Sermon Tone Analysis

SCRIPTURE

Notice these key words:

Lamp/Feet

Light/Path

We are going to look today at the significance of God’s Word being available as both a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

As early as , we see God sovereignly binding darkness by creating light with His Word.

God’s Word has the power to give light amidst darkness.

In the OT mindset, darkness had a symbolic connection with everything that opposes God.

Light had a symbolic connection with God’s presence and the life He gives.

So, gives a powerful concept that God’s revealed Word Gives us God’s presence amidst everything around us in opposition to Him.

God’s Word shines the truth of God into the deception of darkness.

One person said: The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

Citation: Unknown

I have a point of view.

You have a point of view.

God has view.

Citation: Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

God has a view.

His Word helps us apply His view to our feet and path.

1) God’s Word is a lamp that lights the steps and footing of our feet so that we do not fall.

Have you ever used a lamp or light for your feet?

You know, we are always coming up with clever ways to do things.

Do you remember when the light-up sneakers first became out?

Suspected drug dealer Alfred Acree thought he could escape the sheriff’s deputies by running into a wooded area at night.

But thanks to Alfred, the deputies had no difficulty at all tracking him.

He had a built-in tracking device.

He was wearing a brand-new pair of L.A. Gear New Light tennis shoes.

These shoes featured battery-operated lights that flashed every time the heel was depressed.

“Every time he took a step, we knew exactly where he was,” said investigator Anthony Anderson for the Charles City, Virginia, County Sheriff’s Department.

Suspected drug dealer Alfred Acree thought he could escape the sheriff’s deputies by running into a wooded area at night.

But thanks to Alfred, the deputies had no difficulty at all tracking him.

He had a built-in tracking device.

He was wearing a brand-new pair of L.A. Gear New Light tennis shoes.

These shoes featured battery-operated lights that flashed every time the heel was depressed.

“Every time he took a step, we knew exactly where he was,” said investigator Anthony Anderson for the Charles City, Virginia, County Sheriff’s Department.

We may think we can escape the consequences of our sins, but like the flashing shoes, our sins will eventually reveal us.

That kind of light for the feet is not what our text is talking about.

It’s talking about a light shining downward to our feet so that we can see where we step.

Decisions

Relationships

Words

Activities

Dependencies

Wrong steps can lead us to wrong paths.

The collapse of character falls back down the steps of compromise.

People do not drift toward holiness.

Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

—D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Crossway, 1999)

Ask a rancher, and he will tell you how a cow gets lost…one bit of grass at a time.

It nibbles in one patch, then another and another until it cannot find its way home.

We need God’s Word to help us with our steps.

1) God’s Word is a lamp that lights the steps and footing of our feet so that we do not fall.

2) God’s Word is a light that illuminates truth from error on our path so that we do not derail in deception.

Have you ever been lost?

Did you panic?

Doctrine

Convictions

I heard there is a haunted house in Chicago that will pay you $20k if you can make it through their house.

I bet a lot of people get lost and panic in there!

Philosophies

Pursuits

We have too many men of science, too few men of God.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.…

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

We have too many men of science, too few men of God.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.…

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

Citation: Omar Bradley, in his 1948 Armistice Day address

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.

Citation: Unknown

The light of God’s Word shown onto our path can help us:

Worship God in spirit and in truth rather than worshiping idols and icons.

Hold to sound doctrine and know false teaching.

Keep biblical, healthy convictions to guide us in our attitudes, actions, and associations.

Refrain from unbiblical philosophies and pragmatism that drifts from God’s way.

Pursue God and righteous living, and avoid ambitiously chasing lesser pursuits.

1) God’s Word is a lamp that lights the steps and footing of our feet so that we do not fall.

2) God’s Word is a light that illuminates truth from error on our path so that we do not derail in deception.

3) Followers of Christ are called “children of light,” and as such, they are both instructed and expected to walk in the light of Christ and His Word.

There was a man lost in the desert.

He couldn’t find his tent.

Finally he stumbled upon it, went inside and closed the flap.

He shook out his clothes and lit a lamp.

He looked for some food.

The only thing that he could find was a box of dates.

The first one was bad—full of worms.

So he threw it in the corner.

The second was the same.

So he finally blew out the lamp and ate the dates!

An old story tells of a desert nomad who awakened in the middle of the night.

He lit a candle and began eating dates from a bowl beside his bed.

He took a bite from one and saw a worm in it; so he threw it out of the tent.

He picked up a second date, took a bite out of it, and found another worm.

He threw that date out of the tent too.

Then he picked up a third date, took a bite out of it, and found another worm.