Please take your Bibles and turn to 1 Kings 19 verses 1-12. This is God's Word. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, it is enough now, O Lord. Take away my life, for I am no better than my father's. And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. And he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the Mount of God. There he came to a cave and lodged in it, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And he said, go out and stand on the Mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broken pieces, the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. Thanks, Mark. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the reading of his word. We do thank you, Lord, for how you care for us. We do thank you for your word that teaches us. And we pray, Lord, that as we look now to your word and we look to it for guidance, we look to it for direction, May your wisdom be found in its pages. We ask, Father, that you would lead us to your word as servants, that we wouldn't approach your word as something that we can adjust and manipulate and make it say whatever we want it to say, but that we would We would be servants who stand eagerly awaiting to do whatever the Word of God demands and commands of us. Father, particularly as we look today, may you help us to know better how we can know you better and how it is you have chosen to reveal yourself. We pray that in what follows this morning, the excellency of your plan would be made known, and that you would be honored. We ask that you would, by your spirit, meet with us this morning and transform us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Acts 17, verses 24 through 25, when the Apostle Paul comes across a group meeting at the Areopagus, Mars Hill, a place of open philosophical debate. He addresses them when he sees an idol that they've made to an unknown god. They were so concerned that of the pantheon of Greco-Roman deities that they had added that somehow they may have missed one. And so they make They make an idol to the unknown God. That's one theory. Another theory is that they understood that the gods that they worship were insufficient to create all things, and so they said there's a God that we don't know out there that is above all these gods, and they made an idol to Him. Whatever it may be, Paul comes into the midst of their philosophical discussion and religious discussion and he clarifies. And he says this, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man nor is served by human hands as though he needed anything. since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." Notice his designation. The God who made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth. Being the Lord of heaven and earth. That means that the substance and the energy of everything belongs to him and is under his control. Every ball of molten lava that comes flying out of fissure eight is his lava. Every waft of steam and toxic gas that escapes belongs to him. Every wind that blows that knocks down albizia trees and falls over power lines, those are His trees. The wind is His. The rain is His. He's Lord of heaven and earth. And while not all creation confesses Him, by creation we are all His. He's the Lord of Heaven and He's the Lord of Earth. And isn't it true that at some point in the experience of a display of power, like we've just seen, the storm that hit us, or the wildfire that was on Mount Aloha, or the earthquakes, or the volcanoes, Isn't it true that at some point in the experience of a display of power like we've just witnessed that for many of us there comes a point where we are just compelled to marvel? God's creation is awesome. It's remarkable. You see it. You see what's happening. You see this remarkable event and there's something inside of you, maybe we can call it mystical, there's something inside of you that just simply knows that God is here. In reality, it's really not that dissimilar to when we hear a powerful piece of music. And we've all probably been there when we've heard a powerful piece of music that's been played or performed in some way and you just sense, you just sense in it, there's something otherworldly, there's something ethereal, there's something theological about this moment. And you just know, you have this feeling, you just feel like God is, God's here, God's, must be here. I would like to propose to you that as Elijah's story is retold, God is literally directing Elijah away from what we would normally think of as an optimal moment to experience God. God brought wind in front of him. God brought the remarkable circumstance of this fire before him. God must be there. This has to be experiencing God. This has to be what this is about. And what we find, what we find is that at this optimal moment to experience God And this optimal moment that demonstrates how it is that God's power and presence really, really and truly are exhibited to his people. God directs Elijah away from what we would conventionally think, this is where God has to be. This is how we know him better. This is how we experience him the best, or experience him at all. Now, I know that we're naturally drawn to this kind of phenomena, aren't we? We're naturally drawn. I mean, they literally have to post armed guards by Fisher 8 to tell people, that's hot, don't go there. Because it's like moths to a flame, almost literally. And we're naturally drawn to this kind of phenomena. We're drawn to things that are thrilling. I mean, in the first moments, when we heard there was a hurricane, there was probably something inside of you that was a little thrilled by the prospect of a hurricane happening. And somewhere about the 50th hour of sitting bunkered in your house, the thrill was probably gone by then. But initially, we're drawn to things that are thrilling. We're drawn to things that are grand, but God has not promised to meet His people in the thrilling and in the grand. How does he meet his people? How does God meet his people? How does God communicate himself to his people? Let's look at Elijah's story and we'll narrow his life down to this event and see what God is revealing. What is God revealing in this event? First of all, who is Elijah? Look at chapter 17, verse one. This is our introduction to Elijah. Some people, you get a long introduction, you get their background, you get their pedigree. This is our introduction to Elijah. Now Elijah the Tishbite of Tishba in Gilead. That's our introduction and that's what we know about him. There really is no background story. The question is, why is he introduced? Why does he need to be there? Because it says here in 17.1, it says that he said to Ahab, so he goes to the king, Ahab is the king, and he goes and he says, as the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word. Now that might sound intriguing to you right now, but trust me, it was a curse. We had all that rain. No rain might sound good. Tracking? You tracking? It just wasn't that funny? Okay. I thought it was funny. Look back at verse 29. Why does Elijah need to be here in the first place? Look at 1629. In the 38th year. of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, began to reign over Israel. