in the line of duty and vindicated the name and cause of Jehovah against the whole prevailing tide of opinion in Israel?

1:11 Is God going to, as it were, forget his labor of love, as we read, or is God going to deal with his servant in grace and in mercy? As we said last week, this passage is a great illustration of the principle the psalmist mentions when he says, the gentleness of God hath made me great. And I cannot but emphasize again that here we have God dealing in grace with an object of his special love and favor, and because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we can expect, we can expect him to deal in the same way with us when we are found in similar circumstances. As I was reviewing over some of the past material,

1:56 the verse that we read last Lord's Day morning in the 119th Psalm, the last verse of that Psalm came to my mind when the psalmist said, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant. The psalmist acknowledged that the Lord himself had to seek him out in his wanderings. And one of the principles that, stands on the very surface of this narrative in 1 Kings 19, is the divine initiative in all of this.

2:25 It's God who comes to his servant when he's under a tree wishing to die. It's God who takes the initiative to meet his needs, to probe his conscience, to recommission him, to send him back into the place of usefulness and bring him back into the place of experimental fellowship and awareness of the presence and power of God. And so the grace of God, that we so often speak of, is not only a grace that takes the initiative in bringing us into the faith. That's a glorious truth to discover.

2:57 But it's the same grace that continually takes the initiative to keep us in the way. For we would just as surely fall out of the way and apostatize for good. Did God not in grace keep us in the way as we would never get into the way unless grace brought us there. And so, you see stamped over this whole narrative, grace, grace, grace, the abounding grace of God in dealing with his servant.

God's Therapeutic Measures: Meeting Physical Needs and Probing Conscience

3:26 Well, how then did he deal with his servant in his state of dejection? We've studied three principles so far. He assured him of his love by the visit of the angel, met his basic physical needs, sleep and food. Then he gave him a token of his presence and his power when his hand was upon him in strength through that food to make a 40 day and night journey to Mount Horeb, the Mount of God.

3:53 And then last week in that little sermonette I preached, we began to consider the fourth principle. He began to probe his conscience. I told someone that the treasurer knocked off $10 from my check last week because I only preached a half an hour and they looked at me and all said, did he really? I said, no, but he should have.

4:17 Well, in that little sermonette to which I'm referring, we began to consider the principle that God's fourth way of dealing with his servant was to probe his conscience. After he got his physical needs met, after he had given him abundant tokens of his love and his mercy, then and only then did he begin to probe his conscience. Had he done this before, had his first thing had been coming to the prophet under the tree in dejection and discouragement and despondency and said, what doest thou here? What doest thou here?

4:50 Elijah, it might have killed him. And the Scripture tells us that he knows our frame that we are but dusts. Like as the father pities his children so the Lord pities those that fear him. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever.

5:10 You see, the human mind can't comprehend this. It'll either take that and abuse it and you end up with a doting, overindulgent, unprincipled God, or because of this terrible penchant For logic, we'll say, no, the God of the Bible is a God of bread and a God of consuming fire. How can he be so tender and loving? Well, you see, we need everything that God has revealed of himself.

5:34 And the same God who's described as a consuming fire is here depicted as the one who will not always chide and who deals in gentleness and tenderness with his servant. And in asking this question, and this is where we pick up our study, we saw last week that God was forcing Elijah to self-reflection of his present state in the light of revealed truth. What doest thou here, Elijah? What's brought you here?

6:05 Has my word brought you here? Has my revealed will brought you here? He was trying to get the prophet to, as it were, think back all the steps that had led to this present place of retreat from the point of...

6:20 Now, the post of duty and retreat into self-pity and dejection. And he wants him to reflect upon it. And we isolated that principle that this self-reflection on our present state in the light of Scripture is often the beginning of spiritual restoration. It's often the beginning of the way back.

6:40 God says, remember from whence thou art fallen. Now, how did Elijah react to that probing of God? Before we...

Elijah's Evasion and the Deceitfulness of the Heart

6:50 Before we move on to the next section of the narrative, I want us to consider that, for I believe it's significant. It's put here for a purpose. God asked the question in 1 Kings 19, 9, What doest thou here, Elijah? He asked the same question at the end of verse 13.

7:07 What doest thou here, Elijah? Now, one thing we've got to give credit to the prophet. He was consistent in his answer. Both times he answered with precisely the same words.

