Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Anger
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Blessing Promised
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
If you choose this way of life, then you need to live by the rules of this life.
You need to follow it all the way.
This is your path, so go along it to the bitter end.
That is how things work.
You want to be a gunfighter, then you will die a gunfighter.
Sooner or later there will be someone faster than you, someone with the advantage, and you will be gunned down, like you gunned down others.
That is the life that you chose, so live it out.
The law is the same.
You can’t live by the law, and not be subject to it’s demands.
God said here is the law, here is a pathway to life.
If you follow this path it will lead to life.
But if you don’t follow this law, if you wander from the path, then you must face the circumstances.
And the Jews couldn’t follow the law.
They wandered from the path.
And so God gave them what they deserved.
He gave them the results of their disobedience.
He gave them their wages.
Death.
That is what Paul is saying in verse ten.
You rely on the law, ok, then you receive the curse that comes with the law.
That’s the path you chose, the path that God promised to the Israelites.
But things went completely opposite.
Instead of blessing all the nations through Israel, Israel was cursed.
They went into exile, and were oppressed by a pagan nation.
So that path was blocked.
The chosen people, through whom God would bless the nations, were instead cursed, not blessed.
They were cursed not just in a future way, but in a physical real way.
They were sent into exile.
Curse results.
Unable to keep the law.
The Pharisees, the ones that Jesus was so hard on, were zealous for the law.
But they saw the law in the wrong light.
Rather than pointing to God, the law for them pointed to themselves.
I am a good person because I keep the law.
I do things according to the letter of the law.
And because of their zeal, they were able to justify things like ignoring their parents in order to honor the law.
To hate people rather than love them.
To see themselves as righteous, in the eyes of the law, without seeing that they had lost all hope of ever keeping it.
They were separated from the law giver.
They didn’t know him.
That’s what Jesus said to them.
Depart from me, I never knew you.
What a terrible sentence.
Especially since they thought they had done everything right.
It’s one thing to know, i’m a loser, no wonder i get crap in my life, it’s another thing to think, I’m on the right track, and find you are not at all.
Story of the spelling bee, and getting the word wrong, when you think you have it right.
And so they, and all others who thought they could find life by going down the path of the law, found themselves under a curse.
The English language is interesting.
We talk about listening up, of getting up, perking up, of shutting up, but you quiet down, you sit down, you go down.
Why do we get under a curse?
The picture is one of oppression.
The master is above you, you are below, they whip you as you bend at the knee, and cower.
The curse is on top of you, you are underneath it.
Rather than being an umbrella, which offers protection, you are under the raining blows your master, under oppression, under a weight, a burden, a yoke.
That is how the law is portrayed.
Under it.
It weighs on you. it holds you down.
Have you ever been under something heavy?
I remember as kids we used to play out in the school yard with the highjump mat.
We would put some poor little kid under the mat, some times forced some times voluntarily, and then flop the mat on top of them.
Then all the kids would pile on top of the mat, squishing them down.
We would wait for an appropriate amount of time, then we would start hurling kids off of the mat in an effort to save those caught underneath.
Finally we would tip up the mat, and reveal whoever had been stuck underneath it, and allow them to scamper out, moaning in mock pain and misery.
I remember getting stuck under the mat one time.
I was under there with Chris Woodford.
It wasn’t painful, you could breath under there, but it was terrifying, because you couldn’t move.
you couldn’t get out from under the mat, even if you wanted to.
You couldn’t scream loud enough to be heard, and you couldn’t signal to anyone that you wanted out.
You could only wait, and hope that someone would let you out.
That’s the curse of the law.
You follow the law, and you get caught under it.
And just like some of the people on the schoolyard, some of us want to be under there.
Because there is a sense that we are in control.
But you aren’t in control.
You are powerless, held down.
Alternate Route?
Faith bypasses law.
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So That is the curse.
But what about the blessing.
I mean God said that through Abraham’s seed the nations would be blessed.
But they aren’t.
They were oppressed, they were beaten down, they were cursed.
God’s promises always come true.
He doesn’t just say things, and then forget them.
He means it.
And yet here they are, in exile.
The ones carrying the promise of God, have gone off track, have been waylaid by the law that would give them life, and now find themselves under death, because of the law.
So what will happen?
Well God didn’t lift the curse.
He sent someone to get under it with us, and so allow us to be released.
He sent his Son, to be cursed for us.
Have you ever jacked up a car, and the jack is holding up the car, but you need to get the jack out.
So you put a block of wood under the car to hold the weight of the car so you can now remove the jack.
That’s what Jesus did.
He got down under the curse with us.
He took the weight.
He let the yoke fall on his shoulders.
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