Sermon Tone Analysis

“A Spiritual EKG”

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The most vital organ you have is your heart!

You can live with one kidney, one lung, one leg, but you cannot live without your heart.

To enjoy an energetic life you need a strong, healthy heart.

The condition of your physical heart, greatly determines the things you can and cannot do.

I love the story about Harry Ironside when he gave his testimony at a Salvation Army meeting.

Standing in the crowd as he gave his testimony was a well-known agnostic, who had made a name for himself lecturing against Christianity.

The man came up to Ironside after he gave his testimony, and handed him his business card, and on the back of the card he had written,” Sir, I challenge you to debate with me agnosticism versus Christianity, in the academic science Hall next Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock, I will pay all expenses.”

Ironside stepped back up to the mic and read the card out loud, and then said this:

The human heart, weighs less than a pound and is only a little larger than your fist.

It beats 72 times a minute, one hundred thousand times a day; forty million times a year.

Each day it pumps the equivalent of 1,800 gallons of blood through more than sixty thousand miles of your circulation system.

I’ll be glad to debate you on the following conditions.

In order for you to prove that you have something worth debating about, you must promise to bring with you next Sunday two people whose lives have been changed as proof that agnosticism is of real value in changing human lives and building true character.

Wow what an amazing organ the heart is; it keeps us alive.

When the Bible speaks of the heart, it is not just talking about the organ that pumps your blood.

When the Bible speaks about the heart, it is talking about the center of your mental and spiritual life.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

Out of the heart are the issues of life.

The heart is the center of a person’s being; the real you.

The first person to bring with you is a man whose life was wrecked, and he had been an outcast from society.

A man who was a drunkard, or a criminal, or a drug addict, or a man given to sexual sin.

Jesus is coming to the end of the sermon he has been preaching; and He’s calling for an examination of the heart; do you have an obedient heart.

A man who for years was under the power of evil habits, from which no one could deliver him from.

But he entered into one of your meetings and heard you speaking on the greatness of agnosticism, and heard you rejecting the Bible and Christ.

And after listening to you was so deeply stirred that he went away from your meeting saying, from now on I too am an agnostic!

And I found a new power in my life, and the sins I once loved, I now hate, and righteousness and goodness are now the passions of my life.

Bring a man who has been made entirely new, and has become a credit to himself, an asset to society all because he is an agnostic.

Many people had gathered to hear Jesus preach, but listening was not enough.

The test of salvation and Christian discipleship, is not just hearing the word but doing the word.

The second person you are to bring is a woman, whose life was once controlled by sin, who was once a slave to alcohol, drugs, and abusive relationships.

A woman who lived for years lost in her sin.

But this woman also entered into one of your meetings and heard you proclaiming the message of agnosticism and ridiculing the word of God.

As she listened hope was born in her heart and she said, this is just what I need to be delivered.

She followed your teaching until she became an agnostic herself, and as a result her life has been totally changed.

And she is now living a life that is clean, virtuous, and happy, all because she is an agnostic.

Obeying the word, is what reveals the condition of a person’s heart.

Obeying the word, is what determines the outcome of a person’s life.

Then he said to the man; if you a promise to bring these two people with you as examples of what agnosticism can do, I’ll promise to meet you next Sunday at 4 o’clock, and I will bring with me at least 100 men and women who for years lived in such a sinful, wicked, depraved, ungodly life as I have tried to describe.

But they have been gloriously saved through believing the gospel which you ridiculed.

I will have these men and women with me on the platform as witnesses to the miraculous saving power of Jesus Christ, and as a present day proof of the truths of the Bible.

Jesus gives us two allegories, in these allegories Jesus compares our lives to trees, and houses.

Everyone in this room is represented by one of these trees, and one of these houses.

The question is, which kind of tree and what kind of house are you?

Will you agree to these conditions?

The man smiled and waved his hand and said, nothing doing!

And turned and walked out on the crowd.

Question #1:

The gospel of the Jesus Christ transforms people’s lives!

Jesus rescues the perishing, cares for the dying, Jesus is merciful, mighty to save!

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What Kind of Fruit am I Bearing?

V:43-45.

The man were going to meet this morning experienced the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Jesus takes us into the orchard, and shows us two kinds of trees.

He shows us the good tree, that brings forth good fruit; and he shows us the bad tree that brings forth rotten fruit.

He is a man that goes from being a maniac to a missionary!

Jesus tells us the good tree does not produce bad fruit, and the bad tree does not produce good fruit.

There are several great facts about sin and salvation in the story of the man who goes from a maniac to a missionary.

Fact #1:

Any more than a thorn bush brings forth figs, or a bramble bush brings forth grapes.

A tree is known by its fruit.

1. Satan Wants to Destroy You!

This is the basic law of nature; going all the way back to the book of Genesis.

V:26-28.

When we first meet this man we learn that his life is a wreck; Satan is controlling this man, and seeking to destroy him.

Jesus and his disciples have sailed through a storm to get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee into Gentile territory.

This is the first time that Jesus has ventured into Gentile territory.

God said in -“And the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind…

Jesus is not only the savior of the Jews, he is the savior of the world.

God said the same thing about the animals:

-“let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and the beast of the earth after his kind and it was so”.

As soon as Jesus stepped out the boat he is met by this man who has been possessed by demons for a long time.

This was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, maybe somebody’s husband and father.

This man’s life is under the dominion of Satan.

Obviously this man’s condition is extreme; but he gives us a living picture of what Satan desires to do in people’s lives.

One species, does not evolve into another species; they were made after their kind, on the day God created them.

The basic law of nature, every tree produces its own kind of fruit.

This man was lost in his sin, and had opened himself up to the control of Satan.

This man is being controlled by Satan morally, spiritually and physically.

Satan wants to blind people’s minds to the truth of the gospel, keep them from spiritual life in Jesus Christ, and destroy them physically and damn them to hell.

You always get the right kind of fruit, from the right kind of tree.

You never get the right kind of fruit, from the wrong kind of tree.

When this maniac came running up to Jesus and his disciples, I’m sure the disciples were freaked out, I know I would’ve been.

I can see him with his eyes darting back and forth, his hair matted and caked down; he has no clothes on, he smells like dead decomposing bodies; he looks more like a wild animal than a person.

This simple illustration teaches us:

We don’t know how this man had opened himself up to demons; but he had, and he was possessed with demons.

V:45-Read.

You say pastor, there is no one possessed by demons and in this condition today.

But I want to remind you this morning that if your life is not under the control of the Lord Jesus, your life is under the control of Satan and sin.

I am aware that there are different manifestations of the control of Satan and his demons.

And that Satan often masquerades himself as an angel of light, .

And just like a tree, we produce the kind of fruit that is in our hearts.

The condition of our heart, determines the actions/fruits of our life.

We do what we do outwardly, because of what we are inwardly.

The reason we say the things we say, and do the things we do, is because of who we are.

The way to tell whether you have a good heart or not, is by looking at the way you live!

Jesus gives us this illustration in order to get us to examine our lives, and thereby see the condition of our hearts.

But Satan’s intentions are the same for the person who is in high society and the person who has been driven to the depths of derogation.

Satan’s desire is the same: To destroying the image of God in man, and leading man to be separated from God for all eternity.

Check out your own spiritual produce; what kind of fruit is coming from your life?