Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Fear
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Analytical
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Confident
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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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Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
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Luke
The true emphasis is not on the sons, but on the father.
It is an unveiling of the heart of God.
The central truth of the parable is the picture of the heavenly Father's heart of love toward undeserving sinners.
The true emphasis is not on the sons, but on the father.
It is an unveiling of the heart of God.
The central truth of the parable is the picture of the heavenly Father's heart of love toward undeserving sinners.
The younger son exploded in rebellion.
He knew what he wanted.
His desires led him to gamble all in getting what God condemned.
He loved sin.
It promised satisfaction to appetite and ambitions.
Lured him by its promises.
Its fascinations hypnotized him.
He had his fling.
He rebels against the father.
He shows that he is dissatisfied with his father's provision, his father's restrictions, and his father's guidance.
It was different with the elder son.
He liked it at home.
Not that he loved his father.
Like the rest of us, he wanted to have his own way.
He thought he was smart enough to manage his father and to get out of him what he wanted.
He loved himself too much to be interested in pleasing anybody but himself.
Pride born of self-conceit was his guiding star.
These are good pictures of sinful man - victimized by sin, deluded and deceived by sin, rebelling against the loving restraint of Father.
This is also a great picture of a loving God who patiently and lovingly waits for the return of the prodigal.
My contention is that this story represents two wayward sons.
They were not slaves, not servants, but sons.
It is our story!
I.
The far country was not measured by distance
Anywhere a man is away from God
A world without God or forgetful of God
Wherever you are not in fellowship with God your life is a far country.
You do not belong there.
They both sought to please themselves -- that is essence of far country.
Listen to the descriptive phrases of these two prodigals:
Younger: "He said, Father give me…" vs. 12
He gathered all he had and traveled to distant country: vs. 13
He squandered his estate in foolish living: vs. 13
He spent everything: vs. 14
A severe famine struck: vs. 14
He had nothing: vs. 14
He went to work ... to feed pigs: vs. 15
He longed to eat his fill from the carob pods the pigs were eating: vs. 16
No one would give him any: vs. 16
Older:
He became angry: vs. 28
He did not want to go in: vs. 18
His father pleaded with him: vs. 29
He replied to his father, I have been slaving ... I never disobeyed your orders ... yet you never gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends: vs. 29
This son of yours (not my brother ... your son!): vs.30
Has devoured your assets with prostitutes: vs. 31
We have all been prodigal of the Father's gifts.
We have all received of Him; yet we have lived as though Christ had never died, we have lived with self at the center, away from the compassionate loving heart and home of the Father.
II.
The far country has many roads
Notice the two roads revealed these two sons took.
The Departure of the younger: vs. 12-13
Here is a type whose lostness is obvious.
It is obvious to the son and to others.
He is not at home; he is in the far country.
He is not a worker; he is a waster.
He is not lifting up; he is dragging down.
He is not creating; he is destroying.
Why did this young fellow go into the far country?
One reason.
He went away because he was seeking to please himself.
He was so intent on pleasing himself that he had no thought for any loss or pain that might come to himself or to anyone else.
Self-pleasing, then, is the very essence of sin.
Now, self-pleasing is expensive.
Nothing can be more so.
He who is bent on pleasing himself is doomed to pay a terrible price.
If self-pleasing is my god, it will hurt me.
It will also hurt others.
No man ever sinned without wounding somebody else.
It cost him the fellowship of his father, and all the joys of home.
It cost him his freedom.
What tragic irony!
For it was his freedom that he went out to seek.
"Give me!" he said to his father in the hour of his self-will.
When his heart was broken, he said, "Make me!"
It cost him the doing of a mean and sordid task.
To the Jew, what a humiliation!
It cost him is very all.
The story says that he spent all that he had.
The Demise of the younger: vs. 14-16
First, when he reached the far country, what did he do?
"He wasted his substance with riotous living."
The word riotous means without saving.
He took the gifts his father bestowed on him, and spent them in the far country, without making provision for leaner days and the ultimate needs of life.
What did he waste?
"His substance."
He had come into possession of gifts from his father.
So man is seen here going out from God to waste his substance, "God's substance.
He joined himself to a citizen, and what will the citizen do?
Send him into his fields to feed swine.
He prolonged his degradation; indeed, he deepened his degradation.
"No man gave unto him."
Their only interest in him was that as a machine for feeding their pigs.
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