God's Presence with us in the Wilderness —"The Thin Silence of God"

The story unfolds

• The three years of drought was about to end
• Elijah has a confrontation with 850 prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel
• God sends fire from heaven and burns up Elijah’s sacrifice
• Jezebel swears she will kill Elijah

1 Kings 19

3. Elijah was afraid, so he got up and fled for his life to Beer Sheba in Judah. He left his servant there,
4. 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 fathers.”
5. And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.”…
8. And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
9. …the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19

11. …the Lord was not in the wind.
    And after the wind an earthquake,
    • but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
12. And after the earthquake a fire,
    but the Lord was not in the fire.
    • And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.
13. …“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Meaning of names

• Elijah is a forerunner of John the Baptist:
• Elisha (God saves) is forerunner of Jesus (Yahweh saves)
  • Elisha did many miracles similar to those of Jesus

True victory

True victory ultimately comes in the place of human weakness.

It was not at Mount Carmel, when Elijah was at his strongest,
but at Mount Sinai, when he was at his weakest,
that the purposes of God were released on earth.

True victory

• Jesus knew victory would come not through the power of the miracles.
• He knew the purposes of God would be released through a man hanging in utter humiliation and defeat on a Roman cross.
• Hanging on that cross, Jesus controlled the course of history

Not losing heart in the Wilderness

• When the things we hope for don’t come to pass, what do we do then?
• We don’t lose heart, because we haven’t believed the lie
  that without a constant manifestation of the supernatural
  we have lost the presence of God.
• We learn to listen for the whisper
• Out of that will come the full release of the purposes of God in our lives.

Resurrection of the dreams God has given us

• God calls us to walk in the way of the cross.
• The good news is the cross was followed by the resurrection
• He did it with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Elijah and Paul
• He brings our visions to a place of death before he resurrects them, so that he alone gets the glory.
• We can feel sorry for ourselves and give up
• or we can flee to the place of God’s presence and find him there in the thin silence.
• Then you can know that your time of resurrection is on the way.