Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 5th May, 2022
“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him” (1John 5:1). This believing is not the new birth; instead, it has to do with receiving the substances of the Son of God. This is not just believing to the measure of Christ Jesus but to the measure of the Son of God. The light that John was communicating at this point is the light of the Son of God.
The book of Revelation is a super epistle that can be compared with the three epistles of John. While the book of Revelation has revelation within it, it is mostly visions. It contains various signs and allegories. The voice of of angel that John heard in the beginning of the revelation triggered the sight that followed (Rev 1:2, 10-11).
Many people like and desire the gifts of the spirit, especially the discerning of the spirits which enables a man to see into the spirit. But there are things the Lord would not permit many of us to see because it could distort any mind that is not helped. There are dimensions and doors in the realm of seeing. The dimension that a man is able to see into is according to the dimension of grace and anointing that is upon him and which he can manage as a reason of growth.
There were things that John was supposed to see and write in a book (Rev 1:11). The things he saw were figures, images, signs and prophetic symbols. Within the experiences, he was sometimes asked if he understood the things he saw and they were sometimes explained to him (Rev 7:13-14).
The epistles of John and the Gospel of John, on the other hand, were written after he had the experience of the Book of Revelation. This is why there is a certain elevated sight that is peculiar to the Gospel of John. It centred on the revelation of the everlasting and Eternal Son of God. The epistles of John reflect the influence of the encounter of John in the Book of Revelation. The light he used was the light of the Word of God (Rev. 1:2). This is the word of God in which the knowledge of the Son of God can be found.
Believing that Jesus is Christ is the holding of the substance of the Son of God by the soul (1 John 5:1). The being in the book of Revelation that had the replica of Jesus is the angel of the revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:1). Jesus could have come Himself, but He used the angel instead to come to reveal these high things to the Church. The seated position of our Lord Jesus is so high that if John saw Him, he would not have appreciated it. It is very easy for a man to have contempt for holy things. This is why Jesus needed to be signified.
It is the Holy Ghost that takes the things of the Son and shows them to us (John 16:14-15). The Holy Ghost was showing the things of the Son through that angel in the book of Revelation. The Holy Ghost also rests upon angels; they yield more to Him. Angels do not do anything without the Holy Ghost, they are all subject to Him. What the Holy Ghost can show through a vessel depends on the stature that vessel has been raised to. The Holy Ghost can show the Person of God only through a vessel that is so raised and yielded.
The more a minister grows spiritually, the more substances he can take of the Holy Ghost and the more the Holy Ghost can express through Him. That angel could show those things because the Holy Ghost was the one showing them through him and he was only a vessel. The hair that is white as wool is actually signifying the judgment of the Son of God.
For John to teach these things as doctrine, they need to first be signified. One of the ways that John communicated the doctrine was through the epistles he wrote afterwards. The angels did not take the understanding away because the Church needed to understand it. John had to testify of the things he saw as a doctrine. The epistles he wrote were a product of the things he saw. Doctrine speaks of testimony. There can be no testimony without doctrine.
The revelation is a prophecy but contained within it is a testimony. Therefore, it needs to be bound and sealed up (Isa. 8:16). If the testament is not written, the Church would not receive the fullness of the blessing of the prophecy. The prophecy would not be complete without the testament. One is merely a seer if he only sees and cannot provide doctrine.
Jesus is a man of doctrine. Everything about the Son of God is doctrine. John had to write everything he saw. By writing, he was bringing forth testimony. It is impossible to bring forth testament out of pictures: testament is brought forth through doctrine or teaching. The revelation within pictures has to be brought out by understanding and laid out by doctrine.
There is a belief that is required of the soul (1John 5:1). This belief is not at the level of Christ Jesus but at the level of the Son of God. Anyone that believes that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God is born of God. The purpose of the revelation of Jesus Christ is to give birth to sons of God. God wants to raise sons out of every church; hence He gave the revelation of Jesus Christ.
