Transcript
The Spirit Whispers
First Baptist Richmond, June 22, 2025
Second Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces 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 the fire a sound of sheer silence.
Elijah needed to hear a word from the Lord. I don’t mean that he wanted to, I mean that he needed to, in the worst way. He was in the middle of the desert, sitting in the shade of a broom tree, so depressed that he was begging God to put him out of his misery.
But that’s not where the story begins.
It begins when he was in his prime, a prophet of the Lord, telling King Ahab that until he stopped offering sacrifices to Baal—the storm god of the Canaanites—and went back to worshiping Yahweh—the one true God of Israel—there wouldn’t be another drop of rain in the land. And that’s what happened. For three-and-a-half years Israel suffered from a devastating drought until there was nothing left to eat or drink in the entire country. Finally, Ahab gave in. He said, “All right, then, what’s it going to take to make it rain again?”
Elijah suggested a contest on the top of Mount Carmel, a dramatic showdown between himself—the prophet of Yahweh—and the 450 prophets of Baal. He said, “Let’s build two altars and sacrifice a bull on each one. You call on your god to send down fire from heaven and I’ll call on mine. Whichever god
answers with fire will be the one, true god of Israel.” So, that’s what they did, and I know you’ve heard this story: While Baal, the storm god, couldn’t manage so much as a single, sputtering lightning bolt, Yahweh, the God of the Angel Armies, dropped a fire bomb from heaven that incinerated the bull, the wood, the stones, and the water Elijah had poured over everything, leaving nothing but a burned black spot on the ground. The people shouted, “Yahweh is God!” and ran after Elijah as he chased down the prophets of Baal and slaughtered every last one of them.
But when Ahab’s wife heard about it—Jezebel, who had a special fondness for Baal, who had pampered his prophets in her royal palace—she sent a message to Elijah that read, “May the gods do so to me and more if, by this time tomorrow, I have not slaughtered you as you slaughtered my prophets.” That’s how Elijah ended up in the middle of the desert: he was running for his life. The glory of his recent victory vanished like morning mist, replaced by the thick, dark cloud of depression.
Some of you know what I’m talking about. You’ve dealt with depression. And I’ve counseled with enough people who suffer from clinical depression to know that it’s real. You can’t wish it away. You can’t cheer yourself up. That’s where Elijah was. He was depressed. He needed to hear a word from the Lord.
Eventually, he fell asleep under that broom tree. Sometimes that helps. But while he was sleeping he was visited by an angel of the Lord, who left him some freshly baked bread and a jug of water. Elijah got up, ate the bread, drank the water, and on the strength of that food he journeyed 40 days through the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God. When he got there he hid himself in a cave, but the word of the Lord came to him, asking, “What are you doing here,
Elijah?” And Elijah made a speech.
He must have been working on it for those full forty days he was walking through the wilderness. He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” The word said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” But first there was this wind—this violent, ear-splitting, rock-breaking wind—but God wasn’t in the wind. And then there was an earthquake that shook the ground beneath Elijah’s feet, but God wasn’t in the earthquake. And then there was a crackling, all-consuming fire that burned up every blade of grass on the mountain, but God wasn’t in the fire. And then there was nothing but the sound of sheer silence, what some have called, “a still, small voice.”
It was whispering to Elijah, calling him to step out on the mountain. And so, he wrapped his face in his mantle so that he wouldn’t see the face of God (because, as you know, to see God is to die). He didn’t want to see him, but he wanted to hear him. Elijah needed a word from the Lord. He needed it in the worst way. The Lord said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah gave the same speech he had given earlier: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” And then the Lord gave him some very specific instructions about anointing the next generation of leadership. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the Lord wasn’t finished with Elijah. He still had some work for him to do. And at the end of it he said, “I still have seven thousand
in Israel who have not bowed down to Baal,” which was a way of assuring Elijah, “You are not alone, and your work has not been in vain.”
And that may have been exactly the word Elijah needed, but notice that it didn’t come in earthquake, wind, or fire—not this time (although sometimes it does. The Day of Pentecost comes to mind)—this time it came in a whisper, and if Elijah hadn’t been in the right place, and if he hadn’t been listening carefully, he might have missed it. And that brings me to us, because I could easily ask you the same question: “What are you doing here?” I mean, really, what are you doing in church on a Sunday morning, or watching from home on your tablet or TV? What are you doing? Are you listening for a word from the Lord? Are you in desperate need, as Elijah was, to hear something, anything? Well, if you are, you’ve come to the right place.
I tell people that if nothing else, coming to church, participating in worship, sitting quietly, and being open to hearing a word from the Lord significantly increases your chances of hearing one. Because you are waiting, you are listening, you are expecting. God can use that kind of openness to speak directly to your heart, directly to your need. I’m surprised by how often someone will tell me, after a sermon, “It felt like you were speaking directly to me.” I probably wasn’t, but God may have been.
Elijah was in the right place to hear a word from the Lord. He was standing on the mountain of God. We never know where God might speak to us, but coming to a place where we have heard from him before is a pretty good plan. In her book, The Church Who Hears God’s Voice, Tania Harris confesses that she sometimes hears from God while she’s stuck in traffic, or jogging, or in the shower, but most often she hears from God just where you would expect—in a worship
service at church. And I think she would agree with the message of this passage: that the voice of God doesn’t usually come in the earthquake, wind, or fire, but in that still, small voice—that “whisper,” if you will—that comes to her from somewhere outside herself.
