The Great Drama of Eternity - Our Free Will
Joshua 24:15
By Alan Walker
Edited by Dave Redick
Why in the world, with so much at risk with our eternal soul, would God knowingly give us free will? Doesn’t He know that with free will we can and will at times choose to sin? Doesn’t He know that with free will we can make the wrong choice? Doesn’t He know that without free will we could serve him perfectly all the time?
We are in an incredible drama – a drama that will last for all of earth’s time. We could call it The Great Drama of Eternity. The curtain on this drama was raised years ago. It will not fall until the end of time.
Act One of The Great Drama of Eternity was the creation of man. Genesis 2:7 says, "…the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (NIV)
When God created man, breathing into him the breath of life, He created eternity in us.
Eternity! Most everyone who knows anything about it has heard about heaven and "the other place".
Ultimately, where we spend eternity will be based on a choice – not God’s choice but our own choice. God has done His part to make eternity with Him possible It’s up to us to choose where we live forever as we select from the two items on the menu of forever.
So Act Two of this Great Drama of Eternity is our choice. "That’s a simple choice," you say. "No one wants to go to hell, so I choose to go to heaven." That’s a great start, but it isn’t quite that simple. According to the Bible, there is only one way to go heaven. John 10:1-9 says,
10:1 "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. 7 Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
The only way to heaven is through Jesus.
Act Three of this Great Drama of Eternity will be when the lights dim, the curtain closes and the show is over. That day may not be too far away.
Here are a few thoughts I want to share about this Great Drama of Eternity. The all pertain to the issue of free will.
1. We Get to Choose.
Have you ever stopped and added up what in life is really yours?
 | Your house? Perhaps for a time. |
| Your money? For now. |
| Your car? You won’t keep it long. |
| Your kids? They’ll all grow up. |
| Your spouse? We could ask 50% of American’s, "Which one?" |
| Your soul? Actually, God wants that back one day to judge. |
Not many things in this life are really ours. However we do have one thing that is really ours. God gave it to us and we live with it every single day. I refer to our free will. We have the freedom to choose.
Joshua so long ago put it this way in Joshua 24:15: "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (NIV)
Think about the choices we face in life.
| Will we go to college? |
| Which one? |
| Who will be our boyfriend or girlfriend? |
| Who will be our spouse? |
| What will be our career? |
| What will be our political persuasion? |
| Where will we live? |
| Where will we go to church? |
| How will we handle our savings and investments? |
| Will we ride trains, planes, or automobiles? |
| Who will be or friends? |
So many important choices! But there are even more important choices than these.
| Will we choose the good or evil? |
| Will we choose right or wrong? |
| Will we be godly or sinful? |
| Will we choose God’s way or will we go our own way? |
Listen to some wisdom about choices from the 1st Psalm. As I read this, look at the choice it places before us:
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (NIV)
The real choice, the eternal one, is the choice between eternity with Jesus or without Him. That is the ultimate choice.
Are we without guidance as we make this choice? Of course not! God has given us all the brochures - the Bible, the church - perhaps a godly family, parents, and friends.
The Lord surrounds us with so many avenues of understanding that we could almost use Yogi Berra’s "yogism," "When you come to a fork in the road – take it!"
Free will is the most amazing concept of all creation – we get to choose!
One could almost say that God binds his own hands of omnipotence so as not to interfere with our free will during our earthly life.
Remember the first time mom and dad took you to a restaurant and didn’t order for you – and said "Go ahead and choose". You felt ten feet tall!
Remember when Dad gave you a ten dollar bill (or maybe a twenty) and said, "Pick your mom a present for her birthday," and you got to choose what you would buy your mom?
Remember when Homecoming or the Prom was just a few weeks off and three guys ask you to go – and you, got to choose? (Oh, that didn’t happen to you? Well, it didn’t happen to me either!)
God has given us freewill. But etch this on the frontal lobe of your brain: While each of us has the freedom to choose, the choices we make are firmly attached to consequences – some good, some very bad – for eternity.
We get to choose.
The second thought today is this:
2. There is A Reason for Choice.
Why in the world, with so much at risk with our eternal soul, would God knowingly give us free will? Doesn’t He know that with free will we can and will at times choose to sin? Doesn’t He know that with free will we can make the wrong choice? Doesn’t He know that without free will we could serve him perfectly all the time?
Of course God knows these things. He’s omniscient! He knows everything. So why free will?
