Lesson 3
The Fall of Man, God's Great Judgement - The Flood,
Babel and the Beginning of Languages
You will learn following topics in this lesson:
Why does mankind needs peace and salvation?
What is God’s Judgement?
Why are there many nations today?
These and many other questions of similar nature will be answered in this lesson.
If you want to download the lesson or the worksheet and do the lesson offline, you are welcome to do it. But we suggest you to take the worksheet online as it makes the process of sending the answers easy. If you prefer taking the worksheet offline then you can scan or take the photograph of the worksheet and email it to us (correspondence@nepalgoodnews.com).
1. The Present age and the Condition of Humanity
In most parts of the world, this present age is an age of great material prosperity. But it also an age of great unrighteousness, or sin. The material achievements of mankind today are truly amazing. But at the same time mankind’s spiritual and moral conditions are becoming worse and worse. Human society is filled with self-will, vanity, greed, pride, unhappiness, deceit, fighting, suicide, murder, war, and destruction. More and more there is a lack of real love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control in mankind. As a result, human society is going towards disaster. We ask, what is the reason for this?
The Bible, God’s Word, gives the real reason behind the present condition of man. To understand mankind’s spiritual and moral condition today, we must first understand why msn tends to sin rather than to do right. Why is it we have to teach small children to tell the truth, to be kind and gentle and to not be greedy, but we never have to teach them to lie, to be greedy, to argue, etc.? From the time they are very small children’s nature is to do wrong. Over and over they must be taught to do right. Why do we have to have laws in society that prevent people from stealing, killing, committing adultery, fighting, etc.? Why does man’s nature sin so easily? The Bible gives the reason for all of this, so let us look at what the bible says.
2. The Fall of Man
When God first created man, man was happy and blessed in his perfect submission to the authority of God. In the beginning, God had placed man in a beautiful garden in which grew every kind of fruit trees. This was called the Garden of Eden, and was blessed not only with peace and liberty, but also with righteousness, honesty, and orderliness. See what God said to the first man:
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. “
Satan and his demons always hate God and they always oppose God’s plan and purpose. One day Satan tempted the first woman, Eve, and convinced her to disobey God. As a result, she ate the fruit of the tree God had told her she could not eat of. She disobeyed God’s command and also gave the fruit to Adam, her husband. Adam also ate the fruit and disobeyed God. That was the first time man had disobeyed God. It was the first sin. Any disobedience to God’s command is sin. From this first disobedience, sin entered into the world and into man’s heart. That was how the Fall of Man took place.
3. Death
Man’s fall brought many bad consequences into his life. First of all, man became separated from the good and close relationship and fellowship which we had previously enjoyed with God. This brought shame, fear, unhappiness, hatred, murder, greed, and many others sins into man’s life. Sin is anything man does in disobediences to God’s commandments. Man had sinned, and God gave a penalty for that sin. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. If we work at a job, then we will earn a wages of sin is death. If we work at a job, then we will earn a wage. Because we do the work, we will receive the wage. It is the same with sin. Man sins, and the wage that he earns is death.
God had said,
“…in the day that thou eatest thereof (of the tree He told man not to eat of) thou shalt surely die.”
From the time man disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden fruit, man died. He did not die physically, but he died spiritually. Death is a “separation”. Spiritual death is a complete separation from a relationship with God. There are three kinds of death, and eternal death. From the time man sinned he earned the penalty of spiritual death which results in eternal death.
Spiritual Death
God met with the man (Adam) and made him give an account of his actions. Adam tired to justify himself by blaming the woman. He said that she had caused him to sin. The woman, Eve, tired to justify herself by blaming Satan, who had tempted her to sin. But God knew Adam was guilty of disobedience and so God placed a punishment on Adam first to all. The punishment was not only for Adam, but for all people who were born after Adam, also. God sentenced people to a life of physical suffering, hard work, and physical death which results in our bodies returning to the dust. As a result, the first man, Adam, after enduring many years of sorrow and heartaches, died and returned to the dust. The separation of his spirit from his body was his physical death. In that way the first woman, Eve, also became partaker of the punishment given by God. She also spent her days in suffering and finally in death. This was all the result of sin. Because God is so holy, sin is a very terrible thing in God’s sight. Because God is so perfectly righteous, He must punish sin.
Eternal Death
As a result of sin, Adam and all people deserve eternal separation from God. After death sinful man is cast into Hell. It is a place of terrible suffering and was originally prepared for Satan and his angels. However, in order to punish man for his sins, God sends sinful people to his place called Hell.
Thus, man became separated from God because of sin. Man’s relationship with his creator God was broken. As the Bible says,
“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”
In the garden of Eden was plenty of food, peace, and happiness. However, after the fall of man, God drove the first human family out of the Garden Eden. After that man was forced to live a life of hardship outside the garden. Because of his sin, he was separated from God’s blessings. Every person born after that inherited Adam’s sinful nature, and deserved the death penalty as well. The Bible tell us:
“Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
Every child born after that began to live in sin continually. Sin spread over all humanity from the first man, Adam. Murder, violence, fear, and terror filled the earth. The result of the original Fall of man is the fall of the moral condition of modern man.
