People live in a double prison. The self-deception in his heart imprisons him internally, but at the same time he believes he is free. His external prison is the adverse circumstances that do not meet his needs. After Adam and Eve deceived themselves, God had to take action by taking them out of paradise. The ideal external conditions would have prevented them from recognizing their inner state. First, man must be freed from the inner prison. Only then can the adverse circumstances, which are a consequence of self-deception, come to an end. We look at how inner imprisonment is recognized. For in the Great Controversy, self-knowledge is the most important of all.
There are basically two pieces of evidence: human behavior and illness. Neither condemns, but reveals the innate state of the heart. The illness must bring to light what the person would otherwise never recognize as deceit. Jesus was begotten into this life by his Father so that under the most difficult circumstances he would remove the error from his mind by never believing it. As a human being, he had to prove that he was a child of God. On the cross, he killed the error and the whole man and created a completely new one through his resurrection. Only this new man can exist in the presence of God and in the best of circumstances. And what Christ has done outside of us must also be accomplished in us through faith (Ephesians 4:22-24). We need a hope that no matter what circumstance we face, we will never give up believing in complete victory over the lie in our hearts. Consciously believing in our minds that we are a child of God will bring us victory. What this means in detail is the subject of the seventh part of the series “The Great Controversy”.