The Price of Peace Is Free Will

I want to thank the choir for that piece. That was lovely. It was very nice.

I do want to clarify a rumor that Mr. Boucher was spreading about speakers who go long getting an electrical shock. I started that rumor. But I will try my best to practice what I preach. We meet today in an idealistic location in the midst of the mountains and rivers and lakes. It's beautiful here. It's very peaceful, as we heard in the sermonette. We very much appreciated that message as well, as well as Mr. Boucher's yesterday. It's quiet. It's serene, outside of, you know, if you get a chance to hear some of the local wildlife.

I heard the coyotes in the distance last night. That was interesting. But there are people around the world who are keeping the Feast of Tabernacles that do not have such an idealistic place to keep the Feast. Some of them have to travel across borders that are very, very unsafe. There are a lot of people out there that have to worry about their public and personal safety as they travel. There are places around the world with civil war and civil unrest. And, you know, people risk their lives to keep these days. So I hope we all appreciate how wonderful it is to have a place and a time that we can keep the Feast in relative safety, in a world that's desperately in need of an overhaul. The title of the sermon today is The Price of Peace is Free Will. And that's kind of meant to be a little bit of a thought-provoking title. Because what has free will gotten us?

You know, from the start of the knowledge of good and evil, every good and bad thought has been made by man. And most of the thoughts have led man to his own destruction, to the point where at the end of the Tribulation, if Christ doesn't return and save humanity, there will be no flesh saved alive. So why is free will necessary for peace? That's what we're going to talk about today. Free will is a two-edged sword, as we will see.

On the one hand, it has brought us war. It has brought us crime. It has brought us all measures of selfishness, greed, just so much strife, the destruction of so many families and communities. On the other hand, it is free will which is the only way into the family of God. How many of you had your arm twisted behind your back to become baptized, to start keeping the Sabbath, to start following Jesus Christ and living this new way of life? Nobody was forced into this. This was a choice. All of us have made a choice. And to a person, I would say some of those choices were very difficult in the early days. I think a lot of you can look into your life and say that at one point you were given a very clear choice, two roads. One that was the first road that you were given. And the other road that you were given was the road most traveled that people take that is easiest. Go along to get along. And the other path that God was opening to you was more difficult. You had to walk upstream. You had to fight against the tide. And so we exercised free will to be here.

And this is what the kingdom of God is going to be based upon. Those who want to be a part of it. God does not want anyone to spend eternity unhappy. That's why we know the last enemy to be defeated is death itself. Nobody will be living who doesn't want to be there. And that is just the way God has designed his plan. Satan is transmitting and he is trying to influence as many people if allowed and if he had access to the very elect to pollute minds, to turn hearts, and to cause people to turn from a way of life that would bring happiness, would bring peace. And we know, and Mr. Boucher mentioned this yesterday, that in Revelation 20 it talks about Satan being taken away and not having to deal with him. But does that mean that with Satan out of the way, that he is going to be a part of the world? It will be all rainbows and lollipops. No, it will not. We're going to look at that today. On opening night we talked about some of the neat things we get to do to bring people back together and to show them a new way of life. And there will be lots and lots of people that are going to be very open to having peace and giving peace a try and being very willing to learn what it takes to be a part of that process. But the people who live on into the kingdom, that remnant of people, they're all going to have different ways of thinking. And while Satan will not be there, his damage, the damage that he has caused for all of these millennia, has been done in the minds of those people that will start that kingdom of God.

Those of us who use free will to follow light instead of darkness will be sitting on thrones, as we read about yesterday in Revelation 20, that there are thrones set aside that Jesus Christ is sharing the rulership of this thousand-year period. And our job is to help him show this way of life and to give people a vision, as we heard about in the first message, to see what peace really is like. Where truth and peace intersect. On the other hand, we're on the 8th day we're going to hear about the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, but I'd like you to look at a different New Jerusalem in Zechariah 14, Zechariah 14, verses 8-11.

