A Biblical View of AI: AI Is An Indifferent Thing

The Wicked and Godly Lines in Genesis 4

Amen. And please turn to Genesis chapter four. Genesis chapter four. I'll begin reading in verse 17. Please go ahead and stand when you have that. Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mahujal, and Mahujal fathered Methuselah, and Methuselah fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other, Zillah.

Ada bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of those who played the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain. He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.

The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech. Listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.

If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.

To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we have gathered together to call upon your name today.

So we call upon your name. We ask that you would give wisdom from your word. We thank you for this wonderful gift of your word that it guides us in all things, things that man would not even anticipate.

We pray that today as we look to your word that you would give us that wisdom in good measure as your spirit keeps our hearts open to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Perhaps you've heard this conversation before at several times throughout your life.

Technology as a Gift Discovered in Creation

I know that I have. Some piece of technology comes up, or maybe technology in general, and the question is asked, is it a good thing? And then there's discussion that happens back and forth. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing.

And at the end, people decide, in the context of this Christian discussion, that it is a neutral thing. It's a neutral thing. Well, that is indeed true in one sense, but there are more senses that are worth talking about.

So you see the title of the sermon here is AI is an Indifferent Thing. As we've been going through different passages that I think are helpful to think about the world that we live in, especially as it's changing a lot right now, I think this is a very important verse to understand what the nature of indifferent things are.

Usually the conversation stops right there, but there is much more that can be said. Number of weeks ago, we looked at Isaiah chapter 28 about how technology has been taught to man by God. God has designed the earth in such a way that technologies are simply discovered.

They aren't truly invented from man as though he is just a creator himself. They are discovered in the creation that God has made. And that is so true that Isaiah 28 speaks of that as God teaching the farmer his farming techniques that are outlined there in that passage.

If that is true, if technology is a gift from God, that has implications for us as worshipers. And that comes out here in this passage. In this passage, we have two different portions to it. There's verses 17 through 24, which talk about the wicked line that came from Adam and Eve.

And then we have verses 25 through 26, or arguably going all the way to chapter five, verse 32, to talk about the godly line that comes from Adam and Eve. One line coming through Cain, the other line coming through Seth, Abel having been killed.

And so what does it say of the wicked line that has come from Cain? Of him, we have several very notable individuals, all in particular, descending from Lamech. Okay, Lamech is a great man in terms of just having strength and power and wealth, et cetera.

The Crafts and Technologies of Cain’s Line

Lamech takes two wives. And from those two wives, he has three sons. And those three sons are described as being the fathers of different kinds of technologies or different kinds of trades. So for one, Jabal is the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.

Now, like I said, a number of weeks ago, we talked about how Isaiah 28 outlines different techniques involved in farming. If you are far away from farming and have never worked on any kind of field or planting, you might think of it as a very simple thing, that very simple people do.

In fact, I interact with all kinds of software engineers who talk about just quitting their job and living the simple life where they start a farm. And I've heard from some people who have tried this and they are surprised at how complicated and sophisticated it all is.

And it was not easier than being a software engineer. In fact, in a lot of ways, it was a lot harder. Well, that's true with having tents and livestock. If you imagine that you're starting with absolutely nothing except for a few skins that God has killed and put on your backs for Adam and Eve, and you're thinking, what do I do in this world where I live to get food, et cetera, making a tent is a fairly sophisticated thing.

Being able to carry it around so that you can herd and then trying to figure out how to take care of your herd and keep it together, especially when there's not many resources to fence things in, et cetera.

This is sophisticated work that Jabal is doing here. And then his brother's name was Jubal. He's the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Okay, so he comes up with harps and he comes up with wind instruments, so string instruments, wind instruments.

These are coming from Jubal. You know the word jubilee, et cetera. These terms that have to do with music come from Jubal who has made instruments. He's made string instruments, he made wind instruments.

This is a sophisticated thing. It's a sophisticated thing. And it's not something that's as needed as food, right? Music is not something where, well, just out of desperation, you're going to figure out what you have to do to get food to come out of the ground.

