Sermon Tone Analysis

The Lord points to man’s sexual depravity and violence in Genesis 6 as the great corrupting factors, the things that marred God’s creation beyond recognition.

Yet, he pointed beyond those things to the beginning, to the first step in the thousand mile journey that led to the flood: the corruption of the heart.

“Every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

The sexual sin began in the heart.

“She’s gorgeous.

I want her.

I need her.

I will have her.”

So the sons of God took up with the daughters of men.

Believers married unbelievers without any regard for the possible impact upon their faith, caring more for sexual gratification than for faithfulness to the Word.

The violence began in the heart.

“How dare he?

I want it!

I need it!

I will take it!”

Lamech, a son of Cain, started it all, boasting that if “Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times,” as he waved his sword and defended his honor, killing men for wounding him.

A braggart’s machismo led Lamech to prize daring-do and barroom brawling over peacemaking and reconciliation, and it became the way of the world.

These things are still true.

Men lust after the shapeliest not the godliest.

Our first response is vengeance, even among children, “He hit me.”

It still begins in the heart.

This verdict upon man’s thoughts wasn’t washed away by the flood.

The moment Noah and his family left the ark, God repeated it in the context of his promise: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.”

Think of the words Luther uses to describe our hearts as he explains the ninth and tenth commandments.

Scheme.

Obtain by show of right.

Force.

Entice.

Always plotting and planning, that’s what we are.

Plans within plans within plans.

Until the moment comes, then we just seize and force.

We let lust overcome all things, lust for sex, power, money, it, lust for lust’s sake.

We can’t even identify why we have to have what we have.

But always a justification.

“I needed it.”

“I have to have it.”

“I wanted it.”

“They’ve got it.”

“How could you deny this to me, Lord?”

It starts in the heart.

Sin always does.

Scheming words make us schemers, “How can I get this?”

Right-sounding words, glorious technicalities, make us legal-eagle loophole finders, “Everything’s legal.”

Forceful words appeal to our fears, convince us that we must take by force what’s rightfully ours, “Nothing will stand in my way!” Flattering words enticing our egos, making us enticers, “Come on, you’ll like it better over here.”

Addiction stories start this way.

Adultery begins this way.

Murders begin this way.

Embezzlement and theft begin this way.

Small.

Tiny.

One step.

One scheme.

One technicality.

One shove.

One enticement.

Then, suddenly, you’ve traveled a thousand miles.

And it doesn’t matter how small things start.

It ends with the flood.

“My Spirit will not contend with man forever.”

There are things up with which God will not put.

Paul speaks ever so plainly to the Galatians, “God will not be mocked.

A man will reap what he sows.

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.”

The flood.

We think, perhaps, that God is unreasonable.

“Come on, Mr. Omniscient.

You knew this was going to happen.

Don’t go getting all aggrieved now.”

We fail to take into account that we caused the aggrievement, the regret, the repentance.

We wore out God’s patience and our welcome on earth.

Our behaviors, our thoughts displeased the Lord, drove him to regret that he’d ever made man, angered him, offended him, caused him to be dissatisfied, made God say, “I wish I had never done this in the first place.”

Again, we see God at fault; but look at the overwhelming patience he displayed.

He didn’t send a flood to wipe out Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit.

Or Cain when he murdered his brother.

Or Lamech when he invented polygamy.

He waited centuries.

Patiently watching.

He took time to observe, just as he would later do at the Tower of Babel and Sodom, “Let’s go down and see if things are this bad.”

Not because God doesn’t know.

He is, as we’ve complained before, omniscient.

He goes, waits, observes, because he is patient.

He wants nothing more than to NOT destroy.

He’s the parent looking to give his child a way out of a spanking.

He’s the teacher bending over backwards to keep a student eligible.

But all he sees is sin.

Sex.

Violence.

Depravity.

Wicked, selfish, me-centered, curved-in-upon-ourselves thoughts.

Even among the best of mankind, even in the family of righteous, blameless Noah, righteous blameless Noah who celebrates surviving the flood by getting rip-roaring drunk in his vineyard.

All he sees is a people in need of a flood.

Destruction.

Death.

So he gives it.

He doesn’t just resolve to wipe out mankind, he does.

A flood.

A world-wide flood.

Not in response to ecological abuse, but in response to murder-death-kill, look-see-taste-touch-out-of-control sex.

All things living die.

Because God is the great-flood bringer, and only a promise (perhaps a foolish one at that) kept this from being a once-a-millennium cleansing act.