By Phil Harris
PROLOGE
While secure in the Lord’s salvation, I ask myself: am I fully hearing, understanding and responding to the leading of the Lord? After all, since He is Lord, He really needs to be the one who directs what I am doing in this life.
As my dear mate and I advance in years, we are confronted with “the unknown”, yet we both know God is real and that He has us securely in His kingdom. However, am I fully hearing and responding to the voice of God?
As I ponder this theme I am reminded of the time when the Lord spoke “face to face” with Elijah.
Elijah hears the voice of God
Elijah was a prophet of God whose ministry was to confront the sins of Israel—the northern kingdom—as well as those of its evil King Ahab, his wife Jezebel (daughter of a pagan non-Jewish king), and Jezebel’s pagan priests of Baal. Elijah’s ministry is recorded in 1 Kings 17 through to 2 Kings 2 and concludes when Elijah passes his mantle to Elisha as he is being “taken up” in a chariot of fire. In the passage of Scripture quoted below, however, Elijah is still the prophet of Israel. This same mantle that later passed to Elisha is likely what Elijah used to cover his face before coming out of the cave to hear the voice of God face to face.
Elijah had “run for his life” following the events on Mt. Carmel including his slaughter of 450 prophets of Baal and the end of a three-year drought. His flight from the wicked king and queen culminated in the moment when he heard a low whisper from within a cave.
When Elijah arrived at Mt Horeb (another name for Mt. Sinai), the Lord asked him twice (without condemnation); “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Just before the Lord asks this question the second time, Elijah hears the sound of a low whisper coming from outside the cave:
There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he 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 broke in 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 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. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9-13).
I’ve never experienced anything so dramatic as this event of Elijah’s life, but as a born-again child of God, I certainly should know when and in what way the Lord speaks to me.
Wind, earthquake, and fire
Many years ago on a late Friday evening, I was returning to the the food processing plant where I worked. A drenching rain storm slowed the traffic in the dark of an early sunset as I drove the company van filled with supplies. Bumper to bumper traffic filled all the lanes as I was crossing westward on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I was very depressed, and I was wondering, “How do I really know if I am hearing and following the voice of God?”
Suddenly the van lost all power. If there had been time for me to have another thought at that moment, which there wasn’t, it would have been: “Looks like I’m headed to the bottom of the Narrows where the old bridge now lies,” because I was very much aware of what bridge I was crossing.
In 1940, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world. That November, two years after it opened, a 40-mile-per-hour wind caused it to twist vertically, and it collapsed into Puget Sound. That original bridge ultimately became an example in physics textbooks of “elementary forced resonance” and has influenced new designs for long suspension bridges.
That stormy night, however, stranded on the rebuilt Tacoma Narrows Bridge with my truck’s power gone and the windshield wipers suddenly not working, I could see nothing but the bright lights of the other vehicles through my streaming window. My reflexive response was to depress the clutch and coast up and over the crest and off the bridge to where there was a well-lit pull-off area.
Immediately a driver in a jeep pulled over and offered to tow me to a truck stop about a mile away. He hooked his tow cable to my van, and away we went. We arrived safely, and as he was still unhooking his tow cable, another car pulled up beside me bearing the words “Auto Angel” on the passenger door. The driver enquired if I was okay and asked if I wanted to call someone to get some help. Since those were the days when most people did not have cell phones and all I had was a beeper, I eagerly said, “Yes!”
When my adrenaline abated, I realized that there was no way through any skill of my own that I could have driven safely off that bridge. God clearly had been in control. He intervened in a desperate situation, and although I never once heard a voice from God as Elijah did, He revealed His care and presence to me. He clearly demonstrated that He was bigger than my doubts.
The question remains, however; where and how do we personally find, receive, and hear the “voice of God”?
When Elijah realized he was about to meet God, he covered his face before coming out of the cave. As a prophet under the old covenant, Elijah knew he could not come boldly and directly into God’s presence because he was a sinful man. After all, even the priests who ministered in the temple were protected from God’s presence by the veil that hung between the Holy and the Most Holy compartments.
