Genesis 3:8-24 Why Is There So Much Trouble in the World?

It’s hard to watch television, talk to friends or surf the internet news sites without being bombarded with images and reports about the tremendous problems and sorrow in the world. Wars, sickness, natural disasters and crime abound.

Why is there is so much trouble in the world? If there is a God, wouldn’t he create the world without evil?

The troubles we face today are rooted in Genesis 3.

In 3:1-7 the Adam and Eve both ate of the fruit God had commanded them not to eat. As a result God pronounces several curses that continue to affect the world and all of humanity to this day.

He relegated the Serpent to eat dust and travel on his belly (3:15). He cursed the woman with pain in childbirth and a change in her relationship with her husband (3:16). He cursed the ground requiring man to toil all the days of his life (3:17-19), and He cast the man and woman from the garden.

Romans 5:12 speaks of the tremendous consequences of Adam’s act, “Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all me, because all sinned.”

Prior to the sin of Genesis 3, there was no sin in the world. Nothing like the horrors we see and hear about every day had occurred in Eden. There was no death; Adam and Eve would have lived forever.

The problem extends beyond Adam and Eve “Because all sinned” (Rom 5:12). There are two ways to look at this truth. The first explanation is that we sinned because Adam was our representative; he was like our Senator. He when he sinned he represented us. Therefore, we sinned. Alternatively, he was our federal head. Since all people come from Adam, we were in some way in Adam when he sinned. Therefore, we all sinned when he sinned

In either case, we are all under condemnation because of this event in Genesis 3. The implications continue right to our day. All the evil in the world would not exist if it were not for the original sin that brought about God’s curse and removed mankind from the Garden of Eden.

Middle Eastern conflicts, beheadings, shootings, rape, incest, child abuse, murder, drug abuse, domestic violence, lying, corruption, greed and every other sin stem from the original sin in Genesis 3.

Because the problem is a spiritual problem, it can only be solved spiritually. Political, social and economic solutions will ultimately fail, because the root cause is sin. The problem is related to that little phrase in Rom 5:12, “Because all sinned.”

Tomorrow’s post will set forth the solution to this problem also found in Genesis 3.