Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Conscientiousness
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Tone of specific sentences
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| *Being Forgiven \\ * |
| A Pocket Paper \\ from \\ The Donelson Fellowship \\ *______________Robert J. Morgan \\ *Robert J. Morgan \\ ----
*The frustrating thing* about time is that is always moves forward.
There is no "R" on the stickshift, no reverse in the gears.
Time never moves backward, not an inch, not an step, never.
The hands of the clock always move clockwise, and the pages of the calendar are torn off in only one direction.
Therefore a deed once done can never be undone.
A word once spoken can never be unsaid.
An opportunity missed can not be reclaimed in exactly the same way.
As a result, all of us live with certain regrets.
I read of a family concerned about a sister, Janet, who was depressed.
They were afraid she was considering suicide, and they wanted to stop her if they could.
They continually called her, dropped in on her, and drove by her house.
One day when they saw her car running in the driveway, they stopped to check on her.
There was Janet sitting in the automobile with the windows rolled up and a hose leading from the tailpipe into the car.
They pulled her out, revived her, took her into the house and discussed what to do.
Should they call the police or take her to the emergency room?
Janet assured them she was fine, that she would not try anything else that night.
She said that she just wanted to get some sleep.
They took her car keys and the hose and left.
But Janet had a spare set of keys and another hose.
The next morning, her neighbors found her in the car dead.
The members of her family knew they had made a terrible mistake, and the level of regret and guilt they felt nearly ruined their lives.
There was another troubled young person named Joshua.
He and his father fought often and one day had a bitter confrontation.
Joshua screamed at his dad, told him where to go, told him he hated him, and stormed from the house.
The father, stunned, poured himself a drink, then another.
Later that evening, he keeled over with a heart attack and died.
Joshua spent years hating himself for the words he spoke to his father at that final, fatal meeting.
A lady came to me some time ago, saying, "I have lived with something for many years, and it has ruined my life."
"What is it?"
I asked.
"I killed my children," she said.
"I killed four of them, and I can no longer live with the guilt."
I was stunned.
I said, "Tell me about it."
"I was sexually immoral in college," she said, "and on four occasions I became pregnant and had abortions.
But I can no longer live with the guilt of having stopped those tiny beating hearts."
David Seamands tells of a young man with serious trouble getting along with other people, especially with his wife.
She was attractive, warm, affectionate, and loving.
But he continually criticized her and blamed her for one thing after another.
He was equally harsh with other people.
His relationships with friends deteriorated, and his marriage unraveled.
Finally while seeing a Christian counselor, he slowly began to open up and admit the truth.
While serving in the armed forces in Korea, he had spent two weeks of R and R in Japan.
During that leave, walking the streets of Tokyo feeling empty, lonely, and terribly homesick, he had fallen into temptation and had gone several times to a prostitute.
He returned home and married his fiancee who had awaited faithfully for him.
He had never been able to forgive himself, and the guilt had turned him into a harsh, impatient man.
The Psalmist David once said, "My guilt has overwhelmed me, like a burden too heavy to bear.
My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly" (Psalm 38:4-5).
But there's an even deeper problem.
Not only do we bear the regret for specific wrongs we've committed, we bear the guilt of a sinful nature that is, at its heart, in rebellion against God.
Our acts of disobedience are simply shoots of sinfulness that spring up from the roots of a fallen nature.
Romans 3 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one...
All have turned away...
The whole world (is) accountable to God...
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
And all the world is seeking ways to deal with its guilt.
How do we fight this spiritual cancer that feeds on our souls?
How do we sooth a guilty conscience?
Many people deal with guilt by *drowning it.*
Some drown it in alcohol and drug abuse.
I read the other day that marijuana use among teenagers increased 37% between 1994 and 1995.
The use of LSD and other hallucinogens was up 54%.
And the use of cocaine increased by 166%.
I also read that over 14,000,000 Americans are in 12-step programs.
Why are Americans drinking and drugging themselves to death?
Part of the reason is that we're trying to escape ourselves and drown the pangs of our own guilt.
I read recently a sad article about Marlon Brando.
He once was young, trim, handsome, and famous.
A million girls dreamed of having him.
But now his weighs over 400 pounds and he told someone, "I'm sorry for all the harm I've done and for all the troubles I've brought to others in my life.
I've never been a good parent or a good husband.
I've been too busy with my own life to have time for others.
Now I'm a guilty old man who's ashamed of the kind of life I've led.
There's nothing left for me except eating."
Other people deal with guilt by *denying it.*
As our society has become increasingly secular, it has lost respect for the authority of the Word of God, and that has led to a dangerous and destructive moral and spiritual chain reaction.
If there is no authoritative Word of God, then there are no moral absolutes.
If there are no moral absolutes, there is no ultimate standards of right and wrong.
If there are no ultimate standards of right and wrong, then we can base our rules and standards on societal consensus.
If we base our rules on societal consensus, then we can adjust them to our own shape and size.
We can adjust them downward.
We can live any way we want to, and there is no such thing as genuine guilt before God.
Guilt is just a nagging relic of Puritanism, a Victorian antique, a psychosis to be denied.
I checked into a Holiday Inn in Dallas a few weeks ago to discover the hotel was hosting a convention of transvestites.
The lobby was filled with men dressed in tight skirts and high heels and towering wigs.
They were cuddling up with one another and giving each other makeovers.
They were proud of being "out of the closet."
Their consciences were seared, and they denied having anything about which to feel guilty.
This is the way God made us, some of them claimed, and why should we not be proud of it?
Some people deal with guilt by *deflecting it.*
They blame other people for their failures and faults and shortcoming.
They blame their parents or their environments.
This techniques goes all the way back to the garden of Eden when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.
But sooner or later, all these techniques fail, and we find we can't escape the consequences of our own sinfulness and guilt.
Jeremiah 2:22 says, "'Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is before me,' declares the Sovereign Lord."
Guilt is the corrosion of the soul.
How can we get rid of it?
We can't drown it, deny it, or deflect it.
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