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
Tones
Emotion
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Anger
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Have you ever been in need?
I’m not talking about the kind of need that makes you say “I need that candy bar” as you check out at the local Pick-N-Save.
I’m talking about more pressing needs, some which may be more urgent than others.
We may be struggling financially.
Perhaps we have needs in our earthly relationships.
Some may seem trivial, others may feel like they are a matter of life or death.
A cable network has tried to capitalize on such situations by creating a show where the host places himself in extreme situations.
The show’s host finds himself from week to week in remote locations without food or water.
The next hour of television is spent as he tries to survive without any supplies.
The nation of Israel found themselves in a similar situation.
They were traveling through a remote location without a source of water.
You or I may never find ourselves in some remote location of the world without food or water, but I am sure that I can say we’ve all been in need.
We’ve all asked ourselves what will happen next, or how we will ever survive our current situation.
Maybe some her are in that situation right now.
Today’s sermon text tells us that *in our time of need, we doubt God* but *God still provides.*
Can you picture it?
What a sight that must have been!
There, through the empty wilderness, marched a large army of people.
How strange this group, somewhere between one to two million people, must have looked as it followed a pillar of cloud.
When the cloud stopped, the people stopped.
When it moved, the people followed.
On this particular day, the pillar of fire stopped at a place called Rephidim.
The great army of people did as they had done numerous times already.
When the pillar stopped moving, the people obeyed the Lord and stopped as well.
But this time, something didn’t seem quite right.
Each Israelite began to whisper to the next, “Did you seen where we stopped?” “Why’d we stop here – there’s no water at all for us to drink!”
The Israelites knew that they wouldn’t last long on this trip to the Promised Land if they couldn’t even have water to drink.
They had been walking all day with no shelter from the sun.
Their energy was zapped and their mouths were parched.
There was no doubt that Israel was in need.
They were in a place that lacked something needed for survival.
They needed water to survive and they were afraid because whatever water they did have was running out.
They were thirsty and only water would help!
However it started, it spread like wildfire.
It may have been two good friends talking to each other or maybe a group of Israelites got together and began talking.
Maybe someone mentioned their pit-stop at Marah. “Remember that bitter water we had?
At least there was water then!”
Before long, the whole Israelite nation began to complain and fight with Moses.
“What are we to drink Moses?
Do you expect us to quench our thirst with all this sand?”
They began to question whether God even cared for them.
They complained that God couldn’t really be with them.
If he was with them, they may have said, they certainly wouldn’t be so thirsty!
It very well may have seemed that God had forgotten them and had left them to die.
The Israelites had forgotten God’s grace in their lives.
Just several weeks ago God had delivered them from Egypt.
He had brought them out of slavery.
They had forgotten that when Pharaoh and his army were breathing down their necks and the Red Sea was in front of them, God gave them a path through the middle of the sea.
They forgot how God was daily filling their stomachs in the wilderness with manna from heaven.
Moses had a response for Israel’s complaints.
“Why do you quarrel with me?” What could he do about their situation?
He was right there with them in the very same situation.
“Why do you put the Lord to the test?” he said.
This testing was not the tests that God often sends to strengthen one’s faith.
This testing was the sinful attitude which blamed God for the hardships they were experiencing and demanded that God make it right.
This testing God was a sin.
Despite Moses’ rebuke, Israel’s grumblings continued.
They were still concerned about their lack of water.
In fact, they even went so far as to accuse Moses.
“Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?
After everything we’ve been through Moses, after all the terrors of Egypt, and we’re going to die in the middle of nowhere due to thirst?”
Things haven’t changed much have they?
Don’t we all too often find ourselves in situations where we feel we are in need?
Maybe we are worried that we won’t have enough to make that next rent or mortgage payment.
The cupboard may be a little too bare and we wonder when we will be able to afford to stock up on groceries.
Illnesses arise and we complain about being sick.
Maybe the car has broken down and you’re not sure where the money will come from to fix it.
Just like the nation of Israel so long ago, we complain.
We’re faced with trouble and all we can think of is our own needs.
The best solution we can think of is really no solution.
We just begin to complain.
“Give us some more money!”
“If only there were a few more hours in the day.”
“I can’t get sick now!”
On the surface, it may seem like just innocent voicing of our concerns or blowing off steam.
Look below the surface!
Why do we complain?
Isn’t it because we doubt that God is there to help us out?
We don’t trust God as we should.
We doubt that our needs will ever be fulfilled.
The devil tempts us to look at the trouble we’re in and to dwell on our needs.
Before we know it, our needs are insurmountable obstacles.
We begin to wonder if God is really there.
We doubt God’s ability to supply for our every need.
We doubt that he loves us enough to make sure we have what we need.
How quickly we forget God’s grace!
We forget that he gave us a way to make that house payment.
We forget that we haven’t gone hungry, that he has given us enough food to survive.
We forget that he kept us through our last short paycheck.
We forget that he made us healthy the last time we were sick.
Worst of all, we forget that God took care of our greatest need, our own sinfulness.
Moses responds to our complaints as well.
While he is not standing before us today, we hear him calling us out through our text for this morning.
Why are you complaining?
Don’t you remember how God has shown you grace so many times before?
Why do you test the Lord?
Don’t you trust that he will provide for all your needs?
We test God with our doubts.
It is as if we are saying, “If you’re really there God, then you’ll make all my needs go away.
If you’re really there God, then I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in right now.”
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