The Still Small Voice

Khinckley1@yahoo.com

Nothing Changes

Mt. Carmel, above HaifaSite of Elijah and the PriestsOf Baal

Elder Eyring

[My Father] was suffering through the end of a long struggle with bone cancer. He still weighed enough and was in such pain that it was hard work to move him from a chair to his bed. Others far more heroic than I spent the months and the days caring for him. But I took some turns on the midnight to dawn shift.

The effects of disease had removed the powers of reason he'd used to make a mark that is still visible in science. He seemed to me almost like a child as we talked through the night. Most of his memories were of riding across the range together with his father in Old Mexico. But sometimes even those happy pictures could not crowd from his mind the terrible pain.

Elder Eyring Cont.One night when I was not with him and the pain seemed more than he could bear, he somehow got out of bed and on his knees beside it--I know not how. He pled with God to know why he was suffering so. And the next morning he said, with quiet firmness, "I know why now. God needs brave sons."

Now, when someone tells you the questions that matter yield only to some rational analysis, remember that the stunning achievements of reason over the past three hundred years have sprung from what is called the "scientific method."

I hope you'll also remember, as I always will, the scientist Henry Eyring on his knees, when the questions that really mattered yielded to the method for finding truth he'd learned as a little boy at his mother's knee in Old Mexico. This was long before he took the train to Tucson, and Berkeley, and Madison, and then on to Berlin and Princeton to use the scientific method to create theories that changed the scientific world. What he learned on his knees brought him peace and changed my life

President Hinckley

"I think the best way I could describe the process [ of receiving revelation] is to liken it to the experience of Elijah as set forth in the book of First Kings. Elijah spoke to the Lord, and there was a wind, a great wind, and the Lord was not in the wind. And there was an earthquake, and the Lord was not in the earthquake. And there was a fire, and the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire a still, small voice, which I describe as the whisperings of the Spirit."

Question

Why does the Lord use “a still small voice” when a louder voice

would be heard better?

Still Small Voice

How the spirit communicates

The Voice of the spirit may be experienced differently because:

Our own personalityOur spiritual maturityOur past experiencesOur gifts of the spirit

Elijah and the Widow

10 …And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks; and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.

12 And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress if for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

Question:If you are Elijah, how do you respond to a this widow and her son- so destitute they are about to die?

Elijah and the Widow

10 …And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks; and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.

12 And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress if for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

14 For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.

15 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

So, the Lord answers her prayer, through the Prophet, by requiring even more of her?Yes, great blessings were about to occur, including theSaving of her son from the dead- but she needed to take one last step…

Joseph Smith

You have all kinds of trials to pass through, and it is quite as necessary for you to be tried even as Abraham, and other men of God,

God will feel after you, he will take hold of you and wrench your very heartstrings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Kingdom of God."

Elder McConkie

Shortly after the landmark revelation on the Priesthood in 1978, Bruce R. McConkie spoke to all the religion teachers at BYU. In describing the experience he said, in effect, “President Kimball first heard the voice, then all of us in turn heard the voice.”

Elder David B. Haight cornered Elder McConkie the next day. “Bruce, he said, I need to talk to you about what you said! I was there, there was no voice, just a power manifestation of the Spirit!”

Elder McConkie said, “David, you heard the Voice!”“Bruce,” Elder Haight repeated, “there was no Voice!”

Elder McConkie

Elder McConkie then opened the Scriptures to D&C 88: 63,66

“Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you…Behold, that which you hear is the as the voice of one crying in the wilderness- in the wilderness, because you cannot see him- my voice, because my voice is Spirit…”

“David,” Elder McConkie said, “you felt the spirit like I did; you heard the voice!”

President HinckleyI draw strength from a simple statement made

concerning the Prophet Elijah, who warned King Ahab of drought and famine to come upon the land. And Ahab scoffed. And the Lord told Elijah to go and hide himself by the brook Cherith, that there he should drink of the brook, and he would be fed by the ravens. And the scripture records a simple and powerful statement: 'So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord.'  

"There was no arguing. There was no excusing. There was no equivocating. Elijah 'went and did according unto the word of the Lord.' And he was saved from the terrible calamities that befell those who scoffed and argued and questioned."