Why does God allow evil in the world? Without God’s word, the Bible, this is a difficult, if not impossible, question to answer.

Documented from My Creation Experience Videos 

Check out all of our virtual tour videos HERE!

Where To Find Answers About Why God Allows Evil

At the Creation Experience Museum, one of our purposes is to share the reliability of God’s word. We start with the Bible here at the museum. We like to refer to it as the history book of the universe, and this is our starting point in understanding what is going on in the world around us.

Very Good: God’s World Before Evil

 In the book of Genesis, in the beginning, God tells us He created everything. At the end of His creation on Day Six, He said four words that are very important. God said, “It was very good.” God had made a garden and in it He placed the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. 

We can’t comprehend how beautiful this garden was. In the garden there were animals. It was Adam’s job to tend the garden and to name the animals.

Then and Now: How Different Was The World Before Evil?

 Often when giving a tour in the museum, I like to do a seek-and-find with the animals in our garden exhibit and see what animals would have been in the garden. The behavior of these animals would have been very different than now and I’ll tell you why.

Dinosaurs are a great example. I have been asked, “Miss Sherry, were there really dinosaurs in the garden?” And I reply, “Yes, there were!” How do I know that? 

Well, remember we start with God’s word. God tells us He created all land animals on the sixth day of creation week. Dinosaurs are land animals. Now remember, God said all He made was very good. So that means there were no predatory animals and no fear.

 There would have even been skunks in the garden.They likely did not have a noxious smell; and of course, fear had not entered the world. Both man and the animals ate plants. God tells us in Genesis 2 that every green herb had been given for food, meaning that nothing ate meat.

How Did Evil Entered The World?

 However, this good world is no longer what we have today. Why is that? What happened to change our world? 

Well, we read about that in Genesis 3. God had placed two trees in the garden. One was the Tree of Life, which if you ate from it you lived forever. 

The other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were not to eat from this tree or else they would die. Remember, there was no death in the world – they didn’t even know what death was.

Unfortunately, the devil came. This sneaky guy came in the form of a serpent. He tricked Eve into disobeying God (anytime we do something we are not supposed to do that is called disobedience).

 How did the devil trick Eve? He caused her to doubt. He asked her, “Did God really say that?” 

Satan is still doing that today. He doesn’t want us to believe God. He is our enemy. He wants to trick us by asking, “Is God’s word really true?” 

The answer is yes! God’s word is true and we can trust it from the very first verse to the very last verse.

When Did Evil Enter The World?

We refer to this historical event as “The Fall”. This did not happen millions of years ago, because you can’t have millions of years of death and suffering in a very good world. 

The Bible timeline gives us 6,000 years of history since Adam was created in the garden. The Fall took place shortly after the creation of Adam and Eve. Be careful what you read when looking for answers because not all of it is true. But the Bible is truth.

 This event in the garden is what changed our world. In fact, asking, “why God allows evil?” really isn’t the right question. Eve ate the fruit and then gave it to Adam who ate it as well. This was their disobedience. 

Remember how the punishment for disobedience was death? God had said, if you eat of the fruit you will die. The Hebrew word there for death means “dying you will die”. They didn’t die instantly but they began the process of dying.

 This affected not only Adam but the whole world. Even the animals. Adam had been given dominion over the animals and all creation. Since disease and death are a direct result of sin, we know there was no suffering and death before Adam and Eve sinned. 

This was not God’s plan from the beginning. Remember, God made everything very good. There was no death. There was no disease. There was no suffering. It was man—not God—who brought evil into the world.

God’s Answer To Evil

 So now the world is completely different. But even though Adam and Eve messed up, God still loved them. And even though we too mess up, God still loves us. 

But we are born into sin. The book of Romans tells us that “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all have sinned.” (NKJV)

 So we are all born under this curse of sin, under this curse of death. But there’s good news! God loved Adam and Eve so much and He loves us so much that He didn’t want us to be left in our sin state with no hope. Because God loves us so much He has a plan to bring everything back to very good where there is no more death, no more disease, no more sin.

That plan is Jesus Christ. See, people use to sacrifice animals as a covering for sin. In fact, the very first sacrifice of death were the animals whose skins were used to cover Adam and Eve after they sinned. 

For many years animals were sacrificed to cover man’s sin, as an atonement for sin. But when Jesus came He was perfect, without sin, without spot. 

And He came to take away the punishment of sin. There is no more covering because Jesus took it all away, praise the Lord! His life was a sacrifice and He is referred to as the Lamb of God. No one knows for sure what kind of animal was used as the first animal sacrifice but it may have been a lamb because the Bible references a lamb throughout Scripture; that is why Jesus is called the Lamb of God. 

When God No Longer Allows Evil

Through Jesus taking away our sin, we have a way to be with God when He makes all things very good again. So I want to encourage you: Jesus tells us He is the only way, the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through Jesus and a relationship with Him. 

How do we have a relationship with Him? First, you have to accept Jesus as your Savior. You have to believe He came to earth, that He gave His life for us; and confess with your mouth and ask Him to forgive you of your sin. 

And you know what? Jesus promises to be with you. He promises to never leave or forsake us and He is faithful and just to be with us. And He will walk with you.  

A New Heaven and New Earth Without Evil 

The Bible is not just a history book but it is also a book for today. It tells us how to live, how to have a relationship with Jesus, and how to walk with Him.

 It also tells us about the future. Because we know the Bible’s history is true, we can trust it about the future. And it tells us Jesus is coming again. He is coming for those who have that relationship with and are looking for Him. 

Because of that we have hope today. We have hope we will be with Him forever when everything goes back to very good.

 So I want to encourage you with that and leave you with the words of John 3:16. It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We have that hope. 

In the midst of all this suffering and disease, don’t be afraid. Our hope is in Christ; He doesn’t want us to live in fear. He has a plan and purpose for everything and He is with us. Hopefully, you now have an understanding of why we have evil and disease in the world, and are encouraged that we have hope in Christ.

Today we have a lot going on in our world. We have a lot of sickness right now; there is a lot of suffering. You may have questions about that. And we want to help you with finding those answers.