1. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

    Looking at the world around us it is hard to imagine a sinless world. It’s hard to think of an existence without poverty, pain, war, and famine. The great suffering and sin of humanity seems to drown out any goodness that can possibly be found.

    Yet, the very first thing the Bible tells us is that God created a "good" world. In fact, it says that everything he created was good.

    As God gradually created the heavens and the earth, he continually looked upon his most recent elements and saw goodness in them. From light itself (Genesis 1:3), to the land and water (Genesis 1:9), to the season (Genesis 1:14) God proclaimed that his creation was good.

    The beginning of the earth stands in stark contrast to the current state of our world. The planet is in turmoil. Natural disasters ravage the land, people steal from and kill each other for their own gain, and just about every attempt at order turns into tyranny. Age old problems such as slavery, murder, and war persist despite the supposedly enlightened age we live in.

    Families are in disarray as divorce rates skyrocket and children are brought up in broken households. Societies rise and fall, often victims of their own immorality and decadence.

    By comparing the state of the world just after creation to its state today, we can see the horrific effects of sin. Where as the Earth was created in such a state of perfection that plants did not even grow thorns (Genesis 3:18), today’s world is full of pain and suffering. The seemingly minor sin of one person created a chain reaction that caused the whole world to fall into chaos. The mere eating of a fruit caused humanity to be cursed. The source of every single atrocity known to man is the breaking of a very simple commandment.

    If this simple sin could cause such devastation to the whole world, why then do we allow sin into our lives?

    Is the power of sin to destroy not evident enough? If the eating of a fruit caused all of this suffering, why can we not find the strength to resist the urge to lie?

    How selfish we are to continue to break The Lord’s commands despite his warnings. Through His Word we see the power that sin has to destroy, yet we continue to practice it as if we aren’t in danger. We classify sins as "harmless," such as lust, or "white-lies." Surely Eve thought eating the fruit would be harmless as well. The point is that the Bible doesn’t consider any sin "harmless" as evidence by the events of this chapter of Genesis.

    We would do well to learn from the past. If the "harmless" sin of eating from a forbidden tree is enough to corrupt the entirety of creation, how much harm will our sins cause? We should shudder at the thought.

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