Freewill is the center of all existence, and I pray the Holy Spirit to help you get the hidden message in this sermon in Jesus: the meaning of freewill in the bible, in Jesus name? Amen.
To understand what is freewill according to the bible; we must have a perfect understanding of good and evil in the bible.
The reason you need to have this knowledge is, that; good and evil are both the end sources of our freewill.
In other words, it is good and evil that you will end up choosing.
Another important knowledge you need to gain for a better understanding of what is freewill according to the bible is knowing what is temptations in the bible.
This is because it is temptations that the devil uses to disrupt our freewill.
In other words, he uses it to make us go against our freewill.
We will therefore begin this sermon by immediately showing you what is freewill according to the bible.
After knowing what is freewill according to the bible; we will move on to see if God and Satan are on opposing sides; as some people think.
We will also look at the false theory of the fall of man; before we draw a conclusion on how freewill is the key to heaven.
The meaning of freewill in the bible?
In the bible, freewill is the ability to choose between good and evil which has benefits and consequences.
After creating good and evil, with all their consequences; God detached Himself from them both and went on to create “freewill” as the vehicle that will drive these two forces.
From there He moved on to, first of all, put Himself in the position of always using this freewill to make a choice. That is to either do good or do evil at a particular time and occasion.
And whatever choice He makes between good and evil will either help Him to create or destroy what He has created.
That is to say, if He chooses to do good, good will bring about a creation; and if He chooses to do evil, evil will destroy that creation.
After putting Himself in the position to use freewill; God went ahead to create other beings; according to His own image and likeness.
And the highest specie of them all was known as angels, among whom was Satan; christened Lucifer; which means angel of light or sun of the morning or the shining one.
These beings, which were made as God Himself; were also to make use of their own freewill to determine which of the choices they should make, that is; between good and evil.
All of them imitated God in choosing to always do good; because they saw that its consequences were always favorable.
Above all, they discovered that the main consequence of good was what God was always using to achieve his creative arts. And if He should ever experiment with evil, it will destroy what He had wasted time to create.
How Lucifer experimented his freewill on evil.
All was good and going until one day when Satan, then known as Lucifer; decided to try his own freewill on evil. And as it ought to be, the evil swallowed him up completely and corrupted his nature.
But Lucifer, not willing to suffer the consequence of evil that befell him alone; began a campaign of deceiving other angels to also try their own freewill on evil.
Other angels yielded to his deceits, while others stood their ground choosing only to do what was good. And the outcome of this campaign was a war between both parties, the exception of the creator Himself.
Finally, good was able to overcome and defeat evil; so Satan and his counterparts were thrown out of heaven, their original abode.
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the dragon was cast out, the serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Revelation 12:7-9.
God created humans and also gave them freewill.
After creating the earth and everything in it; God looked for those who will inhabit it and control all the things He created.
So He came up with the idea of making human beings, also in His image and likeness; as He did with the heavenly beings.
He then created the first human beings, Adam and Eve.
And keeping in mind that freewill is needed to succeed in keeping or destroying the earth and everything He created in it; He had to show mankind how to use it.
So He created so many trees with all manners of fruit and finally created one-the tree of the knowledge of good and evil-in the middle of the garden.
Then He showed mankind how to use freewill through the command; “eat all the fruit in the tree of the garden, but as for the one in the middle of the garden, do not eat it; for the day that you do; you will surely die”.
Satan shows humans how to misuse their freewill.
Then came Lucifer; the same being who misused his own freewill and became corrupt.
He showed human beings how to misuse their freewill by disobeying God’s command not to eat of the fruit in the middle of the garden.
Unfortunately, mankind fell into this trap, and his own corruption; death, which God earlier told him will happen if they ate the fruit, came to play.
And then came the fall of man; all because he misused freewill.
A false theory on the fall of man.
Going back to the original fall of man in the Garden of Eden we see two ignorant creatures of God; Adam and Eve (naked and not ashamed) being left all alone by their Creator
And this Creator already knows that His evil creature, Satan; will come and deceive them to go against the command that He gave to them.
And when that finally happened, He mercilessly evicted them from the garden after raining curses on them.
Worst still, this cause must be inherited by their descendants who were not even partakers of their parent’s disobedience.
Someone made an illustration of this issue on a man who has a bungalow, and lives upstairs with a wild dog; which is always kept in chains for fear of going down to, devour his children who live downstairs.
But one fateful day he decides to unchain the wild dog and allow him to go downstairs and devour all his children.
And so the question goes: between the man and the wild dog, who is responsible for the death of his children?
The answer is simple; if the man had still kept the wild dog in chains it wouldn’t have had the chance to go down and devour his children.
And so the man, for the answer to that question, is responsible for his children’s death.
So as the person linked this illustration to the case of our first parents; he ended up saying that God is to be blamed for the fall of man in the garden.
Because, being the all-seeing God, He should have prevented Satan from disguising himself as a serpent to deceive them to go against his will.
And even while the deceit was ongoing, He didn’t even make a move to come and rescue them.
But whoever made that illustration has a dreadful case to answer before God; because he should have sought God’s wisdom and knowledge to discern the truth of this matter.
This is just a false theory on the fall of man.
Are God and Satan on opposing sides?
It is common knowledge that God is the creator of all things: the seen and unseen; and as it is written both light and darkness, good and evil were created by him:
I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things. Isaiah 45:7.
And for this reason, God should be seen as the One who controls both good and evil.
To some of us, this is not so because we like to ascribe whatever is good to God; while we push everything that is evil to Satan.
But we fail to realize that in doing so we tend to equalize God with Satan. Since we consider them as two entities who oppose themselves.
Furthermore, we seem to forget that this so-called Satan was created by God.
And beside him, we also have other creatures who are responsible for causing evil. An example is Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
(N/B: Some people misunderstand Beelzebub to be another name for Satan. But Satan and Beelzebub are two different creatures who are responsible for causing evil).
Now it is worthy to mention here that since Satan is only a creature; whoever he is and whatever he does is according to the design and will of the one who created him.
For the clay is formed according to the potter’s intention and will as we see in Isaiah 64:8
This God, Who is not just an ordinary potter but the potter of potters, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, as well as knows the beginning from the end.
And for this very reason, we can be bold to say that Satan cannot operate on God’s creation without His knowledge.
This is the same thing as saying that, whatever evil befalls the children of men is a result of God giving way for Satan to do so.
The story of Job in Job 1:6-12 makes a very perfect example; I hope we all know what happened to Job afterward.
With all the knowledge gathered above, we can then firmly say that God and Satan are never on opposing sides.
Conclusion – Mastering freewill is the key to heaven.
Beloved, God wants no war to occur in heaven again, among any beings.
That is why He created the earth as a place of test and formed us out of its dust; in order to enable us to survive here and daily learn how to put our freewill to use.
And if we master on using our freewill the right way; i.e to do good, we will finally join the other beings, who also mastered how to rightfully use theirs, in heaven.
And of course, those who master how to use their freewill the wrong way; i.e. to do evil, will join Satan and his counterparts in hellfire, their final abode.
So finally, as a human being, the choice is laid before you, every second of every day; and you are already in possession of the freewill. So go ahead and choose between doing good and evil, but always remember, and never forget that:
What you sow is what you will reap!
What goes around always comes back around!!
How you make your bed is how you lie on it!!!
Good luck.