Why did God Bring Judgment to the World in Noah's Time?

 

            Why did God Destroy the World in Noah's Time?

I'm re-reading Genesis and just finished reading about the righteous man Noah and his family.

The whole story is recorded in Genesis chapters 6-9. Read it and marvel at God's love for His creation.

I am noticing again that we often miss the whole point of what Scripture is saying to us - that is, what God is saying to us in His Word.

Start at verse 5 of chapter 6. "The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time."

That's a huge indictment of man's  condition: all thoughts evil all the time. Not just most  of the time: all the time. Not mixed motives. Only evil.

Evil thoughts produce evil actions. Jesus talked a lot about that, too. He warned us that our evil hearts cause us to do evil.

So how did these "evil thoughts" produce evil actions? Specifically what did God hate so much that He brought such a great judgment to His wonderful Creation - the world He pronounced  "good" had become really bad. 

Was it because of idolatry? Was His judgment because mankind  refused to worship and glorify Him?

Apparently not. Look at verses 11 and 13. The only hateful things I can see that caused God to bring judgment was the violence of His creatures. Their violence!

Violence is what we do to each other - not what we do to God. They disrespected God, did not obey Him, didn't worship Him  -- all that was true. But the major problem that caused God's heart to be "deeply troubled" was their treatment of each other.  How they treated others who God had made in His image - the greatest stamp of approval ever awarded anything in the cosmos...we are made in His image!

And violence of human beings to each other was the worse sin God mentions - it led Him to destroy all He made and start over!

Does it seem to be getting that way again? What are we to do?

In Mere Christianity C S Lewis says, "...Christianity is a fighting religion. It thinks God made the world - that space and time, heat and cold, and all the color and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables, are things that God 'made up out of His head'...But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again."

Looks like we have a lot of work to do!