1 Kings 19:12

1 Kings 19:12

Most of us make a mistake as to the way in which we expect God to speak to us. We look to find it in something great and magnificent. We should like to be spoken to by a prodigy.

But God is too great to do that. He does all His works in the simplest manner possible; therefore He speaks to us by the "still small voice."

I. It very often pleases God to make use of external displays of His power to make way for the working of His grace; only He is jealous to show that these external circumstances are never themselves the grace. We would not underrate the wild prelude that ushers in the harmony. God delights to write out His love in the background of His terrors.

II. We speak of men as being "converted by a sermon." We speak of men being "changed by affliction." Yet the sermon or affliction was no more than the outward scaffolding. It was the "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit's influence that brought the men to God. Without that all is silent as the winds of yesterday.

III. Jesus Christ was God's "still small voice" when, in His human garb, He walked the plains of Galilee, and declared His Father's glory and His Father's will. Despised in His littleness, that "voice" was, nevertheless, the great power of Jehovah'; and calm as were those loving lips, they uttered the mandates that all worlds obeyed.

IV. Whenever the question arises in our minds, "Is God speaking to me?" we may be perfectly sure by that sign that the "still small voice" is at work. Such a voice is not very likely to be heard in the din and noise of life. In secret places, tranquil hours, such visits may be expected. When Elijah heard the voice, he "wrapped his face in his mantle" confession of sin and "went out and stood in the entering in of the cave" a position of expectation.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 143.

There are three respects in which the lesson of this passage may be helpful to us in these days.

I. It reminds us that in the order of God's government the quietest influence is often the most powerful.

II. It reminds us that the force of love is always greater than that of sternness.

III. It reminds us that the apparently insignificant is oftentimes really the most important.

W. M. Taylor, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 105.

References: 1 Kings 19:12. J. Macnaught, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 122; D. G. Watt, Ibid.,vol. xviii., p. 267. 1 Kings 19:12; 1 Kings 19:13. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxviii., No. 1668.