We know that when Jesus Christ returns and lands on the Mount of Olives, that will not be the start of peace, that will be the beginning of the end of what we have had for all of this age of man and Satan. And he will crush all opposition to his coming government. And then at the end of when the rebellion is crushed, we read, starting in verse 8, Zechariah 14, and in that day it shall be that the living water shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and half toward the western sea, in both summer and winter shall occur. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth, and in that day it shall be. The Lord is one. His name is one. All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Ramon south of Jerusalem. If you don't know what that is talking about, you know that when Jesus lands on the Mount of Olives, it's going to split and cleave into and create this giant valley. But the entire holy land is going to become, through this process of transformation, this giant plain, the mountain of the Lord. And this distance between Geba and Ramon is roughly about 40 or 41 miles in length, and that's from north to south.

But what about from east to west? I'm not sure what size trowel God's going to use to flatten the mountains. I mean, people have been going up to Jerusalem for many years.

It's up very high compared to, especially, the Jordan River Valley. So, He's going to flatten that out. But at the same time, it's still going to be a mountain. It's still going to be high. And it's going to be this giant plain. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate to the place of the first gate and the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananiel to the king's winepress. People shall dwell in it, and no longer shall there be utter destruction. But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited. So, Jerusalem is going to be rebuilt as our king's capital city. And there's going to be peace there. And the first inhabitants that we talked about on opening night are going to be those that are being brought back together from the remnant of Israel and their descendants from all the nations that they have been spread. And this is how things are going to start. But there's going to be people all over the earth that are living through that great tribulation. There'll be huge areas of destruction, of course, lots of cleanup to be done. But there will be places in the earth where life continues on through the start of the kingdom period. To give you some context of how big Jerusalem and the area around Jerusalem in this giant plain is going to be, in the time of Solomon, the walled area made up about a fifth of a square mile. People argue over the placement of some of the ancient walls, but somewhere between 25 and 100 acres of space. At the time of Solomon, we have a very small temple. We have a very small temple. And we have a very small area. And that area had been expanded from the Canaanite city that it had been taken from. So even then, that small city of Jerusalem was much bigger than it originally was before the conquest of the Holy Land. When we get to the first century, that area of Jerusalem that Herod expanded, and he expanded the wall and all of the temple mount, that area tripled in size. But still, less than a square mile of the walled area. And although you can look at Bethel and some of Bethlehem to the south just a few miles, and these little communities would swell around the times of the Holy Days, still a pretty sparsely populated area by today's standards. What's it going to be like in the Kingdom of God when you could have 40 miles of suburbs of Jerusalem? Literally, billions of people will be able to fit in this space, which is important because of what's going to be happening in Jerusalem during the Kingdom period. It's going to allow for a huge expansion in population, and we read that it's going to be safe. It's going to be a place where children can play in the streets, where you don't have to worry about animals, because you don't have to worry about animals. You won't have to worry about them, wild animals. You won't have to worry about crime. You won't have to worry about disease. You won't have to worry about hunger. All of those tensions that people live with every day will be gone. I'd like you to hold your place here, and we're going to turn over back just a few chapters, back five books to Micah.

Micah 4, verses 2 and 3. Let's read about the state of the world during this time of peace, as it is springing out of the rubble of the Great Tribulation. Micah 4, verses 2 and 3.

Many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, talking about this giant high plain, to the house of the God of Jacob. Notice it's the God of Jacob. It's not the God of Judah. It is not the God of one tribe, but of all of the tribes. They will all be brought back together. Jacob, of course, had his name changed to Israel. We're talking about the God of Israel here. This is talking about these are the people that God is going to be first working with in the kingdom. People outside of the descendants of Israel are going to want to go up to the mountain of the Lord and learn. That mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, talking about this giant high plain, talking to the mountain of the Lord. This is going to be a wonderful, wonderful time, with this influx of population coming up there to learn how to live.

He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between nations and people and rebuke strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruney hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. Now, this is an important distinction here to mention what this is talking about. They won't learn war anymore.

There are militaries around the world that spend a lot of time teaching war. And some countries have mandatory service where people are drafted and they are taught how to join the armed forces of their particular nation. This says that they will not learn war anymore. This does not mean that people who do not already know about war might not take some of that bad ideas with them into this kingdom. We know that there is going to be some strife.

