Lekki Soul Centre (26th May, 2021)
Topic: The Essence of Knowledge in the journey unto Everlasting Life
Minister: Rev. (Mrs) Helen Oyegoke
One thing that stands out in all that we have been learning in this season is the ministry of the High Priest (Heb. 8:6). The ministry of the High Priest is so key in this season because that is what will help us to inherit everlasting life just as our Lord Jesus (who is the High Priest) was helped by God to inherit everlasting life. The High Priest inherited everlasting life and eternal Life. He is also called the Everlasting Father (Isa. 9:6). He's a custodian of the things of the Father and this is why He is able to minister such things to us.
The High Priest is a raising or stature of everlasting judgement. This judgement was committed to Him by the Father. Without those judgements, a man cannot come into everlasting life.
God the Father has an intention. There is an eternal purpose that is served by the Godhead and angels as well (Eph. 3:11). God is so vulnerable and passionate about what He wants to give to man. God is not perturbed or discouraged by our natural frame. God is coming to us with so much love and He is unrelenting until we get the promise of eternal Life (1 John 2:25).
God does not think the way man thinks; He is so free from thoughts of insecurity. God keeps on giving and He is also the one who helps us to respond to the things He is giving. The Godhead helps us to take their offering seriously, the same way They are taking the agenda of salvation seriously. God’s desire is to raise every man to the same stature that His Son (Jesus Christ) was raised into. The High Priest is not a mere man or an ordinary person; He is God (Heb. 1:6-9).
Whosoever will enter the kingdom of God and inherit everlasting life must hate iniquity (Heb. 1:9). The sceptre of God’s kingdom is righteousness while the opposite sceptre is iniquity. Therefore, we have to be taught righteousness so that we can know the difference between right and wrong in the sight of God (Heb. 5:14).
By the ministrations we are receiving, God is giving us His judgement and understanding. And the intention or purpose is for us to become like the Son of God. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:28-29). God wants to raise us to the pedigree/stature of the Son. The Son is a Being of the throne of God and He has a sceptre (Heb. 1:8, Psa. 45:6).
Looking from a natural perspective or considering our human frame, it looks like an impossible task to be raised to the pedigree of the throne of God. Our Lord Jesus made us to understand that He also did certain things before He was set on the throne (Rev. 3:21). The throne that the Son is sitting on belongs to His Father and He was given this throne because He allowed the Father to do a work in Him. The sole desire of the Godhead is to make us thronic entities like our Lord Jesus.
We cannot sit on the throne except we have been conformed to the image of the Son. Our Lord Jesus is the first born who originally owns the throne. The first born is the High Priest of our profession and He is ordained for men in things pertaining to God (Heb. 5:1-4). Our High Priest is different because His priesthood is constituted of better laws than those that raised the high priest in the Old Testament.
Our High Priest is handling a better testament that is based on better promises. He was raised by things that pertain to God (Heb. 5:1). Sonship and high priesthood are synonymous and they can be used interchangeably. The priesthood of our Lord Jesus is different from the Aaronic priesthood because the laws that made Aaronic priesthood was weak (Heb. 7:19-24). The Aaronic priesthood was made by carnal commandments. On the other hand, the throne of our Lord Jesus is forever and it is after the order of Melchizedek’s priesthood. Therefore, the priesthood of our Lord Jesus is everlasting because He is raised by laws of everlasting life (Heb. 7:16). This is why our Lord Jesus is also able to raise everlasting priests.
Priests are those who have access into the courts of God. To gain access into the Outer Court, one must be a Levite. To gain access into the Holy Place, one must be a priest. The tabernacle represents different realms of God. Our High Priest is an entity of the Most Holy Place. This means that He graduated from being a Levite into a Priest and finally into a High Priest. It is men that occupy all these places in the tabernacle and they signify our journey to God.
The New Birth does not qualify us to become Levites. This is because we were ignorant and God begins by feeding us with the foundational milk of the word (1 Cor. 3:2). The intent is for us to prepare to embark on a journey of accessing or getting to God. A babe in Christ can have answers to his prayers but cannot yet be granted access to God because he is still ignorant. There is a need for knowledge in our spiritual journey. The foundational milk of the word makes us to translate from babyhood to childhood. Furthermore, we are being made entities of the court of God when we begin to feed on the meat of the word.
The scriptures clearly stated that a priest cannot be raised without knowledge and this cannot be compromised (Hosea 4:6). Knowledge is very key. Knowledge begins with the revelation of Christ. A man becomes a Levite and is granted access to the Outer Court because he has fed on the meat of the word; he has been raised by some knowledge of Christ.
The level to which sin has been deleted from our souls tells our stature in the spirit. As our sins are being deleted, we are being raised spiritually. Knowledge is the tool for deleting sin. The knowledge of Christ given to priests is to remove sins from the people (Mal. 2:1-5). The covenant of Life and Peace is contained in the knowledge of Christ. A man who is exposed to this knowledge and begins to obey it would begin to make covenant with Life and Peace (Romans 5:1).
