Most Holy Call to Pray (CTP, 29th April, 2021)
Topic: The High Priest and Things Pertaining to God
Minister: Rev. Kayode Oyegoke
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exo. 20:8). As we learn to obey the author of eternal salvation, we would be taught how to keep the sabbath. Through obedience, we are being built up spiritually. However, we bring down what God has built in us when we disobey Him. Our obedience to God is profitable. God is the God of the Sabbath (El-Sabaoth). If He keeps the Sabbath, we should also be able to do the same. We often do not keep the Sabbath because we are ignorant of it. To ignore a thing is to despise or not attribute value to it. The things of God are foolishness to the natural man because he is ignorant of it (1 Cor. 1:18).
God has prepared things for those who will love Him; and these things cannot be easily accessed. The things of God can only be discerned spiritually (1 Cor. 2:9-10). Initially, Paul could not speak to the Corinthian Church as unto spiritual because they would not understand him (1 Cor. 3:1). To speak to someone “as unto spiritual” is to speak to a man who has the formation of Christ in his soul (Gal. 4:19). Christ and God are two different levels of spirituality. You have to know Christ before you can know God. It can only take the high wisdom which the Holy Ghost teaches to enable a man to compare the spirituality of Christ with that of God (1 Cor. 2:13). God is a high Spirit.
In the scheme of God’s ordinances, a man cannot be said to love God until he has fully attained the stature of Christ and has arrived in the Holy of Holies. However, a man who has only attained the fullness of Christ in the Sanctuary will be able to love the brethren fervently (1 Pet. 1:22). Brethren are believers who have journeyed into the Sanctuary; they have thereby become spiritual men who would not be easily loved by carnal men. At any level, a carnal man cannot love a spiritual man; such would naturally disallow (not accept) a spiritual man (1 Pet. 2:4). Whenever a carnal man begins to love a spiritual person, it is because he is about to experience a transition or call out of carnality into being spiritual. Love is not a feeling; it is a judgment. A man with a high level of love will have hatred for iniquity; just like our Lord Jesus loved righteousness and hated iniquity (Heb. 1:9).
Saints who have been able to love the brethren fervently are those who have completed their course in the Sanctuary and are now ready to go on into the Holy of Holies. Therefore, God can begin to communicate to them the things that eyes have not seen and that ears have not heard of (1 Cor. 2:9-10). The only way saints can come into the deep things of God is by love. It is those who are lovers of God that are qualified to see and hear what God has prepared.
No man can love God by his own might; even the best of man can never fall in love with God. Men cannot ordinarily receive the things of God because it will require spiritual discernment to do so. It can only take a man who has spiritual age to have spiritual discernment (Heb. 5:14). This is why we need to keep hearing the word of God that is being spoken to us (Rev. 1:3).
“But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (Heb. 5:14). It is those who have come to full age that can receive the dealings of the strong meat of the word. In other words, those who have attained full age in Christ are the ones who graduate into becoming lovers of God. The strong meat is what God has prepared for those who love Him.
A saint must have been raised with the strong meat of the word for him to know what is the “good” in order to discern the “evil”. No one can know evil when he has not yet known good. It takes the strong meat of the word to see evil. “Evil” is higher than the realm of Christ. Therefore, the knowledge of Christ is not enough to discern evil. We must have an understanding higher than that of Christ to be able to know evil (Eph. 3:19).
A man will become better in strength if he is able to come into the exercise of everlasting knowledge through the strong meat of the word. Such a man will be able to war with spiritual wickedness in high places. The final warfare is against these spirits in high places (Eph. 6:12). A man who has only attained the stature of Christ cannot go into warfare with spiritual wickedness; he will need what God has prepared for those who love Him.
A soul that has not been raised spiritually can easily get wearied with the race of attaining God. Walking with God is a strong experience. Whosoever will walk with God will be taught by Him; such would be exercised in the judgment of everlasting Life. “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” (Gen. 6:9). The word “just” speaks of righteousness while “perfection” speaks of peace. A man who has attained both righteousness and peace is the one who will be able to walk with God, like Noah. You cannot walk with God and remain a man; you will be taken by Him (Gen. 5:24). We are in the realm where we are about to be taken by God; but this can only happen after we have walked with God (Gen. 5:24, Matt. 24:40).
