Whisperer

Bulletin

Dan Peters
01/15/23 - Obedience

Long ago before it became a catch-phrase, God whispered. The prophet Elijah was on a mission to change the hearts of the people back to God. Calling fire down from heaven in front of the people would surely prove that the LORD was God, and turn their hearts back, right? “Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.’ (1Kings 18:37). Then fire came down, but not all turned to God. Elijah thought this tactic would work for everyone, but it didn’t. Elijah became discouraged with himself and the nation. But God showed him a more excellent way.
Elijah comes to the Mountain of God, and waits for God. Where is God found? Is he in the dramatic strong wind, earthquake or fire? “After the earthquake, a fire but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire, a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1Kings 19:12-13). God was in the “gentle blowing”; God was now whispering.
God can speak in the pain and suffering, but sometimes that does not turn us back to God, as Amos tells us.
”I also withheld the rain from you…
      yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“I struck you with blight and mildew…
      yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“I sent among you a pestilence …
      yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“I overthrew some of you, as… Sodom and Gomorrah,
       … you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
   because I will do this to you,
   prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (Amos 4:7-12).
Israel didn’t listen to a whisper of God, the preaching of Amos. So blight, pestilence, destruction of Sodom, and still they would not turn. “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel”, and God sends in the Assyrians to destroy his own people (2Kings 17). The Assyrians showed no mercy, and often impaling people on a pole. How can you prepare to be impaled? How can you mentally get ready for that? Not just death, but intentionally putting us to pain, to death? “…go into captivity before the face of their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes against them for evil, and not for good” (Amos 9:4). Please obey when God whispers. Jesus whispers from the cross. Believe him. Obey him. Repent because of him. Be baptized out of your faith in him. (Rom. 6:1-17). Obey while God whispers the Bible to you.       Dan Peters