Let's go with a summary from the past several weeks before going further. Leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea is a shadow of being born-again and water-baptized. The wilderness is renewing the mind: thoughts, emotions, and will. And entering the promised land is entering the kingdom of God, which is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, the peace of God beyond understanding, and the joy of the Lord, which is our strength to overcome the giants of sin in our life. Heaven and eternal life are waiting for the overcomer by the blood of the lamb, our testimony in the faithfulness of God, and loving not our life unto death but losing it for Christ's sake.

Heaven will not be Heaven if the flesh goes with us. The flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. Iniquity would take over if we could take our choice of sin into the promised land. Let's look at a few case studies from scripture that were recorded for us in the New Covenant to glean from.

The first case is where eight people were saved from the destruction of a world where every thought was fused with violence. Noah was considered a righteous preacher. However, as soon as the Ark takes dock, Noah carries out the longest premeditated sin. After giving sacrifices to God, Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk in his tent, and is naked. I'm unsure why the Bible details the nakedness, but it has something to do with Noah's son Ham. Both bring the old world into the new world.

The second case of leaving the flesh behind before entering the promised land is the story of Abraham and Lot. Abraham interceded to have Lot and his family delivered from Sodom & Gomora to restart the cities from within a cave. Lot and his two daughters escaped the destruction of four cities just to start the cities over with incest. Lot's daughters knew that God once destroyed the world with water to cleanse it for a new beginning. And Lot's daughters knew that God would destroy the world again with a more potent cleansing agent of fire. Maybe Lot's daughters thought the world was destroyed, and it was up to them to repopulate the new world. Whatever they were thinking, they birthed a new Sodom and Gomorrah. But that is what sin does to us: it causes us to think too highly of ourselves.

The third case study is when Israel left Egypt, but Egypt didn't leave the flesh of Israel. The first generation of refugees from Egypt died in the wilderness, hungering over the foods of Egypt. Their hunger and thirst caused them to forget the oppression they were under. They didn't hunger after the Bread from Heaven or the living water from the rock. Only Caleb, Joshua, and the second generation, over twenty years of age, went into the promised land. But Joshua carried in fear, doubt, and unbelief when they lost AI and questioned God as to why he delivered us from Egypt only to let us die at the hands of the Amorites. Read Joshua 7:7, the same reasoning that left most of Israel from entering the promised land. Twenty years later, Joshua rebuked Israel for not destroying the idols from Egypt and the other nations they conquered. The land of milk and honey was already becoming corrupt. By the time of the last few kings of Israel, the prophets rebuked Israel for being worse sinners than the nations God had removed.

The fourth case study is not from the Bible but from what we are experiencing today. A few hundred years later, God made a way for Jews and gentile alike to escape the tyranny of the world to a new world in the newly discovered Americas. At the time, the native Americans were called savages because of how they lived and how they treated their enemies. There were civilized tribes, but most were uncivilized, according to other societies. But look at us today! We are even more uncivilized than the people who were here before us—the blood bath of abortion. Also, we are lying to the young, mutilating their bodies with gender confusion. The rioting and violence that is escalating in our streets is uncivilized. We have spoiled the new world with our iniquity.

Where do we go from here? Follow Elon Musk to Mars? Take our gods and corruption to other planets and throughout the universe? Some people have a Star Wars theology; good and evil need to keep a universal balance. They think good prevails at times, and at other times, evil ascends. But have we forgotten that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega? There is a coming end to life and death as we know it. The world's evil days are numbered.

How will Heaven be Heaven if we take our flesh with us? We can't! We won't! Death is the fork in the road for all born of water. Some have lived their life like there is a heaven to be inherited by the righteous, but most have lived like hell is a myth. Whichever place you go, good and evil will never meet again. Heaven and hell will be far apart, separated by a chasm that cannot be crossed.

Documented or undocumented, citizenship without transformation brings corruption. Many are called, such as Israel, but few are chosen, like Joshua and Caleb—men of a different spirit. Israel legally immigrated, but they carried their old ways with them. We always want to blame the people and places we left for the problems we experience today. But when we don't recognize our ways are corrupt because we come from an unclean people and have unclean lips as well, we recreate the darkness in every new place we step foot.

Look at the list of sins that people do that stop them from entering the kingdom of God, Heaven, and eternal life.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NASU

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. - Galatians 5:19-21 NASU

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. - Hebrews 12:14-17 NASU

Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. "He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." - Revelation 21:6-8 NASU

These are not exclusive lists. Anything we love more than God endangers our eternal life with the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is God's will that all men come to know the truth in Christ Jesus to be saved. God has granted humanity free will as long as we live. Every man is given one to die and then comes judgment. God doesn't take away our free will at the new birth. We must crucify our flesh by walking in the spirit, bowing to the will of the Father. Not my will be done, but the Father's will be done.

