Redemption Initiated

So, we've screwed up. Bad. Really bad. How bad is really bad? Well, creation, including us, are now corrupted by sin and under stewardship of Satan. And all for what? A piece of fruit!? If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at Adam and Eve cause really everything bad that happens right now is because of their screw up! But is God giving up on us?

Hell no!

Look at Gen. 3:15:
And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
    he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel."
Notice where it says he will crush your head and you will strike his heel? That's the first prophecy for Jesus! God punishes us, but also gives us a promise of hope for the future. The serpent is known to be Satan, or at least a minion. This passage shows that man and Satan will have "enmity" or "deep-seated, often mutual hatred" (www.dictionary.com). We will hate Satan as much as Satan hates us. We will constantly be in conflict with one another. Satan's demons and our children will always be at odds. But, there will be offspring which, even though Satan will strike his heel, that offspring of man will crush your (Satan's) head. 

If we look further along to Gen. 6, we see what has happened in just a few generations of sinful corruption:
The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. he LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." (vs. 5-7)
God tried to keep communicating with us, but we wouldn't listen. We again wanted to do our own thing, and we were making a mess for ourselves. God hated seeing His children this way, but His message wasn't reaching them.

Time to start again.

But God didn't want to destroy His beloved creation. So, God's answer lay in Noah. Using Noah, God preserved creation through two of each kind of all creations. Bringing forth the flood, God washed the earth clean of the filth we had been making of it (literaly). God is so grieved by this though, that He promises to never do it again.

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." (Gen. 9:12-16) 

God establishes His convenant again with man, and man with God. But, only 4 verses later Noah himself falls into sin when he becomes drunk. Again, things spiral downhill and man once again falls away from God. Then, the tower incident occurs.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (Gen. 11:1-9)

Now I understand you, now I don't. See, God had told Noah and his decendants to multiply throughout the whole earth. These guys wouldn't let go of mommy's skirts and do what they were told. They also sought to prove themselves to God. Why? Pride. They wanted a 'name' for themselves. They wanted to be known on Earth and in Heaven. Notice though, where it says the Lord came down to see the city adn the tower that the men were building? These guys thought what they were doing was so great, yet God had to come down from Heaven just to see the thing! (Am I the only one with a funny mental image of a giant watching an ant who is trying to build a mountain so it will be as big as the giant? Hehe . . . squish!) So, God decided to help them out a little. Again, man tried to prove his autonomy. He just didn't get the point that when he tries to do things alone, he screws up! Guess they hadn't yet learned that two heads were better than one.

So, time to switch battle plans. Rather than attempting to reach man as a whole again, He focuses on one group of people, one nation, and that nation begin with Abram. A childless old man with a barren wife named Sarai. From him, one of the greatest nations on earth would spring.

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