Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Lekki Soul Centre (LSC)
Date: Wednesday, 2nd November 2022
“Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins…” (Luke 3:2-3). John did not start preaching until the word of the Lord came to him. This tells us that John is a prophet of the highest as declared by the angel that appeared to his father (Luke 1:17, 76). It was when this word came that he began to preach in the wilderness.
John was preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sin. Remission of sins simply means forgiveness of sins. It is a blessing for the sins of a people to be remitted. Sin is a great problem that no man has a remedy for. Remission of sin cannot occur by sheer determination. Sins are higher than the habits that we know. John was preaching baptism, not being baptized in water. His teaching was the water that was preparing people to receive what was coming.
The repentance that John was preaching was the kingdom (Matt. 3:2). This preaching was a fulfilment of the writing of Isaiah. The voice was a commandment to John. John had the spiritual instrument to make ways of the Lord to be prepared.
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!” (Isa. 40:7-9). Two commandments were given to two cities; Zion and Jerusalem. Zion is a lower Jerusalem; a city of good tidings and Jerusalem is a city of good tidings of good. Zion comes first before Jerusalem. In the pattern of the Old Testament, David built Zion and rested. Then Solomon built Jerusalem and the Temple. The word ‘Jerusalem’ means the city of peace or habitation of peace. Jerusalem ought to be on Zion: a city set on a hill (Matt. 5:14). The hill is Zion and the city on the hill is Jerusalem. That is how we should be a light to the world.
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” (Isa. 2:2). The exaltation of Jerusalem would be done by the word of our God that endures forever. This word of God will distinctly classify Jerusalem as a model to earth. Jerusalem will give what the cities of the world have not been able to give to the world; Jerusalem will solve the issue of death.
Zion will have strength to push through with the word of God, and find a settlement on high. That hill that Zion will climb is the impossibility that man cannot come up to: the problem of death. Going up the hill is going up to salvation, just like the ark of Noah settled on Ararat (Gen. 8:4). God will raise Jerusalem such that it becomes untouchable by death because Jerusalem will be taught glory. Every person of God aspires to be a Zion. God desires to raise man out of flesh (dust or grass) to become a stone.
A man cannot use the word of God and not abide forever (Isa. 40:8). Food and clothing are not God’s agenda for man; they are classified amongst the other things that God wants to give (Matt. 6:32). This does not imply that God is not concerned with our natural. God is our Creator and He has the manual for our existence. He can tell when a creation is about to expire or outlive his shelf life. Thus, He is interested in doing things to keep His creation safe. Jesus came for man not to perish. There are some things present in man that want to expire or decay him: maggots, lust and corruption. God has given answers to the decay for us to be preserved.
Revelation 11 is about the antichrist, the coming son of perdition that would be sent by Satan to carry out the work of perdition or perishing. The son of perdition is firstly a man of iniquity and also a son of destruction. Although man is racing towards destruction, God put a secret code to prevent him from unlocking that which would finally cause self-destruction in himself. Satan will teach this man to break through to that key. To destroy is to make oneself completely unuseful to God; never to be reached by God. The antichrist will come as a friend and an offerer of solutions. But his coming is great death packaged in solutions. He is not coming to solve man’s problem but to kill man.
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." (Rev. 11:7-8). The antichrist will first rise from hell, then from the bottomless pit, and finally from amidst people. As he rises from the bottomless pit, he goes into perdition with the aim of teaching people how to destroy themselves. Just when he is about to do that, he will be confronted by two witnesses who will slow him down because of those who are weak and can still be saved by God. The two witnesses will war with him, although he will kill them. Nevertheless, they would injure him and while he is in recess, God will get some people saved.
Our Lord was crucified between two cities: Sodom and Egypt. Egypt is the house of bondage and Sodom is an example of the atrocities that attracted a type of fire called eternal fire. "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (Jude 1:7). This city is not physical’, it is a realm. It is everywhere in the world. The cities are men’s world. When people get to Sodom is when they attract eternal fire. It is a fire higher than hell, for it would burn hell.
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev. 20:12-13). When God will judge the dead, He will wake everyone up with their body. It is necessary because there cannot be judgement on spirit and soul; judgement will come based on what they did in their bodies (2 Cor. 5:10). The grave will give way; death, hell and sea will bring their own dead and they will all be before the white throne judgement. Hell is beneath. Spirits reign in hell, and death came into the world from hell. Initially, there was no hell; God created heights and depths. But when God threw down Satan, who had become death and hell, the region beneath changed into a colony of what was inside him.
Egypt is hell. Sodom is death. If you go to Egypt, you can come out. But if you get to Sodom, you have gotten to the extreme. Israelites went to Egypt and came out. But Lot was scarcely saved in Sodom. There was something in Lot’s soul that made him love Sodom. God wants to purify us of that thing in our souls. Sodom is aggressive. Our Lord died between Sodom and Egypt. Golgotha means the place of the skull and it is an altar to stop perishing. The whole of mankind is now going towards Sodom.