We know that not everything is going to be perfect. Let's go back to Zechariah 14 again. Let's go back to Zechariah 14. We'll continue on in verses 16-19.

They may not be able to learn war in schools. They may not be able to have institutes where they talk about how to destroy your opponent.

But some of them will already have war in their hearts already. Starting in verse 16, Zechariah 14, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This wonderful festival that we keep, we have evidence here that it's going to be kept not just by Israel, by God's people, but the entire world, even those who were vehemently against God's people all the way through this age.

And the remnants of those people now, obviously, a lot of those people will have been killed at the return of Christ. The armies that gathered a fight against Jesus Christ and the saints will be wiped out. But that doesn't mean that they didn't leave people at home, that there wasn't a war in Jerusalem.

They were not at home, that there wasn't children and expected mothers and neighbors who were sympathetic to their way of life and their cause that weren't left behind. Some of those people will be a part of that remnant that lives into the kingdom period, and they will be required to come up and to keep the feast.

Now, I said God is not going to twist anybody's arm, but He is going to rule a certain way, and there will be laws that have to be followed. Notice what happens for those who choose not to follow the law. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth which do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. Notice here in verse 17, it's not saying they shall be utterly destroyed if they do not come and worship the king.

The rain will be withheld. It will get harder to live. It will be painful. Blessings come with embracing God's way of life. If you do not embrace God's way of life, you can't expect to have the same blessings. And so it's going to be some tough love and some encouragement to get them to see a better way.

Now, as I started this, free will is a part of this equation. We are not just allowing them to live any which way they want, as people are allowed to do now, we are showing them the right path. We are shutting off the bad channels. We are only having the good channels being sent through the waves, airwaves. We have encouragement. We have examples. We have blessings. And there will be some cursings for those that choose the obstinate way. The punishment is not death, it's not imprisonment, it's lack of rain. And of course, with lack of rain, becomes scarcity of food and things become harder, very much harder.

Let's go back a few chapters to Zechariah 8. Zechariah 8, starting in verse 1, says, Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women shall sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. Thus the Lord shall host. It is, thus says the Lord of hosts, if it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, will it also be marvelous in my eyes, says the Lord of hosts.

You see, the Lord of hosts wants his people to choose peace. For those people that say, you know what, I don't like the drought, I don't like the bad attitudes in my neighborhood, I come up to the feast and I see peace and I see abundance, and I see this beautiful plain with lots of room.

I'm going to move there. I'm going to migrate. And you will have a part in that as well, helping people see a better way of life and say, this neighborhood's not so nice, but I know of one that's much nicer and I can help you get there. And you don't have to pay coyotes to get you there. I'll just take you there. And you can just set up shop there and live in peace. And that's what the process is going to be like.

But there will be those that have struggled their whole life to want to embrace what's happening. Because of generations of hate, generations of mistrust, there's been people that have been programmed a certain way, and I'm not just talking about the Middle East, although that's going to be a pretty tough neighborhood for those places that used to hate Israel.

But there are places around the world where God, the knowledge of God, is basically unknown, other than some crazy talk that some people have, where nations are atheists in general and anyone caught practicing any kind of religion are imprisoned or killed.

Then you have these different ways of looking at deities that are quite out there, almost outer space-esque. You know, God isn't everything. God is a tree. God is a plant. God is a rock. God is in all these things. And people worship creation instead of the Creator. And then you have some of the Eastern religions, and you have communism, and you have all these different ways of thought.

And a lot of them are going to be very different than what God is going to be offering. Even thinking about people in this country, it may not just be perfect that everyone who is left of Israel, Ephraim, Manasseh, all of the tribes, wherever they are, they've had a certain level of what we call liberty, where you get to do whatever you want. Free will, you can decide for yourself what is right in your eyes. If you want to make yourself your own God, you're more than welcome to do so.

Where once upon a time in this country, we were pretty Christian and biblically based, a lot of that has kind of flown out the window because of free will.

Not everyone who wants to come to Jerusalem is going to get to go if they don't want what God is offering.

