Sermon Tone Analysis
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Numbers 6:22-27 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
22The Lord told Moses 23to speak to Aaron and to his sons and to tell them to bless the Israelites with these words:
24The Lord bless you and keep you.
25The Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you.
26The Lord look on you with favor
and give you peace.
27In this way they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.
Blessing
I.
Fickle they were as a people.
They had been excited to get out of their life of drudgery.
It had seemed a hopeless life.
There was really no future, they just plodded around at the same dead-end jobs day after day.
There was little choice.
Really, there was no choice; they had to continue.
On they labored.
Laying bricks, baking bricks, collecting materials to form the bricks.
It was an utterly hopeless existence.
But what choice did they have?
Men stood behind them with whips forcing them to continue at their tasks.
Along came a charismatic figure.
He hadn’t seen himself as a charismatic figure at first, but he inspired them—he gave them hope.
Hopelessness faded and they suddenly expected everything to come up roses.
Pharaoh balked.
Their lives got even worse, if that were possible.
Fickle people that they were, they immediately turned from hope back to despair and began to complain bitterly.
Finally this Moses fellow prevailed.
They were released from bondage and happily began the trek out of the country of their misery.
One minute they were hopeful, the next this fickle group turned right back to despair when war machines were bearing down on them.
Back to complaining and a lack of trust.
Moses stretched his hands over the Red Sea and the water stood up in walls, allowing them to pass through, while Pharaoh’s army was drowned.
Elation and jubilation returned.
For a hot second.
A sequence of complaints and failures of trust in the God who had just shown them his unlimited might began.
They complained about no food; they complained about no water; they complained about the food God miraculously provided them.
Moses went up on Mt.
Sinai to receive God’s law for the people, and they turned to a Golden Calf of their own making.
The Bible History failures of the people of Israel go on and on and on.
II.
Fickle we are as a people.
Could you see yourself in the examples I gave of the People of Israel as they prepared to leave Egypt and began the journey to the Promised Land?
Many of us feel our lives are drudgery as we plod to work day after day.
It seems that nothing will change; that nothing can change.
It feels as though you have little to no choice.
So on you labor, whatever the task.
Your existence feels hopeless.
Though there are not literal slave drivers with whips standing behind you demanding that you continue, the choices in your life seem narrow to non-existent.
You must continue in the path set before you.
You need that income to survive.
You need that job to continue, mind numbing though it might be, to sustain your housing payment and your car payment and your grocery bill.
With a little luck, there might be something left over for your retirement account.
When things seem to be going well, perhaps you remember to give thanks to God for your circumstances.
More often, you give yourself a pat on the back for all your wisdom and ability to take the bull by the horns and make something of yourself—to make some income.
Then adversity comes.
Sickness, perhaps.
A job market that tightens.
Your income doesn’t keep up with inflation, especially with the skyrocketing gas prices that affect every area of life—or will soon, if you haven’t noticed yet.
With adversity you cry out to God.
Why, Lord?
Why do you make me go through these things?
All of a sudden, it’s God’s fault that things aren’t going well when before you praised yourself for everything that was going according to your plan.
Fickle we are as a people, just as were the People of Israel.
Grumble and complain and whine about what we perceive to be lacking as blessings from God, while failing to notice the blessings that are there.
III.
So, let’s turn to this blessing from God.
With few exceptions, you hear this blessing at the end of every Sunday service.
The pastor speaks the blessing God commanded the priesthood of Israel to pronounce over the people.
Some pastors precede the blessing with something like this: “Receive with believing hearts the benediction of the Lord.”
Such a statement has value.
It is a reminder that we need faith in God and his promises.
People often don’t want to admit a need for God.
Society—especially American society—used to teach that we are a people who pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.
A slogan was adopted, even by godly people, that reflected this belief: “God helps those who help themselves.”
But you can’t help yourself earn heaven.
Society more recently began to teach that we are a society that needs the help of government entities.
Rely on them to make your decisions and give you whatever you need to survive.
But government assistance doesn’t get you to heaven, either.
With Mount Sinai still looming large in the background, the People of Israel didn’t have to look far to see their own failures.
The ashes of the destroyed Golden Calf were not far away.
Fresh in their memories were their fears of chariots chasing them down and the shortages of food and water they had so bitterly complained about.
Into their failures and ours, God speaks.
Consider the word “you” in this blessing from God. Have you ever given it much thought as the blessing is spoken at the end of a service?
It would seem the pastor is speaking God’s blessing to the group—a collection of God’s people.
Not at all.
Every single part of God’s blessing has a singular “you” in the Hebrew.
Have you noticed my head move around when I am announcing this blessing before the close of the service?
My intention is to speak this blessing of God to each one of you—individually.
This blessing is personal.
This blessing is yours.
There is something else you perhaps miss by hearing this blessing in English.
In Hebrew, the first sentence is three words, the second is five, and the final sentence is seven.
God builds his blessing to signify for you completion.
“The Lord bless you and keep you” (Numbers 6:24, EHV).
The words “bless you” fly off our lips whenever someone sneezes.
Back in the middle ages, many would say this as a protection against the devil snatching a person’s soul, or because they might be very near to death because of the plague.
When we say “bless you,” it’s just a wish.
We are hoping that the person will be blessed.
When the benediction says “the Lord bless you and keep you,” there is no doubt.
God, the Savior God who promised a Savior, makes this statement of blessing as an absolute fact.
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