Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2024 (Day 4 - Morning Session)
Date: Wednesday, 21st August, 2024
Minister: Pastor Thompson Ehima
Transcript Excerpt
One thing that has been evident since the beginning of this camp meeting is that a Being has been appraising the thoughts, intents and motives of our hearts. This year’s theme is not ordinary, but a witness that the Son of God is come. Apostle Paul said we should not judge a thing until the Lord comes, and that when He comes, He will bring hidden things to light (1 Cor. 4:5). Some hidden things would require the coming of the Lord so He can bring them to light.
The Lord is raising the army of the dawn, as Rick Joyner called it; those who would carry the morning light. The essence of training is to make us a people that cannot pass away. We have been called as soldiers, therefore, we cannot be flippant in our walk with the Lord. God is always ready to give mercy but there is a disposition of the heart that can receive mercy. The labour of the doctrine of Christ is to position a heart that can receive mercy. It is a training that the Lord must do to bring the heart into this estate.
This convention is about what the Lord wants to do to people. The issue of ‘the Son of God is come’ is not merely a theme, it is an announcement and declaration of the build up of what the Lord has been doing in the secret. There is a time for that which is done in the secret to be announced on the rooftops (Matt. 10:27). In the past five years, there have been different declarations of the Lord. Those seasons were transition seasons and this year’s convention will have no other one like it again.
‘The Son of God is come’ was a declaration that John made to the Church of his day. There were believers that heard it just as we are hearing it. The books of Revelation, epistle of John and the gospel of John were written in a space of 5 years, within the years 65-110AD. This shows that after Jesus Christ had departed the earth, the Church had been raised for a minimum of 65 years with some kind of writing before John came to say, “The Son of God is come”. Therefore, this statement was not one made with haste or uncertainty, it was definite.
“He came unto his own, and his own received him not. [12] But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: [13] Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” There were people in the Church in the day of John who were born of God. There were also those He called “His own”, whom He had been labouring over; they were His own but not every one of them could receive Him. Those who received Him were given the power to become and by this, they were born of God (John 1:11-13). This birth was as a result of their receiving His coming to them. In the epistles of John, the words ‘born’ and ‘begotten’ were often used because it was an economy that opened up to His brethren—His own.
In the gospels, we read about the coming (parousia) of the Lord. Jesus spoke about His coming again. Studying the gospel of John, we see that he was trying to bring an awareness to the believers of his day because there was a contention and some questions about the promise of the Lord’s coming. For instance, some people asked, “...Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Pet. 3:4); while in 2 Thessalonians some people said He had come already (2 Thess. 2:1-3). As a result, the hope of the people was shipwrecked. Those epistles and gospels were written to shift the perception of the saints from how they were expecting Him to come. The Lord helped the apostles to be able to balance both the gradual comings of the Lord in different seasons and His final coming.
Furthermore, in order to bring forth a clear-cut establishment, Jesus began to say to His disciples in the book of John, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. [16] A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” (John 16:7, 16). And also, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; [17] Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14:16-17). The Lord was saying to them that He would not be with them in a little while, but that He would send the Comforter who will be with them and who will remind them of the things He had said, because those things were prerequisite to His coming again. Hence, they had to listen to and obey the Holy Ghost so that a temple of the Lord could be built in them.
In addition to the individual building, there must be a people on earth that would constitute a sanctuary – a holy temple in the Lord – that can receive His coming. The Holy Ghost can come into a believer that is carnal; however, for the Lord Jesus, having suffered and entered into His glory, one who will receive Him must not be flawed; he must be a building – a holy temple in the Lord. The building of that temple is in the hand of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, who will take things of the Lord and show them to each one of us to obey and do, for the holy temple to be built within us. Then all of these individual temple buildings will together constitute a temple that the Lord, the Son of God, can come into.
There was no confusion among the early believers because they were well taught to know that what John was declaring was the beginning of the fulfilling of the promise and prophecy of Jesus when He said, “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” (John 16:16). However, by the time they would be seeing Him, they would have been living by then. This is because the condition for seeing Him is that one’s soul must be living.
To live is to obey the provisions made available by the Spirit of truth to prepare a people that live in their souls. If there is any reason we are struggling to see the coming of the Son of God, it is because we are not yet living. To live, we need to live peaceably (Rom. 12:18), not only with all men, but also in His sight (Hos. 6:2). What the Spirit of truth, through the commandments of righteousness, fetch from the doctrine is to raise those who are living. To live is to please the Lord. Apostle Paul laboured greatly in the Church to bring souls to where they can live in His sight, because the glorified Lord does not come to a soul that is not yet living. However, there is a training given to souls that can see the Son of God.
