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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Confident
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Tentative
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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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My Fort, Dad’s Table
Dad gave me the table.
Dad gave me the fort.
And I asked, but Dad told me not to use the table on the fort.
I used it on the fort.
And it rained.
The cycle continues: Israel returns to idolatry and God again delivers them to foreign oppression.
Even as God convicts Israel of their sin, he is raising up their deliverer.
Even as God speaks to Gideon in his ignorance and cowardice, God declares what Gideon will be.
And so, to a young man hiding in a hole He says “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
This is pure gospel:
We are more sinful than we ever knew; more loved than we ever dreamed possible.
Dad told me not to use the table on the fort.
I used it on the fort.
And it rained.
And I was a bit nervous for my Dad to discover it, because I knew I had done wrong.
And then he discovered it.
And it was bad!
It was SO much worse.
There was a reason my Dad was careful with that table.
It was His Dad’s table, his Dad, Grampa Mackintosh, had designed and made that table.
It was in his bedroom growing up.
It was so much worse than I knew.
My Dad just walked away… and down the street… and was gone for an endless time.
You will notice that my Dad isn’t hear today, he was still too upset about that table.
Inevitability of sin? Hopeless?
Where are the heroes of faith like in the days of the Judges?
You will notice that my Dad isn’t hear today, he was still too upset about that table.
Echoes exactly Gideon’s question.
Christianity is about sin and feeling bad about who you are.
God says “You’re bad and I told you so.”
That is the second most upset I have ever seen my father.
(The first was my sister’s fault).
God is love and isn’t it just all about love and acceptance?
God says “You’re Great!”
I didn’t know how bad that would be.
And that’s just the worse thing I remember!
My Dad maybe could add to the list of my misdeeds.
Jono keeps a numbered set of journals.
Jono’s log: day 334… Dusty oppressed me again today!
(He has forgiven much).
Don’t you just love that feeling of discovering that you have done something inexcusably wrong?
Or you knew it was wrong, but now you feel the weight of having truly wounded and hurt someone with your actions.
God, if you knew me… you wouldn’t choose me.
Praying for nominations over these next two months.
When someone thinks you’re great… they are going to discover that you’re not.
The fear of that… (fully known, fully loved).
Back Into Sin
Guess what guys?
After the glorious victory with Deborah and Barak and Ja’el, after the land had rest for 40 years (does that number sound significant?) the Israel’s are back doing what they do best!
Back into sin, back into oppression.
Judges 6:1-
The Midianites were a people they had previously destroyed, they killed every male back under Moses’ leadership (200 years before).
But they would come with uncountable number (like locusts), riding camels and just raiding and pillaging the land, taking everything.
They don’t realize their mortal perillous distance from God just because they are distant from God… until that is translated into temporal peril.
They have cut themselves off from true life and food and Home, but it isn’t until that becomes physical life and food and Home stolen before their eyes, that is when they cry out to God.
That sounds like me.
I Told You So
And God sends a prophet to make sure they know the reason.
They are bad and they should feel bad!
Judges:
Fully known.
He knows their sin.
They don’t know their sin, but He knows it fully.
He points it out.
Perhaps it is an implied call to repentance, but all we hear here is conviction.
We might be surprised by the depth of their sin, and they might be too, but God is not.
They are fully known.
Mighty Man of Valor
Now we zoom in on one man: Gideon.
Who is this Gideon kid?
Judges 6:
A bit of a whiner.
The “people of Israel cried out...” Gideon is one of them.
A bit of a whiner.
The “people of Israel cried out...” Gideon is one of them.
Gideon, summer child.
We don’t know how old he is here exactly, but even if he is a teenager, he was born in plenty.
The land had "rest” for 40 years after Deborah and Barak’s (and Jael’s) victory.
So Gideon was born in a world of peace, and then the Midianites came like a plague… and the oppression continued for 7 years!
And he isn’t one of the heavy hitters.
Manasseh isn’t one of the most powerful tribes, and Gideon’s family lives near the west bank of the Jordan not far from one of the best Northern passes.
So the Midianite raids coming in from the wilderness to the south east are going to right through his lands.
They are at the Junction of I-25 an I-70.
The Midianites are coming to town, and they could go anywhere from there, but they ARE going to come through there.
And maybe Gideon isn’t wrong.
These are excuses, but they could well be true.
In fact, in chapter 8, we learn that Gideon had two older brothers and the Midianites killed them!
And his clan could be the weakest.
But what he is doing gives us more insight into who he is.
But what he is doing gives us even more insight into who he is.
Why a Winepress?
Gideon 6:11
A winepress is a sunken area.
Picture a small built-in pool or jacuzzi.
You would smoosh the grapes by stepping on them, and the wine would run down a little channel into jars you set in an even deeper hole.
A winepress indicates some former prosperity.
But he isn’t using it for whine, he is using it to thresh grain.
The way you usually thresh grain is to bring the whole harvest and you would have a very large flat threshing floor.
And drag a threshing sledge over it, probably drawn by an animal.
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