Perfect Storms Perfect Saints

Bible Book: Psalms 107 : 23-32

Subject: Afflictions; Hardships; Troubles

Series: Psalms - Kirksey

Introduction

Perfect storms perfect saints. Although we spell them the same, please note we pronounce the first word of our title [pur-fikt] and the third [per-fekt]. Dr. Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), principal of Cliff College, where British evangelist, Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994), received part of his education, wrote this on “The Meaning of Perfection,” “To make perfect means to make fit, to put in order, adjust, adapt, arrange, and equip, so as to secure effectiveness and efficiency for the result achieved. The meaning is the same when applied to Christian life and experience. It is the adjustment, cleansing, and equipment of man’s nature for all the purposes of the life in Christ. It is nothing more than making men fit in every part to do the will of God.”[1] The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:9, “And this also we pray, that you may be made complete.” Some translate that last word as “perfect”.

We understand “the Halloween Nor'easter of 1991”, later received the name “the Perfect Storm” after a conversation between Robert Case, a Boston National Weather Service forecaster, and author Sebastian Junger. A perfect storm is “a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.” Sebastian Junger chronicles the voyage of The Andrea Gail in his book titled The Perfect Storm. This vessel and her crew found themselves in the midst of 140+ mph winds of Hurricane Grace in October 1991. This storm claimed 13 lives and caused over $200 million in damages.

Recently, I heard a woeful tale about a Sonoma, California, native, named Terri Weissinger. Through a series of unfortunate events she found herself stranded in the San Francisco International Airport, surviving on Trail Mix and sleeping in a stairwell for eight days. At one point they threatened her with arrest on vagrancy charges. This “perfect storm” of confusion grew out of hidden fees that increased to the point of embarrassment. From time to time we find ourselves in a perfect storm.

The psalmist writes about the perfect storm centuries before the book or the movie. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 3:14, “I know that whatever God does, / It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, / And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.”

We read in Psalm 107:23-32, “Those who go down to the sea in ships, / Who do business on great waters, / They see the works of the LORD, / And His wonders in the deep. For He commands and raises the stormy wind, / Which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, / They go down again to the depths; / Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, / And are at their wits’ end. Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble, / And He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, / So that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; / So He guides them to their desired haven. Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, / And for His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people, / And praise Him in the company of the elders.”

Reading these verses of Psalm 107 reminds us of another storm on the Sea of Galilee recounted in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:37; Luke 8:23-25). Matthew writes, “Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ But He said to them, ‘Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?’ Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, ‘Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?’” (Matthew 8:23-27) This storm and the one mentioned in Psalm 107:23-32 is perfect because God sent it to accomplish His high and holy purpose. God’s work is perfect (Deuteronomy 32:7); God’s way is perfect (Psalm 18:30); and God’s will is perfect (Romans 12:2).

For the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ it is not if but when will the storm come into our life.

I. Before the storm comes. (vv. 23-24)

We read in Psalm 107:23-24, “Those who go down to the sea in ships, / Who do business on great waters, They see the works of the LORD, / And His wonders in the deep.”

Everything is “business as usual” and suddenly the weather turns from fair to foul. In his Lectures on the Prophecies of Isaiah, Dr. Robert Maccullouch (1740-1824) shares the following on Isaiah 47:11, “The predicted calamity is represented as a great storm, which suddenly arises in eastern countries and blows with such violence as to spread devastation and ruin wherever its fury extends.”[2]

Dr. Paul Lee Tan reports, “Mariners and meteorologists have not been able to account for the ‘freak’ waves that sometimes sweep the sea. One captain was piloting a ship when it encountered what he estimated to be a 100-foot wave that came down on the ship with speed like an express train. He believes that such waves overwhelming some ships have caused their cargos to list. The vessels then roll over without there being time for distress signals. He thinks this accounts for their disappearance without an inkling of what happened to them.”

