Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2023 (Day 7 - Morning Session)
Date: Saturday, 12th August 2023
Minister: Reverend (Mrs.) Helen Oyegoke
Transcript Excerpt
The vision of God that has been painted to us so clearly in this Convention is the vision of salvation. Salvation is what we have been called to. The aim of the gospel is salvation. Salvation is about image making or image formation. There was a big breakthrough yesterday with the visitation of the Lamb. The Lord said He was coming, we expected His appearance and He came powerfully. The Lord came to us as the Lamb with properties of Himself.
Salvation is being conformed to the image of the Son. A man who is saved is a man who has become like the Son of God. The reason for the preaching of the gospel is to bring salvation to us by bringing us the substances that make up God. What the Lord wants to do in us is to empty Himself into man. Every fiber and substance of God is salvation. We have been taught that the gospel is in two parts; the gospel of Christ that raises us to be Christ so that we can relate with God, and the gospel of God. Salvation comes by preaching.
“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” (1 Cor. 1:21). We have been here for seven days being preached to. This is foolishness to the wise (those wise after the wisdom of this world). To them, one is being brainwashed, but that is the way it has pleased God to save. What is being preached is what should be believed. To believe is to align/agree with what is being preached, which are substances of a Person being sent to us. The gospel is foolish to a natural man (1 Cor. 1:23); it takes a foolish man to be saved (1 Cor. 3:18).
Christ is the first part of the gospel that every man must be exercised into, for the removal of sin and freedom of sin and death. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Cor. 4:4). The glorious gospel of Christ is a gospel of image. The reason for the gospel is for image-making. Without image-making, there is no glory. Image making also comes by preaching. There is the gospel of Christ which is the beginning; this is in Jesus. But there is the fullness of the gospel – the glorious gospel that brings about the formation of the image.
Jesus is the express image of God's person (Heb. 1:3). This image was formed in Him through the downloading of substances that made Him Christ and the Son of God. It is possible for a man to be made Christ. One has to be made Christ to be able to connect the next gospel, which is the gospel of the glory of God, the gospel for image-making (Rom. 8:29). Therefore, all the brethren are meant to come into the image of the Son.
Image-making is the will of God. That is what is called “the will of God”, which Jesus referred to when He said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). Image-making is doing righteousness. That is what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). The devil comes to scare us not to commit ourselves to seeking the Kingdom, telling us that other things will suffer. This is a death we have to die in seeking the image of the Son alone.
Fears and cares of this world often prevent one from keeping at seeking the Kingdom. They prevent one from giving oneself wholly to these words that are meant to bring salvation. God comes to succour us, helping us to keep going by persuading our hearts that these things we are holding on to are good and right. And because we are persuaded, we are less concerned about material things that we lack; our hearts are fixed on the hope of salvation. This is why we need to be preached to so we can have enough faith in our hearts (Rom. 10:17). This faith is built in the heart by the preaching of a hope. The formation of Christ is a hope (Col. 1:27).
This is to encourage some who are afraid to give themselves wholly to the words we are hearing. The devil tries to torment us with needs but we need to die to them because we are persuaded like Moses, who forsook the treasures in Egypt, choosing rather to suffer the affliction with the people of God (Heb. 11:25-26). He was seeing the invisible. We see the invisible through the preaching of the invisible. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). It took faith for Abraham to look for a city whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10).
The reason for preaching is to create awareness in the soul, making it see beyond the natural. As we hear, transactions take place in our hearts. When preaching is going on, one should be seeing visions, seeing the invisible; it is to persuade our hearts to make commitments to what it is seeing to embark on a journey to the invisible. So we should be encouraged not to get tired of being preached to.
The gospel is a gospel of image-making. That image is what qualifies one to sit on the throne. The image that came to us is a Lamb. Reverend Kayode said that the Lamb is the operating manual of the Son of God. To be conformed to the image of the Son is to be made a lamb. On that Lamb rested all the power of heaven and earth. He needed that lambish state to carry all that power. The image we are learning to become is a lamb; that is salvation. A lamb is he who is saved; it is such a one that can escape every wile of Satan. It takes becoming a lamb to overcome the dragon.
"And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." (Rev. 7:10). Our God is salvation. The Lamb is salvation. Therefore, our God is a Lamb. If Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person (Heb. 1:3), it means His Father is a Lamb also. God is looking for lambs. The Bible says Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), and also tells us that Jesus became a Lamb (John 1:36); this gives us an idea of who God looks like.
The gospel of the Kingdom is the gospel meant to convert us to become lambs. The preaching of Christ gives us a measure of meekness, so we can relate with higher meekness; because the Bible talks about all meekness (Titus 3:2). “The Lord showed me a level of meekness I have never seen and He said that was the key to coming up to a realm I was desiring of Him at that time, which He had revealed. The Lord was saying that it takes a little nature to cross to the zones of God.” Becoming little is becoming saved. The gospel of the glory of God is the gospel that converts us to be little (Matt. 18:3). Glory cannot rest except on a little man.
"And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3). Conversion involves hearing, seeing and understanding. After understanding, we then engage what has been understood and this is what brings conversion. However, without understanding there would be nothing to do.
