Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2023 (Day 5 - Morning Session)
Date: Thursday, 10th August 2023
Minister: Pastor Emeka Eguchukwu
Transcript Excerpt
The program of salvation was not just about the fall of man. It is a program that has been in the heart of the Godhead, even before the fall. The program God had in mind for man when He promised Eternal Life was salvation. This plan was before the world began (Titus 1:2). If He promised it before the world began (even when man was not on the scene) then, He must have made the promise to Himself. Man was created as a result of this promise that was made. Therefore, man has everything to do with salvation.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him…” (Psa. 8:4). God is mindful of man but the kind of man whom God is mindful of is not the fallen man. The man whom God is mindful of is the man that is meant to escape from the corruptible. The present heaven and earth are part of the corruptible, for they cannot last. Although they have a level of everlastingness, it is not the exact everlastingness of God. The substances with which the angels were made is also corruptible. This is why sin was found in one of the best of the creations of God (Lucifer). We must therefore realise that we will only be kept if we continue to hearken to the voice of God and keep on doing His commandments. If we stop, the same thing that caught up with Lucifer will catch up with us.
The reason why God visits man is to give him salvation. If man did not partake of sin, we would have been able to escape from corruption or the present creation, and turn from the present creation into the new creation. Therefore, we need to generate some kind of energy that will push us out of creation. This is what the prophets prophesied all over the scriptures.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ…” (Eph. 1:3). What makes God blessed is not heaven, earth or the things that surround Him. What makes Him blessed is who He is or the things He possesses within Himself. This is why He is so separated from creation. Every level within Him is a blessing, but there is a blessing that He actually is. This blessing is His image. Therefore, when God is making man in His own image, it is a call to bless man with His own substances (Gen 1:26).
The making of man does not only refer to creation of man or breathing into him, but a program that God wants to run in us. The essence of this program is to bless man with things that will make him escape corruption. There are different images, including images in heaven (Deut. 5:8). If we have other images in our souls, we would not be able to receive the image that God is coming with.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; For he hath visited and redeemed his people…” (Luke 1:68). The visitations of the Lord are the appearances that He has to make. Each appearance is a visitation to do the work of redemption in us. We are meant to be taken from being ungodly to being Jacob, and from being Jacob to becoming Israel. This is because it is when one has become Israel that the program of salvation can begin.
As we walk with God, we will get to the point where our physical and natural will be aligned. As God deals with one thing, it will affect another thing in us. In the beginning, Adam was in tune with the voice of God (Gen 3:10). But due to the fall, God had to visit His people to redeem them from where they sank into. The only way God can give Himself to man is by giving us His image. Our Lord Jesus is the brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person (Heb. 1:3). He is the first man to have the exact of everything that is of God. God is coming to run a program in the house of David (His Church), which will make those who are therein to look like God (Zach 12:8).
“As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: [70] That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us…” (Luke 1:70-71). These enemies are the enemies of salvation. Someone like Lucifer is an enemy of man's destiny, which is salvation. Our enemies are not men. It is difficult for a believer to accept this when he/she has not drunk milk well. Most of the people we consider as our enemies are only captives or victims in the hand of the real enemy - the devil - to make us miss salvation, by walking in hatred towards them. If anyone behaves wrongly towards us, we should look for a way to do them good.
Some people do not honour their fathers and mothers because they believe they are witches or wizards. But this is foolishness and a breaking of the commandment to honour our fathers and mothers (Eph. 6:2, Mark 7:10). Even if some of them are quite froward, there is nothing that charity cannot break and there is no war that love cannot win.
Our enemy, the devil, does not want us to come into salvation. He therefore uses sin and death to hinder us. Death is a configuration or law that is in the enemy, and it hates us. The reason we do not look for God is because of sin. This sin is not works of the flesh that are manifest (Gal. 5:19-21). When John says that the whole world lieth in wickedness, he means that the agenda that is running this world is wickedness (1 John 5:19).
This world is what is making souls not look for God. Until sin is dealt with, the Church will not look for Him. The world has to be dealt with inside us because that is what makes us not to look for God. This is why, even when light came into the world, men still loved darkness (John 3:19). Their deeds were evil because of the life they were living and the conversation that they are engaging in.