This is something that's sophisticated and artful for man's pleasure. And it goes on and speaks of Jubal Cain. He is the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. Okay, so different kinds of tools that you would use, whether it be an ax or a shovel or maybe even swords and things like that, basically blacksmithing.

That kind of thing is coming from Jubal Cain. Once again, sophisticated craft. Sophisticated crafts are coming from each of these. And Lamech, being the father of all these three fathers of these different crafts, himself is highlighted.

Lamech’s Pride, Violence, and Poetry

He speaks to his two wives. Now, this is the first instance that we have of polygamy. So he has taken multiple wives for himself. And then he says, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say.

I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. Now, there are some notable things about this and what it says about the character of Lamech and obviously is designed to reflect on the character of his whole line, going backwards to Cain and going onwards to his sons, that he's a wicked man.

He's a very prideful man. He killed someone just for hitting him once. And he considers this a great thing. God had given Cain a promise that if any does any wrong to him, he would be avenged sevenfold.

And Lamech is saying that, well, I should be avenged 77-fold. So even beyond the special gift from God, he should have something far, far more. He's very arrogant about it. But notice also that this is framed as poetry.

As you see in the ESV that this is put into lines, this is very clearly Hebrew poetry in the way that it is presented with the breakdown of the syllables, et cetera. And then Isaiah, which is full of poetry, says this in Isaiah 32, nine, rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice.

You complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. These are a lot of the exact same phrases before the introduction of this poem that Isaiah gives. Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice. You complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.

If you were to look at the Hebrew, you would see that a lot of it is just chunks together, exactly like this passage, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice. Listen to what I say. He's saying, hear my speech. It's the same stuff.

This is a poem. This is poetry. This is like his sons, who are craftsmen in various ways, making different kinds of instruments. He himself is a sort of artist who is writing poetry. And he is speaking in poetry to his wives, in his polygamous marriage, about vengeance.

So he takes that poetry that is of his craft and he uses that thing for evil. Now, in verse 25, it says, Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son called his name Seth. Okay, and from this, we have the godly line.

And that continues all the way through chapter five, where we go from Adam all the way to Noah and recount all the people of the godly line. Okay, so you had the wicked line there being described from verse 17 from Cain.

And now we have the whole of the godly line that goes all the way through chapter five. But how does it introduce the godly line right before chapter five? At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

There's a comparison that's being made here. Comparison between Cain's line and Seth's line. Seth is using his voice to construct poetry, to speak of vengeance, and to build up man's pride. Whereas Seth's line is using their voice to operate in humility.

And this is all in the context of the beginnings of mankind where they are given gifts from God in order to go about their world with special technology that they are inventing. Lyre and pipe, tents and livestock, bronze and iron, blacksmithing, herding, tent making, all these various kinds of crafts.

Moral Goodness, Evil, and Adiaphora

Now, what do you do with all this information? How are you supposed to sort this out and then understand what that means for technology in general? How do you understand technology? I think it's helpful for us to first talk about what makes something good or evil, morally speaking at all.

First of all, only actions in as they are actually done are good or evil. Okay, it is only actions, only in an act of the will that something is good or evil. In fact, actions in themselves, abstractly speaking, are not even good or evil.

For example, throwing a stone could be either good or evil. Throwing the stone at Achan was good justice when he had disobeyed the commands of the Lord. Throwing stones at Naboth was evil, that was injustice because he had done nothing wrong.

It was merely Ahab's greed that wanted to take away the vineyard, away from Naboth, and so he was stoned so that that vineyard could be taken from him. So actions, abstractly speaking, are neither good nor evil.

They are sometimes what is called adiaphora. If you've ever heard that term before, adiaphora means an indifferent thing. It's an indifferent thing, it doesn't matter. Well, it's not that it doesn't matter, but it in and of itself is not a thing that has a moral goodness or a moral evil to it.

Okay, so actions, as they are acted out, become good or evil based on the will intended in them. Now, there are some actions that are indeliberate, you know, not having any deliberation or whatever, right?

Like as you've breathed, you've breathed all kinds of times a day while you were sleeping. Typically, you're not thinking about your breathing, you're not thinking about whether or not you're doing it for the glory of God, et cetera.

