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Picking up where we left off in Part 7,
how exactly do the breaking, shaking, burning, and a still small voice help Elijah
realize that he is in a place where he doesn’t belong? Let’s briefly revisit
the scene.
Crisis intervention by an angel and
God’s conference at the cave revealed that this debacle was a serious matter,
not one to be taken lightly. Elijah failed to complete his mission, and he is
pretty down on himself. Here he is up on Horeb far from Jezreel, far from sweet
Jezebel, far from everyone and everything. Thankfully, by the grace of God, the
storyline doesn’t end there for him or for us when we take our eyes off the
LORD and wind up in a place where we don’t belong; there is healing and hope with Yahweh, and He has been taking the initiative ever since the flight to reel
Elijah in for fellowship and service. He knows that whenever we take our eyes off Him, we have a tendency to get passive and give up.
“The LORD passed by” (1 Kgs 19:11) the
entrance of the cave.
1 Kgs 19:11 – Then
He [Yahweh] said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the
LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore
into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces 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;
1Kgs 19:12 – and
after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire;
and after the fire a still small voice.
Then as Elijah was standing in the
mouth of the cave,
“Suddenly a voice came
to him, and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah” (1Kgs 19:13b)?
Elijah repeated, word for word, his
first response to the same question,
“I have been very zealous for the LORD
God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn
down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and
they seek to take my life” (1 Kgs 19:14).
When the LORD passed by there was a
trail of a great and strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire. There was a whole lot
of breaking, shaking, and burning taking place! How long after all of that subsided
before that still small voice is heard by Elijah is unclear, but I think there
was an interlude for effect; then came “a still small voice.” Note that the
text reveals that the LORD was “not” in any of those natural powerful forces; Yahweh was not revealing Himself to Elijah through these but by implication by the “still small voice.”
Once the desert returned to a barren silence, Elijah heard something. It sounded like the voice of a Person. Read how some translations and paraphrases described it, “a still small voice” (NKJV) or “a soft gentle voice” (Darby) or “a soft whisper” (NASB), or “the sound of a gentle whisper” (NLT). Elijah didn’t respond to the tempests, but that “whisper” got his attention, and he headed for the mouth of the cave,
Once the desert returned to a barren silence, Elijah heard something. It sounded like the voice of a Person. Read how some translations and paraphrases described it, “a still small voice” (NKJV) or “a soft gentle voice” (Darby) or “a soft whisper” (NASB), or “the sound of a gentle whisper” (NLT). Elijah didn’t respond to the tempests, but that “whisper” got his attention, and he headed for the mouth of the cave,
So it was, when Elijah heard [emphasis mine] it, that
he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the
cave” (1 Kgs 19: 13a).
The contrast between the noisy and tumultuous
and the still small voice is not a criticism of Elijah’s modus operandi in
ministry as if he was too austere and severe, lacking love (if he did lack love
it was abandoning his post and leaving those who acknowledged Yahweh up on Mt
Carmel). Nor should the contrast be interpreted as a sign that Elijah’s
ministry will transition from a loud and dramatic involvement to a quieter less
spectacular service for God (hmm, 102 men in the future will die in an attempt
to apprehend Elijah against his will, 2 Kgs 1:10, 12). The right answer to Yahweh’s question
negates these possibilities. Does this sound like his reassignment is less dramatic to
you? He’s back in the saddle but riding on a different horse!
Elijah responded to that “still small voice” (1 Kgs
19:13a). He went and stood at the
entrance of the cave; the storms had passed,
“Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, 'What are
you doing here, Elijah'” (1 Kgs 19:13b).
“I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the
children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and
killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my
life” (1 Kgs 10:14).
It is painfully obvious that Elijah
didn’t get the nature of the question, but that is not to say he never got it
because somewhere between being on the mountain of God and being translated to heaven I think he saw the light on
many things. Frankly, I was struggling with how Elijah was to connect the dots in arriving
at the answer from his cave experience. Bible spelunkers are all over the place in the cave. I think he knew the answer, but again,
he was so obsessed with the subjective content of his answers that he failed to
see the objective truth behind the LORD’s question.
Okay, so how does this mighty wind,
terrible earthquake, consuming fire, and a still small voice prompt and pump
Elijah for the right answer? To decipher this, I kept two things in mind: (1) the nature of the question sandwiching these events, and (2) considered anything
in between these two questions as contributing to the answer, not pointing
necessarily to something outside that parameter. I was looking outside the box
which was stalling my efforts to make sense of what was going on up on Mt
Horeb, the mountain of God. So, if the answer wasn't found looking outside the box, then I need to be looking inside the box!
