Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1668
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 9, 1882
“And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. So it was when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the ca ve. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:12,13.
ELIJAH, no doubt, expected that after the wonderful display of God’s power on Carmel the nation would give up its idols and would turn unto the only living and true God. Had they not confessed as with a voice of thunder, “Jehovah, He is the God! Jehovah, He is the God!”? The Prophet trusted that the heart of Ahab might, perhaps, be touched and possibly, through him, the heart of Jezebel. If she did not become converted, at least the manifest interposition of Jehovah might check her hand from future persecution. The Prophet hoped that by an influence thus established over the king and queen, the whole land would speedily glide back to its allegiance to Jehovah. Then would his stern heart have been glad before the Lord.
When he found out that it was not so, his spirit fainted within him. The message from Jezebel, that he would be slain the next morning, was probably not so terrible to him as the discovery that came with it that his great demonstration against Baal was doomed to be a failure. The proud Sidonian queen would still rule over vacillating Ahab and, through Ahab, she would still keep power over the people—and the idol gods would sit safely on their thrones. The thought was gall and wormwood to the idol-hating Prophet. He became so despondent that he was ready to give up the conflict and to quit the battlefield. He could not bear to live in the land where the people were so blindly infatuated as to honor Baal and to dishonor Jehovah. He resolved to leave right away.
But where shall he go? He traverses the land in hot haste. He flies into the wilderness. He will not lie down till he reaches a solitude where foot of man has not defiled the sward. But in which direction shall he hasten? He, the great Law-vindicator thinks of the spot where once stood the great Law-Giver and so he hastens off to Horeb, to the mount of God. In a cave he lodges, perhaps in the very cleft of the rock where before God had hidden His servant, Moses, while He made all His Glory to pass before him.
But what a retreat before a beaten enemy! Where, now, is the dauntless courage which faced all Israel, one against thousands? How are the mighty fallen! Is this my lord, Elijah, crouching in a cave? Is this the man who seemed to leap into Israel’s history like a lion roaring on his prey? Is this Elijah the Tishbite who brought fire and water from the skies? Yes, it is even he! He has become faint-hearted and weary and, therefore, he has fled his Master’s service! It is well for us, who are always weak, that we can so clearly see that the strong are only strong because God makes them so. Their occasional weakness proves that they are naturally as weak as we are—it is only by Divine strength that they are made mighty—and this strength is ready to gird us, also, for the conflict!
We take comfort from this, though we do not, from it, excuse our own infirmity. The Lord God of Elijah is our God and as He sustained a man of like passions with ourselves, He can and will sustain us if we cry unto Him! Observe very carefully and gladly how God dealt with His downcast servant. He knew that he was faithful at heart. He understood that Elijah was a true man who loved his God and feared Him, and was very jealous for His honor—therefore He did not put His servant away in anger, but He determined to revive and restore him—and bring him back to His holy warfare. Now must Elijah learn the meaning of David’s song, “He restores my soul: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
The Lord began with him in much tenderness by refreshing his physical frame. He permitted him to fall into a sleep and when he was awakened there was a cake ready for him and a cruse of water. Then the Lord allowed him to sleep
again, for this he greatly needed. We do not lose the time we spend in sleep when we are worn out with fatigue. It is the best economy of life to let the body have a sufficiency of kind Nature’s sweet restorer—balmy sleep. God gave His servant, after a second sleep, a second meal and, thus refreshed, Elijah was able to look at things in a more cheery light. Time was when Christian people thought very little of the corporeal system—they called their physical frame a vile body, as, indeed, it is in some sense, but not in every sense.
If they had any doubts, fears, or trembling, our good fathers laid them all on the back of the devil, or else ascribed them to their own unbelief, when, frequently, their depressions arose from lack of food, or of fresh air, or from a torpid liver, or a weak stomach. A thousand things can cast us down and we ought not to despise the body through which they act upon us. Rather should we attend to natural laws and so look to the God of those laws to help us. God, who made the body, and who gave it such a close affinity to the mind, observes how dependent the soul is upon the body and often begins His restoring work by healing our diseases. We who dwell in houses of clay are often cribbed, cabined and confined from loftier things by reason of the dust to which our soul cleaves.