Famine, floods, and other natural disasters, combine with war, disease, starvation and death as an everyday reality of life on this planet. Incurable diseases like cancer, AIDS, influenza and diabetes, not to mention increasing incidents of divorce, domestic violence, rape, genocide, terrorism and every kind of evil imaginable among the human race leave no doubt that something is not right – that this is not the way life should be.
The popular CSI TV programs graphically expose the true depravity of man, yet there remain those who insist that people are mostly “good” at the core. Such people claim that if we would learn to “focus our energy” on doing good, provide more education, and remove all “religious bigotry”, the world would be a place of peace and harmony. In the meantime, we can build enough prisons to hold the growing numbers of criminals worldwide.

When my wife and I were newly married 40 years ago, we attended a young couples’ Bible class in our church. I remember a discussion one Sunday morning about man’s sin nature, and the anger one young mother expressed at the suggestion that we are born with a sin nature. “Children are born good,” she firmly declared. “Sinful behavior is learned from adults… it’s not innate.”

The Bible declares this truth: “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” When mankind first rebelled against God, all creation came under a curse (read Genesis 3). The condition of our hearts and the world in which we live is not as it should be. The Curse of sin is a reality that cannot be hidden. Believers embrace this truth because only in doing so can we grasp the significance of the rest of the story.

FANNING THE FLAME
Don’t be afraid to discuss with your grandchildren the reality of our own sinful natures and the depravity of the world in which we live. Without an understanding of the desperate situation of our hearts and our world, we will never fear God or be able to grasp the wonder and depth of God’s love and grace.

GRANDPAUSE: “To think we can BE good, that we can build a good and humane society without God, is pure folly.” — Charles Colson