Programme: Believers’ Convention Prayer Meeting 2021 (Week Six Day Three)
Date: 21st July, 2021
Powered by: Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Minister: Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
God wants the Church to attain the mark of His ark. The Church is a place of works; and there are certain places that are not Churches at all because they are not yet engaged in the works of God. Churches and pastors must fight not to look for filthy lucre or money. Peter warned elders of everlasting Churches against filthy lucre (1 Pet. 5:3).
We must train ourselves to always put money where it belongs -- under our feet. If a believer is not careful, he will give attention to money than on the words of Christ and God. Money can make a man its minister and take such a man away from Jesus; this is why there are ministers whose ministrations are all centred on money. We should not love money. It is not only the love of money that is evil; scriptures also described “money” itself as unrighteous (Luke 16:11). We should be careful because the things money can do can make us violate the laws of God. If God will not make certain things available to us at certain seasons, we should let it be. We must be completely healed from the love of money. We should see what God is seeing concerning some expectations and be satisfied until those things no longer pull us. There is nothing a man can have on earth as a privilege that is ordinary; things on earth have the power to separate a man from God if he is not careful.
“And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:” (Rev. 2:26). These works are works of everlasting life or the works of the Son of God. Just as God has aided us to do the works of Christ, He would help us to do these everlasting works. If there is an end of the commandment of Christ which is charity, then there is also an end of everlasting life. “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pet. 1:9). The “end of your faith” here is the salvation of your soul, not charity. Charity is attached to the salvation of the soul.
“What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” (Romans 6:21-22). A man cannot be free from sin when he has not obeyed the faith of Christ unto charity. Attaining charity is what qualifies a man to become a servant of God; it prepares the soul to serve God. Holiness in the scripture above speaks of charity. This is the beginning of another journey which is an end in itself. This “end” is everlasting life and it has its beginning and end. God has called us not just to obey righteousness unto holiness but to graduate into serving God. Service to God is the service of everlasting life.
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). This sin here speaks of hell and death whose wages is (second) death. Both sin and death are sins that make up a single entity called sin. Hell and death are also sins that make up a higher level of sin. Sin is a man! This means that rulers of the darkness of this world, principalities and powers are all sins that make up the full stature of a man called Sin. Principality and powers make up the body of that sin while rulers of darkness of this world make up the head. So what scriptures referred to as “old man” is a stature of sin; or the man that principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world will form. This man is what is referred to as the power of Satan (Acts 26:18). One must do sins to become that (old) man.
So, sin is beyond bad external conducts; sin is the age of the old man. This negative age must be reduced or converted by the power of God in the gospel of Christ (Acts 26:18). Receiving forgiveness of sins through the opening of eyes and turning from the power of Satan to that of God, does not refer to the receiving of pardon for obvious offences like fornication; rather, it's a reduction of the (negative) age of the old man in the soul. When a man is receiving this forgiveness of sins, he is being converted from a man to a child who is fit to enter the Kingdom (Matt. 18:3).
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19). Evil here speaks of something that men consistently do that is against the posture or standard of what God designed as life from the beginning. After God lost touch with humanity, Satan tried to buy men over and made us become evil doers. “Evil” here is a life that men are committed to doing. It will only take light to call it evil. Doing this evil is serving corruption; so men depreciate by the things they do. Evil has increased on earth overtime.
There is the stature of sin and another stature called iniquity. The first sin is the antiChrist. An antiChrist is a lover of the world; and it starts from unbelief and ends in love for the world. To love this world is to hate the Father. Loving the world touches or fights the fatherhood of God because the Father wants to receive charity sons. A kind of christ of this world is he who has the stature of this world; he is also called the old man (Eph. 4:22). There is another (higher) man who is the man of iniquity; he is also called the man of sin or the son of perdition (2 Thess. 2:3).
The gift of God called Eternal Life is not an instructional manual for service. Service of God ends in the service of everlasting life. Just as “second death” is a gift of Satan to a man of iniquity (Rev. 20:14), so is Eternal Life a wage or reward for a man who has fully inherited God’s everlasting life. The works of Eternal Life is everlasting life. The fruit that can last until Eternal Life comes is the fruit of everlasting life (John 4:36, Romans 6:22).
The first evil of Satan or the evil of this world makes you an old man. It deletes the childhood in your soul and gives you a wrong or false age in the spirit. A man who has a high age of darkness will not be able to allow God in his ways. It is good to know that traditional herbalists do not have age in the spirit; they only interact with demons. Pharaoh the king of Egypt had more age than his magicians. It was age that God was warring with when He was dealing with Pharaoh.
Having age in the spirit is might; it is strength and wisdom. It is age or wisdom of the Spirit that made Apostle Paul know that idols are nothing in this world; he was referring to dumb idols (1 Cor. 8:4/12:2). However, there are idols in this world that are products of (Satan’s) wisdom; and such idols have captivated many souls and nations. The equivalent of the leading of dumb idols when it comes to the things of God is the gifts of the Spirit.
