And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.
Elijah’s vision
I. The man himself. A great craggy soul that towers above the men of his age--his head wreathed in the glories of heaven. But though standing out from the age in which he lives as one of God’s Elect--yet a man with a human heart capable of rejoicing and despondency even as others.
II. His dread mission. To be the agent of Divine judgments. He was filled with righteous indignation at seeing the old worship of his country--the trust in the one living God--superseded by a religion which was but a form of paganism. And the God of Israel, who was a jealous God--jealous of the affections of His people being turned aside to another--empowered the prophet to do the terrible work of destruction.
III. The vision of God. When Elijah had done the terrible deed of blood, the reaction of spirit was so great, the dejection so overwhelming, that he was glad to get away from all society into a desert place to pray that he might die. Elijah’s anger had been the flaming forth of deep passionate love. The love of God sometimes flames forth in flashes of anger which make the very earth to reel and stagger. What is God’s justice but His love flashing out in angry retribution? Never argue, as so many do, that because God is love, therefore He will not punish sin. Learn--
1. That in terrible crises of life the faithful man may look for some special vision of God.
2. To distinguish between blind zeal which destroys, and intelligent zeal which edifies.
3. That while the might of Jehovah is used to crush wrong, the voice of love is needful to build up men in righteousness. (R. Thomas, M. A.)
Upon the mount
1. The Lord came to him there with a searching question. Every word went home to him with rebuke. “What doest thou here, Elijah?” This is a time for action, the work of reformation is only begun; the elders of Israel must be encouraged and led in their protest against the State idolatry. Thou art a man of action; what doest thou, the champion of Mount Carmel, the protagonist in this holy war, thou Elijah, whose name declares that the Lord is thy Strength? What doest thou here, hiding in this gloomy cave far away from the scattered flock who sorely need thy watchful care? Elijah shrinks from a direct reply. Self is still uppermost in his thoughts, lie almost boasts of his loyalty to God. He deeply laments the infidelity and apostasy of the nation, and he complains that his own life is in danger. His eyes are still on himself. But Elijah is concerned for himself, and thinks his valiant championship of God’s cause should have received different recognition. Child of God, never pity yourself; pity others. All heaven cares for thee; it is wrong to have any care for yourself.
2. After the searching question came a solemn command. God said, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.”
3. After the solemn command came a Divine manifestation, a marvellous display of the majesty and power of God. And in the pains God took with His moody servant, moving all creation, as it were, to teach him lessons, we learn how very dear to God Elijah was. The barrier of resentment and self-justification was swept away. Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, and stood before the Lord. It was a parable, surely, of the variety of Divine operations. And just as hurricane and earthquake prepared the way, making the still small voice the more impressive and subduing, so Elijah’s ministry had done its work. He had been sent with famine and fire and sword; and now all Israel was awakened, and the more ready to hearken to the “still small voice.”
4. But after the Divine manifestation came the Divine commission. God had more work for Elijah to do. He was not to be cast aside or superseded. He was to be strengthened and cheered by the companionship of Elisha; but Elijah was still to be God’s honoured servant, God’s chosen messenger. It would, indeed, have been a grievous thing if a sudden failure of faith should have disqualified him for future service. God still had confidence in Elijah. (F. S. Webster, M. A.)
Some mistakes regarding the earthquake
The earthquake has shaken the Queen City of the South, and given Charleston ashes for her beauty.
1. As a scientific fact, there is no more of God, His wisdom, power, or purpose, displayed in an earthquake than there is in the quiet growth of the grass in our door-yard; no more of God in the cyclone than in the perfumed breath of the flowers; no more of God in the conflagration kindled by the lightning or the volcano than in the glow of animal heat in our bodies. The steady, hardly audible, ticking of a watch reveals as much of the intelligence and purpose of its artificer as does the striking of the clock upon the steeple bell; and these alarming things in nature are but the louder striking of the mechanism of the universe. Great minds show their greatness by recognising the great in little things, recognising God in the commonplace things of daily observation. Sir David Brewster raised his hands and cried: “Great God! how marvellous are Thy works!” when he studied a tiny bit of animated matter. A distinguished naturalist wrote over his study door: “Be reverent, for God is here.” Jesus illustrated the Divine Providence, not by world-shaking events, but by the clothing of the lily and the floating wing of the sparrow.
2. It is a mistake to imagine that there are any deeper lessons of man’s impotence and dependence to be learned from these astounding things than ought to be learned from everyday occurrences. Fifty men were killed by the earthquake; but as many die every night in this city without the slightest tremor being observed in the earth’s surface until their survivors dig their graves. Some millions of dollars worth of property was shaken down by the mysterious visitant; but the common law of decay is all the time shaking our habitations back again to original dust.
3. It is a mistake to imagine that men will lay these lessons more to heart, and seek more persistently the favour of God, because His more astounding judgments are abroad in the land. The inhabitants of Naples are not the less worldly and thoughtless because Vesuvius keeps its flag of smoke all the time flying over the city, and so frequently awakens them by the lava-burst flashing its glare through their windows. Though she sits on the quivering edge of destruction, and her children play on the mounds of buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, Naples is one of the most godless haunts on the face of the earth. The Eastern Mediterranean is on the great earthquake belt. Its islands and shores are torn by convulsions, many of them having occurred within historic times, and not a few of them within the memory of the present generation. Yet this has always been the belt of human corruption. Antioch and Cyprus, earthquake centres, were the seats of the most abominable paganism and immorality. There is an Eastern proverb: “God comes to us without bell.” The deepest Divine impressions are those which are made silently upon the heart, not by wind, nor earthquake, nor fire, but by the “still small voice” of His spirit. These startling events can do no more than arrest our attention momentarily. They are like a hand touching us to awaken, but whether we are bettered or not depends upon our laying the lesson to heart, hearing within the soul the spiritual voice. Do you remember how beautifully St. Augustine speaks of God’s talking with the human soul--an exquisite description of the still small voice? He and Monica were communing together about spiritual things--“We were saying to ourselves then: If the tumult of the flesh were hushed, hushed the images of earth, and waters and air, hushed also the poles of heaven, yea, the very soul hushed to herself. .. hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations, every tongue and every sign. .. and He alone should speak. .. if we might hear His word, not through any tongue of flesh, nor angel’s voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in dark riddle of similitude. .. but might hear His very self. .. were not this to enter into the joy of the Lord?” (Homiletic Review.)
