Most Holy Call to Pray (CTP, 26th April, 2021)
Topic: Coming into Rest by the Obedience of Everlasting Life
Minister: Rev. Kayode Oyegoke
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;” (Heb. 5:8-9). Jesus learnt how to obey eternal salvation and became perfect afterwards. This means that we can also learn eternal salvation by obedience to Him who first obeyed God (i.e., our Lord Jesus Christ). To obey is to keep the instructions surrounding the demands of eternal salvation.
God is the originator of eternal salvation. God wrote the program of salvation, and Jesus carried it out as a man. This was how our Lord Jesus became the Author of eternal salvation. The program of eternal salvation ends in perfection. Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ possesses the capacity to save a soul to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25). He carries out this program of salvation in a soul through His words. Salvation comes by the spoken words of the High Priest (Heb. 2:3).
“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…” (Heb. 1:2). The ability of God to speak through the Son is not a thing of the past because Jesus is still speaking, even in our days. God wrought a work in the Son (i.e., our Lord Jesus) until He became the spoken word of God. Our Lord Jesus is the work of God. The Word was made flesh when Jesus was born into the earth; but God raised Him back to that high status where He came from (John 1:14, Philip. 2:9). The things Jesus spoke were the things He first began to do (Acts 1:1). Jesus obeyed the laws of the Kingdom of God while He was on earth until He got to the throne of God.
“He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” (Matt. 13:11). The Kingdom of God is shrouded in mysteries and these mysteries are constituted in three beings: Christ, the Father and God (Col. 2:2). Jesus journeyed into the stature of Christ and continued until He ended up in God. Jesus trapped God’s kind of dominion i.e., how God rules and reigns.
The Father wants everyone who has obeyed Christ to partake of the inheritance that is with Christ, as the Son of God. God’s desire is that we all find our place or take our share of the inheritance. However, this will only happen if we obey the commandments of the Son of God.
What hinders us from being seated on the throne are our sins and this is why Jesus had to purge them before He sat on the throne (Heb. 1:3). These sins were registered on the right-hand side of the Majesty on high; and those are the things that made man unworthy of sitting with God. However, Jesus purged them and sat for us, waiting until all His enemies are made His footstool (Heb. 1:13). Jesus expressed His ministry as a “mediator” when He represented us on the throne of God. He went into the heavens for us and sat where we are expected to also come to sit (Rev. 3:21).
The tree of life is constituted of both Eternal Life and everlasting life. The leaves of the tree speaks of everlasting life and it is for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2) On the other hand, the fruit of the tree is Eternal Life. You cannot eat the fruit without first eating the leaves because the leaves come before the fruit. Just eating the leaves is not enough to say that you have partaken of the tree because the fruit must be eaten as well.
These words of everlasting life are for the healing of the nations. This is why the gospel must be preached to all nations of the earth for the purpose of healing men. Obedience to the preaching (or gospel) of Christ is the beginning of our healing but the obedience to the everlasting gospel is for us to be completely healed from corruption (Romans 1:16, Rev. 14:6). One who has partaken of this everlasting healing will never go back to corruption. A man must have been healed by the everlasting gospel before he can partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life.
"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases…" (Ps. 103:3). The gospel of Christ deals with iniquity while the everlasting gospel deals with diseases in the soul. It is because of diseases that we are unresting in our souls; and we need to be healed of them all. Obedience to the spoken word is a necessary action that we must carry out in order to be healed.
The sin which Jesus purged before He sat was the last disease – death (1 Cor. 15:26). Satan’s major problem is unrest, and this is what all nations must be healed from. This is why Jesus is calling all nations to come to rest (Matt. 11:28). The nations of the Gentiles seek vain things because of the unrest in their souls (Matt. 6:32). Satan has programmed men to spend their days on earth chasing vanity.
"For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak." (Heb. 2:5). Jesus is speaking the world to come to us; He has been raised to a position where He can speak to the powers of all realms and we need to obey Him. It is the voice of our Lord Jesus as the Son of God that will shake the heavens (of sin) in us and also remove them (Heb. 12:26). These heavens need to be removed because the problems of men are embedded in it. The purging of sins has to do with the removal of the wrong natures of man, which are the heavens of that man.
God has called us to learn the program of rest and to gradually learn how to sit on His throne. The world to come will not be committed to a soul who is not resting. One thing that characterizes a soul that is in the state of unrest is the lack of trust in God; and this is iniquity. However, it is possible for the soul to journey into the rest of God; and this begins with the gospel of Christ.
The obedience to the demands of everlasting life teaches us how to rest in God. It was the communication of this rest that gave Jesus the capacity to trust God with His body while He was dying on the cross. If Jesus had not learnt rest, He would not have trusted God to that extent. God pushed Jesus to this extreme lesson of rest because of the world to come. The world to come is terribly swifter than this present world, and must be given the more earnest heed because it can slip at any time (Heb. 2:1). For a man to hold the world to come, he must hold it tighter than he does this present world. And this cannot happen if the man has not been specially built through the learning of everlasting life.
A soul that has not found rest in God will not be permitted in God’s presence because such a soul cannot yet respond highly to God. The calling of the priest is a high calling because the demands of the Most High would be placed on him (Philip. 3:14). The inability to stay at rest is the inability to respond to the Father; and He is very sensitive to pick rest or unrest in men.
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12). The tool of the High Priest is His word, which is the two-edged sword. It is this sword that will take out things created by Satan that are in men. Sins that cause unrest in men can only be discerned by the two-edged sword because all things are naked and open before the eyes of the High Priest, whom we have been called to obey (Heb. 4:13).
“And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” (Heb. 12:27). It will take the word of God to make a soul rest. This word will take away the things that can be shaken. The things that will be shaken are not in the external; they are things or works that Satan has crafted in us.
To shake the heavens is to shake heavenly materials. There are sins that are heavenly, which are in Lucifer after he fell and he has put them in men. This is why we need something higher than him to shake these sins away. This shaking comes by preaching or teaching of the word of God. We need the voice of the Son of God to create a resonance that will shake these sins. The intention of God is for the things that cannot be shaken (i.e., the things of everlasting life) to remain and for things that can be shaken to be removed from inside us. The things that can be shaken are things of Satan and other fallen heavens (angels).
All the works of Satan are heavenly but of a perverted heaven. This is why his works are everlasting according to the order of this present creation. It can only take the everlasting word of God to shake the works that Satan has erected in men. For a man to possess the Kingdom which cannot be moved is for him to come into a state where he becomes immovable (Heb. 12:28). However, this is only possible as the man gives himself to the continuous speaking of the everlasting word of God. When we become immovable, God can then trust us with the eternal reward called Eternal Life (Isa. 62:11).