WHY IS THE WORLD A TERRIBLE MESS?

Everywhere we look, we see animals hunting and killing animals, animals and plants dying of disease and dehydration, plagues and famines killing men, women and children.

Did God create the world like this? NO.

Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind ... And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24-25 (NLT)

The Bible gives us a little glimpse of the animal world as God planned it.

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. Isaiah 11:6 (NLT) 

• God put Adam and Eve in charge of a world of animals at peace. There was no killing and no death, not even among animals.

• Adam and Eve were appointed to be the governors of a planet full of peace and life but when they chose to believe in evil, death entered the world, just as God had warned them.

...but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:17 (NIV) 

The devil appeared to Eve as a snake. Did Satan possess a natural created snake or did Satan make himself to appear as a snake? We don’t know.

God is not responsible for the suffering and death around us. 

• We have all followed the example of Adam and Eve by believing the lies of darkness and mistrusting God. 

• We have cursed the earth by our willful blindness. 

But God had an amazing plan to restore all things. 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NIV)

It was man who brought death into the world and messed up God’s creation but God was not taken by surprise. He saw it all coming because the future is an open book to His all seeing eye.

Even before Adam and Eve went astray, God planned that He Himself would come to earth as a man. 

• What a man destroyed, a man would restore, the perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the promised Messiah of Israel.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

• For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NIV)

How can you receive the restored eternal life that Jesus offers?

How did Adam and Eve lose eternal life?

• Eve believed the lies of the devil and lost her immortality and glory.

• You and I can believe the truth of Jesus and God will restore to you what Adam and Eve lost. 

But Eve did not just believe a lie; she acted on it.You must believe the truth of Jesus and act on it. 

• Ask Jesus to forgive your sins and commit your life to trusting and obeying Him. He is the one who created you and truly loves you.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Romans 8:18-19 (NIV)

• When you decide to stop believing the lies of darkness and live by the truth of God, you become a son or daughter of the Most High God, the Heavenly Father. 

• Suffering does not disappear but one day you and I will live in God’s perfectly restored heavenly new creation.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, 

• in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Romans 8:20-21 (NIV)