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
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
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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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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More than 440 years passed by.
The people of God were held as slaves in Egypt.
Pharaoh had oppressed them, saddling them with extremely hard labor.
The Lord, after warning from Moses, sent plague after plague, but it failed to get Pharaoh’s attention.
And then one finally did.
This plague would cause Pharaoh to insist Moses and his people leave Egypt.
It would also cause the Israelites to consider God’s mercy and salvation.
The last plague—the plague that finally got Pharaoh’s hardened heart to pay attention—was the death of every firstborn son throughout Egypt.
The Lord told His people what to do in light of the coming of this tenth and final plague.
The Lord told them to take lamb from their flock; He told them how to choose it, how to care for it, how to kill it as a sacrifice.
The people of Israel had to choose their own lamb—a yearling, to be specific.
They were to select the best one.
The perfect one.
Pure, spotless.
No defect.
No blemish.
No injuries.
No issues of any kind.
And from the 10th day of that month to the 14th day of that month, each perfect little lamb lived among an Israelite family in their respective homes.
They took care of the lamb.
They fed it scraps from the table.
For those 5 days, the lamb was vitrually part of the family.
A lamb—a perfect little lamb—was what God required of His people.
If they were to escape the last plague upon Egypt, they needed a lamb.
A lamb was what God required, not merely at this point in history.
In the days of Adam and Eve, their son Cain brought as offering to the Lord some grains and vegetables.
And their son Abel brought sacrifices from the firstborn of his flock.
The Lord looked with favor on Abel’s sacrifice, but not upon Cain and his sacrifice.
Abel was the one who brought a lamb, and only his offering was accepted.
God required a lamb.
Incredibly, God gives what God demands.
Again and again throughout history, God always seems to provide a lamb or other sacrificial animal to save His people.
God told Abraham to go up and sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering.
As Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain, Isaac realized something was missing; they forgot something.
Isaac asked his dad where the lamb for the burnt offering was.
Even the boy Isaac knew what God required.
Abraham said, teaching his son:
And so it was.
Just as Abraham took the knife to sacrifice his son, he was interrupted by an angel, directing Abraham to a ram caught in the thicket.
And so, Abraham sacrificed the ram instead of his son.
God provided what God required: “A lamb to sacrifice instead of Abraham’s son.”
A lamb is what God has always required.
And it’s what He required of the exiled Israelites living in Egypt.
Blood had to be spilled.
Moses relayed the command of God to them.
The people understood.
They would have to slaughter the lamb they’d selected.
So, at twilight on the 14th day of the month, every believing household sacrificed the lamb they had selected, the lamb that lived with them, the lamb—perfect and spotless.
It would be sacrificed and its blood put to use.
Every believing family was instructed to take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood, and paint the doorframes of their homes crimson with the blood of the little lamb.
The head of each family would say something like: “Blood represents the taking of a life; this lamb will die as sacrifice.
This lamb will pay the price we owe.
Tonight, the Lord Yahweh will come in judgment.
But, thanks to the lamb, we are covered.
And so, the lamb was sacrificed.
The lamb sacrificed for the people, its blood smeared on the doorjambs of each home; the people, protected.
The blood-protected people would roast the lamb over fire, along with bitter herbs.
They’d eat it along with unleavened bread.
They’d eat it all.
The lamb—and all it signified—was too sacred, much too special for any of it to go to waste.
After their special dinner, each family waited in solemn silence.
That night, God would claim a life from every single household in Egypt.
Either there’d be evidence that a lamb was sacrificed, or the firstborn son of every family would die.
A life from every single household in Egypt would be claimed.
There was salvation for all who took shelter under the blood of lamb.
Death would pass over.
Penalty paid.
God’s wrath satisfied.
Justice served.
Mercy extended.
Grace given…in the form of a lamb, sacrificed for the people.
God provides what God requires.
Just as God provided the lamb to take Isaac’s place under Abraham’s knife, He provided each believing family with a way out—a lamb and its blood.
You see, the Israelites didn’t pass muster with their good looks, their charming ways; they didn’t get a pass because they were a little better than the Egyptians.
They needed a sacrifice to pay the penalty their sins had wrought.
Blood would be spilled; their own or that of the lamb.
As so it was God provided what He required.
Sacrifice.
Once the people were freed from Egypt and started to wander in the desert, God gave them His Law—a set of instructions; 10 Commandments and then some.
They constructed the tabernacle where God met with His people.
Inside the inside of the inside of the tabernacle was the Most Holy Place where the high priest, Aaron, would once a year make atonement for the people of Israel.
Aaron would take two goats, presenting them before the Lord.
One goat would be sacrificed and the other would be the scapegoat.
One would be offered to the Lord, killed, its blood sprinkled in the holy place and its body burned outside of camp.
The other would be a substitute for the people.
Aaron the high priest would:
It’s an awfully strange ritual.
Priests and goats and sins and wilderness—all instructions detailed and given to Moses by God.
God could have just said that once a year the high priest would make atonement for the sins of the community and left it at that.
Bing, bang, boom.
An abra-cadabra or a wave of the hand from the priest.
But God made us and knows us and understands that an abstract theological concept wouldn’t connect with us the way a tangible act would.
So he gives us something we can see and smell and hear and hold in our hands.
Instead of mere words to express the ideas of forgiveness and substitution, God gives a goat who carries all the sins of the community, out of the temple, past the people, into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Talk about surreal; that’s one weird Tuesday.
Your sins being carried away by a substitute, right in front of you like you’re watching a parade, only it’s not some inflatable Charlie Brown; it’s a goat carrying your sins far, far away.
It’s a powerful picture, an incredibly powerful moment.
Once a year, every year this would happen.
It would be a lasting ordinance for priest and people.
A day of atonement, a day of propitiation.
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