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By Van Sprague

“…the earth was filled with violence.”

– Genesis 6:11 (Unless otherwise stated: Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Used by permission. All rights reserved).

“Violence,” in this verse, has to do with cruelty and other wrongdoing that is a consequence of injustice. You can look at news and social media today and find endless headlines decrying injustice and the resulting fallout. How often do you hear the call to respond to oppression, right wrongs, and have justice? As a people, what are we doing about it? As the church, what should we do? What did God do in Genesis 6?

“So the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth…” (Genesis 6:7).

And He did. He flooded the earth destroying every human except Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their wives.

But He promised never to destroy the earth with water again (Genesis 9:8-15).

So, if you were counting on God to eliminate evil through a great flood again, don’t hold your breath. Then what is there to do about it?

Believe it or not, the answer is still death, but not the way you may think.

Individuals do not have the God-given right to decide who lives and who dies. We never have (Genesis 9:5-7). The authority for administering justice by punishment has always resided in God and has been authorized to be administered through existing governments (Romans 13:1-6).

What is one to do? To make a change in what is wrong in the world, we must die to ourselves. Selfishness, and acting like we can figure out the right way to save ourselves without God, only leads to greater troubles.

“There is a way that seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 16:25).

The good news is that our Creator, Who loves us and doesn’t want us to die (2 Pet 3:9), has made a way for us to die to ourselves and live for Him, putting away the unrighteousness that produces the violence that we want to be rid of.

After referring to the floodwaters in Noah’s day, Peter wrote a comparison that still applies today.

“There is also an antitype which now saves us – baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).

It is in baptism an individual dies to the old person of sin and rises again to live a new life. Having made the point that the grace given to us by God is greater than all of our sins, Paul said:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4).

By excluding God’s will, a world seeking answers for hatred and violence only adds hatred and violence.

Any religion that teaches there is a way to begin living for God without dying to yourself, in both your choices and baptism, is a religion that ends in death.

Putting an end to injustice starts with us being justified in Christ.

Are you living for yourself or for Him?

Van Sprague is an evangelist at the Church of Christ at Houston Park. He has a wife and three children. Come Visit! Sunday morning Bible class is at 9, with worship at 10 am and 5 pm. Wednesday night Bible class is at 6.