This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to day three of week four of our Look Through First and Second
Kings. We're still in 1 Kings 19, this chapter of Elijah's battle with
discouragement. We've looked together at the battle, the inner battle that he
had, the feelings of I want to run, it's just enough, God, I can't take this
anymore.

And now we've begun to look at how God brings victory. Yesterday we talked about
these things that God begins to say to us, you need rest, you need worship, you
need to tell other people. And then we come today to a fourth thing, so we look
at three additional things today, a fourth thing that God says, and this may be
the most memorable thing that happened on that mountain, and a deep spiritual
truth for us of what we need to do when we're discouraged.

Number four, you need a fresh encounter with God. Listen to what happens
beginning in verse 11, "Then the Lord said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in
the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. ' And then a great
and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the
Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after
the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face, and he went out and he
stood in the mouth of the cave. And then a voice said to him, 'What are you
doing here, Elijah? ' He replied, 'I have been very zealous for the Lord God
Almighty.

The Israelites, they've rejected your covenant, they've broken down your altars,
they put your prophets to death with a sword. I'm the only one left, and now
they're trying to kill me too. '" So Elijah is still struggling.

At the end of this, he's still saying some of the same things. But even in his
struggles, he's beginning to have a fresh encounter with God. You can have a
fresh encounter with God in the midst of your struggles, in the midst of your
discouragement.

You don't have to get better to encounter God. God can meet you right where you
are. That's one of the encouragements in what happens to Elijah here.

Now, what's going on here in this wind and this fire and this earthquake and
this gentle whisper? God is teaching Elijah something new. Elijah had regularly
encountered a God of awesome power, a God who brought down fire from heaven, a
God of wind, a God of earthquakes.

He needed to recognize a God of gentle love. And so he has this mountaintop
experience. You've heard of mountaintop experiences, maybe these experiences
that we have with God that take us to a new place.

Elijah's life is filled with them. In fact, his life shows us that there is more
than one kind of mountaintop experience. On Mount Carmel, he had the mountaintop
experience of the defeat of the prophets of Baal.

On Mount Horeb, he's going to have the mountaintop experience of discovering the
gentle love of God. And then, even after his death, he meets Jesus in the New
Testament on the Mount of Transfiguration, the mountaintop experience of being
together with Jesus, worshiping Jesus right before his death and resurrection,
his crucifixion and resurrection. Here on Mount Horeb, he has this mountaintop
experience, and there are new things that God wants to teach him.

The truth is, in your life, in my life, there are always new things for us to
learn about God. And many times, it's through a time of discouragement, when I
don't know the way out that God is going to teach me something new about who he
is. Don't make the mistake of trying to deal with life without a growing
knowledge of God, without realizing there's something new that God wants to
teach me about himself.

Sometimes that's where the hope comes from. The truth is, God has more
compassion than you ever dreamed. He's more willing to forgive you than you
could ever hope.

He has greater ability to put your struggles into perspective than you ever
expected. He is a God who's above and beyond what we could imagine. And here,
God meets Elijah in this quiet whisper.

God often speaks to the quiet and the obvious, rather than the spectacular and
the unusual. If you haven't discovered that yet, maybe that's what you're going
to discover as you go through this difficult time right now. What do we have to
do?

What do you have to do to hear God's voice? What do you have to do to hear this
gentle whisper? It's not always something big.

It's not always something familiar. It's not always something you've done
before. It's not always something that you would expect to do.

All you have to do is be where God wants you to be. God said, "I want you to go
out to Mount Horeb," and Elijah finally ended up there, "and go out to the mouth
of the cave," and Elijah went there, and he heard this gentle whisper. So this
decision to step back from the noise and the activity of your busy life and to
listen, just listen humbly and quietly, and to get where God wants you to get,
then you can hear him.

Right now, I know that you may be desperate to hear God's voice. There's some
decisions that you're facing. There's some problems that you're having, and
you're desperate to hear God's voice.

Get yourself into a place where you can listen humbly and quietly, and then keep
listening. Because notice, Elijah was trying to listen, but he didn't hear it in
the first experience or the second experience or even the third experience. It
wasn't until he heard the still, small voice.