The kingdom of God is, the citizenship there, is going to require to learn and to live a certain way of life. And if you say, but I really like the life I have now, they may not choose to want to come.

So, we're going to have lots of outliers around the world, and some of those people are going to have it rough.

What will law and order be like out in the Badlands? Don't know exactly. We don't know what level of patience our king is going to have with such behavior.

It is a sad thing. I'd like you to turn over to Deuteronomy 30.

Part of the Old Covenant, but it's a concept that God has had from the beginning.

And it was part of the original Sinai Covenant, and it's part of the New Covenant as well.

Deuteronomy 30, verses 19 and 20.

It says, I call heaven and earth as witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and cursings.

Therefore, choose life. I'm not saying here that you have a choice to choose death and we're going to give you life. No, you have to choose life, which means choose God's truth, God's way of life, His governance.

This is the choice that's set before you. Choose life that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. This choice was given at the time of Moses, and they all said, yea.

They then broke that covenant, but God gave them that choice. And the choice in the new covenant is the same choice. Choose this way of life. Choose the blessings. Choose the peace. Or you can choose the alternative.

And the alternative isn't instant death. God is not that cruel.

He shows you what happens when you live by selfish means. And He says, well, He's taking rain away from them. Well, who gave them rain in the first place? It all comes from God.

He's just saying, look, if you want to live without God, then you're going to live without the blessings that He's going to give you.

You're going to eke out whatever existence that you can, scratching it out of the dirt that isn't going to be blessed by God.

And you're going to learn that if you don't want God's way, the alternative isn't very good.

And people are going to probably go to start stealing and coveting what is left.

People talk about preppers in today's world, and people say, I've got a generator, and I've got food, and I've got all these things. And people say, well, good. I can listen for the sound of the generators and know where to go to get food.

And that's the world that some of these people might be bringing upon themselves.

You know, a dystopian society. Those that want to live under God's government are going to want to migrate to a better place.

Isaiah 11.9, another very familiar scripture, The earth will be full of the knowledge of God, but it will not be full of the love of God.

People aren't going to be living in ignorance. They are going to make willful decisions to disobey God.

And part of our job is to make sure they know the decisions they make are leading to the pain and suffering that they are bringing upon themselves.

Many of you probably heard about the legendary feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. It lasted over 30 years. The feud started after a family tension following the U.S. Civil War. There was some back and forth at the end of the war. Families did some revenge killings. And that started this blood feud that went on for three decades.

The strife in the Middle East, starting from another family disagreement, has lasted 4,000 years.

How does something last for so long? How does the fact that Ishmael was slighted that many years ago and not given the birthright that he felt was his, even though God did bless him and they became a people of his own, how did that translate and go down through generation and generation and generation? Even to this day and into the next age, that strife and that anger is still going to be prevalent among the people. It's going to be very hard for some of them to let it go. To know that your side has always been on the wrong side. That's going to be hard for some people to embrace. You say, well, you know, we have wars that we can look back to.

Japan was very dedicated to their cause.

They were very all on one page. And when they were defeated at the end of World War II, they said, okay, we're starting again.

Not everybody can do that. Not everybody can. Some people just take those hurt feelings, that sense of entitlement, that sense of loss, and they just instill it upon their children. And this is going to go on generationally for a time.

To a fact that in the book of Ezekiel 38, if you'd like to turn over there, Ezekiel 38, it's going to come to a head. We would like to believe that as we work with people, as they suffer through some tough decisions, that people are going to come to this realization that God's way is better. I like peace. I like having stuff. I like when the weather is nice.

And I'm moving to a better neighborhood. We'd like to believe that everyone will come to that decision. But not everyone will. And I suspect, if I was a betting person, that you will see divisions happening in communities, as some people say, you know what, I'm giving up on this way of anger. It's not getting us anywhere. And other people are going to say, well, if you're giving up, I'm doubling down.

