Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Everybody loves vacation.
It’s a chance to get away, relax, enjoy different scenery and the daily grind.
We explore new places and experiences.
Sometimes we get bogged down with the weight of our jobs and lives that we just need a break.
Elijah was in the same place experiencing deep depression and needing time with God.
He was ready to quit but God had other plans.
When we need a break the best thing we can do is listen to God’s voice.
Elijah faced off with the prophets of Baal, the false God of storms and whether, on Mount Carmel during a drought.
The Lord proved himself to be the true God of Israel by engulfing Elijah’s altar, which was drenched in water, in flames.
Then God opened the skies and the land drank rains again.
After this great victory Elijah should have been on top of the world.
But when we joined at Mount Sinai he is giving up.
Let’s look at his encounter with God in 1 Kings 19:9-18.
God challenges our perspective (1 Kings 19:9-10).
After Elijah experienced spiritual victory on Mount Carmel, Queen Jezebel threatened his life and ran into the wilderness Israel roamed through for 40 years.
We are most vulnerable to enemy attacks after spiritual victory.
Elijah paid more attention to Jezebel’s threat than to God’s victory.
Fleeing to Beersheba is 100 miles away from Jezebel, whose name means “Where is Baal.”
Elijah means, “Yahweh is God.”
Elijah won a spiritual battle but withdrew from it.
Elijah travels 200 miles from Jezebel’s reach to Mount Sinai.
Halfway there he settles under a broom tree, a symbol of his loneliness.
He is willing to quit and even die!
He runs for his life but wants to die, the signs of deep depression.
Elijah saw himself as a failure without complete victory.
Although Israel acknowledged God its leadership didn’t.
He felt alone, fighting a losing battle, weary from little results.
Illustration: They say that fight to get to the top but realize when they arrive that it’s lonely up there all by themselves.
Making decisions for many people, even as a single parent or father and mother, leaves you wondering if you make the right decisions.
It feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
But we must never forget that we are not alone.
God is always with us.
Despite his desire to quit, God’s angel fed and prepared him for his journey to meet the Lord.
He needed refreshing and God ministered to his physical needs, propelling him 40 days and nights without sustenance toward Mount Sinai.
He arrived at Mount Sinai and found a certain cave, probably the same cave Moses met the Lord face to face (Exodus 33:22, 34).
Elijah was about to experience God’s presence like Moses.
The word of the Lord came to him when he arrived.
God spoke with Elijah before his special presence appeared.
The Lord used visions and other ways to speak to prophets.
He asked Elijah a penetrating question, “What are you doing here?”
Was God reprimanding him for his attitude and outlook?
He chose to run but God chose his destination, the mountain of Revelation.
Or was God exposing his motives?
This gives Elijah permission to pour out his heart before the Lord.
Elijah reveals his skewed perspective.
“I have been jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.”
He sees himself as the only fighter left.
“Israel has forsaken your covenant.”
The nation followed false gods until God’s victory on Mount Carmel.
“Your altars have all been destroyed” (1 Kings 18:30).
This was by edict from the king and queen.
“Your prophets they have killed with the sword” (1 Kings 18:4).
Jezebel attempted to eradicate the Lord’s prophets.
“Only I am left as one of your prophets”( 1 Kings 18:22).
Elijah knows 100 prophets were saved from Jezebel (1 Kings 18:4).
He may question their loyalty to Yahweh.
God later reveals 7,000 are loyal to him.
“They have sought my life to take it” (1 Kings 19:2).
Jezebel threatened his life.
Application: God’s plans are often different than ours.
Our perspective can be skewed and we can feel alone and depressed.
How do we talk with God in these situations?
Are we honest and genuine before him?
It’s okay to vent in your prayer time.
God can take it.
He already knows how you’re feeling.
Being genuine before the Lord is the first step to the healing of your soul.
God speaks in many ways (1 Kings 19:11-13).
God’s special presence passed before Elijah, but wasn’t in the first three acts of nature.
They preceded him as Harold announcing his arrival.
The prophet waited as creation responded to the Lord’s presence.
The always present has been in these phenomenon before.
Elijah must know God’s voice instead of its signs.
Creation responds to his voice as in the beginning (Genesis 1).
First, wind tore the mountains apart.
The Lord wasn’t in the wind but his presence has before (Psalm 18:10; Psalm 104:4; Acts 2:4).
Next, an earthquake shook the mountain but the Lord wasn’t in it.
His voice was associated with earthquakes (Psalm 25:6, 8), thunder and lightning (Exodus 19:16, 19; Psalm 29:3-4) and (Exodus 19:18; Judges 5:4-5; Habakkuk 3:6).
Then, fire ravaged the mountain but the Lord wasn’t in it.
It has before (Exodus 3: 2; 19:18; 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24; Psalm 18:8; 29:7; Psalm 104:4; Hebrews 12:29).
What was the still small voice?
“Voice” and “sound” in Hebrew are the same.
It might be calm following catastrophic events.
Other possibilities: “a brief sound of silence,” “the sound of a late whisper,” “a gentle murmuring sound.”
Silence contradicts the noise of the storms.
Elijah just witnessed God consume his soaked altar with fire from heaven on Mount Carmel.
But this bare whisper was teaching him that God does not always act in spectacular, overpowering ways.
Wendy Elijah heard this bare whisper he covered his face with his cloak in reference, also to avoid death (Exodus 33:20).
Yahweh covered Moses as he passed by (Exodus 33:22).
Moses and Elijah are compared here.
God asks Elijah again, “What are you doing here?”
Elijah provides the same answer again.
He seems unmoved by God’s presence passing by.
Maybe deep depression or weariness kept him from seeing clearly.
Elijah expected God to do something powerfully spectacular.
God acts in many different ways.
It’s his prerogative to do as he wishes without our input.
He can work dramatically and quietly.
Application: We are not in charge of God.
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