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.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.13UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.62LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.49UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.93LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.78LIKELY
Extraversion
0.16UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.74LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.66LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Elijah and Elisha 15.
Can we please turn in our Bibles to James chapter 3 [P].
The message today is one which I am not qualified to preach.
There is a black pot up [P] here who has no right to speak to any kettles who may be present.
However, my name is in the newsletter; so here I am! [P] [James 3:1–12 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.
For we all stumble in many ways.
If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.
Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well.
Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.
So also, the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things.
See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!
And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.
For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race.
But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing.
My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?
Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs?
Nor can salt water produce fresh.]
I can remember being given this passage to write out in detention at school (several times) as punishment for giving someone lip, saying something that I shouldn’t have.
I always used to think that it was inappropriate: it said my tongue was uncontrollable, “no one can tame it”; and here they were punishing me for what I couldn’t control!
Why blame me?! My tongue got me in trouble.
And I have to confess that, still, bad words come out of my mouth.
I regret what I say; but once it is out, you cannot stuff it back in.
I am defiled by what I speak.
I can say a lot of good and fine things, but one bad word contaminates the lot.
I recall a bush walk at the Franz Joseph glacier; coming out of the bush you looked down on where two rivers joined.
One was fed from the glacier and was grey and muddy due to the rock-flour from the glacier; the other stream was fresh and clear from the mountain.
You could see the two streams meet – but the one river, made from the two joining, was grey and muddy.
The evil contaminates the good.
You don’t get fresh and foul water together – it is just foul.
And that is what they had in Jericho: [P] [2 Kings 2:19–25 Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold now, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad and the land is unfruitful.”
(the LORD looks for fruitfulness: “John 15:8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.”)
He said, “Bring me a new jar, and put salt in it.”
So, they brought it to him.
He went out to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says יהוה, there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer.’”
(It was the word of יהוה, not the salt that healed the waters) So the waters have been purified to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.
Then he went up from there to Bethel; [P] and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city [P] and mocked him and said to him, [P] “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
When he looked behind him and saw them, [P] he cursed them in the name of יהוה.
[P] Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.
[P] He went from there to Mount Carmel, [P] and from there he returned to Samaria.]
We have the story of a spring that was bad, undrinkable; it brought sterility, there was death in it.
James says that our tongue is like a spring.
[P] [Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.]
Do my words wound, bring forth life or death; do they destroy or build up?
Elijah told people to bring a new jar, unused, uncontaminated; and to put salt in it.
He threw the salt in the spring and He spoke the word of יהוה, a word of blessing; and the waters were purified.
It was from that time on – they continued to be pure, right to this day.
It wasn’t the salt that chemically put things right; that would soon have been diluted out of the flowing stream.
No, it was the action of God in response to obedience to what He said was to be done – it was “according to the word”.
The contaminated spring was healed by the word of blessing.
Then there is the story with a word of curse: this gang of young larakins who mocked the man of God.
What is the lesson in that?! To call down vengeance on those who insult us?! No, but again God acts.
He acts to vindicate and defend His man, His spokesman.
It was an unprovoked attack by these lads.
It was ad hominim: they had no valid criticism, they couldn’t fault Elisha’s doctrine, action, piety; they insulted his person – his baldness.
It was defiled speech.
[P] They did not know what they were doing!
The man of God is to be respected and honoured.
The lesson is: you do not go around slandering God’s servant!
There are dire consequences!
יהוה takes such insults personally and stands up for His own.
יהוה will judge severely those who speak against those whom He appoints.
Do you remember Miriam?
[Numbers 12:1–15 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman); and they said, “Has יהוה indeed spoken only through Moses?
Has He not spoken through us as well?” (they thought that Moses was exalting himself, they were just as good.
“Who did he think he was?”)
And יהוה heard it.
(Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)
Suddenly יהוה said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, “You three come out to the tent of meeting.”
So the three of them came out.
Then יהוה came down (God came down in person to vindicate His man!) in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam.
(I can remember being called to the principal’s office – if that made me tremble, imagine a summons by יהוה!)
When they had both come forward, He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, יהוה, shall make Myself known to him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream.
“Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of יהוה!
Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?”
So, the anger of יהוה burned against them and He departed.
But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow.
As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous.
Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned.
“Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!” Moses cried out to יהוה, saying, “O God, heal her, I pray!”
But יהוה said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days?
Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.”
So, Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again.]
The story is a strong warning against slander.
Speaking against those in authority, those in spiritual leadership over us, those through whom יהוה speaks.
And it is so easy to do!
You are at work; everyone is down on management.
We can all see where they have gone wrong and the dumb things they have done.
We could all do a better job than them and we are quick to join in the criticism; but God has placed them in authority over us!
They are to be respected.
God has placed men in leadership in our fellowship; they are to be honoured and respected.
These young men spoke against יהוה’s servant; and יהוה punished them severely for doing so.
Two stories that relate to the use of our tongue, to the way we speak.
Does anybody listen to Derek Prince on the radio?
He did a series entitled: “Does your tongue need healing?” [P] He relates how, in the second world war, when he was in the army as a medical orderly; there was this doctor who did the ward rounds.
He would go to each bed and say: “show me your tongue!” Doctors don’t make diagnoses by such means today, they need some numbers from a lab to know what is wrong.
But, apparently, this doctor judged the patients’ state of health by the condition of their tongue.
And it is that way with us: our tongue reveals what is in our heart!
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9