Why Did God Regret Creating Man?

Q

My sister was listening to a Pastor who said that at one time God was so disgusted with people, He wished He had never made mankind. I remember that but the Pastor went on to say that it was because of the culture and the low intellect of the people. This doesn’t make sense to me. What do you think?

A

I think this pastor was referring to Genesis 6:5-6. “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

As you can see, the reason the Lord regretted having made man was that after Adam and Eve sinned mankind became more and more sinful until by the time of the flood, about 1600 years later, man had become very wicked and the intentions of his heart were nothing but evil.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking God didn’t know this would happen. But actually seeing it troubled Him deeply as the rapid advance of sin became painfully obvious. This was during a time that dispensationalists call human conscience, when God allowed man’s conscience to govern his behavior without Divine interference. Like all the dispensations it ended in man’s failure, bringing about a judgment from God.