7:18 Notice.

7:20 Here's his answer. And he said, verse 10, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. True or false? Had he been jealous for the Lord God of hosts?

7:32 Would you take any exception with his statement? Now, that's true. He had been jealous. You read the previous narrative.

7:38 Very jealous. All right? Second thing. The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword.

7:47 Was that true? Sure was. Read the narrative. Anyone saying a thing that wasn't true.

7:53 Third thing. I, even I, only am left. I think he's not saying I'm the only one left who's a true worshipper of Jehovah. But I think in the context, I am the only true prophet left.

8:06 And they seek my life to take it away. Now, is that true? Was he the only true prophet left, as far as we know, one who was out speaking, defending the cause of God and the truth? Some are going this way, some that way.

8:19 Well, let's have a church fuss. All right? No. In the sense that God had these who were in the cave, who were preserved by Obadiah, some prophets were left.

8:30 And in the sense that there were 7,000 that God says he had reserved who not bowed the knee to Baal, there were 7,000 left. But as far as a vocal, public mouthpiece for God, Elijah was the only one. So in that sense, what he says is true. Now, there may be a mingling of some self-pity here.

8:49 I don't know. I can't read into the prophet's mind what may not be there.

8:56 There is absolutely, nothing untrue with the statements that the prophet gives. But now the question is, is this any reason for being away from the post of duty, first of all under a broom tree, praying that he might die, and then wandering for 40 days a night until he ends up in a cave on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai. Now, are these things any reason for doing what Elijah did?

9:27 He threw God a curve. If I may not be irreverent in saying so. God says, what are you doing here? And Elijah says, well, I've been jealous for you, Lord.

9:36 Well, wasn't he jealous for him when he stood on Mount Carmel against the whole nation? Yes or no?

9:42 Had the people of Israel thrown down the altars and done all of that when Elijah was standing in the middle of the conflict vindicating the name of God? Sure. Was he the only vocal, public prophet then? Sure.

9:58 Were they opposing him then? Sure.

10:01 You see, all of the things that he says are really not a reason for being where he is. And I believe we see in the answer of the prophet precisely what the best of men will do to the probings of God unless the grace of God intervenes. We will evade the issue that God is pressing upon us when he says, what doest thou here? What should his answer have been?

10:29 Lord, I'm here because I've grown weary in the conflict. I've lost my spiritual perspective. I've lost my spiritual perspective. Let that wicked, painted witch loom up bigger in my eyes than Jehovah in an attempt to spare my own hide.

10:48 I've been willing to leave the post of duty. That's what he should have said because that's what the facts were as far as we can discern them from Scripture. But there is an evasion of the real issue for which God was probing his conscience with the question, what doest thou here? And that tendency among others is a constant revelation of the truth of Jeremiah 17, 9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.

The Pattern of Evasion: From Adam to Us

11:23 The first time God ever asked anything like a probing question is recorded in the third chapter of Genesis when God says in Genesis 3, 9, Adam, where art thou? And Adam should have answered, I'm over here behind a bush. Hiding in fear because I've sinned.

11:44 He doesn't do that though.

11:48 He said, I was naked and hid myself. He said, who told thee thou wast naked? Have you eaten of the tree, Adam? Have you disobeyed me, Adam?

11:56 Have you sinned? And then you see the shifting. And the man said, oh, the woman thou gavest to me. She gave me of the tree and I did eat.

12:03 And then God zeroes in on the woman and she shifts the responsibility. You see, the pattern is set at the very outset of the fall of man. And doesn't it show the heinousness of sin? Here it's the creator who's been offended by the creature's sin.

12:20 And yet when the creator in grace takes the initiative to seek the sinning creature, the creature still runs and evades the issue.

12:30 Now if anything shows the terrible nature of sin, it's this.

12:37 God was under no obligation to seek Adam. In that sense, God wasn't responsible for what happened to Elijah.

12:47 Yet the Lord seeks him. And yet even when, when God takes the initiative to seek, there's evidence that he evades the issue.

12:55 Of course, we never do that, do we?

12:58 Do we?

13:01 God in grace seeks us. Maybe it's in our devotions. And the portion of Scripture begins to burrow its way beneath our carnal hide and get down to the sensitive areas of the soul.

