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
0.12UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.51LIKELY
Sadness
0.58LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.69LIKELY
Confident
0.36UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.95LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.74LIKELY
Extraversion
0.11UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.58LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.55LIKELY

Tone of specific sentences

Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
!
A Time to Be Born and A Time to Die
Appointments are part and parcel of our lives!
I face appointments every day.
I am scheduled for travel appointments, preaching appointments, counseling appointments, eating appointments, and most important of all, my daily appointment with God.
There are, however, two inescapable appointments in the life of every one of us.
The one is the hour of our birth, and the other is the hour of our death.
Birth ushers us into time, while death ushers us into eternity.
God oversees the one and overrules the other.
To reject this doctrine is to be a fatalist; to accept it is to be a realist—in the best sense of that word; for the Bible teaches that ultimate reality is to be found in Jesus Christ alone.
He claimed, "I am ... the truth [or reality] ....
No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
From this point on in our study, we have a catalog of contrasts listed in pairs, beginning with the entrance and close of life.
The rest of the couplets cover the events and circumstances that take place between these two extremes.
In this first contrasting couplet we observe there is "a time to be born, and a time to die" (Eccl.
3:2).
The language of the Preacher emphasizes the ordering of a sovereign God, both in our coming into the world and in the way we leave it.
There is no question here of untimely births or suicides.
In the divinely determined sequence of events, births and deaths have their appointed seasons—without any interference from man.
To amplify this a little more fully, let us concentrate, first all, on the fact that:
!! Birth Is a Sovereign Mystery
We cannot read the Bible or study life without associating the event we call "birth" with the miracle of God—and what a miracle it is!
At birth, an heir of immortality is brought into being, because we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps.
139:14).
No wonder Job exclaims: "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life!" (Job 33:4).
So we see that the whole idea of /mystery/ surrounds the miracle of birth.
This is true of physical, as well as spiritual, birth.
So there is /the mystery of physical birth./
The element of mystery in this whole process of birth is elaborated by Solomon in the 11th chapter of this book and the 5th verse, where he writes, "As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything."
The statement is consistent with medical science.
Experts in this field tell us that while there is much we do know about the birth of a child, there is even more that we do not know.
For instance, no one has yet been able to decide at what point the fetus becomes "a living being" (Gen.
2:7).
And no gynecologist or pediatrician has yet pronounced on the manner in which the bones develop in the womb of a pregnant woman.
This entire process, including those parts of the process we think we understand, is shrouded in mystery.
With the Psalmist we can sing:
{{{"
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, when /I was made in secret/, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them (Ps.
139:14-16).
}}}
There surely is a divine secret about the event we call physical birth.
Have you ever dropped to your knees and looked up into the face of God and said, "O God, thank you for making me just as I am"?
You see, God never makes duplicates.
He only makes originals.
Did you know that you are an original?
If you despise your body, your being, then you are despising the work of God.
Have you ever said, "Thank you for making me like this.
I know there is sin in my life, and I know I have been marred, but I still bear your image, and I still have the potential for all you designed for my life"?
Have you ever said, "Thank you"?
Say it right now!
There is also /the mystery of spiritual birth./
Speaking to Nicodemus of this, Jesus enounced that "the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.
So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
And the apostle John adds that we are born "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13).
Then there is Peter's statement which reminds us that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever" (1 Pet.
1:23).
It appears, therefore, that in that sovereign and mysterious way in which God alone works out His purpose, the Word of God begets faith in Christ, and then the Spirit of God begets life in Christ.
We are told for instance that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom.
10:17).
And at the same time, the Spirit of God begets life in Christ, for He is described in Scripture as the Spirit who "gives life" (2 Cor.
3:6).
Through the activity of preaching there is the communication of the truth of the Word; and in response to the activity of praying, there is the fertilization of the seed of the Word.
Thus we see that God's supreme agents of spiritual birth are the Word of God and the Spirit of God.
The event of birth, whether considered physically or spiritually, is a mystery, and we are dependent upon God for the bringing about of this miracle.
Just as God responds to /human/ faith when we obey the natural laws of physical birth, so in like manner He responds to saving faith, when we obey the biblical laws of spiritual birth.
There is a time to be born physically and a time to be born spiritually; and, just as it necessary to be born into the physical family in order to start our human life, so it is necessary to be born into the spiritual family in order start our divine life.
In his gospel, John tells us that to "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12).
Those action words are essential.
If we are to know the wonder of spiritual birth, we must believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the living and saving Word, and then we must receive Him personally and decisively.
In response to this act of faith, God effects the new birth, and /life in Christ begins./
What a mystery!
What a miracle!
Has it happened to you?
So birth is a sovereign mystery; but, by the same token:
!! Death Is a Solemn Certainty
While birth is shrouded in mystery, death is shrouded with certainty.
The fact is that every one will die!
While it is impossible to predict with final accuracy the birth of a child, it is possible to say without any reservation that every one of us will eventually die.
The only exception to the inevitability of death is the rapture of all living believers at the Second Coming of Christ; otherwise, humanity moves on inexorably to the grave.
Throughout Scripture we have such statements as "you shall surely die" (Gen.
2:17); "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezek.
18:4); "The wages of sin is death" (Rom.
6:23); "When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:15).
This certainty of mortality can mean /the agony of a coming death./
The Bible calls death "the king of terrors" (Job 18:14), and the Psalmist speaks of "the terrors of death" (Ps.
55:4).
The writer to the Hebrews expresses the same thought when he describes those "who through fear of death [are] all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb.
2:15).
This agony, or "anxiety," as the theologians prefer to call it, has three forms.
There is the normal anxiety of apprehension before a known cause of danger.
For example, a person awaiting serious surgery can be in a state of normal anxiety.
Then there is neurotic anxiety, which is a sense of apprehension and fear where there is no definable cause for the anxiety.
But, once again, there is the anxiety of life itself, or what has been called the "existential anxiety."
Contemporary thinkers are concerned with this third type of anxiety.
This anxiety, as Bultmann and others have shown, reveals itself most clearly in the agony of approaching death.
This is why all life is spent in postponing death.
We breathe, we eat, we exercise, we sleep, we work, we hope, we pray, in order to escape death; indeed, because of this anxiety or agony, latent or expressed, many have committed suicide in order to save themselves from further anxiety.
The only cure for such agony is a child-like faith in God and the redemptive use of such anxiety in the winning of other men and women to Jesus Christ.
After all, if we know that "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Heb.
9:27), how diligent, how earnest, how prayerful we ought to be about our loved ones who don't know Jesus Christ.
How burdened we should be for our neighbors who are lost, for the millions in the far-flung places of the earth who never have accepted the Savior.
The certainty of mortality can also mean /the tragedy of a Christless death./
The Bible declares, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Heb.
9:27).
Far greater than the fear of physical death is the fear of spiritual death.
The apostle John points this out in his first epistle, where he writes: "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.
But he who fears has not been made perfect in love" (1 John 4:17-18).
There is no sadder sight on earth than to watch a dying man or woman approach a Christless eternity.
The tragedy is that, in this day of a revived universalism, men and women are being taught that there is no such place as hell, no such state as "outer darkness," and that all people are redeemed already through the cross of Christ, and therefore, individual salvation is unnecessary.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9