4. Hope for Man
Is there no hope for man, then? There certainly is hope! Although God pronounced judgement upon the first people because of their sin, He also mad a way for them to have forgiveness of their sin. God planned for man to have his sins forgiven through a sacrifice. The innocent sacrifice would take the punishment which the sinning person deserved, and God would then forgive the sinner and cleanse his heart from sin.
After man disobeyed God in the garden and when Adam and his wife became embarrassed because they were naked, God then sacrificed an innocent animal and, using the skin, made clothes to cover the nakedness of the man and his wife. By doing this, God showed man the way of salvation. How? Read carefully! An innocent substitute must die in order for man to have his sins covered or forgiven by God. This showed an important truth about the Saviour who was to come. The Saviour who would be born from a virgin would die as an innocent sacrifice in man’s place. He would take the punishment that sinful man deserved. Whoever believed in Him would be saved from the eternal punishment they deserved as sinners. Before this Saviour actually came to earth, men could still believe in God and His way of salvation by sacrificing an innocent lamb as their sin offering. This pictured the innocent Redeemer (Saviour) who would come and die for the sins of man. This sacrifice would show that man could be reconciled to God and justified before Him.
The question arises, who is this Redeemer that God promised to send? Has he come already or is He yet to come? And, what must a man do to be saved, to receive salvation? We will study these things in our coming lessons.
5. God's Great judgement — The Flood
The first families’ lives outside the Garden of Eden became very challenging. Within a short time they witnessed a horrible murder in their own family. Their oldest son killed their beloved younger son. This gave them grief and sorrow for the remainder of their lives. The descendants of the first family were growing and multiplying. But their wickedness was growing also. About that time, the Bible says,
“And 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.”
Human society was filled with selfishness, pride, envy, greed, hatred, arguing, war, and violence. For this reason God decided to destroy the whole world because of man’s wickedness. But at that time a man named Noah was a good, righteous man who obeyed and followed the true Creator God. God decided to destroy all the wicked people of the earth but to allow righteous Noah and his family to live. How did Noah become righteous?
Noah came to God the way God had shown him. He believed in the way God had shown and he believed that the only way to God was to come by offering a sacrifice. Since he did this and obeyed God, Noah was declared righteous. God then told Noah that He was going to bring a great judgement upon the earth by flooding the entire earth with water. He commanded Noah to build a huge ark and promised to save Noah and his family in the ark. Following the instructions given by God, Noah built a great ark (boat) which would not only contain Noah and his family, but also two of each of all animals and birds. Then God caused the flood to come upon the earth. Noah and his family and the animals were safe within the ark, but all other people animals that were not in the ark died in the flood. the great ark that Noah prepared by following God’s instructions gave a picture of the Redeemer Who was to come. The ark had only one door. There was no other way to enter the ark except through that one door. Though Noah preached constantly about the great judgement that was coming from God, no one believed and turned to God in repentance. When it was time, God Himself shut the door to the ark. Those inside were safe from the judgement of God, because the waters of the flood fell upon the ark instead of upon the people and animals inside. The ark was capable and strong, and it was able to protect the people and animals inside it from the flood of judgement that lasted a whole year.
This ark pictured the Redeemer to come. The Redeemer would be the only way to God, and those who take refuge in Him by believing in Him would be saved from the anger and judgement of God. This worldwide flood is a fact of history. Since the ancient traditions of all the people of the world make mention of this event, this shows it is historically accurate. Moreover, God’s Book, the Bible, mention the flood with a lengthy description of it.
6. Bible and the Beginning of Languages
After the flood, the earth’s population again became great through the tree sons of Noah. God blessed and commanded Noah and his sons in the following manner,
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
According to this commandment of God, people should have gone to different places and filled the earth. At that time, there was only one language among men. But, people rebelled against God’s commandment.
They said,
“Go to, let us build us city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
According to their desire, they began to build a high tower. This was in rebellion and unbelief toward God. They rejected God and His way of salvation and tried to set up a way to haven by their own power. They also planned to remain in one place, in direct disobedience to God’s command to fill the whole earth. What happened then? Did man succeed?
God judged this wickedness of man. He confused the language and suddenly all the people began to speak different language! They couldn’t understand one another, because God had changed their languages. Thus, the peoples’ plan was a total failure. The people were forced to stop building the tower they were scattered in every direction upon the face of the earth. That was the beginning of the different languages and races that we see today.
Through this we can see that God Himself is the ruler and master of the earth which was created by Him and for Him. Blessed be God.
Thank you for completing Lesson 3. Now, you can fill out the worksheet and submit it. Thank you!
Worksheet #3
Babel and the Beginning of Languages