Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Date: Saturday, 11th December, 2021
A celestial body can be identified by its glory (1 Cor. 15:40). A terrestrial body is defined by its territory, hence, the term ‘terrestrial’. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption…” (1 Cor. 15:42). This scripture is referring to a body which is sown in corruption and raised in incorruption. There are different kinds of bodies: celestial, terrestrial, natural and spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15:40-44).
There is the glory of the sun, the glory of the moon and the glory of the stars. These elements have different bodies, which have different temperaments. Within the terrestrial domain, the stars differ from the sun and do not have the same glory. Furthermore, there are many stars but not many moons. Scripturally, the sun is not a star; rather, it is a burning body that gives light.
Man was not designed to journey first with his body; rather, he was designed to journey first with his soul. A man’s soul should be able to arrive in heaven first before his body. This can only be done by the power of God resident in His doctrine. Doctrine can give a man citizenship of a higher world than that which he currently dwells in. Eternity (or God) is the glory of the Church. Eternity Himself has been raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:3).
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” (Rev. 1:7). Very soon, all men will understand that there is God because every eye will see Him. The gospel will cut down the wisdom of science because God did not place His knowledge in the vicinity of man’s intelligence.
God hates the intelligence of man because it has become his pride. God put His knowledge and presence in the sincerity of heart. God wants His people to live in places higher than earth – to live in the heavens. The only way and manner for a man to live in heaven is to have a conversation that is heavenly. Christ is a kind of heavenly conversation. Another heavenly conversation is the life of the Son of God, and the highest heavenly conversation is the conversation of the Eternal Son. These conversations come to import man out of earth into the world in which they came from.
A man’s soul can look like the world to come even while he is still physically alive. Therefore, our true age is not our natural age because our life is somewhere else entirely. Our conversation is a world that has not yet appeared. When God condescended, He created a world around Himself. Heaven is not eternal, it is everlasting. Heaven and the earth have the same age. The difference between them is that heaven was created with a higher quality of strength than the earth.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Gen. 1:1-2). God made heaven and the earth at the same time but laid the foundations of the earth in waters. The earth was left without form and void. This means there was no form of activity on the earth.
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water…” (2 Pet. 3:5). God gave us the firmament above to remind us where His world is. Every time we look up to pray, we are touching heaven for answers to our prayers. The blue colour of the firmament (sky) is not ordinary; it is an aspect of the priestly garment. This is the colour of heaven and God did this to show us that heaven is an exalted place.
All the elements of the earth are here for us to understand God (Romans 1:20). Earth was ordained to grow children for God. God wants to harvest sons from the earth, so He had to hide it in waters. The earth is special. The composition that made the earth’s soil is not ordinary. When God created the earth, He was already seeing the body of Adam.
The earth is important to God; it is a domain for reigning. God put man on earth, but with an intention for him to journey (in his soul) from the earth. The only way to gain higher habitations in the spirit is by learning the persons of God and not His creations. Whosoever learns the Creator will subdue creation (Gen. 1:28). This is because the power of the earth is in the hands of He who created it. The key that created the earth is in God.
God wants to taste of the earth and this is the reason Jesus came to earth. The problem of sin that started in the heavens was resolved on earth. God provided a solution to the problem of sin from His earth which is His footstool (Is. 66:1).
Angels had their own civilization. After Lucifer and his angels sinned, God sent them down to hell and then had to purge the heavens of sin. It was after God did this that He made man on the earth. God did not banish these evil spirits to the lake of fire immediately. The lake of fire is however an evidence that the world to come is real (Rev. 19:20).
Hell is not a punishment to evil spirits, for it is their realm (abode). God sent them to hell to reveal who they have become to them. Satan rose from hell to tempt man. He had the right to do so, and went ahead until man fell, not knowing God was looking for a way to trap him and destroy him.
The lake of fire is not the place where Satan will be destroyed. To destroy Satan is to make the law of hell and death null and void. To do this, one needs to swallow up death and hell in victory (1 Cor. 15:54). God does not do things haphazardly. God putting Satan into the lake of fire cannot destroy him, it is just a punishment to him. To destroy death does not mean it will not exist; rather, it means it has been overcome. Satan would have been destroyed before he gets into the lake of fire.
The lake of fire is the second death (Rev. 21:8). Second death is God's eternal death for those who have the great death of the devil in their souls (Rev. 20:12). Such are those who will be cast into the lake of fire. Hell and death constitute a death that a man who has it cannot be delivered from it, such a man is great in death. The lake of fire is a reward for those who have died greatly. The intention of every evil spirit is to take every man to the lake of fire.
