Programme: Believers’ Convention Prayer Meeting (Week 4_Day 4)
Date: Thursday, 27th July 2023.
Transcript Summary
1. (John 16:7-12, 14-16). The apparatus for knowing things that the Godhead keeps is in the Comforter. These things are all the levels of the life of God – Christ, Father and God (Col. 2:2). The different levels of life that God wants to give us are kept in a mystery. There are things reserved in heaven for us (1 Pet. 1:4-5). These things are kept in such a way that even spirits cannot access them. This means they are kept through the concealing power of a heavenly thought that is not simulated in the same manner our minds operate. God kept these things hidden in Himself.
2. When people want to receive blessings from God in the Old Testament, a special ram is killed for a celebration ahead of the blessing. Through the feast, they open up a thought. In like manner, God has to make a feast with His sound when He is about to release things He had never opened in ages, and this comes with a celebration. This is because those things are very important and exclusive to the Godhead. When God is opening these things up, He is blessing us all. However, spirits want to interfere with our 'believing' so that our connection with the life of Jesus is not properly done. But we should do everything to make sure our connection to Him is properly done (worked out).
3. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” (John 16:16). What we see about this verse is rapture, but that is not what it really is about. The Church ought to be seeing the Lord. This dispensation must be ministered to the body of Christ because that is what the New Testament is about. All the allocation God wanted to give to the Church is in the New Testament. However, it has to be repeated in generations. But Satan wants to ensure that this transfer from generation to generation will not be well executed.
4. The baptism of the Holy Ghost was real in the Bible, yet many did not believe it. Another season is on earth right now, but the Church thinks that all the things concerning this dispensation have been done – many believe there is no need to journey into greater things of God. Many believe that there is no need to look for something in the invisible. There are things contending with sighting this dispensation. Sin, unrighteousness and perverted judgment are the things that the Spirit of God wants to reprove. These are the things that will not allow all truth to come.
5. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. [2] Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. [3] For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. [4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3:1-4). Our Lord Jesus needs to appear to and in our souls. The Holy Ghost is the One who specializes in giving things to the soul; this is why He comes into us as a Person (John 14:17). However, the Holy Ghost is not revealed because He is the Spirit of the Godhead. The Father and the Son can be revealed but not the Holy Ghost. The name allocation which God named after the Holy Ghost is the seal of the Holy Ghost, which is the earnest of the inheritance (Eph. 1:14).
6. When the Holy Ghost has finished raising a man, then we can say that such a man is sealed. If the church of Ephesus was not sealed with the Holy Ghost, they would not have moved into being sealed with Christ. The faith in the Lord Jesus and love to all saints are the precept and doctrine of the Holy Ghost. The first inheritance of the Godhead is the Holy Ghost. A man who is operating faith in the Lord Jesus and love to all saints (Eph. 1:15) is a child of the Holy Ghost. Stephen and Philip were the best of the children of the Holy Ghost. The apostles were also children of the Holy Ghost; they had the instrument of the seal of the Holy Ghost. In this allocation, the ministry of Kenneth Hagin is important because he showed us who a child of the Holy Ghost really is. Many men would not have problems with the doctrine of Christ if they had partaken of the allocation of the Holy Ghost.
7. Stephen opened heaven as a 'ghost' because he was a child of the Holy Ghost. Philip was another 'ghost' who went to Samaria and there was great joy in that city (Acts 8:4). He was so much of a 'ghost' to an extent that He did not need to consult with Simon the sorcerer, who bound the whole of Samaria down. He never cast down the spirit binding Samaria nor did he bind any spirit to deliver the river in Samaria. He simply preached the gospel of Christ and even the sorcerer became born again and was baptized afterwards. Those are examples of children of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is powerful and real, and He has so much more to do on earth. The real reason Jesus left will fully commence when the allocation of the Holy Ghost crosses to the next allocation.
8. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” (John 16:16). These things talk about the next allocations, that is, the evident or visible Persons in the Godhead. One can see the form of God or the Person of Christ as a man on the throne, but the Holy Ghost cannot be seen in that way. The Holy Ghost can appear as a fire, water, or any other symbolic form. The Holy Ghost must finish His work and hand a person over to Christ. That is when Christ becomes the administrator of the next allocation, but the Holy Ghost is still involved. This is also when the Holy Ghost becomes the Spirit of promise. The Holy Ghost builds the promise for the 'Promiser'. He is given the charge to raise whoever is supposed to receive the promise.
9. If people fully partake of the milk of the word, it will change their natures and they will exhibit some properties that are peculiar to children of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord Jesus was a child of the Holy Ghost, and it was evident in the manner with which He talked. The raising of God was successful in Jesus because He had no sin; this is what made it possible for the Godhead to conveniently build that capacity in Him.
10. “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. [55] But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, [56] and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:54-56). Stephen did not see God, but he saw His glory. This means that what he saw was the next allocation because he was already full of the Holy Ghost and could move into the next allocation. The season of “yet a little while” ceased for Stephen (John 16:16). In Acts 7, something had changed; this was brought about by tribulations and persecution. The person who then picked this allocation to preach it was Paul.
11. “...and cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.” (Acts 7:58). Saul gave the order for Stephen’s death and he supervised it. Stephen had not seen the Lord as he did just before he died. The Lord left heaven and in the next chapter, the Lord came down to Damascus. He was hanging in the spirit all the while. Stephen made the Lord stand from the throne to come to earth, and specifically to Paul. It was after this happened that Paul started seeing Jesus. Ananias, the devout man, also partook in seeing Jesus because of Stephen and Paul. If the experience was just a voice without a vision, Ananias would not have obeyed the Lord. The encounter of the Lord with Ananias birthed the preacher of the way, that is, Paul (Acts 9:14-15). Paul ended his commission with an epistle to the people of Hebrew. He needed to suffer to open the parchment of glory and cause people to see God. After scales fell from Paul’s eyes, it was clear that Paul was going to be a remover of scales.
12. We need that season of “yet a little while” for us to be guided into all truth. The womb of our soul cannot take truth until we have finished the course of the Holy Ghost. Churches that are led by the Holy Ghost have the allocation of the fullness of the Holy Ghost. The teaching of Christ enriches our spiritual childhood; this is so that our childhood can connect to our adulthood.
13. There can never be a spiritual development for a man without truth. In the ministry of truth, the Holy Ghost gives room for Jesus to talk. He steps down to empower the minister to exalt Jesus. When the season of the doctrine of Christ comes, the manifestation of the Spirit changes. Faith, hope and charity are different measures of Christ; they are doctrines and not knowledge.
14. The first truth in Christ is faith, the second is hope, and the last is charity. The first truth in charity is “Yea” and the second is “Amen”. Yea is truth while Amen is true (2 John 1:1). For a thing to be true, it must be a truth that has been proven. Truth is everlasting life; it is forever. A time will come when one will get to the only truth, but such a one would still have the Holy Ghost, Christ and everlasting within because they are all inheritances.
15. The throne of grace can give mercy. The end of grace is peace. Peace is the true life in everlasting life; it is the everlasting life that abides. A person who has peace is true. Truth is the first love while love is the last; they are both works. This means what Jesus was doing that the Father was showing Him were works of truth and love; they are the first and last love. So the name of the two works are Great and Marvelous (Rev. 15:3).
16. “Open thou mine eyes, That I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” (Psa. 119:18). Anything wonderful is marvelous. This work is God's line. God is showing us His lines via the scriptures. The apostles had measures, and this is evident because no one could have written an epistle without having measure. Their words are able to last for generations because they had measure. To know the truth is more than knowing the knowledge of the truth. One can know the precept (knowledge) of the truth and not know the truth (line). We will not depart from life when we know the truth.
17. “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; [32] and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32). The only way to deal with Satan and be free from him is to come into lines (truth). Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but God wants to give us more than knowledge.
Blessings!