Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.2UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.19UNLIKELY
Fear
0.17UNLIKELY
Joy
0.49UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.67LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.02UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.73LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.95LIKELY
Extraversion
0.16UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.59LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.88LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
By Pastor Glenn Pease
About one hundred and sixty five years ago, in Jan. of 1835, the United States of America became the only major nation in modern history to do a certain thing.
It was a thing she would love to be able to do again, for she paid off her national debt.
It was done by the sale of public lands in the West.
Unfortunately, that was a one time solution, and that was the only year our nation had no debt.
Today the national debt is a major problem.
Personal debt is also a major social issue.
Studies have shown that the heavy burden of debt is a primary cause for depression, alcoholism, marital conflict and divorce, and all of the other negative effects of these problems.
Even for those who are wise, and do not get in over their heads, there is still the constant pressure of debt.
We can all identify with the poet who wrote,
Tomorrow never comes, they say,
But all such talk is idle gush,
For when we have a debt to pay,
Tomorrow gets here with a rush.
Dead is not all bad, for most of us would be riding horseback to our caves, instead of riding in cars to our homes, if it were not for the possibility of debt.
Debt has its good side, and even its bad side has caused a lot of good.
People hate it so much that it motivates them to work hard to avoid it.
Horace Greeley hated debt, and he said, "I would rather be a convict in a state prison, a slave in a rice swamp, than to pass through life under the horror of debt."
He so hated it that it drove him to work hard and become a very successful editor of the New York Tribune.
Sr. Walter Scott wrote most of his great novels in order to wipe out a terrible debt.
Mark Twain lectured all over the world to pay off a huge debt he had acquired.
Howard Ruff, one of the leading financial advisers in America, was once in debt for half a million dollars.
His father took his own life because of being in debt, but Howard went from bankruptcy to wealth and fame.
He paid off every cent of his debt.
He hated it so much he was driven to defeat it, and not be defeated by it.
Debt can be a powerful motivator, and it does not always have to be hated.
Paul was motivated to become a great preacher and church planter because of a great debt he owed.
He wrote in Rom.
1:14, "I am a debtor both to Greeks and to the Jews, both to the wise and the foolish."
He was debt driven disciple.
He owed everything to the grace of Christ, who saved him, and the least he could do was to devote his life to sharing the good news with a lost world.
Debts can have a good side in the life of a pagan.
Dr. Walter Judd, as a young missionary doctor in China, had to chose to treat kindly, or coolly, a very cruel and wicked chief of bandits.
Lu Hsin-Ming led men who looted and killed with no respect for life.
He became ill, and when the Chinese medicine did not help, he was brought to the hospital.
Dr. Judd treated him with kindness, and after a few days he recovered.
Some months later word came that the Nationalist Army was on its way to drive out the bandits.
Everyone knew this meant terror for the city, for the bandits would rob, rape, and destroy, before they fled.
Instead, the chief came to Dr. Judd and thanked him.
He even paid the $170.00
hospital bill, and marched off without violence.
He had planned to take Dr. Judd as a hostage, but his kindness in treating him changed his mind.
He was a cut-throat pagan, but he felt the power of an honest debt, and his indebtedness motivated him to be kind in return.
Debt is not all bad.
Paul even says in Rom.
13:8, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another."
The debt of love we owe to all, and this is a good debt, for it motivates us to be more Christlike.
Someone even found a good side to the national debt.
It is almost a certain guarantee that future generations of Americans will never become ancestor worshipers.
This is what you call making the best of a bad situation.
But the fact is, there is an optimistic side to debts.
The pessimistic side is due to the fact that debts can become so excessive that they depress, defeat, and destroy.
Debts can be deadly, and that is the kind of debts that Jesus is dealing with in this prayer.
They are debts we owe to God.
Sins are debts, because when we sin we fail to give to God what we owe Him.
He is the giver of life, and the giver of all the laws of life.
Man has an obligation to obey those laws.
Adam and Eve had an obligation to do what God commanded.
When they did not do it, they fell, and that fall into sin was a fall into debt.
They owed God what they did not pay, and when you owe what you can't pay, you are in debt.
Notice, I said, when you owe what you can't pay.
If you can pay what you owe, you are not seriously in debt.
It is when you can't pay what you owe that you are seriously in debt.
That is what sin is-unrepayable debt.
You owe God 100% obedience.
So if you failed only once, for a few moments, there is no way you can make up for it.
Since all the rest of your life is already owed to God in obedience, how can you find any time to make up for one disobedience?
There is no way, and so fallen man is hopelessly indebted to God.
The idea that if my good works outweigh my bad ones, I am acceptable to God, is nonsense, in the light of our debts.
Try making this work on the level of your earthly debts.
God to your bank, or any creditor, and see if he will buy your theology.
You simply explain that you have checked over all your payments, and you have discovered that you paid three times for everyone that you missed.
Therefore, he has no right to condemn you as a poor risk, and a debtor, for your good deeds far outweigh your bad ones.
You know that such insanity could get you committed.
Nobody says, if the good outweighs the bad, that eliminates the bad, and makes it of no effect.
The bad has to be dealt with, and the debts have to be covered.
So it is with our debts to God.
Man has a number of ways of resolving the issue of debts.
He has loans, reductions, consolidations of payments, or even bankruptcy.
With God there is only one way to deal with our debts.
Since they cannot be paid off by us, we are already bankrupt, as far as having any resources to eliminate the debt, so there is only one answer, and that is forgiveness.
Horace said, there is a major rule for drama.
Do not bring a god into the play unless the plot is so hopelessly tangled up that only a god can unravel it.
This is precisely what happened in the human drama.
God followed this very rule, and tried to work with man through the law to resolve the sin problem.
But as we know, all the blood of all the Old Testament sacrifices never even paid the debt of one sinners single sin.
It was a hopeless mess, and that is why God sent His Son into the world, for He, and He alone, could unravel the tangled mess, and make it possible for man to have the hope of forgiveness.
Only He could offer an infinite sacrifice able to cover all the debts of man.
When Jesus laid down His perfect sinless life, a value greater to God than our minds could ever conceive, He deposited in the bank of heaven that which is available for paying off the debt of every human being.
By trusting Him as Savior we gain the privilege that is beyond comprehension, to come daily to God, and have our debts dissolved, and sins forgiven.
The poet wrote,
Jesus paid it all,
All the debts I owe,
And nothing, either great or small,
Remains for me to do.
This is true, for there is nothing we can do to add to that infinite account that pays our debt.
But Jesus still requires our involvement in this debt dissolving process.
It is a part of the Lord's Prayer because He expects us to have a daily desire for the forgiveness of our sins.
There are two things that Jesus emphasizes, and which He wants us to be aware of in our daily spiritual journey.
They are:
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9