The Lord sent Jesus Christ in order not to let sin descend beyond a measure in our souls. If Jesus had not come 2000 years ago, there would not have been anyone to save on earth. The Sodom nature is a phase in man. It is a position of complete rebellion. We need to quickly run to the name of the Lord so that we might be saved. This is necessary so that we can be wise about how to use this world. The world belongs to a master and he knows exactly why he created it. It answers to him alone, with the rest of us being users. There is a way the scriptures train us to use the world and not be hurt by it. To be hurt by it is the abnormal use of the world and this involves loving and worshipping it more than God.
The world demands high affection and by it, men are decayed. God will purge the church from the corruption in the world that spoils man. This is why the word of the Lord is coming to us. Something wants to eat us up although it is not more powerful than us (1 John 4:4). If we do not follow God’s principles, we will perish with the world. God loves flesh but hates the ways of flesh. Satan succeeded in the game of making mankind flesh. Jesus came for flesh. This is why John 1:14 says “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”. This was the only way He could dwell with us. Jesus showed us that if flesh is properly trained, it can be full of grace and truth.
There is no way out of flesh. The best a man can do to help another is to make him more flesh. If a man is not saved, he cannot save. Jesus speaking to the Pharisee said they usually go all the way to take a converted person and make them more hellish than before (Matt. 23:15). They teach them the leaven of a Pharisee (Matt. 16:6). Christ came to take people away from captivity, which is called flesh. It is to take away sins. What we usually call sins are what those who have become flesh do, but they are not what made a man flesh. Only Jesus has the remedy of breaking and decomposing flesh and making it what God has called souls to be.
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Gen. 2:7). The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. In Genesis 1, there was a man God created. God gave him an earth suit. For man who was a spirit to touch the tree, he needed that body. Remember, God said there was no man on earth to till the ground; God formed a man from dust and breathed in him and he became a living soul. By Chapter 6, the man turned himself into flesh. The energy for conversion to flesh was hidden. Satan supplied and kept manifesting the energy that made man turn from a living soul into flesh. So, when Jesus said “Repent”, He meant turn from flesh.
The season and era of flesh is going. Man needs to turn from flesh to spirit. Repentance means turn to salvation. We are repenting from a kingdom to a kingdom (Matt. 3:2). One kingdom makes people flesh; another makes spirit. The ones who are spirits are those who are saved. Repentance has more to do with nature change than character resolution.
Jesus said to Nicodemus that he could not enter the kingdom by the things which he did by the law, being a Pharisee (John 3:3-5). Pharisees were, for example, very detailed in tithe paying but they neglected the weightier matters of the law – judgment, mercy and faith (Matt. 23:23). We are to prioritize these things and then endeavour to do the others. Some factions in the body are against tithe-paying. However, we must know that the practice of paying tithe is lawful. Though it is a minor matter of the law, we should do it because it can protect us from things that can creep in and attack the weightier things.
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3). This is the new order. It is the answer to the dominion of God. The salvation of every flesh is to go into the kingdom of God. Before we can go into the kingdom, we must first see. To see is to understand what kind of kingdom or dominion it is. The kingdom is not about going to heaven. The kingdom can be separated from heaven. It can leave heaven and come to stay on earth (Matt. 6:10).
The kingdom of heaven means many things. For one, it is a kingdom that operates by heavenly pattern. It is nothing like the kingdoms of this world. No mind on earth can think the kingdom of God. Even at the new birth, no one can see the kingdom. However, one must be born again to be eligible to learn the kingdom. Then can he be shown and taught the kingdom. If God does not give us the grace to see the kingdom, we would not know what the kingdom means. To see the kingdom is to discern the kingdom. It is the heart that understands the king’s dominion.
Satan showed Jesus another dominion — the kingdom of this world (Matt. 4:8). What this kingdom did is that it made men into different kinds of flesh; but Jesus refused it. Satan wanted Jesus to be king over all flesh. Satan is the owner of flesh. He owned them by killing them. He deceived them and took dominion over mankind. Satan is so humble that he does not like popularity but he likes to do the harm. Fortunately for us, Jesus overcame him.
“Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:4-6). Birth is ongoing on earth. Many are the children of the kingdom of darkness. Satan is still giving birth to more children. He is making men worse by the day. Satan’s dominion is for birthing or producing flesh. ‘Spirit’ in the scripture above refers to a man that has been born into the kingdom. A person (spirit) must be born again to enter the kingdom. But the fact that the spirit of a man is born again does not mean his entire being is spirit. God can only call us spirit when we behave like one. We are not yet spirits if we still get excited by the things of flesh or behave as flesh does.
