of One who in righteousness shall
judge the earth.

229. How bitter and hard such delay is for the righteous, the
lamentations of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 12, 1ff., and 20, 7ff, show.
There the holy man almost verges on blasphemy until he is told that
the Babylonian king should come and inflict punishment upon the
unbelieving scoffers. Thereupon Jeremiah recognizes that God looks
down on the earth and is Judge upon the earth.

230. The universal judgment which follows is terrible in the extreme,
namely that all flesh upon the earth had corrupted its way and that
God, when he had begun to examine the sons of men, did not, from the
oldest to the youngest of the fathers, find any he could save from
destruction.

This strikes our ears as still more awful when we take into
consideration the condition of the primitive world, not judging by the
miserable fragments we have today. As the physical condition of the
world at that time was infinitely ahead of this age, so we may
conclude that the majesty and pomp of our rulers and the show of
sanctity and wisdom on the part of the popes are not to be compared to
the show of religion, righteousness and wisdom found among those
renowned men of the primitive world.

And yet the text says that all flesh had corrupted its way, save Noah
and his offspring. That means all men were wicked, lived in idolatry
and false religion and hated the true worship of God. They despised
the promise of the seed, and persecuted Noah, who proclaimed
forgiveness through the seed and threatened to those, who should fail
to believe his forgiveness, eternal doom.

VI. GOD DECIDES TO PUNISH THE FIRST WORLD; COMMANDS NOAH TO BUILD AN
ARK; THE COVENANT.

A. HOW GOD DECREED TO PUNISH THE OLD WORLD IN HIS WRATH.

1. How punishment finally comes when God has suffered sin long
enough 231.

* Luther's hope that God's judgment may soon break upon the
last world 231.

2. Whether reason can grasp the wrath and punishment of God 232.

3. How God's promises stand in the midst of his wrath and
punishment 232.

4. The first world thought itself secure against God's wrath
233.

* The Papal security and boldness against the Evangelicals 234.

5. By what means God punished the first world 235.

* The Holy Spirit must reveal that God's wrath and punishment
do not violate his promises 236.

6. The causes o