God cannot pick a man from dumb idols and immediately begin to give him His wisdom. God has to first give such things (things like the gift of the word of knowledge, tongues, prophecy etc) that are equivalent to what he was previously engaged with. The New Birth and Holyghost baptism are tools for cleansing a man who has been baptised into dumb idols. Fallen angels have gifts too.
“And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (2 Tim. 4:18). This must be our prayer. This prayer of deliverance from every evil work is the last prayer before the reward (of Eternal Life), following the order of the Lord's prayer (Matt. 6:13). This is not the evil of the world that is against Christ but the evil as against God that is iniquity.
“And lead us not into temptation...” (Matt. 6:13). This does not mean that we won’t be tempted but it is Jesus’ way of saying that God should not bring a temptation higher than us or that we cannot bear. These words of our Lord Jesus would look to some as a statement of unbelief or words that are not faith filled. Jesus was talking here in the same way that David of the Old Testament would talk. Statements like these are biblical codes or spiritual phrases; they are like the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. We should have judgement to have regard for such words.
The Beatitudes are words that would move us higher than new creation realities, if we can find grace to rightly discern them. The milk of the word cannot rightly divide or explain the Beatitudes; they are sacrifices of priests. They are things of sonship or priestly demands. The Beatitudes are in a higher plane in the spirit than Jesus’ words in Mark 11:23. They speak of the heart of Jesus; they are secrets and mysteries of the kingdom. These things come by reason of many leadings of the Spirit. God would sovereignly lead us by His Spirit and not allow our hearts to take some things so that the heart would be prepared to receive these words in Matthew 5. Such preparations would help us not to fight the words of the Kingdom when God begins to bring them our way.
Hearts that are not oiled will fight the words of the kingdom; men with such hearts would think that they are words of unbelief. These are the words that separates God’s thoughts from ours. When God has not broken our will, we will cast aspersions on the Beatitudes and not embrace them. Strong teachers of faith will not allow the words of the kingdom; only weak men take those words. The daily success of some people cannot make them accept failure, even when it is God trying to break them.
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” (James 1:2-4). The perfect man here is a man who is ready for the gift of God (Eternal Life). Many people lack the wisdom to accept the gift of God (James 1:5). The wisdom here is an instruction within to discern the next allocation in God. When we are not accurately informed (by wisdom) that the trials we go through are geared towards the salvation of our souls, we would fight God instead of relinquishing our hold. When a believer is being tried and he is not wise in the spirit, he would think that something strange is happening to him; and so he would not be able to stay through the dealings of the Lord. Such a believer would miss the kingdom; he would never become entire, having no want.
Many believers cannot endure trials, they would just close in and tell God that it is enough. Some people would skilfully and gently leave the words of the kingdom; that is another wisdom as against the wisdom they lack. A believer who has become entire and who lacks nothing does not lack wisdom. So, Apostle James was not referring to the wisdom to do earthly things like building a school, setting up a business etc. He was referring to the wisdom to wait for the gift of God; it is the wisdom of instruction to receive the engrafted word – with meekness - which is able to save our souls (James 1:21).
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12). The word “temptation” here is different from “diverse temptations” in James 1:2. This is a temptation for the crown of life. When a man is being tempted, he is overcoming iniquity. It is in the time of temptation that God destroys the work of Satan (1 John 3:8). The opposite of temptation is to do the works of salvation.
However, God does not tempt any man with evil (James 1:13). The evil here is iniquity. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” (James 1:14). The insight here is that a man who has attained Christ still has lust. This does not mean that he has done evil. God will allow such a man to be tempted so that the lust in him can be pulled out and killed or destroyed. Lust is a work that has not been exposed or pulled. However, God’s eyes can see the lust in us and He wants to kill it.
Satan is a father of lies and this is why we need the gift of fatherhood from the Father to deal with him. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17). These are gifts that cannot be tempted.and they cannot tempt a man. Satan’s offer is such that tempts or pulls but the gifts of the Father do not tempt. They are gifts designed against things that tempt. These gifts are gifts of light: Urim and Thummim. These are the gifts that the Father gives to any man who comes to him. These are the things that make the Father a Being without shadow of turning nor variableness; and those are the things He wants us to also have.
God will expose us to temptation in order to kill lust; iniquity is the highest lust. Iniquity is a love (of wickedness). There is no man who will sit on the throne until God has proven that he hates iniquity (Heb. 1:9). The Beings around the throne, the elders and the beast have eyes; and they can see it when a man still has lust or love for iniquity.
The season when God is establishing His everlasting life and Eternal life is a season when we would also be resisting temptation. We must not joke with any temptation around us; we must endure it. Satan’s aim for tempting us is to cause us to pull out of the energy of consistent looking at the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). Satan wants us to disengage from beholding the mirror of the perfect law so that we would not be blessed indeed. Blessed is the man that endures temptation.