Most Holy Call to Pray (CTP, 21st April, 2021)
Topic: : Deliverance from the Covenant of Hell and Death
Minister: Rev. Kayode Oyegoke
“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” (Rev. 1:18). Our Lord Jesus has the solution or answer to hell and death. A very deep sinner is one who has made a covenant with death and an agreement with hell; such is referred to as the scornful (Isa. 28:14-15). The scornful man is not an ordinary man; he is a seated sinner (Psa. 1:1). He is a sinner who is at rest. This is why he thought he has made lies his refuge and hid under falsehood.
A lot of sinners on earth have not yet made a covenant with hell and death. However, hell and death is about to be unleashed upon the earth. Every man who comes into the earth is schooled to cut covenant with sin and death; and we must break this covenant (Romans 8:1-2). The agreement with sin and death is what is referred to as the life (or love) of this present world (2 Tim. 4:10). Therefore, men who are unable to break their covenants with sin and death will go further into making the higher covenant of hell and death.
The proof that a man has cut covenant is that he will have an inheritance. Just like in the natural where each party who is involved in an agreement would normally part with his or her own share of the covenant. There is always something to take (away) from an agreement. The dividend of an agreement or a covenant is the right of way to use the life that was provided in it. Thus, the aftermath of a covenant in the spirit is the presence of a life in the soul.
Covenants generate life that men live by. That a man has made a covenant with sin and death does not mean that his profiting with the world will depreciate. But rather, it speaks of a right of way to use the power of sin to live (Gen. 4:7). Sin and death are Satan’s offerings or gifts (of existence) to man. Making a covenant with sin and death is to have the right of way to use the power they afford.
To be holy before God is to have the ability to reject an offer (from Satan) that a natural man would not reject. So, holiness cannot be installed in a soul except the man has first broken covenants with sin and death. This is why God hid the keys (i.e., mysteries) to attaining the promises tied to His covenants. Satan finished the work of sin and death and hid it from plain sight -- in such a way that it cannot be discovered by human capability. There is no way a natural man can by himself unlock, uncover or demystify what Satan did in secret called sin and death.
All men (through the fall of Adam) naturally made an agreement with sin and death and its offering of life (Rom. 5:19). A litmus test to know that we have made an agreement with sin and death is how we become sad each time we are denied an offering of this world. Such denial hurts us because we have seen such offerings and expectations as our life and as a right to have.
Believers should be breaking covenants with sin and death as we journey towards God. A proof that we have been delivered from sin and death is that we no longer feel ill or envious about things that unbelievers have as life that we don’t have.
God delayed Abraham’s childbirth, yet men around him, including his servants and animals were giving birth. However, this was a training meant to cause him to break covenants with sin and death. The presence of this covenant in Abraham was evident by his response out of fear, even when God told him “I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1-3). God knows when the covenant of sin and death is still at work in a man. He understands our infirmities and cries, but He still wants us to grow up. When we see people who become weary of following God because of a denial of an offering of this world, it is because of fear. Satan instituted or crafted fear for our lives in order to cause our continuity in the covenant of sin and death.
The enactment of a covenant is an installation of a life. Every covenant has a gain attached to it. It can only take the covenant of life and peace to stop the continuity of the covenant of sin and death in men (Romans 8:2,6). Beyond giving things to God, God wants us to truly surrender our lives to Him. Anyone who is truly holy will not find it difficult to give up or let go of his natural possessions.
Presently, men have tied their love around this present world. But the world and its fashion will pass away and another offering from Satan will be revealed called hell and death (1 John 2:17). Hell and death is coming; it is not of this present arrangement but that which is to come. Hell and death is a coming evil world. “And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” (Rev. 17:11). The “eight” speaks of the manifestation of the beast as hell and death, which “is to come”. And this is what it means to go into perdition (Heb. 10:39). The beast is presently in the bottomless pit, learning hell and death and growing in it (Rev. 11:7-8). He will soon be revealed to finish the program of Satan called perdition (Rev. 13:1). Perdition is purely a program of destruction (John 10:10).
Just like a man does not need to physically go to heaven to be in heaven, so also a man does not need to physically go to hell to be in hell. Sin and death occupy a portion of the bottomless pit; but hell and death entail the entire pit. If it is possible for a man to ascend the hill of the Lord by obedience, then it means that it is also possible for a man to descend into hell by service to Satan (Psa. 24:3). Man descended gradually into death (John 8:23), and this is why Jesus also had to descend into hell to rescue him (Eph. 4:9-10).
The pharisees had more than a covenant of “sin and death” in them; they had hell in their souls, and that was why they could resist Jesus. They had journeyed far with the devil which was evident in how they twisted the holy scriptures. Satan trained them against the coming of Jesus. A man is descending when he is learning the program of death even while he is still here on earth. Some people on earth right now are in hell because they have used the life of the beneath.
Sin and death is the first death, while hell and death is the second (or greater) death (Rev. 20:14). Jesus went to the physical region of hell and rose up from the dead; He rose both from the death of sin and that of hell. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a resurrection at two levels. He first partook of the resurrection of the dead while He was on earth, died and then he was resurrected from the dead as a Son of God (Eph. 1:20). He went deep into hell so that he can get the keys (or the solution) to hell and death; and to prevent man from getting there.
Eternal life is the opposite of second death. Second death is a reward of hell and death just like Eternal life is a reward of everlasting life (Rev. 20:14, Isa. 62:11). The lake of fire is not everlasting in nature but eternal (Jude 1:7). Hell is an everlasting fire while death is an eternal fire. It is possible for a man to be partaking of the everlasting life of hell here on earth, i.e., using hell as life.
Fire means many things like pleasure or zeal. Fire destroys; but evil spirits can teach a man how to harness their fire and use it for living. It is fire that makes some men to be so zealous, so much that their passion cannot be broken. It is possible for a man to carry the fire of hell and build a kingdom or city with it. For example, the fire of hell in Cain was not ordinary. When God is trying to break the strength of a man, He is actually trying to deliver the man from a fire that he is keeping.
Some of the angels are fire angels; they burned for God (Ezek. 28:14). So, when some of them fell, they became negatively zealous. Fire is what men sometimes call drive or passion. At times, the passion that a man possesses can be a blessing; but we need to trust God to quench some unholy fires amidst the brethren. We should be able to differentiate fires. Some fires are strange while some makes for the fervency required to serve the Lord (Romans 12:11).
Saul of Tarsus who later became Paul had fire (zeal), but it was an unholy one (Acts 26:9-11). Satan put that fire in him by enlightening him wrongly with the Torah. It’s the same way that Satan put a wrong fire in Nimrod who built the tower of Babel which God scattered. But he went on to keep building because of the wrong fire that was in him (Gen. 10:8-10). Nimrod had the everlasting strength of Satan.
Presently, God is teaching us so that we can plug into our real life. The day your spiritual fire begins to dim, it means your life is going. In the Old Testament, it is the fire that illuminates the Holy Place; this fire is life and it must never go out. We should keep the life that we are trapping in our soul because in doing that, we will gain a higher life.
Chukwuka Edoziuno - 3 years ago