PARADISE LOST: When Adam sinned, the earth was corrupted and he immediately lost his kingdom and his crown.
Because all mankind fell in Adam, because he lost his kingdom and his crown, we do not now see the earth subject to man. The earth originally was subject to man, and it supplied all his needs without his having to do anything. He had only to accept and enjoy the earth as it provided for him. Then, tempted by Satan, man sinned, and his tempter usurped the crown.
There you see the change in the chain of command. Man fell to the bottom, and the earth, under the evil one, now rules man. If you pay much attention to ecology, you know that we do not rule this world; it rules us. With all our modern technology, we must constantly fight against the earth for our survival.
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
What else happened to Adam after he had sinned? First, there was murder within his own family. Then there was polygamy. In the next few chapters of Genesis we read of death. By the time we come to chapter 6, God is sending a flood to destroy all mankind but one family.
Man, indeed, had lost his crown. The prince of the earth, of the system of the world, now is Satan. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). He rules the cursed earth, which in turn rules sinful man. When man lost his crown, he also lost mastery of himself as well as of the earth. He was totally sinful and became a slave to sin.
Not only that, but the animal kingdom was now subservient to man only out of fear, no longer out of affection. Much of the animal kingdom was no longer able to be tamed at all. The ground originally produced good things naturally and abundantly for man to have for the taking.
Now it produces thorns, weeds, and other harmful things naturally and abundantly. Whatever good things man now gets from the earth come only by tiresome effort. Extremes of heat and cold, poisonous plants and reptiles, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, disease, war-all these were released upon man after the Fall. Virtually everything God had given for man’s good and blessing became his enemy, and man has been fighting a losing battle ever since. For millennia, he himself has been dying. Now he is finding out that the earth is dying with him.
This morning if you listen carefully you can hear the universe sobbing around us. It is the groan of the weight of sin that now enslaves the perfections of this Cosmos. Turn with me please to Romans 8:18-22
THE GROAN OF CREATION
Amazingly, the earth itself knows its condition. Look again at Rom. 8:19-20.
God subjected the earth to this curse so that man might continually have trouble. Man had to know that God was aware of his sin, and he had to suffer the consequences, in part, by fighting against the very earth that was designed to be his servant. But when the new kingdom begins,
No wonder the creation groans. But God did not intend it to be this way; and it will continue this way only for a little while, in God’s timetable. Someday, in the world to come, when the kingdom comes, hospitals will be closed, doctors will be out of business, and the ravenous nature of wild animals (and of human beings) will be changed. The crops and the trees will no longer be infested. The game of politics will be over and wars will cease. Man-redeemed man-will reign. “And they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war” (Isa. 2:4). A day is coming when, in the wonderful plan of God, the dominion that man lost will be given to him again. God’s redeemed ones, His children, will never again be subject to death. They will be like the angels (Luke 20:36). In the kingdom, they will, in fact, reign over the angels.
CPL-07 & GEN-07 – Paradise Lost (991114AM)
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