Ezekiel 28:17 – “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.”
Genesis 6:5 is a devastating verse. We see that as a result of human beings being so wicked because every intent of the thoughts of their hearts were wicked that God sent a flood to wipe out all but one family. One might think that such a judgment on pride would have eradicated it. But then after the flood we see this:
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. 22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease” (Genesis 8:20-22).
Another way to look at this is to say that even this great flood that left one family had not wiped out pride from the human heart. But the covenant that God made was not to destroy every living thing as He had previously done. The enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent continued in Noah’s family. As with Adam and Eve and their children, there were different seeds from the same family. Cain killed Abel and demonstrated that right from the start there was enmity between the seeds even in the same physical family. We are then shown that within the family of Noah the same thing is true. To be a child of those who have received grace does not mean that grace passes to the children automatically. The seed of the serpent is in all who are born into the world in the human race. The heart of pride controls all those that are not controlled by the indwelling life of Christ.
We also see animal sacrifices in Genesis 8 as well. This shows that sin had not been eradicated from the earth at all. It took a clean animal (Gen 8:20) to make a sacrifice and which shows that the right way to worship God is according to God. It takes a perfect sacrifice to be acceptable to God and a heart that is sinful can never be perfect. These sacrifices pointed to the one sacrifice that alone could really take away sin. The lambs of the Old Testament pointed to the Lamb of God (John 1:29) who alone could truly take away the sin of the hearts of sinners. The fact that they had lambs to picture Christ points to the need for the sacrifice to be humble. It took a humble sacrifice to pay for the pride of human souls. It takes a humble Savior to live the life of humility in the hearts of humans as opposed to the pride of the serpent. Philippians 2 shows us the depths of the humility of Christ who took human flesh to Himself and then humbled Himself even more to go to the cross. How this points to the wickedness of pride in the human heart. How this shows us what we should be in heart rather than proud and self-centered.
As we move into Genesis 9 we see the sin of Canaan. It is hard to know the exact sin here and the degree of what is going on, but we do know that Canaan dishonored his father and was then cursed for it. The other two sons strove to honor their father. But let us not forget the sin of Noah here is getting drunk. He did not have the New Testament teaching on this nor did he have the Proverbs, but his conscience was enough for this. God had created man in His own image and that image of His is to live in control and godliness rather than to get drunk and result in the sin of Canaan. Genesis 10:15-20 tells us that the curse of Noah on Canaan came true and he became the father of the families of Canaan. But Shem, who was blessed by Noah, had Abram who became Abraham as his descendant. The seed of the woman continued and of the serpent continued from the same physical family. The Canaanites and the Israelites were at war in the Old Testament and there is still war between them.
In Genesis 11 we see the pride of human beings that had not been stamped out in the flood. The people of the earth wanted to build a tower where the top would reach into heaven and they wanted to make a name for themselves (Gen 11:4). They did not want to scatter across the earth and fulfill the command of the Lord to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen 1:28). Some think that the thought of building the tower (in their ancient mindset) was that they could actually reach to God with it. The rebellion and pride of these people is given in just a few words, but if we look at what is going on we can see the depths of pride in the hearts of these people. Human history is simply the history of pride and of man following his own way on the earth and trying to make his own way to heaven rather than looking to the Lord alone. The serpent’s poison of pride always rules unless the humble Savior reigns there.
God Loves... Himself 
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