13:15 And we begin to shift. We're sitting in a meeting like this and an aspect of the truth as it comes home with the power of the Spirit begins to probe us. It begins to open up the wound and God begins to ask us, What doest thou here? Why?

13:34 It doesn't. Until you acknowledge the sin that's brought you into the present place you are, you'll never be brought back into fellowship. He that covereth his sin shall not prosper. So God must, and I say it reverently, God must do whatever is necessary to get us to tear the covers off and own the issue.

13:51 But what do we do? We shift. We excuse. We rationalize.

13:54 We shift the responsibility. We do everything that Adam and Eve did. We do everything that others have done. We do what seems to be indicated in this passage.

14:04 We bring things up before us that really have nothing to do with the issue at hand. What doest thou here, Elijah? The things he tells the Lord, God knew full well. And God didn't want to hear those again.

14:18 What God wanted to hear was the acknowledgement by the prophet that he had lost his spiritual perspective, that he had been rejected, that he had been guilty of the sin of unbelief, and that he had left the post of duty without any clear word of revelation. He had acted impetuously in the face of danger. He had been more concerned about sparing his hide than carrying out the full reform that for all we know might have come. We can't speak in terms of what might have been with any authority had he stayed at the post of duty.

14:54 Now I ask you,

14:57 if you're doing this tonight, or I say to you and exhort you, if you're doing this tonight, any of you who are conscious as you sit here of the voice of God reaching to your own heart, what doest thou hear? In this place, far away from the post of duty, far away from the place of spiritual vibrancy and virility, when God says, what doest thou hear? Don't monkey around with all kinds of extraneous issues. Just get honest with God and tell him.

15:28 Say, Lord, I'm here, as I... And now you tell him.

15:31 You tell him. And tell him honestly why you're there. Read in Hosea, Take with you words in return unto the Lord, for he hath smitten and he will heal, and he will receive us graciously. So much then for finishing out that fourth thing of the probing of God's, of the prophet's conscience by the Lord and how he responded to it.

The Manifestation of God: Wind, Earthquake, Fire, and Still Small Voice

15:56 Now the next thing God did, and this is all we'll have time for tonight, is found in this very strange, section that follows, beginning with verse number 11. And he said, Go forth. Here he is, secluded in a cave. And God says, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord.

16:22 Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountain, and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, he was not in the wind. But the Lord was not in the wind.

16:35 And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the wind. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire.

16:47 And after the fire, a still, small voice. And it was so when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering into the cave. And behold, there came a voice unto him and said, What doest thou hear, Elijah? Now picture the scene.

17:10 We read, This, and we just sort of pass over it, and I confess I've done it for years, and it wasn't until preparation for this study tonight that I began to catch something of the tremendous drama of this scene. Here's a man secluded in the cave, and the voice of God comes to him. Go out and stand upon the mount. Perhaps the cave was some ways away from the summit of the mount, and it might have meant a walk for five minutes or ten minutes or a half a minute.

17:40 We don't know, but he's in a place of seclusion in the cave, and apparently as he starts out to move to the summit of the mount, this tremendous upheaval occurs, first of all, in this wind. Notice what it says about it. A great and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks. Now I've seen some strong winds.

18:08 I've seen some little baby tornadoes. Some of you perhaps have seen this if you've driven down through Florida. You'll see those little things coming across the field, and if they hit the side of your car, they'll just throw you right across one lane into the other. I've seen those, and I've been smacked in a car by them.

18:22 I've seen the power of wind.

18:25 I've been through the sections in Wisconsin where the real sure-enough tornadoes went through, and you could see the path that it left where everything in its path, I don't care whether it was steel, wood, trees, everything was just like paper mache, twisted and ripped and contorted out of shape.

18:42 Now here, here is a wind, the force of which, if passing through that rocky section up there at the Delaware Water Gap, most of us have seen. Suppose you're driving along there some night, going out towards Kansasca, or some day, and you sense the stirring of a tremendous wind, and you park your car, and you watch, and you see that solid rock side there, the gap beginning to split to pieces under the force of the wind. That's pretty potent stuff, isn't it? Can you imagine the sound that attended it?

19:13 A wind? A wind so strong that Scripture says it rents the mountains and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord until the prophet sees huge boulders being pushed before the might of this wind.

19:29 If he'd been out toward the mouth of that cave, it's no surprise to me that later on, after he hears the still small voice, he's obvious that he's back inside the cave. I think it would have driven me back in.