God wants to harvest or birth sons. By Revelation 12, some sons were already fully born of God. These sons were born because doctrines were taught. There were some others who were still going through the process of entering into the womb so that they could be born. They did this by the testimony.
Testament is doctrine. The book of Psalms spoke a lot of statutes, judgement, precepts, fear and testimony, all of which are contained in the law (Psa. 19:7-9). These things need to be properly divided to know the part of the law that is statutes, instruction and judgement. When they are properly separated, one would profit well with it. For example, statutes are standards that cannot be broken because of anyone; it cannot be compromised. Statutes make one stand.
Those sons who had the testimony of Jesus were sure (Psa. 19:7). Young men have not yet entered the womb because they are still fighting. What they are using to fight is the word of God that is abiding in them. They are supposed to fight until the testimony becomes theirs (Rev. 12:11). The Word of God contains testimony, and we are to war until that testimony becomes our inheritance just as it became 'their testimony'. We cannot enter into the womb without having inherited it.
The womb is a place for those who have finished their warfare; it is a place of rest. The womb is a dimension in the Holy Ghost and one of the most exciting things about the womb is that Satan cannot enter into that zone. He can only stand without, waiting for anyone who would come out before time to devour such. Therefore, the dwellers of the womb must be taught the law of abiding. They must stay in the womb and fulfil the full course of each trimester. No one must stick out. Satan would keep tempting the womb dwellers to come out, like He was tempting Jesus to come out during His temptation in the wilderness, and subsequently through men.
The womb dwellers would have to overcome the temptations and provocations of the enemy by keeping the commandments of the womb, which are the commandments of abiding. The dwellers must obey the laws of the womb till they cross over. Jesus went through all the phases, He demonstrated them all. When He was hanging on the cross, He kept the laws till the end despite the taunts of the soldiers and pharisees. They were provoking him to come out and use His power inappropriately. The ability not to take his life back, though he had the power to, was a womb commandment.
The commandment of not replying is a womb commandment (1Pet 2:22-23). A soul that is used to replying would not be able to abide by the laws of the womb. Many would still respond to Satan if they have not learnt the exercise of not replying. Satan wants the womb dwellers to react but the instruction of the Lord is that we must watch our heart. Some natural things we go through are points of exercises and avenues to learn this rule of not replying.
To endure the contradiction of sinners against ourselves is hard but we must do righteously. We must guard our hearts to keep ourselves from responding to the provocations of the enemy, and even men that he comes through. By Revelation 12, sons were already born and some others were preparing to be born. What made that possible was the testimony that they kept (Rev 12:17).
The law of the LORD is perfect means it is complete (Psalm 19:7). The law of the Lord in the Old Testament is called the word of God in the New Testament (Heb 4:12). There is nothing that is hidden before the Word of God because He discerns all things. James describes it as the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). There is also a word of Christ (Col 3:16). The word of God, which is the perfect law of liberty, is sharper than the word of Christ. If a man has not used the word of Christ, he should not deal with the word of God because it is sharp and can cut (offend/mesmerise) him.
The testimony of the Lord cannot be changed; it is established. Anyone that keeps it would become sure. Testimony converts one to a heart that can abide (1 Cor 15:58). One of the operations of the Word of God is to make the heart sure. The Lord, who is a rod, needs to come out into seven (Isa. 11:1-2). Although He is one/perfect, if He remains that way, we may not understand Him; hence, He needs to signify to us by breaking into seven. He who is perfect needs to be taught. If He is not broken down, we would not be able to comprehend perfection and, as a result, we would not come into the state of being perfect.
The work of the testimony in the heart is to make the soul sure (Col 2:2). The testimony is a parchment and our souls are meant to possess and work it out. The Holy Ghost uses revelation to comfort our hearts. He would take the things of the Son and show them unto us; these things are revelations and they are for comfort (John 16:15). Hearts need to be comforted (Col. 2:2).
