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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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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We all sin, it’s part of our fallen nature.
Have you ever considered the cost of that sin?
Not the cost you pay, but the cost others will pay for your sin?
King David gives us an example,
Not only of the fact that others will pay for our sins,
But of the attitude we should have when we decide to repent.
As a boy, there was a comedian who had a tag line...
“The devil made me do it!”
I’m convinced that, most of the time, Satan doesn’t need to bother when it comes to getting us to sin.
Mankind in general seems more than ready to sin on their own, no prompting necessary.
Here, however, we see that Satan moved, or enticed, David to take a census of Israel.
It’s important to note, it is not the census that was David’s sin,
It was doing so without being led to by God.
David instructs Joab and the leaders of the people to number Israel,
“and bring the number of them to me that I may know it.”
This was about David knowing how many people are in Israel.
And we’ll see later, how many fighting men were in Israel.
How big was David’s army?
Joab has a bit of a mixed history.
He fought with David before he became king.
Where he won many battles,
Which led to him being named commander of the Army of Israel.
But things were not always rosy between David and Joab,
David had Joab place Uriah where he would be killed in battle.
Joab probably recognized this as a royal execution of Uriah,
Especially after David married Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
Joab was not happy when David made peace with Abner after his attempted coup.
In fact, Joab found the opportunity to kill Abner,
Probably for killing his brother.
It was Joab that brought Absalom back to Jerusalem after he ran from his failed coup attempt.
And it was Joab who rebuked David for so publically mourning Absalom’s death and disheartening the troops.
Now, Joab sees that his king is making a mistake,
And he points it out.
This is what I believe Joab is trying to do here.
If David trusted in the Lord, why does he need to know how many fighters he has?
Didn’t Gideon defeat an army with 300 men.
Didn’t Jonathan and his servant put the army of the Philistines to flight?
Why did David need to know?
However, David is king...
So Joab did as David said,
Mostly...
He did not count the Levites,
Which makes sense, since they were priests not fighters.
But he did not count the tribe of Benjamin either,
Because David’s command was abhorrent to him.
Notice, God did not punish just David, but He punished Israel.
You may be thinking, “Thank God I’m not a king.
I don’t want the responsibility.”
But each of us have people who are impacted by our decisions.
Families,
Co-workers,
Friends,
Even fellow congregants.
Sure, James warned us...
But all of us have those who will suffer the consequences of our actions,
Either for good or for ill.
So how does David react to the realization of his sin?
David repents,
He recognizes that he has sinned and acted foolishly.
He asks God for forgiveness.
To take away his iniquity.
What does God do?
God offers David three punishments.
Notice, there still has to be punishment,
But God is going to have David choose,
Which, I guess, is another form punishment.
What are David’s choices?
Three years of famine.
That seems pretty harsh.
Three months of being defeated in battle.
OK, still pretty harsh, but probably easier than three years of famine.
Or three days of plague.
Ouch!
Notice, all of David’s choices involve the people being punished for David’s actions.
Three years of starvation and death,
Three months of battle and death,
Or three days of sickness,
Oh, and death.
You may think that your sins only harm you, but that is rarely the case.
I had a friend with an alcohol problem.
His sins impacted his family, his friends, and my family as well.
I had another friend who fell into sin.
It impacted not only him and his family, but my family and our entire church congregation.
Almost always, our sins harm more than just us.
And not just the sins, but the repentance and punishment as well.
David has to choose one of these punishments.
How did David make his choice?
Of the three, David chose the plague,
Not because it was the lesser of three evils,
But because it meant he was in the hands of God, not men.
And God can be very merciful.
As David had hoped, God relented of the punishment on Israel,
But not before 70,000 men had died.
Imagine the pain of seeing 70,000 people die because of your mistake?
Not men in battle, but simply people in the streets.
People you had sworn to lead and protect.
No wonder David asked God to punish him and his house, rather than those who were innocent of this sin.
But no matter who you are, your sins will harm others who are innocent.
God commands David to build an alter where the plague was stopped.
So David goes to that location, the threshing floor of Ornan.
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