The Pattern of Sin & Judgement

Posted by Mattock Diggs, October 26, 2025

They say fire purifies. Water cleanses. Exile resets. But if you’ve ever lived in a house rebuilt after a tragedy, you know: the walls may be new, but the echoes remain.

I’ve been thinking about cycles lately. Not the kind you ride down Rue du Chien, but the kind that loop through history, scripture, and the bones of old buildings. The kind that promise a fresh start, only to deliver a familiar ending.

In the biblical record, God destroyed humanity more than once—by flood, by fire, by plague. Each time, the goal was the same: cleanse the world of sin. And each time, sin came back. Not from the ashes, but from the survivors. Noah got drunk. Lot’s daughters schemed. Egypt buried its dead and hardened its heart. The pattern isn’t just divine—it’s human.

We rebuild. We repent. We swear we’ve learned. But the blueprint of brokenness is often etched deeper than the foundation. External punishment—judgment, exile, even death—can’t reach the root. Because the root isn’t in the world. It’s in us.

I’ve seen it in Bonnechance. A house condemned after a scandal gets flipped and staged, but the new owners start whispering the same secrets. A school expels a bully, only to crown another. A family cuts ties with a black sheep, only to find the same shadows in their own mirror.

We want to believe in clean slates. But maybe what we need is clean hearts.

Transformation isn’t demolition. It’s excavation. It’s the slow, painful work of digging through layers of self-deception, inherited shame, and quiet compromise. It’s not dramatic. It’s not photogenic. But it’s the only way the cycle breaks.

So if you’re standing in the rubble of something that was supposed to be holy—your faith, your family, your own intentions—don’t just rebuild. Re-root. Ask what survived the fire. Ask what’s still whispering in the walls.

Because judgment may clear the land. But only truth can clear the soul.

—Mattock