“My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing.
Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.
Cling to him and do not depart, so that your last days may be prosperous.
Accept whatever befalls you, and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire, and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.
Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.” (Sirach 2:1-6)
We are being tested, but to what end?
In heaven will continue to have the ability to exercise free will.
When God is present our ability to choose is immediately limited. However, freedom doesn’t cease, or you and I would no longer have individual personalities. In heaven, all the trials and temptations of this life will be gone, and we will be in the very presence of God. Certainly, that changes everything around us, but you and I will still be ourselves. I will remain distinct from other humans and distinct from God, a creature with a unique personality. That requires free will. Therefore, I will always be capable of choosing between loving God and loving myself.
“The minimum condition of self-consciousness and freedom then, would be that the creature should apprehend God and, therefore, itself as distinct from God. It is possible that such creatures exist, aware of God and themselves, but of no fellow creatures. If so, their freedom is simply that of making a single naked choice—of loving God more than the self or the self more than God.” (C. S. Lewis, Problem of Pain, p. 17)
Heaven, the final state of the saved, is earth renewed to be like Eden was. We will be in the presence of God, and that narrows the field of choices down to what Adam and Eve had in Eden: God’s will, or self will apart from God. God may—perhaps I should say confidently, God will—give us responsibility and leadership over some part of his kingdom, and that may also involve further freedom to choose within God’s will between one path and another.
However, once we pass from this life the freedom to live apart from God is only available in hell. Does that scare you? “What if I sin?” you might ask. Or, “What if I rebel against God?” It should scare you if in heaven you remain the same as you are presently. However, this is bootcamp for the Kingdom, a time for preparation. Believers are moving toward the place where we really and truly believe in God so much that we always choose to do his will no matter what. This life’s trials and tests are meant to ensure we do not ever decide to turn away from God, as apostate Christians do on earth, and as some of the angels did long ago.
God created a magnificent angel called Lucifer, a cherub who had great honor, power and beauty, who may even have been above other angels, perhaps nearer to the throne of God than any other being. Lucifer had free will. He became carried away with the desire for greater glory and power. Then Lucifer conceived an evil plot to raise himself above the Most High God. He led other angels in rebellion in an attempt to usurp the reign of the Almighty in heaven. That sin brought forth death, separation from the source of life. Satan was cast out of heaven and the presence of the Living God. He began at the top with every advantage, but sinned and fell to the bottom, never to rise again.
Lucifer is now Satan, the enemy of God. The book of Revelation likens him to a dragon.
“Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” (Revelation 12:3-4).
Satan and the angels who followed him were thrown down to earth, where they continue to wreak havoc because of their hatred for God.
“The devil has come down to you filled with wrath, for he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12)
The Enemy is active in our world today, and he is seeking to destroy any and all who have faith in Jesus.
The believer is always faced with a test. Will I continue to believe in God or doubt his existence. Will I continue to trust my good and loving Father, in spite of the evil I see and the trouble I go through? Will I obey God, or rebel like his Enemy?
You don’t have to become a satanist to show loyalty to the devil. In fact, you don’t even have to believe in his existence. Just believe the lies he propagates in the world. They are the same lies the Serpent told Eve in the Garden of Eden ages ago.
“Did God really say?” – Doubt the Bible. Doubt moral law. Reinterpret the Bible to support your narrative or agenda.
“You will be like God.” – Humanism. Pride. Believe in yourself. Self worship.
“You will not surely die.” – Universalism. No fear of God. Disbelief in judgment and hell.
If you choose God you will come to his Son, Jesus, for salvation from the destruction planned for this fallen world.
And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” (Acts 2:40)
“But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.” (2 Peter 3:7-10).
God created a magnificent class of beings in his image called human. However, unlike Lucifer, we begin at the bottom, living in a fallen world that is inhabited and to a large degree ruled by Satan. The image of God in us is in need of restoration. Why is this? We begin at the bottom with a choice to believe and be perfected, so that we may rise to the top invincible, invulnerable to temptation, never to fall again!
