Genesis 6:5-7 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth… I. We may inquire, first, WHAT WERE THE CAUSES OF SO GREAT CORRUPTION AS THEN PREVAILED. 1. One of these was the intermarriage of the sons of God, or believers, with the daughters of men, or unbelievers. When the clear waters of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Illinois mingle with the turbid Missouri, they never regain their purity, but flow darkly on to the ocean; so when the children of Seth made affinities with the race of Cain, there was no regaining of moral purity until the generations of men had been buried in the waters of the deluge. 2. Another cause of the wickedness of the men before the flood was probably in their neglect of the Sabbath, and of God's public worship. Of this neglect we have the following evidence. In the days of Seth and Enos it is said, "then men began to call upon the name of the Lord." This is supposed to refer to some regular assemblies for public worship, and as it is spoken in connection with Seth and his posterity, we may infer that it was confined to them. Indeed, it is said of Cain that "he went out from the presence of the Lord," and he complained that he should be hid from God's presence; not His omnipresence certainly, but from some visible display of His glory, in that place where the sons of God worshipped. In that separation from God and His worship the descendants of Cain rapidly increased in wickedness; for, if the Sabbath and its worship were banished from among us, enlightened and religious us we are, one half century might witness the most abominable idolatries, and call for another cleansing deluge. 3. The long life of the antediluvians was yet another cause of their wickedness. After the flood, God shortened man's days from a little less than a thousand to a little less than a hundred years, because brevity of life is favourable to piety. It is in seeing our fellow creatures die almost as soon as they begin to live, that sin is checked, and the things unseen and eternal gather power. And what a curse to society might such a long life prove! Think of a drunkard polluting the earth with his breath nine hundred years; of an infidel scattering the poison of his works century after century; of the adulterer, the robber, the murderer, protracting their existence through thirty of our generations! The world would groan to have the grave close over them. 4. It is mentioned again, as a cause of their wickedness, that they were an ambitious race. There were mighty men and men of renown in those days, we are told, though we ask with a smile, who were they, and what did they do? for the antediluvian Napoleons and Caesars have left no record of their exploits. There were giants too in those days, and we generally associate with them the idea of great wickedness, for great strength puffs up its possessor, and makes him forget God. It was an age of great worldliness too for our Lord says, "They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they married and were given in marriage, until the day when the flood came"; meaning that they were absorbed in these things, for in mere eating and drinking there could be no sin. It was, moreover, an age of great civilization and refinement; for there were those who handled the harp and the organ, and artificers in all the mechanic arts. These may be made subservient to piety, but too often great skill in them, as, indeed, great worldly attainments of any kind, are apt to draw the heart off from God, so that the most refined people may be the most ungodly. II. HOW GREAT THAT WICKEDNESS WAS, we may gather from the strong language of our text, and from other portions of Scripture. "And God saw," we are told, "that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was full of violence." And what rendered this sinfulness the more guilty was, that the world was then in its youth, retaining probably more of its infant beauty than it now has in its wrinkled old age. III. But we may especially see in our text and subject THE EVIL OF SIN IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. It destroyed a world which God created; nay, more, as far as might be, it destroyed the world's Creator, when the Son of God died for it on the cross. IV. Let us TAKE CARE OF RELAPSING INTO THAT STATE IN WHICH SIN SHALL NOT GRIEVE US AT THE HEART AS IT DOES OUR GOD. We are like Him, we are His, if we share His holy hatred of sin. But we are in continual danger of growing callous and indifferent to it, so that though once in the while, at long intervals, when some gross offence has been committed, or when something has specially aroused us, we are softened and contrite; yet our general frame is one of indifference to our offences. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. |
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