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
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Social Tone
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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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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A Jack-in-the-Box
Who didn’t have a Jack in the box as a kid?
The perfect toy for a toddler.
You can’t find them now unless it’s in a retro toy bin.
They’re all educational now.
Turn the crank, the music, you know what’s coming and the anticipation is gleeful.
Then it scares the stuffing out of the child and he has nightmares about clowns the rest of his life.
Kids learn right away this toy is about control.
Crank it fast, crank it slow, speed up, slow down, stop.
Whoever has the toy gets to turn the crank and get the clown.
If you take the toy from the toddler he no longer has control, you do.
There’s only 1 Jack in the house.
A toy like this brings hours of fun until you outgrow it and realize life is just not that simple to control.
Yet, we try, don’t we.
How many ways do we see in our lives that we put God in a box thinking we can control when He pops out, what He does, where He goes, and who gets to play with Him?
God cannot be put in a box; even a box that is important to Him.
He is not in the box, the box is not a god, and no one can control God by how they control the box.
Faith in God alone and a close walk w/ Him will result in God treating you well.
He respects the relationship.
You respect it, too.
No one likes to be manipulated or tried to control.
Ask you husband or you wife, parents, or anyone else close to you.
Israel has struggled w/ this over the years and it started early.
If you respect your relationship w/ God, worship Him alone, walk closely, listen well,
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What Happened?
Good Question!
“Why did the Lord bring defeat on us today?”
God is responsible.
It’s part of the promise.
But, it’s the conditional part of the promise.
The unconditional promise that goes back to Abraham is the land is theirs and they will be a numerous as the stars.
Both are true today.
The conditional part is if they live faithfully and obediently then they will be able to stay in the land, God will protect them, and the land will produce for them.
They got their tails kicked that day.
They are right to ask, “What happened?”
God, where are you.
Why did you let us lose so bad?
Why did you let that happen to us?
Good question!
What conclusion did they draw?
Wrong Answer!
Israel was wrong
They thought the reason they lost was b/c God wasn’t w/ them.
True.
Their conclusion was we need to go get the box (the Ark).
B/C, they thought, God was in the box.
He goes where the box goes.
Since they didn’t have the box, then God wasn’t w/ them.
So, when the box arrived they celebrated like God arrived.
They worked themselves into an emotional frenzy
The Philistines hear the noise from Israel and they draw their own wrong conclusions.
The Philistines were wrong
They had numerous gods.
And every god they worshiped had an image made of stone or wood.
They were used to the idea of worshiping an object.
A god itself.
Their conclusion was a god came to their camp.
The box itself was a god.
This was the god that brought the plagues on Egypt.
The box is the god.
They were afraid.
But, they attacked anyway.
And Israel suffered horrible losses.
Thousands killed.
Philistines captured the Ark.
They were so wrong but they still didn’t get it.
Israel mourned as if God had left them, b/c the box was gone.
The Philistines celebrated as if they had captured a god of Israel, b/c they had the box.
They were all wrong.
God is not in the Ark nor is the Ark a god itself.
But, the Ark is very important God and should be treated appropriately.
It’s an Important Box
1 Samuel 5:1
Due respect to the Ark
I don’t want to make too light of the Ark.
It was an ornate box that contained the the stone tablets.
Gold inlays, t/b carried only by priests.
Yes, a box.
But, symbolic of so much more.
The 10 commandments but also the circumstances surrounding Israel receiving them.
Delivered from Egypt.
Fundamental rules to guide them in the PL.
God fulfilling His promise to Abraham, through Moses, for the Nation.
The Ark was t/b kept in the inner room of the tabernacle where only the high priest could go only after he had dealt w/ his own sin.
Symbolic of the separation between a holy God and sinful man.
God graciously allowed something t/b done thru the priest giving the people the opportunity t/b close to God.
Creator of the universe.
Most powerful entity of all.
They were nothing.
God was everything.
He promised to love them and take care of them if only they would remain faithful and obedient.
And, they didn’t.
The people didn’t see it as the Ark of the covenant.
They saw it as a box.
A box that contained God.
Or, a box that was a god.
The box didn’t do it
The Philistines, symbolic of their military conquest, put the box in the same room of their temple as their main god, Dagon.
In the morning they found their powerful god in his own dwelling w/ his face in the dust in a posture of submission in front of the box.
They had to pick him.
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