Everybody, and I mean everybody, has a mountaintop experience in their faith journey and in their lives. Sometimes they recognize that God is with them in these moments and sometimes that truth is veiled from their hearts and minds. But regardless, God is present. . . God is always present.
And so, when the mountaintop experiences happen, this is a truth at we cannot deny—God was, and is, there.
And converse is also true. If we all have mountaintop experiences, then we all have valley periods. And if God was present at (or on) the mountaintop with us, then God is also present in the darkest of valleys. I have thought, and talked, about the valley periods recently with you as a church, so we do not need to think about them too much more right now.
Today let’s shift the perspective back up the mountaintop; to the point of elevation from which we see everything and can notice everything. The point where our breath is taken away and we marvel at what is taking place there with God right by our side.
For like Elijah in 1 Kings 18, at VBS this past week we have our own opportunities to see God at work and notice that we were indeed living and operating on the mountaintop.
What happens next is up to us—as it was up to Elijah.
Move 1- chapter 18
As we know before the occurrence of our text, Elijah had a front row seat, with a literal mountaintop view, of the movement of God’s action before the nation of Israel. The 600 prophets of Baal spent the day cutting themselves, dancing around an altar they constructed to their god. They called out to their god, and at every turn an absent god who does not exist and did not respond.
On that mountaintop, Elijah mocks them.
With God’s voice and presence in his heart, Elijah taunts these false prophets until the moment when he prays to the Living God and fire falls from heaven.
The fire licks up the water around the sacrifice. The fire consumes the sacrifice itself, and it melts the rocks of the altar that Elijah built. And everyone knows that there is only one God—Yahweh. The view from the mountaintop that day was great and it should have been transformative for everyone especially Elijah.
The view from the mountaintop was splendid on many levels. It was powerful. There was a chance to testify to how great our God is on the mountaintop. If anyone doubted that there is one and only one God in Israel those doubts should be put to rest. But as we know that is not the case.
Jezebel pronounces that if it is the last thing that she will do, Elijah will die—this is recorded in 1 Kings 19:2. And this very declaration, which should have been nothing more than noise and chatter to a servant of the Lord who witnessed the power and presence of God from his view on the mountaintop. . . but instead it shakes him to his core and Elijah runs.
And we find him in verse 8 of our text taking refuge in a cave.
We might have been on the mountaintop ourselves a time or two; been up there witnessing and marveling at how God is at work in this community and having great reasons to hope for what is to come.
But the fall from that place can be quick for any person or people who do not remember where the Lord is and what the Lord is doing in our midst. The mountaintop should help to solidify our faith and remind us of the faithfulness of God. But in Elijah’s story, he forgets what he just experienced… may we not repeat that in our lives as Bible school ends or as any other program of this church comes and goes. I hope we will continue to see how and where God is at work.
Move 2- what are you doing?
Our text today is bookended with a question that God asks Eljah. It is a question that you and I also are asked when we once knew of the goodness of the mountaintop but seem to have forgotten how great our God is, and we have wandered into our own metaphorical cave. And the question is: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”[1]
Now as we know, Elijah will try and answer this question, and he will fail.
Like a child standing before an authority figure (a parent, a teacher), Elijah should just stand there, and he should be still before God. For as we know when we are still before God, when we give God the space to speak to our hearts, God will speak, and God will revive us.
Yet also like a child before that authority figure Elijah attempts to formulate a response that justifies his position and elevates his choices and actions to flee from the presence and safety of the Lord and opt to hide himself in a cave.
“What you are doing here, Elijah?”
God’s question to Elijah, and to us, is a question that asks us about our faith and our understanding that God is always with us, and further, when God is with us there is no reason to hide or retreat.
For in fact, God knows why Elijah is in that cave. God sent the Angel of the Lord earlier in this chapter with bread and water to feed Elijah in that place twice—a fact that escaped Elijah’s mind as he stands before God.
I wonder if God wants a response verbally from His servant or if God is asking a question with no answer to cause the person(s) to pause and to ponder? I wonder if God wants Elijah to return to that place of hope and stillness and wonder in his heart: ‘Why did I leave the mountaintop? Why did I leave the place where I could testify to God being at work and God being present in the first place? Why did I forget the miracle of God’s presence and opt for a place of doubt and hesitation?”
And as Elijah fumbles through a response, much as we would do when we are in our own metaphorical cave, God steps in again, and God responds in a way that the Scriptures cannot capture.
But it is God’s response.
Let’s notice the response together again. . .
First there are the physical acts of a great wind, or an earthquake, or fire. They would shake the prophet’s heart; they might get his attention. But those physical demonstrations or movements are not what causes him to cover his face and stand at the mouth of the cave in silence and wait.
It is the sound of sheer silence that is recorded in verse 12. I wonder how long that sheer silencelasted. The ESV translates the words here as “a low whisper.”
But it is the same concept. . . not more noise or more justification or more proof as Elijah offered it to God or as our world offers it to each other. The sound of sheer silence. God responds differently.
I wonder if you have heard that same sound of ‘sheer silence’ from the Lord in your faith journey recently? I can tell you that this week at VBS, if you were listening among all the commotion, all the games, songs, food, and lessons, that “low whisper,” that “sheer silence” was speaking to us and to anyone who was listening and who stood there? It was profound.
Move 3- sheer silence
Now this does not mean a sound of absence or the sound of ‘no response’ coming from God. That is the temptation that we like to fall back upon in seasons like this or in times when God seems far off… times like what Elijah might have been feeling or dealing with.
I do not believe that God chooses to be absent, and God does not offer ‘no response’ either when the people of the Lord need to hear from their God in the moment of need—something which we have also needed in seasons as families and as a church.
But the sound of ‘sheer silence,’ the sound of a ‘low whisper’ from God it touches deeply into our hearts, and it moves us. It takes what we might think of only as common place, and it becomes a moment of reverence. A moment of faith and trust. A moment where doubt can creep in, but in that low whispering from God, our faith is strengthened, and we hear and feel the call to service and action.
That sound also changes the prophet. It reinforces Elijah’s heart and reminds him of his call. He could not stay in the cave any longer. He might want to. We might want to. But the sound of God’s voice, mysterious and silent as it can be, should call us to action and service when those around us might choose differently.
The low whisper of God reminds us that once we lived and served the Lord on the mountaintop and with God by our side, we can continue to serve God regardless of the physical location or the challenges that each day brings to us.
Conclusion
As I said VBS was a place, noisy, stressful, hot, all wrapped up in God’s presence. There were plenty of times when we could have thrown up our hands in frustration and stomped off to hide in our own caves away from God and away from each other.
It could have been a struggle to see and hear God being with us at all.
But if you come over and watch the video, and if you are listening, you might just notice the sound of God’s voice resonating around the program. That same voice of the Lord is calling to us now to move out from this service into our community yet again and practice our call faithfully and diligently.
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