Sermon Tone Analysis

*The end of the road…the start to the journey!*

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*                        (A sermon on Isaiah 40: Corrie Nel on **7 August 2005**)*

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*                        Scripture **Reading**: *

*                                    Isaiah 40: 20-31; *

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*(Welcome):   *

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*            Good evening everyone.

I hope you are all feeling very welcome…*

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*The end of the road?*

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*Congregation, brothers and sisters, when was the worst moment of your life.

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*I mean a really hopeless moment – a moment so black that you may have cried out: “This is the end of the road!”*

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*Do you recall such a moment?*

*Are you perhaps experiencing such a moment?*

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*It is difficult of course to conjure up such a moment here in church on a lovely winter’s morning, surrounded by loved ones and fellow Christians.*

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*But what I am asking is that we try and remember that worst moment, that moment when we felt no one could help us now, moment when we were deserted by friends and family, a moment when we felt deserted, maybe, even by God himself!*

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*Or**, if by God’s grace you have no recollection of such a dreadful moment, do you recall a moment when you witnessed such a dark day in someone else’s life?*

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*In the late seventies, I worked as the assistant to a chaplain, Major Scott, in the South African Prison Services system.

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*Our job - well, his job mainly; I was but a lowly warden - was to “Spiritually Care” for prisoners who had received the death penalty.

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*When I recall those days, in my mind I still seem to distinguish between two phases in our work among the prisoners on death row.

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*And** I was remined of this strange working of my mind while I was preparing this sermon.*

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*The first phase was the months of contact with a prisoner before he – or she -  would be told the exact date they would be executed.

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*Strangely, these were always days of hope!*

*And** hope, is, of course, faith….

so they were also days of great faith.

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*For the prisoners, specifically, the days before being told the actual day they would be executed, were days of hope and faith, for all that remained for them was hope! *

*So often such a prisoner would say “…while one is alive, there is hope.”

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*And** this hope, their very faith in this time was tangible *

*… until they “were told”.*

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*Have you been told** yet?

One would ask?*

*That is how it was referred to when the prisoner was informed of the exact day and hour he would walk to the gallows –** he “was told”!*

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*And then** the second phase started and the character of the Spiritual Care we would try to offer, would change.

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*For now we were no longer dealing with a prisoner on death row, we were dealing with a man or a woman who would not live past a known date and even a hour.

We were, in fact, talking to a dead man.

Now all hope of a life on earth, was over for that person.*

*For him, or her, they had truly reached the end of the road.*

*No living person, not their father or brother or best friend or all together could stop the course that would soon follow.*

*And** ironically, it was here, at this point of many a person’s journey, the end of their earthly journey, that we often saw faith in its most visible, most profound, most honest form.

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*This person had no reason any longer to feign his faith.

It was then past the point where a false show of regret would score any points with a judge or a jury; that moment was past the point where a confession in a new found faith held in it the possibility of a reprieve.

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*When one confesses your faith with a noose around your neck, I believe you have come to a wisdom and a faith beyond the understanding of those who so easily shift their trust to things material, to things or people we believe we can control or which can control God’s earth.*

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*For these prisoners, they have reached the end of the road, but their journey is about to begin.*

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*was But all too soon those months would turn into weeks and weeks would turn into days – and the worst part is no-one knew exactly when the prisoner’s time would run out -  *

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*Have we reached the end of the road in our faith*

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*How desperately hopeless has the news been again this past few weeks*

*Who can we count on to bring us peace; hope; *

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*Bombs in **Egypt** and **London*

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*The life support system of the woman allegedly murdered by her husband and his lover,*

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*How glum the Israelites*

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*But** Isaiah is foretelling*

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*Israel** have sinned – what was their main sin*

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* (examples of Abraham Isaac Jacob)*

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*            The Israeliets will be banished, they will suffer*

*                        But they will be delivered and they will return to favour with God*

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*And** it is during their banishment that they will reconsider*

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*This pattern is evident in all of the minor prophets: *

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*Be comforted oh Cornelius*

*Be comforted Oh Ali*

*Be comforted Oh Wally*

*Be comforted oh teenager; pensioner; you who are ill; you who are lonely*

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*Be comforted*

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*The time of restitution is past and your sins have been payed fro twice over be comforted*

*And** hope!*

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*The Lord did not let go when **Israel**  found** themselves in times of trouble.

It is by His command that they are exiled; but it is by His command that they are reconstituted.*

*In both the Lord God is in control, fully aware of every hair on every head, of every level of suffereing.*

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*God does not go back on His word to be  God.

He does everything in His power to remind us.

To strengthen us, to be covenant commiters *

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*The big plan ( a moment in history – Alexander the Great and the greek language)*

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*The so called silent years – bah – hey are loud years.

It is just a matter of only later, much later that mankinbd heard the noise, the buzz, and the buzz was saying – truly He was the son of God*

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*And** here we are this morning in August 2005.*

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*Can we see the bigger picture; can we see God’s plan; can we here the clammer …or have we grown blind and deaf because we have lost our hope, our very faith.

Do we need to follow in the footsteps of the Israelites all the way into banishment before we see the error of our ways, our sinfulness (remember – the main sin we can commit is to be self-reliant; to become our own means towards our own ends; to want to step in when God does not plan this world our way, but His way, and His way seemingly not being all about me!*

*May I ask you, just as one example  – and as I ask you the question please know and believe that as I search my own conscious on this first – have you when the budget just woudn’t balance, have you found yourself at the local news agency, or tattersall, buying a lottery ticket or the putting that bit of spare change on the horse that just can’t lose?**

And when you did, did youin your mind start spending the 9million dollars as if you had already won it.

After all, won’t $9-million solve all your troubles?*

*Will it*

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*When cancer strikes you down, will the money help?*

*When you loose a child to drug addiction, will your money help?*

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*When I am week, I am strong*

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*When I am lost, I am found,*

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*When I realise I cannot  trust myself, I grow in trust in the Lord and as Paul says, God’s grace is all I need *

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*Look forward*

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*And** go out and comfort you those who are still in exile so that they may know they too will be delivered.*

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*Remind them of God’s commitment and remind them of the awesome history, of God’s ultimate act of love (not to mention even the many acts of rescue along the way….*

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*I have discovered a message 200o plus years old*

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*Isaiah is bringing us a message too,*

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*By the questions we ask God, we have become devils testing God, expecting miracles for our own purpose*

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*Lord, let the Springboks beat the wallabies; just this once then I will go to Church on Sunday!*

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*God knows better.

God knew that the Israelites would learn from their banishment.

Their banishment and their return from exile was part of the plan.

He knew they would reconsider their ways and they did and God was happy that they did.

His plan was on track, not back on track, for mankind cannot scuttle God’s plans, they can but experience God’s plan, be part of God’s plan, yes and no*

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*Yes’ God’s plan is that **Israel** will return, that from their return will rise a clan from which will rise the house of David, from which will rise Herod etc etc.*

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*No, we do not know the specifics.

We do not know who will be ill or healthy, rich or poor, rich today porr tomorrow, healthy today, sick or dear tomorrow.

But we know that we are part God’s plan and that knowledge will give us as the television ad goes, wings!*

*Or**, for a far more trustworthy medium, a faultless, honest, pure saurce, the Bible – we will walk and walk and not grow tired   *