The Invisible WarSample

Sin Has Damaged Everything Nothing works perfectly. Because the entire human race has made poor choices … Everything’s broken, and nothing on this planet works perfectly. Sin has damaged everything. Sin has ruined everything. Sin has destroyed everything. Sin has corrupted and spoiled everything. Sin has injured everything — every relationship, idea, dream, and human body. Everything has been touched by this damage. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon describes six dimensions of your life that sin has damaged. Over the next few days, we’ll look at these six dimensions. 1. The first result is natural disasters and deformities. We’re not living in Eden anymore. As John Milton wrote in a very famous poem, paradise was lost. We live on a broken planet. And, as a result, we have hurricanes, typhoons, wacky weather, earthquakes, droughts, and floods. It’s amazing to me that insurance calls all these things acts of God but doesn’t call the birth of a baby an act of God. In other words, an act of God is only the negative stuff that happens. God does not want these things happening in the world. And he is as upset by natural disasters as we are. The world was broken when sin damaged everything. The Bible says in Romans 8:20, “Creation is confused” (CEV). Everything on this planet has lost its original purpose. Everything in the world was damaged including your DNA, your parents’ DNA, and their parents’ DNA. Have you figured out yet that your body doesn’t work right? If everybody’s body worked perfectly, there would be no need for doctors. 2. The second result is physical decay and death. There was no death on this planet until sin entered the world. Ecclesiastes 8:8 says, “We cannot control the wind or determine the day of our death.” We know that death is inevitable, but we sure try to stop it. We go to great lengths to postpone the decay, too. But there’s actually good news: God doesn’t want you to live forever on this planet. He wants you to live forever in a perfect place, not on a planet that’s been broken by sin. This devotional © 2014 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.