Everything since the broom tree was working in
unison to get Elijah to understand the fundamental problem when we take our
eyes off of the LORD we wind up in a place where we don't belong. The reasons are not few,
but the result is a standard issue – “Your being in the wrong place serves no
purpose whatsoever.” It is the same result of living life in a horizontal orientation (under the sun) rather than a vertical one (above the sun). I am not claiming that this is the precise explanation of the text, but it makes more sense to me and fits the context better than some of the explanations I have read from experts in Bible spelunking!
Allow me to interject something here
while I am thinking about it. That wrong place doesn’t have to be in a remote
location like Mt Horeb; it can be right in the heart of a huge metropolis surrounded by millions of inhabitants! Being out of the will of God has a tendency to
insulate us from others; it's a form of self-isolationism. I can’t adequately explain it;
I just know the feeling. Elijah might as well have been on the lunar surface
with his same two answers! Uh, if Yahweh asked us the same question twice, it strongly suggests that our first answer was not acceptable... On a quick side note, what is more powerful: the breaking,
shaking, and burning or the Almighty behind the still small voice? I am merely
suggesting the obvious for perspective in what you might read elsewhere.
In Elijah's case, it helps to understand who God is and then read between the non-verbal and verbal lines
on the mountain. God was asking a straight question but not getting a straight
answer. The omniscient LORD knew Elijah’s response so God chose to pursue this tailor-made
course of action for Elijah and for us who choose to be in the wrong place
because we took our eyes off the LORD. So, the question remains for Elijah as
it is for all runaways – “What are you doing here?” In Yahweh’s infinite
wisdom, He chose the natural elements exploding on the scene and a gentle
whisper on Horeb to bring Elijah to awareness and acknowledgment of the objective truth behind the question.
The LORD more than likely will not use wind, quake, or fire for us if we take off (One reason is we have Elijah's story, remember Rom 15:4?), but we can bank on God taking the initiative to get us back to a place where we belong (His will), and there will always be that still small voice (Jn 10:27) though it may be inaudible via the Holy Spirit and His Word. It is interesting that God has a plan for each one of us, but also, as in the case of Elijah, a plan to bring us back into the fold should we stray. He will not abandon us (Heb 13:5), yes?
The LORD more than likely will not use wind, quake, or fire for us if we take off (One reason is we have Elijah's story, remember Rom 15:4?), but we can bank on God taking the initiative to get us back to a place where we belong (His will), and there will always be that still small voice (Jn 10:27) though it may be inaudible via the Holy Spirit and His Word. It is interesting that God has a plan for each one of us, but also, as in the case of Elijah, a plan to bring us back into the fold should we stray. He will not abandon us (Heb 13:5), yes?
So the breaking,
shaking, and burning came roaring into the Horeb region; it wasn't right outside the cave like the still small voice. The Bible tells us
plainly, the LORD was “not in” those things at all. What does it benefit if no
one was around to see this demonstration [think of Elijah as being a student
because he is definitely getting a lesson]? It would serve no purpose. God was
not in those elements. Why did He say that? Because God never participates in things
that serve no purpose that fails to bring glory to Him. Those things which lead
to vanity, uselessness, and futility, or on the temporal, horizontal plane are alien
to the nature of God. We know that God is eternal (e.g., Ex 3:14; Deut 33:27; Psa
45:6; 90:2; 102:27; Isa 57:15; Rom 1:20; 1 Tim 1:17); everything He does is eternal in nature (Eccl 3:14).
We, on the other
hand, have a proclivity to get involved in things that are temporal (fleshly) in
nature (cf. 1 Jn 2:16, 17). God never has those tendencies for He is holy,
eternal, infinite, and immutable. Did you catch that last reference, “he who
does the will of God [emphasis mine]
abides forever” (1 Jn 2:17b)?! That
which is found in the will of God is eternal. When we take our
eyes off the LORD we wind up in a place we don’t belong, on the temporal,
earthly plane; it’s not a place of blessing to be sure. So even if we were
surrounded by millions of people, if we are in a place we don’t belong (out of
His will), we serve no purpose because God cannot use us when we are on the
run. We might as well be living on the moon. In such a spiritual condition, we
are by our very choice remote; no matter where the wrong place is located.
Someone
rightly said, “It is not the circumstances of life that determine our destiny
but the choices that we make.” I am going to tinker with that statement in
our context as believers who believe that Yahweh is Lord and Savior, “It’s not
the circumstances of life that determine our effectiveness for the LORD, but by
the choices that we make. Part 9 is on the horizon and coming into view. <><
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