In a chapter called, “How to Hear the Voice of God,” she acknowledges that some people seem to hear from God more often than others. In her experience, “It always seems to be the older women, who spend a good deal of time on their knees. Or there are mystical types who have the spiritual senses of a well-trained sniffer dog and seem able to tune in to the atmosphere with the flick of a switch. It appears that some people are better disposed to mystical experiences than others” (p. 11). You may remember that story from the Book of Judges where Samson’s mother seems to be able to see and hear an angel of the Lord when her husband can’t, at least not at first (Judges 13:1-25).
But Harris also says you can train yourself to listen better. She references an exercise where you try to place yourself in a gospel scene. “You picture yourself as Zacchaeus in the tree, or Mary at the foot of the cross. Then you answer a series of questions that develop your imaginative faculties: ‘What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel, taste, and smell?” (p. 112). She says the people who did this exercise “learned to sense a presence for which there was no ordinary sensory evidence” (p. 112). Apparently our brains have a “built-in spiritual centre (sic) which [researchers] have termed ‘the God spot’” (p. 112). We give God access to that spot by listening for his voice, and by cultivating our holy imagination.
I have to tell you, when I was reading this book, and when I was taking Tania Harris’s online class, I began to get excited about the possibility of hearing a word
from the Lord. Because I’m a creative type. I graduated from college with a degree in fine art, and before I went to seminary I spent three years working as a commercial artist. And in the years that I’ve been preaching I’ve been doing exactly the things Harris mentions: looking at that scene where Zacchaeus is up in the tree, for example, and wondering, “What time of day was it? How many people were there? What did they look like? What did they smell like? Did Jesus have to squint when he looked up in that tree?” In other words, I’ve been cultivating my holy imagination. If anyone could hear a word from the Lord, I think it would be me.
Except for this: in the last few years I’ve experienced some hearing loss. Not a lot, and it really wasn’t a problem for me until the day I was sitting in my study, listening to a church member pouring out her heart, when I realized that I couldn’t hear half of what she was saying. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been confronted by the fact that I’m getting older. Back in the nineties I ordered a large-print Bible and on the inside, where it says “Presented to,” I wrote, “Jim Somerville, in recognition of his failing eyesight.” Ten years later, when I went to see an eye doctor, he said, “Yep. You’ve got presbyopia,” a fancy medical term that simply means “old eyes.” He recommended picking up a pair of reading glasses the next time I went to the pharmacy and I’ve been doing that ever since.
But reading glasses are one thing; hearing aids are another. Reading glasses can actually make you look smarter, while hearing aids, at least in my experience, only make you look older. When I went to have my hearing checked the technician showed me how I was having trouble hearing softer voices in the upper registers—like that woman who was pouring out her heart. He told me hearing aids would help. I sighed and said, “Is there any way to make them look cool, you
know, like little blue wings on the side of my head, and not like I’ve got a kidney bean stuck behind each ear?” He said, “Well, I don’t know about blue wings, but I’ve got hearing aids with Bluetooth.” And since that was the best he could offer, I took them.
Now, I don’t know how much you know about Bluetooth technology, but when my phone rings I can answer it and hear the other person’s voice through my hearing aids. When I’m walking the dog in the morning, I can listen to my favorite podcast through my hearing aids. I can watch video on my iPad, and listen to the audio through my hearing aids (I can see some of you thinking, “That’s so cool! Where can I get some hearing aids?”).
But listen to this:
Last Sunday morning I got up early, as I always do. I put on the coffee, as I always do. I went into the living room to say my prayers, as I always do. But then, just as I was settling into that part of my prayers where I’m thanking God for everything that happened the day before and beginning to look forward to the things that will happen that day, I heard a voice, and the voice said, “Are you there?”
I was wearing my hearing aids, and it sounded just like it does when I’m talking with someone on the phone. It was so clear that I got up from my prayers, went to the kitchen, and checked my phone, just to see if someone had somehow called through. It sounded like a woman’s voice. I thought it may have been my daughter, Ellie, calling from Australia. But I couldn’t find any evidence that there had been a call from anyone, and yet there was that question: “Are you there?” It was Sunday morning, as I said. I was getting ready to preach a sermon on the Holy Spirit, and as I went back to my prayers, still shaking my head, I smiled thinking it
would be just like the Holy Spirit to ask me a question like that on a morning like that. Am I? Am I there? Am I here?
What about you? Are you here? Have you come because you need to hear a word from the Lord, and do you need it as desperately as you’ve ever needed anything? Does it help you at all to believe that God is still speaking, and that what you might need in order to perceive the sound of his voice is not perfect hearing, but rather an open mind, an open heart? Tania Harris writes, “Hearing from God begins with the position of the heart. We turn our hearts to actively seek God, believing in faith that he will speak to us” (p. 115). We come to church. We say our prayers. We cultivate our holy imaginations. And then we say, “Here I am, Lord. Speak to me,” believing that even without a Bluetooth connection God can,
And will.
—Jim Somerville © 2025