Dr. Tan explains, “A hurricane is created at sea. The water temperature must be at least 27° C (80.6°), which means that Northern latitudes are normally spared. The warm sea creates a funnel of air which rises to perhaps 50,000 ft. producing vast cumulus clouds. High air currents are distributed, and more air from below is drawn into the funnel. Earth’s rotation give it a twist, and the hurricane is born—a mass of storm winds about 400 miles in diameter, swirling round at up to 200 mph.”[3]

Did you hear about the man sitting in front of an old general store holding a short piece of rope? Someone asked why he held the rope. He told them it was a weather gauge. Curiosity caused the person to ask, “How can a piece of rope tell the weather?” He quickly explained, “When it swings back and forth the wind is blowing. When it gets wet it’s raining.”

Remember Jehoshaphat’s maritime enterprise recorded in 2 Chronicles 20:35-37, “After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who acted very wickedly. And he allied himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships in Ezion Geber. But Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, ‘Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah, the LORD has destroyed your works.’ Then the ships were wrecked, so that they were not able to go to Tarshish.”

Remember the Titanic. “God Himself could not sink this ship,” boasted a deck hand aboard the R. M. S. Titanic in 1912. As you know, on April 15, 1912, the unsinkable Titanic did sink.

II. When the storm comes. (vv. 25-28a)

We read in Psalm 107:25-28a, “For He commands and raises the stormy wind, / Which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, / They go down again to the depths; / Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, / And are at their wits’ end. Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble.”

I understand the USS Ramapo encountered the highest officially recorded sea wave in the Pacific in 1933. Those on board computed it to be 112 feet from trough to crest. However, the highest sea wave measured by instruments was 77 feet in the North Atlantic in 1968, according to the British Weather Advice.

On “Christian Security” Dr. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) shares the following, “Faith is the Christian’s foundation, and hope is his anchor, and death is his harbor, and Christ is his pilot, and heaven is his country; and all the evils of poverty, or affronts of tribunals and evil judges, of fears and sad apprehensions, are but like the loud winds blowing from the right point,--they make a noise, but drive faster to the harbor. And if we do not leave the ship, and jump into the sea; quit the interest of religion, and run to the securities of the world; cut our cables, and dissolve our hopes; grow impatient; hug a wave and die in its embrace—we are safe at sea, safer in the storm on which God sends us, than in a calm when we are befriended by the world.”[4]

Dr. David James Burrell (1844-1926), served as pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church, New York. He gave a wonderful tribute at Dwight L. Moody’s funeral service, January 8, 1900. Dr. Burrell explains from margin notes this phrase “wit’s end” means “All their wisdom is swallowed up.”[5]

From the Gospel Herald we read, “A woman was seated next to a minister on an airplane during a storm. She: ‘Can’t you do something about his awful storm?’ He: ‘Madam, I’m in sales, not management.’” Actually, if he is true to his call, he is not in sales or management. God calls men to be messenger boys, as He is the Editor-in-Chief.

God uses sermons as well as storms to perfect the saints. We read in Ephesians 4:11-16, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

Note Paul writes about “a perfect man” (Ephesians 4:13) and some being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. . .” (Ephesians 4:14).

Dr. Elon Foster (1833-1898) shares the following from his reading: “In a great moral contest of England, we are told that one ship ran aground, so as to be entirely out of reach of the enemy, but contributed very much to the victory by serving as a beacon to the other ships bearing down into action. It was not a way of contributing to the victory which any brave captain would choose; but it would be a matter of rejoicing, even in this way, to serve one’s country. And so, though we would not choose that holy men of old should have fallen into sins, we rejoice that the great Captain of our salvation is making use of their failures to swell the triumphs of his people, and to bring glory to his great name.”[6]

Rev. Thomas Spurgeon (1856-1917), son of Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), who followed him as pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, explains it is as if God says, “You are late in coming, but it is better late than never. I will heal you, I will deliver you.”

We find the following invitation in Psalm 50:15, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; / I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

III. After the storm comes. (vv. 28b-32)

We read in Psalm 107:28b-32, “And He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, So that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; / So He guides them to their desired haven. Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, / And for His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people, / And praise Him in the company of the elders.”

Please note the final use of the refrain in verse 31 as it also appears in verses, 8, 15, and 21. The psalmist exhorts, “Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, / And for His wonderful works to the children of men!”

