When God Lowers His Voice
"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" ( 1 Kings 19:.12). Wednesday prayer meeting meditation.
There are places in Scripture where the Lord teaches by contrast. By stripping away what we assume must be present for Him to speak.
Elijah at Horeb is one of those moments.
Elijah has just come victoriously from Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19-40). An all consuming fire has fallen from heaven (18:38). The prophets of Baal have been exposed and destroyed (18:40). The power of the Lord has been both public and profound (18:36-39).
If ever there were a moment when a servant of God might expect clarity, assurance, and above all, peace, it would be now.
Instead, Elijah collapses inwardly (v.3).
He is exhausted.
He hides because he’s scared.
He tells the Lord that he is finished (19:4) because he is alone (19:10).
He had spoken for LORD of Hosts, but now he desires to be spoken to.
And we know that the voice of God comes to Elijah, after the height of his courage.
At the end of it, in fact.
The voice came when Elijah felt threadbare, sitting alone in a cave (19:9).
The Lord brought Elijah to Horeb, the mount of God, of all places. It’s also known as Sinai. This is the mountain of God’s greatest revelation to date, His Law. And guess what accompanied that revelation? Thunder, fire, and earthquake announced the nearness of God (Ex. 19:16–18).
Elijah knows it.
He knows what this place is, and what happened there of old.
And then “the LORD”, it says, “passes by” (v.11).
In that passing by, there is a great and strong wind (v.11), so powerful that it breaks rocks in pieces. But the LORD is not in the wind. There is an earthquake (v.11), but the LORD is not in the earthquake. There is fire, but the LORD is not in the fire (v.12).
God has used all of these elements before to His glory.
But here, deliberately, He withholds Himself from each one of them.
And then comes what the text calls “a still small voice,” literally a gentle whisper, a quiet breath.
Before we get to that blessed section, what’s striking is the flurry of where the LORD was not.
The LORD is teaching his servant. He is instructing his heart that nearness is not bound to the phenomenal.
The Sinai-shaking God also speaks softly.
The God of fire from heaven is also the God of gentle breathings.
That is helpful for us, is it not?
Many of us live with a quiet belief that messages from God come wrapped in power. That assurance comes from the magnitude of the visit. That if God is truly at work, He must reveal Himself unmistakably, overwhelmingly, and undeniably so.
This passage teaches otherwise.
More often than not, dear ones, the deepest words of God speaks are simple, soft, quiet, faithful.
Let’s be careful here.
The still small voice of the Spirit is not some inner prompting floating freely. We are not gnostics in this church. But it is God dealing personally, deeply, scripturally, and unimpressively with a weary servant.
What is Elijah given? He is given new direction, a little correction, and much reassurance in his present distress.
And that is where the passage becomes especially applicable for us.
Because the temptation will be to think that this is a secret invitation to mysticism, or as permission to chase after feelings and private revelations. No. That has gotten people into much trouble. Many cults and cultic tendencies have come by way of “God spoke to me”.
Instead, it teaches us how God ordinarily applies His truth to the soul.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Personally.
In ways He Himself appoints.
In Elijah’s case, the Lord speaks directly, because Elijah is a prophet in a revelatory office. That office is no longer extant today.
Today, the Lord speaks (no less truly) through the ways He has appointed in His Word, the means of grace.
Through the Word read and preached (Rom. 10:17).
Through the sacraments administered (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 11:23–26).
Through prayer offered in faith, both privately and corporately (Acts 2:42).
Through the communion of the saints (Heb. 10:24–25).
This is where the passage becomes especially important to the believing heart.
Many of us know what it is to live in the wind and the earthquake. The tumult of family concerns. The pressure of work. The sorrow of illness. The confusion of unanswered questions. The sense of spiritual dryness.
He sends them all.
We expect that if He sends them, He will speak in them.
Dear one, sometimes the LORD does speak in the storm.
Sometimes He speaks after it.
What does that look like, when He speaks after?
It often comes, I have found, in a single truth coming to my heart with unusual clarity. A Psalm long known, made freshly known to my soul. A text that speaks in the hour of my need. A simple confession that Christ is enough, even here. Even now (2 Cor. 12:9).
And very often, I have come to see, that His still small voice is heard most clearly when we place ourselves deliberately under the regular means of grace.
There is a reason the Lord gathers His people together. There is a reason He calls us to sit under preaching, to pray together, to come to His table, to remember our baptism.
These are the appointed ways by which God corrects, comforts, heals, and restores the soul. They are the ordinary ways through which extraordinary grace flows.
Take the Lord’s Supper, for example.
There is nothing outwardly profound about it. Bread is broken. Wine is poured out. Words are spoken that we have heard many times.
Yet in that moment, as we partake by faith, Christ softly speaks peace to His people.
He assures me that His body was given for me, His blood shed for the complete remission of all my sins.
He steadies my heart in His Supper.
He strengthens trembling faith.
He wraps His comfort around the wounded conscience (1 Cor. 11:24–26).
The same is true of baptism.
The promise does not strike, but falls gentle.
Like rain upon the foreheads of our children, the still small voice of God says,
“I will be thy God” (Gen. 17:7).
A promise to be remembered, pleaded, and answered in due time. A still small voice that may carry across years, even decades, until the Lord applies it savingly to the heart.
And the same is true tonight.
When we gather for a Wednesday prayer meeting, we place ourselves where the Spirit of Christ has promised to be.
In the midst of us (Matt. 18:20).
We quiet ourselves under His Word.
We confess our sin, and need, and dependence.
We are acknowledging that we do not live by special revelations, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).
For some, the still small voice tonight may simply be:
“Fear not, thou worm Jacob… I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
To another it might be:
“I have not forgotten thee” (Isa. 49:15).
For another:
“My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. 12:9).
For others still:
“This way, walk ye in it” (Isa. 30:21).
Elijah quietly wraps his face in his mantle when he hears the Spirit’s voice. He recognizes the holy surprise of the moment. The LORD is near to restore him.
That is the quiet work the Spirit delights to do.
May we never despise stillness, or smallness, or assume that He is absent because He is gentle.
The Lord who speaks in the still small voice is the same Lord who commands the wind, earthquake, and fire. And He knows exactly how to speak to each of His people, in exactly the way they need.