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
0.16UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.14UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.49UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.7LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.24UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.88LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.66LIKELY
Extraversion
0.33UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.76LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.52LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
ATTN:
Today we begin a new series entitled Divorce Proof.
I want to tell you some of what the Bible says about a truly biblical marriage and how you can apply that truth to keep your marriage strong and your family together.
Today we begin at the beginning.
We will seek to define marriage.
Now, as I do that, I realize that there are all kinds of people out there who have already formed opinions on the topic.
For instance, Groucho Marx said “I was married by a judge.
I should have asked for a jury.”
Someone else said: “When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.”
Someone else said, “To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.”
Still another said, “Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener”
Zha Zha Gabor said, “A man is incomplete until he’s married.
After that, he is finished.”
Rodney Dangerfield said, “My wife and I were happy for 20 years – then we met.”
Someone else said, “Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves.
After marriage, the “y” becomes silent.”
Mickey Rooney (married several times) said, “Always get married early in the morning.
That way, if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted a whole day.”
That basically describes how society at large looks at matrimony.
It is a tired institution which has now become all about the perfect dress and the most happening DJ, not about the meaning of the vows that are taken.
Honestly, people may still say forever, but at least half of us do not mean it.
And, since marriage is just a ceremony to most people, folks are abandoning the expense and ritual for co-habitation.
A British Newspaper reported way back in 2003 that the number of divorces in Britain were leveling out, but not for the reasons you might think.
Fran Wassoff, the co-director of Edinburgh University’s center for family and relationships said that the lower number of divorces resulted from the fact that there were fewer marriages.
She said, “We have seen a huge cultural shift from marriage to co-habitation.
That is a permanent change, and also explains why the divorce rate is levelling out."
That sentiment reflects American attitudes.
Two-thirds of adults in the “thirty-something” age range believe that co-habitation is fine.
Those who do marry expect divorce to happen and their subsequent break-ups often fulfill their self-prophecy.
NEED
The scary thing is that I find this philosophy invading the church.
We used to have people join our church by simply coming down and shaking the preacher’s hand, giving their testimony that they had been saved and baptized.
A few years ago we had to stop that.
Why?
Because we were getting a large number of people who were presenting themselves for membership as faithful followers of Christ who were living together and not married, directly in contradiction to what the Bible teaches.
Now, understand today, if you are here and are involved in co-habitation, I, in no way am seeking to hurt you or put you down.
All of us have sins in our lives that we need to confront and deal with, and if you are involved in this one, I come to you today humbly, not arrogantly, realizing that I’m just one sinner talking to another.
But that really is the point.
It is sin!
That’s what the Bible calls it.
And if you’re involved in it, I don’t want to put you down, I want to lift you up.
I want to encourage you.
I want to make a case, quite frankly, from the Word of God why marriage, not a ceremony, but the biblical institution of marriage, makes sense for you, and I want you to listen.
See, I believe two or three things have happened to us which have caused us to begin to stray from where the Bible tells we should be on this issue.
First, some of us have been distracted by attraction.
Our over-sexed, under-committed society has so focused on sexual attraction till we have substituted our libido for biblical love.
The result has been an increasingly self-centered approach to the marriage relationship which unrealistic expectations and unsatisfiable desires.
Since our relationships are based on the wrong foundation, incompatibility is the inevitable result.
Others of us are deceived by “freedom.”
Notice that “freedom” is in quotation marks.
It’s not real freedom, it’s actually false freedom.
We’ve been told that real love can only happen if we have no commitment.
When I was just a boy in the 60's and 70's, the free love movement came into existence.
It’s mantra was “Love means never having to say you’re ___________(what?) That’s right: sorry.
Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
The implication was that love was this totally free experience with no strings attached.
Again: that’s unbiblical!
Love is all about commitment.
I want you to listen this morning and allow the Holy Spirit to point out those areas of your marriage where you may have begun to run from commitment.
Allow God to work in your heart.
Still others are not distracted by attraction or deceived by freedom, they are trapped by desire.
What I mean is this: They have substituted sex for intimacy.
Instead of pursuing a “soul” connection with their mate, they’re just pursuing a “sex” connection.
The confusion of sex with intimacy destroys many marriages.
And here’s what we need to know: The Bible addresses all of these deceptions in its definition of what a genuine marriage is to be.
That definition is implied in the account of the very first marriage that ever existed.
Read it with me: TEXT: GEN 2:18-25.
In this passage you can find the three implication that come from a biblical definition of marriage.
The first is this:
D1: COVENANT MARRIAGE CONQUERS LONLINESS
EXP
Now, the first thing we have to understand is that, when I speak of marriage, I am not talking primarily about the legal contract which is recognized by the state; I’m talking about HOLY matrimony.
I’m talking about the institution God has ordained, so I call it “covenant” marriage.
By the way, I’m borrowing the term.
Many states within the union have actually created “covenant” marriage laws which make divorce more difficult.
That’s really not what I’m talking about.
I use the term “covenant” marriage to specify the biblical idea of matrimony that God has ordained.
This kind of marriage began a long time ago.
You can tell from our text that its origin flows out of the very beginning of our existence.
2:18 begins with the first negative statement God ever makes in the Scripture.
v 18 says, And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; God looks at man and sees a need.
Man’s need is stated by God.
It is not good that man is alone.
Well, God sees the need and states it, but then something interesting happens in the text.
vv 19-20a read: Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.
And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.
It’s almost like the Bible writer loses his train of thought and goes off on a tangent about Adam naming all the animals, but I don’t think he’s off point at all, actually.
The Bible describes Adam’s job here: He is given the job of naming animals.
I think God gives him this job for a very significant reason: Naming all the animals causes Adam to realize that he is alone.
Just think about it.
He sees two bears, a male and a female; he sees two wolves: a male and a female; he sees two rabbits: a male and a female.
Then he sees himself.
He’s alone.
You see him come to that realization in the last phrase of 2:20 where it says, But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
It’s like Adam’s asking the question, “where’s my partner?
There’s nobody like me.”
You see, the need is stated by God, but God causes the need to be recognized by man.
And once the need is stated by God and recognized by man, the solution is provided by God.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9