Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2024 (Day 1 - Evening Session)
Date: Sunday, 18th August, 2024
Minister: Pastor Tope Falaye
Transcript Excerpt
“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20). When the Spirit of God stirs His servant and broods over scriptures that are ripe in their seasons, the Spirit of God at such times begins to shed light that hitherto may not have been obvious even if one spends 24 hours on such scriptures. This particular scripture above began to make a new sense in the last couple of weeks. John said, “And we know that the Son of God is come”, not “has come”. Some other translations might try to put the right grammar around it but John was not trying to speak the right grammar; he was saying something that only the strength of everlasting life can express in words because words fail when it comes to communicating certain thoughts of God.
One question that can erupt from this scripture is this: ‘Is it that John didn't know that the Son of God came?’ John was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus. The book of Acts is a narrative of different ministers (apostles) talking about the Man who came. The Man Jesus was given birth to by the virgin Mary, grew to become a man in His spirit and soul and learnt all the things of God. Jesus learnt Christ, everlasting life, and knew Eternal Life. The Spirit of God dealt with Him; He went to the cross, died, was buried, and rose up on the third day. We see from Acts 2 that the apostles taught about these phases of Jesus’ coming, but the question would be, “What is John saying that is different from what the other ministers are saying?!”
The New Testament is full of teachings of comings of the Lord; this talks about precepts, doctrines, thoughts of comings of our Lord Jesus. John the beloved, in his gospel, talked about how the Word came or was made flesh (John 1:14). Mary conceived the Word that was born like every other child, and the child grew. In theological sense, they call that a first coming. This means that when Jesus came, everyone around Him saw Him, felt Him, held Him, knew Him; He ate with people, went in and out with people and did every other thing man would do, but He was sinless. That is one major coming that every person can easily identify with. However, in the days of His flesh, He began talking of His coming (John 14:21, 23).
A people, church, community, or believers whose souls are babies or children in the things of God cannot have an accurate definition of the Bible. Just as it is in the natural, a child or baby cannot have accurate definitions or judgment of life; likewise, anyone who is a baby in the things of God cannot have accurate definitions of scriptures. Those who wrote scripture are men of age; they were saved. Their thoughts are saved and incorruptible thoughts. A babe in Christ will wrongly interpret their thoughts. So it is with almost all major subjects of the Bible, including the coming of the Lord.
There is physical rapture (1 Thess. 4:13; 1 Cor. 15:20-29). Physical rapture has to do with the Lord coming to take our bodies as a result of something that occurred/happened to our souls. Even physical rapture cannot occur all of a sudden because the clock for that physical rapture event is the souls of men—how much of salvation is occurring in the souls of men. That is to say, as the Church, we are the clock of Jesus, depending on how much we are yielding and cooperating with the salvation programme.
The Lord had promised to come to the Church to execute an agenda (of salvation) in the calendar of God, but He had to come through someone. He tried this with Peter but did not work. Then He went to Saul of Tarsus whom God separated from his mother’s womb because of the importance of what God wanted to do in him and through him. Saul saw Jesus in a vision, but his eyes (of understanding) also later opened. “But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee…” (Acts 26:16). The word ‘appear’ occurred twice in this verse. The vision Saul was seeing is not primarily the appearance the Lord was speaking about, but the vision was also a kind of appearance that triggered something in the spirit that began that day. The Lord began the programme of appearing in Saul; Christ came to him and he became born again in his spirit.
Jesus is many things in one. No person can take all the things (measures and strength) in the resurrected Lord at once; we can only take them gradually. There are baby things, childish things, and things of a man in Him.
The Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples after He rose from the dead (Acts 1:3-4). He was appearing physically to them because they could not take the kind of appearance that Saul of Tarsus took. His appearance to them was supernaturally and divinely physical. This kind of coming is meant to both give apostleship to the Church to raise babies for Jesus until they became children. Also, the Lord gave them commandments, in relation to the milk of the word.
Milk is food for babies. When a person gets born again, the spirit is a new man, but the soul is a baby in the house of God. Hence, the need for milk. Jesus had taught the apostles for three-and-a-half years and they knew things more than milk. They could have taught things that they heard Jesus say but Jesus was systematically appearing. He needed to build His Church from babyhood to childhood to manhood and to fatherhood.
The milk provisions were contained in Jesus’ appearance to the twelve apostles in Acts 1, including things like staying in Jerusalem and waiting for the Holy Ghost, and what was later referred to as the “Apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 1:8; 2:42). The apostles were praying in the book of Acts in the name of “thy holy Child” because that is the revelation of Jesus they had (Acts 4:27, 30). So they raised healthy children. The milk is meant to grow a soul from being a baby to being a healthy child.
In the early Church, the milk, meat, and strong meat allocations of the word were all given to the Church; however during the dark ages, Satan wiped them away. Therefore, through Church history, Jesus also appeared to certain ministers, almost in similar manners like He did to the apostles, to give them commandments of the milk that had been lost.
One of such people God dealt with was Reverend Kenneth E. Hagin. Although he did not refer to himself as an apostle, as the Lord told him that he was a prophet and teacher, we can see the signs of apostleship around him. As at 1962, Jesus had appeared to him eight times and all Jesus kept doing was showing him the milk of the word because it had been lost. The milk is in the Bible but eyes to see it had been eaten by the dragon and demons. In addition to restoring the milk allocation of the word wholesomely to Reverend Kenneth E Hagin, the Lord also taught him the true order of the definition of apostolic ministry, because that needed to be understood for the next advent.