And it's going to just cause communities to break, to where the hardliners are going to stay dug in. And the more mild and peaceful-hearted people are going to say, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. And we're going to see some of this happen before our eyes. In Ezekiel 38, verses 1-12, Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, set your face against, and here is these nations, there's a lot of them here, Gog of the land of Magog, Prince of Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal, and prophesy against them, and say, Thus says the Lord, behold, I am against you, O Gog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal.

I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and lead you out with all of your army, horses and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, and a great company with bucklers and shields and all of them handling swords. Where did they learn war? Because some of them already knew war. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya, with them, all with the shield and helmet, Gomer and its troops in the house of Togomar, from the far north, and all of its troops, many people are with you. It's not just a certain group of people, the Sunnis and the Shiites, that are alive, that are still there.

A lot of nations that have been contrary to the West, you know, this blessings of Abraham that has made Western civilization the richest and most powerful nations on earth, all of the opposing nations to that way of life, are many of these people that are named here. Some of those people that just have been contrary to Western thinking are going to be joining together during this time. Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you, and be a guard for them.

After many days, you will be visited. In the latter years, you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long ago been desolate.

They were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell in safety. So, as the headquarters of the kingdom of God grows and prospers and gets bigger and bigger, and the people who are opposing this way of life become more and more isolated and desperate, they're going to see this as an opportunity. There's where all the wealth is. There is where all the food is. They have what has always been ours. Now, will they know that this is wrong thinking? Yes. They will know. The name Gog means mountain, and prophetically, he is the prince of Rosh, Meshach, Tubal, and Magog.

Magog here is talking about the land of Magog. Magog literally means land of God, believe it or not. The first mention of Magog was one of the sons of Japheth, who himself was one of the three sons of Noah. And you think about old strife coming back. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Three sons of Noah. We know what happened to Ham. He defiled his father and was told that your people are going to serve your brothers from here on out. So that third of mankind probably is suffered from all of eternity from that time forward because of this.

And then you have Japheth and all of these nations. What came from Seth? All the Semitic peoples. So you have this situation where even in the time of Noah, one of the sons seemed to get the lion's share of God's blessings, and the other two, not so much. And so these names that we see here, gathering together, harken back to even an older family strife.

So much of this translates through the centuries, even thousands of years. Notice down to verse 9 through 12. Some people think this is talking about what is going to happen when Satan is released, but this is happening earlier. This is a precursor to what is going to happen later. They have free will, and they're exercising it. You will say, I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will go to a peaceful people who dwell in safety, all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited.

So you have waste places that are inhabited. You have this desert blossoming like a rose. You have all of these places that are just becoming fertile and wonderful. And some of these people are going to want it for themselves. Move down to Ezekiel 39. Ezekiel 39 says, You shall fall on the open field, for I have spoken, says the Lord God, and I will send fire on Magog and all those who live in security in the coastlands.

And they shall know that I am the Lord. So I will make my holy name known in the midst of the people of Israel, and I will not let them profane my holy name anymore. So for generations, even in the kingdom of God, there will be people in the badlands profaning God's name. And he will have a certain amount of patience to help people learn that this is not a good way of life. It's not just simply going to come in there and say, you said a bad word, smite you.

It's going to be a process of learning and growing. And it will be difficult, and this will go on for some time. But eventually, the king's patience will come to an end when these people then gather and try to end things. The nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. Now each of the saints, now spirit beings, will be working with these people, trying to change their way of thinking. There were, you know, in every human child, there is so much possibility.

Some people grow up are just gentle by nature. Some spend their whole life serving and giving to others. And it's just, it's where they get their fulfillment.

And on the other end of the scale, there are those that have found that taking what they want has gotten them more out of life than any other way. And there's this spectrum. And this is what free will is. Everyone can choose. Now, I do believe that we can overcome a lot of our negative natures that we have. And part of our job is to help them understand that it is possible that if you are just inherently selfish, if you are inherently self-centered, you never think of others. I do believe it is possible to grow and to overcome those natural tendencies. For some people, it's just natural to think of others first.

And I think that's just part of the human genome that God invented when he created mankind. That when a new life is made, the possibilities of what that person might be like is endless. Because the kingdom of God is going to expand into every quadrant of the galaxy.