19:43 Tremendous display of the power of God. And yet, Scripture says, after this display, the Lord was not in the earthquake. And what does that mean? I believe it means the voice of God was not heard in the earthquake.

19:59 It's obvious that the Lord did this, for it says the Lord passed by, and it was in His passing by that there was this manifestation of power. But the Lord was not in this particular thing. That is, the voice of God was not heard. As a result, or speaking out of this mighty wind.

20:23 Then the second thing it says, and after the wind and earthquake. Now that's a word to us. I don't think there's any one of us here who's lived through an earthquake. Is there anyone here who has?

20:34 Some of you have? One. I've read accounts of people who have. No matter what seems unstable, we call this beneath our feet, terra firma.

20:46 I mean, this is firm. This is going to stay. This is going to abide. And you can imagine what it's like to be in a solid rock mountain and feel that thing begin to shake and rumble.

20:59 The closest I've ever come to feeling anything like this is when we were out in Banff National Park up in western Canada. And there's a place where two mountain rivers come together. And they come together at 45 degree angles and tons of water cascading down both. And where the two meet, there's such tremendous pressure and energy as they flow down in a Y and then out like the bottom stem of a Y into one larger stream.

21:26 They have a bridge that is actually constructed on top of several huge boulders that are at the sides of the place where these two come together. So this bridge rests right down upon the boulders and is hung together with cables and heavy wood and the rest. And yet when you stand on that, when you feel these boulders vibrating through the sheer force of that cascading water and the roar of those two rivers coming together, it's one of the most awesome displays of power that I've ever been subjected to. And it just leaves you sort of trembling and breathless.

22:02 It must have been something like that for Elijah. Here this mountain, standing for centuries, now begins to shake and rumble beneath his feet. And yet, it says, the Lord was not in the earth.

22:19 God had nothing to say to him. Out of the rumblings, as he had nothing to say to him, out of the rending wind. And then it says in verse 12, and after the earthquake, a fire.

22:34 Apparently, fire breaking out on those craggy peaks of that mountain. Perhaps covering the whole side of the mountain where the prophet was. Some supernatural manifestation of fire. Leaping tongues of fire before the prophet's eyes.

22:51 God had often manifested himself under the symbolism of fire. There was the pillar of fire by night. God manifesting himself in fire at the burning bush. God who had come down in flaming fire upon Mount Carmel.

23:08 But now, after this fire subsides, it says the Lord was not in the fire. He caused the fire by his own power. But his voice was not to be heard in it. And after these three, great manifestations of the power of God, we read, and after the fire, a still, small voice.

23:30 The marginal reading of the ASV is the voice of a gentle stillness. Now, that's a strange mixture of words, isn't it? If something is stillness, you don't hear it. But it's obvious this was something he heard, for it says, and when Elijah heard it,

23:51 as one author has suggested, perhaps it was like the fading, echoing tones of a muted lute.

23:58 Some sound that was discernible to the ear, but by contrast, had as its primary characteristic gentle stillness. And it was then that the prophet had some indication that God was going to speak to him, for verse 13 says, and it was so when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle,

24:27 indicating that, and he knew he was going out to encounter his God, and so he goes out with the hidden face, the mark of humility that has marked all of God's servants when they come into face-to-face encounter with their God. And he goes out and stands in the entrance of the cave, and behold, a voice came to him and said, What doest thou hear, Elijah? Now, those are the facts of this, of this unusual manifestation of God. Now, the question is, what does it mean?

The Meaning of the Still Small Voice: God's Hidden Work

25:05 And at this point, I sure wish the Lord would give me five minutes with Elijah, because I'm confident of this, that in the process of restoring his servant to usefulness and the place of spiritual vitality, Elijah got the message. But I'm not so sure that the passage lets us know exactly what that message is. And so I've prayed over it, I've read it, I don't know, how many times. I imagine it's into the dozens of times now.

25:35 And I've asked the Lord for light, and I've read every commentator that I have in my own library. I've probably checked at least a dozen commentators. And my conviction is, at the end of all of this, that when God says, He openeth and no man shutteth, He shutteth and no man openeth, He means exactly what He says, even when it applies to Scripture. But I think, and that's all I can say, I don't like to preach, and I have to say I think.

