See, God just set it in place. See one of the things that's happening in the earth today is, the earth is reaping centuries of the power of sin operating, and so then the world is creaking and groaning and protesting. They point its global warming is the problem. That doesn't explain all the wars you know - doesn't explain all the earthquakes either, doesn't explain lots of things. In fact there's lots of things can't be explained, except what the Bible says, which is the whole earth groans under the burden of sin.
So the earth is in turmoil, and people are in turmoil. Why are there wars when we're so educated? Because sin is the problem - and here's the last one. This is the grand slammer of all. God has set the laws in place. Notice what He said, that the wages of sin is death. Okay, now here's the thing. Get this one. I want you listen on this; so in the area I sin I disconnect my life from God, so I go from light into - and guess who's waiting there to latch onto me? Demonic spirits - and God has allowed them, and permitted them, to operate everywhere that there's violation of His law. What a grand slam! Man, you can't escape. There is no escaping!
Why do people get tormented with demons? You'll find out there's a sin there somewhere, always. So the problems people have - now how do demons torment them? Infirmity, sicknesses, poverty, setbacks; you work so hard, and just when you should be getting ahead, should be just really making the breakthrough, suddenly it all falls over and you can't work out why, and you build again, another four or five years, suddenly it all falls over again. There you are, pain and bitter and angry and frustrated. Why? Somewhere in the background, sin is working! It's alive! It's not a thing, it's something that lives, that works, and the Bible calls it the law of sin and death! It needs a remedy, and you don't remedy it by calling it something else like a problem. It doesn't remedy it, it just disguises it.
But you know, you hit the root of it, there'll be a problem there see, and here's how - the extent of it. Here's the bit I - this bit here, just to make you feel happy that you're not the only one, Romans 3:23 says all have sinned. So all of us have sinned, and you've heard some of us testify of some of our short-fallings and failings, and how God's had to help us. All have sinned. There are no exceptions. All have sinned, we've fallen short of God's grace, so we need a remedy to sin.
Now you can try all kinds of remedies for all kinds of things. None - nothing will be solved permanently unless we address the root cause, it's as simple as that. So there's an answer at the root cause, so what do we need to do for the root cause? Ha ha! The root cause, alright then, we've got to find a remedy - and here's the remedy: What can I do to get out of this mess? I want out of the mess! So what can I do? Well the first thing you can try is a little bit of religion, and religion has this in common; this is all religions everywhere, and you may have your own form of religion - no guarantee that being here, you don't have a whole heap of religion around your life, see? And all religions everywhere, the core defining thing is, what do you do about this problem of sin that won't go away? How do we solve it? So here's the remedies we come up - well we'll pray some prayers. Great, but that won't solve the sin problem. Well, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll do some good things. I'll really try hard to live a good life, and four times out of five I did. It was that fifth time was a bit of a worry - fifth time I really lost it, made the promise I wouldn't get angry, and the fifth time I blew it, and it was worse then than it's ever been before - but I'll try harder again.
So we've got what we call a self-help, self-improvement programme. You go on the internet, they're everywhere: Improve yourself! Improve this! Improve that! Improve that! Get another book - How to - Seven Steps to This, Eight Steps to That, 21 Steps to - God knows how you remember it all anyway! [Laughter]