The corruption continued to spread.
What was once beautiful began to break down. Families fought. Friends turned against each other. People lied, cheated, stole, and hurt one another. Everywhere the Decoder's code went, something became a little more broken.
But the strangest part was that the Decoder didn't have to control everyone. People began spreading the corruption themselves. They didn't always need to be told what to do. Sometimes they simply wanted their own way. One person chose revenge. Another chose greed. Someone else saw the truth but decided to ignore it. Every selfish choice seemed to make the corruption worse.
Soon, people were asking the same question: Can this world be fixed? They tried to make things better. They built new systems, created new rules, and promised to change. But no matter how hard they tried, the corruption remained. Something deeper was wrong.
What does the Programmer Say?
That's what sin has done to our world. The devil tempted humanity, but we have also chosen sin ourselves. We can't fix the problem simply by trying harder or becoming better people. Sin separates us from God, and we need to be rescued from something we cannot rescue ourselves from. But somewhere in the middle of the corruption, there was a message waiting to be discovered.
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” — Romans 3:23