Three realities will keep us from the satanic sin of self-will in heaven.
1. We Will Always Be Aware of Hell.
There is some debate among God loving, Bible believers as to whether hell, which is made for Satan and his fallen angelic army, will ultimately annihilate humans who are sent there, or if there will be an eternal state of torment for unbelievers. The book of Revelation states, “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever” (14:11), so even if those who reject God are not eternally tormented there, we will never forget their final end. However, Satan will experience eternal torment, which those in heaven will also be aware of.
“and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:10, ESV)
Hell is insurmountable and inescapable. No one will get out. Hell is indefatigable and eternal. Since this is true, any who rebel in heaven could still be destroyed there.
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’” (Mark 9:43-48, ESV).
2. The Memory of This Life Will Keep Us From Sin and Rebellion.
After all that we’ve been through and overcome, who would want to return to sin and rebellion? When I compare my new life in heaven to my former life on earth I will not want to do anything to ruin heaven by returning to the old life “like a dog to its vomit, or a pig to the slop” (2 Peter 2:22).
When I was very young I lived on the south side of Phoenix, Arizona where there were many date palm trees. I really liked eating their fruit. Then I ate too many dates and got sick. I vomited repeatedly and the flavor of dates became inextricably associated with being sick. That was a very long time ago, but I still don’t eat dates! Another example: when I was a teenager I caught the flu. The last meal I ate before I began vomiting regularly was a concoction that Jack in the Box called Frings! French fries and onion rings together. The taste of that fried delight coming back up repeatedly kept me from enjoying onion rings for decades afterward.
There is a behavior modification protocol known as flooding, which purposefully applies an excess amount or number of stimuli to create an adverse reaction in an effort to extinguish an unwanted behavior. My date eating behavior stopped after eating too many of them over a brief period. In a bygone era, a parent who caught their child smoking might employ this strategy by sending the kid into the bathroom to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. The result is that the child would become sick and hopefully never want to smoke again. Think of that as a metaphor for this life. Why would I return like a dog to its vomit or a pig to the mud?
Our preparation in the present world ensures that we will not exercise our free will to oppose God in heaven as Satan did. Our struggles and our suffering here ensure that we will not take God’s goodness for granted or rebel like the angels all those ages ago. Our wandering in the wilderness here will serve as a protection in heaven. We will always remember the consequences of sin and the emptiness of life without God.
3. We Will Be Transformed
The lifelong sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit will ensure that we will be changed people. The only part of you and I that will survive death and judgment is the part that is like Jesus. Anything in us that is unlike Christ will be destroyed in the fire of God’s great Judgment. Maybe that sounds harsh, but I assure you it is the greatest blessing of Judgment Day.
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:11-17, ESV).
We will not be innocent like Adam and Eve were. We will be better; we will be sanctified and perfected. We will be transformed. All of this preparation is not just training the old to become new. We have been reborn and are being trained as children are to grow up, to become what we are meant to be.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away; all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The old person, the natural, fleshly man, is crucified.
“For I have been crucified with Christ and no longer do I live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
My old nature, though still felt, has been rendered powerless.
“knowing this that the old self was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with that we might no longer be slaves to sin.” (Romans 6:6)
Now I must seek my identity in the risen Christ, and look to the things that are beyond this world for hope and inspiration.
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are one earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-3).
Each time I am confronted with my old habits and desires, I recognize that they no longer characterize me. I take them off like filthy rags, and I put on my new identity, which is found by looking to Jesus.
“put off your old self, which belongs to your former way of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22–24)
That is who I truly am, and I will continue to confess that. One day I will behold him, face to face, in all of his glory, and, amazingly, I will be like him…
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:2–3, ESV)
So, the real test for you now is: Do You Believe This for yourself? Do you have Christ living within you? Test yourself! If you believe, how does it show?
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5, ESV)
If you pass the test, if today you will trust God and overcome sin, self and Satan, then you will be prepared to live with God in heaven for eternity.
Will you remain in Christ? Will you endure to the end and be saved?
Pastor Darryl Hall 
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