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
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Anger
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David and his men have been spared battle by the Philistines and are now headed back to their Philistine home, Ziklag.
They arrive just in time to find Ziklag destroyed and their families gone.
We, the readers, know this before David does:
You’ve heard the expression: “When it rains, it pours.”
Some, if not most of you, have lived that.
It’s one thing after the other.
We know people with chronic illnesses who have surgery after surgery.
And then more surgeries.
And then some new health concern pops up.
And then there’s more.
One thing right after the other.
“When it rains, it pours.”
There are people who have lost their jobs and are worried about how to pay the rent.
They wonder how they’re going to make their car payment.
And then when they open the mail, what do they find but more bills?
“When it rains, it pours.”
Like Lloyd Christmas, we can lament: “We’ve got no food!
We’ve got no jobs!
Our pets’ heads are falling off!”
“When it rains, it pours.”
This week’s weather was a pretty good illustration of that.
When it started raining it barely let up.
Just when you thought we were done with it, there it goes again.
Think about what David has been through:
He’s had to dodge Saul’s spear, hide from Saul, run from Saul, hide in Nob, hide in Gath (Goliath’s hometown), hide in the wilderness, find a stronghold, hide in a cave, run to Philistia and live there for fear of Saul.
And that’s just a brief summary.
If you’ve been along for the journey, you know it’s been a lot for David.
Part of him might long to be back taking care of his father’s sheep.
If David were alive today and had access to our platitudes, I think he would agree: “When it rains, it pours.”
I think David knows this and feels this.
David’s not oblivious, out-of-touch with reality.
David is a real person in real time, living in a real place with real issues.
He knows what it is to struggle, to suffer.
David isn’t much different from me and you.
David is not oblivious or aloof.
David’s been living in the downpour.
He’s probably not all that surprised to find what he finds.
For David, this is par for the course.
More of the same.
“Of course my home is burnt to the ground and my family’s missing…why not?”
Intense Suffering...
Imagine the scene.
Walking up to the town to find it torched, burnt to the ground, not a loved one in sight.
At least they weren’t found dead, but then the mind starts to reel.
“What are they going to do to my family?”
It was common practice in that day to sell captives for profit.
Like Joseph’s brothers selling him to the merchants passing by, David wives, the families and children of the other men.
What’s happened to them?
This is some of most intense suffering I can imagine.
If something happened to my wife or my children, I would respond the same way David and his men did; they wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.
David’s men move from the initial sorrow and shock to the next stage of grief: anger.
They are angry at David, so angry they were talking about stoning him.
This is David’s fault (blame-shifting is another popular tack of the grief-stricken).
The men are bitter, understandably, because their families had been taken from them.
Let us not forget that even though David is the main character in this story arch, the 600 men with him have been through most of this, too.
They’ve been right there with him for a long while, for a couple of years at least.
They were, most recently, marching with David into battle against the Israelites.
These men, along with David, were a Philistine mercenary force.
They had to be so relieved when Achish sent them back to Ziklag.
Imagine how excited they were at the thought of seeing their wives and kids, and then they come back to find their families taken and their homes destroyed.
What intense suffering they’ve faced!
One thing right after the next.
“When it rains, it pours.”
Isn’t that the truth?
Sometimes, we can’t imagine it getting any worse.
1 Samuel 30 says, “Actually, it can get worse.
Take a look...”
If this was a cartoon, David and his men would be looking around for the anvil or the grand piano that’s going to come crashing down upon them.
If this was a cartoon...
But this isn’t a cartoon.
This is real life, very much like yours and mine.
It’s one punch to the gut after the other.
It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back and then another few straws piled on for good measure.
Our friend Job lost his oxen and donkeys and sheep and camels, his servants, and his sons and daughters, in the same day.
One blow after the other.
In the same day.
For me, there was a stretch of a little more than a year in which my father was diagnosed with cancer, I lost my job, and my hometown was destroyed by a tornado.
Not nearly as rough as Job had it, but it was enough for me.
There are people in this room who have dealt with tragedy, sickness, and family drama—all of it at the same time.
“Sometimes you might be tempted to add another line to Psalm 30:5 “...weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning,” and disaster strikes the next afternoon.”
-DRD
This is a disturbing passage in the Bible.
Here’s God’s special servant, David, the anointed- and would-be-king overwhelmed with trouble.
Suffering as intensely as we can imagine.
We understand this could be the case for any of God’s servants.
This passage says your distresses and troubles could get worse.
The Bible is very, very real.
It’s not hiding the truth.
It’s not covering-up the bad.
There’s no false advertising in these pages (regardless of what junk theology pedaling prosperity teachers try to feed you).
As the Lord’s servant you might be overwhelmed with troubles.
You may (and likely will) receive more than you can handle.
But God tells you this in His Word.
You can trust a God like that!
Suffering and struggle are not hidden in a footnote or put in the small print in some addendum.
It’s right here.
There are entire chapters, even entire books, about the suffering of God’s people.
You, Christian, will suffer in this life.
It’s a red-letter promise (John 16:33) from our Savior who also suffered as a man walking this sin-scorched planet.
Intense Suffering meets Sufficient Strength,
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