The lake of fire is made of a material higher than that of this present creation. It is not made of things of this present but of the fabric of the world to come. God revealed it in scriptures to demonstrate to the devil and evil spirits that eternal fire is awaiting them. Eternal fire is higher than heaven. The eternal fire will burn all the spirits that fell from all the stratas of heaven. To destroy Satan is to render him useless and redundant, where he would be existing without an aim.
Satan can do terrible things to those who are not equipped to handle him; he can make men die greatly (Rev. 20:12). Those who would end up in the lake of fire are those who have denied the mercy of God – such people would genuinely hate God.
Great death is already at work in advanced countries of the world today. Great death can make one lose passion for God. Iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall wax cold because of great death (Matt. 24:12). Satan can lead a soul to a place where it would genuinely not want God. Such a soul begins the journey to hating God by first hating Christ.
This world is designed by Satan to trap men for great death. The world is a trainer and we must not love it (1 Jn. 2:15). The Church should not just be above small death, she should also be above great death (Matt. 16:18). Satan entered into man and made him flesh. God also entered into man to destroy the law of Satan. The Word was made flesh and grew into an everlasting man that could handle iniquity (John 1:14a, Romans 8:3).
Moses hung a serpent on the tree (John 3:14). That serpent symbolizes a stature beyond sin and death. Rather, it is the old serpent, which is the stature of the wisdom of corruption or hell and death. This was what Jesus was made on the cross so that we can be made the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
Once Satan saw that Jesus became sin, he knew he had lost the fight and had made a mistake. God unleashed all sin on the Son and His wrath against sin came upon the Son. The day the Son died was an hour of death. The glory of the Father came and raised Him back up to the highest point. God did not raise the nature of sin because He had expired and crucified that nature in His own Son. When Jesus rose up from the dead, that nature of sin was detonated (through obedience of being conformed to His death) and Satan had been destroyed.
Jesus had abolished death and brought to light life and immortality through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10). Jesus did not confront Satan physically, He destroyed what Satan had put in man. Jesus became one with great death so that no man would get there, that is, perish (John 3:16).
God raised Eternal Life out of hell. “...Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matt. 2:15). Egypt is a graveyard but God would raise the glorious Church out of Egypt. Out of darkness, a glorious Church would come forth. A time will come when we will not fear hell or death because we would have gained mastery over it.
The desire of God is for us (our soul) to live in the world to come before our bodies get there. This is how special man is. The soul can leave the earth and stay in heaven, explore the eternal world and live there. We can live in everlasting life and then cross into Eternal Life while we are still here on earth. In the world to come, some Christians would be in the new earth while some will be in the new heavens (Rev. 21:24). Habitats will be distributed in the world to come for people based on their works in the days of their flesh.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first…” (1 Thess. 4:16). In the resurrection of the body, the dead in Christ would pick their body from the soil. Those who are alive do not need to as they already have their body; rather, they will pick up a spiritual body. We can get to heaven with our natural body, but we cannot get to the new earth with the natural body.
The natural body is a terrestrial body; it is not the body of angels. The body of our Lord is a spiritual body, the body of a quickening spirit. The Lord (last Adam) was a made quickening spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). The present creation has celestial and terrestrial bodies, but the world to come is a world for eternal activities. God is giving us energy to learn things to come. We must learn how to use our soul to receive eternal food. A soul that loves natural food above spiritual food is not worthy of inheritance. Esau lost an eternal inheritance (his birthright) because of natural food; he was a fornicator and profane fellow (Heb. 12:16).
We need to be higher than natural food. Thoughts can be food. The body is not the only part of man that eats, the soul also does. It is what a man’s soul eats that he would eventually practice in the body. A man can be in a particular location physically but his soul is living in another realm.
In the world to come, there would be terrestrial and celestial bodies, but all these bodies would be like the body of Jesus. They would be spiritual bodies. Adam did not have a spiritual body, he had a natural body. When Moses came to the mountain of transfiguration, it was not just his spirit that descended, he came with his soul and body (Matt. 17:3). This is why Peter could recognize him (Matt. 17:4).
Lucifer wanted to corrupt Moses’ body because he never wanted him to perform the duty of the holy one (Jude 1:9). We need our spirit, soul and body for our ministry. We were given bodies so that we can upgrade our spiritual stature or trap life while we are in the body. This is why we must pray for long life (Psalm 91:16). We must not leave the earth without finishing our course. May we fight the good fight and finish our course (2 Tim. 4:7). The high calling of God in Christ is our priestly course and may we finish it.
