God’s Assessment of the Human Condition
The Bible is a book about God. It’s his self-disclosure. It is a book of theology, but the Bible is also a book of Anthropology; a book about humanity. Therefore, our view of God and human nature must be shaped by what God revelation.
In this sermon we look briefly at what God says about humanity BEFORE THE FLOOD:
“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.” (Genesis 6:5, KJV).
Then what God said about humanity immediately AFTER THE FLOOD,
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” (Gen 8:21)
AND WHAT God said about humanity at Babel,
“And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” (Gen 11:6, KJV)
So we learn that Noah’s flood washed away sinners, but it did not wash away sin in the human heart.
At Babel, “[Nimrod] began to be a mighty one in the earth.” (Gen 10:8) and he leads contrary to God’s will as communicated to Adam and Noah namely that humanity should prove “fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 1:28). Instead the people do not want to “be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:4) and began to construct a city with the aim that they would make a name for themselves. |