Today, there is a wave of people leaving Nigeria. Fleshy people are the ones leaving because of rumours. This results from an induced fear for life. Satan uses fear to turn us from the pursuit of life. Some people were moved by God to settle elsewhere. However, most of those that have left the shores of Nigeria were not supposed to go. If we will move, we must be led to move.
There was a time Abraham moved to Egypt without being fully formed by God. And Pharaoh would have taken Abraham’s wife if God did not appear to tell him to leave her. Abraham moved only because there was a famine in the land (Gen. 12:10). We should not always move because of famine. The sons of Naomi left Judea for Moab and they all died. Naomi became empty; but by mercy, she found Ruth (Ruth 1:1-5). Isaac also wanted to move but God told him to stay and sow in the land he was in.
Satan knows how to blow winds but they that trust in the Lord will be like mount Zion which cannot be moved. This is not a teaching against movement; it is only an encouragement to be led before doing so. Flesh will respond to the things of flesh but a spirit is a stone that does not respond to the things of the flesh. There is a program stored in a stone that makes it resolute, unlike grass. At the blow of a little wind, grass dances.
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8). A spirit-born person is a wind. There are other winds that blow on creatures. If one is not a spirit, such would be affected by evil winds and be subject to them. A wind (one who is a spirit) cannot be subject to wind; meaning he would understand when evil spirits are coming. God is giving birth to a wind that can read evil winds. When evil spirits want to affect men, they cause a blowing to grasses so that they do their bidding. Grasses cannot resist the wind but must dance to the tune of the wind. A rock, however, will never dance to the tune of the wind. Such a man is a stone, a wind and a spirit. Nobody enters the kingdom without being spiritual.
The essence of the kingdom of God is to give glory to man. Anyone who has become glorious in nature has attained salvation. Such a person cannot be toiled with by Satan. He would have come to a place where he is so born of God that he cannot be touched by the evil one (1 John 5:18). By so doing, perishing cannot reach such a person. We can grow till we are completely deep in the kingdom and become an entity that shows the glory of God. When we become luminaries of salvation, we would be transacting in glory (Isa. 40:5).
Blessings!
Summary
1. John was preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sin. Remission of sins simply means forgiveness of sins. It is a blessing for the sins of a people to be remitted for no man has remedy for. His teaching was the water that was preparing people to receive what was coming. (Luke 3:2-3; Isaiah 40:3-5; Matthew 3:2).
2. The glory of man is compared to flowers, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven All of the pursuit of man becomes a vexation to his spirit because it is death, emptiness and does not satisfy. (1 Pet. 1:24; Matt. 6:30).
3. The city on a hill is Jerusalem and the hill is Zion. Going up the hill is going up to salvation. The hill is the impossibility that man cannot come up to, the problem of death. God desires to raise man out of flesh (dust or grass) to become a stone or Zion. God will teach Jerusalem glory and raise it such that it becomes untouchable by death. (Isaiah 40:9; Isaiah 2:2).
4. Our Lord died between Sodom and Egypt. Egypt is hell. Sodom is death. The Sodom nature is a position of complete rebellion. The whole of mankind is now racing towards Sodom. There was something in Lot’s soul that made him love Sodom. God wants to purify us of that thing in our soul. (Revelation 11:7-8; Jude 1:7).
5. We need to quickly run to the name of the Lord that we might be saved. The world demands high affection and by it, men are decayed. Satan succeeded in the game of making mankind flesh. Christ came to take people away from the captivity called flesh. (1 John 4:4; John 1:14).
6. Satan supplied the energy that made man turn from a living soul into flesh. So, when Jesus said “Repent”, He meant turn from flesh to salvation. We are repenting from a kingdom to another kingdom. One kingdom makes people flesh; another makes spirits. (Matt. 3:2).
7. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom that operates by heavenly pattern. No mind on earth can think the kingdom of God. At the new birth, one is eligible to see and learn the kingdom. Satan showed Jesus another dominion, the kingdom of this world which made men into different kinds of flesh. Satan is still giving birth to children of the kingdom of darkness. (John 3:4-6; Matt. 4:8).
8. Fleshy people are the ones that leave a place because of rumours of war or famine. This is as a result of an induced fear for life. Satan uses fear to turn us from the pursuit of life. If we will relocate, we must be led. (Genesis 12:10; Ruth 1:1-5; Genesis 26:1-3).
9. Flesh will respond to the things of flesh but a spirit is a stone that does not respond to the things of the flesh. There are winds that blow on creatures. If one is not a spirit, he would be affected by such winds and be subject to them. Grass cannot resist the wind; but a rock, will never dance to the tune of the wind. A man that can enter the kingdom of God is a stone, a wind, and a spirit. (John 3:8)
10. The essence of the kingdom of God is to give man glory. Anyone who has become glorious in nature has attained salvation. Such a one has come to a place where he is so born of God that he cannot be touched by the evil one and cannot perish (1 John 5:18; Isa. 40:5).