Patiently listen. Now, we're not told what the words of that whisper said. The
important thing isn't the words of that whisper.

The important thing is that God was in the whisper. So when you get to that
place, my question to you is, where do you need to hear God say to you, "I'm
here. I'm here.

" Even in the midst of that problem, "I'm here. " Even as you're going through
that, "I'm here. " Even in your discouragement, God has not abandoned you.

He is with you, even in this. That's what you need to hear God saying to you.
That's what Elijah heard that day.

He had this fresh encounter with God. Those often come out of times of
discouragement. When I'm going through a time of discouragement, I need to rest.

I need to worship. I need to tell someone else. I need a fresh encounter with
God.

There's a fifth thing I need. I need to hear God say to me. You need to hear God
say to you, "You are useful.

" You are useful. Verses 15 to 17. The Lord said to him, to Elijah, "Go back the
way that you came and go to the desert of Damascus.

" So God gives here some very specific tasks to Elijah. Elijah says, "I'm
finished. I'm done.

I'm running away. I've had enough. " He's very specific.

Do this and then do this and then do this. Even as you are facing feelings of
fear and failure, God still has things for you to do. You have to get through a
time of rest and a time of worship and a fresh encounter with God.

But once you've gone through those experiences, you're ready to hear God say,
"Here's what I need for you to do. " Sometimes we want to hear him say that
first. It would scare you to death.

It would wear you out even more. So God waits. Discouragement comes when we
focus on what hasn't been done in the past rather than what God has for us to do
in the future.

Discouragement comes when we focus on all that could be done in the future
rather than what God wants you to do right now. So God says very clearly, "I
want you to anoint three people, Hazael, king of Syria, Jehu, king of Israel,
Elisha, who's going to be your replacement. " What if Elijah had quit Mount
Horeb?

Look at how world history would have even been changed. Kings would not have
been anointed. Prophets would not have been put in place.

God had important work for Elijah still to do. So he says to him, "You are
useful. " And then he says to him a final thing.

Remember one of Elijah's big problems was his feeling that I'm alone. Finally
God says to Elijah, "You aren't alone. " Remember twice Elijah had repeated this
phrase telling God that I'm the only one left serving you God in all of Israel.

Now at the very last of this whole experience, God finally answers that cry. In
verse 18, God says to Elijah, "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel, all whose
knees have not bowed down to Baal, and all whose mouths have not kissed him. "
Seven thousand!

Elijah, you think you're the only one? You don't know Elijah. There are seven
thousand that are serving me.

You don't know them. That doesn't mean they aren't serving. You're not alone.

God always has more resources and people than we know. He always has more
resources and people than we know. And you have to choose.

You have to choose whether you're going to have this feeling that you're alone,
you're going to do it all alone, or you're going to connect to those others that
God wants to use. Which is what God encourages Elijah to do here by anointing
Elisha as the next prophet. You have to choose.

Is your life going to be a lonely experience of failure or a shared experience
of victory? Because if you try to do it alone, if you try to do it as a lonely
prophet, Elijah couldn't even pull that one off, and he's one of the greatest
prophets that ever lived. Elijah was involved in a lot of miracles.

But the greatest miracle of all to me is right here. His personal relationship
with God. That is what enabled him to serve God for a lifetime.

So as we end this couple of day look at how you and I break through into a new
place in our lives, even though we've gone through a time of discouragement, I'd
like to invite you to pray this servant's prayer with me. Would you pray with
me? And just say, "Lord, I want to serve you.

I want to serve you for the rest of my life. So I pray that you'd give me the
wisdom to rest when it's needed. I pray that you'd give me the desire to place a
priority on worship.

I pray that you'd give me the courage to tell you and others about the problems
that I face. Give me the inner confidence that I am useful to you, and I pray
that you would give me the assurance right now that I am never alone, never
alone, in serving you. I pray that I would regularly hear you speaking to me in
fresh, new ways.

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. " Tomorrow, we're going to begin to look
together at the life of Elisha and how God does miracles.