26:05 I like to be able to say I know. But I can't say it if I don't know it. I think this may be what God is communicating to the prophet in this vivid object lesson. He is communicating to the prophet a lesson which he must learn if he's going to get out from under this broom-tree mentality, this take-me-out-of-this-mess mentality.

26:32 There is a vital lesson. There is a vital lesson he must learn. Having been assured of God's love, having his basic physical and mental needs met, the strain of the past conflict, all of these needs, God has met them. But if he's to be fit to go back to the place of usefulness, and obviously God wasn't done with him.

26:53 He still had a ministry for him. He had a very vital lesson to learn. Now what was that lesson? Of all the commentators, I believe that F.B. Meyer has stated the principle most clearly,

27:08 and I want to read now from his commentary on this particular section, just several verses, several paragraphs, I'm sorry. What was the meaning of all this? That's the question I've been asking myself for several weeks now. And he says, it is not difficult to understand.

27:27 And I say, sorry, Mr. Meyer, I take exception with you. It has been very difficult for me to understand. But passing on over that statement, Elijah was most eager that his people should be restored to their allegiance to God.

27:42 And he thought that it could only be done by some striking and wonderful act. He may have often spoken thus with himself, Those idols shall never be swept from our land unless God sends a movement swift and irresistible as the wind, which hurries the clouds before it. The land can never be awakened except by a moral earthquake. There must be a baptism of fire to purify the people.

28:09 And when he stood on Carmel and beheld the panic among the priests and the eagerness among the people, he thought that that time, the set time, had come. And all that died away. From the glory of Mount Carmel, he enters to that period of dejection where instead of reform there is resistance to this manifestation of God. That was not God's chosen way.

28:36 of saving Israel. And because God did not go on working thus, Elijah thought that God was not working at all. And abandoned himself to the depths of despondency. But in this parable, this natural parable, these events we've just read about, God seemed to say, My child, you've been looking for me to answer your prayers with striking signs and wonders.

29:03 And because these have not been given in a marked and permanent form, you have thought me heedless and inactive. But I am not always to be found in these great visible movements. I love to work gently, softly, and unperceived. I have been working so, and I am working so still.

29:25 And there are in Israel, as the results of my quiet, gentle ministry, seven thousand, all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal, every mouth that hath not kissed him. We read that in the narrative a little bit later. Yes, it was not the gentle ministry of Elisha succeeding the stormy career of his great predecessor Elijah, like the still small voice after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. And is it not probable that more real good was effected by Elisha's unobtrusive life and miracles than was even wrought by the splendid deeds of Elijah?

30:03 We often fall into similar mistakes. When we wish to promote a revival, we seek to secure loud, large crowds, much evident impression, powerful preachers, influences comparable to the wind and the earthquake and the fire. And when these are present, we account that we are secure of having the presence and power of God. Now listen to this next, it's beautiful.

30:27 But nature itself rebukes us. Who hears the role of the planets? Who can detect the falling of the dew? Whose eye has ever been injured by the breaking of the wavelets of daylight on the shores of our planet?

30:46 There is no speech nor language. Their voice is not heard. At this moment, the mightiest forces are in operation all around us, but there is nothing to betray their presence. Isn't that great?

31:00 Right now, think of the forces in operation. Keep you sitting on that seat instead of floating off here, weightless. Think of the forces in operation that we can count on sunrise being precisely at six-something tomorrow morning and sunset at six-something else. Think of the mighty forces in operation that what you ate an hour and a half ago is going to turn into hair and skin and some of it into unwanted fat.

31:35 Mighty forces in operation all the time, all the time. But silently, nothing to betray their presence. And thus it was with the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Scripture says of Him, He did not strive nor cry nor lift up His voice in the streets.

31:52 While men were expecting Him at the front door with the blare of the trumpet, He stepped into His destined home in the disguise of a peasant's child. His going forth is ever prepared as the morning. He comes down as showers on the mown grass. His spirit descends as the dove whose wings make no tremor in the still air.

32:14 Let us take heart. God may not be working as we expect, but He is working. If not in the wind, in the gentle zephyr. If not in the earthquake, yet in the heartbreak.

32:26 If not in the fire, yet in the warmth of summer. If not in the thunder, yet in the still small voice. If not in crowds, yet in lonely hearts. In silent tears.