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years. Now look at verse 30. And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who had been before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabot, He took for his wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. So there we have it. You look back at 29, 29 through 31, Ahab becomes king and then he marries Jezebel. Now, was it right for the king of Israel to marry the Sidonian princess named Jezebel? Well, you go back to the Torah, and the Torah would say absolutely not. They were supposed to marry someone within the people of Israel. Seems like there was some kind of leeway given to kings. It didn't work out well for Solomon, for sure. But even if that were the case, that it was okay to marry a Sidonian, which it wasn't, he should have got had a clue right He should have had a clue. Her name was Jezebel. We're not exactly sure how that was originally pronounced. Some people think that the Masoretes, the Jewish scholars that transcribed the scriptures, were so antagonistic towards Jezebel, this character, that they changed the pronunciation of her name which was supposed to be like Jezebel, and they changed it to Jezebel. The literal translation is something like, where is the prince? In other words, when she was born and her king father of Sidon, Ethbaal, had no sons, and he literally named his daughter, where's the prince? I was supposed to have a prince, not a princess. The Masoretes were so annoyed with Jezebel in history that they changed her name's pronunciation so that now it literally means, where is the dung? Yeah, it's kind of rude. But she was kind of a rude character, I guess. But another thought is that her name, because they're not exactly sure what her name means, but that her name might have the possible meaning, because it ends with the word bell, it might have the possible meaning, the idea of having Baal or Bell as her husband. So she's married to the god Baal in some fashion. She was a Baalite nun, I guess you would say. But even if that was enough, look at her father's name. Her father's name there in 31 is Ethbaal. Ethbaal means with Baal. The king of Israel should have had a clue that this might not be the one for him. And in fact, it literally tells us there in 31, it says, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam. So he didn't think of sin as a very big deal. It was a small deal. These were not religiously neutral people. And look now at verse 32 and 33. So it says, after he marries Jezebel, it says, he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah, so he makes a Baal, he makes a temple for Baal for his wife, and then he makes a temple of Asherah, or a monument for Asherah, which would have been a pole. for himself. Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him." What an endorsement. Do you see now why all of a sudden, in the middle of all of this, God has to put a stop to it? And so He just drops this Tishbite. He just drops him in the middle of everything. The Lord plops Elijah on the scene, a Tishbite of Gilead. And whoever he is, he says to Ahab, as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word. Let's try it again. That might sound intriguing to you right now. Thank you. That was better. The next thing we find is in verse 6. He goes out into the wilderness and he camps out near a brook that seems to keep flowing even in the midst of this time without water, drought, that's the word. During this time of drought, he goes by the brook Cherith And he's fed there, look at verse six, it says, and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. This was his diet then. Scavenger birds. They were ravens. For those who don't know what a raven is, it's like a myna bird, but darker and bigger. And you guys have seen what myna birds do with roadkill, right? This is the kind of thing that he was having to eat. He was getting little pieces of bread that the ravens were stealing from people and they were bringing to him. And little pieces of meat that they were stealing off of other people's tables and bringing to him. This is how he was sustained there. And he was there for a while, and the next move, next God moves this provision from privacy of the brook, and he gives them a little bit more public venue, a place called Zarephath. Notice verse eight says, then the word of the Lord came to him, arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon. Do you see the problem with that? He goes to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, Ahab's wife is from Sidon. So God brings him to Zarephath. In the house of this widow and her son, God provides again. But this time it's not just for him to see. Now the widow and her son get to see. Look at verse 8 through 24. It says, Then the word of the LORD came to him, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon. Dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, Bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink. And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. And she said, As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar, and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die. And Elijah said to her, do not fear, go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me and afterward make something for yourselves and for your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the jar of flour shall not be spent, the jar of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth. And she went and did as Elijah said, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken to Elijah. Let's stop there. The story does go on in verse 17 through verse 24. Because as he is harbored in her house, tragedy strikes. In verses 17-24, this woman, and notice the tone even of what Elijah tells the woman. How many of us would be willing if this stranger walked up and said, go bring me some water? First of all, who are you? Hi, and what's your name? And then he says, before you feed your dying, starving child, feed me first. And she does it. But then tragedy strikes because the woman's son takes ill and is killed. He dies. And she is distraught beyond words. Ultimately, when you get down to verse 24, Elijah raises him from the dead, not before she has some very pointed words to Elijah. Essentially what she tells Elijah is, you, the prophet of God, have brought disdain on my house. You've brought bad luck to me because I was hiding out here in Zarephath very nicely. And because you came, you put me on God's radar, so to speak. She didn't say radar, but that's kind of the gist. God wouldn't have known I was here except for you came. Remember that these people worshiped gods who were very limited. She didn't understand the God of Israel. And so basically she blames Elijah for her son's death and she blames the God of Israel for her son's death. Elijah raises him from the dead, and in verse 24 it says, And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth. In verse 18, we see the training start. that the training gets put to the test. The training that he received by the brook Cherith gets put to the test. Excuse me, in chapter 18 we see the training from the brook Cherith and from Zarephath. By the way, you know what the word Zarephath means? It means a refining fire. And it's not an accident that God sent him to the town called the refining fire because what he was trying to do and what he was doing was he was purifying Elijah Now in chapter 18, that training gets put to the test because now he's sent before the king. After many days, this is verse one, after many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth. Now remember the last time he saw Ahab, he told Ahab it wouldn't rain. And this has completely sent the entire nation of Israel and the whole region into a tailspin. There's been nothing but tragedy since then and now he's going to show his face before Ahab again? What arises from this meeting is Elijah in a face-to-face argument with about with Ahab, about whose fault it was, because Elijah comes and tells Ahab, this is because of you. And Ahab says, first Ahab says, if you hadn't have done this, Elijah, then we wouldn't have suffered the way we've suffered. And Elijah basically says, well, if you hadn't have sinned, then I wouldn't have had to have caused the drought. And so they're arguing over this. And so you have this face-to-face argument about whose fault this famine is. And it literally culminates with Elijah challenging the 450 prophets of Baal to a contest of gods. Look at verse 21. It says, And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions. If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer. So he's challenged the 450 prophets of Baal, and he turns to the people of Israel and said, how long are you going to stand in the middle and not make up your mind? Is God God? Or is Baal God? Who's in charge? And what do they do? They don't answer. Why don't they answer? Because exactly like Elijah has said, they're still standing between two opinions. They're waiting to see who the winner is. He goes on to say, Then Elijah said to the people, I even I only am left the prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls or two oxen be given to us and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire on it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire on it. and you call upon the name of your God and I will call upon the name of Jehovah and the God who answers his people by fire he is God and all the people answered it is well spoken or amen then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal choose for yourself one bowl and prepare prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your God, but put no fire on it. And they took the bull that was given to them, and they prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice, and no one answered, and they limped around the altar that they had made, And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or daydreaming, or he is relieving himself, he's gone to the bathroom, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened. In other words, yell louder. They cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out of them." Imagine 450 men just flowing with blood because they're trying to get the attention of Baal. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Now look at what Elijah does. Then Elijah said to all the people, come near to me. And all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the son of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord came, Israel shall be your name. And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seas of seed. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood." Now, remember it hadn't rained for a long time, so what water is he talking about here? Well, Mount Carmel is actually right on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, so we're probably talking about salt water here. And they got jars of salt water and they poured it on the altar. It says, and he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water. At the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, Jehovah, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. Then, The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, or Jehovah, He is God." Jehovah, He is God. Now I want you to take note of their reaction Jehovah, He is God. Jehovah, He is God. Their reaction is not unlike the widow of Zarephath. Do you remember? That when she saw her son raised from the dead, she declared Jehovah to be her God. Here, they do the same thing, after they had limped or halted between two opinions. Now notice verse 40 and 41. 