Bowing takes place out of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and the fear of God that causes us to depart from evil. We must love God more than life and respect him more than any other authority, including ourselves. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The only way we will walk in the spirit and not fulfill the will of the flesh is to bow our knees in prayer. Humility and not strength wins the war between the spirit and the soul. Repentance is needed. The humble find a place to repent with a godly sorrow. The prideful will not find a place to repent. Like Esau, the flesh wants to inherit the good of the land but without repentance. Many Christians will not receive their inheritance because they refused to repent when they had the grace to do so. I'm Sorry I'm Not Sorrow is their song.

Since 1948, the beginning of the end of the gentile age and the restart of Israel and the Jews, the nations of the world have been relaxing the eternal word of God. We have watered down the gospel from a daily walk with Jesus as a disciplined follower to a short one-time intellectual or emotional sinner's prayer. The born-again experience becomes the focus, not discipleship, with lifelong commitment going from glory to glory. Jesus stated that to know the Father and His Son is eternal life. Knowing God is the goal of our being. When we are born-again, we do not yet understand God. We begin to know God. We don't have within us to get righteousness, so we must seek outside help. When we believe that Jesus is that outside help, we get that help on the inside through the new birth. We need an inside person to clean us up from the inside out. Greater is He that is in us than in the world. God gives us His begotten Son, His Holy Spirit, His grace to overcome all temptations on the outside and in the flesh.

You shall know them by their fruit is the clarion call of countless Christians. And since Jesus said it is so, it should be. But I wonder how many Christians judge others by their fruit and judge themselves by their intentions? A distinct set of scales is unjust and sinful. Our spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Intentions have deceived many. I didn't intend to cheat and lie. I didn't plan to have an adulterous affair. I didn't mean to get angry, cuss, or rant.

When we don't find a place for the grace of God in a consecrated life, we will bear fruit testifying against us. When we preach Jesus crucified, we preach we are crucified with Him, so we must live a life that parallels a crucified life.

It is a good reminder that harvest comes in two parts. The first part is in the gathering that we call revivals and great awakening that leads to the born-again experience. The second part that isn't talked about is taking up the cross and following Jesus through the wilderness while dragging our flesh to its eternal death. We were crucified with Jesus and will be raised with Jesus if we stay crucified with Him. It is not time to come down off your cross, beloved one. The day we were saved was a great day not to be forgotten. But we must remember that since the day we were gathered, we were brought together with other believers to the threshing floor, the church, to work out our salvation with trembling and fear—a removing of the old wineskin for the new wineskin. There is a bursting going on in many circles because people have put the new life of Jesus in old habits and ways. We must change our ways to be filled with the continual new wine.

Only those who have used their free will bow their knee to Jesus, applying the grace of God to crucify their will to God's will, will be saved in the end. We are one-third saved after the born-again experience. We are transforming into Christ's image to save the soul and wait on the new body to complete the new creation. We are saved, being saved, and will be saved if we endure to the end with the grace of God.

Jesus only saves those who have bowed to Him as Lord in this life and before He comes to claim the kingdoms of this world as his inheritance. During his thirty-three and half years of life, Jesus was a prophet. Resurrected from the grave, dressed in different garments, Jesus became the high priest, offering His blood as our eternal sacrifice. And one day, but not yet, Jesus will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus gave a parable of a man who went far off to be crowned king, leaving his servants to occupy until his return. Seven of the ten servants ran after him, telling him they disapproved of him becoming king. Now, I don't know any servants of Christ who will say that is how they feel. But their life speaks louder than their hallelujah. They are fervent in kingdom theology. They like the promises and presents. But they speak ill towards authority and won't submit to anyone, much less bow a knee before Jesus as King. They live as if they are still Lords and kings, with no bowed knee or heart, only lip service and a false confession. I hope that is not you. I hope you are not trying to get the best of both worlds: the best of the flesh and the best of the spirit. If we are to be fully saved on the day of the Lord, we must lose our life to find it in Jesus, even if we must take a hit and enter eternal life maimed.

So, the question is, how will Heaven be Heaven if you go? Are you leaving behind the flesh and everything that causes God and His people pain? There are no fleshly people in Heaven. The flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And God will not force our will to do what is good. If we are not praying for God's will to be done in our own life, it won't be. If our will is predominant, God's will is not. We will not inherit the kingdom of God, Heaven, or eternal life in the flesh.

Heaven will be Heaven because everyone there wants to be there. No one who loves Jesus but doesn't like Christians and the church will be there. Everyone in Heaven loves and puts others before themselves. Everyone in Heaven no longer has regrets over the things they didn't want to do but did, and everything they want to do is being done because it is fully immersed in the love of God and his people. Perfect love has cast out fear and torment. No flesh, no division, no covenanting, only the joy for every person seen and met. Nothing hidden and total safety; no hesitations or reservations about the love given or received.

God knows we were shaped in iniquity in this fallen world, but He is reshaping us from the inside out for those who are willing and obedient. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. And what He has begun, He will finish in us. We need not worry that we have not yet arrived. None of us are going to reach perfection before death. But perfection in Christ through love must be our heart's goal. Love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Our fruit must match our intentions more than not. When we fall short of God's glory, grace and faith will carry us through. But for those who come up short on hope, faith, and love because of seeking personal gain and not God's will, how will Heaven be Heaven if you go?