Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

On the wall in my office at Penn State I have an old quartz-movement analog clock with the Nittany Lions “chipmunk head” logo on it.

(I actually inherited it from a co-worker along with his old office space when he moved to a different position a number of years ago.)

Last month I noticed that it had stopped working, so I switched out the battery and put it back up on the wall.

An hour later I looked at it and realized that it still wasn’t working; the problem wasn’t the battery; it was the movement itself that had given up the ghost.

So I went to Walmart and bought a cheap $5 wall clock, tore the movement out of it and put it into the old Penn State clock, and now I have a working wall clock again.

But here’s the thing about that clock—even when the movement wore out it never stopped telling the time, it just told the wrong time.

That’s because it never stopped being a clock.

Telling time is what a clock does, it can run fast, it can run slow, it can run backwards, or it can not run at all, but no matter what it is always going to tell the time, even if it tells it wrong and you miss a meeting with your supervisor because it told you it was 2:25 when it was actually 3!

A stopped clock does not stop telling time; it just tells the wrong time.

And in the same way, a man was created to serve and worship God with his masculinity--God created men to be ambitious and productive, to be procreative and driven to produce offspring that would join him in his task of taming and harnessing a wild and unruly planet for the glory of his Creator.

But when Adam sinned and rebelled against God, he did not stop being a man; he merely started being a man in the wrong way.

Another way of saying this is that mankind was created to be a worshipping race.

We were made, male and female, to submit to and worship and serve God.

But when Adam and Eve sinned, they did not simply stop worshipping—they simply changed the direction of their worship!

In the words of that great theologian of the 20th Century, Bob Dylan:

“You’re gonna have to serve somebody / Well, it may be the Devil, or it may be the LORD / But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

When Adam stopped serving God, he did not simply stop being a servant: he began serving the devil instead.

Like a stopped clock that never stops telling time, Adam didn’t stop being a worshipper; he just began worshipping in the wrong direction, worshipping himself rather than God!

Romans 1:21 (ESV)

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

One of the attacks being made against men and masculinity in our day is the charge of “toxic masculinity”; that many traits such as ambition, physical aggressiveness, drive for leadership, urge to procreate and so on is a poisonous and corrosive detriment to society.

Men must rid themselves of those “toxic” elements.

But as we have established, the problem isn’t the aggressiveness, drive, libido or ambition of a man—the problem is what direction it’s pointing in.

God designed men with that masculinity to subdue and order and rule and cultivate this world in His Name, but when a man turns himself away from God, his masculinity is wrested out of its place.

It continues to function, but it functions destructively.

And so this morning I want us to search the Scriptures to see where this “toxic masculinity” (and, indeed, “toxic femininity”) comes from.

What does God’s Word say about what happens to our sexuality when we are no longer pointing towards God and serving Him?

The way I want to say it today—what I want to show you from the Scriptures this morning—is

When our WORSHIP turns INWARD, our SEXUALITY turns DESTRUCTIVE

We saw last week how Satan’s temptation of our First Parents inverted the entire Creation order—instead of God ruling Adam who then ruled his wife and together they ruled over the creation, you have the creation (in the form of the Serpent) ruling over woman who then overruled her husband’s leadership as he abdicated his duty to lead her in righteousness.

And since then, every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve has followed their First Parent in their sin.

Genesis 4 shows us how the effects of Adam’s rebellion began showing up in the lives of his offspring—the very first child born in the world became the first murderer in history as Cain killed his brother Abel.

And as we trace the history of Cain’s descendents in verses 17-26 we see

I. The SELF-SERVING root of toxic MASCULINITY (Genesis 4:17-26)

Throughout the book of Genesis we have genealogies that record the birth of new generations.

Starting in verse 17 of Genesis 4 we have the first genealogy in the Bible:

Genesis 4:17–19 (ESV)

17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.

When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.

19 And Lamech took two wives.

The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

After Cain fled from the presence of YHWH into the land of Nod, the Scriptures tell us that he fathered a son, Enoch.

Cain was a wicked man, but he was still a man—his drive to build and create and conquer and subdue ran true in him, and so he built a city.

But because his worship was turned inward to himself, he did not build the city for God’s glory, did he?

He named the city after his son.

