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Conflicts and God's Resolution
Conflicts and God’s ResolutionConflicts: We live in a society inundated with conflicts. Whatever the media, our society is bombarded with information concerning acts of lawlessness. Our homes are not safe, and parents are helpless when it comes to protecting their children while attending school, and/or functions outside of the home.
Our consideration, now, has to do with Jehovah’s Conflict with Mankind resulting in the Great Flood.
For approximately sixteen-hundred years (The Masoretic Text of the Torah places the Great Deluge 1,656 years after Creation), after the creation, mankind increased in the land. After the death of Abel, “Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For, said she, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel; for Cain slew him. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah” (Genesis 4:25-26). The phrase “began men to call upon the name of Jehovah,” has been identified, to denote “all the appropriate acts and exercises of the stated worship to God.”
As man began to multiply on the earth the time came when “the sons of God,” i.e., those who called upon the name of Jehovah, “saw the daughters of men,” i.e., those who did not call upon the name of Jehovah,” that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose” (Genesis 6:2-3).
As time passed, “Jehovah 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. And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). The term repented is an action which indicates outwardly that a “change of mind” has occurred inwardly.
As a result of man’s wickedness, “the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and, behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:11-12).
Mankind had arrived at a point of no return. This concept was set forth, concerning Israel’s occupation of Canaan, when Jehovah gave Abram the promise, but said, “in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16). When the iniquity of the Amorite did become full, Israel was allowed to go into the land, and exercise the judgment of Jehovah upon it, with this warning, “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you; and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep my statutes and mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you; (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled;) that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nations that was before you” (Leviticus 18:24-28).
This point of no return, during the days of Noah, required that a proper judicial wrath come upon the land: without such, man would only increase in the defiling of the land. Thus, Jehovah rendered a verdict upon mankind, as a result of their rebellion, and that verdict was death.
Nevertheless, man was not without warning, and the opportunity to repent, and turn to Jehovah. The Conflict existed between Jehovah and man, and Jehovah laid out the Resolution.
The apostle Peter indicated that Noah was “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), and the “longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing” (1 Peter 3:20). Yet, there were but eight souls that were ultimately saved, but in so doing God saved a remnant, saved Noah and his family, and the world was to experience a new beginning.
Without laws and the enforcement of them, only chaos will exist. I do not know how to define the phrase, “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” but Solomon indicated that man was fully responsible for the degree of devastation that came upon the world, saying, “Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
Ezekiel affirmed, saying, “As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways” (Ezekiel 33:11).
However, as Solomon also noted, “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; But he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18). Without law, man will become no more than an outlaw, when his law comes from the baser nature, i.e., “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life” (1 John 2:16).
Mankind is given the option of being law abiding or lawless: even in the world. When conflicts arise, mankind, in most cases, has the option to accept a righteous resolution: repent, and do that which is good. For those who are rebellious in this life, they will give an account to the governors, whose responsibility it is to exercise “vengeance on evil-doers” (1 Peter 2:14), and eternally, to the God of heaven, to whom, “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Roman 14:11-12).
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