Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Jamie Buckingham has written 20 of the best Christian book of the past decade.

And in one of them called The Last Word he tells of how, even for a Christian sometimes, everything can go rapidly wrong.

He lived in a quiet country home, but it was one with an unusual water system.

He had a cut off valve in the back yard, which diverted water from the system to a pond.

One evening he was in bed when his 14-year-old daughter was taking a shower.

He heard gurgling in the heating vent, and suddenly he remembered that he had forgotten to reopen the valve after he washed the car.

Water would be backing up into the house.

He leaped up, grabbed a flashlight and raced down the stairs and out into the back yard.

It was already flooded and so he was sloshing through icy water in his bare feet.

When he got to the pump-house he knelt in the cold and reach down into the hole to turn the valve.

Something slimy moved and he jerked back quickly.

He caught his pajamas on the wire fence and tore them.

As a Christian he had given up swearing, but now he needed a substitute, and so he slung his flashlight into the pond in anger.

As usual it solved nothing, and he was now in total darkness.

He ripped himself off the barbed wire and sloshed his way back to the house.

He stepped in some doggie doo and it felt terrible, and so he began to hop in the high grass.

He ran a thorn between his big toe and its neighbor.

This was the final straw, and he lost control.

He went crashing through the shrubs and into the house with his pajamas ripped half off and his back and neck bleeding.

He woke up everybody in the house at the top of his voice.

He never saw the humor of the situation at all, but his family got at least 5 weeks of laughter out of it.

Life can change so rapidly that it is frightening.

Here was a Christian leader who was living a life of tranquility, and in a matter of minutes he was in a rage of anger.

His spirituality was radically changed with such rapid speed.

The good news is that the reverse can also happen.

You can be in a rage of anger and suddenly be changed and calmed, and find yourself in a state of peace.

This is what we see happening to Paul on the road to Damascus.

He was like a fire-breathing dragon marching to incinerate the church when suddenly he was confronted by Christ.

Paul was instantly transformed into a disciple saying, "What shall I do Lord?"

This could be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the fastest transformation in history.

Instant servant-hood is what we have here.

The second Paul knew that the Christ he persecuted was not dead, but alive and powerful, he knew he was on the wrong side, and it didn't take him anytime at all to switch sides.

He immediately called Jesus, whom he considered a false prophet, the Lord of his life.

You could go your whole life not believing there was such a thing as a duckbill platypus, but then when you are suddenly confronted by one, and there it is in your presence, it does not take many seconds before your years of doubt and disbelief are gone, and you are a believer.

So Paul, who thought Jesus was a deceiver, discovered that he was a solid rock of reality, and instantly he began to build his life on that rock.

Everything happened so fast with Paul.

He was converted in seconds, and then in verse 13 he was instantly healed and his sight was restored.

In verse 16 Ananias gave him a two sentence sermon and then said, what are you waiting for-get up and be baptized."

Usually a baptism class will last longer than 3 or 4 seconds, but this is Paul we are dealing with, and he could be called Speed for a nick name, for the whole process of justification and sanctification is enormously speeded up for him.

Go, go, go is the theme of this chapter of his life.

In verse 18 God spoke to him and God's first word is not all that surprising in the light of this rapid chain of events.

God said, "Quick, leave Jerusalem immediately."

God is usually not in a hurry, but in His dealings with Paul in this chapter, the name of the game is speed.

Seeing this motivated me to search the Scriptures to discover what it has to say about the subject of speed.

What I discovered is that it is a large subject, which cannot be covered in one message, and so we will deal with just two main classes of speed that the Bible refers to often.

First is,

I. THE FOOLISHNESS OF SPEED.

This negative side of speed is seen in this rapid moving chapter as well.

Paul was foolish in his speedy attempt to destroy the church.

His own teacher Gamaliel warned about being to hasty in solving problems by violence.

We see this back in chapter 5 of Acts.

When the Jews wanted to kill Peter and the other Apostles he gave some examples of others who stirred up the people and then quickly passed from the scene.

He concluded in verses 38 and 39, "Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone!

Let them go!

For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to stop these men: You will only find yourself fighting against God."

Gamaliel was a wait and see type person, and not a jump in and do something no matter how stupid type of person.

He was wise enough to know about the foolishness of speed in men trying to judge the workings of God.

Paul was a brilliant student of Gamaliel, but Paul had a different conviction.

He was a shoot first and ask questions later type thinker.

He was fast on the draw, and that is how he got the job of persecuting the Christians.

He was not bothered by presuming them guilty before they had any chance to prove themselves innocent.

Paul did not need to listen, for he had his mind made up before hand that they were worthy of punishment without trial.

He illustrates the foolishness of speed.

Paul got a taste of his own medicine when this mob of Jews treated him like he treated the Christians.

They made up their minds about him without giving him a chance to defend himself.

He got a taste of foolishness of speed and it was not pleasant.

The Roman commander was going to give him another dose by flogging him without ever doing a background check on him to see if he was a Roman citizen.

This was a short cut that could have taken him swiftly to the grave.

There are many foolish things you can do fast, and the Bible makes it a point to reveal to us a good number of these so that we are aware of the danger of speed.

It is not just in travel, but in our actions that speed can destroy.

We can only look at a few examples.

Prov.

12:16 says, "A fool shows his annoyance at once but a prudent man overlooks an insult."

Prov.

20:3 says, "It is to man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel."

The man who is quick tempered and ready to fight at the drop at of a hat is not wise.

You are always going too fast emotionally when you emotions are in control of your body, and your mind is not in charge.

People who let their feelings run their life is just as foolish as teens out in the streets dragging with their cars.

Both are illustrating the foolishness of speed.

Prov.

19:2 says, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

Haste makes waste is the modern equivalent.

All those Christians who suffered and even died under Paul's persecution did so because of the folly of his rash and speedy conclusion that the way of Christ was the wrong way.

There are all kinds of ways of being stupid fast.

A freshman at the university of Minnesota was amazed when he saw one of his classmates turn in his paper on a final exam in only 15 minutes.

Later he asked him how he did it, and he answered honestly, "It don't take long to flunk a test."

It is easy to be fast when you are not achieving anything.

We live in an age where so much can be done so fast that we loose sight of the fact that it still takes quality time for many things of value.

Development of gifts and relationships take time.

A woman buying a chess set asked the clerk if he could explain how to play the game as he wrapped it up.

People want to be instant saints and scholars, but it doesn't work that way.

It takes time to be successful at anything that is really worthwhile.

The fastest way to be shallow is to think you can do or be anything worthwhile at great speed.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

That is part of the wisdom of the Proverbs, for it is the hurried decisions of life that often lead to great mistakes.

Prov.

21:5 says, "The plans of the diligent lead to prophet as surely as haste leads to poverty."

You read everyday of people who make "get rich quick" decisions, and all they get quick is ripped off.