A man who is living by revealed righteousness is being justified and made right by faith. The internal configuration of a man is being rearranged when he begins to obey the revealed righteousness that is contained in the gospel of Christ (Romans 1:16-17). This rearrangement is our growth: it is our building and our movement towards God (Heb. 11:6). Living by faith is what brings pleasure to God. Faith is how we come to God. Faith is given by the preaching of Christ (Roman 10:17).
The revelation of Christ is the delivery of the substances of faith that every man should live by. We journey spiritually by obeying this faith and it rearranges or makes us right as we do so. Walking by faith deals with sin in a man. We ought to obey faith until we arrive at peace.
We cut covenant of life and peace by obeying Christ. The revelation of Christ is important in the making of a priest. A priest who has the covenant of Life and Peace is one who has arrived at the end of the Holy Place.
A Levite has some fear of God. The fear of God is that which makes us agree with the standards that God is revealing. We cannot increase in understanding or revelation without having the fear of God. We must fear to be stagnant in the spirit. Rather, we must engage the forces of change which are the revelations that come by knowledge. When God shows us His standard, we should be afraid to turn away from it.
The heart of a man is wicked, and men can easily try to dodge God's light. Whosoever turn away from obeying the light of God is joking with his spiritual change or movement towards God. Our hearts should quake and fear at the revelation of God's standard. We should be afraid to let it slip or to forget it. There are some instructions that God brings and the devil knows that he will lose us if he allows us stay and meditate on them. This is why he brings his own thoughts and ideas to counter what God has said and they will overwhelm us when we give them attention.
When we take the instructions of the Lord with levity, the devil is always there to take advantage of that attitude (Matt. 13:3-4). Fowls of the air (evil spirits) are always around and they are only interested in devouring the understanding we have received so that they don't germinate and bring forth fruit. This is so that we are not delivered from their hands. They are always hunting the seed of the Kingdom or of salvation. We cannot become entities of the Kingdom of God without the seeds. We are supposed to align with the seeds when they are given. We should take it in and obey it so that it can become part of us.
“My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” (Mal. 2:5-6). There is a graduation from the laws of Levi to the law of truth that is able to take care of iniquity. The law of truth is the strong meat that will wean a priest from the Holy Place into the Most Holy Place.
God does not joke with the laws that pertain to His priesthood. God does not joke with laws, covenants, commandments and with knowledge (Hosea 6:6). A high priest is a man who is armed with the law of truth with the aim of reconciling men to God. God administered this law first to our Lord Jesus and this was why He hated iniquity (Heb. 1:9).
Knowledge comes to remit sins in our souls; it is not meant to puff us up but to slay us. There is no death to sin without knowledge. Knowledge reveals what we are yet alive to, what we have married and what we are constituted of, so that we can make ammends.
“For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.” (Heb. 5:1-2). The High Priest helps priests who are ignorant and out of the way. An ignorant man is a man who is out of the way that leads to the Most Holy Place. We need knowledge to journey well and to stay consistently on course. Our Lord Jesus has all knowledge - He is not an ignorant fellow. God raised Him with knowledge (John 3:35). Jesus kept the sayings of the Father and that is why the Father committed things to Him. The Father committed His life to Jesus through sayings (John 5:26). Jesus wants us to also keep the sayings of His Father. A priest can never be made without the knowledge of the Father.
“As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father...” (John 10:15). Jesus knows the internal configuration and the substances that made up the Father and that is why He is the express image of His person (Heb. 1:3). Apostle Paul had to cast everything he previously acquired as dung in order to attain unto this knowledge (Phillip. 3:8).
Jesus has the excellent knowledge of the Father. The Father is the eternal God. Our Lord Jesus was able to come to the throne or to the pedigree of the Father because God committed His things into His hands. These are the things that made Him a God (Heb. 1:8). Jesus Christ obeyed the sayings of God to the uttermost. We stand to lose out on great and precious promises of God if we refuse to obey the things (or sayings) of the Father that is coming to us in this season (2 Pet. 1:4).
We stand at a risk of being left behind when others are responding or moving closer to God and we are not. The doctrines and commandments of God are meant to deal with death in us.
If Jesus obeyed the sayings of the Father, then we are inexcusable when it comes to response to the sayings of God that are coming from the mouth of the High Priest. The knowledge of the Father commands a death, i.e., laying down of one’s life for the sheep (John 10:14-17). This is what brings and commends the love of the Father to us. We cannot possess the love of God outside the commandment of laying down our lives. We must be doers of God’s pleasure.
Jesus had the strength to lay down His life because of the knowledge He had. A man of knowledge increases in strength (Prov. 24:5). Jesus Christ was full of grace and truth because He knew God (John 1:14). While on earth, He was tapping into the knowledge of the Father and grace was being ministered to Him. There's a way knowledge helps to detach us from what we are holding onto and it ministers grace that will give us a leap to do the impossible. Getting to God is not by power nor by might but by the Spirit of God.
To lay down one's life is to deny our life or to be able to walk away from what seems to be our advantages or rights. It takes knowledge to raise our judgement above things we previously held on to that are unrighteous. Knowledge makes us see something better in God and this will give us strength to die to wrong things in our souls. Committing suicide is not tantamount to dying to sin or this world. This is because men who commit such things are still alive to shame; they lack the hope of the gospel and that is why they decide to die physically.
