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The Beginning of Civilization
But notice briefly how human civi–
lization developed.
God created the first humans,
perfect specimens physically and
mentally. Physically this perfectly
created pair had no chronic ail–
ments or tendencies toward dis–
eases or illnesses. That is testified
in part by the fact that Adam lived
to be 930 years old . And for nearly
2,000 years the human life span
from Adam to Noah averaged close
to 900 years.
Think of it! The first man lived
nearly one sixth of all the time
from human creation until now!
Adam and Eve had two sons,
Caín and Abe!. When they were
grown, perhaps still in their teens,
Caín became envious and hostile
against his brother Abe!. Even
though rby the c losing off of the
tree of 1ife they were cut off from
God the Father, the "Word" (the
"Lord" or the "Eternal" in En–
glish) spoke to Cain and warned
him. But Cain was being led by
Satan. This prince of the power
of the air stirred Cain to an atti–
tude of resentment, anger and
hostility. Cain slew his younger
brother, and when the Eterna!
asked him about his brother, he
lied to God about it. The very
first human ever born was moved
by Satan to become a murderer
and a liar.
God sentenced him to become a
vagabond and a fugitive.
But even though the human
family had rejected God, chosen to
rely on self even as swayed by Sa–
tan, the human mind was capable
of working with material sub–
stance. In a few generations a son
of Cain was making harps and or–
gans and musical instruments
(Gen. 4:21) and another, an artifi–
cer in brass and iron.
Mankind was making progress in
material development, even though
growing further from God spiritu–
ally. But remember at this point,
that "except the Lord build the
house, they labour in vain that
build it" (Ps. 127:1>'. Also, as in
Matthew 7:24-27, a house built on
a faulty foundation is bound to fall.
Civilization as we know it was
búilt, not on the foundation of God
and his direction, but on man's
February 1986
self-reliance under the deception
and sway of Satan.
The Bible tells us little of human
development prior to Noah, but af–
ter 1,500 to 1,600 years human
civilization had become so evil that
only one man, Noah, remained
righteous. There was a population
explosion, but humanity had
turned to evil continually. After
100 years of warning by Noah,
God sent the Flood to drown all
living except Noah, his wife, three
sons and their wives-eight people.
The Extent of Evil
Notice to what extent humanity
had been turned by Satan to evil.
In Genesis 6:5, "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." The earth
was filled with violence. Man's
thoughts, contemplations and plans
were continually on self-centered,
lustful and evil objectives.
This violence had become so uni–
versal that God determined to
spare humanity from suffering
longer in mounting misery and an–
guish.
God took away their miserable
lives, by the earthwide Flood,
to be
resurrected in the next second of
their consciousness
in the "Great
White Throne" resurrection (Rev.
20:11-12). They will be brought
back to life in a time when Christ
is ruling the earth in righteousness,
peace and bappiness. Satan will be
gone. Their minds then wiU be
opened to God's
TRUTH,
and eter–
na! salvation will be opened to
them.
But God intended to preserve
human life-to give humanity a
new and fresh start.
God found only one man, of all
the millions, who was walking
with God. Two can't walk to–
gether except they be agreed.
Noah alone agreed with God and
God's way of life. God used Noah
as a preacher of righteousness (Il
Pet. 2:5). For 100 years Noah
warned the unheeding world,
from age 500 until he was 600
years old.
Noah was "perfect" in bis gener–
ations. That is, bis heredity, ances–
try (Gen. 6:9)
Proof of this líes in the meaning
of the Hebrew word translated
"perfect."
ft
may refer either to
spiritual character (Gen . 17:1) or
to
physical characteristics
(Lev.
22:21 ). Therefore Genesis 6:9 al–
lows the translation that Noah was
either "blameless" or of "pure
strain."
The context (Gen. 6:2) clearly
indicates the latter is the intended
meaning of the H ebrew word
translated "perfect." So a good
rendering of Genesis 6:9 is that
Noah was the only "just" man (in
spiritual character), a nd also of
"pure strain" (in bis genetic her–
itage) among his contemporaries.
End of the Antediluvian World
The subject matter of the chapter
is the generations ancestry of
Noah. Exceeding wickedness had
developed through those genera–
tions, by Noah's generation reach–
ing a climactic crisis that
ended
that world.
What was this universal evil and
corruption? J esus described that
universal, corrupt evil as "eating
and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage" (Matt. 24:38). Eating
food and drinking is not evil. Mar–
rying is not evil in itself. There had
to be
wrong use
and
excess
in eat–
ing, drinking and marrying-the
evil was
in the manner,
and in
the
extent
of eating, drinking and mar–
rying.
It could only be eating improper
food, drinking excessively of alco-
· holic drinks, revelings (Gal. 5:21),
rioting, violence. Marrying, to be
evil, had to be as in Genesis 6:2,
when men ' 'took them wives of all
which
they
chose." There was in–
terracial marriage-so universal
that
Noah, only,
among males, was
unmixed or of pure strain in his
generations-his ancestry.
It is amply evident that by the
time of Noah there were at least
the three primary or major racial
strai ns on earth, the white, yellow
and black, and in addition interra–
cial marriage produced many racial
mixtures much as we have in to–
day's world.
God does not reveal in the Bible
the precise origin of the different
races. But it is a fair conjecture
that in mother Eve were created
ovaries containing the yellow and
black genes, as well as white, so
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