Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Luciano Pavarotti is one of the most powerful voices in our world today.

For decades he has thrilled people all over the world with his singing.

He considers his voice a gift from God.

Nobody could ever know the stormy battle he has to fight each times he performs had he not told the world in his book, My Own Story.

Listen to his description of his path through the storm to the place of peace.

"The performance is starting.

I sit there with sweat rolling

down my neck and I still have three hours to go.

I would

rather be in any other profession.

I would prefer to be

back teaching my monster school boys-anything.

I pray.

I have one good God, but one is not enough to get me

through this.

I don't think I have an enemy, but if I did

I would not want even him to suffer these terrible moments.

As the overture begins, the curtain rises and I know I

must soon enter to enact a little pantomime with Adina, who

likewise emerges from her little house across the stage.

I

know from the many past performances that I am blessed

with a quality that helps me, when the moment is upon me,

shed those paralyzing nerves.

As the time approaches when

I must make my entrance, something clicks in my mind.

I

become the character, and everything else leaves my head."

With that, he comes on stage, and with his powerful operatic voice he tingles the spines of his audience.

Last week we looked at the revelation of how God loves to sing.

He sings a love song over His people, His bride, when they are living in harmony with Him and are singing His praises.

Imagine what it must be like to hear God sing!

If our spines can vibrate with the voice of man, what must it be like to hear the voice of God?

This is not a mere matter of speculation, for David in Psalm 29 has given us a fairly lengthy description of the voice of God, and what voltage, and what volume!

We have all heard the voice on TV that hits high C. and the goblet shatters, but when God hits it the cedars of Lebanon shatter in pieces, and we are not talking about pines here, but of trees more like the great redwoods of California.

David describes God's voice as so powerful that when His song is over there are toothpicks where once there were mighty cedars, and in verse 9 he says even the more mighty oaks.

It is almost an understatement to say the Lord's voice is powerful and majestic.

It is more like awesome and frightening.

What David describes here is a combination hurricane, earthquake, tornado, and mega lightning and thunder storm all rolled into one.

This goes a long way in explaining, as much as God loves to sing, why there are not a lot of mortals interested in going to one of His concerts.

I was familiar with the Bible verses that tell us you cannot see God and live.

It would be like looking into a blazing fire a million times brighter than the sun.

Man would be instantly vaporized.

That explains why we need new bodies to dwell with God in heaven.

But now we see the odds are also poor of surviving if you hear the voice of God.

This explains the still small voice of God by which He communicates to man.

God has to whisper to keep from destroying those who hear His voice.

An invitation to God's concert in our present bodies would be like an invitation to the major disaster of all time, for there would be thunder, lightning, mountains shaking, desert storms, and whole forests laid bear.

Modern advertising likes to make music groups really seem spectacular with flashing lights, smoke, and mind blowing volume, but compared to God it is all a mere nursery toy for the baby's crib.

This Psalm is telling us we can get a sneak preview of God's concert in heaven by listening to the storms on earth.

They represent the voice of God.

It is called the Psalm of the seven thunders.

David was obviously one of those people who can enjoy a good storm.

Some people flee to the basement when the storm begins.

Others need to be pulled down there by the rest of the family because they enjoy seeing the trees bend to the ground, the lightning flash, and the thunder roll.

It is a form of entertainment to see such power.

I am one of those people, for I love a good storm.

Some people like weight lifting or wrestling, and others like tractor pulls, or other sports which exhibit power, but I like a good storm, for this is when we see the power of God.

David had seen his share of violent storms.

Imagine this shepherd boy out in the fields with his flock, and a storm approaches.

He may, or may not, have a cave to flee to.

He may have to gather the sheep together and do his best to protect himself by laying under the sheep.

If he did make it to a cave, he would stand as close to the entrance as possible to watch the mighty wind as it would bend the trees, and make the ground tremble with the concussion of its pressure on the hills about him.

A young lad like David would never forget such experiences of being in a great storm.

He realized that nature was one of the ways that God speaks to man.

The storm was the voice of God, and it made a deep impression on him, and he was used of God to take this natural and secular experience and turn it into a sacred and spiritual experience.

Most of us can do this with a warm spring day.

We can praise God for the beauty of nature, and the sacred and the secular become one.

But in a storm most feel the frightening wind and lightning are totally secular, and are no basis for praising at all.

Storms, and especially those of the ferocity that David describes here, are not what we would want to call worship weather.

In the middle ages this Psalm was read to prevent one from being stuck by lightning.

Most people want to figure out how to escape storms, and not how to enjoy them like David did.

Columbus ran into a hurricane and he wrote, "Nothing but the service of God and the extension of the monarchy would induce me to expose myself to such danger."

Storms can be dangerous and deadly, and we can thank God for man's growing knowledge that provides warnings so people can find shelter.

This too is a Biblical concept, and God is pictured as our rock, refuge, and shelter in the time of storm.

But this Psalm is dealing with the experience of hearing the voice of God in the storm, and being in awe of its power and message.

It is a subjective thing, and Spurgeon recognized that as he gave his own testimony.

"I do not know how it may be with you, but I scarce ever hear the rolling thunder, but I begin to forget earth and look upwards to my God.

I am unconscious of any feeling of terror or pain; it is rather a feeling of delight that I experience, for I like to sing that verse-

"The God that rules on high,

And thunders when He please,

That rides upon the stormy sky,

And manages the seas,

This awful God is ours,

Our Father and our love,

He shall send down His heavenly powers

To carry us above."

We are dealing with a paradox here, for nature's power can be scary, and yet it is to cause us to cry out with those in the temple in verse 9-"Glory!"

Mixed emotions are normal because we are mere mortals confronting powers that can crush us.

We are twigs in the path of an elephant.

The scariest storm I ever remember was when a tornado came through Warren, Pa.

The fear was tripled by unusual circumstances.

We were a scattered family.

Lavonne was in a campground with Steve and Mark outside the city.

I was in town, and Cindy came back to town with me, and she was out riding her bike with a friend.

The storm hit like lightning and trees were falling everywhere.

The roads were blocked in every direction, and it was a long time before we could all make connections.

Cindy and her friend made it to shelter in someone's home, and no trees fell on our camper, and so we all survived, but nobody was having fun.

It was a frightening experience.