Jesus' body was not sown a spiritual body because it was the body of Adam. Jesus was a type of Adam, so He had a natural body (1 Cor. 15:45). Jesus sowed a natural body to reap a spiritual body. The spiritual body is a quickening body; it is the body of a quickening spirit. Everything in the world to come is a spiritual body. The phrase “spiritual body” does not necessarily speak of a heavenly body but a higher grade of body that God would give to men. No one can stay in the new earth without a spiritual body because the new earth would be spiritual.
Also, to say the body is spiritual does not mean that it cannot be seen; it rather speaks of a higher grade of body than what is presently obtainable. It would have a more lasting life than this present earth. The strength of the old earth cannot be compared to the new earth because the new earth would be higher.
We would pick our bodies from earth like Jesus picked His body from earth. It was here on earth that God changed Jesus' body and upgraded it to a spiritual one. The new heaven is spiritual, likewise the new earth but there is a difference in spirituality. Before any man will dwell in the new earth, he would have gone through some degree of purification.
We can determine how spiritual we want to become. It is possible to have everlasting life or immortality in our soul, and yet, our natural body would not have been touched. The soul and spirit may partake of things in the spirit and yet the body may not have partaken of the new body.
Satan has used the subject of rapture to put limitations on the Church because of ignorance. Eternal Life can be put in a soul that is still in the natural body. On the other hand, one can be in the world to come, have a spiritual body and not have Eternal Life in it. God is Eternal Life.
There is a frame around us that needs to dissolve for us to begin to appreciate the world to come. Many of us do not desire that world yet. We can have a habitation in our soul by conversations through doctrine. The doctrine of everlasting life is a conversation for a corresponding habitation in the world to come.
Jesus’ world is superior to the present. We should look beyond our pain, food and our life. Our desire should be for the world to come to be within our grasps while we are still here on earth. God wants us to exist in that world in our souls by doctrine. Hearing doctrine is tantamount to breathing the oxygen of that habitat. There is a quickening breath that God Himself breaths and Jesus was quickened by that breath.
Jesus rose up having spoiled principalities and powers (Col. 2:15) and preached to spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:19-20). The first pulpit of the only begotten Son was hell. No other preacher has ever preached in hell. God is raising ministers who will preach in hell, not by descending, but by preaching to souls on earth who are already hellish. Thus, such ministers would take hell out of people.
It is possible to preach to souls who have experienced first death. Nebuchadnezzar had small death and he was turned into another creature to gain repentance (Dan. 4:33-37). After his repentance, heaven began to bless him with knowledge. He returned and was almost living by everlasting life. Trees will be cut down in the coming times. Some will be changed but some will not and will dwell in the lake of fire.
Jesus was already risen from the dead while in hell. Jesus was alive when God raised Him into Eternal Life; He did not run out of hell. From the day of Jesus’ resurrection, Abraham’s bosom ceased (Luke 16:22) and the bosom of the Father became the place for saints to dwell. Jesus took back His body and Eternal Life fashioned that body into that of a world that has not appeared.
The earth is very strong for it to bear eternal beings who will return to earth to reign. Reigning on the earth is manifesting Eternal Life through the body. The earth will carry and use Eternal Life. This means that as Eternal Life is reigning on the earth, the earth is interpreting and doing Eternal Life.
The measure of life in one’s soul will determine the body such a person will wear. As such, we must swear allegiance to Eternal Life and nothing less. It will be regrettable to see other men who will wear Eternal Life bodies and not be amongst them.
The Tree of Life is a learning; it is an impartation of life for those who have not yet eaten it. The new earth will have the capacity to express the ministry that gives the image of the Eternal God. It was ordained for the service of eternal ministry. The New Jerusalem city is where the ministry of Eternal Life is situated. That city is a company of saints who will condescend to teach men who do not have Eternal Life. What we are hearing is the message of the citizens of the heaven to come.
The purpose of the lake of fire is to bring the kind of death that God gives. That kind of death is the second death or eternal death (Rev. 20:13-14). God will communicate to such men how to die eternally. For a man to get to the lake of fire, God must have given up him. This second death is an eternal departure from God. However, the second death will have no power over those who experience the first resurrection (Rev. 20:6). Such men will be untouchable by the second death.
Those who have overcome have entered into incorruptibility and cannot be harmed by the fire of that world. Incorruptibility is almost at the same degree as the eternal fire. Those who will go into second death are not ordinary beings; they would have been prepared with eternal strength to wallow in that world. God is fearful. The lake of fire is like an inescapable planet.
It is possible to attain any life. Our physical body is an opportunity to attain the eternal weight of glory. We are to do everlasting life well. We will be given energy to obey the law of everlasting life to the uttermost.