How Did We Get Caught Up In This Mess?

Chapter 12

How Did We Get Caught up in this Mess?

God, in His mercy, has revealed to us that in this spiritual war that has been raging throughout history, Satan has launched and continues a terrible and unrelenting attack on mankind. Satan's power is not equal to God's power, therefore he cannot directly attack or overcome God. Instead he attacks man, whom God has made. In the book of Genesis we have God's record of how these attacks began.

Since God loved Adam, He warned him not to eat the fruit of a particular tree. Adam was about to learn the hard way that God’s warnings and prohibitions are always for our benefit and blessing.

And the Lord God took the man, and put him

into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely

eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that

thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

(Genesis 2:15--17)

Satan’s first attack was launched against Eve. The weapon he used against her was his lie. Eve had to decide, just as you and I must, whether she was going to believe God or the lie of the Devil. She chose to believe the lie instead of God’s Word. Believing the Devil’s lie, she ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then gave to Adam to eat. Though he knew the truth, Adam chose to believe the lie too.

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast

of the field which the Lord God had made. And he

said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall

not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman

said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the

trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which

is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall

not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And

the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely

die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,

then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as

gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman

saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was

pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make

one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and

gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

(Genesis 3:1--6)

When Adam believed the lie of Satan instead of God‘s Word, he sinned against God. The consequences of Adam‘s sin have been innumerable and catastrophic beyond our comprehension. In the natural side of God’s creation death, pain, sorrow, and every other misery known by man entered into the world by Adam's sin. All of God's creation, which had been placed under man's dominion, was defiled.

The greatest loss suffered by Adam and all mankind however, is spiritual. Adam’s sin separated him and all his descendants, including you and me, from God. Man’s greatest joy and blessing in the garden, his communion with God, was ended.

How Does Adam’s Sin Affect Me?

By disobeying God, Adam, the common ancestor of us all, sinned. Since no children had been born to Adam and Eve at that time, the whole human race was still in Adam. This means that you and I were in Adam at the time he sinned. Since we were in Adam when he sinned, we have all received his sinful nature as an inherited trait. Not only do we have Adam’s sinful nature, but we have yielded to our sinful nature, and each one of us has committed many sins against God.

While the first attack was against our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, Satan's attacks continue until this day against all the descendants of Adam. Every time we choose to not to believe God, we sin. While we like to think of ourselves as being good, God knows we are all sinners.

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not

one: There is none that understandeth, there is

none that seeketh after God. They are all gone

out of the way, they are together become

unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no,

not one.

(Romans 3:10--12)

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

(Romans 3:23)

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal

life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Romans 6:23)

The sinful nature that we have has been exploited by Satan in his attempt to destroy us. Satan regularly succeeds in turning our desire away from God, and toward the things of this world. The farther we go into sin, the farther we go away from God and true peace and happiness. If we refuse to believe on Jesus (the Truth), we will die in our sinful and rebellious condition. The consequence of dying in this unrepentant condition is to spend eternity in the lake of fire, which is often referred to as hell.

And whosoever was not found written in the book

of life was cast into the lake of fire.

(Revelation 20:15)

Having separated us from God by sin, and by continually bombarding us with lies, Satan is preparing mankind to accept him as God. One day Satan will offer himself as God to man, and all who refuse to believe on Jesus Christ will believe his lie and worship him.

In love, God has revealed to us in his Word, that we have sinned against Him. The fact that God reveals our sin to us in His Word is why we feel uncomfortable when we hear the Word of God preached or when we read it for ourselves. By God’s Word we learn that God hates sin, and why shouldn’t He? It is because of sin that death, sickness, heartache, and every other plague has come upon us. Worse than these, it is sin that separates us from God.

The reason God points out our sin to us is not to make us feel miserable, but to awaken us to our condition and bring us to the place where we will seek Him and forgiveness for our sins. The Bible does not just point out our sins but also tells us that our Creator has come into the world in which we live and has done everything necessary for us to be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to Him.

While we have all failed and sinned against God, the good news is that there is one person who has been born into this world who has never sinned, Jesus Christ. Since he has never sinned, Jesus is the only one who can pay for our sins.