It was not God’s fault that Man sinned in the Garden of Eden. God told him not to and clearly explained the results of disobedience. Man alone is responsible for that choice, and it is the decision to sin rather than obey God that opened the door to evil in this world.
God never wanted any human to die or suffer! It was not His design that humankind should go through wars and natural disasters. None of this existed until man sinned. The reality of little children suffering hunger, disease, and abuse was never supposed to happen in this world.
These experiences, along with death, Hell, and the grave, are the result of sin, and mankind is solely responsible. It is not fair for people today to look at the world and blame God for everything bad that happens. God tried to warn Adam and Eve. He was very clear about the consequences. They didn’t just fall into sin, they leapt in with both feet. The world has felt the effects ever since.
Sin unleashed a period of pain and suffering on the human race that continues to this day. God knew the full extent of what Adam had done. He also knew that in the millennia to come, man would blame God and even deny His existence. But He still chose to redeem mankind and offer the gift of salvation to the human race.
The Consequences of Sin
The simple answer to the question, “If there is a God, then why is there so much evil in the world?” is that it’s man’s fault. Let’s look at some of the consequences of Adam’s sin and, subsequently, our sin, and see what it has done to the world we live in.
1. Sin brought a curse on the whole world.
Genesis 3:17
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.”
On that day, life on Earth became difficult. Sweat was added to work and the curse began to affect every area of life.
2. Sin gave Satan dominion over all of mankind.
1 John 5:19
19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 calls Satan the God of this age. Verse 3 says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded…”
When did Satan become the god of this age? When Adam sinned. It was Satan who tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the garden. He may have deceived Eve with his lies by contradicted the word of God, but he didn’t deceive Adam.
1 Timothy 2:13-14
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
Adam knew what he was doing and by sinning he allowed Satan to set up his unholy kingdom on the Earth. Because of Adam’s sin, Satan has a right to be here. Jesus never told the Devil or demons to leave the earth or go to the Lake of Fire. That will happen in the end, but now, in this present age, Satan has a certain amount of time to rule. It’s like a lease on planet Earth. Whatever amount of time God had given Adam and the human race to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the Earth, and take dominion over creation was taken over by Satan in the garden. He has now become the god of this world.
You can see some of Satan’s influence over the world when he came to Jesus at the end of His forty-day fast in the wilderness:
Luke 4:5-7
5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
This was a legitimate temptation. If it wasn’t, Jesus would have known it. This encounter with Jesus shows that Satan haS authority in this world and can share it with whomever he chooses. Unlike Adam, Jesus quoted God’s Word and resisted the temptations in the wilderness.
It’s really no secret that there is a Devil and he has an evil kingdom operating in the world right now. This is the source of evil and suffering. John 10:10 says, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” There is no way to defeat evil if you don’t admit it exists! There really is a Devil and there really is a God. It’s easy to tell who is doing what. If it kills, steals, and destroys, it’s the work of Satan. If it helps, blesses, and gives life, it’s God.
It’s not fair or right to blame God for everything that happens in this world. It was never part of His plan for the Earth to experience the things that God is routinely blamed for. He never intended for man to endure tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires. Poverty, famine, and disease were never God’s plan for humankind.
These things would never have happened on Earth if Adam hadn’t sinned. The curse that sin produced has impacted the Earth on every level. You can bet that Satan and his army of demons and devils is behind every unjust war and genocide. Satan glories in human suffering. But his time, just like a lease, is limited and is running out.
There is a time coming when evil will be removed. Satan and his army will be cast into the Lake of Fire forever. However, until then, he is still the god of this world.
3. Sin brought mankind under the influence of sin, sickness, and death.
Sickness and death are not from God and were never meant to be part of the human experience.
Romans 6:17 says, “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin…” Instead of being children of God, the human race became slaves of sin. When man fell, he fell into sin. Sin became his master, opening the door to sickness, disease, and death.
In Galatians 3:13, we read, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law…”
The curse of the broken law came upon the world’s inhabitants. Everyone was guilty of breaking the laws of God. All have sinned and come short of His glory, so all were under the curse of the law. This curse is clearly spelled out in Deuteronomy 28. A large portion of the curse of the law described in Deuteronomy 28 contains sickness and disease. After an exhaustive list of ailments, it says in verse 61 that it includes “every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law…”
4. Sin changed the very nature of man
This is the saddest and most devastating result of Adam’s sin in the garden—man was no longer able to walk with God. His nature was changed. Ephesians 2:3 says, “we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Adam’s spirit which was alive to God, died.
He was not the same as he was when God created him and breathed into his spirit the breath of life. He was born again in reverse. In a sense, his spirit died. The bible calls this condition spiritual death. Spiritual death is the absence of the life of God.
This is what God was warning Adam about in Genesis 2:17, “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
In Hebrew, the phrase “you shall surely die” is more accurately translated, “in dying you shall die.” This gives us the idea of a dual death. We know that Adam didn’t die physically for hundreds of years, but he did die spiritually on the day he ate. Spiritual death came before physical death.
Death in this context does not mean to cease existence, but to have a spiritual nature void of the life of God. This is the nature of sin. Notice Ephesians 2:1: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…”
He literally became spiritually incompatible with God, an enemy of God by his very nature.
In Romans 5:12, Paul tells us how this affected everyone: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—“
This sin nature was passed on to everyone. Adam was God’s pattern or master copy. When he became sinful, that condition was passed along to all his offspring. “Adam” means mankind. When Adam sinned it was the fall of all mankind. That’s why it says in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”
You can see the immediate impact that sin had on Adam and Eve, as they were ashamed and afraid. They had never felt these feelings before, but sin changed them. Fear and shame were now a part of life.
Genesis 3:10
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Man was not just guilty of sin, he actually became a sinner. No longer could he enjoy walking and talking with God in the garden. It looked as if God’s dream of having a family was dead. God could no longer allow Adam and Eve to enjoy the paradise He made for them. He forced them out of the Garden, and they were cast into a new world where Satan reigned as god, where sin and death now ruled. Everything had changed!
It looked as if sin had forever ruined God’s plan and all of creation. Man’s condition was incompatible with a Holy God. The days of fellowship in the garden had come to an end, and drastic changes were in store for Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3:23-24
23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Sin had entered the world and into the heart of man. The process of sin and death had begun. The door was opened to sickness and disease. Hatred was one of the symptoms of the sinful heart and was quickly manifested in the first family when Cain killed Able. Murder and abuse became part of the human experience as sin took root in the hearts of men.
The first day Adam sinned was the saddest day on Earth. Everything that God had made was polluted, corrupted, and ruined by sin. It could have been the end of the world! God could have given up on His plan, let His dream die, and destroyed the world. But that’s not the kind of God we serve! He never gives up, and He follows through with His plans! And even in the midst of such a tragedy, there was Good News!
God announced the answer on that very day as He spoke to the serpent.
Genesis 3:15
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
What this meant to the Devil was that the Savior, the seed of the woman, was coming. The answer was on the way. Before the world ever knew there was a problem, God had an answer, and His name is Jesus. This was the first announcement of God’s Good News to the world. It may have looked as if Satan had won, but God was not finished yet. This story is far from over. The Good News is so good!
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