Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

You can learn in silence what sound can never teach you.

Howard Thurman tells of one of his University students who was a deep sea diver.

He wrote of his experience of being on the bottom of the ocean.

The water was clear and he was in the midst of a coral rock garden.

He sat down to look around.

Occasionally a fish would swim up to take a look at him, and then pass the word to his friends, for soon there were many curious fish about him.

As he sat there, the beauty of the garden became more intense.

Plants had opened up revealing what looked like blossoms.

He felt like he was in a beautiful flower garden.

It was wonderful.

He enjoyed it for a long while, but then he realized he could not stay there forever, and he started to go about his business.

As soon as he moved all the flowers disappeared.

They were living things, and they emerged only when there was silence and stillness.

The activist sea diver who comes splashing through such a garden would never see its full beauty.

He learned that there are marvelous things you will never see unless you sit in silence.

Professor Johnson from Bethel taught us this is true on land as well.

Tens of thousands of people visit Como Park, but only a few ever see the Ruby Crown Kinglet.

The only way to see this tiny little bird is to crawl into the hedges and sit in silence.

Soon this pretty little creature will come flitting right up to you, and give you a view that the noisy people passing by will never see.

The point of Psa.

46:10 is that there are things about the Creator, as well as His creation, that can only be learned by those who have developed the discipline of silence.

"Be still, and know that I am God."

An unknown poet wrote:

In every life

There's a pause that is better than onward rush,

Better than hewing or mightiest doing;

'Tis the standing still at sovereign will.

There's a hush that is better than ardent speech,

Better than sighing or wilderness crying;

'Tis the being still at sovereign will.

The pause and the hush sing a double song,

In unison low and for all time long,

Of human soul, God's working plan

Goes on, nor heeds the aid of man!

Be still, and see!

Be still, and know!

The Bible has a great deal to say about the value of quietness, but it is greatly neglected in our culture because we are a sound oriented culture.

We specialize in making everything that makes sound portable so that we can have the sound even at the beach, or out on the lake, or camping in the woods.

We have made it possible to escape silence completely, even if we find ourselves in the most remote area.

We have made it possible to banish silence from our lives almost completely.

There was a tunnel down in Ft.

Lauderdale, Florida where radio waves did not penetrate, and there was a 20 to 30 second break as motorists went through.

A man got permission to set up a system inside the tunnel to give weather information so drivers would not have to endure the agony of that few seconds of silence.

We live in a culture which is anti-silence, and the result is, even Christians have a very difficult time identifying with a Biblical values of quietness.

Eccles.

9:17 says, "The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools."

Because of radio and TV we tend to hear the shouters and noisy voices rather than the quiet ones.

Psa.

131:2 says, "But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me."

The peace and contentment of a satisfied child is an ideal state of mind.

The crying aggravated child whose hunger pain makes it a noise box of perpetual disturbance is not the ideal.

Christians tend to fall into these two categories: The bawling baby always discontent, and with spiritual colic, who disturbs the family of God continually, or the contented child who feels loved and satisfied, and gives pleasure to the family by perpetual pleasantness.

It takes a lot of silent feeding on the milk of the word to be such a contented child.

Most Christians in our culture do not know how to enjoy the silence of being still and knowing God in this way.

Paul wrote in I Thess.

4:11, "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life."

He wrote to Timothy also, and urged him to pray for kings and all in authority.

Why?

Because he goes on to say in I Tim.

2:2, "That we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."

It is obvious that the noisy and riotous lifestyle is not a Christian ideal.

We cannot look at all the Bible says about the importance of silence, but we want to focus on the fact that God so often does His greatest works in silence.

And anonymous poet wrote:

Silently the green leaves grow

In silence falls the soft, white snow

Silently the flowers bloom

In silence sunshine fills the room

Silently bright stars appear

In silence velvet night draws near...

And silently God enters in

To free a troubled heart from sin

For God works silently in lives

For nothing spiritual survives

Amid the din of a noisy street

Where raucous crowds with hurrying feet

And "blinded eyes" and "deafened ear"

Are never privileged to hear

The message God wants to impart

To every troubled, weary heart

For only in a QUIET PLACE

Can we behold GOD FACE TO FACE!

Now, lest we idealize silence too much, as if it was an inherent virtue, and always of value, we want to see some of the negative side before we pursue the practice.

Solomon said in Eccles.

3:7, that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak.

If you are silent when its time to speak, it is no longer a virtue.

So for the sake of balance we need to look at the negative side.

I. SILENCE CAN BE DESTRUCTIVELY WICKED.

I once knew a church leader who was a good one, and I liked him for most everything about him.

There was one exception, and that was the way he used silence.

His wife would call me once in a while and say he had not spoken to her for a week again.

When he would get angry over something he would punish her by silence, and it worked.

She would cry and beg him to talk to her, and nearly have a breakdown before he would speak again.

I thought it was terribly cruel way to deal with a problem.

Silence can be just as destructive to a relationship as harsh words.

Pascal, the great scientist and theologian, said, "Silence is the worst form of persecution."

Jews are still angry that the Pope kept silent when a few words of protest may have saved many Jews from Hitler's persecution.

Silence can convey false messages.

Robert Louis Stevenson said, "The cruelest lies are often told in silence."

The whole system of the Mafia is a system of silence that lies by saying nothing.