A man who has the formation of Christ in his soul is not yet complete in God because he still has the things of man in him. Therefore, such a spiritual/perfect man is still different from a son of God. However, sons of God are raised or taken out of such men (who have the formation of Christ) so that they can participate in things pertaining to God (Heb. 5:1-5). The “things” of God will first teach us how to walk with God, while the “deep things” of God will make us to be taken by Him (1 Cor. 2:9-10).
It can only take a man who has become the Sanctuary of Christ (one with the full formation of Christ) to walk with God. Whosoever will walk with God has to be separated from the things of men because those things would limit and hinder his access to God. As a man engages in the art of “walking with God”, he is allowing God to change his soul configuration from that of a man to that of Himself. We remain as men for many years because we keep the things of man and refuse to let them go.
It is not easy to go up to God. This is because the devil has designed many schemes (even to minute things) to keep us from going up to God; just like what he tried do with Joshua and Job (Zach. 3:1, Job 1:6-11). We must agree to walk in the spirit, otherwise, we will not be taken by God. It was the legs (walk) of men that fell the walls of Jericho and parted Jordan (Josh. 3:15-17, 6:1-20). When God anoints legs, they become deadly. The legs of the two lepers who helped Israel overthrow the camp of Syria were anointed (2 Kings 7:3-7). In the same manner, it is our walk in the Holy of Holies that will cause spiritual wickedness in high places to fall because such a walk is strategized against these enemies in high places. It is in walking with God that our feet are being made like that of a hind, to walk upon high places (Psa. 18:33).
Walking with God is a high and rare opportunity. There are seasons when God is far from us and there are some when He is near to us. The season when God is near is when He is declaring His things i.e., the things which He has prepared for those who love Him. God does not come near until He has found lovers: it can only take such men to bring Him closer.
More than two thousand years ago, God concentrated on making one man (Jesus) to be ‘taken’. Jesus came to earth so that He could be taken by God; and to also show men how to be taken by God. When we arrive at the Holy of Holies, we will see the things that prevent us from being taken. These things are sins, and they are constituted in our intents and thoughts (1 John 1:8). God wants to expose these sins so that we can see our true natures and deal with them.
There are many saints that have died and gone to heaven with sins still resident in their souls. This is because they were not empowered to break off from those sins. We all have infirmities, otherwise, we would not need a High Priest. The ministry of the High Priest is for those who have sins. Therefore, He has come to treat, uproot, and teach us out of our infirmities. Our Lord Jesus Christ can trace iniquity to its root; He can demystify it and then remove it.
We need skill to manage the salvation process, otherwise, the heart can be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). Teaching or preaching is the most powerful tool on earth because it is the only means by which men are trained and spiritually formed. Satan takes time to talk to men; but the High Priest also teaches vehemently so that men can relinquish their will, and be received by the everlasting God. A man’s love can grow weary and he can faint as he journeys to God. Therefore, we need everlasting strength (Isa. 40:28-31).
The High Priest teaches the things that pertain to God. He begins by teaching us how to walk or tread the path of everlasting life (through the “all things” of God). Then, He will teach us how to be taken by God (through the “deep things” of God). To be taken is to be brought into glory (Heb. 2:10). The realm of glory is the final destination; it is the season of being harvested unto God. The Outer Court and Holy Place are the realms of praise and honour respectively (1 Pet. 1:7).
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil has the nature of Satan; and it teaches men to spend their lifetime acquiring other knowledges without learning about the Creator. There is enough knowledge in nature to sustain man throughout his lifetime on earth. When a man learns so much about nature without the knowledge of God, his heart will become hardened; such a man would begin to give glory to the creature more than the Creator (Romans 1:25). And after a while, he would not even give glory to God anymore. This is the plague that has overtaken some developed nations.
When a man learns nature more than he learns God, he is being demoted spiritually. His mind and spirit are also being cut off from the Creator; this is death (i.e., separation). The only thing that man has not been able to demystify is sin and this is because man has adopted sin into his frame. However, the only remedy to sin is the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5:12).
The High Priest wants to take us from among men by introducing us to the things that pertain to God (Heb. 5:1). Jesus has begun this work and He will finish it. The opportunity we have to be hearing these words was orchestrated by God’s mercy. God is very serious about the program of taking us up. We should not give room to fear because we would not fall. We did not bring ourselves to this point; God did. However, this is not to make us feel special; none of us is indispensable if we draw back.