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.
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/Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel.
Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions?
If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”/
/But the people said nothing./
/Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets.
Get two bulls for us.
Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.
I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.
Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord.
The god who answers by fire—he is God.”/
/Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”/
/Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you.
Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.”
So they took the bull given them and prepared it./
/Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon.
“O Baal, answer us!” they shouted.
But there was no response; no one answered.
And they danced around the altar they had made./
/At noon Elijah began to taunt them.
“Shout louder!” he said.
“Surely he is a god!  Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling.
Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”
So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.
Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice.
But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention./
/Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.”
They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which was in ruins.
Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”
With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.
He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood.
Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”/
/“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again./
/“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time.
The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench./
/At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.
Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”/
/Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench./
/When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God!
The Lord—he is God!”/
A God who can’t burn wet wood isn’t worth dry faith.
The churches of this day are in desperate need of revival fire—and the more so since the pews are damp with the dew which has settled with the fog of contemporary faith.
What we call revival is simply a return to normal Christian life.
We have lived so long with subnormal faith that normal faith—was it to be revealed—would seem supernatural.
The church of this day is virtually indistinguishable from the world about her.
We have accommodated the world, adjusting our faith and practise so as to avoid giving offence to anyone—save the One who redeemed us.
We would rather serve God in our own strength than submit to His power.
Yet, within the breast of every saint is an unexplained, undefined yearning which cannot be denied as the Spirit of God stirs our hearts from time-to-time.
The professed church of God has surrendered her moral position in the modern world—and the results are disastrous.
Political leaders are openly immoral and unethical and we excuse their actions so long as we are undisturbed.
Our laws are twisted to meet the expectations of those with the greatest amount of money and the poor have no justice.
Speaking on behalf of the poor has become an industry enriching those who speak for the poor.
Society has turned a blind eye to the moral decay of the past four decades.
Children are sacrificed to the gods of convenience and pleasure.
The elderly are encouraged to do their duty and quickly pass off the scene as youth adopt and expand the attitude of previous generations.
Truth is jettisoned in favour of compromise and tolerance of that which dishonours God.
Possessions and pleasure have assumed the position of chief gods of the people at the expense of knowledge of the One True God and the transformation which attends His presence.
All these attitudes have invaded the pews, and the pulpit is all together too willing to accommodate the views of the pew.
Doctrine is decided by polls as the Word of God is discarded and ridiculed as outdated, biased and of scant value by church leaders.
Anyone attempting to stand where the fathers of our Faith stood will discover that the churches have deserted him.
Could anyone have imagined forty years ago that sodomites would not only be set apart to sacred duties but also actively courted to fill such positions?
Could anyone have imagined forty years ago that women would be sought out to fill the role of pastors in our churches as Christians hasten to renounce the previous two millennia of church practise?
Could anyone have imagined forty years ago that the Bible would be challenged and rejected wherever it confronted social mores?
Forty years ago it would have been unthinkable for a pastor to fail to invest sufficient time in the Word to bring a message from the Living God, whereas today a book review or some brief commentary on the latest social fad is more than the pew can endure.
Character counted for more than credentials forty years ago, though connections are more important today.
By any criteria, the events described in the eighteenth chapter of First Kings constitute a revival during a period of Israel’s deepest spiritual and moral darkness.
Conditions were so bad in Israel that but seven thousand individuals remained who had not surrendered to the siren call of the Baals and Asherahs.
These seven thousand were, for the most part, unknown to one another.
They were assuredly unknown to the powerful, solitary prophet of God—Elijah.
Faith in the Living God had become a private affair and was no longer practised openly.
Compromise and convenience had replaced confession and character in Jewish society.
The gods of pleasure, power and possessions, powerful even in that day, had held sway so long that the people of God were silenced before them.
God had a powerful prophet in Elijah.
His language was coarse and his habits were crude in comparison to the courtly sophistication of the prophets of Baal.
Nevertheless, it was this rough-hewn man of God who would touch the people and reveal before their startled eyes the power of the True and Living God.
Just so, God has a powerful instrument of righteousness held in reserve today.
Perhaps that one sits among us this day.
Perhaps that one waits to be revealed; though the hour is late and the need is desperate even now.
May God reveal His man who will stir His people, rousing them from their lethargy to put down sin and to expose the false prophets of this day!
*Confrontation with the False Gods is the Necessary Precursor to Revival*.
Under Ahab, Israel had embraced false worship and had followed false gods.
Ahab had married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians.
She demanded worship of the Baals and the Asherahs to Israel.
Ahab had acquiesced to her demands, and the people, having already compromised a little, found it altogether too easy to compromise a little more in order to permit worship of these false gods.
If ever the people of God were to be revived it would be necessary to confront the false gods.
At the prompting of the Lord God, Elijah set out to confront these false gods.
You will recall that he had pronounced judgement on the land, and for three and one-half years the land was parched by drought.
Even kings were reduced to searching for water for the royal herds.
At the moment of greatest desperation in the land, the man of God revealed himself to Obadiah—a man who feared God though yet serving the crown.
Commanding Obadiah to announce to Ahab that Elijah was again present in the land, the rude man of God pointedly accused the king of being the one who even then was troubling Israel.
/You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals/, charged the prophet [*1 Kings 18:18*].
The prophet of God commanded the king to summon the false prophets for a showdown, and the king complied with the divine command and the prophets of Baal arrived for a showdown.
Resplendent in gaudy vestments designed to promote their own importance, four hundred fifty prophets of Baal arrived atop Carmel in the wilderness.
Not one was missing.
Every mitre, every scapular, every item displayed on their persons bespoke of intimacy with the gods of power and pleasure.
Never had such a contest been witnessed in Israel—nor have many such contests ever been witnessed since that day.
Four hundred fifty persons revealing power and position against one drab, unspectacular man of God.
Elijah insisted there was but one God and that there was but one way to please that God.
Rebuking spiritual compromise, he insisted that the people of God should be singular in their pursuit of God.  /If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal is God, follow him/, declared the sturdy prophet [*1 Kings 18:21*].
He spoke of his solitary and singular stand against spiritual prostitution.
Then he proposed the contest which would reveal the True and Living God.
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