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
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.6LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.89LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.01UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.72LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.45UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.57LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.46UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Why Be Good?
Long before it’s time, the cousin to the prosperity gospel, the therapeutic gospel asks — “If I am good, will God bless me?”
To which it answers — “Yes, He will!”
Unlike the previous two speeches, this one is solely addressed to Job.
But like the other two, Elihu begins by summarizing something Job said in verses 2-4 before giving him an answer.
Elihu’s answer has two parts, the first in verses 5-8 and the second in verses 9-16.
Here is how this speech is made up.
The Question — What’s the point of being good?
The First Answer — It’s the Wrong Question to ask.
The Second Answer — Don’t Expect an Answer
Let’s examine each.
The Question — Why be Good?
The key question is found in verse 3.
This is a quotation of Job’s words in .
Elihu already used this in the previous chapter.
Now he takes this issue and makes it the focus of this speech.
Job’s question is his objection as well.
“If I take the trouble to live a godly life, what is the point if, despite my virtue, I experience such terrible suffering?”
Now, remember what was said of Job:
— he was “blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.”
— “This was the greatest of all the people of the earth.”
Look what Job would do.
Job 1:
And it was God who said of Job twice: Job is “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil.”
So, you can see why Job asks the question: “Why be good?”
It has done me no good.
And here’s the question for us:
Why should we do good?
Elihu answers Job, but he doesn’t do it by sympathetically putting his arm around him.
This is a strong rebuke.
Answer 1 — You’re asking the wrong question.
He gives him an illustrative exhortation:
What does this do?
What’s the point?
Think about the transcendence of God and how His dwelling place is beyond your reach.
He is above you, Job — far above you!”
God live above and beyond this world of human mortals.
Nothing you can do on earth will change what happens up there.
You can hate and lie or be generous and loving, and nothing in the heavens changes.
It remains as it was and is.
You won’t affect the realm of God.
And look at verse 6:
Negatively, your sin doesn’t harm God, nor does it affect God in the slightest.
Positively,
God is in His very nature and eternal blessedness — impassible and immutable, unchangeably the same.
Your sin and your righteousness can only affect your fellow human beings.
That’s verse 8:
What is the point here?
Elihu is not suggesting that God doesn’t care how Job or you and I behave.
Clearly our actions have moral and spiritual significance.
But what he is saying is that since we cannot affect the blessedness of God by our actions, there is no way we should expect to gain any kind of leverage with God.
We can’t say, “If I stop sinning, I expect you’ll feel happier and reward me.”
Therefore to ask:
Why be good?
It’s actually the wrong question.
Because it shows we have not properly understood the transcendence of God — that He is impassible and immutable.
That means we cannot harm Him or cause Him to change.
Now Elihu is very blunt in his first answer.
And the second is even more uncomfortable.
Answer 2 — Don’t expect an Answer
Here Elihu describes a nonspecific situation.
It’s application to Job becomes clear in verses 14-16.
Here’s the situation he describes:
People all over the world are oppressed, and the oppressed “cry out” and they call for help.
(verse 9)
Why doesn’t God do something about it?
This is the question of the sceptic, the atheist, the secularist:
If there’s a God, then why is there evil in this world?
Why has God done something about it all?
And the answer is in verse 10 --
They don’t call out to God!
The question: “Where is God my Maker?” is not asking for information, but expresses a heart that longs for God.
Look at the the answer in totality:
Where is God my Maker?
This professes God as Creator.
Who provides us with songs in the night?
This assumes all gifts come from the Lord of the universe, not ourselves.
Who gives us more understanding and wisdom?
We are not wise because of our education or science or our rulers or we’re so smart.
Wisdom comes from God. Understanding comes from God.
The problem is that while people cry out, they do not pray.
Their cry is one of anguish, not one of faith in God.
They don’t pray and God does not answer.
Why don’t people cry out to God in faith?
Verse 12 — Because they are proud.
Their cry is empty, verse 13, empty means deceitful and worthless.
Their cry comes from an unbelieving heart.
And that God does not answer.
Isn’t this uncomfortable?
It gets much more uncomfortable when he homes in on Job.
Wouldn’t this make you uncomfortable, if he then turned to you and said:
“How much less when you complain?”
Job complained that he cannot see God, that his case is before God, and he is just waiting and waiting for God to hear his case.
That’s verse 14.
God doesn’t punish evildoers and seems not to notice transgression at all.
(vs15)But Job’s problem is that his talk about God is “empty” just like the empty crying of the people described in verses 9-13.
What does all this mean?
What is Elihu saying to Job?
Job cannot expect to hear from God when Job is saying all these outrageous and impious things about God.
You cannot expect God to answer you when you look at God as being like you.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9