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.
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Prayer
We praise you for this morning.
We thank you that we can gather here in your presence.
We praise you that you sent your son to take on himself our sin and our shame, so that we might stand before you, welcomed in your presence.
How we long for the marriage supper of the lamb, for we were created to eat and drink with you.
But we have far too often desired your gifts while despising your goodness.
We have sinned in your sight and have mistaken the gifts you have given us for you.
We have too often confused the building with the church.
We have too often worshiped power and money, and have acted with cruelty and condemnation towards our neighbor, thinking that we have done you service.
We look to wealth and possessions and power and stability to take away our shame, when you have offered us YOUR robes, if only we ask.
Forgive us.
Lift up our eyes to where Jesus is at your right hand.
And teach us to live as people risen from the dead.
This morning, we remember new life.
We see the blossoms and the growth and the babies, and we remember that you remember us.
Today our Lord has risen from the dead and put death to death.
So what is there to still fear?
Teach us to then walk as wise people, redeeming the time.
May we put to death the lusts of the flesh that still cling to us.
And may we walk in the spirit – looking to Jesus alone, putting no confidence in the flesh.
Give wisdom to our leaders, for you are the only source of wisdom.
Give justice in high places and tear down the wolves who seek to destroy and devour.
For all who struggle with chronic pain, give patience and peace and walk with us through that dark valley and long nights.
We are frequently reminded that our bodies are fading daily.
We are returning to the dust each day.
So teach us to live wisely.
Teach us to put off the fear of man, and the anxieties of the future, knowing that you have prepared a place for us.
And knowing that we have a home in heaven, and knowing that you are sovereign and good and holy, teach us to walk justly and to love faithfulness.
Teach us to live humbly before you, for you have cleansed us and brought us into your Holy of Holies.
Father bless our congregation.
Thank you that you have led us and guided us.
Thank you for your protection of us.
Call in your elect, wherever they might be.
Give us words of hope and fill us with your light that we might shine in the world.
Provide for all of our needs.
Deliver those in bondage to alcohol, drugs, pornography
Give freedom to the oppressed, we pray.
And bless the reading and the preaching of your word this morning.
Guide my lips and give us open hearts to hear and obey,
And let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Scripture
Sermon
There are things about God that make us quite uncomfortable.
Some things we don’t want to hear or talk about at all.
One of those things is the judgment of God.
We are OK with the concept of judgment in general.
As image-bearers of God, we have an inborn desire to see justice done.
But our bent is to define that justice according to our own sinful nature.
But God is not like we are.
God is infinite, holy, pure, perfect in wisdom and righteousness and he sees the heart and the innermost thoughts.
So when the scripture speaks of God’s justice, it must use the language that the listeners can understand.
Plague was something Israel understood.
The ten plagues of Egypt we their national identity.
God spoke of his judgment on those who broke his covenant in terms of plague.
When he speaks of plague, is this to be taken literally?
Perhaps.
But so much greater than that, for we are speaking of infinite, almighty, perfectly holy God
But God warns us in other places not to make the jump that everyone who is sick is under God’s judgment.
God’s ways are higher than our ways, and he often uses illness and even death to glorify himself and share that glory with his people.
How glorious it is when one who has been confined to a wheelchair leaps up and walks!
But that is another subject.
Judgment of God
In verses 1-3, Zechariah describes a battle between the nations and the people of God.
And he, disturbingly, teaches us that God allows the nations to prosper, to even have some victories.
He brings the armies against Jerusalem.
Then there was an interlude, describing the coming King, which we have talked about
And now, he is describing the judgment of God that comes upon those who have set their mind on the destruction of his people.
In the garden, the world of mankind was divided into two, and forever separated by enmity.
God called them “The seed of the woman” and “the seed of the serpent.”
As the centuries went by, we learned more and more of what this meant.
The seed of the woman are those who have the character and nature of Jesus.
HE is the true seed - the one born of the virgin, outside of the agency of the male.
The virgin birth set Jesus apart as the true seed.
His people, all who believe on his name, are the seed of the woman because they are united to him.
It is faith in the promise that sets them apart.
Thus we have Abel offering his sacrifice in faith.
And at the same time, we have Cain, lashing out in hatred and murdering Abel.
In our text in verse 12, Zechariah describes the same thing with different language.
There is Jerusalem (the seed of the woman, the church of God) and “those who fought against Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem and Babylon, Cain and Abel; Jacob and Esau; Rome and Jerusalem - and so on, throughout history.
The true people of God, often small, often hiding, often poor, frail, outcast - are relentlessly pursued by enemies - some inside the church, some outside the church.
Often it is the organization itself that calls itself the church that relentlessly persecutes God’s people.
It has been that way since the beginning.
So this war is described in verses 1-3; and it appears as if God has forgotten his people.
But here is a promise, wrapped in words of judgment
God has not forgotten.
He will bring judgment on all who war against his people.
And there is no neutral ground.
Jesus said, “He who is not for me is against me.”
The fact is this - as history progresses we learn that we are all born at war with God.
We seek our own way.
We don’t have to learn how to lie and cheat and steal.
The enmity has already begun.
We tend to read history and our lives as if we are the good guys and those others are the bad guys.
But this is not the testimony of scripture.
God left humans to their own devices before - and it ended with the flood.
The utter destruction of the earth because of wickedness.
If God doesn’t intervene, all of us would be ruined.
There is none who do good.
No, not one.
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