Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
www.egfm.org
Programme: Revelation Hour
Date: Saturday, 24th July 2021
Ministering: Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu
God's servant, Reverend Kayode Oyegoke, during his teaching yesterday defined sin as a lifestyle. Sin is a mystery and wants to remain a mystery to God's people. Sin is a major issue that has to be dealt with in man. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” (Ezek. 28:15). Sin has been before man; it is older than man.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. [7] And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” (Gen. 3:6-7). Sin entered into the domain of man in the book of Genesis, but the scriptures were written to guide man on how to deal with sin.
Whatever is not making us respond to God the way He wants is sin. Sin is very sneaky; it hides. Sin is mysterious, as such, it can only take another mystery (the mystery of God) to completely deal with it. Without the mystery of God being revealed to a man, sin will still remain in him. Sin has an everlasting representative which is why it has stayed for so long.
Sin is a life that a child of God can express without the knowledge that it is sin. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:4). There is service in the newness of life; and to serve in the newness of life is to live the new life.
"Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness"(Gal 3:6). At that level, he could still accomodate sin to a measure but when the Lord said that he should walk before Him, He was demanding perfection. Any part of our soul that darkness can still find expression in, is sin; that ignorance in our soul is the room of sin.
There is no sin that has been committed and will be committed that Jesus has not paid for. If Jesus has paid for it, He has forgiven it. However, sin still needs to be dealt with. Jesus did not just forgive sin, He purged sins (Heb. 1:3). To deal with sin is to purge it; it is to remove the root cause of that life. The fact that a sin has not been committed does not mean that there is no tendency to commit that sin. It is not good for one to leave the earth without sin being dealt with in the soul. The fact that someone passes on to heaven does not mean that sin in such a person has been dealt with, because sin itself is from heaven; as such, heaven is not an escape from sin. Sin has been forgiven but it still needs to be dealt with. This does not mean that people in heaven are sinning because there is no temptation there.
There is no tempter there (heaven) but there is here on earth. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. [15] Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (Jam. 1:15). The systems of this world are designed to make men sin. This world’s system was defined by sin. Sin is not from above (God) but from heaven. Sin is a life that is against God. All the arrangement of life here on earth, after the fall, is against God. We serve sin without knowing.
It will take power and the opening of eyes to stop serving sin. “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” (Acts 26:18). The power of Satan is a life. Life is power and it will take a higher power (Christ) to deliver you from the power of Satan. Christ is the first deliverance from sin. This is why the preaching of Christ delivers one from sin to a great measure, that is, there is deliverance from a kind of life (sin) to another kind of life (Christ) through the preaching of Christ. It is not the day we gave our lives to Christ that we are delivered from sin; our eyes have to be opened to another life because sin gave us eyes at the fall (Gen. 3:6-7). Satan preached to Eve telling her that the tree was good for food- the preaching opened her eyes to know the tree was good for food even without her eating of the fruit yet. Satan has been preaching since before he was cast down and he's a good preacher - the only person who has ability to preach higher than him is the one who is the Tree of Life.
Jesus did not preach Christ; He preached everlasting life which is why it is difficult for a natural man to understand what Jesus said. Jesus did not preach Christ but He obeyed the commandments of Christ; and by the time He came to ministry, He was already doing the commandments of everlasting life. When He said He was the Vine, the Vine was not Christ because He was talking about His relationship with the Father. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5). This why He raised Paul to teach Christ; for one cannot understand the gospel Jesus preached (of everlasting life) without understanding the gospel Paul preached (of Christ).
Satan was close to the Tree of life; he preached close to the Tree. Adam too must have heard some of the preaching of the Tree of Life and he had some meditations on it. So, Satan uses the medium of meditation too for you to think about your life. That meditation opens your eyes to see a life you were blind to. There are some words one may hear that can get one discouraged on the path of life, thereby weakening one to journey. When the serpent spoke to Eve, she saw; and if she saw, it means she first heard (Gen. 3:6). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life…” (1 John 1:1). Hearing, seeing, looking and handling are all levels of comprehension. After Eve saw, she considered. She received sight as a result of the preaching of the serpent which defined what was good for food. This is why Jesus had to preach that "man shall not live by bread alone" (Matt. 4:4).
Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes. It means that she had an insight of what the tree could do. The tree Eve saw promised a kind of sight and knowledge for good and evil. Eve saw, by preaching, three things in the tree: it was good for food, pleasant to the eyes and able to make one wise; so she took of the tree and ate. The definition of sin will not be fully unravelled without the understanding of everlasting things. The serpent did not tell them they would be driven out of Eden, or that sin would rule over them. They also did not see that Cain would rise and kill his brother, for all of these were hidden in the tree. These were the demands of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that it did not show Adam and Eve.
But the Tree of Life will show you its demands, which is that you have to lose your life. Jesus had no sin but He showed us a pattern of dying. Jesus didn't have self or sin to die to. Death was a requirement of the Tree of Life. If Adam had not disobeyed, he would still have had to go through that path of dying. The path to the Tree of Life is a path of surrendering. Without surrendering, you cannot want and partake of the Tree of Life. You need to lose your life to get it. If you keep your life, you will lose it (John 12:25). Jesus was showing His disciples how to lose their life in order to come to everlasting life. These were the things the Father showed Jesus; the Father showed Him how to come to Eternal Life. The problem of sin is that it teaches one to be like God without the help of God. This was what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil offered to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:5).
"We know the Son of God hath come and hath given us an understanding…" (1Jn 5:20). Without understanding, we can't know the true God because someone (the enemy) had defined what God is. Just like he told Eve, the devil comes with the thought - "Are they saying we should not aspire to be something here on earth?" (Matt 6:33). But what God said is, "Seek ye first…". So, the enemy gives wrong interpretations to what God says. And if we don't have understanding, we will believe him.
