IN THE BEGINNING...THE LORD SAID,
“I will blot out man...for I am sorry that I have made them.”
WHY?
"...the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate."
WHY?
Man blamed Eve...The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
Eve blamed the serpent. The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
One can understand how that happened. Afterall, God told us in the beginning that "the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made."
Blame cascades: Adam to Eve, Eve to the serpent, yet none to the self. The crafty one slithers away unscathed at first.
God looks on with the ache of a parent and profound grief over what His image-bearers had become.
In time, the whole earth brimmed with violence (Hamas)—every intent of human hearts turned toward evil, unchecked and unrelenting.
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
So the rains came, the ark rose and God "reset" the world, starting over with righteous Noah and his family.
Eventually, "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark."
BUT GOD remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.
God knew mankind would return to it's evil ways.
BUT...
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
WHY?
This sentence may be the most confusing explanation by God in the entire bible.
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
BUT...
Notice why God relented. Repentance...an offering to God. In effect, Noah, representing all of mankink, acknowledged accountability. He had a contrite heart.
It is a contrite heart where pride yields to plea, where the bruised soul turns back God.
In Psalm 51, David, scourged by his own shadows, cries out: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
The prophet Isaiah amplifies the whisper: "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up... I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite."
And in Isaiah 66: "But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word."
The Psalms encircle the broken: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."
We live in world without accountability. Blame is cascading again. How long before God intervenes again?
Can you imagine the whole world being brokenhearted, with a contrite heart and crying out? It seems to me that is what it would be like if the world was coming to an end. I wonder: would God respond then?
