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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.55LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.3UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.87LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.87LIKELY
Extraversion
0.19UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.58LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.6LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
Last week, we began our look at the church in Pergamos, but we were not able to get past Jesus.
Isn’t that a great position to be in!
I so wish that all of us would get to the point where we could not get over or even past Jesus.
We looked at the authority of Jesus and His word.
We were reminded of the timelessness of God’s word.
I pointed out that there is no greater authority than Jesus Christ.
Jesus said:
We are to submit ourselves to the authority of Christ.
Let’s take the next few moments and look at what was going on in the church in Pergamos.
Worldliness was the issue in Pergamos.
Worldliness was the issue in Pergamos.
In , you can read the details of Balak hiring Balaam to curse Israel.
However, God would not allow Balaam to curse Israel.
So, Balaam conspired with Balak by advising him in how to get Israel out of God’s blessing.
NKJVLook, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
The Lord refers to two things in Pergamos:
Immorality
The Moabite women tempted the Israelite men to commit sexual immorality.
This eventually led to the Israelite men committing idolatry as well.
The church in Pergamos had the same issue in that there were those succumbing to immorality.
They were in adulterous relationships and the church was tolerating these relationships.
To our own condemnation, church people today are guilty of the same things.We look at pornography, we are guilty of lust, and all manners of immorality.
We tolerate sin because we are all unrighteous.
We fail to be holy.
Rather than being holy, we are so wrapped up in the lust of the flesh that we have not only given in to immorality, but have given into idolatry.
Idolatry
The Moabite women in Numbers and the women in Pergamos turned the hearts of God’s people away from Him by leading them to participate in idol worship.
The worship of those idols included immoral acts.
Our society has become one that is obsessed with self gratification.
It has subtlety infiltrated the church over the past few decades and now even believers are guilty of idolatry.We have given the things of this world preeminence in our lives.
We are driven by that which is temporary rather than what is eternal.
We come to worship God with divided hearts, forgetting that God demands all that we are.
We are commanded to love Him with all that we are.
NKJVAnd you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
This is the first commandment.
Our divided hearts cause us to be guilty of breaking the first and greatest commandment.
While not all of us may be guilty of immorality like the small group in Pergamos, we will find that we are guilty of idolatry.
Simply defined, we are guilty of idolatry when we put something or someone as more important in our lives than God.
It doesn’t necessarily start with a great big sin, but many small sins will lead us to accepting worldly thoughts, beliefs, and even behavior.
The fully grown foxes were able to raise up on their hind legs and eat the grapes from the bunch, but the little foxes would gnaw on the vine and cause the plant to die.
The application is that the smaller, so called benign sins do as much, if not more damage to our spiritual lives than the bigger sins.
As we continue to buy into and ascribe to worldliness, the more we become like the world and the less we are like Christ.
It will progress to the point where we are no longer living under the authority of God and His word.
We will be spiritually weak and develop unbiblical beliefs.
The only thing we can do is:
Repent, or else!
NKJVRepent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
Jesus provides the church with an opportunity to repent.
Now, understand something: He is not only giving the immoral and idolatrous people an opportunity to repent.
He is also giving those who tolerated these things an opportunity to repent.
The judgment of Jesus was going to come on both those that committed these sins and those that tolerated them.
If you go back and look in Numbers, God killed 24,000 Israelites who committed immorality and idolatry with the Moabites.
Folks, I am afraid that many of us are facing the judgment of Christ.
It is time to repent.
We must lay aside our worldly pursuits, worldly affections, and our worldliness.
Then, we must pursue holiness by bringing ourselves back under the authority of the Bible.
Holiness is not just the absence of sin and worldliness, it includes the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:16-26If we overcome our immorality and idolatry, Jesus will give us rewards!
Don’t continue to give up the eternal rewards that await you for the sake of temporary gratification.
If we overcome our immorality and idolatry, Jesus will give us rewards!
Don’t continue to give up the eternal rewards that await you for the sake of temporary gratification.
Decision
The invitation is very simple this morning: come and repent.
If you have not been saved - repent of your sins, believe in Jesus and be saved.
I will stand down here ready to explain to you how to do that.
If you have been saved, you may need to repent of immorality, idolatry, worldliness, or even just a general lack of holiness.
The altar is open, come today and lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9