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
0.16UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.48UNLIKELY
Fear
0.15UNLIKELY
Joy
0.46UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.43UNLIKELY
Confident
0.33UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.67LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.76LIKELY
Extraversion
0.05UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.24UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.77LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
| *The 'Before' Principle - Joshua 3 * | |
Written by Rick Ezell
Pastors’ EXTRA!
Sermon for Sunday, October 17, 2004
*Bible Study Connection*: Obedience to Jesus is essential to finding purpose and meaning in life.
Peter in Luke 4:42-5:11 understood this when he followed Jesus.
Likewise, Joshua came to understand the importance of obedience when he led the children of Israel into the promise land.
Both men found purpose in obedience.
This sermon will encourage the hearers to obedience and the resulting fulfillment and change in their lives.
----
*Introduction*: The following letter was found in a baking powder can wired to the handle of an old pump that offered the only hope of drinking water on a very long and seldom-used trail across the Amargosa Desert:
“This pump is all right as of June 1932.
I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years.
But the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed.
Under the white rock I buried a bottle of water, out of the sun and cork end up.
There’s enough water in it to prime the pump, but not if you drink some first.
Pour about one fourth and let her soak to wet the leather.
Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy.
You’ll git water.
The well has never run dry.
Have faith.
When you git watered up, fill the bottle and put it back like you found it for the next feller.”—Desert
Pete
“P.S. Don’t go drinking up the water first.
Prime the pump with it and you’ll get all you can hold.”
If you were a lonely traveler shuffling down that parched desert trail with your canteen bone dry, would you trust this guy, Desert Pete?
For all you know he is a lunatic.
What if it a mad hoax?
There are no guarantees to what he claims is true.
And what would motivate you to prime the pump with the water in the bottle, perhaps the only water available.
But you understand the fact that old pumps have to be primed.
It’s a gamble.
A risk.
An adventure.
What do you do?
This story illustrates an important principle: The principle of *before*.
The lonely traveler had to prime the pump before all the water flowed.
The before principle manifests itself in everyday life.
There are battles before victory.
There are struggles before celebration.
There are steps before arrivals.
There is practice before perfection.
There is preparation before completion.
There is matriculation before graduation.
Over and over in Scripture this pattern is repeated: The Israelites had to march to the Red Sea before God parted it.
Namaan had to wash seven times in the water before God cured him of leprosy.
Gideon had to reduce his army from 32,000 down to 300 before God would deliver them from the Midianities.
The loaves and fishes were given up before Jesus multiplied them.
Peter had to obey Jesus to row out to deep water before he caught a boatload of fish.
*1.
Crossing Jordan (v.
1)* \\ \\ But nowhere was this principle of before more evident than when Joshua was preparing to lead the Hebrews into the Promised Land.
After decades of wandering in the wilderness the children of Israel were perched on the banks of the Jordan ready to cross over.
In this narrative the words crossing over were used twenty-one times.
It marked a transition in their lives.
The crossing over required a new faith experience, the before principle applied, in order for them to occupy the new land God had waiting for them.
*A.
The obstacle that stood in their way.
(v.
1)*
One big obstacle stood in their way: the Jordan River, flowing north to south.
It stretches over 200 miles from Mount Hermon to the Dead Sea, furiously plummeting from several hundred feet above sea level to approximately 1300 feet below sea level.
Normally the Jordan is not difficult to cross.
I’ve stood on the banks of the Jordan.
It’s rather non-threatening.
It is narrow and shallow.
It’s a modest steam of water.
But when Joshua led the children of Israel to the Jordan it was spring.
The snows had melted on Mount Hermon.
The normally dry wadies that flowed into the Jordan were raging currents inundating the main river.
No longer mild and tame, the Jordan was a tempestuous, raging river at flood stage.
During the dry season, at its widest point, the Jordan was 100 feet wide, now it was over a mile wide.
The Israelites were at an impasse.
The children of Israel came to this raging, impassible river.
Like the lonely traveler on the Amaragosa desert trail spotting the water pump then reading the letter, their hopes were thwarted.
They were so close but so far away.
They were confronted with a test of faith.
The before principle would have to be applied.
*B.
The miracle that smoothed their way.
(v.
16)*
Yet here God performed a miracle that closely resembled the miracle at the Red Sea.
Why the similarity?
Except for Joshua and Caleb, the Hebrew people were one generation removed from the Red Sea deliverance.
This young core of people had only heard about the great escape from Pharaoh’s army.
They had not witnessed it.
They were not present.
So God did it again.
Just as he rolled back the waters of the Red Sea, he rolled back the waters of the Jordan River.
Just as the mothers and fathers walked across the bottom of the Red Sea on dry land, so too did their sons and daughters walk across the dry riverbed of the Jordan River.
Did they need a miracle before they believed they could conquer the land?
Did they need to see God’s power demonstrated before they recognized him as the living God? Did they need a new story of escape to tell their children before they had the courage to battle the giants in the land of Canaan?
The Hebrews experienced a miracle.
They witnessed the visible demonstration of God’s power.
They knew that the living God was among them.
It was a great day of victory and celebration and arrival.
It was an experience they would tell again and again.
Before the Hebrews experienced the miracle, witnessed the power, and saw the hand of God, there were requirements.
They had to prime the pump.
In other words, the people would experience the power of God, but they had to take the first step.
The Hebrew children had to wait, to consecrate, and to take a step of faith before God showed up.
*2.
Before You Get Up and Go (v.
2-15)*
So do we.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9