Perhaps it’s as simple as these everyday examples. They pertain to me but you can change them to pertain to your loved ones.
| My son and daughter-in-law make a choice and leave from Dallas at 2:00 am to fly to Eugene because her grandfather is dying. They love that old Marine and want to be with him so they choose to fly halfway across the country. |
| My children make the choice to come home on Thanksgiving or Christmas to spend the holidays because they love us and want to be together. |
| My Son in the Air Force comes out of his shop on the base and in front of his peers, chooses to walk over with a wide smile and hug me. |
Without free will we would never have the opportunity to choose to love, to care, or to enjoy a relationship! With choice, when that choice selects us out of love… My – doesn’t it feel good?
Without free will, we might be a choir singing to God, but like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, we could have no heart because we couldn’t choose to be there.
Without free will we could not choose to set everything else aside and commit our lives to God, because the choice would already have been made for us.
Without free will there would never be the possibility of willing surrender to God.
Of course, without free will we would never have to deal with the kinds of struggles people have today. If we never had to deal with free will, with choosing, we would never have to deal with some of life’s most complicated situations:
| Gay or straight |
| Diet Pepsi or drunkenness |
| Marriage or shacking up |
| Prayer or huffing |
| Adoration or self-adulation |
| Attending or not attending church |
And without choice there would be no…
| Divorce |
| Domestic violence |
| Date rape |
| Homicide |
| Child abductions |
| Sexual abuse |
Life would be so much simpler without free choice – yes. But would it be life? Would there be any joy? Any satisfaction? Any peace of mind?
My favorite drone is Data of Star Trek. If, like Data, we were just programmed to do the right thing – not to think for ourselves, not to ponder, not to wonder – just always to do the right thing and never fail, what would life be like?
Though in that scenario we might never know the difference, God would know. So He, knowing full well the price it would require of Him in personal pain for Him and us, chose to make us more than drones. He chose to grant us free will.
Perhaps at some point, knowing of the Constitutional right of freedom of press, have seen it misused. Perhaps when you did you wanted to shout, "That’s not what that freedom was intended for!"
Perhaps God, whether in the days of Noah or in our time, looks down sometimes at our choices and wants to shout: "That’s not what that freedom was intended for!"
The freedom to choose was intended so we would do right and not wrong.
That brings me to my third and final point:
3. We Need to Choose.
I think this is pretty simple…
| What will you do with your free will? |
| What direction will you choose for your life? |
| Will you choose to serve God or yourself? |
It’s usually not too fruitful to spend a lot of time digging up the past, so I don’t want to make too much of the choices you’ve made previously. I’m sure we could agree that some of them, perhaps many of them, like mine, have not been good ones. Perhaps you’ve drank too much, you’ve been addicted to something that you shouldn’t have, you’ve hated, or you’ve caused pain to yourself and to others. All those things are done. Your only hope in dealing with them now is to admit them, have God take them away in forgiveness, and learn to stay away from them in the future. So setting aside the past for now, I would like you to consider the choice that is before you right now. What will you do with your free will from now on?
Thanks to what God has chosen in His great love, to do for you, your life can turn around. You can begin again. You can walk away from the guilt of your past and into a future with a relationship with the God who made you – your Creator – who loves you very much.
We all have a past. God wants to give us a future!
There’s a precious passage found in John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." NIV
We give most deeply when we give ourselves in love. That’s what God did in sending Jesus – the "exact representation" of Himself so we who will place our faith in Him can have eternal life. But this belief is more than just an acknowledgment of Him. A drone could do that. It is a choice of surrender. It’s not a forced surrender. It’s not a robot, mindless, heartless choice. It is a choice we make with our whole hearts. It is a choice that will do what He asks because it wants to – because it chooses to. It is a choice that will give God his rightful place as Lord of our lives. It is a choice that will cause us to turn away from those things that hurt our relationship with Him – our sins. It is a choice that will accept His offer of forgiveness in baptism. It is a choice that will continue to live for Him because it wants to – not because it has to. It is a choice that will continue each day from now until the curtain falls, to choose Him each day.
This is the greatest thing we can do with the one thing – the only thing that we possess – our free will.
What choice will you make in this Great Drama of Eternity – your free will? God wants you but you must choose Him. Choose Him today!
Copyright © 2006. Alan Walker is minister of the Arcata Church of Christ in Arcata, California. Used by permission. Permission is granted by the author and by The Preacher's Study to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or any place beyond the local congregation is prohibited.