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
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.07UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.16UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.7LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.19UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.69LIKELY
Extraversion
0.06UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.63LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.68LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Intro & 22.
It is winter, and the cold has set in.
It is December and there was a feast being celebrated.
This was an important feast in the Hebrew year but not one mentioned in the Old Testament.
And the reason for that is that it happened between the two testaments, the so-called 400 silent years.
Today this feast is called the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah.
This feast is not to be confused with the Feast of Tabernacles which was two months before.
This was known then as the Feast of Dedication.
How did it come about?
A man, who is a forerunner of the Antichrist, known as Antiochus Epiphanes was King of Syria from 175 to 163BC.
He added Epiphanes to his name which means: “the Great One”!
Very humble man, he was!
The Jews were not impressed and played on the name and called him Antiochus Epimanes, which means, “Me, the Madman!”
He so loved Greek culture and language that he wanted to turn the area that he controlled Greek.
But whilst some Jews accepted this most did not for they were not going to surrender their beliefs.
The only way Antiochus was going to get his way was by destroying the Jewish religion and so he attacked Jerusalem and killed 80,000 Jews and sold into slavery a further 80,000+.
He then went into the Temple and desecrated it by burning a sacrifice to Zeus, by sacrificing pigs and setting up prostitution in the temple chambers.
He then made it a capital offence to circumcise their children.
A mother caught was crucified with her children hanging around her neck.
This was how much Antiochus was determined to destroy Judaism.
As a result Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, uncles and others joined him and he led a revolt against Antiochus and beat him in 165BC.
They rededicated the Temple for worship of the true God - hence the Feast of Dedication.
It was an 8 day celebration where lights were burned in every Jewish home to celebrate this great deliverance.
And today it is still celebrated.
Indeed Judas hands down his own words in the non-canonical book of First Maccabees:
… that every year at that season the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the 25th day of the month of Chislev.
(4:5)
In keeping with these words, every house in Jerusalem had eight candles in the window on the 25th of Chislev.
I said that Antiochus was a forerunner of the antichrist as the Book of Revelation says that the actual Antichrist will accept sacrifices to himself in the Temple as god.
For this to happen and fulfil Scripture the Temple has to be rebuilt.
Something the Orthodox Jews have been ready and waiting for in Jerusalem.
But this Festival was a time of great hope for it marked the last national deliverance.
Expectation filled the air and the people were wondering whether there was a deliverer among them who will set the people free from their present slavery to the Romans.
23-24
And so it was the Jews surrounded Him and asked if He is the Christ.
We know, of course, that they will reject Him and crucify Him but when the Antichrist arises they will accept him until they realise too late what they have done.
What we find in this passage was a defence of Jesus’ deity, the One to whom they should bring worship.
Of course, what they were really waiting for was one like Judas Maccabeus.
And Jesus always qualified his answer so to not to encourage this false idea of who He is.
The Jews would probably have eagerly accepted Jesus as Messiah if he had been ready to take up the rôle, of a political leader.
The Jews asked the right question but they did not accept the answer.
25
Look, Jesus says, My works prove I am the Christ, and more than that, that I am God.
Who is able to perform miracles like I do?
Who can open the blind’s eyes to see?
No normal person can do this but the One who is creator of the eye in the first place.
It is like Jesus is reasoning with them in the forlorn hope they will see and go; “ah, now I understand.
You must be who you claim to be.”
But they were blinded by their preconceptions when He needed to be seen by spiritual eyes.
Ignorance does not produce unbelief but unbelief produces ignorance.
If anyone would know God’s will he shall know of the doctrine that it is true according to John 7 17.
I spoke with someone yesterday who said that you cannot force someone to become a Christian and the more you tell them the truth the more stubborn in unbelief they become.
You get a wilfully unbelieving person and you can’t tell them anything.
And as that is true, so is the reverse.
Faith is the mother of understanding.
When you first put your faith in Jesus Christ, understanding is the result.
The truth is obvious to everybody but the unbeliever who has a solid wilful unbelief that cannot budge.
26
The fact is that these Jews could not understand for they were not His sheep.
They understood what He was saying but refused to believe.
They were ready to stone Him on the basis of what He was about to say.
They will not submit to the evidence for they would not hear His voice and follow Him.
Why?
They are not His sheep.
In fact, it is not the first time Jesus had claimed to be God but despite that they did not believe and asked the question again.
In fact by Matthew 12 they had already an answer to the pointing to His good works and they attributed them to the the power of Satan.
But again Jesus says, “I’m God, I’ve told you that and I’ve proven it by My works, the healing of dead people, giving sight to blind, rearranging new and healthy organs in old sick bodies.
The miracle of feeding thousands of people, walking on the water, etc, etc.”
But again they refuse all the evidence.
27-29
But what of those who do believe and put their trust in Jesus?
They hear His voice and follow Him.
They are given eternal life.
This is more about quality than quantity for time does not exist in eternity.
It’s a life that does not end and it starts the moment you put your faith in Jesus.
As a result it is not possible to perish.
Eternal life by its nature cannot come to an end - it is a contradiction.
Perish means to be separated from God and His blessedness forever and that just cannot happen.
No one at any time in any way has ever lost their salvation.
In the Garden of Gethsemane the sheep scattered from Jesus but they are still sheep.
Even if it goes off somewhere it does not become a goat.
The moment we sheep sin the blood of Jesus has already paid for it and we are covered otherwise He did not die for all sin.
And when we consider the grace of God towards us in His forgiveness, in His giving us His Son our hearts break the more we sin for, who forgives with that kind of forgiveness?
And it restrains us from continuing in our wrong ways.
Christ is saying that our safety does not depend on our immature, futile grip upon him, but on his hold on us.
How comforting! “No one can snatch them out of my hand” (v.
28).
Then in verse 29 Jesus says, “No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
One hand (the Son’s) is wrapped around us, and another (the Father’s) is wrapped around that hand, so that we are doubly safe.
This passage is one of the greatest ones that guarantees the eternal security of the believer.
Here are some reasons, (and thanks to John MacArthur for these):
We are Christ’s sheep and if it’s His duty to care for us as a Shepherd.
To say that Christ is the Good Shepherd and that He keeps losing His sheep is to blaspheme the person of Christ.
If He’s the true Shepherd, He can keep them in the fold.
The sheep is given eternal life, and to speak of eternal life as ending is a contradiction.
Eternal life is given.
Notice verse 28, “I give them eternal life.”
Did you earn your eternal life?
Did you get eternal life by doing something?
No. Well you can’t unget it by doing something either.
If you didn’t earn it, you can’t lose it.
It’s a gift from beginning to end.
The Lord Himself declares that they shall never perish and if one sheep goes to hell, Jesus Christ is a liar.
From the Shepherd’s hand none is able to pluck them, not even the devil.
Nobody is more powerful than God.
Christ and God together hold the believer.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9