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
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.17UNLIKELY
Joy
0.47UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.24UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.42UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.75LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.55LIKELY
Extraversion
0.05UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.54LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.38UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
~*~*PRAYER: Dear Lord, we pray that during this season of pentecost, that we may receive an extra portion of Your Spirit in our lives.
We pray that during this time together tonight, that you will open our ears and our hearts to Your message, and that you will use my mouth to speak Your truth to those gathered here.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
*~*~*Read Ezekiel 37:1-3*
What a strange vision is described in these verses: The prophet Ezekiel was taken by God’s spirit to a valley.
a valley full of bones.
dry, sun-scorched, dead, lifeless, unburied bones.
Human bones.
Something very catastrophic had taken place.
Ezekiel might have been familiar with such a valley where bones such as these would have belonged to the defeated army of Israel which had tried to protect Jerusalem from invaders, but to no success.
Jerusalem had been taken over by the Babylonians; the nation of Judah was defeated, and the Israelite people were taken away from their city of Jerusalem and forced to live under captivity in Babylon.
There was no time to bury the dead bodies, so they stayed in the desert, on the battlefield, where the vultures ate the flesh, and the sun scorched the corpses until there was nothing left but dry lifeless bones.
*~*~*read Ezekiel 37: 3-10*
And God asks Ezekiel: “Can these bones live?”
Well, let’s think of this objectively.
Step back and look at the situation.
You see a pile of bones.
They’re not alive, nor have they been any time recently.
Of course they can’t live again.
But, Ezekiel’s talking to God – who can make anything happen – So Ezekiel answers “God, /You/ know!” God - it’s up to you.
Then God begins a process of restoration.
He doesn’t snap His fingers and --BOOM– bones are living and breathing human beings again.
No.
instead, there’s a process.
The bones come together, connect with tendons, are covered with flesh, and then skin.
But there is still no life in them.
We get to this part of the story – seeing the bones come together, they look alive, but, it’s like God hasn’t come through with what He’s promised.
It’s like
\\ God is saying: Can these bones live? and then goes on to show how of course they cannot live.
How foolish of a thought to ever consider it.
What was missing was the breath of God to come and give the bodies life.
So God sends his breath, and the lifeless bodies are brought again to life.
Does this remind you of another time when God formed a body and breathed life into it?
*~*~*Genesis 2:7 *says: The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
I don’t know very much ancient Hebrew, which is the language the Israelites spoke.
In fact, I only know one word in Hebrew.
That word is RUACH.
This word, I’m told, originally meant “air in motion,” referring to wind or breath.
Wind is often referred to poetically as the breath of God - so ruach also came to mean Spirit of God.
Wind, Breath, Spirit = they’re all the same word in Hebrew.
So, what we see here, is a play on words.
God is not only breathing air into lifeless bodies, but He’s filling them with His Spirit - his life-giving Holy Spirit.
God goes on to explain this whole vision to Ezekiel.
read *Ezekiel 37:11-14*
God says in v. 11: These bones are the whole house of Israel.
Behold, they (i.e. the Israelites being held in Babylon) say: “Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished.
We are completely cut off.”
Picture yourself in the shoes of the Israelites.
You are God’s chosen people.
He has brought you out of Egypt, delivered you to the promised land, and established you as a nation.
But now all that is destroyed, and you are being held in a foreign land under foreign rule.
Israel was a defeated nation.
Crushed militarily.
Its People separated in exile, and abandoned, so they thought, by God.
They said “We’re dead.”
and they were right.
Though they were still alive as indiv.
people - walking, talking, complaining - they were dead as a nation.
Alone, exhausted, discouraged, impoverished – Israel was as good as dead.
As dead as dry lifeless bones that had no way of coming back to life.
They were in despair and saw no hope for the future.
\\ “Can /these/ bones live?” Can /this/ nation live?
No way.
Babylon is a great nation.
No one’s going to defeat them.
Israel doesn’t even have an army.
But God says to Ezekiel: “Prophesy to these people.
Tell these people the vision you have experienced today.
Yes, the Israelites are dead and buried in graves, but I will raise them up from the grave.
I will bring my people back to their land.”
* *
*and he doesn’t stop there.
*“And once I do that, I’m not content to have my people living there as lifeless bodies, but I will breathe my Spirit into them, and they will live.
And then (God says) they will realize that I am the Lord.”
God is telling the Israelites that even in their situation - as unpredictable as it may seem to them - He is with them, He has a plan for them, and He is going enable them to expect salvation.
* *
*The Promise Fulfilled:*
the physical return of Israelite exiles to the promised Land began with the decree of Cyrus - the Persian conquerer of Babylon in 539 BC - just a few decades later.
The great Babylonian empire was conquered by the Persians, and the Jews were allowed to return to their homes, the temple was rebuilt, they became a people again.
before the fall of Jerusalem - from the very beginning - while they were still wandering in the desert - Israel had a problem - idolatry.
The Israelites would worship other gods.
Whether they would worship God and Baal or a golden calf, their loyalty was divided.
They were not centered on God.
For too long, they had presumed a relationship with God just because they were in the promised land.
They came back from captivity and never again - until 55 years ago - had their own nation.
They didn’t have worldly fame or success as a nation.
They didn’t have their own land, or government or even language, but they now had their own unique religion.
and they had a deeper relationship with God, who breathed His Spirit into them.
(Last Sunday, Dorothy spoke about letting us see with God’s vision.
In God’s sight the physical surroundings – the status of a nation – isn’t what is important.
It’s the heart.
It’s a desire to know Him.
God had a plan for the Israelites from the beginning, but they chose to put their trust in the material world.
It wasn’t until everything was taken away from them that they realized they needed God.
If you read other prophesies in Ezekiel, most of them are dated.
They begin like “Now it came about in the 30th year, on the 5th day of the 4th month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
(This was the 5th of the month in the 5th year of King Jehoiachin’s exile) *(~*~*Ezekiel 1:1-2)*
But this prophesy with they dry bones has no date.
I don’t know why it has no date, but it is interesting, for this vision speaks to all of us, no matter what age we live in.
*Where are you at today? *
-are you in exile – as dead as a pile of dry bones in the middle of
the desert?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9