Can We Imagine the World Before Noah’s Flood?
Why Do We Hate The Word “Sin”?
When God decided to destroy the world with a great flood, what were men like? Why did God destroy almost all of humanity? What was mankind doing that was so awful? The Bible doesn’t seem to say too much.
Genesis 6:5-8 New American Standard Bible
5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe out mankind whom I have created from the face of the land; mankind, and animals as well, and crawling things, and the birds of the sky. For I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
That first sentence seems to be the key verse. Consider that the Lord saw “the wickedness of mankind.” Observe “that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” What is wickedness? What is evil? That is the subject of this post and the next, the last two posts in this series..
How do we define wickedness and evil? By their opposites. When someone is wicked, they are indifferent to what is virtuous. When someone is evil, they are indifferent to doing what is good.
What is good? Jesus summed up the teachings of the Bible with two commands.
Matthew 22:36-40 New American Standard Bible
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.
The Greek word for sin means “to miss the mark,” and the expression comes from archery (see https://biblehub.com/greek/264.htm). Is missing the mark a big deal? It seems that it is. When Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God, He tossed them out of the Garden of Eden and put them and their progeny under a curse.
The rest of the Bible is the story of our redemption by Jesus. Although God finds sin intolerable, when we repent He loves us enough to save us from our predisposition to sin.
Can you imagine what God thinks when we sin shamelessly? Can you imagine people who live by the following commands?
37 And Satan said to mankind, “‘You shall love me and hate the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall hate your neighbor and love yourself.’
Has Satan issued such commands? Not so we would notice, but Satan disguises himself as an Angel of Light (2 Corinthians 11:14). And don’t we all know of people, even entire nations, who seem to hate God and despised their neighbors? Do we not know some people who make no effort to obey the commands of God? Don’t they make every effort to make their sins attractive?
Wicked and evil people may be doing what they think right in their own eyes, but they sin. Instead of worshiping God they adore stuff, sex, science, the state, and their self. To soothe their consciences, they also insist that everyone else do the same. To do otherwise than what the wicked do is to accuse them of sin.
When both history and today’s news reports tell us of nations turned into police states, of thugs in military garb confining large populations mercilessly in concentration camps, is that not a clue of what might have been going on before the Great Flood?
Have we forgotten what it means to sin? Many of us have, and that includes entire Christian denominations who style themselves as Progressive. In fact, one of the most important points of contention within Christian churches is sin.
What is the problem?
We’ve spent decades trying to make the church into a supportive community where everyone belongs, even the people who don’t want to be in the community. Our dogged determination to ‘hate the sin but love the sinner,’ is enormously popular with both sinners and saints because it effectively pushes one of Christianity’s hardest teachings right off the table. It is impossible to admit sin and maintain dignity.
The problem is that in practice ‘hating sin but loving sinners’ looks a lot like ‘condoning sin.’
Continued => https://johnbranyan.com/yeah-sin-is-humiliating/
How does God regard sin? What does God call sin? Is what the Bible says true? Does God hate what the Bible calls sin? Will He send unrepentant sinners to Hell? Is a Christian someone who believes the Bible is God’s Word, or are Christians people who pick out the parts of the Bible they want to believe?
When we sin, we know we have sinned, and we are ashamed, but we don’t want to stop sinning. In our own eyes, sinning looks better and easier than being virtuous. To the foolish — and we all begin life as fools — it seems easier to sin than it is to do what we know to be good. That is what makes us slaves to sin.
Why does God allow us to suffer in and from sin? There does not seem to be a single explanation for suffering. However, with respect to sin, perhaps Hebrews 12:4-11 provides the best explanation. Like our earthly father, God disciplines us for our own good to eschew evil and to do good.
How do we free ourselves from sin? We cannot. In repentance we must turn to Jesus, and we must ask our God to forgive and to help us. We may continue to suffer, but we will not do so in shame or to our eternal perdition.
To Be Continued
- Can We Imagine the World Before Noah’s Flood? — Why Does God Hate Sin?
Here are the previous posts in this series.
- Part 1: The Worship of Stuff – When we worship stuff, we fall prey to our greed, envy, gluttony, and pride.
- Part 2: The Worship of Sex – When we worship sex, instead of caring for the OBJECT of our “affection,” we give expression to our lust and pride.
- Part 3: The Worship of Science – When we worship science, we seek to justify ourselves to protect our pride.
- Part 4: The Worship of the State – When we worship the state, we deify the man or the men who promise to give us power and wealth.
- Part 5: The Worship of Self – When we worship our self, we set ourselves up as the ultimate source of wisdom. “I” decide what is good for “me,” and what is good for “me” is good and what is bad for “me” is evil.
A Related Series, What Do Atheists Worship?
Citizen Tom 
Tom,
Sin is an addiction, not a disease same as what the liberals now want us to believe about drug addiction.
One of the best methods to cure alcohol addiction is to join and participate in Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting is to stand up and face peers by introducing themselves and then state an admission they are an alcoholic.
We need to wise up and understand that diseases are a transmission of bacterial, virus, etc. rather than a foolish choice.
Humility is needed to remedy addictions whether sin, alcohol or drug addictions. Or a foolish choice.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
I think the wickedness of that time was different but we don’t have the details in the Bible . There are other writings that some people claim give additional information. I’m referring to the offspring of the angels and men .
What Genesis 6:1-4 means exactly is unclear, at least to me.
Who were the sons of God? Angels? Doubt it. Jesus did not describe angels as sexual beings, but that is what some scholars have inferred from the text. The various translations and the commentary vary considerably.
What is quite puzzling is that the Nephilim (giants?) seem to be mentioned before and after the Great Flood. See Numbers 13:33. If the entire world was subjected to the Great Flood, that cannot be.
Genesis 4 and 5 describes two genealogies, that of Seth and that of Cain. The Sons of God and the sons of men? Perhaps.
In any event, Noah and his family were human beings, and so were the people who died in the Great Flood. Was the seed of Cain eliminated? Perhaps, but Noah traces his heritage to Adam and Eve too. Hence, my take is that people have not changed much.
From ancient times God has expected the people who worship Him (the Sons of God) to marry other people who worship Him. When that does not happen, the worshiper of God risks compromising their responsibility to raise their children properly. That includes instructing their children in the properly worship of God, especially obedience to His commands.
Since women raise children more than men, men should be careful of godless women. Since it takes the support of a man to enable a woman to raise her children well, women should be careful of godless men.
My guess is that the Sons of God were worshippers of God who married women who did not worship God. This is a problem that has continued to the present day.
Thank you!