When knowledge and understanding comes to man, he will begin to see iniquity for what it is. When we have been raised to see everlasting substance of God as good, then we can walk away from things that has previously held us bound. When knowledge and understanding come, we will see such things as dung and count them as nothing, just as Apostle Paul did. It can only take the excellent knowledge of God to do this.
Understanding makes us to relinquish iniquity at our own will without being forced (John 10:18). The knowledge of the Father has commandments that we ought to obey. The Godhead is an erection of judgement and Jesus came into this judgment by fellowshipping with the Father (John 5:22). Judgement belongs to gods, even sons under God (Psa. 82:1).
We cannot come into the knowledge of God just after we got born again; the first knowledge we can come into is the knowledge of Christ. We learn Christ to become spiritual, and to prepare us to receive the judgements of the Father. Therefore, it is important for every believer to learn and obey Christ until we become Christ.
The High Priest can only declare the name of the Father amongst the brethren, i.e., those who have become Christ in their soul. The High Priest will teach what constitutes the Father because they want to adopt the brethren into the Most Holy Place where the Father dwells. The Father and the Son are entities of the Most Holy Place and they want their children to come to where they are (John 17:24). This can only be done by communicating the things that constitute the Father to the brethren. God does not just want us to come to Him but to be built enough to seat on the throne. This is why God is beckoning us. This is great love that the Father is bestowing upon us, and He is not relenting even though we do not appreciate what they are giving the way we should.
We need to be careful not to be exalted above measure or to allow Satan to exalt us. The voice of the Lord will always bring things that will make us humble and not be puffed up. The Lord's voice will always make us become meeker. Any voice that generates a contrary conversation is not the Lord. Any voice that tells us how high we are is designed to take us to the lake of fire. We must always tell ourselves that we are nothing because we are truly nothing without the grace of God.
Oftentimes, women find it hard to submit to their husbands because they are bloated or high minded. They feel they are better than their husbands. Wives must constantly come under their husbands. The order of the Godhead is submission. God is not unfair to men because He did not also spare His Son. God demanded submission from Jesus. Women are jeopardizing their eternal destiny when they don't align under their husbands. Also, women who do not align with the commandment of submission are putting their home at risk. This is because the angels of God will not be able to come to such homes (1 Cor. 11:10). A woman will never know what it means to have authority in the spirit until she has submitted to the authority placed over her.
The man Jesus grew up to the same pedigree as the Father but He is yet still in submission under God (1 Cor. 15:27-28). Our Lord Jesus obeyed and submitted even unto the point of death (Philip. 2:8). He became better than angels through obedience (Heb. 1:4).
Men often glory in themselves, but scripture says that we should glory that we know God (Jer. 9:24). If we really know God, we will see that we are nothing outside Him and would not be puffed up in any way. When we constantly disobey the Holyghost, we are being trained or prepared for the lake of fire because we become what we do. Our hearts should quake, we should fear and tremble when words are coming to us (Isa. 66:2). A man with a trembling heart is such that God focuses His face upon; God will begin to bring things of the throne to him. Thronic things are things of judgements or salvation.
The High Priest is the custodian of the things of God but He cannot communicate such things to us until we have been well exercised in the doctrine of Christ. Our attitude towards the things of Christ will determine if God will admit us into His judgement. The things of Christ will make us godly to be able to stand in judgement (Psa. 1:5).
If we rightly align with God in marriage and submission, God will grant us more understanding of everlasting life. Anytime we spot pride in ourselves, we should know that the devil is near us.
Jesus showed us a pattern of how we should submit to God and He is now seated at the beautiful and exalted place of the right hand of the Majesty on high. Our High Priest was made by the word of oath or the word of God. It means that God opened Himself up to our Lord Jesus. God taught Him the judgements that can make a man become a God.
The word of oath is strong meat of the word (Heb. 5:14). It is the knowledge of God that made Him an everlasting and eternal entity. Jesus has the ability to bring us to this pedestal that He is (Heb. 7:24-26). Most men find it hard to obey instructions because Satan has badly dealt with the soul and sapped out strength from it.
“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” (Heb. 7:25). Salvation to the uttermost is only possible through the High Priest. God unveiled different standards of righteousness to our Lord Jesus and He obeyed them. Jesus loved righteousness and hated iniquity. It will take the knowledge of everlasting righteousness for a man to hate iniquity. The knowledge of Christ deals with worldliness in the soul, after which the knowledge of God will be brought to deal with iniquity in the soul.
The peak of salvation is that a man will love righteousness and hate iniquity (Heb. 1:9). We must love every revelation that the Lord is bringing to us. The only way we can completely beat the devil is by the sayings of God (Heb. 2:1). Men who learn Christ will eventually make covenant with Life and Peace. Then things pertaining to God will be brought to such men. Our attitude to the sayings of God should be one of giving the more earnest heed to the things we are hearing (Heb. 2:1). Our High Priest was raised by sayings and we will also be raised by sayings.
Message ends