40 and 41 says, and Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape, and they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon. Now listen to this. Not one of the 450 prophets escaped. He takes them down to the brook Kishon, and he slaughters them. Now remember these men are already covered in their own blood. And furthermore, he takes them and he slaughters them. Now whether he slaughtered them personally himself, that would be quite a feat. Or if he gets the help of other people, he actively participates in this. And it says, He slaughtered them there, and Elijah said to Ahab, Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of rushing rain." Now folks, I think this whole story is supposed to evoke a response from us. Elijah stands there in the blood of the prophets, and the blood of the prophets is still fresh, it's still warm on his body. And he turns to Ahab and says, Go up, eat and drink, Right here, the sound of the rushing of rain. Think about how this started. It started with the slaughtering of an ox. That's what Elijah had to do. He slaughtered an ox. Now, I don't know how many of you out there are hunters, but certainly if you're not a hunter, the prospect of slaughtering the ox would have been traumatic, wouldn't it? Sometimes we act and we think like our food, the meat that we eat is raised in plastic pouches, right? It just magically appears in the store and we don't ever think where it comes from. But the killing of an animal is a traumatic thing. I know of even hunters, when they kill an animal, that they're so overcome with emotion that they either shout and yell like a crazy person, or some people even still cry. And some will even go over and thank the animal for giving its life. It's a very, very emotional thing. And here Elijah starts the day by slaughtering an oxen, which probably for most of us, if we were driven to do that, if we had to do that, it would be traumatic and it would be traumatic for a while. And he closes the day by slaughtering 450 men. Do you think that affected him? Do you think that may have traumatized him? How would it have affected you? I would have been a blithering idiot. I wouldn't have been able to think straight. And here we have Elijah going through all of this. And he has to press on. He has to go on. And that's why I say I think the story is supposed to evoke a response from us. Now once it started raining, once it started raining, in chapter 19, Ahab tells his wife, he tattles on Elijah. And Jezebel, apparently known for her cruelty, she did at one point kill a guy just to get his vineyard because he didn't want to sell it. Eli just starts running. He starts running. Now folks, you can imagine the mindset that he's in. Years and years ago, There used to be a thing during World War I that they used to call being shell-shocked. And people thought it was a made-up concept. You're shell-shocked? What does that mean? And they would see guys coming home from World War I and they would say, something's different, something has changed. Like their personality would change and they didn't realize that these people were truly affected by what they'd seen. the death that they'd seen. Today we call it post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. I literally read an article once that took the symptoms that Elijah is demonstrating here and points out that these fell right under the category that the DSM-IV, it was the DSM-IV at the time, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for the American Psychological Association. It's their standard book that they use to diagnose people. And this article was saying that Elijah would have been a classic case of PTSD. And he runs. And he's depressed. And he thinks he's the only one there. And the question is, what would you do if you participated in the execution of 450 people? Well, what he does is he runs. And that brings us to the text this morning. It brings us to the text because as he runs, he's not sure what's real and what's not real. He needs God to be revealed to him. He needs to know where it is. Lord, where do I meet you? I was up on a mountain and this grand thing happened there. This cathartic event. I did what I was supposed to do. And where are you? And how do I know you? And in the middle of this tragedy, in the middle of this circumstance, in the middle of his is whatever he was going through, whether it was PTSD or not, Elijah has to get back to the essentials. He has to get back to the fundamentals of what he is all about. And he turns and he's looking for the presence of God. And that gets us to our text. In chapter 19, look at verse 5. So he laid down and slept under a broom tree, and an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones. It goes on in verse 7, Angel of the Lord came a second time and touched him, Arise and eat. And he arose, he ate and drank, verse 8 says, and went in the strength of that food for 40 days and 40 nights. Verse 9, he comes to Mount Horeb. There was a cave. He lodged in it. And it says, Behold, the word of the Lord came to him, And he said, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant and thrown down the altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I, even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away. He said to them, go out and stand on the Mount before the Lord and behold, the Lord passed by. great strong wind tore the mountains and broke pieces, broken pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in an earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper." Now my initial reaction when I read that and I said, a great wind, an earthquake, a fire. I stopped and thought, well, he brought him the helo. Then there's this still small voice, this whisper. And the question is, whose wind was it? Whose earthquake was it? Whose fire was it? Certainly, we know that the wind belonged to God. The earthquake was God's energy. The fire, it was God's fire. And how was it that God was not in any of those things? Perhaps we could say this is a refutation of pantheism, that all the creation around us is God. That's certainly not the point of this passage. But this is not where God was manifesting his power. This is not where God was manifesting his presence to his people. It wasn't in the spectacular. Yes, all those things belong to him, but he wasn't manifesting himself specially in those areas. Elijah was looking for the spectacular and certainly he had seen God's power. I mean that's exactly what the widow professed back in chapter 17. She said, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of Jehovah is in your