... then the word of the Lord came...

 

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 17:2

Then the word of the Lord came to him… 1 Kings 17:8

After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 18:1

Last time we thought about how “the word of the Lord came to Elijah” some 900 years before Christ, and I suggested that we imagine our way back into his time before there was any such thing as a complete Bible. If we today, in our very different world, want to hear God’s word, how are we to go about it? – apart, that is, from our reading of scripture and listening regularly to his preached word. I found there were various questions I needed to put to myself; I hope you too might find them useful.

First, how serious am I about hearing God’s voice?

That thought challenged me because it made me question my whole motivation. It’s relatively easy to read the Bible as an act of personal discipline. When I was a child we used to sing in Sunday School a song which contained the words, “Read your Bible, pray every day, if you want to grow…” Those words were then repeated two or three times so that they became part of our mental furniture, and still to this day they help form the shape of my daily life. No complaints there, then.

But while doing something good out of discipline, even habit, is no doubt better than not doing it at all, there is of course the danger of it becoming a purely mechanical routine, a mere ritual. I was quite an obedient child, and can remember rattling through my passage for the day, putting my Bible down, and feeling I had done my duty (“thank goodness I’ve got that done!”). But had I taken anything in? Had I (as Thomas asked the Ethiopian eunuch) “understood what I had read” (Acts 8:26)? It was only later that I really grasped that a verse or two digested, mulled over, perhaps even questioned, is likely to be of far more value than a complete chapter swallowed whole.

Second, what if I do hear God speaking – and don’t very much like what I hear?

In other words, what happens when a passage, or perhaps a sermon, touches my conscience in some tender place? (You may know the old rhyme: “Don’t get mad at the preacher, he’s not provoked at you; he only preaches the word of God, and sometimes the truth breaks through!”)

Well, there’s not much more to say about that question, is there! The Bible often speaks about people with wilfully “deaf ears” and sinfully  “hardened hearts”, so… “whoever (including you and me) has ears to hear, let them hear…” (Matthew 11:15).

Third, do I actively expect to hear God’s voice?

I heard somebody say once, “Anyone who is serious about God will hear something from him in a sermon, even if it’s not a very good one”, or words to that effect. And if that’s true of a sermon, it’s surely true also of the Bible itself. In other words, a lot depends on the reader or listener and what we bring to their seeking to hear God’s voice. If we come with a dull, half-hearted heart, that’s what we are likely to go away with also. Lord, help me to be expectant and open to your voice!

Fourth, am I open to the danger of getting things wrong?

Core truths concerning the love and holiness of God and the good news of the gospel are not so much of a problem, but if ever we feel prompted – as Elijah was - to be specific about events and circumstances, we need to be careful. My wife and I lost what would have been our first child; it died in the womb for no particular reason. Yet during the lead-up to this event, obviously a time of considerable stress, we had Christians assuring us that “The Lord has told me that the baby will be all right”. These were Christian friends, sincere and well-meaning people who we respected and loved. But… fact: they turned out to be wrong. Elijah’s predictions of course came true, but we are reminded of the warning in John’s first letter; that all things need to be “tested” (1John 4:1).

Fifth, and this really sums up everything I’ve tried to say, how God-centred generally am I?

What kind of person am I? What kind of person do I want to be? The poet George Herbert, some of whose poems were once used as hymns (sadly not much heard today) wrote these beautifully simple lines of prayer: “For my heart’s desire/ Unto Thine is bent./ I aspire/ To a full consent”. Can I even want to be able to pray those words?

Jesus, of course spoke of those “who hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6), suggesting a deep yearning for God, not just a shallow “spirituality”. And also, just to challenge us even more, there is the wonderful description of Barnabas, the man who was content to play second fiddle to Paul: “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith” (Acts 11:24). Not a bad epitaph for somebody’s tombstone!

Some Christians speak of “thin places”, meaning sites where the separation between heaven and earth is felt to be specially permeable, almost truly “heaven on earth”. Such places may be buildings or places of pilgrimage. The cunning, deceiving Jacob came to such a place at Bethel, where he had a vivid dream, to which he responded “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t realise it” (Genesis 28:16).

Perhaps we might speak also of “thin people”, odd though that sounds: men and women in whom we naturally and instinctively sense the near presence of our holy God. Elijah, I think, was such a one.

Not, of course, that we can train to somehow qualify as such men or women (it’s not something taught in Bible college!). But we can train ourselves every day to live in God’s presence – and to long for his word, in whatever form it might come.

Father in heaven, thank you that you love to speak to us - through scripture, through preaching, perhaps even through dreams and visions, through conscience or strong impressions. Give me a hunger and thirst to hear your word, even when what I hear is ninety percent consolidation of what I already know, and only ten percent something fresh. Amen.