A question that many people ask, is “If God is love, why is there so much misery on earth?” It is true, of course, that God is love, but it is also true that He gives people a free choice to either follow His commandments or yield to the suggestions of the devil. If God forced people to obey His commands, the devil would have a case against Him. He could easily say, “You use Your superior power to force people into obedience while they actually want to side with me.”
God is almighty, but He is also just, which is why He gave everybody a free will. He made His will known to Adam and told him what to do, and what not to do. With that He also gave Adam the freedom to either obey or disobey. Adam was also given dominion over His handiwork, and so Adam served as God’s steward on earth.
A sad day came when Adam exercised his freedom and chose to obey the devil’s suggestion instead of God’s command. Every action has consequences, but I don’t think Adam understood the magnitude of his disobedience: the authority that he had as God’s steward on earth – and the freedom of the entire human race that was to be born from him were at stake. Look carefully at the principle that took effect that day:
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. (2 Peter 2:19)
Adam took the bait of the devil, only to find out that there is no such thing as free lunch. Instead of serving under God’s authority, he submitted himself to a new master. God’s manager became the devil’s slave. Adam abdicated his seat of authority by voluntarily bowing to the authority of his deceiver. He lost his stewardship to the one that he submitted to. The consequences came crashing down on him like falling dominoes. He lost his authority, his relationship with God, his benefits as ruler, and, worst of all, he plunged the entire human race that was to born from him into the same fallen state. Since one of the laws of Genesis is that “kind produces kind,” fallen Adam could only produce fallen offspring. The ruler became a slave to do the will of the one that Jesus calls the thief that came to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10) Look around you and see how the devil is doing exactly that!
Pay close attention to the verse below:
Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. (Luke 4:5,6)
“For all this has been delivered to me…” Who gave it to him? Adam did. And he is still using that same old trick today. It is dangerous to disobey God’s Word, and ignorance about it is no excuse – we must know the truth because it sets us free. (See John 8:31-32)
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthians 4:3,4)
Guess who is the god of this world? The one who came to steal, kill and destroy. The devil, recognizing who Jesus is, tried the very same thing with Him that he did with Adam. He tried to gain the upper hand over Jesus through temptation and deceit. But Jesus did what Adam was supposed to do, and refused to fall for the shortcut offered to Him. A new kind of Man has set foot on earth! A new Adam was about to give birth to a new kind of offspring!
And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)
If you received Jesus – the last Adam – into your life, you became a force for good on the earth. You can change things because you were born of Him. You have direct contact with the Throne. God, the righteous judge, is looking for those who have the life of Christ in them to answer their prayer and use them to bring His goodness back to earth.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.(2 Corinthians 5:17)
If you want to learn more about the new life in Christ, click here.