The disclosure on the mount
We may learn from this incident:
I. That men are not brought to acknowledge God merely by outward manifestations of power or greatness. Elijah needed this lesson. He looked to the appearance on Carmel to bring the Israelites to renounce their idolatry, and to bow to the authority of Jehovah; and because they did not he was disappointed, and his heart failed him. By what he saw at Horeb he would be convinced that outward demonstrations of power or glory were not sufficient to lead men to repentance. Our Lord, in the days of His flesh, constantly met with those who sought signs and wonders as the only means of producing faith. And the same feeling is still shown by men in the importance they attach to some outward circumstances for producing repentance--calamity, bereavement, affliction.
II. That outward circumstances may be helpful in bringing men to acknowledge God. While some depend too much upon the outward and circumstantial, others go to the opposite extreme, and ignore them altogether in the work of God, whereas they have a place in that work. Calamity or affliction may not produce repentance, but they tend to subdue the spirit, and make it more susceptible to the work of God. They break up the fallow ground, and prepare it for the seed of truth.
III. That true repentance is produced by the voice of God. It was when Elijah heard the “still small voice” that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood at the entrance of the cave.
IV. That Christian work is needful to spiritual health. Elijah was commanded to return to the wilderness of Damascus, and to do the work assigned him. He obeyed, and we never read of him wandering away again. Many Christians get low-spirited, and wander into forbidden paths, because of inactivity. Earnest work for God would restore and preserve them. (The Study and the Pulpit.)
Elijah at Horeb
I. The truest revelation of God to man is a simple one. Whirlwind, earthquake, and fire did not seem to greatly move the prophet. The solitary voice, still and small, with nothing bewildering about it, invited attention to the speaker and the message. It is a mistake which men often make that they look more confidently for revelations of God in large things than in small. For illustrations of the workings of the Divine Providence, they take whole epochs of history. They use a system of numeration in which dynasties and nations are the digits. They trace the slow processes by which some monstrous wrong is at last brought to extinction, or some great truth is finally established in sovereignty, and they say, see how evidently God directs the affairs of the world. To our Lord, a dead sparrow by the roadside meant quite as milch, for He said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them falleth to the ground without your Father.” It is not possible for all men to be profound students; but all men profoundly need that God should stand revealed to them, not after protracted investigation, and once or twice in a lifetime, but every day, and in each new emergency of experience; and just that is possible to them, because, to rightseeing men, God is discernible in items as well as aggregates.
II. The truest revelation of God to man is an intelligible one. The prophet on Horeb might have been in doubt as to the full significance of the wonders with which God prefaced His presence: the “still small voice,” speaking in intelligible phrase, could not be misunderstood. It was entirely reasonable that, when the revelation assumed that form, the prophet should bow in reverence and recognise the true presence of God. That there is a manifestation of God in the physical universe is true, but the revelation of Him is largely incidental. There is no evidence that God built this fine frame of nature simply or mostly to instruct men as to His character and will. It has other uses. A house incidentally expresses the tastes and wishes of its builder; but it was not built for that purpose, but to provide a family with a home. And therefore, and further, the teachings of nature in regard to God are vague and general. The truest revelation of God in regard to His character and will, is His purposed revelation--the intelligible Scriptures, given for the sole end of making men wise spiritually.
III. The truest revelation of God to man is often, if not always, a personal one. The whirlwind and earthquake and fire did not seem charged with any special message to the prophet; but the voice said, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” It was personality addressing personality, and the prophet recognised the words as proceeding out of the mouth of God.
IV. The truest revelation of God to man is a practical one. “What doest thou here, Elijah?” was the burden of the “still small voice.” It was a charge that the prophet was away from duty, and an urgency for him to resume his deserted place. There is something of instruction in the Gospel, but more of incitement. It comes to sinful men, and says, Repent; to doubting men, and says, Believe; to serving men, and says, Run, strive, fight. There are no bowers of ease for idle men in this book; no cradles of inaction where they may rock and dream; no empty chambers where they may spin their gossamer webs of speculation. To every man, this Scripture comes with its call to immediate and earnest action. (Monday Club.)
God’s manifestation to Elijah at Horeb
We learn here--
I. That the divine working in nature is intended by God to prepare men for a higher revelation. This was the intention of the miracles of Christ.
II. When men reverentially listen to the lower forms of teaching, God gives them the higher revelation. Nicodemus allowed the teaching of Christ in His miracles to bring conviction of His Divine mission to his heart (John 3:2); how willingly the Saviour led him into the deeper mysteries of His kingdom (1 Kings 19:16).
III. That although the physical power of God is strong enough to terrify men into submission, He will have them brought to obedience by moral suasion. The prophet longed for the eternal overthrow of the forces of evil, by what we may call God’s physical omnipotence. (Outlines from Sermons by a London Minister.)