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
0.2UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.15UNLIKELY
Fear
0.16UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.76LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.29UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.85LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.85LIKELY
Extraversion
0.07UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.77LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.74LIKELY

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
I Kings 9-11
 
! Introduction
            I have heard that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly heat the water, the frog will not notice the temperature change until he is cooked.
Are you like a frog in a pot of water?
Are you slowly adapting to disobedience, not noticing that you are well on the way to being cooked?
Some friends of mine rented out their farm and moved to Australia to farm there.
They were gone for a few years and when they returned, they had a noticeable Australian accent.
They had gone with a Canadian accent, and when they came back, without their even noticing it, they had adopted an Australian accent.
Are we accommodating to sin without even noticing it?
How does this accommodation happen?
What is the path that leads from being an obedient child of God to the destruction which results from disobedience?
Can we prevent it?
We have learned that Solomon was a great king.
He wanted to judge righteously and follow God in being a just king.
He demonstrated  his desired to promote the worship of God by building the temple.
He experienced great blessings from God, receiving wisdom, wealth and fame.
He had it all and it had come from God.
But before he died, we read that “the Lord became angry with Solomon.”
What made God angry at him?
How had he gotten to this place?
As we learn what happened to Solomon, we can learn from his example how not to do it.
I trust we will learn some lessons about how we can avoid the subtle path that can lead to getting cooked.
!
I.
The Promises To Solomon
!! A. Conditional Promises
            God had made many promises to Solomon.
We have already noted that some of these promises were conditional.
When David appointed Solomon to be king, we read in I Kings 2:2-4, the words of David, in which he told Solomon to “observe what the Lord your God requires… so that you may prosper.”
David knew that although God was a gracious God, the continued experience of his grace involved a response of obedience to Him and walking with him.
God himself appeared to Solomon on two occasions.
The first time was when Solomon was worshipping God and God came to him to offer him, “whatever you want me to give you.”
When Solomon asked for wisdom, God gave him much more than wisdom.
He gave him riches and fame as well, but he also included a conditional promise.
We read in 3:14, “…if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”
The second appearance of God to Solomon happened in chapter 9. Solomon had built the magnificent temple for God.
He had worshipped God with words and with a great number of sacrifices.
God had indicated his presence in the temple by coming down in a cloud and so affirming that this was the place where the people were to meet him and worship him.
After all these events, God appeared to Solomon once again.
He told Solomon that he had heard his prayer and that his Name was in this temple.
But then in 9:4-9, we once again read the conditional nature of God’s presence and blessing.
God tells Solomon, “if you walk before me…I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever as I promised David…” But then, God went on to warn, “if you or your sons turn away from me…I will cut off Israel from the land…and will reject this temple…”
            Solomon also knew what it meant to walk before the Lord and obey His statutes from the word of God.
From Deuteronomy 7:3 he knew that he was not to “intermarry with Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.”
He knew from Deuteronomy 17:14- 17 that a king must not “acquire many horses,” “make the people return to Egypt,” “not take many wives,” and “not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.”
Solomon had heard from his father, from the Word of God and from God himself that the continuation of blessing was conditional on walking with the Lord.
!! B. A Good Beginning
            With the knowledge of these things, Solomon began well.
He began, in obedience to his father David, to want what God wanted.
We see so much evidence in the life of Solomon that he was a man after God’s own heart.
When God invited him to ask for “whatever you want me to give you” Solomon’s desire was to be a king who carried out justice and who could discern justice.
What a wonderful intention.
He wanted what was right.
When we read his prayer at the dedication of the temple, we hear the prayer of a man who also had his heart in the right place.
Listen to some of the words of his prayer.
Are these not the words of a man who desired what God desired?
Who wanted more than anything to please God? “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you…you keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way…May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day…hear the prayer of your servant…may he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways…” In all these words and throughout the prayer, we hear the words of a man who loved the Lord and truly wanted to follow Him and serve Him.
He fully understood the conditional nature of the Lord’s blessings and prayed earnestly for the ability to keep the Lord’s commands and to follow what God wanted.
He continued to worship God throughout his life.
In 9:25 we read that three times a year Solomon burnt offerings before the Lord in the temple he had made.
He continued in his worship of the Lord.
Solomon had much reason to continue to follow the Lord for the Lord blessed him greatly.
We have already seen how God blessed him by giving him great wisdom, riches and fame.
As we continue to read in chapter 9 and 10, we have a description of a nation at peace.
Everything was going well.
He had strong support from his people.
His wealth increased greatly.
Neighbouring nations got along with him and he traded with many nations.
His fame continued to spread all over the world.
The story of the queen of Sheba is a fascinating story which tells us of the immense wealth of Solomon, his great generosity and his fame.
The statement of the queen of Sheba in 10:6-9 gives glory to God and reveals just how good things were.
Solomon began so well.
!
II.
The Lord Became Angry With Solomon
            But things did not continue in that way.
We have already noted in 11:9 that “The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord…” What went wrong?
What turned Solomon away from the Lord?
What was the path which lead to disobedience?
As we examine the path which led to Solomon’s disobedience, we learn about a path that any one of us may be tempted to follow.
It is a path that is extremely dangerous.
It is a path that leads away from God, a path that leads to destruction as we will see.
It is important that we recognize this path and that we take time to evaluate our lives to see if perhaps we have started down this path.
First of all, let us examine the path which Solomon took and then we will take time to evaluate whether perhaps we are walking down the same path.
!! A. The Path To Disobedience
!!! 1. Everybody’s Doing It
            Solomon’s name likely means “peaceful” and he was a king who liked peace and promoted peace.
There are different ways to have peace with neighbouring nations.
You can so intimidate them that they don’t bother you.
You can give them anything they want so that you appease them.
One of the most common ways in which ancient nations made peace with their neighbours was to make the king of the other nation your father-in-law.
If you married the daughter of a king, then that king would not attack you and would act favourably towards you because he would want to please his own daughter.
This was a very common practice, everybody did it.
Political marriages were the order of the day and an acceptable way for a king to rule.
Solomon wanted peace and so he engaged in this method.
We already have read about this method and how Solomon engaged in it in I Kings 3:1, “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter.”
But Solomon didn’t stop there.
He really got into this method of peacemaking.
He would have loved the saying common in the 60’s, “make love not war.”
We read in 11:1, “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.”
In 11:3 we read that by the time Solomon was done, “He had 700 wives of royal birth.”
This was the beginning of his path to destruction.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9