32:39 In the broken sobs of penitence. And in the multitudes who like the seven thousand of Israel are unknown to us, but known to God. Now I say, if there's anything that strikes me as the probable message that God was conveying to His servant through this object lesson, it was the message that Mr. Meyer says is so simple to understand and to discern.

33:07 That Elijah had to learn a new lesson about the nature of God's working. And that's the fifth principle in God's restoration of His servant. Having probed his conscience, he now discloses to him the nature of his working and that the prophet must not identify the movement of God with mighty upheavals. For certainly there was a mighty upheaval on Parma.

33:37 I used to get emotionally worn out just preparing for those sermons dealing with Parma. If you can't get excited about those things and have your heart skip a beat or two and find your breath coming a little bit more quickly, you just aren't reading it or you're just half human. The drama of the whole thing and this man of fire and a great sensitivity was caught up in all of that. And then there is that burst of fire from heaven and the people falling upon their faces and the flashing of the sword as one head after another is severed.

34:11 These men are cast into the brook, or cast into the open field and their blood mingles with the brook. Great earthquake and fire and wind in the working of God. But Elijah had to learn that when all of that subsided, God was no less the living God. God was no less the God who was working out His saving purposes.

Application: Trusting God's Quiet Work in Our Lives

34:35 And if He chooses to work in the hidden way, then Elijah must be content and must walk in faith and not walk by sight or he'll build a perpetual juniper tree and spend the rest of his days beneath it. Now, I don't think I need to spend a long time bringing home the application to our own hearts. Some of you have said in my hearing, Oh, Pastor, if God would just do something that would shake the earth. If He'd just do something that would take the hordes of wickedness and turn them back.

35:14 And my heart answers an amen. When I hear people talk like that, I know what they're talking about. I just long to see God do something that bears about at the earthquake and the fire and the wind. And I believe there are times when this is the way God works.

35:30 He does work at times that way, but that's not His only way of working. And though we pray and long for and plead with God for a visitation of His grace and power that will cause the most sotted sinners to take notice as He did on the day of Pentecost. They couldn't ignore what had happened. They were running around.

35:51 What meaneth this? We can't ignore it. Something's happened. And for that we should plead and for that we should cry to God, for we have precedent in Scripture for it.

36:01 But until such time as God is pleased to work that way, what are we going to do? Should we all take out a seven-year lease on the nearest juniper tree? No, we need to learn the lesson of this particular dealing of God with His servant. When He's not working with wind and earthquake and fire, the voice of a gentle stillness is carrying on the work of God.

36:28 And as we read a little bit later on, God says, Elijah, I know something you don't. There are seven thousand whose lips have never, never kissed man, whose knees have never bowed. Unknown to Elijah, perhaps his own example, standing alone in the cause of God and of truth against a nation was the very thing that had kept some tottering true child of Israel, true Israel within Israel, about to give in to the pressures. But when they heard of Elijah standing alone, they were strengthened and encouraged.

37:10 Elijah never knew about it. He had had a ministry to the seven thousand. But he didn't know it, and God wasn't obligated to let him know. He was working by that voice of a gentle stillness.

Application for Parents: The Gentle Stillness in Child-Rearing

37:24 And so I plead with you as God's people, recognize that often this is the way the Lord works, silently and secretly, yet powerfully. You Christian parents better get a hold of this, or you're going to get so discouraged, you're going to get negative and nasty and cynical, and you'll lose your ministry to your children. I haven't had children pass through those most difficult years, but the little experience I've had, as I look back on the experience of my own parents, how often the only thing that kept them stable was the confidence

38:09 that though there was no earthquake, no fire, no wind, the line upon line, precept upon precept, would yet take its toll. In our lives, parents take heart. You'd love to see the Lord send a wind of the Spirit and come in some night and find all your kids on their faces groaning under conviction of sin and crying to God for mercy. I think we'd say like Simeon of old, Lord, it is enough.

38:39 Let thy servant depart in peace. Mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Isn't that the way you feel as a parent? Well, bless God if he visits us in our assembly in such a way that we see that.

38:51 Nothing would please me more than that. People call me up late at night and say, Pastor, can you come and help us? My kids can't sleep. They're under such conviction.

39:00 Wonderful. Let's pray for them. Let's cry to God. But, but, can God work and answer your cry for their salvation another way?