So actions that are apart from the will are not necessarily good or evil things, but actions that involve the will are good or evil things in as much as you desire to serve the Lord in that action, or you do not desire to serve the Lord in that action.

So that is what makes something good or evil, is the exercise of the will in the thing. So what does that mean for objects, objects in the world, or skills in the world, different kinds of things? Well, nature, it's the same thing.

Any kind of substance or object in the world is simply adiaphora, it is an indifferent thing. Now, it's different than actions because actions could become good or could become bad, or maybe if there's something that has as much goodness and badness in it in the way that it was done, you might call it an indifferent thing because it sits in the middle.

But substances are just indifferent, and they can't have a goodness or an evil to them because substances are not actions, they don't involve the will. So considered that way, substances are just indifferent things.

How People Call Created Things Good or Evil

However, people do use the term good or evil to speak of substances, and they mean different things by them, and I think it's worth going through those things so that when you're talking about whether or not something is good or bad, you would understand how to use those terms.

Someone might say that something is good or bad based on its origin, right? So God created all things. In Genesis 131, he declared all things good. So in that way, all things in nature are good, they're all good.

Then they might talk about its disposition in effect, right? So something that tends to have a harmful effect, people will call bad or evil, but things that tend to have a good effect, they will call good.

So for example, you might call certain kinds of food good, and then hemlock, you would call evil or bad, right? Because it has a harmful effect. If you read older translations of the Bible, sometimes people get confused because it talks about certain evils coming upon people, and they don't understand that what that refers to is just calamities.

They're not actually moral evils coming on anyone, it's just punishments. It's just things like hurricanes or earthquakes, okay, calamities. So those are, in a natural way, sort of natural evils because they have a tendency to do harm.

Or people might talk about a tendency in the use of that thing, right? The way something might tend to be used. So you might say tea is good, marijuana is bad, right? It's not that the thing in itself is good or bad, it's the way that it tends to be used is either good or bad.

And then there is another way that people do this, which I think is to be avoided. And that is they do not think about the tendency in use, but they think about the capacity for misuse. So for example, if someone says riches are evil, what they are saying is not that riches have a, maybe they are saying it has a tendency in use towards evil, but what they're primarily thinking, what's guiding the thought of someone who would say that is they are thinking about what kind of capacity for evil does that thing have.

And then, as you think about that, some of the greatest things, because they are so good, God giving them as a gift to man, are, under that rubric, the most evil things because they have the greatest capacity for evil.

That would be a poor way of talking about gifts that God has given, and calling them evil, just because there is a great capacity for misuse in them. Now, this applies also to artificial things, okay?

Artificial Inventions as Morally Indifferent Gifts

Artificial meaning made by man. If you read older literature, it might call them artifices, stuff like that, right? Inventions. How do you understand those? Same thing. Morally speaking, they are indifferent.

There's nothing good or evil about them in just existing. They are just things that exist. Now, if you use the origin way of thinking about it, where have they come from? You might call something evil because it's come from an evil source.

But is that really the best way of thinking about it? Some of the best inventions that we have are things that have come from very evil people. And if God gave mankind the ingenuity in order to create good inventions, then why would we call that an evil thing, just because it comes immediately from an evil source?

For example, here, we have these evil men. And these evil men have made tents, and they've made musical instruments, and they've invented blacksmithing. Are we going to call any of these things evil because they come from evil men?

We shouldn't do that. Instead, it makes sense to understand these as good things in their origin, ultimately having come from God. Now, let's say you go on and you think about it in terms of tendency to good or harm.

Well, there are some things that man has created that have a tendency towards good effects, and there are some things that man has created that have a tendency towards bad effects. I'm sure you can think of all kinds of technologies that ended up tending towards bad effects.

Maybe if you look at all the different drugs that man has invented for different applications, you would say, well, these have bad effects, these have good effects. And so you might call one medicine good and another medicine bad based on what you expect it to do.

But then there is the question of use once again. So to, similarly, like I talked about tea versus marijuana, you might say the same thing about an artificial substance, something that's been processed, right, like heroin or something.

