Most Holy Call to Pray (CTP, 28th April, 2021)
Topic: Deliverance from Unrest by the Everlasting Life
Minister: Rev. Kayode Oyegoke
“Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” (Heb. 4:11). This unbelief speaks of a man’s inability to believe the possibility of coming into God’s rest. However, we should be persuaded and labour to enter this promise of rest because it is backed by God's oath (Heb. 6:17). Our rest is our arrival in God. On the other hand, it can be said that we are departing from the living God when we draw back from entering His rest (Heb. 3:12). The salvation of the soul is what God has called us to partake of, because a saved soul is one that has found the rest that is in God.
“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). This quick and powerful word can locate the thoughts and intents of the heart. Thoughts springs out of intent. Intent is a doctrine on which thought sits; and both are things of the heart. Intents are high thoughts that cannot be discerned by any other word but by the quick and powerful two-edged sword (i.e., the word of God). What will prevent a man from keeping the commandment of rest are the wrong thoughts and intents of the heart.
While Jesus was on earth, His natural life was deliberately orchestrated by God to keep intelligentsias away from Him. God's order is not through the intellect (i.e., the mind) but by faith in the heart. God does not deal with the mind but with the heart. You cannot learn rest except God's word works in your heart and eventually finds a resting place in you. The unrest in a man’s soul must be arrested before the man can be brought to rest.
The foundation of hell came about through the ambition of Lucifer and he has sold this unholy drive to men. This is what forms wrong intents in men. Every external expression has a foundation within. Every intent is a root that is buried beneath thoughts and it is not seen. Thoughts sprout upward while intents grow downward. This is why we need the sharp two-edged sword to trim and hack down those intents. It can only take a man who has come to full age to take the lesson of arresting and uprooting wrong intents (Heb. 5:14). A man can only come into rest when he has been purged of wrong intents. The sphere where the adversary dwells is the realm of intent; and it is in this realm that we need the High Priest.
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Heb. 5:16). We ought to hold the shield of faith to quench every fiery dart of the wicked. It is the fear which is peddled by evil spirits that makes men to labour for vanity. Diotrephes loved to have preeminence among his brethren, and this was caused by fear of the unknown (3 John 1:9). Diotrephes loved importance and status, which are incentives that Satan offers to men in order to get them to labour for vain things.
Wanting to be high above others is a wrong intent of the heart. Inferiority or superiority complex is another wrong intent of the heart. These things can even make a man to be industrious, i.e., striving to make a name for himself on earth. The reason why God takes us through some unpleasant life experiences is to break our confidence or strength in this world.
We must come to a point where we are naked and not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). Before we can be clothed with everlasting righteousness, God will remove every ounce of wearing or covering that we have made for ourselves. This is because we must appear naked before God in order for Him to clothe us. This nakedness is not physical; it is a nakedness in the spirit which we must all learn. Any man who has learnt this nakedness in the spirit will not feel the need to prove anything to the world.
Jesus could be despised easily because of the life He lived in the natural. However, He despised the shame and was set on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 12:2). In the same way, any man who is unable to despise the shame that this world would cast on his journey to God will not be set on the throne of God. Jesus had the stature to look down on shame because He had come into a state where He had no point to prove to the world.
When youths are built up spiritually by the words of Christ and God, there is nothing in this world that would be able to trap them. The word of God is the answer to this present youth age; it can break the hold of darkness in the heart of a youth and give him insight into the things of God. Satan is the maker of the things that youths pursue after. However, we should spend the days of our youth learning the word of righteousness. At the age of twelve, Jesus had trapped so much word or revelation and had become mysterious in the eyes of men (Luke 2:42, 46-47). Nothing is as exciting as the ministry of revelation.
Discontentment is another foundation of hell. Satan fell into the trap of complexity when he became discontented with what he had and desired what God had. On the other hand, contentment is both an attribute of godliness and everlasting life. Contentment is priceless because a man who has little with contentment is far better than a man who has a lot without contentment (1 Tim. 6:6).
“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16). “Us” here refers to the sanctified brethren who can hear the voice of the High Priest. Grace does not come without the word; grace is the release of the word of God. The word of God comes from the voice of the Son of God, who is the High Priest. This word is filled with the nature of the High Priest that can quicken the soul.
Whatsoever you find yourself doing, do it well (Eccl. 9:10). However, do not consume your passion trying to compete or beat others because that is an expression of unrest in the soul. The last sin (i.e., iniquity) is the inability to rest. The “grace to help” in Hebrews 4:16 speaks of the grace that would cause us to rest. As our iniquities are being blotted out, we would be coming into rest. When iniquities are dealt with, the root of sin has been dealt with. Our high calling is to respond to the removal of iniquity from our souls (Heb. 3:1). You can never become a high priest until your iniquities are forgiven.
There is something in the spirit that God keeps -- the law of Sabbath (or rest). You need to be a building in the spirit (i.e., have spiritual stature) to keep the Sabbath. The angels that fell came out of Sabbath and they are the sole cause of the unrest in the world today (Jude 1:6). Those are the evil spirits that fuel competition and unholy ambition among men on earth.
We should check what our soul is keeping because we are supposed to be keepers of rest (i.e., the Sabbath). Cain departed from the presence of God because of unrest (Gen. 4:16). Unrest will always birth unbelief in the heart of people concerning the promise of God’s rest. If there are people in the Church who have come to rest, Satan’s power of temptation will be dissipated among them.
To make a soul rest is to bring it into peace. A soul that has come into rest cannot be easily tempted because such a soul has received the things of the unshakable Kingdom and cannot be moved (Heb. 12:28). Our ambition in life should be to come into this stature of rest – that is our holiness. The message of the Sabbath is that we should not have fear for our lives. As we hear the words of everlasting life, we will be delivered from the law that causes us to be in a perpetual state of unrest.
Nothing is as sure as God. Therefore, we should rest in Him. God is giving us the opportunity to rest by these words of everlasting life. God will communicate wisdom (i.e., the skill of warfare) to us so that we can learn to rest. The warriors or oppositions in the promised land are the spiritual wickedness in high places; they are the spirits of unrest (Eph. 6:12). However, we should not be fearful about our future because it is greatly secured in God (Matt. 6:33-34).
A man cannot become an ark of God if he has not mastered rest. The ark is a box whose constitution is rest. In the spirit, we need to be higher than the works of evil spirits. By the ministrations coming to us in this season, we should be made higher than the things that evil spirits throw at us. God is bringing the energy of rest to us through His words. The purpose of the ark of God is to teach men to rest.
Very soon, Satan will have no hold on us because we would have risen above him in stature. God will build us so much that we will be too dead to respond to the pulls of Satan. We will be resting in peace (not as in physical death) because of a soul state that we will attain through the knowledge of the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:21). God will teach us until we become a harvest of the knowledge of the resurrection of the dead. When we have this knowledge, we will be higher than the heavens and the earth; like our Lord Jesus eventually became (Heb. 7:26).
A meek or lowly man cannot be hurt or offended by men because he is at rest (Matt. 11:29, Psa. 119:165). Meekness is the power over temptation. A meek man cannot be enticed because he is not in a plane where he can be tempted or pulled (Jas. 1:13-14). This is why God cannot be tempted. When a man has been blessed with the energy of meekness, Satan will not be able to get him. Satan has an end; and he is naked before Jesus because he has been overcome by Him. We will also see the end of Satan as we journey in the spirit. At the end, God would have raised us so much that we can narrowly look at Satan and see him as nothing (Isa. 14:16).