And there is going to be a lot of diversity of thought among that. And you have people that are natural-born leaders and natural-born followers, and people who love to crunch numbers, and people who hate to sit by a desk, just like we have today. And people are all different. But kindness, I think, is a choice that we're going to have to learn to teach people to embrace. Teach them what love gives them. Maybe by showing them grace when they don't deserve it will help some of them change. And say to themselves, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the God of Jacob, and let's learn of his ways.

He will teach us how to live. This is the hope that we have for all of humanity. Ultimately, only those who want to be in God's kingdom are going to be able to be there. And that is what all of us, I think, need to have in our minds in the end of this age. Because all of us are here by choice. All of us have made sacrifices. We have said no to our baser instincts. We have said yes to service. We have said yes to the needs of others. Even many times to the detriment of ourselves. And in that is a lesson all of its own.

And we're rehearsing this as we're here. Although we are at a place where we're supposed to enjoy, we're supposed to feast, we're supposed to imbibe in wonderful things, whatever our hearts desire, that is not another way of saying, be selfish. Have whatever you want. That is the way the world is currently wired. Hopefully, what our hearts desire is family. Hopefully, what our hearts desire is togetherness, is sharing our lives and helping one another.

Hopefully, we get joy when we bring somebody up out of a difficult time in their lives. These are all skills that you're going to need in that kingdom. Because there's going to be people out there that have only known one way of life. And then they are going to be teaching their children that way of life, and their children are going to grow up, and that's all they're going to know.

How do you break through that? How do you get through to people when you see little signs of kindness? How do you take that little bit of kindness that somebody who's so full of hate and anger and cause that little seed to grow? Where former enemies can learn to not hate one another anymore. To just forgive. That's a very difficult thing. I did a funeral last year for a member of my congregation, some of many of you in the area know, who was himself a Holocaust survivor, and he was a small child through the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe.

There was a man who learned forgiveness in his life. Now, he didn't have generations of hatred. He really didn't even know his parents. He only learned to hate from his experience of war. But he has been able to, in his later life, forgive all of those tormentors in his life and all those horrible memories. He's been able to put them out of his mind.

And while he still carries the scars of those days up until his death, he left this world in peace out of his free will. Everyone has that opportunity. It will be more difficult for others. Don't get me wrong, and the Bible has evidence of that. On my sermon on the last non-holy day of the feast, I'm going to be talking about how these lessons of Gog and Magog are something that's going to be an echo that follows all through the thousand years.

And how it's not just simply, you would think, once everything's cleaned up, once the schools are there and the streets are working and the food is being produced and everyone has enough, it's just going to spread and there will be nothing but peace everywhere. But that's the whole reason that God created man as physical. Because if he had created us with everlasting life the way he did the angels, then their fate would be the fate of many human beings that God knows are not going to choose his way of life.

And so we have this physical existence, fragile as it is, short as it is, but it is a blessing. Because when somebody cannot find it in their heart to choose love over hate, God is not going to make them live an eternity in some horrible place of anguish. There will be a horrible place of anguish, but for Satan and his demons. But humanity that chooses another way of life won't have that hanging over their heads. They just will have a choice, life or death.

Free will is the price of peace. These thousand years will be a way to undo so much of the damage that Satan has inflicted. But sadly, not all of the damage will be able to be erased from every mind on earth.

The damage caused from a previous 6,000 years has left an indelible mark in the minds of some. The cities will be rebuilt. There will be no need for hunger unless somebody chooses another way. And hunger is the result. There will be no need for disease. There will be no need for any of the strife and crime and other things that we have. And we'll have a huge role to play in keeping the streets safe for those who love God and want to live his way of life. They will have free will because that is what God created us with. He wants us to choose Him. He wants us to want Him and His way of life. No one will be forced to live in a world that they don't want.

So let's keep that in mind in our time, whatever time we have left before that kingdom starts.

Every decision we have in this life to choose selfishness or selflessness, these are things that are going to aid us in the world to come. They're going to help us to reach into the minds of some that are so twisted from so many generations and find a way to reach them. The lessons we learned today will help them in the world to come.