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.
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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(NIV)
5 This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Introduction
The last several weeks have been a good reminder of what Winter in Wisconsin can be like.
Subzero temperatures, record low wind chills, record amounts of snow for the month of February.
If we had our choice, most of us would prefer to live in a climate where it is 72 and sunny with light breezes during the day, low humidity, and what rain came would be at night when we are sleeping in our comfortable beds.
No wonder so many people travel to locations that have such weather during this time of year.
What other good things do we want?
Meaningful jobs.
Healthy bodies.
Equipment that doesn’t break down.
A good selection of entertainment.
Financial success.
Championship teams.
We want to be healthy, wealthy, and wise and where everything is going our way.
And that is God’s promise to us.
Note how he promises wonderful future blessings to us.
Sometimes, we think that we are entitled to all of those blessings while still on earth.
(passages on the blessings of heaven)
Sometimes, we think that we are entitled to all of those blessings while still on earth.
True.
God does indeed bless us in rich and abundant ways.
One of the hymn texts that I disagree with is . . .
“Earth is a dessert drear, heaven is my home.
Danger and sorrow stand, Round me on ev’ry hand.”
Earth is not devoid of beauty and grandeur.
We aren’t in danger all the time.
I would say we live in one of the safest places in the country.
Last October a friend of mine, former missionary Mark Wendland preached at the joint mission festival in Marshfield.
He spent some of his young life in Africa and served there as a missionary as well.
He lived in a gated compound with armed security guards.
He told the story of how he was carjacked and the people who did had murdered others.
I’ve lived in Milwaukee and if your doors weren’t locked even though you were home in the daytime, you could have (and many did) have unwelcome visitors who just walked in and took items from your home.
Sometimes I get a call from ADT offering an alarm system for the parsonage.
I don’t think it is necessary.
(But I do keep the doors locked even when home.)
And so we have a contrast.
We can see in our world some very good things, but we are also aware of things that are not so good.
And although we look forward to the blessings of heaven and are blessed by the Lord while on earth, we must also realize that bad things do happen to good people.
In our text the Lord says that even for those who trust in him, the heat will come and so will the year of drought.
The book of Job overplays this.
We can think of many difficulties God’s people faced historically as well as individually.
Recall St. Paul’s summary of his missionary work.
The point is not whether or not we will experience trouble, the point is in whom or what do we trust when that trouble comes.
The point is not whether or not we will experience trouble, the point is in whom or what do we trust when that trouble comes.
Choice.
Trust in Man (cursed)
Our text begins with a condemnation of those who trust in man.
The Israelites are cursed for not putting their trust in the Lord during a time of impending national turmoil.
Israel was a relatively small country sandwiched between the superpower of Egypt to the west and Assyria (later Babylon, Greece, Rome) to the east.
Even today those who live in Israel do not have the military strength to stand alone against her enemies but rely on outside forces to protect them.
But even though Israel was small, they had a special relationship with God and he promised them that if they obeyed his commands (feared, loved, and trusted in him above all things), he would grant them success.
The bible history teaches us that when Israel did trust in the Lord, she was successful.
This is emphasize their conflict with Egypt during Moses, the period of the Judges, and during the reigns of the Kings.
But when they turned away from the Lord to other God, disaster came to Israel in many ways.
At this time, the Lord was about to bring disaster on them for forsaking him.
This would come at the hands of the Babylonians.
The northern tribes had already succumbed to Assyria.
But instead of returning to the Lord, the leaders in Judah trusted in Egypt.
The Lord warns what would happen to them.
History tells us that this did happen.
In contrast, Jeremiah promises blessings if they do trust in the Lord.
Trust in Lord (blessed)
Application: Trouble will come into your life.
When it does, trust in the Lord.
Application: Trouble will come into your life.
When it does, trust in the Lord.
And if that trouble is a discipline from the Lord for sinful activity on your part, don’t be like the people of Judah who continued in sin and looked for a different way out.
Repent and turn to the Lord and trust in him for forgiveness and deliverance from trouble.
“He who did not spare his own son, how will he not along with him graciously give us all thing?”
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