The same requirement remains for us in the new covenant: we can only approach God with a covering mantle that protects us from God’s holiness. The new covenant miracle, however, is that we have that covering in the very person and work of our Savior Jesus Christ! All those who enter into the kingdom of God through believing in Jesus since the events of Calvary and the resurrection have direct access to God because our “Mantle” is the resurrected Savior who is seated forever at the side of God the Father.
The voice of God
Our world is filled with many false prophets who claim to have heard God’s voice. Whether we are someone still trapped in the kingdom of darkness or have escaped through the shed blood of our Savior, how can know the “voice” we are hearing is the real voice of God?
Jesus gives us this warning:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1 Jn. 4:1-6).
Several things are very clear in this passage. We are not to believe every spirit, for there are many false prophets in our world. Instead, we are to test everything said by those who claim to be prophets of God. Jesus declares that false prophets have the spirit of the antichrist. There are no “shades of grey” in the words of Jesus. A prophet is false even if his false words are mixed with words that have the appearance of being true . Therefore even if such a person fails only in part of what is said, that person is speaking the words of the antichrist.
In my own search of Scripture I’ve found that God communicates to His prophets in many ways. However, only in a few instances, such as in this encounter with Elijah on Mt. Horeb and also earlier with Moses on the same mountain, does it appear that God communicated to them in face-to-face encounters—albeit with their faces hidden.
In Elijah’s dramatic encounter with God, God first spoke to Elijah before demonstrating His power. The fact that Elijah covered his face before coming back out of the cave reveals to us that he knew God would now be speaking to him directly. For the second time God asked; “What are you doing here, Elijah”? I believe this question was simply God’s way of gently giving Elijah words of encouragement and empowerment for the remainder of his ministry before giving him directions to go back and carry out his work in Israel.
The work Elijah did in Israel was the work of God. He was a true prophet; he never mixed God’s truth with error.
The voice of God in these last days
The wind, fire, and earthquake Elijah witnessed demonstrated the absolute power of God, yet this power over nature is not where Elijah—nor we—personally encounter God. In the same way, God’s dramatic intervention in my emergency on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge reminded me that He is sovereign over my life, even over threatening powers and emotions I cannot navigate. Yet that night was not the “low whisper” of God’s personal encounter with me.
As Elijah did, if we want to hear the voice of God we need to respond to “the low whisper” of God. I understand this “whisper” to be the Holy Spirit who first of all leads the unsaved to the Savior Jesus Christ through a “low whisper” from the Father to our sinful hearts. When we respond to this “low whisper”, Jesus’ gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit is His promise that we, redeemed sinners, are now secure in the kingdom of God.
Once we are redeemed, the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit in our lives includes revealing to us the meaning of Scripture—the voice of God to us.
The role of God’s prophets has been to bring to us the voice of God. Hebrews 1:1-2 reveals that in the “last days” God only speaks to us through his Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, there can be no more canon of Scripture following what Jesus said here:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near (Rev. 1:1-3).
Scriptures promise us that when the earth is made new and there is no more sin or death, we will be with God personally, face to face—a privilege no sinful human has ever been able to enjoy. Only Adam and Eve, before they sinned, were able physically to walk with God in the cool of the evening.
In 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul assures us that when the “the perfect comes” we will see him “face to face”. Even more descriptive are these words of encouragement Jesus gave His prophet in another cave—this time His apostle John:
No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads (Rev. 22:3-4).
Until that day, however, only in Scripture can we know we are hearing the voice of God. We do not look for prophets to speak God’s will to us because He has already spoken to us in His Son. We do not expect personal revelations because He voice lives eternally in His word.
Now we hear His “low whisper” as His indwelling Holy Spirit teaches us to trust His eternal word—the Word that cannot fail. When we trust Jesus and God’s eternal word, we can always know we are hearing His voice. †
All biblical references quoted from the ESV.
- Daniel 7:15–28 • Everlasting Kingdom of the Most High - October 10, 2024
- Daniel 7:1–14: The Ancient of Days - August 15, 2024
- Daniel 6: Cast Into the Lion’s Den - June 13, 2024