In Hebrews 10, Paul was discussing the provisions the first coming of Jesus made available for us which the Spirit of truth will open up and teach us. Jesus was telling His disciples, as seen in John 16, that staying in the flesh was not profitable to them, that it was expedient for Him to go because He needed to accomplish some things for them; else they would still be having remembrance and conscience of sin. The things that the Spirit of truth will take from Jesus are His sufferings and passions that He must accomplish. They are the answers to issues of our conscience, our heart. Else, there is no other way the holy temple for the Lord can be raised.
“And having an high priest over the house of God;” (Heb. 10:21). This scripture is not referring to what Jesus did but the present ongoing ministry of Jesus. It addressed issues of the body, but much more, the presence of sin in the soul. Paul encouraged the saints. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, [20] By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh…” (Heb. 10:19-20). Paul was talking to those who had been sanctified and that the work that has taken place in their souls is a holy work, wrought by the Spirit of truth.
“For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. [38] Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. [39] But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” (Heb. 10:37-39). The Hebrew church was drawing back, they had become weary. The key to He that will come is that the just must live by faith. One thing that is going to be a snare is unbelief. When it is declared that the Son of God is come, someone might think it is made up. We must live because it is necessary that we appear in His sight.
Jesus is glorified, as such, not every soul can appear in His presence. The world cannot see Him because the world is not living (John 14:19). The key that we need to pay heed to is that we should live well. Charity makes us really live. We are supposed to live so that the Son of the living God can do further work upon us so that we can become lively, which is the work of the Messenger of the covenant— to purify us and prepare us to become newborn-babe little children. Just as God's servant was explaining about the two levels of little children; the first level is likened to when silver is purified and the dross is taken out of it, and reduces in size to become little. Those who can become little are those who are living.
Paul announced the coming of the Lord to the Hebrew church; John announced it in Asia minor. So the Church was not oblivious about the Lord’s coming. Yet He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. His own constitute the company of those that were sanctified (Heb. 2:11, 14). So how do we receive Him? We receive Him in His commandments (1 John 5:3). Jesus will appear a second time to those who look for Him (Heb. 9:28). We look for Him by keeping His commandments (John 14:19-21).
The second appearance of the Lord is for salvation. And it is in the day of salvation that God makes covenant with us. Furthermore, that season of covenant is characterized by something crucial which Hebrews 8:11 captures, “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”. Knowing the Lord at this pedigree is not as in revelation, but the Lord making Himself manifest to one; it is knowing and engaging His Person, not just knowing Him by precepts. We cannot know Him in this manner until we have moved from precepts to acquire lines, which are commandments. Those lines are spirits; there has to be summation of spirits— spirit of grace and the spirit of truth.
When Eve was brought to Adam in the beginning, the statement Adam made on their first meeting would make one think Adam had known all about her but there is still another level of knowing he had not come into (Gen. 2:22-23). Adam came to the conclusion that Eve was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh by the reason of life/breath within him. However, after a process of time, he arrived at another level of knowing described in Genesis 4:1, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” This knowing is more intimate and occurred because of the former knowing. Keeping the commandments of the Lord at different times commends us to know Him at this level.
The Son of God will not need to come if all He wants to give are precepts. He comes so that we can know Him that is true and there is an understanding He needs to grant unto us (1 John 5:20). This has to do with knowing Persons; but we cannot know His Person without commandments. Commandments are spirits; they quicken us and frame our souls to know the Lord.
We keep commandments to live and for Him to come and make Himself manifest to us. When He manifests Himself, He will also leave behind commandments for us to know Him deeper and higher. It is time for us to begin to engage their Person. This is our promise. This must happen to us before rapture occurs. There will not be rapture until a people know Him. The Son of God wants to assemble Himself in us through commandments. As we eat His flesh via commandments, we partake of His Person and cells are being formed in us, just like an embryo is formed in the womb.
The burden of the Lord is how this congregation can move from revelation to a season, which is now, when materials that come through commandments, can form the Son of God in us— so that the Son of God can raise His body in us. So that like Jesus said, “...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…” (John 14:9), we would look at one another and see the Son.
Sin has used our hearts and minds such that we like revelation but it is hard for us to believe these things. However, this is possible to them that believe to the saving of the soul (Heb. 10:39). We would believe that His commandments have the capacity to form and raise the person of the Son of God in us, line upon line and precept upon precept (Isa. 28:10).
Blessings!