The Bible says:
“Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me. ... they make a noise like a dog.”
— Psalm 59: 1-6
The word noise originally meant “sickness” or “nausea” for the confusion one usually experiences while being sick. It now means a loud, harsh, annoying, intrusive sound.
There is the legitimate noise of labor and progress. Then there is unnecessary noise that is a nuisance that noisy people who can’t live without noise make The wicked men in our text who were sent to find David, growled, snarled, and quarreled throughout the city like detestable dogs.
The demon Screwtape, in C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters said, “Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. ... The melodies and silences of heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it.”
W.H. Auden wrote of someone who “Never entered his room without switching on the TV and turning up the volume until the walls reverberated. What demons, I wonder, was he trying to stifle with that incessant barrage of sound?”
As men get “worse and worse,” they will make more noise. (2 Timothy 3: 13) Their sounds, which lack melody and rhythm, and are out of sync with nature, are just noise. Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Only sick music that sick people listen to makes money today.”
Many fear silence because they will then hear the cry of their empty and starving soul in the silence.
Joan D. Chittister wrote, “Silence leaves us at the mercy of the noise within us. We hear the fears that need to be faced, the angers that need to be cooled, and the emptiness that needs to be filled. We hear the cries for humility and reconciliation and centeredness, and the ambition and arrogance and attitudes of uncaring awash in the shallows of our soul.”
Most people never really discover themselves and never put anything meaningful inside themselves. The result is that they have to surround themselves with company and noise.
One philosopher said that the more you have inside you the less you need people around you. If you do not have anything inside, you have to compensate for your inner vacuity by surrounding yourself with noisemakers.
Noise is a revelation that the noisemaker is empty. His inner man is empty so he must surround his outer man with noise. These people cannot recollect themselves or retire within themselves for fear of actually meeting themselves.
The loud noise is a sign of weakness and real sickness. People need noise because they are still by nature children. The more immature a person is the noisier they are.
A noisemaker is an empty soul that does not know the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and the peace He gives. The loud noise is actually a desperate cry for help from the empty soul that cannot be heard for all the noise.
If you’re a noisemaker that’s afraid of being alone and have to play your music loud and are afraid of the quiet, now you know why you’re this way. Let Jesus in and all you will want is His peace and rest and quiet.
James H. Cagle is a Ray City resident who pastored several churches for a total of 11 years. Email him at pastorjameshcagle@ yahoo.com
