Sermon Tone Analysis
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BY GLENN PEASE
When Columbus and his crew were being blown West by the Atlantic trade winds, one of the reasons they were so fearful was they did not know how they could get back home against the wind.
Fortunately they discovered not only a new world, but new winds that carried them back to Spain.
They returned as heroes on the wings of the wind.
The ancient world was almost completely dependent on wind power for travel on the sea, and all of the great adventures that began the modern era depended on wind power.
Columbus could not have discovered America without the wind, and Magellan could never have sailed around the world without wind.
Dr. Luke in describing the travels of Paul makes it clear that where you got to, and when, was all up to the wind.
In Acts 27:4 he writes, "From there we put out to sea again and passed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us."
In verse 7 he says, "When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete."
Then comes the long description of the hurricane force wind that swept them across the sea eventually destroying the ship.
The point is, man all through history has been at the mercy of the wind.
It is one of natures greatest forces.
It would take thousands of atomic bombs exploding every minute to match the energy of even a modest gale.
It is no wonder that man has sought for ways to harness the power of the wind.
Hammurabi, back somewhere around 2000BC, planned to use windmills to irrigate, and in the second century BC we have a record of a windmill in Alexandria, Egypt that was used to play an organ.
Prov.
30:4 pictures God holding the winds of the world in His fists, and all through the Bible God is the controller of the winds that produce the music of nature as they go singing through the canyons and the forest.
"God holds in His hands the winds of the East,
And the West and the South and North:
And He stands in love in the skies above,
And He sends them leaping forth."
The winds of all four directions are dealt with in the Bible, and each has its own special purpose.
This is a study in and of itself.
I have been in a forest when the wind is coming through the trees, and I have heard the music of the trees.
It was somewhat scary until I knew what it was, and then it became beautiful.
I can now appreciate the words of the unknown poet-
"God is at the organ-
I can hear
A mighty music
Echoing far and near.
God is at the organ
And the keys
Are storm-strewn moorlands
Billows, trees!"
This image of God creating music with the wind I have had in my mind before, for much of the music of man is made by wind propelled through instruments.
But not until I began to study Psalm 104 did I ever imagine God riding on the wings of the wind.
God is portrayed as being way ahead of man in His recognition of the value of wind power for travel.
This must have been a popular image in Israel for in Psalm 18:10 we read again, "He mounted the cherubim and flew; He soared on the wings of the wind."
Then in II Sam.
22:11 David pictures God soaring on the wings of the wind.
Three times the Bible tells us God rides the wings of the wind.
The Hebrew mind could look up into the cloud filled sky as the wind pushed them rapidly across the heavens and imagine God using the clouds as His chariot, and wind as His fuel for flying.
Our more scientific mind can only conclude that this is poetry, and that God, who is already everywhere in His omnipresence, does not need to travel across the skies.
But the Hebrews knew this too, and so we do not need to take it so literally that we imagine God jumping on a cloud and actually riding it anymore than we need to try to picture the wind with actual wings.
Of course we are dealing with poetry here, but poetry that is telling us something important about God and His relationship with nature.
We know God does not need wind to travel, but who are we to say that God never enters His creation to enjoy the beauty of what He has made, and actually ride the wings of the wind?
God enters earth many times in the Old Testament.
God enjoyed eating with Abraham and walking in fellowship with Enoch.
He walked in the garden in the cool of the day.
Cool, by the way, is the same word for wind.
If you study wind in the Bible, you discover that the Hebrew and Greek words for wind are the same words used to describe the Spirit of God.
We cannot say that God does not literally enjoy riding the wings of the wind.
The Spirit of God is the same as the breath of God or the wind of God.
The same words refer to all of them.
The very first picture of God we have in the Bible is in Gen.1:2, and that is of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.
The Hebrew word for spirit is the same word for wind and breath.
It was God riding on the wings of the wind that began the process of turning the chaos into a world of order.
It all begins with the wind of God, the Spirit of God, the breath of God.
All three are the same Hebrew word.
The Spirit and the wind have much in common.
They are both invisible, yet very powerful.
Wind is air in motion, and the Spirit is God in motion.
Jesus linked the Holy Spirit and the wind in His night talk with Nicodemus.
He said to him in John 3:8, "The wind blows wherever it pleases.
You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
The wind can lift up millions of tons of water into the atmosphere, and yet it is an unseen power.
It is doing things of enormous power all the time, but we cannot see it.
So the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of people doing wonders in changing them and motivating them, but He is unseen.
Like the wind, His influence is seen and felt by His effects that are visible.
Wind is ever doing mighty things in the realm of the physical and spiritual.
We need both the natural and the spiritual wind more than we realize.
Grace N. Crowell expressed our need for the cleansing wind in these prayer lines-
"God keep a clean wind blowing through my heart night and day.
Cleanse it with sunlight, let the silver rain wash away
Cobwebs, and the smoldering dust that years leave, I pray.
God, keep a clean wind blowing through my heart: Wind from far
Green pastures, and from shaded pools where still waters are;
Wind from spaces out beyond the first twilight star.
Bitterness can have no place in me, nor grief stay,
When the winds of God rush through and sweep them away.
God keep a clean wind blowing through my heart night and day."
This is a prayer for the Holy Spirit to cleanse us from the pollution of the world and give us a clean inner atmosphere where the fruit of the Spirit can grow.
The Holy Spirit blows out the contaminated air of our soul and gives us fresh air to breathe.
The result is a revived interest in the things of Christ.
Our affections are set on things above, and not things below.
Revival comes when God rides the wings of the wind blowing away the chaff, and giving us clear vision of what really matters.
When the rushing mighty wind came upon the disciples at Pentecost, it was the wind of the Spirit, and they were filled with that Wind and began to declare the wonders of God.
The wind and the Holy Spirit are both message carriers.
They make sounds, and these sounds convey a message.
The Psalmist says, "He makes the wind His messenger."
The poets often refer to the winds as messengers.
Shakespeare wrote,
"The southern wind doth play the trumpet
To his purposes; and by his hollow
Whistling in the leaves foretells a
Tempest, and a blistering day."
Tennyson wrote, "A wind arose and rushed upon the South and shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks of the wild woods together; and a Voice went with it, follow, follow thou shalt win."
Longfellow wrote,
"I hear the wind among the trees,
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