After Elijah ran from Jezebel, he must have
been devastated, full of guilt.
He prayed a prayer in the desert, Lord,
take my life and know better than my
father's.
He'd let the Lord down, he'd failed.
But an angel came and brought him some
food, some water, and the angel said, arise
and eat because the journey is too great
for you.
You know, when sometimes we feel the journey
is too great for us, the Lord will
send a word, the Lord will send comfort,
the Lord will give us a ream of
word, the Lord will do something supernatural and
say, I'm here to help you on.
And that's what he did with his wonderful
prophet.
So he sent him to the mountain, which
is called Horeb, it's also Sinai.
Horeb means the mountain of separation or Horeb
means sword or something that's been cut off.
So in first Kings chapter 19, it said
he arose and ate and he went on
the strength of that food 40 days and
49 and came as far as Horeb, the
mountain of the Lord.
And there he went into a cave, in
Hebrew it's the cave, not a cave, and
spent the night in that place.
And behold, the word of the Lord came
to him and he said to him, what
are you doing here, Elijah?
Now let's look at this picture.
Here is the prophet discouraged, hungry, has failed
the Lord after so many great exploits he's
done for the Lord, had not confronted Jezebel.
He comes to Horeb and it's the mountain
of where the covenant was given, where the
Torah was given, where Moses had put up
the 12 pillars at the bottom of the
mountain.
Maybe he was at the exact same place.
So he's coming to the mountain of covenant.
God does not break covenant.
When we return to him, the covenant kicks
in and we have all the power of
the new covenant at our disposal.
And so this poor prophet climbing up the
mountain and he comes to a place and
goes into the cave.
Many ancient rabbis believe because it says the
cave and not a cave, it was the
very place where Moses had tucked himself into
the cleft of the rock when the glory
of God passed by.
So Elijah goes into the cave, the secret
place, the cleft of the rock where we
need to spend time with the Lord day
by day.
And in the cave, cave in Hebrew, it's
a wonderful word.
It means stripped down.
It means transparent.
And it also has the sense, the root
has the sense of an awakening.
So we need to get alone with God.
You may not have a literal cave.
We have an Elijah prayer cave underneath our
congregation where it's just for prayer.
People are in there praying all the time.
But I have places on this mountain where
I pray or I have a prayer closet
at home.
We need to get alone with God and
be stripped down of our defenses.
Elijah poured his heart out to the Lord.
He said, I've worked for you.
I've done everything you've told me that people
still haven't turned to you.
He was crying out of his deepest, deepest
part of his heart.
He was stripped down.
He was transparent.
Only when we're alone with God and transparent
will we find out who we really are
and who he really is.
And so the Lord speaks to him and
he says, what are you doing here?
What was he doing in the cave?
And I would like to say to you,
what are you doing here?
What are you doing on the planet?
What are you doing with your life?
What are you doing with your marriage?
What are you doing if you're a single
person?
What are you really doing?
What are you doing for the Lord?
One time I preached a message in Europe
on what are you doing?
What are you doing here?
People came forward, ministry.
Afterwards I was with the pastor and he
turned to me and he says, Pastor David.
I said, what?
He said, I don't know what I'm doing
here.
Do you have any advice for me?
I said, yeah.
Spend some time in a cave.
You know what he did?
He went on a retreat to really get
the vision for his congregation.
Elijah was in this secret place and the
Lord was speaking to him.
He goes out to the mouth of the
cave and he sees all these tremendous displays
of the power of the Lord and the
judgments of the Lord.
A hurricane hit the place.
A hurricane hit the mountain.
The wind was blowing.
Boulders were flying around.
The fire came down.
The wind was whistling.
It must have been terrifying.
He sees the magnificence and the glory and
the judgments, the righteous judgments of God as
he's standing there in the cave.
Then he goes back into the cave and
after the fire and after the wind and
after the storm and after the hurricane, he
hears something else.
You know, I think there was a holy
hush.
I think this prophet was in a place
of breathless anticipation.
The prophet is back in the cave.
He hears this small, quiet, calm whisper.
It's the voice of God.
And God was in the cave with him
because it says he spoke to him.
I believe it was a theophany.
I believe it was Jesus.
He was in this intimate, deep place with
the Lord.
And he hears this small whisper.
Brothers and sisters, we need to hear the
whispers of the Lord.
We need to hear the whispers from Elijah's
cave.
This is the way.
Walk you in it.
Don't turn here.
It'll change your life when you clearly hear
the voice of the Lord.
He heard because he was shut in.
He was shut in with the Lord.
He was in the cleft of the rock
and Jesus is the rock.
Hallelujah.
And the Lord said, go out and stand
in the mouth of the cave.
He went out and he stood in the
mouth of that cave and he wrapped himself
in his mantle.
Prophets in those days wore these short kind
of hairy prophet mantles and you knew they
were a prophet when you saw a man
doing it.
Very simple, sandals and so on.
And as he wrapped himself in this mantle,
he was hearing the voice of the Lord.
And the root in Hebrew for the word
for mantle or cloak, Elijah's cloak, the root
is glory.
The forlorn prophet who wanted to die in
the desert is in the presence of God.
Transformation was taking place in the cave.
Impartation from the Holy Spirit was happening in
the cave.
He was wrapped in the anointing or the
glory of God.
And this is what we need.
We need cavemen.
We need God's end time cavemen who are
shut in with the Lord, who get the
word of the Lord, who go forward to
do exploits.
And as he was wrapped there in the
glory of the Lord, the Lord starts to
speak to him and says, I have another
commission for you.
He was being commissioned in a cave.
God wasn't finished with him.
And He told him what to do.
And one of the things He told him
was to go and find a young man
named Elisha.
And he lived at a place called Avel
Meholah.
In Hebrew that means, he turns my mourning
into dancing.
Here was the old lonely prophet who was
getting a new commission.
And the Lord said, there's 7,000 who
haven't kissed, bowed, haven't bowed the knee to
bow.
There are 7,000 out there waiting for
you.
You go and get this young man.
You go and get Elisha.
You get him.
You put your cloak on him.
You anoint him.
And the two of you with the anointing
and the glory of God will go forth
and bring a revival to northern Israel.
And it's because a man got in a
cave, poured his heart out and heard from
the Lord.
And they went out and did it.
Schools of prophets all over northern Israel.
Mourning came in the cave.
Jesus was gone.
But Elijah had a new commission.
Elijah had heard from the Lord.
Elijah had a new destiny that he didn't
know anything about.
I think he saw that sun come up.
It was a new day.
It was a new era.
It was going to be a new era
for Israel.
He worked his way down that mountain.
I think he came off that mountain.
He started up the Jordan Valley.
He was going to go past the Dead
Sea and up toward the Sea of Galilee.
And I believe as he came out of
that desert, the windy, the sandy desert of
dryness, there was a new energy in his
step.
I'm going to get my spiritual son.
The two of us together, we're going to
raise up Bible schools.
We're going to raise up schools of ministry
at Gilgal, at Bethel, at Carmel.
And as he went, he goes to find
his spiritual son and he leaves the dryness
and he comes in the place of celebration.
Caves in the Bible are burial caves.
Jesus was buried in a cave and was
raised from the dead.
And the Apostle Paul says this, therefore we
were buried with him through baptism into death
that just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of
life.
Get in a cave, die to yourself and
walk in Cano's new, fresh, pure word and
power of the Lord through Jesus our Savior.
Amen.