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
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.55LIKELY
Joy
0.61LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.47UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.33UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.82LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.87LIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.38UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.63LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
I have one thing to warn you of this morning: Don’t be complacent!
It’s pretty simple.
This message from Jeremiah is a warning to us.
A reminder.
A moment to stop and think about what you’re doing,
think about the life you live,
think about the things you love,
think about the people you ignore.
Don’t be complacent!
The thing about being complacent is that it is easy.
You slide into complacency without thinking about it too much.
Usually it’s not a conscious decision to be complacent, you just take stuff for granted,
you are pretty satisfied with the way things are,
you think “she’ll be right.”
“it’ll be sorted out in the wash.”
you’re not
Don’t be complacent!
What kind of complacency am I talking about?
- Complacency about Christian living.
It’s so easy in life to fall into a rutt, even with excising our faith.
The fresh and exciting realization about Jesus’ atoning death and offer of salvation turns our life around when we come to faith!
We have a new way of seeing the world, fresh insight!
A better way of living!
We are so thankful for God’s gifts to us, especially New Life by the Holy Spirit!
We want to please God in our thoughts and words and attitudes and actions!
We want toplease God in our thoughts and words and attitudes and actions
But as day give way to day, and month to month, and year to year, we find ourselves battling the same sins.
We’re a bit numbed by the Gospel story.
Christianity loses the shine a little.
We hear the preacher proclaim another sermon on the Good News of Jesus Christ and our eyes glaze over,
our thoughts wander,
we think “yeah, yeah, I know this stuff already”
we find excuses for our failures,
we suppress the conviction over sin by getting angry at how long the service is taking, or how bad the theology is.
Our drive to evangelise drops off,
Our passion for prayer wanes,
Our thirst for God’s word peters off,
Our sprint for holiness becomes a toddle.
Don’t be complacent!
The Israelites became complacent!
They were pulled out of slavery in Egypt, delivered to the Promised Land, lavished with gifts and blessings!
The Israelites were given more than they could ever ask for!
And it was built upon a covenant with God.
God would give them the good stuff if they would only remain faithful.
If they were faithful he would bless, if they rebelled he promised to curse.
An man did they get blessing!
God drove out the inhabitants of the land.
Pretty much all they had to do was show up!
They got houses and farms and vineyards and cities.
A land flowing with milk and honey.
But soon, the life of blessing became the new normal.
They grew complacent.
The blessings were blah.
It was all par for the course.
Like the kids who got tuck-shop money every week in primary school, they didn’t realize how good they had it!
(i’m not holding a grudge, I swear!)
They forgot where the blessing came from.
They forgot the covenant they made.
They forgot what was at stake.
The Israelites messed up their government.
They messed up their religion.
They messed up their society.
Eventually God got rid of most of them in 722 BC.
They were taken captive into Assyria never to return, or they lost their distinct identity mixing with other groups.
Jerusalem in Judah to the south remained for a time.
But then Jeremiah turned up to let the remaining Israelites know: “You won’t escape the next time, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
God had made grand promises to Israel, that he would keep, but he needed to deal with the covenant breakers.
He needed to deal with the rebellious, stubborn and abusive people of Judah, who were carrying on as if their actions didn’t matter.
Divided kingdom, North has already fallen.
As if they owned the place.
A saved people under covenant.
As if they were not bound by God’s instructions to them.
As if God would keep his promises to bless, but forget the threat to curse.
Umbrella Promises vs blessings & curses
In three sections, we will see how God plans to deal with them, and why his plan is justified.
It is a stark reminder to us: Don’t be complacent!
Impending Invasion (v15-19)
In the first section v15-19, Judah is warned of an Impending Invasion.
A justified invasion for utter destruction.
Destruction v15-17
Look to v15:
God is responsible for their destruction.
He says “I am bringing them against you.”
This is a hard word, especially if we have in our minds a picture of God that doesn’t include destruction and decimation.
God is bringing a foreign nation, who we later find out is Babylon.
They are the successors to the Assyrian empire, and their capital is Babylon, way over the desert to the east.
Show map
They are foreign.
They are not God’s chosen people, but God will use them as an instrument to bring judgment against the faithless people of Judah.
They will come with death and destruction.
Like hungry monsters they will swallow up everything of worth.
Everything that they took for granted.
See v16-17
This is rough stuff.
It will be bad.
Babylon will devour their food, their livelihood, their families and their defenses!
Imagine is a foreign army came and did the same here!
They would decimate our economy, take away our jobs, destroy our farms kill our families and steamroll our defense force.
There would be nothing left of our nation except the scarred landscape.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9