Here we see one of the first ways that self-serving worship creates toxic masculinity: it causes men to

Seek the GLORY of their OWN name instead of GOD’S (Gen.

4:17)

Building cities is something that men are good at, because God made them to do it—but because men are untethered from obedience to God, they want to build cities for their name.

We see the same thing later on in Genesis 11, when the founders of the city of Babel said,

Genesis 11:4 (ESV)

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

Instead of that ambition and drive for glory being harnessed to magnify and exalt God’s Name, the self-serving root of toxic masculinity seeks its own glory.

Looking further on in Genesis 4, we see that toxic masculinity that is poisoned by that root of self-worship will cause men to

Twist MARRIAGE to serve their LUSTS instead of FRUITFULNESS (Gen.

4:19)

In Genesis 4:19 we read

Genesis 4:19 (ESV)

19 And Lamech took two wives.

The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

God had designed marriage, declaring it to be a one-flesh union of one man and one woman, for the purpose of bringing forth godly offspring.

But Cain’s great-great-great grandson Lamech was not a worshipper of God; he was a worshipper of his own lusts.

And ever since then, the good and holy impulse for one-flesh union for godly offspring has been twisted and perverted not only into polygamy, but into fornication, rape, sexual abuse, homosexuality, and even the euphemistically-named “serial monogamy” of our day where you can have sex with as many women as you want as long as you marry them first and then divorce them before you move on to the next one.

The self-serving root of toxic masculinity produces conceit and arrogance that seeks its own glory instead of God’s, it twists marriage to serve its own lusts instead of obeying God’s command for fruitfulness, and it will cause men to

Turn their AGGRESSIVE nature towards VIOLENCE instead of SUBDUING (Gen.

4:8, 23-24)

As we said a moment ago, the first offspring in human history was also the first murderer in human history, as the Fall poisoned the natural aggression and strength of man, turning it into self-centered violence and hatred.

Cain murdered Abel because he could not stand the thought that Abel was more righteous than he was:

Genesis 4:8 (ESV)

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother.

And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

And at the end of the genealogy of the first murderer we find another murder:

Genesis 4:23–24 (ESV)

23 Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.

24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

Cain’s line begins with a fratricide and ends with another homicide.

Lamech isn’t necessarily mourning over what he did; he is boasting over it.

He evidently believes that his murder of the young man who attacked him was more justified than his great-grandfather’s murder of his great-grand uncle: “If God would protect Cain from being punished for murder, He will protect me ten times more!!”

Ever since that time, the same story has played itself out time after bloody time—from blood feuds between families to revenge killings to horrifying tragedies like Mark Spotz from Grampian, who sits on death row today after murdering his brother (and three other people) when an argument over being taunted with a gerbil got out of hand.

The natural aggression that God gave men for subduing and harnessing an unruly world is turned into violence and death in order to serve one’s own ego and preserve one’s own reputation.

There is no doubt that there is such a thing as “toxic masculinity”—seeking your own glory instead of God’s, twisting His good purposes for sex into your own lusts, turning the tool of your strength and aggressiveness into a weapon for self-serving violence and hatred and death.

When our worship turns inward, then our sexuality turns toxic.

Self-worship creates toxic masculinity in the sons of Adam.

But Adam was not the only sinner in the Garden; the daughters of Eve have also followed their mother in self-worship that leads to a toxic sexuality of their own.

Men sin in masculine ways, and women sin in feminine ways.

And just as we see in Genesis the self-serving root of toxic masculinity, here we also see

II.

The ENVIOUS EMPTINESS of toxic FEMININITY (Genesis 3:16; Prov.

7-8; 1 Timothy 2:9-15)

Adam’s sin was that he abdicated his role as ruler of his family; he became passive and did not enforce the command God had given him in Genesis 2:17:

Genesis 2:17 (ESV)

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

And because God is perfectly just, the consequences Adam received for his abdication meant that he would no longer be able to exercise that dominion again without a great and lifelong struggle:

Genesis 3:17–19 (ESV)

17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In the same way, the consequences Eve received for her sin fit the nature of her disobedience.

Where Adam abdicated his role as head, Eve usurped his role as head, leading him into disobedience.

And since she sinned by usurping the role of leader, she and her daughters would be cursed with a lifelong

Desire to DOMINATE rather than SUBMIT (Gen.

3:16; cp.