mouth. She saw the spectacular. This is what the people saw. They all professed, Jehovah, He is God. Jehovah, He is God. But look, I want you to see something. There's something hidden in plain sight here. There's something that is so remarkable. It's M. Night Shyamalan remarkable. You guys remember M. Night Shyamalan? Right? What was that movie called? The Icy Dead People? Do you remember where that movie was? Sixth Sense. Yeah, the Sixth Sense. And you get to the end and your mind is blown! Because it was hidden in plain sight the whole time. Where is God? Where is God in all of this? Is He in the spectacular events of Carmel? Is He in the rushing wind? Is He in the fire? Is He in the earthquake? Where does He meet with His people? Hidden in plain sight. Look at chapter 17, verse 2. before he goes to the widow at Zarephath. How does it start? And the word of the Lord came to him. Now look over at chapter 18, verse 1. After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. What happens? What happens? What happens if the word of the Lord doesn't come to Elijah? Then nothing happens. He never goes to Zarephath. He never goes to Carmel. Nothing happens without the word of the Lord. And those people are stuck. The widow in Zarephath is stuck in her unbelief. The Israelites on Carmel are stuck in their unbelief. The power and presence of God is in the Word of the Lord. And that's why when he comes to the end of this section in 1912, it says there was a still, small voice that says, you're a whisper. But it was literally the voice of God. But point here is if you want to know God, you have to know His voice. And it comes to us in the Word of the Lord. One commentator says this, Elijah perhaps thought that the dramatic display of power at Mount Carmel would turn the nation around, or perhaps he thought that the radical display of God's judgment against the priests of Baal following the vindication at Mount Carmel would change the hearts of the nation. Neither of these worked. This example is important for Christian ministers, especially preachers today. It shows that displays of power and preaching God's anger don't necessarily change heart. The still small voice of God speaking to the human heart is actually more powerful than any outward displays of power or any outward displays of God's judgment. In fact, that's what we see over and over again when we see God judge people. We very often see those same people fall into the same sin. Nothing has changed. The storm is impressive. and certainly a manifestation of God's great power, but God's power is manifest even more potently in the very word of the Lord. Martin Luther, who is the perfect example, was driven to the priesthood by the power of a storm. You remember that? You remember that story about Luther's life, that he cried out to Saint Anne when a lightning bolt struck near him? And he says, if you just let me survive this storm, I promise I'll go, I'll become a monk. Yes, the power of that storm drove him to the priesthood, but it was the power of the word of God that drove him to Christ. Real life transforming power is in the voice of God, it is in the word of God. Now listen to this, because God does meet with his people in a special way around his very voice. The word of God is central, but over and over again in the Old Testament prophets, this happens. We see this word, this phrase come up, the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord came to Abraham. It says the word of the Lord came to Moses. Even as I say that, you can probably kind of recall places where this happens. The Word of the Lord came to David. The Word of the Lord came to Solomon. The Word of the Lord came to Samuel. The Word of the Lord came to Nathan. Here, the Word of the Lord comes to Elijah. The Word of the Lord came to Elisha. The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. The Word of the Lord came to Daniel. The Word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, Jonah, Haggai, Zechariah, And then for 400 years there is no word of the Lord. That after 400 years of silence where there was no word of the Lord coming to anyone, John 1 tells us, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth." Folks, it is our right, privilege, prerogative, honor, responsibility, it is all of the above that we take this written Word, this written Word of the Lord, and proclaim the incarnate Word of the Lord. Our God distinctly manifests Himself to us in His Word, through that voice. Charles Spurgeon said this, this same lesson has to be learned over and over by us all. Let us repeat it, not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord, It is to be lamented that the most of professors obstinately cling to the fatal error of looking for displays of power of one kind or another. I hear that a certain church is seeking for a very clever man. She thinks that God is in the wind, that still small voice will be hushed and silent. while the boasting of your wisdom resound like a howling wind or thunder unaccompanied by rain. You see what Spurgeon is saying? He says when a church seeks to have someone lead them who is clever, and thankfully you didn't seek for that, you're seeking for the wind. You're looking for the earthquake. when the true power within a church is not in displays of miraculous things. We don't have miraculous miracle services as some churches proclaim. We proclaim the voice of God. We've gone through this storm. We'll go through others. and we'll see the manifest power that God exercises over all his creation. But I want you to understand that there is no power that is exercised in creation that is greater than the power that is manifest through the Holy Spirit when we're listening to the voice of God. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word. Continue, Lord, to bless us with it. May its truths sustain us. in the famine and drought, spiritual famine and spiritual drought that we find ourselves in the world. May the Word of God feed us from its bounty. May we feast on truth. And Father, while we recognize that each one of us comes to you as sinful creatures, unworthy of you, we thank you, Lord, that you made your love known to us in sending to us the living word that our sins might be forgiven. We thank you for the atonement. We thank you for your redemption. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.