Some people say that various religions are just different paths to the summit? Who says we’re going uphill?
It’s breathtaking how quickly the world went bad. In Genesis 1:31, we read, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Just five chapters later (6:12), the diagnosis was: “God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt.” Some people think that, if God had made us better, we wouldn’t have ended up so bad. But in his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains: “The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better or worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so…” (p 49). You see the point? God didn’t want pets. He certainly didn’t want programmed robots. He wanted people who could choose to share a loving relationship with Him. But somehow the people in Noah’s day (like many in ours) thought they’d be happier on their own. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a dead end. There’s a statement in the Bible that reads like the warning “Bridge Out Ahead.” Listen! “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov 14:12). Know what Proverbs 16:25 says? “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Yes, God repeats it in case we missed it the first time! Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that…every intent of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually.” Wow! Like a spreading cancer, this required radical surgery! Could anything be saved? Just one family was walking with God. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man” (Lk 17:26). How about you? Are you walking with God?