Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Anger
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When it appears to us that God isn’t doing anything, it might just be that God is actually doing everything.
It’s kind of funny to think about.
We talk about landline telephones like they are these archaic, ancient technology that folks used in the antediluvian days.
But really, it hasn’t been that long.
If you were born since 2000, you grew up with wireless devices, but before 2000?
It was mostly snail mail and princess telephones.
I worked for BellSouth in the early 2000’s.
The handwriting was on the wall - the faster folks got cell phones, the more quickly they took the landlines out of their houses.
I worked in an inbound sales call center that sold landlines for businesses and really, we weren’t in a position to really notice that.
Everyday we came to work - everyday there were customers on the lines with issues for them and sales opportunities for us.
One day our Sr.
VP came and announced to us that we were going to be trained to take repair calls.
That was insanity as far as we were concerned.
Think about this - you phone line isn’t working, so you call in and I try to sell you another line just like the one that isn’t working.
How agreeable do you think you’d be?
We all had sales quotas and if we missed our quotas, not only did we not get commission pay, if you missed it enough, you lost your job.
And now we’re going to be taking calls from irate people who will suck our time away from selling to people who might actually buy.
We weren’t happy.
But we didn’t understand the situation.
A few years later, even with taking the additional calls, we started seeing our office shrink.
When I got hired, I didn’t have a desk - there were too many people.
When I came in, I had to find a desk where someone was out that day.
By the time we had been taking repair calls for a few years, half the office was empty.
While we thought management wasn’t doing anything - in fact, when we thought upper management was against us, management was actually scrambling to save the business and save our jobs.
When it appears to us that God isn’t doing anything, it might just be that God is actually doing everything.
God had freed His people from captivity in Babylon and had brought them back to Israel and Jerusalem.
They were so happy, but life was so hard.
The supply chain was broken.
The city they came back to was broken - everything was in disrepair.
Their enemies didn’t want them back and the enemies constantly harassed them.
But they persevered and kept working and kept thinking God was going to do something big.
He brought them back.
It was just a matter of time until they were the king dings of the middle east again.
But 70 years passed and every day was the same old same old.
Now think about this: We’ve been dealing with Covid since March 14, 2020.
Anybody tired of it yet?
Anyone tired of experts like Dr. Fauci saying it’s too early to tell if we can have Christmas gatherings this year?
Does his reality match our reality?
And we have supply chain issues caused by the experts guidance on Covid.
And I even wonder, we’ve taken 60 million people out of the workforce by abortion, I wonder if that’s had an economic effect.
Seems like it would to me.
It seems to me, maybe not to you, but to me that the entire world has gone insane.
And we’ve wondered, I’ve wondered, how long O’ Lord?
And for us, it’s only been a year and 7 months.
Imagine 70 years of this insanity.
Where would we be?
They started to take matters into their own hands.
The started exploring solutions.
Maybe we should explore the gods of the successful people.
Seems to be working for them - bet it will work for us too.
And they started to focus on money.
No matter how much they had, they never had enough.
And slowly but surely, what was wrong before became more right now.
By the way, you know there is a referendum on ballot for packaged liquor sales in Gray, right?
What is the main reason cited for allowing a store to sell packaged liquor - not by the drink that’s already happening I do believe, but a liquor store?
Money.
I know I’m supposed to preach against it being a Baptist pastor and all, but you guys know I’m not necessarily your average bear.
The Bible doesn’t speak against drinking no matter what your mama said.
What it does say and where I do get concerned, is where the Bible says don’t get drunk - don’t lose control of yourself.
Because when you do, you’ll do stupid.
And - and this is worse, you’ll cause other people to do stupid.
So I’m not going to rail against it - I simply want to ask you a single question.
Across the railroad tracks, is the corner store.
What if the owner changes that to a liquor store?
All of the beautification that Downtown Development and Main Street Gray and so many people have worked so hard to do.
And right there, at the gateway of our fair city, is a liquor store.
There is a pretty liquor store in Jackson - they tore down an old grocery store and built it in its place.
You pass it coming home from Atlanta if you go that way - that’s how I know.
That’s one - I haven’t seen many in my life.
I’ve never seen young professionals hanging out outside the liquor store.
Mostly they go in and buy and leave.
But others do hang out there.
I am sure it will raise some degree of revenue.
All governments, even our little city of Gray and Jones County, love to confiscate our money in the form of taxes and you’d better bet a store that sells alcohol gets taxed like crazy.
In addition to sales taxes, there are excise taxes.
Your money you’ll be paying to your government - and they will always want more, won’t they?
So enough of that.
You need to vote one way or another - the turnout will be low so your voices are amplified.
But remember the Israelites - their lust for money caused them to make questionable, then wrong decisions.
Before you vote, ask yourself the question, will the juice be worth the squeeze.
What we get out of it in money, be worth what we get out of it with everything else?
And for anyone who is thinking that a pastor should stay out of anything in the political sphere, let me say this:
Take it up with my boss.
He created the political sphere.
So back to Israel.
Life is hard and they are asking the Lord, “Why are you just sitting there?”
“Why don’t you do something?”
And God called them out.
While they were accusing God of not loving them, he showed them:
That He loved them all of the time.
That He wanted them to have peace.
That He wanted to bless them.
That He was faithful and was to be trusted.
And that He was just.
And now this week, He is going to add dependability, truth and judge to His resume.
The Lord hammers home the point one more time, when it appears to us that God isn't doing anything, it might just be that He is doing everything.
Our text is Malachi 2:17-3:5 and today we’re going to read it in three blocks; let’s look at Malachi 2:17-3:1
Weary is a great word.
I’ve used it with my kids and with people I’ve supervised.
“You make me weary.”
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