Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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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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Prayer
Pray
I.
The Reading
A reading from Job 1:1-12.
This is God’s Word:
[ Scripture Reading ~2 minutes ]
Say Amen
This is God’s Word.
If you receive it as such, would you Say Amen?
Amen.
II.
The Exhortation
Does Job Fear God For No Reason?
This is the voice of the Devil once again, in his second opportunity to speak in Holy Scripture.
He asks: Does Job Fear God For No Reason?
This phrase presents in the text as a question, an inquiry..
But this is not a question.
It is an attack.
It is an accusation.
An accusation against God and against Job that gets to the heart of spiritual conflict.
Does Job Fear God For No Reason?
Why does Job fear God?
Is God worth fearing?
When read in context, Satan accuses Job of fearing God because God has blessed Job.
In other words, Job’s just in it for himself.
Job fears God because Job is blessed.
Job fears God because he has no reason NOT to fear God.
In walking up and down, going to and fro on the earth, Satan counted at least 11,011 blessings that MUST explain the reason why Job fears God:
Job has seven sons, three daughters, 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants (1:3).
Why wouldn’t a person fear God when God gives so many possessions?
So much wealth.
So much greatness.
So many blessings.
No one would trust God if all of these things were taken away!
God is worthy of worship in luxury only, but not in loss.
He’s God in gain only, but not in pain.
God is merely God when WE decide that He is.
If God does what WE want Him to do for us.
You see, God must need us as much as we need Him.
If we didn’t fear Him, worship Him, serve Him, pray to Him, and give to Him, then God would no longer be God.
And God knows this.
So God purchases our praise.
God bribes us.
This is the theology of the dog and the cat.
A dog waits for his master to return home.
The dog thinks - you love me, you feed me, you give me a place to stay and sleep.
You, master, must be God!
But a cat waits for his master to return home.
The cat thinks - you love me, you feed me, you give me a place to stay and sleep.
I MUST BE GOD!
This accusation of Satan demands an answer of us all —
Why do we fear God?
Why do we worship Him?
A God who sometimes leaves us in the dark?
A God who does not answer all of our questions?
A God who doesn’t do things the way we want them to be done?
A God who has the power to do anything yet allows unspeakable evils and wrongs to occur?
Why do we serve Him?
Why do we trust God?
Why do we trust Him...
(From the view of David)
When He prepares a table before me, in the presence of my enemies?
(Ps 23:5)
Why do we trust Him...
(From the view of Mary & Martha)
When our brother Lazarus was sick but there was enough time for Jesus to come heal and prevent his demise, but Jesus delayed and Lazarus our brother died and its been long enough now his body has started to decay?
(Jn 11; Jn 11:4)
Why do we trust Him...
(From the view of the apostle Paul)
When...
We hear the voices of Scripture: of David, of Mary & Martha, of Paul, and others…wrestling with this question.
Why did they trust God?
The Devil is obsessed with this question.
And it reveals the secret necessary for gaining victory over him and all spiritual conflict:
We cannot engage in spiritual conflict without an unwavering trust in God.
We cannot engage in spiritual conflict without an unwavering trust in God.
Southside Baptist Church, we must all trust God especially when we don’t know what God is doing.
Southside Baptist Church, we must all trust God, regardless of how many possessions we do or do not have.
God gives and God takes away.
Southside Baptist Church, we must all trust God, for no other reason than God is worthy of our trust.
This is the key to victory in spiritual conflict.
In Job, the the Scriptures reveal the trust of a great, religious man being put to the test.
III.
The Teaching
Look with me at verse 6 —
1.6
The nature of this encounter and the way it is communicated to us in Holy Scripture, makes it clear that the conflict begins before Job is aware of it.
Job doesn’t know about this meeting.
We would not know about this meeting unless God revealed it in His Word.
This seems like a minor, obvious statement worth glossing over, but it is so fundamentally important to the book of Job and to our knowledge of God and to our victory through spiritual conflict.
We aren’t going to know everything about the conflict we are engaged in.
The conflict likely began before we knew about it.
We are going to have to trust God in the unknown.
The first time the Devil spoke in Scripture, he spoke to a human being, to Eve in the Garden of Eden.
But here, humanity is not involved.
The Devil is not speaking to a human being, but he is speaking to God ABOUT a human being.
Job is not part of this conversation.
Job is left in the dark, not as a result of anything Job has done.
If anything, the text leads us to believe Job has done everything right!
He rises early, and continually offers burnt offerings for his children on the chance that they might have sinned and cursed God in their hearts during their feasts.
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