The Mess Before the Storm

REFLECTION QUOTES

“When everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

~George S. Patton (1885-1945), U.S. Army general



“Man is always something worse or something better than an animal…. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkenness – or so good as drink.”



“The Fall [into sin] is a view of life. It is not only the only enlightening, but the only encouraging view of life. It holds…that we have misused a good world, and not merely been entrapped into a bad one. It refers evil back to the wrong use of the will, and thus declares that it can be righted…. Every other creed except that one is some form of surrender to fate.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)



“Man’s greatness is so obvious that it can even be deduced from his wretchedness, for what is nature in animals we call wretchedness in man….”

~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician and thinker



“The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights.”

~Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist

and first ever Iranian to receive the Nobel Peace Prize



“True freedom consists in liberating one’s essential nature into its best and proper end. The act of choice itself is not freedom….To be free is to come into that which fulfills our nature in harmony with ‘the good’. But the modern definition of freedom puts it emphasis more on the individual ability to choose regardless of the ends that he or she might choose.”

~ David Bentley Hart, contemporary philosopher and cultural commentator



“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

~Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), President of South Africa and Nobel laureate



“The thing at bottom is this, that men have low thoughts of God, and high thoughts of themselves; and therefore it is that they look upon God as having so little right, and they so much.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

SERMON PASSAGE

Genesis 5

28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. 29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” 30 Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.

32 Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6

1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the

daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. 10 Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.