Sermon Tone Analysis

Everything goes

Sugar-coated Spiritual degradation

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!!! Announcements

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Call to worship

!!!!!! Bible Verse

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.

Today, if you will hear His voice: “Do not harden your hearts.

(Psalm 95:6-8)

!!!!!! 8 The Lord’s Prayer

!!!!!! 8 Blessing

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

(Philippians 1:2)

!!! 8 Hymn No 9:                                           /“O worship the King all glorious above”/

!!! Invocation

Our God and Father,

In your unfailing love you have lead the people you have redeemed.

In your strength you have guided them to your holy dwelling.

(Exodus 15:13)  You have brought them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance— the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.

(Exodus 15:17)  You led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; You lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.

(Hosea 11:4).

Now Lord we pray that You will lead us into the green pastures of your presence.

Teach us your will and give us yielding hearts to take hold of your Word and understanding minds to grasp the vastness of your wisdom.

In the Name of Jesus Christ and for his sake we pray.

AMEN.

!!! Children’s Address

!!! Hymn No 8:                                 /“Come, Sing Praises to the Lord above”/

!!! Scripture Reading                     /1Peter 2:4-12/

!!! Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?”

“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever!

Amen.

(Romans 11:33-36)

The Lord my God is God in the heavens above and in the earth below.

(Joshua 2:11)

The Lord stretches out the north over empty space; He suspends the earth on nothing.

(Job 26:7)

He who made the Pleiades and Orion And turns deep darkness into morning and darkens day into night, Who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the earth—The Lord is His name.

(Amos 5:8)

You, the Lord, alone have declared What is to come from the distant past.

There is no God apart from You, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides You.

You are God, and there is no other.

(Isaiah 45:21–22)

A person’s wickedness will punish him; his backsliding will reprove him.

I know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter to forsake the Lord my God and have no fear of Him.

(Jeremiah 2:19)

So Father, we confess our sins.

We know we have all sinned and we fall short of the glory of God.

We need your forgiveness.

We need the sanctifying work of your Spirit in our hearts to make us turn away from what is evil, helping us to love what is good, loving your ways and living as you would want us.

Hear our prayer Father.

In the Name of your Son, our Saviour.

AMEN.

!!! Declaration of pardoning

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

(Romans 8:1)

!!! Hymn No 250:                            /“Before the throne of God above” (Tune 249)/

!!! Offering and Dedication

On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income (1 Corinthians 16:2)

!!! Hymn 609:                                    /All remaining seated, sing Hymn /

!!! /609 while the offering is taken up/

!!! Prayer for others

!!! Scripture Reading                     /Judges 17:1-13/    

!!! Sermon:         /Everything Goes:  Sugar-coated spiritual degradation/

!!!!!! Introduction

My dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus Christ,

“Don’t tell people what to do.

Everyone needs to find out for himself.

As long as it feels good and as long as it makes you happy.”

That is the catchphrase of liberalism born of humanism.

The argument goes like this:  “We are all basically good; we just need to learn to bring out the good within us in order to dislike the bad.

There is actually no standard, for as long as we all agree that certain things are not as good as others.”

This gives birth to pragmatism.

Something can only be the truth if it is practically useful.

The purpose of thought is merely to guide action.

The effect of an idea is more important than its origin – it is more important to do something, than to ask who and what led you to do that thing.

Therefore truth is relative to the time, place, and purpose – it cannot be absolute; what was valid then, it not necessarily valid now.

It also declares that value is as inherent in means as in ends – it therefore doesn’t matter what you are aiming for, what you do on the way to get there, for as long as it has some practical value (you get something out of it), will have some value too.

Well, then do it!

These ideas we find in all philosophies which place man in the centre, having no regard for God.

It’s as old as mankind itself, because it wells out of the depraved soul of sinful man.

We have titled the message for today “Everything goes!” Judges 17:6 says:  “In those days Israel had no king [it refers to the forcing of law and order]; everyone did as he saw fit.”

!!!!!! 8 God and his people

We saw last week how God called his people out of the bondage of Egypt.

He did it because of his 8 covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

He promised them a land.

Now, on their journey to this new land, God gave his commandments to them.

Over and over we hear the expression (as a matter of fact 76 times in the first five books of the Bible), “I am the Lord”.

Over and over we hear the word “holy” (157 times in the Pentateuch).

Furthermore, the Lord repeated over and over that He is holy, therefore his people needed to be holy.

To that end God gave them his law.

To this they had to adhere to the finest of details.

Their holiness did not lie in their sinlessness or their effort in keeping the law; it lied in the fact that as they would live according to this law, they would be /different/ from the other nations.

Listen to the word of Leviticus 18:1-5:

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the LORD your God.

You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you.

Do not follow their practices.