39:08 Ah, yes, he can. The voice of the Gentlest. You don't know what he's saying, do you? And when all they let you know because of the pride of their hearts is their opposition to the truth and their opposition to your influence, as you pray and as that word has found its way beneath their hide, God is speaking.

39:30 God is working. And as a dear old saint who was instrumental in my early days as a Christian, by the way, went home to be with the Lord just recently, he used to say, a man in whom the word has done its initial work, it's gotten into the mind and conscience is like a whale that's been wounded in the harpoon that's stuck in its flesh. That whale can swim the seven seas, but he carries with him that festival of a mastering wound made by the harpoon. And parents, take courage tonight.

Application for Ministry: Faith Over Sight in Spiritual Labor

40:01 You who are praying for loved ones and relatives and you've given them the word and there seems to be no effect, take courage tonight. The Lord works by the voice of a gentle stillness. As we think of extending the kingdom of Christ, here through our own assembly, there are times when the only thing or one of the few things that I know keeps me from a broom tree is this principle. You see, you men who work on a machine, you put in 40 hours, you expend labor on a given material, you see the finished product.

40:43 Even someone who sits there on an assembly line doing nothing but putting little insulating sleeves over a little electrical component, once in a while on his way to lunch can go by the final assembly line and see the finished product. He knows that he's not putting sleeves on in vain. He can measure in some way the output of his input. And even a wife with all the humdrum of the same old dirty dishes, at least you see them wearing out after a while so you know something's being accomplished.

41:11 When you come to the Christian ministry, have you ever thought you grind in hours or you put into the crucible hours of preparation, prayer, and study and outcomes and words? You know, you read them by a gone day or you read them in the morning or you read them in the afternoon or you read them in the afternoon for days when the Lord has worked by the wind. When people have fallen before the preaching of the Word in a place like this in public assemblies and they've groaned under conviction and sought God for hours

41:55 until they found deliverance. I'm seeing that. When the fire of God has fallen and the people of God have been broken, sinners burnt with that fire. You say, well, what's the end of all this?

42:16 Oh, yeah, I get my food money given to me. my head and a pretty nice one. Probably a nicer one than I'd have if I was out in business for myself. And you're thankful for those things, but you don't live for those things. They don't give you

42:28 any confidence. What's the answer?

42:34 Unless your confidence is in the fact that God works by the voice of a gentle stillness. That His Word does not return unto Him void. That it's doing its work. Then once in a while you see the fruit of it. When you look

42:46 down at a conference and see the glowing face of a Carmen Chita Antonio brought from halfway around the world to be brought into vital relationship with Christ and going on with God. And you say, Lord, forgive me. Forever doubting.

43:01 That's you doing your work. Forgive me.

43:04 There's one thing you need to constantly pray for the servants of God. You pray that they never forget this lesson. That they walk by faith and not by sight.

Warning Against Man-Made Revival and Concluding Exhortation

43:16 And this is true of our own church. So many in our day feel that unless we make our own fire. It's obvious God isn't working by the fire and the wind. So they say, let's make our own wind. And so

43:28 we've got church after church that has its own wind machine. And its own fire making machine. And its own earthquake machine. But I'm afraid it's said of every one of them, the Lord is not in their earthquake and in their fire and in their wind.

43:43 And the temptation will be upon us to compete. See if we can make as big a wind making machine as other churches. As big a fire making machine as other churches. Isn't that the temptation?

43:58 We must resist it. And believe that God is the only God. He is working by the voice of a gentle stillness. Well, we could go on extending the application. I don't think it's necessary.

44:12 I hope the Lord will, as you need it, bring you back to this principle. And so often this is so necessary. God is to bring us out of our spiritual doldrums. He must show us again the nature of His working, which is often by that voice of a gentle stillness.

44:32 Not by that which can be seen with the eye and heard with the ear and spectacular. And as we trust that He is at work, in that voice of the gentle stillness we'll be kept from running out into our own wilderness and parking under our own juniper tree. He's a gracious God, isn't He? To teach us again and again these most basic lessons that we think, well, boy, I should learn that a long time.

45:00 But He brings us back to them time after time after time. And I say tonight, to any of you who are God's children, if you find yourself where Elijah was, you can expect God to deal with you as He dealt with His servant. Embrace in gentleness, in mercy. Don't kick against the pricks of His gracious deal. And when He starts to

45:25 probe your conscience, get judgment day honest with Him, because it's for your good. Well, let us pray.