Revelation comes in various degrees, according to their ivory places, which are their light places. The key to every level of revelation is love. There is no light place we can enter without love. One may hear and even understand a realm, but without love, he/she would neither have entrance into it nor partake of it.
The purpose of revelation is for entrance and fellowship (1 Jn. 1:3). We cannot have fellowship with a given realm when our soul is outside of it. Hence, the need for writings. Things are written to us so that we can come and join the fellowship. Jesus told John to write what he saw to the seven churches (Rev. 1:11). The purpose of writing to the churches is to call them to come into the place where the Father wants them to come into. John wrote to them so they could come into fellowship. He was writing the commandments to them which are the things that would be used to bring us into fellowship.
High places are revelational places; or light places (Psa. 18:33). To mount such high places, one has to be admitted by love. This is why Paul prayed that the hearts of the Colossian church might be knitted together in love (Col. 2:2). There can be no entrance to walk in revelation if the soul is not walking in love.
Revelation brings the heart to the place of comfort, but this is only preparing us for riches. Riches are substances of the full assurance of understanding. Full assurance makes for full joy. Understanding at the level of full assurance is to come into the place where the soul has gone beyond just hearing and learning and is now holding the knowledge. This is what is called acknowledgement.
There is the ultimate place of understanding, which is to comprehend at the level of the mystery of God. The term, ‘full assurance’ is describing a man - an everlasting man. Such a man has come to the full assurance of the mystery of Christ and has full assurance of the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of God. Such a soul is rich.
Full assurance is holding all the mysteries. Each of these dimensions have their love level, which is their key. When the believer has reached a given level of love, he can hold the knowledge of that realm: either the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of the Father, or the knowledge of God.
The mystery of the Father is the prerequisite to holding the mystery of God. John got to this pinnacle. 1 John 4:21 says, “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also”. This love is at the pedigree of the love of God–God loving through you. Thus, the measure of love that can be transmitted through a vessel has to be the measure of God’s love; that is, the way God loves. The love of God is merciful and tender. It is deep and cannot be explained.
The love of God must pass through us. For the love of Christ to even pass through the soul, it must experience many deaths. The love of the Son of God is the mystery of the Father, while the love of God is Eternal Life. The latter is a high voltage love; no flesh can exhibit this love and remain. This is why John speaks of how the soul ought to be born of God.
The testimony is to make wise the simple (Ps. 19:7). A wise man begins at the level of being spiritual, that is Christ. Christ is the beginning of wisdom. Anything lower than Christ is simple. Asides from wise men, there are stars of heaven which are men of height (Dan. 12:3); that is, they are everlasting. We know this by their firmament. Everlasting life is a wisdom higher than Christ. It takes a soul out from the earth and makes him heavenly, that is redemption. There is no redemption without being made wise. Wisdom and prudence are required for redemption (Eph. 1:8).
To take us from the earth, we must be given wisdom (Psa. 119:25). To be born of God is to be born up, or born above. Anyone who is not born of God cannot have his/her name written in heaven (Heb. 12:23). Those whose names are written in heaven are stars that have taken their place. The intention of God is to make sons; heaven sons.
John was referring to everlasting sons as those who are born of God (1John 5:4-5). To be born of God is to be born a star. To believe that Jesus is the Christ is not just at the level of the new birth, which any man can do. If believing Jesus at the point of the new birth regenerated our spirits, what would happen to us when we believe in the Son of God, through the hearing of doctrine, would be far greater. The latter would make us bright.
To say that the statutes of the Lord are right means that they are righteousness (Ps. 19:8). The statutes of God are the standards of God. They are everlasting righteousness, that is why they rejoice the heart. By them, the heart comes into strength, like the cherubims that excel in strength (Ps. 103:20).
Statutes are the right standards of God. There is a process involved in being made the righteousness of God. Jesus became a sinner and became the righteousness of God through a process (2Cor. 5:21). Although we confess that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we are yet to attain it. But as we yield to the process of making, we would become it.