You might say that that is evil because you're imagining the particular use or it has a disposition to a certain use, and that's why you would attach the label evil to it. Okay, so these are the different ways that you would think about things being good or evil.

Music, Art, and the Goodness of Creation

Now, I think it's worth talking about music here, music being a particularly interesting one here with Jubal making the lyre and pipe and then Lamech using his craft and poetry in order to mock God, essentially.

How are we to understand music? Now, if you go back several decades, you might be able to find a lot of fundamentalist literature that talks about how Satan was the angel of music and music is a fallen thing and it's just all bad, pretty much.

I don't think that that's the right way of thinking it. Instead, you should ask, well, what is its source? Well, even though it came most immediately from a wicked man, it's ultimately from God, so it's actually a good thing in that sense.

And then as far as its disposition in effect goes, well, I can think of all kinds of ways that people have been poorly affected by music. If you think about most musical cultures and all the different passions that music has been used to stir up a man to evil things, you could probably count, if you weren't able to count everything, you could probably count more bad uses of music than you could count good uses of music.

I mean, just once again, think about all the different genres of music culture that exists and most of them have all kinds of wickedness associated with them. Likewise, if you think of use, the most popular music, the most common music, a lot of it is used for evil to carry along lyrics that are dishonoring to God.

Yet for all those things, despite the tendency to a certain use, despite the tendency to a certain effect, all of that is not really a tendency that exists in music itself. It's a tendency that exists in sinful man.

And so the problem isn't that music has any tendencies towards evil, it's that man has a tendency towards evil. Who would call music evil? Except for the very few fundamentals that I mentioned before.

No one's going to call music evil. Everyone recognizes that music is good, even if it is largely used for evil. It is a good thing. In fact, it is part of our own religious worship of God is music. So music is not a bad thing, it is a good thing, despite these different ways that you might consider it being good or bad.

Applying the Categories to Artificial Intelligence

And so it's worth applying that same thing as you approach new technologies and you try to think deeply about the world that you live around. And I would like to try to walk through you with that on AI.

Now, I want you to know that my job as a pastor is to try to explain the Bible to you and to apply it for you. And I don't want to do that in doubtful things, I want to do that in certain things. And this is something where a lot of what we're facing is so new that any claims I make about tendencies towards certain uses with something very new is not necessarily going to be as well-founded as it might be 15 years from now or so.

And I find that is often what's going on with people when they make judgments like this is they're doing it from a place of ignorance, but I would like to try to give you some cautious but informed thoughts on the way that you should apply those same categories if you think about this new technology, LLMs, AI.

If you think about morality in general, nothing particularly moral about some technology, right? It is neither good or bad in that sense. It does not even live on that dimension of being good or bad. Yet, when it comes to the origin, what could you say of that?

Well, has it not come from a very prideful people who are pursuing it in the ambitions of trying to make a name for themselves? Well, what do you have right here? You have technologies being created by men who are certainly applauding themselves rather than applauding God.

Yet, none of these things we would call bad because of that. People might point to Genesis 11 where the Tower of Babel is created. They say, isn't this like the Tower of Babel though? Isn't this like trying to reach the heaven, going so high and creating things that are just so powerful?

Well, even if mankind created the Tower of Babel out of a desire to make a name for himself, that is not the same thing as creating a tower not to make a name for oneself. The Tower of Babel is one particular instance of people building.

It does not prohibit building altogether or even building great things if done with the right kind of attitude. Now, you might think of effects. Okay, there are different effects that AI might have, especially as people interact with it and gain a sort of pride in what they have accomplished with it.

And this is very true. If you don't know some of the hubris that exists in mankind as they have pursued various technologies, but especially this one, it is great. It is incredible. I could list a number of examples, but there is a service that exists.

There are multiple services that exist that are designed to freeze your brain in order that when AI is advanced enough, they would be able to bring you back to life and then have you live forever. And so man has replaced the salvation that comes from God with the salvation that comes from man.

