Sermon Tone Analysis

We are still on the theme of the Future Hope of Israel but we will be taking a little detour in today's sermon.

and the reason for that is because Paul mentioned something that we must slow down and discuss in further detail.

So even though we are taking a detour it is important that in your mind we are still on the topic of the Future Hope of Israel.

It is interesting how we think about the nation of Israel and how we separate ourselves from them.

What's a tragedy that we did such a thing and our current culture.

But then again we keep doing tragic things when it comes to the worship of God and to the things of God.

It's as if we cannot help ourselves from our own destruction.

The practices that we are seeing in ministries across the world and the doctrine that is being proclaimed from the pulpits around the world is and of itself a tragedy.

It saddens me to a great degree every time I hear a current trend or hear about a current teaching.

There are a lot of cringe-worthy stuff out there.

and this is all stuff we have discussed in the past we have discussed bethel Church in California that has placed object in the ventilation system of the church and when it releases into the atmosphere they call it the anointing.

I mean they literally manipulate what you are thinking and feeling.

Now that is a major mega church that has a budget to truly manipulate you.

But there are smaller congregations where the preacher has to find different means of manipulation.

and so the preacher will share all these miraculous stories of all these things they have done.

Of all the healings that they have caused.

The greater the miracle the least amount eyewitnesses there are to the stories.

There are pastors out there that walk the streets and literally pull your leg and tell you that they're making your leg grow.

They walk up and say do you have back pain, well it is because you have one leg that is shorter than the other and so they sit you down and they pull one leg and they say do you see it growing people go I guess so.

Which by the way is an old magician’s trick it, it was an old Street magicians trick.

Don’t forget about the bizarre tactics and forget about the manipulation that takes place.

The one thing that all of these ministries have in common is bad doctrine or false doctrine.

They don’t all share the same exact false doctrine but the one thing they do have in common is that they practice a form of false doctrine.

Coincidence?

and it was just reported this week on the news of a cult that is on the rise and are using aggressive approaches to get you to come to their Bible study.

This cult is called the world mission society and they are actually pretty big in Colorado.

I have had several run-ins with this cult and trust me when I say they are a cult to the fullest extreme.

Very similar to the old Reverend Moon.

But the bottom line of this cult is they believe that Jesus returned in physical form to continue his ministry on Earth.

But this time in a Korean man and this Korean man of course had to bring his wife into the cult.

Doesn’t make much sense you’re going to start a cold and not get permission and activity from the misses.

And so he built a doctrine on heavenly mother.

And no it is not Mary they are building this doctrine because if there is a heavenly father that must mean there is a mother as well and they believe this mother is the New Jerusalem and they believe this New Jerusalem is still alive as this cult leader who is now dead, wife is still alive and running this cult.

Not from America but somewhere from South Korea.

You are going to have to really be on your guard if you bump into some of these people.

they are not interested in telling you all of their false doctrine upfront.

Instead they invite you to come to church with them and gradually bring you to it.

now the main objective for a cold is to get you within their controlled environment first.

It must be in an environment that they control.

And so they do whatever it takes to get you to their place of worship.

And colts have learned this from the Christian church.

Because the goal of the Christian church is no longer to make disciples of every nation was in the world.

But it is to build at the best at gathering place to draw people to you.

It's all about getting them in the door.

It's all about filling the seats.

And when you look at these tactics and when you discuss these topics very rarely is the spiritual nutrition of the church talked about the exposition of scripture talked about, the seriousness of worship talked about.

It is all about if I like it or not.

not if it is true, not if it is right, not if it is God glorifying but if I am the one who likes it.

Whatever it takes to get the people in the door.

This has been taking place for a while now and it could be the very reason why people get so burned out of church.

Because the church is never really offering anything real.

It is never really offering anything authentic.

and so maybe you have visited another church where you just go something is off here.

You can’t always pinpoint it.

But you know something is just not right.

And so people get burned out of church and they leave.

And they build a destructive pattern of neglecting the church.

Which in my opinion could be the saddest thing to think about.

The people of God actively running from God.

Like how Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in the garden the moment they sinned.

well today's text is a perfect one to slow down and reflect on something here and discuss the church in more detail.

This is not an absolute detailed doctrine of the church that we will be covering today it is more of just a near introduction to the topic.

So let's dive in and get to the meat of what we will be discussing today.

Now before we can begin discussing the church we have to address that this section of scripture is extremely debatable and hard to translate.

Which makes it a bit more difficult and trying to understand what Paul is trying to communicate.

You can pick up any commentary on this section, that is an actual commentary not a little footnote, and the introduction to this verse will be an explanation of all the different views of this verse and verse 17.

And then the commentator will leave you a conclusion on what they think what Paul is trying to say.

But the fact of the matter is we do not know 100% for certain the solid explanation of these verses.

Which is why every commentator will introduce at the way they introduce its because there are many different views out there and all of which could be possible.

It needs to be pointed out that Paul is using an analogy and trying to build absolute truth and solid doctrine out of an analogy is dangerous.

The analogies being used to help us understand better the doctrine that Paul has already laid down.

We cannot go to the analogies of scripture and call it the fundamentals of our faith.

Remember that every time you are reading an analogy.

It is meant to point you to a truth not a perfect representation of doctrinal truth that we build doctrines on.

Now verse 16 is actually simple on the surface.

Paul is appealing to the old covenant scriptures in the book of Numbers where if a piece of the dough was considered holy the lump that the dough came from was also considered holy.

And specifically what he is referring to is they would have a whole lump of dough but they would take a piece out of the lung and they would make a cake of some sort and this cake was used as an offering to God.

But one thing that was clear was the piece that is set aside was not the only aspect that was holy it was the entire lump that the piece came out of was considered holy.

And then he uses another analogy that has the same meaning of but it is changed a bit.

Paul says and if the root is holy so are the branches.

Your tree as the route and if you have a great route you’re going to have great branches if you have a good route you will have good branches.

So on the surface this makes sense right.

It’s not just a piece of the dough that’s holy the entire dough that is wholly it’s not just the route to that is holy but the branches that come from that route also.

So here is the difficult part, who is Paul talking about?

Now we just stepped in muddy waters.

So in the first anthology who are this lump that Paul is talking about.

Some commentators say that the lump and the root are the patriarchs.

Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

Some say it is Jesus, some say it is Israel.

Some say the first Jewish Christian.

And when you are listening or reading a commentator they are going to say it is probably, and they use the word probably because they're not certain.

The issue I take with saying that both analogies are referring to the patriarchs is that the first analogy the lump and the dough that comes from that lump is plural and the second analogy the root becomes singular.

It leads me to believe that Paul did that for a reason.

So I think the two are closely connected but I do not think they are the same thing.

Some say it is Jesus, but again it goes from plural to singular.

And the context is of course the cutting off and the grafting on and the focus on Israel.

So there are, historically, to conclusions about who Paul maybe talking about.

And sew to skip all of the speculations let's just narrow it down to the two most common historically held positions on this text.

Now these two positions view the lump differently but the route the same.

And so the first view is that the lump is the first Jewish Christians.