The process entails that we encounter the statutes of the Lord; that is, we must come from righteousness, which Christ has been made for us, into everlasting righteousness, which is of God. All of the statutes of God progress from faith to faith (Rom. 1:17). The righteousness of God, which is the revelation of that which is right in the sight of God, is spelt out by His statutes.
The Lord wants to make us righteousness. It is then that we can arrive at this verse, “...he that doeth righteousness is righteous….” (1 Jn. 3:7). Such a man is able to do righteousness because he has statutes. He that doeth righteousness would be made right because man is generally wrong. Man is wrong because the entirety of his righteousness standards cannot overcome mammon. Man is easily swayed by mammon because he has no standard. Money is a higher standard than men.
Money has its own standards and they are ungodliness. There is no righteous mammon. Mammon is always referred to as ‘unrighteous mammon’. This tells us that it has its own rights and it elevates those rights so that when a man accepts them, he would be converted into being ungodly. There is nothing that turns men to ungodliness as fast as mammon. Mammon is a powerful tool in the hands of Satan; it turns a soul ungodly. This is why we are instructed to turn away from ungodliness and worldly lusts (Tit. 2:12).
When a soul gains mammon, he rejoices,,thinking he has gained strength when what ought to rejoice the heart are the statutes of the Lord. What should rejoice the heart is righteousness, not mammon (or money).
The commandment of the Lord is pure and we need it for our eyes to be enlightened (Psa. 19:8). Fear is love. Love is not clean when we have ulterior motives. Sincere love of the brethren is devoid of ulterior motives. A soul who has pure love expresses love without expecting anything or love in return. One who has come to this state of pure love is one who has become born again of the incorruptible seed of God (1 Pet. 1:23). This love is everlasting; it endures forever.
Psalm 19:11 says, “Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward”. To warn a soul is to wean the soul, which is to draw him or birth him by the elements listed in Psalm 19:7-9. We must be born of these things. Keeping these laws would deliver the great reward (Matt. 5:12, Psa. 19:11).
Note the usage of terms ‘whosoever’ and ‘whatsoever’ used in 1John 5:1-4. Man is first a ‘what’ before he becomes a ‘who’. This is why Psalms 8:4 reads, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him”. ‘What’ speaks of the contents, constituents, substances and materials that make up the man. That is what defines the man. To say that ‘whatsoever is born of God’ refers to the 'what' of God, that is, His substances and materials.
One cannot be born of God without having the substances of God. Those who fall into this category of ‘what’ of God, are already in their capacity as overcomers. ‘What’ refers to the things of God and when these things come into a man, they make the man born of God. One who is born of God overcomes the world. Overcoming the world does not happen by force or prayer, but by being made better than the world and higher than the heavens, by the substances of God that he possesses, just like Jesus.
There is something Jesus inherited that made Him better than the angels (Heb. 1:4). To be better than this world, one has to have the substances (things) of God. The world is a thing and substance of Satan. Faith is also a substance (Heb. 11:1-2). Every faith has its own substance. Substances are tangible and evident. Though invisible, they can be held.
As Hebrews 11:3 says, the worlds were framed by the word of God. In Greek, ‘world’ also means ages. Ages are framed by knowledge; they were framed by the word of God. The present world is distinguished in ages. Except a man has the knowledge of a world, he cannot participate in it. One cannot harness any aspect of the earth without light. When a soul breaks into a light, he comes into an age.
Substance is the wisdom and understanding of the knowledge of a life. Every life that is being lived is informed by knowledge. Some demonstrations of the light of the world should not be mistaken for humility, love walk or anything of the kingdom of God. They are lies because they are neither subject to the laws of God nor can they be. Rather, they are of the devil and are instituted to contend with the gospel.
