Big Picture: The Solution To All The Problems Of Earth

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The first verse of the Bible says in the beginning God created. And the last verse of the Bible says:

Revelation 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

From the very beginning of time, space, reality itself in which we exist God the designer, the grand architect of energy and matter foresaw all that would happen. He knew before his voice called the stars and planets into existence that a redeemer would be needed for a wayward mankind.

Does that mean that God forced man into sin so he would need a redeemer? Most certainly not. God paradoxically gave 100% free will, yet could also foreknow every decision that would be made. Foreknowledge doesn't take away choice, why would it? Just because my architect knows the choices I'll freely choose to make, doesn't mean that I'm any less free to make them.

"Sin" is a taboo word, of course. It conjures pictures of angry religious people condemning homosexuals to the hell fires. But what is "sin"? What does it mean? Sin, the word, in it's simplest form would be a choice that hurts someone or something, instead of helping or being a neutral action. A father raping his daughter would be a sin. The girl will be traumatized for the rest of her life. The "sin" will most likely have long term effects on that girl as she grows up. She may become a prostitute or stripper, subconsciously concluding that her worth is found only and entirely in her sexual ability. She may become a shadow of a person, lapse into depression and later commit suicide. She might become a drug addict and overdose at age 37 in a crack house. And as the Bible says, the sins of the father are passed on to the son. People misinterpret that to think that a mean, cruel God punishes children for their parents mistakes. Of course that's not the case. What that verse does mean, is that when a father sins, very often his son will pick up on that behavior, start to duplicate it. Consider the example of cigarette smoking. Children of smoking parents are extremely likely to smoke later in life. Thus it's passed on, generation to generation. In the example of the girl raped by her father, she may in turn pass on that abuse to her children, and her children may then pass it on to their children. Do you see how destructive "sin" is?

So then, if we're to be frank and honest and let the emotion behind the word "sin" wash away, we can start to see that our planet, our home of 7 billion people or so has a serious problem that can be summed up in one word: sin.

Sin is doing the wrong thing when we know the right thing to do. We're all guilty, every single one of us are guilty of adding to the problems of our home rather than helping. Sometimes we do try to help. But more often we've hurt people. We've hurt family, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, and ourselves. It's frank, it's bare, it's not a fun truth, but I never said it would be easy. But it is the truth.

The media, the companies, foundations, organizations, political parties are always in such a frenzied search: Why is our world so troubled? How can we solve it? What's the problem? Who is the enemy? How do we deal with this financial crisis? How do we deal with militants in the middle east? How do we end such institutional corruption? What about poverty? How can we stop AIDS? Is everything really getting better despite the evidence?

How often do we stop to see not the problems surrounding us, but the problems within us? Forgive me for so many questions. But often questions help us open up within our own assumptions.

In the history of Earth found in Genesis we see the beginning of the problem in the temptation and fall of the first humans. From there we can look to the historical texts of the Old Testament or to the written history of the world outside the Bible for evidence of the problem. Oppressive power structures a plenty, wars and genocides. One might expect these tragedies would become less and less frequent over the years, but as humanity began to gather into larger tribes and nations the wars only became that much more violent and brutal.

The problem was clear. Even under God's guidance and laws, the nation of Israel was unable to sustain a healthy love for truth and mercy. One generation would return to the Lord, another would depart. One can read through the histories of Chronicles, Kings, Samuel and see the problem very clearly. One generation follows the laws, another generation does a 180 and worships idols. Reminds me of 2 Chronicles 34:14-21: