I was thinking the other day about how the major judgment events in the OT were about structures and systems of sin, widespread entrenched and embedded wickedness, not about ridding the world of sinners/sinful individuals.

Think about it...

1. The flood— not simply abt dealing w “sin” but the sinful society they had made. The story after the flood is abt the sin of Noah’s sons, proving that the flood didn’t wipe out sin from the earth or sinful individuals. The flood was judgment against structural/societal sin.

2. Sodom and Gomorrah— You think only righteous people were spared? Keep reading to discover what Lot’s daughters did. It didn’t rid the earth of sexual immorality; it judged the social entrenchment of sexual sin.

3. Egypt— the judgment on pharaoh would lead one to think that evil had been dealt with, but the immediate stories of Israel’s murmuring and ungratefulness say otherwise. Why the plagues, then? So God could deal with the national sins of slavery, exploitation, and oppression.

Here’s my point: God has always dealt with structural and socially embedded/entrenched sin even when he knew individual sin would remain.

We can address sin that is embedded and entrenched in structures and systems in a society even before individual sin is dealt with.