Category: Devotion of the Day

The Lesson of the Cave: God’s Presence

And after the fire a still small voice.
I Kings 19:12

It was the day after Carmel. The day after the big day can be a very bad day. From His baptism our Lord went to meet the devil. After the third heaven, Paul came to his thorn in the flesh.

But Elijah learned at the cave what he never learned on Carmel. We make so much these days of wind, fire, and earthquake, of the sensational and spectacular, of the dramatic demonstration on Carmel. We measure everything by “How big?” and “How loud?” God’s voice in the cave was still and small. He does indeed speak in wind, fire, and quake, but those are occasional. Woe unto us if we are so deafened by the whirlwind that we cannot hear the whisper!

We are in great danger of going from one Carmel to another, living on excitement, mass meetings, and amazing demonstrations, that we need a session in the cave. Let us not deafen our ears to the quiet moving of God’s Spirit in hundreds of humble hearts whose work of faith and labor of love will outlast anything on Carmel.

The Lesson of Carmel: God’s Power

The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.
I Kings 18:24

The great day on Carmel had all the element’s of a mighty moving of God. There was the promise of showers of blessing (v.1). There were the human efforts of Ahab and Obadiah to meet the need of the hour (2-16). There was God’s man who was in a sense the troubler of Israel as the disturber of a false peace (17-20). There was the call to take a stand for God or Baal (21). There was the test of fire. Not “the God that answereth by finances or fame or feelings” but “by fire” (24). There was the repairing of broken altars (30). No wonder we read, “then the fire of the Lord fell” (38), and “There is a sound of abundance of rain” (41).

Elijah prayed down both fire and water. We need both today. And we can have both. When the Fire of His Spirit falls from above, the floods of His blessing are sure to follow.