Here is #1 in a series of essays I will be posting

This is an essay tha I wrote for my Old Testamnet History class. I wrote this paper, and had to trim a lot off to make it into the 500 to 750 word limit. I could have really gone on for quite a time about man's sinful nature in history and in the present. I will save that for God's future endeavors for me.


The nature of sin has been in the heart of man since the creation. Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature ( Zondervan 1994). Adam and Eve gave into the temptation of sin in which Satan tempted them into being disobedient to the simplest of God’s commands, “ you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Tyndale 2005). This was the first sin of history; this was the death of the utopian way of life in the Garden of Eden. Sin had entered the world.
The nature of sin stayed in the hearts of man after Adam and Eve’s banishment from the garden. Their firstborn son, Cain committed a horrific sin. Cain became insanely jealous of his brother Abel, when God favored Abel’s offering over his, God told Cain, “…But if you don’t do what is right, sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Tyndale 2005). This shows that God cared about Cain by giving this warning about sin, but Cain did not heed His warning. The overwhelming hatred and jealousy was too much for Cain to bear himself, so he murdered his brother. Once again, God was in control, He sought out Cain, asking him of the whereabouts of his brother. Cain would not admit to his wrongdoing. God shows His ever knowing, always seeing self in admonishing Cain for what he had done. “Observe the pride, unbelief, and impenitence of Cain. He denies the crime, as if he could conceal it from God” (Nelson 1997). Cain was condemned to be a “restless wanderer” (Tyndale 2005). “Cain complains not of his sin, but of his punishment. It shows great hardness of heart to be more concerned about our sufferings than our sins” (Nelson 1997).
Mankind continued to escalate in evildoing in the sight of the Lord. Over time, the Lord could not overlook the fact that “every inclination of the thoughts of his (man’s) heart was only evil all the time” (Tyndale 2005). The Lord looked on one man and his family with favor in this time. Noah “was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God” (Tyndale 2005). “ Noah did not find favor in the eyes of men; they hated and persecuted him, because both by his life and preaching he condemned the world: but he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and this made him more truly honorable than the men of renown”( Nelson 1997). God instructed Noah to build an ark and “take his family onto the ark and gather seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean animal.”(Tyndale 2005). Seven days later, God passed His judgment on mankind and caused it to rain forty days and forty nights, wiping out the population on the earth, cleansing it of sinfulness. Noah and the other inhabitants of the ark were floating on the earth for one hundred and fifty days. After the flood waters receded, God made a covenant, promising to “never curse the ground because of man.” (Tyndale 2005) The Lord made this covenant because the nature of man is sinful.
God established a covenant with Noah and his sons to “be fruitful and increase in number, multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” (Tyndale 2005) Shem, Ham and Japheth spread out and were the fathers of many nations. While they spread out, they all spoke one language. Man spread eastward to a plain in Shinar and settled there. While there they built a great tower which was made of brick instead of stone, that reached the heavens, to make a name for themselves. The Lord came down to earth and confused their languages and scattered them about the earth. God’s purpose was for mankind to form many nations, and people of all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats.” (Nelson 1997)
The nature of sin has stayed in the hearts of mankind since the beginning of the creation. God passed His judgments on the sinfulness of man several times in the chapters 3-11 of Genesis. Man was born with a sinful nature.

References
NIV Life Application Study Bible, Tyndale House Publishers Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois, 2005
Henry, Matthew Thomas (1997) Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers

Grudem, Wayne (1994) Systematic Theology Grand Rapids, Zondervan