Our humility, meekness, patience, love, glory etc., are all in Christ. When these characters exist outside Christ, they are counterfeit. Anything that is not in or of Christ should neither be trusted nor accepted. They are from the anti-Christ and his intention is to prevent some from coming into Christ. He does this by giving them a false show of the virtues and attitudes of Christ, thereby, deceiving them.
We must hold on to Christ and not accept the pseudo natures that Satan puts up to imitate the light of Christ. God is not in the things of the world. Christ must be enough for us, because in Christ is God. God is the ultimate reality we are looking for. Any humility or virtue in Satan would not lead us to God. Because the standards of God are being raised, deception is going to be common in these last days. When God’s standards are raised, the devil tries to produce the counterfeit. The world may have a form of godliness but God is not there.
Life is the evidence of the things not seen. When we hold the knowledge and substance of a life, we can be said to have that life. There is a life from beneath. There will be many men of the beneath realm emerging in these last days and anyone who has not yet drank of the spiritual rock or eaten the spiritual meat, will fall prey to delusion (John 8:23). Many believers will be deluded because they refused the spiritual meat and drink. Jesus came to His own and they received Him not (John 1:11).
The delusion that will come upon the earth will be accompanied with false christs (Matt. 24:24). A believer who is not well schooled would mistake such for the true Christ, and be deceived. Hence, Jesus warned us that where Christ wants to first appear is in our hearts (Matt. 24:23). One who is given to sensationalism will be unable to discern the false christs from the true Christ. The reason is because they lack the revelation of Christ’s testimonies. They lack the wisdom and understanding of the knowledge (that is, substance) of the life of Christ.
The Pharisees were sons from beneath (John 8:23). They had certain standards that even other men looked up to. However, Jesus’ description of them proves them otherwise and His description is true because He got it by revelation. The Pharisees were from beneath despite their sacrifices, deeds, dress codes and culture (Matt. 5:20). Jesus showed them (and us) their true definition, which was based on the substance they had, and that was a knowledge and understanding of a life that is from beneath.
Jesus said, “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). He was not of this world because He is born of God. This is evident by the substances He possesses. Just like Jesus, the disciples are not of this world because they have received the substances of God from Jesus (John 17:14,16). By the giving of those substances, Jesus took His disciples out of this world. They are no longer of this world and cannot participate in the civilization that is from beneath because they are from above.
It will also be said of us also that we are not from this world but from above. This means that we are born of God and from above. This is the state of one who overcomes the world. The victory that overcomes the world is ‘our substance’ (1 John 5:4). We are given this substance via the revelation of wisdom and understanding of a kind of life that is from above, because He that is from above is above all (John 3:31).
Blessings!
Summary
1. (1John 5:1) Anyone that believes that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God is born of God. The purpose of the revelation of Jesus Christ is to give birth to sons of God.
2. (Rev. 12:11). The Word of God contains testimony, and we are to war until that testimony becomes our inheritance just as it became 'their testimony'.
3. The womb is a place of rest for those who have finished their warfare. Womb dwellers would have to overcome the temptations of the enemy by keeping the commandments of the womb, which are the commandments of abiding.
4. The word of God, which is the perfect law of liberty, is sharper than the word of Christ. If a man has not used the word of Christ, he cannot deal with the word of God.
5. The key to every level of revelation is love. There is no light place we can enter without love. One may hear and even understand a realm, but without love, he/she would neither have entrance into it nor partake of it.
6. The purpose of revelation is for entrance and fellowship (1 Jn. 1:3). Things are written to us so that we can come and join the fellowship (Rev. 1:11).
7. The testimony is to make wise the simple (Ps. 19:7). A wise man begins at the level of being spiritual, that is Christ.
8. Everlasting life is a wisdom higher than Christ. It takes a soul out from the earth and makes him heavenly; that is redemption.
9. Jesus said, “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). He was not of this world because He is born of God. To be better than this world, one has to have the substances (things) of God.
10. The victory that overcomes the world is ‘our substance’ (1 John 5:4). We are given this substance via the revelation of wisdom and understanding of a kind of life that is from above.