The things the Lord gave to the apostles, which He showed Reverend Hagin, raised healthy children out of babies. It is the soul that is being raised. The appearance of the Lord is not just in the vision; the appearance produces an understanding that a soul eats and a soul should feed on to be made a child of God. We are all equal in our spirits, in terms of quantity and quality, but we are not all equal in our souls. Some are babies, children, men, or fathers due to appearance.
In Acts 2, the Lord was raising children and He needed to raise sons. He came to Peter but did not get through, so He went to Saul of Tarsus and He appeared to him. The appearance of Jesus to Paul brought forth the doctrine or the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ is the teaching of the new man that Christ is. There is a baby, child and man in Christ. The twelve apostles were not the ones Jesus appeared to directly to reach them the gospel of Christ.
The Lord appeared to Paul in a vision on his way to Damascus, but much more than the vision, the eyes of Paul began to open (Acts 26:16). Paul saw Jesus in the vision, however, he saw two things in that appearance— life and peace. You cannot explain those two things except God shows you the kind of mercy He showed Paul and that generation. This appearance is Jesus making Himself known from scriptures for the purpose of saving the soul. He begins to save the soul when He begins to reveal the new man. In that appearance, Jesus raised apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers whom the Holy Ghost anoints.
The Holy Ghost raises the five-fold and puts the anointing of Christ on them to preach Christ (Acts 20:28). The Holy Ghost raised people who taught milk but the primary purpose for the five-fold is to reveal Christ. Jesus appeared to Paul and made an apostle, a prophet and a teacher out of him, and everyone who listened to Paul had things of Christ triggered in them; just like the apostles in the book of Acts got something triggered in them because they were with Jesus. Paul preached Christ and the fivefold were raised to teach Christ.
The five-fold is meant to teach Christ to those in the camp and bring them to the Outer Court and further bring them to the Holy Place. Reverend Kayode Oyegoke taught that between the Outer Court and the Holy Place are five pillars. They represent the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The five pillars can face the courts and bring people from the outer camp to the Outer Court; they can also push people to the Holy Place. A well furnished five-fold ministry will enter the Holy Place in a good measure preaching Christ.
That season came over the Church in Acts 12, 13 when the prophets and teachers began to teach Christ. They were opening the eyes of the saints and showing the new man. Jesus was appearing to them as Christ, but there is more to Jesus. Our parents and pastors in the Lord, laboring together with the Holy Ghost, have been preaching Christ for decades. In the last six to seven years, the Lord has been showing mercy to see that after preaching Christ which represents the Outer Court (life) and the Holy Place (peace), there is more. The Lord came to Paul and encountered him for everlasting life or things of the Most Holy, but John the beloved is saying something in 1 John 5.
“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20). A person needs to have used the milk and meat of the word for this scripture to resonate. The Son of God is come is not talking about a visitation. The Lord can come to a meeting and bless the people; however, that does not mean that experience, as granted by the Lord, is the Son of God having come.
When John made this statement – 1 John 5:20, this must have been a major breakthrough for the churches because they must have been expecting it. The apostles must have laboured and taught for some time, but some of the saints then might have been wondering if the Son of God will ever come and what He is coming to do. John, who had a call of God upon him, wrote epistles and brought them to a place where he said, “And we know that the Son of God is come”.
In the seasons when Christ is being preached, the Holy Ghost raises ministers in the Outer Court, and the Holy Place. The doer of the work is the Holy Ghost and the ministers. Whereas, in the seasons when the Son of God comes in a generation, the ministry of the Son of God (which is what Satan dreads) enters the earth and comes to the Church.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, [2] Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds…” (Hebrews 1:1-2). This ‘Son’ is the one John was referring to that has come (1 John 5:20). The book of Hebrews is the book of celebrating the coming of the Lord. The Church cannot understand this book, for what it is, until He comes. The promised land, the ministry of the Lord as the High Priest is, what eternal salvation means, the meaning of so-great-salvation, the meaning of the Lord as a priest after the order of Melchisedek— all these things are locked up in His coming. This ministry of the Lord has been imminent, it has been coming from afar because Christ was being raised in us. The book of Hebrews compared Jesus to angels and Moses. It describes His ministry with the ministry of Melchizedek and also about His ability to save a soul to the uttermost, destroy death and deliver those that have the fear of death.
“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; [2] A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man... [6] But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” (Heb. 8:1-6). The ministry of Jesus, the High Priest, is come. Part of what the Lord wants to do in this year's convention is to open our eyes as members of the body of Christ to see the Son of God. Jesus is also a minister; He has a ministry to the Church but Satan has shut Jesus out of the ministry (in men’s hearts). Jesus is not weak in Himself, He only ministers to them who have grown to Zion. Until He sees that kind of company, His ministry would not be activated. He wants to minster again in the Holy Place and Most Holy.
The Lord looked on a generation, and raised His servant, Reverend Kayode Oyegoke. The Lord had to arrest His servant and handmaiden for this cause. The Son of God is come! Satan has bullied the Church and deceived the world. However, the Lord has succeeded through our parents and pastors, and raised a company. Some people, through their response, have called forth the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
Blessings!
Femi Olayemi - 1 month ago