No one came to the Lord loving Him; we all love something else. Although we believed in Him, we did not really trust Him. Trust is a measure of love and a work has to be done in us, to trust after we have believed. We have to be healed of the world on the inside, because the world inside men is what is sustaining the world outside.
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Gal. 6:14). We should not glory in any other thing, even in our ability to do good. The world can also do good. The world loves its own but because we are not of this world, the world will hate us. They will hate us because they hated the Lord. We have to glory in the cross of Jesus by whom the world is crucified to us and we to the world (Gal. 6:14). But this is not attributed to us merely because we are Christians, and we cannot claim this. We have to walk into it and the cross has to be ministered to us. We will not be delivered from this world until the cross is administered to us.
The gospel of Christ is a cross life and the cross of Christ is a wisdom and technology in the heart of God. This cross of Christ does not refer to the physical cross that Jesus died on; it rather refers to the life He lived. Anyone who will follow Him must deny themselves, pick up their crosses and follow Him (Matt. 16:24).
“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” (Rom. 12:2). Christ is the wisdom that can deliver a soul from this world. Therefore, the only way to escape this world is to keep conforming to Christ, and not yourself as some motivational speakers would say. We should live for Christ because everytime we live for ourselves, we are not serving God.
‘Self’ is an image inside of us that we need to relinquish. We must not glory in anything, including anointings. Pride in anointing will not make one yield to the leading of God. To glory in any other is to glory in an image that is not the image of the Son of God. We should not glory in anything in order to get leverage here on earth. Rather, we should grow up and do only the will of God. We must not have personal agendas but always yield to the Lord and lay down our lives (Matt. 16:24).
We cannot deny 'self' in one day because it would take revelation to expose it in us. Darkness is exposed when God permits some situations, privileges, and things to come our way. This is because by ourselves, we do not know what is in our hearts. The ‘cross life’ should be a daily thing. We must not live outside it because for everyday we do not pick up our crosses, we follow something else. The cross is the place where the life expressions of man (flesh) ends.
We should carry our crosses daily, for Satan also comes to tempt us daily. But when he comes, he should not find anything of himself in us. He should only find us with the cross (Luke 9:23). The cross is an experience and a circumcision that we all have to receive at a point in our walk with God. The cross is not just an experience at the level of Christ but also in everlasting life. If one does not learn the curriculum of the cross well in Christ, he will turn back in the season of everlasting life.
The reason for the tabernacle is to deal with sin. There are sacrifices that take place daily in the tabernacle. There is a type of sin that the Outer Court will take care of and there is the type that the Holy Place will take care of. The Most Holy place is supposed to take care of the sin of the Most Holy Place, which is called iniquity. You can know works of the flesh and avoid them. You can also discern some thoughts from the enemy and know how to evade them, because iniquity is glorious (in the negative). The cross spans through the tabernacle and enters the Most Holy to obtain eternal salvation for us.
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him…” (Heb. 2:3). Salvation is a great escape for man. Paul finished the program of salvation and He found mercy to be able to know when he had finished the course of life (2 Tim. 4:7). It is great mercy to understand the course of life. There is an appearance that is awaiting the people of God. There is an appearance to take away sin and there is an appearance that is without sin, unto salvation (Heb. 9:28). It is Jesus that will appear, and when He does, He will manifest the Father.
Closing Charge by Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
The intention of this message is not to bring the spirit of condemnation upon us. We should know how to appropriate messages/preachings very well and then allow the Holy Ghost to interpret them to us. We should not use them to wrongly judge others. We cannot work out our deliverance ourselves; it is the Holy Ghost that would deplete this nature of ‘self’ in us. Therefore, we should yield to Him.
‘Self’ cannot just be detected according to our personalities (whether we are joyous or sober), rather, it is spiritual. There are different expressions to the things of God, so we must not castigate ourselves or castigate others on this basis. We should not crucify ourselves by scrutinizing ourselves with our own apparatus of judgement. Deliverance from self is a job that is achieved by the leadings of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, we cannot be delivered from self by our own modalities.
Listen to Audio Here: Looking for the Appearance of Lord unto Salvation
Blessings!