And this is not obscure people who are doing this. The CEO of OpenAI, that's the company that makes Chat GPT, has signed up for one of these services. And it's a service that requires you get euthanized in order to use it.

So you actually have to end your life early in order to use that service. People are killing themselves in order to live forever. That's the kind of hubris that has, that this technology has given, has led to that effect.

It's incredible. Also, you could think about various uses. You could go through all sorts of uses. You could say it's especially destructive. There are exploits that people have come up with that have been very substantial compared to exploits that have existed in the past.

There's all kinds of deception. For a lot of people, they only started getting interested in this field when deep fakes came out, if you remember that. And the concern was, well, you could imitate anybody and you could deceive all kinds of people.

Yes, that's true. This is true with Photoshop as well. Nobody says editing images is bad. You could talk about defects, right? Defects of things where you, where because it is easy to create things with AI, people can create very defective things because they're not trying as hard.

Yes, it is possible to do that. And that is one that a lot of people have focused on. A lot of people are focused on their particular craft that they are in. And because this technology is affecting every kind of craft, they are concerned about the way it might negatively affect their craft.

It's possible, it could. But if you are using it in the right measure, then it necessarily, by definition, wouldn't. Now, the question is, can you use it in the right measure? Is there any measure? I would argue that if a, while some things might have a tendency to a particular use, and so you could call them evil for that reason, the more general something is, the more variant its applications, the less it can be pigeonholed into that category of evil, even when you're just talking about the use.

Instead, you have to acknowledge that there's all sorts of ways that you could use it, even ones that you are not aware of. There was an article last week that I found interesting, and a lot of people found interesting.

Maybe you even saw it. The Gospel Coalition published something where they set forward editing guidelines for their publication. It says writers should not use AI for ideating, researching beyond a basic fact search, organizing writing, or even beyond a basic spelling check.

Okay, so checking for grammar is just a little too far, only spelling. I found this interesting because that shows a lot of caution. Now, I'm gonna try to leave it open for you how much of that caution is warranted.

I have a lot of thoughts myself, and I'm trying to keep myself just to what I can firmly state from the Word of God here, but people are, in general, given to fear. We know that from the Word of God, and we know from the Word of God that people are given to sinful uses of good things.

Thanksgiving and the Proper Use of Created Gifts

That's what this whole passage is about. God has given men gifts, and they are using them poorly, but those are no reasons to reject good things. 1 Timothy 4, four through five says, "'For everything created by God is good, "'and nothing is to be rejected "'if it is received with thanksgiving, "'for it is made holy by the Word of God in prayer.'".

Everything, if received with thanksgiving, is good. Now, that doesn't mean that every use of it would be just because you say thank you beforehand that you can use something any way you want, but everything, generally speaking, is good if God has made it for you and has given man the strength to create it.

It is good if you use it with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving means not just that you said thank you. It means that you are using it in a way that is appreciative of God, that is designed to uphold your relationship between you, God, and that thing.

If he has given something for your good, if you are grateful to him, it means you're only going to use it for your good. So gratefulness implies particular uses. Romans 14, 14 says, "'I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus "'that nothing is unclean in itself, "'but is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.'".

Okay, so there are conscious things that keep people from recognizing that things are clean and able to be used. Colossians 2, 20 through 23 says, "'If with Christ you died "'to the elemental spirits of the world, "'why, as if you were still alive in the world, "'do you submit to regulations?

"'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,' "'referring to things that all perish as they are used "'according to human precepts and teaching. "'These have indeed an appearance of wisdom "'in promoting self-made religion and asceticism "'and severity to the body, "'but they are of no value "'in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.'".

This verse stands out to me as very relevant to what I have seen, a good measure of a lot of people. Okay, so there's one hand, on one hand, you don't understand the temptations that are involved with using powerful things or gifts that God has given, and so you use those things for evil.

But on the other hand, you see that things are used for evil purposes, and you say, I'm going to solve this by avoiding it altogether, and consider the avoidance of it a sufficient bulwark against temptation.

