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By Pastor Glenn Pease
Jo Fleming in her book His Affair reveals that almost every sinful emotion and action known to man is kindled by lust that is not controlled.
Her husband of 26 years went to the apartment of a woman he worked with to return some books.
This was an action he could have avoided, but he chose not to.
They had an affair, and sometime later she discovered it, and was devastated.
She writes of that day she learned of his unfaithfulness.
"Nothing will ever be the same again.
Inside my head I am screaming, screaming, screaming.
Dear God let me die....give me oblivion.
Please!
Please!
I can't stand the pain, I can't live, I want to die, now, this minute."
The book is a diary of her journey through the hell of grief and back.
It is a story of the human heart, and its capability of all the evil's Jesus deals with in the Sermon On The Mount, and especially this context of chapter 5.
She experienced anger, hatred, thoughts of murder and suicide, revenge, adultery and divorce.
Forbidden sex is so glamorized in our culture that people are blind to the terrible consequences, and the tremendous cost involved.
Her husband had to go through the pits of guilt as she went through the pits of grief.
Both suffered months of depression.
But finally healing began to take place, and they were able to talk about the cause of the affair.
They discovered true intimacy as they shared their self-fears and doubts, and talked to each other as never before about their marriage.
There was much weeping, but she stopped praying for a fatal disease to remove her from the battle.
They made it without a divorce, but many do not.
In fact, the number one cause of divorce all through history has been lust.
When I think of the people I have counseled with about divorce, the common factor in all of them is lust for another partner, and my reading confirms my experience.
This is not the only cause for divorce, but it is the primary cause.
It is no accident that Jesus deals with divorce immediately after the subject of lust.
They go together like love and marriage, the destructive duo-lust and divorce, and the constructive duo-love and marriage.
Which duo becomes the determining factor in your life largely depends on what you do with your sexual energy.
If someone tells you there is a fire in your house, you do not know if this is good or bad news until you know where the fire is.
If its in the furnace, the stove, or the fireplace, that is good and comforting news.
If it is on the roof, the floor, or the walls, that is bad news.
Fire in the right place provides the pleasure of warmth, but in the wrong place it destroys and brings pain.
The sex drive is just like fire.
Fire is not evil, but it is a power that has potential for good or evil.
It can save life or destroy life.
Such also is the fire of sex.
There is so much love and warmth in the world because of sex, but there is also so much sorrow and heartache because of it.
Sex controlled by love is one of life's greatest blessings.
Sex controlled by lust is one of life's greatest burdens.
Jesus, as the Creator of sex knows this better than anyone, and that is why the love versus lust issue is so vital to His whole teaching on divorce.
The Old Testament law allowed too much freedom to relate to women on the level of lust.
The law gave men a feeling that they were doing okay in their relationship to their wives if they treated them legally.
That is, if they divorced them, they gave them a certificate of divorce.
This was a great blessing to a divorced woman, for it gave her the freedom to go and remarry, and not be labeled as an adulteress.
Without that certificate the law demanded, she would become an outcast, and if not stoned, she likely would be forced to become a prostitute for survival.
This was a step up from the level where women were just sent packing when their husbands were tired of them.
Treating a wife legally was a higher level of righteousness than giving her no rights at all.
However, it was still far short from the ideal of treating her lovingly.
Jesus is calling men to a higher level of relating to their wives.
It is a level beyond the legal level to the level of love.
That is what this passage on divorce is all about, for you will observe that in these two verses Jesus condemns two men.
The man who divorces his wife for any cause other than being unfaithful, and the man who marries this innocent woman.
Here are two men not treating their women in love, but with lust and legalism.
This is a radical reversal of the Old Testament, and from the world perspective.
The focus of all condemnation before Christ came was not on the man, but on the woman.
In every nation the unfaithful wife was treated unmercifully, and almost always killed.
For men it was a different story.
Adultery did not mean the same thing for men.
If he took another wife or two, he was not being adulterous.
If he went to a prostitute, he was not being adulterous.
If he went into a single girl, he was not being adulterous.
The only way a man could be guilty was to violate the property rights of another man by laying with his wife.
You could not be guilty unless you hurt another man.
Violating any number of women was no problem.
Women were property and not persons of equality.
Their lives were regulated like property.
Cato the Roman wrote, "If you take your wife in adultery you may freely kill her without a trial.
But if you commit adultery, or if another commit adultery with you, she has no right to raise a finger against you."
The Jews were only slightly ahead of the pagan Gentiles in this respect.
Their wives were possessions.
They may have had to capture her in battle at the risk of their lives, or pay a large sum to acquire her.
She was his most costly possession.
Any threat to this prize was a great offense to men.
It was like someone throwing rocks at your new car.
The result was, the legal system developed almost entirely along the lines of protecting a man's rights and possessions.
The Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon decreed that a wife accused by her husband of being unfaithful had to take the water test.
She was thrown into the river, and if she drowned it proved she was guilty.
If she survived, she was innocent.
In reality all it proved was whether she could swim or not, but the point is, only a wife had to endure such a test.
The Old Testament has a test for accused wives as well.
In Num. 5 we read of how the priest was to mix dust from the floor of the sanctuary with water, and the accused woman was to drink it.
If she was innocent nothing would happen, but if she was guilty, her body would swell and give her away.
This test was based on well known psychosomatic facts that show that the guilty can produce the very effect that is feared.
Again, the test is only for wives.
There is no such test for men.
The double standard has been a part of both sacred and secular history.
Now Jesus comes along in this great sermon, and He says the good old days are over, for they were bad old days for women.
The double standard is done, and is no longer a level of righteousness acceptable in the kingdom of God.
Women are to be treated equally, and from now on they are to be treated lovingly.
Legalism is only a support for male lust, and that is what Jesus is attacking.
A husband may feel he is being a nice guy by giving his wife a certificate of divorce.
Jesus says, that may be the legal thing to do, but it is not the loving thing to do.
He says to this husband who is putting his wife away, that he is forcing her into adultery, if she has not already committed it.
He says the man is the cause of his wife committing adultery.
This was a shocking approach.
You are not suppose to blame the man.
But Jesus says that idea is obsolete, and now we go to the source of the problem, and stop dealing only with symptoms.
The real issue in adultery and divorce is the way a man treats his wife.
In our day, of course, it can also be how a wife treats her husband.
Jesus knew that the only reason a man usually wanted to divorce his wife, if she had not been unfaithful, was because he has lust for another woman.
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