Sermon Tone Analysis

Once there was a man who was such a golf addict that he was neglecting his job.

Frequently he would call in sick as an excuse to play.

One morning, after making his usual call to the office, an angel up above spotted him on the way to the golf course and decided to teach him a lesson.

“If you play golf today, you will be punished,” the angel whispered in his ear.

Thinking it was only his conscience, which he had successfully whipped in the past, the fellow just smiled.

“No,” he said, “I’ve been doing this for years.

No one will ever know.

I won’t be punished.”

The angel said no more and the fellow stepped up to the first tee where he promptly whacked the ball 300 yards straight down the middle of the fairway.

Since he had never driven the ball more than 200 yards, he couldn’t believe it.

Yet, there it was.

And his luck continued.

Long drives on every hole, perfect putting.

By the ninth hole he was six under par and was playing near-perfect golf.

The fellow was walking on air.

He wound up with an amazing 61, about 30 strokes under his usual game.

Wait until he got back to the office and told them about this!

But, suddenly, his face fell.

He couldn’t tell them.

He could never tell anyone.

The angel smiled.

[1]

          What poetic justice for the golf addict!

To play a perfect game without being able to brag about it!

There are those who would wish their addiction carried such light and comic consequences, but the truth is that real addictions rarely do.

I was curious about the rate of addictions in America, so I did some looking and was just overwhelmed!

Did you know that Americans are the most addicted people in the world!

That means that are more things to become addicted to in America than any where else in the world!

When you hear the word addictions you usually think about drugs, right?

Well Drugs are still the most addictive and America leads the world with the most drug addicts, yet there other forms of addiction just as fatal.

Gambling is one.

It is on the rise in America.

Of course Smoking with never cease to be an addiction in America.

Alcohol is another that will always plague America.

The average age of first time drinkers are now 12 in America.

Two new addictions are on the rise to  pass drugs use.

The first one is Obesity, which is an official addiction by the US government.

The other is Web addiction.

An addiction to surfing the net just for the passing of time.

The hours of surfing the net has almost passed the amount of hours children under the age of 12 watch television!

And the shocking thing about all these statistics is that out of all these millions of American that are addicts or on their way to becoming addicts; many of them are Christians.

How sad and yet how true!

It is no stretch of the truth at all, when we think that out of the 120 million

Americans that are addicts, some of those are Christians.

Such thoughts are truly depressing yet our God has not left us without counsel!

God has a word for Christians who have found themselves addicted to one thing are another.

That word comes from Jesus Himself.

Notice again v7-8, Jesus spoke about offences which are in the world v7 and then he spoke about offences that hit much closer to home, in ourselves.

But first a word or two about “offences.”

There are two meanings of this word in the bible.

1.

That which prompts a person to blow up with indignation or disgust.

This type of offense may in fact be from God, according to its usage in the Bible.

The apostle Paul spoke of "the offense of the cross" (Gal 5:11).

The Jews were offended because faith without Jewish legal observances was offered as the only means of salvation.

2.

Offense also refers to those things which cause a person to do something against his conscience.

This type of offense may be from Satan or from men.

Its effect is to entice a person to sin (Matt 5:29; 17:23; 18:6-9).

It is this kind of offense which can be produced by the "grey" areas of the Christian life-those practices which are right for some but wrong for others, usually called stumbling blocks, because it causes someone else to stumble or trip up into sin.

(Rom 14:13; 1 Cor 8:13)[2].

I personally think that Jesus has in mind here, addictions, habits that cause us to stumble into sin!

What better way to describe the addictions of Christians, than those things which cause ourselves to stumble away from God and into sin?

We offend ourselves, when some habit, some known sin is allowed to continue on because for some strange reason we think that we can’t live without it!

Therefore that is an addiction, which causes us to stumble habitually in our walk with God!

If there will be any hope for recovery, we must first start to think like Jesus concerning these things which bring offence into our lives.

There are two main thoughts here addictions or offences.

I.

The offences come from in the World not from ourselves   v7

          Jesus starts from the very board range of the entire world.

Now, you must discern from the world as it relates to mountains, creeks, valleys, meadows and such from the world system that operates in the hearts of the lost.

Because the two are different.

God created the landscape but man has created the world system.

These offences that Jesus speaks of doesn’t come from the world of creation but from the world system that is driving lost mankind.

In fact, getting away from it all would probably do more good than ever thought for your walk with God.

Getting away from the world system is what a true vacation is about.

This world has its own set of offences, addictions that have always plagued man.

But notice what Jesus says about offences or addictions.

 

A.

Addictions originated from the world.

v7a

1.

The first man to leave God was Cain.

Adam was the first man to sin, but Cain was the first man to leave God!

The bible says of him that after he slew his brother and was marked by the lord that he “…went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city…”, Gen 4:16-17

          There you have the beginnings of the world system that has left the knowledge of God behind.

Cain started an entire city, an entire society that had nothing to do with God!

The world and its addictions was enough!

So they lived, prospered and strayed further away from the God that created them.

2.

The world of men was corrupted by their addictions, “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man /was/ great in the earth, and /that/ every imagination of the thoughts of his heart /was/ only evil continually.”

Gen 6:5 

 So far gone were they that God had to start over with a man named Noah!

 

3.

Even after the flood of Noah, the offences abounded, addictions soon crept back into the world putting men away from, so God called a man, Abram to come out of the world leaving its addictions.

So God started to deal with a single family calling them to live differently fro the world around them.

B.

Addictions are inevitable in this life v7b

Jesus said that offences, addictions, things that will cause us to stumble are inevitable, i.e. we can avoid them if we remain living in the world!

1. Man is a fallen creation.

2. The world is wayward.

They world doesn’t think about God, until Easter and Christmas.

3. As long there is a devil, the world will always hold for us things that offend and bring us to sin!

Jesus said just except it!

Offences things that cause us to sin will always be found in this world!