Sermon Tone Analysis

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By Pastor Glenn Pease
Gilbert a Becket was a crusader who was captured and made a slave.
The tyrant who enslaved him had a daughter who took pity on him, and that pity ripened into love.
At the risk of her own life she helped him escape.
He solemnly vowed to send for her when he got safely back to England.
But when he got home he became so absorbed in other plans that he forgot the love of the one who had set him free.
He owed his life to her, but she was far away, and what was near dominated his life.
She was still driven by her love for him, however, and so she sold all of her jewelry and came to England on her own.
When Gilbert saw her and embraced her he repented of his neglect.
In her presence he could no longer go the way of rejecting her love.
He reversed his plans to marry a wealthy English woman, and he took her to be his wife instead.
It never would have happened in her absence.
Only her presence rekindled his love and restored their relationship.
"Absence makes the heart grow founder for somebody else," is a true saying, and it is true not only in the romantic realm, but in the religious realm as well.
The sense of God's absence is the cause for all of the falls, failures, and follies of man.
but the sense of God's presence is the cause for all of man's virtues, values, and victories.
When man is aware of God's presence there is adoration, and all rivals are abhorred, but when man loses that awareness God is ignored and other values are explored.
When Israel lost its awareness of the presence of God, the presence of God was actually removed, and the temple was destroyed where they could meet with God.
When God entered history in the presence of His Son, the leaders of Israel were not aware that this was the day of their visitation.
God was present in their midst, but they rejected Him and crucified Him.
Jesus prayed for their forgiveness, for He knew they were so unaware of the presence of God that they did not know it was God they were rejecting.
Nothing is more lethal than unawareness.
When man loses a sense of God's presence there is no evil they are incapable of committing.
Every sin that a child of God has ever committed could have been prevented by the awareness of God's presence.
The Jews have recognized the importance of God's presence all through history, and so they have developed rituals that stress it.
In The Bar mitzvah Treasury I read of how David Hirsch believed the Rabbi who taught him that when the congregation bowed in prayer the Shechinah itself-the very spirit and presence of God-appeared on the altar.
If anyone looked up with one eye that eye would be blinded, and if one looked up with both eyes God would strike him dead.
No one could look on the form of God and live.
Even Moses had to look at God's back.
You can imagine the enormous tension in a young person as they prayed.
He longed so to look up and see God, but he did not want to be blind, or to die.
There was a terrific battle in his mind, but one day he lost control and lifted one eye to look, and to his shock there was no glory to blind him.
The rest of the story is about his loss of faith and rebellion because of the loss of even the illusion of God's presence.
The Jews know they need the presence of God and they are willing to deceive in order to get it, but such a presence is a fiction.
The Christian, however, who has the promise of Christ's presence can be so unaware of it that they also develop a pretend presence with form and rituals that becomes empty and equally powerless.
The great need of any child of God is an authentic experience of the presence of Christ.
An unknown poet wrote-
Of all the prizes
That earth can give,
This is the best:
To find thee, Lord,
A living Presence near
An in thee rest!
Friends, fortune, fame,
Or what might come to me-
I count all loss
If I find not
Companionship
With thee!
Jesus said He would send the Comforter to abide with us forever.
The name means the one called beside, and so the idea of companionship is very appropriate.
The relationship of God and man is to be a companionship.
We cannot be content with the saying, "God's in His heaven-all is right with the world."
It is not all right.
It is a world of fearful things, and we need to be able to say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
We need to hear the divine companion promise-
"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."
God the Father has promised His presence in our lives.
God the Son has vowed to be ever with us, and the Holy Spirit makes our heart His temple, and so is ever near.
Why then are we so often unaware of God's presence?
Could it be that Harry Kemp is right in his poem called Blind?
The spring blew trumpets of color.
Her green sang in my brain.
I heard a blind man groping,
Tap-tap with his cane.
I pitied him his blindness,
But can I say I see?
Perhaps their walks close by a
Spirit that pities me.
A spirit that sees me taping the
Five-sensed cane of time
Amid such unguessed glories
The I am worse than blind.
Jesus loved to make the blind to see, and our prayer needs to be, "Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus."
The key to this prayer being answered is for us to develop a spirit of praise.
David was a leader in developing the worship of Israel, and one of the primary characteristics of the worship he developed was praise.
He made it the heart of worship, for praise opens the eyes to God's presence.
Praise involves the intellect as we think of God's majesty, and the marvels of what He has made.
Praise involves the emotions as we feel the grace and mercy of God in our lives, and as we are filled with joy.
Praise involves the will as we choose to fulfill our purpose for being, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Praise gets our whole being involved in God's whole being.
The subject of praise is so vast that when you study it you feel like you are mining a mountain of gold with a spoon.
There is no way to get the job done.
But as marvelous as it is there are problems with it, and maybe some of you have the same hindrance to praise as C. S. Lewis did.
In his Reflections On The Psalms Lewis wrote, "When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should praise God: Still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it.
We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtues, intelligence or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratifies that demand.
Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and of His worshipers, threatened to appear in my mind."
As Lewis gave deeper thought to the matter he discovered that men by nature praise all that they value and enjoy.
They praise their leaders, their team, their nation, their friends, their favorite TV programs and their favorite anything or anyone.
Life is full of praise, for that is how men communicate their values and their loves.
Where there is no praise there is no love.
Where is love there will be praise.
Songs of praise revolve around man's love for the opposite sex, and for God, for these are his two strongest loves.
St. Augustine said many centuries ago, "Singing comes from joy, but if we observe more carefully, it comes from love, you want to sing about what you love."
Praise is a happy love song.
It is a rejoicing because God is present and our relationship is one of love and enjoyment.
Praise is itself a part of the enjoyment of God, and it is often the pathway by which we enter God's presence.
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