Now, certainly God does call us, as Christ did, to cut off our hands and poke out our eyes if they would ever cause us to sin. We should avoid anything that would cause us to sin. At the same time, then, to say that I am dealing with the heart problem sufficiently because I am avoiding this thing that has ultimately been given by God through the ingenuity of man, what is that accomplishing?

Is it really, is that severity really accomplishing goodness for your soul, or is that severity to the body not doing anything to stop the indulgence of the flesh? In fact, I have found that some of the things that people are most concerned about with this technology are most evident in those who are very opposed to it.

People who refuse to participate in it at all are often incredibly prideful about it. There are dangers on both sides. There are ditches on both sides of that path. Coming back to this passage here, why is it that we see these technologies described in Cain's line, and yet we don't see them here in Seth's line?

The Days of Noah, Prosperity, and Judgment

Another question I could ask is, what is the contrast that is going on here? Why is it that in the narrative we see these things differently juxtaposed? And the answer that some people have given, well, it shows you the ambition of man.

They were not satisfied with what God had given, just the fruit out of the ground, et cetera, and they wanted other things. They wanted music, et cetera. They wanted more than that, and so it was out of their ambition that they did this, just like the people at the Tower of Babel.

Maybe that was fueling a lot of why they built things, but is that the real reason for the contrast here, that they were productive, and then you have the godly line not being productive because they're not ambitious?

That doesn't quite make sense as a reason for why this passage is presented this way. Instead, is it not a testimony against them for having received so many gifts from God and not having given thanks?

This is certainly what the case is. Jesus interprets this in some measure for us in Luke chapter 17. In verses 26 through 29, he says, just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.

They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. Okay, so this is talking about the days of Noah and Lot. What we're talking about here is the days of Noah.

Okay, these are the times that lead up to Noah. In verse 32, we have Noah. These are the times that are parallel with him. And so Genesis 4, 17 through 24, are talking about times that may even intersect with his life in some measure.

This is a short time span here between from the beginning of Genesis 5 to the end. You know, there's an overlap in the lives of a lot of these people because they're living 900 years or so. And so a lot of these are contemporaries with each other, even though we have 1 ,000 years or so passing.

Now, when Jesus addresses the days of Noah and the days of Lot, what does he say their activity is? They're drinking and marrying, being given in marriage. They are buying and selling, planting and building.

None of those are bad things. None of those are evil things. In fact, they are all commanded things. It is good to build. It is good to marry. It is good to be given in marriage. All of those are commanded things.

What Jesus is talking about when he talks about those times being full of these things, he means people going about those activities without giving thanks to God. He's not saying now we need to stop getting married.

Now you should stop planting. Now you should stop building. He's saying that if you are going to go about your life in anticipation of the fact that it will eventually end, then you must do so giving thanks to God.

This is the problem here. Is that the contrast is not between a people who are productive and a people who are unproductive. It's a people who use their voice to call out to God and a people who use their voice to mock God.

And an extra measure of shame or culpability on those who would mock God given that he had given them so many gifts, so much ingenuity. All that will be held against them on the last day. What are the days of Noah?

They are prosperous times. What are the days of Lot? They were prosperous times. Maybe that's not what comes to your mind when you think of Sodom and Gomorrah, but Sodom and Gomorrah were the wealthiest of cities.

This is why Lot wanted to go live near them. This is why the king of Sodom offered Abraham so much money when he had saved them and rescued Lot. It's because he's very, very wealthy and the whole city was very wealthy.

And later on in the prophets, it explains it's a city that was full of food. They had all their wealth. They were very blessed by God, not blessed with evil things, but evil people blessed with gifts from God.

The requirement is that we return that with thanksgiving. Calvin on this passage, John Calvin, he wrote this, for the invention of arts and of other things, which serve to the common use and convenience of life is a gift of God by no means to be despised and a faculty worthy of commendation.

In other words, this is a great gift, but so few people take the gifts that God has given seriously. So few people return to God thanks. In fact, the very gifts that they have, they use against him to mock him.

They use that to increase in their pride and to feel self-sufficient. They take good things, good in as much as they were given for man's benefit, and then turn them into things for their own harm. You live in a time where there are more blessings than there have been in any other time.