Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2023 (Day 4 - Morning Session)
Date: Wednesday 9th August 2023
Minister: Pastor Thompson Ehima
Transcript Excerpt
There is a set pattern and measurement for those who will obtain Life Eternal. Another word for measure is fruit-bearing. God checks if we are qualified for Eternal Life by how much fruits we can bear from the light we are being exposed to. God does not come every time, He comes in seasons. For example, Jesus came to the fig tree and expected it to have fruits on it (Mark 11:13-21). There is the season of bearing fruits, the season of bearing much fruits, and bearing so much more in abundance. This shows that there are degrees of fruit-bearing. Our fruit-bearing should not be static. This is why the Epistles cater for every measure of fruit-bearing according to the allocation of the word committed to a people. When we have succeeded to be branches on the vine, the Father comes to purge and prune us so that we can bring forth much fruits. God measures us by how much fruit we have borne in life; and He wants our fruit-bearing to be progressive.
In the sight of God, it is fruit bearing that is the evidence of life in a man. We have had a lot of knowledge, but the intention of God is that we bring forth much fruit. There is a kind of fruit that will be borne by the leading of the Spirit and obedience to the word.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: [11] And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” (Hebrews 8:10-11). To know the Lord in this manner is to know His core. Our Lord Jesus is full of grace and truth; and these are all measures. The faith in our Lord Jesus and love towards all saints are the fruits of the milk of the word, according to the allocation of the name of Jesus in the Holy Ghost.
One of the reasons Paul wanted the Colossian church to bear fruits was so that they would abide. It is not enough to bring forth fruits; God wants the fruits to abide. The church at Colossae had a knowledge of God’s will, and they brought forth fruits with it (Col. 1:10). Life and peace are fruits of the knowledge of the will of the Lord. The church had obeyed the doctrine of the knowledge of the Lord, which is the knowledge of Christ. Life is righteousness; it is borne by the knowledge of God's will and by one’s subjection to the will of the Spirit. Many times, we are not patient under the subjection of the Spirit, and we try to break free from this subjection by some sacrifices. The Holy Ghost designs things around us, but through murmuring and complaining, we abort the process of the Spirit. When we cry and are bent on our will, God, in a bid not to get us to be offended, would rather allow Himself to be cheated when we are not ready to let go.
God will not force a man to come into the process of fruit-bearing. God sets precedents in our hearts so that He can work and make us know that He is the one allowing those situations. In these situations, we must be able to yield to the Lord. Every believer has opportunities for fruit-bearing but many times, they abort the process and do not allow the Spirit to have His way. There cannot be fruit-bearing without the leading of the Spirit. We should not offer the sacrifices of fools. We should rather just submit to the Lord in obedience. God expects fruits and He has a long patience for it. His intention is for us to bear fruits until they abide in us.
There is an inheritance in the name of the Holy Ghost, and we cannot have the seal of this name if we do not bear its fruits (Eph. 1:13-15). We must transact with the word to bear fruit. In the season of everlasting life, what God is particular about is fruit-bearing. We are checked by the measure of fruits we bear. Paul was trying to qualify the measure that the Roman church were in because he was an apostle and a wise master builder (Romans 6:22). Paul could relate with their journey. The fruit they had was a fruit in everlasting life but they started from bearing the fruits of righteousness.
It is possible for one to be tempted to settle in the life of Christ and the fruits therein. However, it is expedient that we further increase in the knowledge of God. It takes more than the knowledge of the Lord’s will to discern certain sins. It takes mercy for certain sins to be revealed (Rom. 9:15). How mercy is brought to our unrighteousness is that knowledge is sent to expose them. Sin will always hide; and that is its strength. This is why believers are often advised not to hide their sins from their pastors or the church elders. Sin thrives in secrecy, and its aim is to completely destroy us.
Knowledge was designed to reveal sin and show us the way out. Knowledge is not complete if all it shows is our sins without the grace, commandments, or paths to come out of them. Just as sin is a secret, we must also know that the path out of it is a secret. Sin is Satan. It is not a principle; it is a being. Satan has a lust different from fornication and adultery. This shows that there are degrees of lusts. The lust of Satan in this context is a will. This present world that is passing away, with its lust, is a will (1 John 2:15-17). If we do God’s will, we will abide forever but if we do Satan’s will, we will pass away. This means the wills are two sides of the same thing, but one is inverted. This clearly shows that sin is Satan. Sin is Satan and we should relate with it using this understanding. We should not pity sin, lest we circumvent it.
The essence of revelation knowledge is to make sin appear sinful so that we can be ashamed of it. There are sins that are shameful which we do not want to be associated with, but there are sins we are not ashamed of. This is why a proud man can refer to another man as proud, because such has gauged his own pride as acceptable while the other’s is extreme. So knowledge makes sin appear sinful and it also provides a path out of it until we can grow in measures of life. This is the essence of the labours around lines and measures of knowledge.
It is time to bring forth fruits according to the degree of light that we have acquired. God is expecting us to generate fruit at our different levels. The Lord will come at certain seasons to check our fruits. If we have borne some fruits, we would be pruned, and another level of knowledge would be brought for us to grow more. God’s ultimate goal for us is that our fruits should abide.
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: [23] being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter:22-23) The truth here is Christ or the knowledge of the will of the Lord. The unfeigned love of the brethren is also a fruit or a measure. To love one another fervently is to increase the measure of fruit-bearing in Christ. We should not celebrate the love that is unfeigned because we can still bear more if we are given more knowledge. This will help us get to the point where we become living, where we would bring forth much fruit. Ultimately, we will abide forevermore.
Rounding off by Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
Light should shine on our sins so that we would recognize them and break our covenant with them. This tells us that when light is shining, we should not turn a blind eye to it. Rather, we should embrace it. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19). Men loved darkness and they shut their eyes from the incursion of light, so that they would not obey it. The invasion of light is to reprove and correct us. Love is the greatest strength of the soul. If love is unleashed on anything, it is difficult to break its cord. God is therefore pleading with us not to love the world or anything Satan stands for. We should not do Satan’s will but rather do God’s will.
Blessings!