"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." (Matt. 13:13). The preaching of the gospel is meant to bring to us the sight of Someone. True seeing is seeing the inward configuration of a Person. Yesterday, we saw the configuration of the Lamb and He came with much grace and empowerment to make covenant. They must bring testaments and laws that we should agree to. The preaching of the gospel causes us to see. Learning God is a heart-learning experience; the heart sees something that can be engaged.
"And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: [15] For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." (Matt. 13:14-15). As preaching is going on, the Spirit of God empowers us to see the laws and visions of the Person we are to become like. We begin to see demands and instructions to obey. We have not seen if we have not started seeing what to do. And we cannot walk except we see.
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; [10] That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;" (Col. 1:9-10). This prayer for the Colossians church was that they should see and understand. Understanding and knowledge are needed for one to be able to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. It is when one has borne fruit with the knowledge given that higher knowledge can be given.
"Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;" (Col. 1:11). As we increase in knowledge, we increase in patience and long-suffering. There is long-suffering in the knowledge of Christ. When knowledge increases, long-suffering also increases. If we are not becoming little, we would become easily irritated. God wants to put weight in us. The Lamb has all capacities and powers.
"Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." (Rev. 5:12). To be slain would sometimes mean letting go of our rights. We must always bear in mind that there are things at stake: power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing. They are incomparable to whatever it is we are to let go of – our rights, ego, or privileges. There are times Satan will try to show us our advantages and edges to cause us to take thoughts with the intent of robbing us and stopping us from being little. Satan does not love us. He knows that those who will qualify for entrance must be able to endure to the end.
Understanding brings the demand of the Spirit to us (Prov. 4:7). We must have the understanding of the laws and demands God brings to us. These are meant to make us little. Any revelation and understanding we receive are geared towards littleness because they are meant for salvation. A saved man is a little man. Satan taught us to be big.
When everlasting righteousness is being taught, the iniquity They want to remove from us is our “bigness” – an image formed in us by Satan. Satan has done works of haughtiness of spirit, pride and high-mindedness in us. These are the things Satan became when he twisted and corrupted himself. Satan used to be very meek and humble, being a cherubim, as no one can be around God without being little.
Many of us do not have faith in Jesus to address issues; we want to address them in real time. It might take years for God to address an issue in a person and this is to enlarge our capacity to suffer long. The reason we are quick to point out wrong things in others is because we lack the capacity to endure. God wants to change us first before changing our brethren. God works on us little by little, using our brethren to perfect us. That is why we need the Church; it is filled with imperfect people. The Lord is not tired of people and He wants to raise us to be like Him. Everyone that would sit on the throne must be a shepherd because it is a shepherd that is sitting on the throne.
Our Lord Jesus was raised a great Shepherd of the sheep. It is only a Lamb that can be a great Shepherd of the sheep. The sheep are even bigger than Him but He is the one that can save them to the uttermost. The Lamb is salvation; everything that constitutes salvation was used to raise Him. May we cooperate with God to be more little. Being little is doing the will of God; it is conforming to the image of God. The Son is a Lamb. When He appears to us, He appears with laws and grace to give us. Last night, He brought grace and strength.
A person who is high-minded would not be content. It takes a person who is content to be faithful. It takes becoming little to accept that godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6). One who is not little would always be seeking ways to gain an edge over others. The reason for competition and rivalry is a lack of littleness. When we are little, we would have nothing to prove to anyone. A good mindset to have is that everyone is better than one. It takes being little to be able to esteem others better than oneself (Phil. 2:3).
The reason for the preaching of the gospel is to save us and to make us little. There is something about flying below the radar of Satan. Satan is the god of the big (high minded) people; he desires bigness so much that he wants to be bigger than God. So he pumps us to make us exalted so he can trap us. We will escape his wiles if we remain little. It is safe to be little. What the devil brings for destruction are things of the height that would disqualify one from God’s presence.
God is little; He cannot abide with men who are high. This is why He takes His time before He opens His secrets to anyone. Those who love Him are those who have obeyed His commandments to the point of becoming meek. It is the meek He beautifies with salvation (Ps. 149:4). Salvation is beautification because it is a change of nature – one’s ugliness is swapped for beauty (which are the holy things of God). Being little is being beautiful. Beautification with salvation is beautification with things of littleness.
This is the take-home point for us: the intention of God is to make us little. That is salvation. That is what will qualify us to sit on the throne. God will enable us to yield to His laws of littleness so that we can become little. It is a proud person that gets offended when insulted. Our brethren are assets to us, as they are instrumental in the hands of the Lord to save us. We should endure and suffer long with them.
Our predestination is to become lambs (Rom. 8:29). On the Lamb rests all the powers in heaven and on earth. God will make us peaceful; saved men are peaceful men (Rom. 12:18). We should do everything within us to be at peace, even if it means being denied our rights. Our capacity to suffer long and endure must therefore increase; it is a demonstration that salvation is going on.
Closing Charge by Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
People would go to any length to attain earthly promises. We should be able to endure any insults for the promise of Eternal Life. Our target should be to get to a place where we would never get angry. Satan knows people and he knows how to incite us to lose our hold on the promise. Everything is at stake for this promise.
“Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. [165] Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” (Ps. 119:164-165). This is the peace of everlasting life. Nothing can offend a man who has arrived at this point.
Link to Audio Here: The Lamb; The Nature of Salvation
Blessings!