Cornelia “Corrie” ten Boom (1892-1983) states, "Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see." Her statement reminds me of “RTRG” which stands for “Retake to Raise Grade”. Sometimes in the educational process a teacher will give another test on the same material. It is interesting to note that in various venues of service we meet certain personality types, who seem strangely familiar. Maybe God had a lesson for us to learn and he allows another person to come into our life to teach us a lesson we did not learn earlier. God sends storms to perfect us. He wants us to become mature or full-grown as believers.

Dr. David James Burrell writes, “In that day the sorest troubles of the earthly life will seem insignificant as we look back upon them. We shall understand then, what the apostle meant when he called our afflictions ‘light,’ and spoke of them as ‘enduring but for a moment.’ It will be in our hearts to bless God for all the storms and the trials.”[7]

Conclusion

Dr. Ted S. Rendall tells about people finding glass fishing floats on the Pacific coast from Mexico to Alaska some time ago. He shares that Mrs. Ariel Johnson of Port Orford, Oregon, has a collection of more than 1,500 of them. The Los Angeles Times article he cites, reveals the following theory about how these glass balls ended up miles away. In part, the writer Charles Hillinger, explains, “Swept loose from fishermen’s nets off the coast of Japan, the floats are caught up in the Kuroshio (black stream) or Japanese current. This current runs several miles off the Oregon coast. Apparently the floats drift ashore when storms wrest them free from the force of the current.”[8]

Perceptively, Dr. Rendall concludes, “It’s the storm, then, that drives these glass balls to the beach and to recovery. Without the pressure of the gale the fishing floats would continue their aimless drifting back and forth across the ocean. They have no power to free themselves from the relentless currents.”

After citing Psalm 107:25, Dr. Rendall compares this situation with that of the believer and how “God sends the storm to break the power of the currents of this world.”

In a humble way, Dr. Rendall counsels, “Then let me thank God for the storms that buffet and batter me. The storm brings me blessings in disguise. By its force I am driven to the shore of God’s will and service. By nature we tend to drift aimlessly on the sea of life; by grace I can be released from the power of conformity to this age and be redirected into a life of usefulness and service.”[9]

We read in James 1:2-8, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; / he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

With the psalmist we may confess, in the words recorded in Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, / That I may learn Your statutes.” This is true in part because we are closer to the Lord. Remember to express thanksgiving to the Lord when He sends a storm. We know perfect storms perfect saints.

[1]Aquilla Webb, D.D., LL.D., Three Hundred Evangelistic Sermon Outlines (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1924), p. 302

[2]Robert Maccullouch, Lectures on the Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol3 (London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard; J. Mathews, Strand; W. Laing and J. & J. Fairbairn, Edinburgh: M. DCC. XCI. [1791]), p. 534

[3]Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations “A Hurricane Is Born” #6055 (Rockville, MD: Assurance Publishers, 1979, 1985), p. 1357

[4]Elon Foster, 6000 Sermon Illustrations: An Alphabetical Collection from Leaders & Writers of the Ages, “Christian Security” #5239 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1952, 1992), p. 578

[5]The Biblical Illustrator, ed. Joseph S. Exell, The Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, n.d. / London: James Nisbet & Co., 1886 ), p. 405

[6]Elon Foster, 6000 Sermon Illustrations: An Alphabetical Collection from Leaders & Writers of the Ages, “The Faults of the Saints” #5161 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1952, 1992), p. 570

[7]The Biblical Illustrator, ed. Joseph S. Exell, The Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, n.d. / London: James Nisbet & Co., 1886), p. 405

[8]The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, Thursday, June 29, 1972, “Floats Drift Across Ocean from Japan” by Charles Hillinger (Los Angeles Times / Capital Times Service)

[9]Ted S. Rendall, “Thanks To the Storm!!”

By Dr. Franklin L. Kirksey, pastor First Baptist Church of Spanish Fort 30775 Jay Drive Spanish Fort, Alabama 36527

Author of Sound Biblical Preaching: Giving the Bible a Voice Available on Amazon.com and WORDsearchbible.com

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