(Gen 3:1) Now the serpent was more subtil a than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? But God did not say they should not eat of every tree of the garden. He said they could eat of every tree but one. Eve did not have an accurate knowledge of the instruction God gave to Adam (Gen. 2:16-17); so, the serpent was able to twist the instruction, thereby making her miss it.
Sin had been before man came into existence; therefore, in order to deal with sin you need a power that is beyond the present, because sin has the key to the present. The enemy could not say anything against the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is not a flamboyant preacher. Its demands is life. Jesus showed us how to live; He was living a kind of life that sin could not define; it was a life of giving or dying. It is called “death” because of our fallen state but it was a life of the doing of the will.
When we do the will of God, we die so we can live. Work is not done when will is not known (John 4:34). How Jesus lived was by a life that could deal with sin. It was a life expression that was higher than sin. It can deal with sin. Sin keeps being unveiled at different levels but there was no color or definition that sin will bring that Jesus couldn't fathom and defeat. The life He lived was not one where He was struggling with sin, holding Himself so that He will not sin or putting His body under subjection. He was living a prescribed pattern of life that sin couldn’t comprehend. It is a life of the will and sin cannot understand every step taken. Sin has come to prescribe the life that should be lived in the flesh; and Jesus has come to show another life. The Lord lived by the will and when he did all the will (good, acceptable, and perfect will of God - Rom 12:2), it was recorded in His blood. He became the New Testament and sin cannot eat that life. The most difficult place to deal with sin is the soul, not the body. The program God wants to run here on earth is to make an end of sin.
Daniel 9:24
"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to annoint the most Holy." You cannot be part of the Holy City if transgression has not been finished in you (Dan. 9:24). Making an end to sins and finishing the transgression is not yet a reality in every saint. Transgressions, sins and iniquity must all be dealt with. These things are works that are wrought inside the soul and that is what sin damages.
In the spirit, many souls that are even present in the church are in a critically damaged state. Sadly, some believers even become more damaged when they attend certain church centres. There is a difference between being healed and being made whole (John 5:14). Wholeness is being restored back to one's original state. The difference is that healing puts an end to a disease but does not repair the damage that has been caused. The grateful leper, unlike the rest, was made whole and not only healed. God wants to make us whole.
God wants to bring in everlasting righteousness which is the bringing forth of the everlasting covenant (Dan. 9:24). This is a work that He wants to perform in the life of every child of God. What Jesus was doing as the will of God is a life (John 6:38). There is a will of ‘He that sent me’ (John 4:34). The One who sent Him gave Him a life that could withstand the temptation of sin. Sin wanted Jesus’ service just like sin had been receiving service from every man. Sin desired to receive Jesus’ service by painting another life to him - a wonderful life. How sin woos man is by painting a kind of life to him. Sin offered an easier alternative for Jesus just like it did to the woman in the garden (Gen. 3:1). Sin convinces man to believe that God is restricting him (Gen 3:1). Sin likes us to think ‘outside the box’, thereby leading us into his own captivity.
There is a life that God has prescribed that should be lived here on earth. This life is a life of His will, which is a life of upward journey towards His life. Satan argues with us that only Jesus could live this life because He is the Son of God. Fortunately, Jesus said that ‘because I live, ye also shall live’ (John 14:19).
Sin needs to be taken away. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:3-6). In the Old Testament, sin could not be taken away and God was continually reminded of sin and the damage that it was doing to His creation. Sin has to be taken away and this removal has to be done in heaven. Anywhere the will of God is being done, sin is being taken away. This is possible because sin is also a will. As we obey sin, our will cooperates with the will of sin.
The reason why God made the body is to do will. We are to embody a prescribed kind of life in the days of our flesh; and as we do so, sin will be taken away. Every soul has its heaven and earth and in both places, the will has to be done. The heaven and earth of the soul are the heart and mind respectively, and God desires to put his laws in both places. Our prayer must be that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10). Our heavens, which are our hearts, must do the will of God. Similarly, our earth, which is our minds, must also have the will so that our bodies will follow suit.
The will that God desires that we should do is what takes away sin (Heb 10:3). God took away the first covenant that He may bring forth the second. The provision of the first covenant, which is the will within that covenant, could not take away sin. It is by the will of the second covenant that we are going to be made separate from sin (Heb 10:10). Thus, it is imperative that the will must be revealed.
After the will sanctifies us, it also perfects us. The unveiling of the perfect will, which is in the perfect law of liberty, is what will bring about our perfection. We cannot be admitted into the company of those who will be perfected if we have not first been sanctified. It is the revelation of wills that will both sanctify and perfect us.
There is a state wherein sins and iniquities will be remembered no more. Even though God has forgiven us, He is still reminded of our sins and iniquities because the state of our souls stand as a record before Him. Therefore, we have to be raised up to a state where He declares that we are whole. We need to get to that place where there will be no more remembrance of sin. At this point there will also be no more offering for sin. We will get there by doing the good, acceptable and perfect wills of God. Jesus progressed in doing the various levels of the will of God. Every level of the will takes care of a particular chunk of sin.
The will is involved in giving birth (John 1:12). Each time we do the will of God, we are being born; something dies and we come into newness of life. Sin also has an everlasting nature. God used David for us as an example of a man who will do all His will (John 1:12). All of the will of God has been trapped in the blood of Jesus; He embodied it. Doing the will of God is much easier when we can see someone who has embodied it. Revelation is powerful, life is more powerful while revelation with life is most powerful. Jesus not only preached this life, He also embodied it. Gratefully, we are also seeing this life being embodied in those whom God has placed ahead of us.