Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 23rd June 2022
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). This way is not just a way, but a highway. When God is coming, He does not come through by-ways. It is not common for a highway to be present in the wilderness. What often go through the wilderness are footpaths because people do not really pass through the wilderness.
Both the way and highway are not by-ways. The way must first be made for the Lord after which the highway will be made for God. The way is firstly a way for Christ which will then be made a highway for God. This way is not physical but a way in the heart. Whosoever has Christ laid in his heart has a way. God can only come to a man who has at least the way of Christ in him. The writing of the epistle of Christ in the heart makes a way in the heart (2Cor. 3:2). Whosoever has the epistle of Christ written in him has inherited the Lord’s way.
There are all manners of ways that can be in the heart. For example, the scriptures speak of the way of Cain (Jud. 1:11). There are thoughts that cannot visit us right now because our thoughts are not yet the way of them. Prophets are actually pathfinders; they are wayfaring men. Without prophets, people will not find the path. There was so much darkness in Israel when there were no prophets. This darkness refers to the lack of the knowledge of God.
There has to first be a way for the highway to be placed upon the way. God will not come when there is no highway. “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:” (Isaiah 40:4). Valleys are places of depression in the hearts. Valleys are descensions and when people are not walking straight, they are descending. Descending is different from condescending; descending is degenerating. The reason for the valley is to cause man to constantly degenerate.
Valley speaks of lack of knowledge. It is lack of knowledge that makes people perish. Whenever there is a valley - a place of ignorance - in the heart, understanding is lacking. Understanding is required to journey in the spirit, but valleys are formed where there is no understanding. However, every valley will be exalted (Isa 40:4). There are certain high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God (2Cor. 10:5). High things speak of ‘knowledges’ that prevent or obstruct.
The job of a pastor is to feed the sheep and tend the lamb. The pastoral office is a mini-Christ and, because it is Christ in a measure, the Head will ensure that the sheep who remain under a pastor are fed and covered. One of the hardest things for a young man who is anointed is to agree to be pastored. When you do not agree to be pastored, you will pick up all kinds of wrong spiritual food or doctrines – the kind of roadside foods that are sacrificed to demons.
Knowledge is powerful but when the wrong kind is taken up by a man, the spirits that are tied to it will follow him to make sure that he does not access true knowledge. The grace that is upon the shepherd also cares for the sheep spiritually. Sometimes you do not know where you are sick, but the shepherd knows how to care for you.
Truth comes to confront things that are high in the heart. As we hear revelation, we should be careful to not be high-minded. The acquisition of the knowledge of Christ will make you meek and lowly. This is what is referred to as the way of the Lord. When a man is not meek and lowly, he does not yet have the way in him because it is only the meek that will be guided in salvation (Psa. 25:9). The knowledge of Christ will make you pastorable. Anything that does not make you pastorable is not the knowledge of Christ.
"Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them” (Psalm 84:5). These ways are meekness and lowliness. God will not come when there are high things in the heart that are against Him. Every mountain and hill must first be made low; this is what it means to be lowly. High things prevent the making of a way, and crookedness in the heart positions a man against being upright. When a man is upright, it means that the road is straight in the heart.
The Lord always demands a straight way because “narrow is the way and strait is the gate…” (Matt. 7:14). If the heart is not strait, even when the word is spoken to it, it will not gain entrance into the heart because the heart is not strait. Our hearts are wrongly configured because of wrong doctrines. Wrong doctrines causes a man to be tossed to and fro and this motion works crookedness in the heart.
For glory to be revealed, there has to be a highway for our God (Isa. 40:5). We are in that day when God wants to make all flesh to see salvation or the glory of God. Salvation is the beginning of glory. The giving of the knowledge of God is actually the giving of salvation. The glory of the LORD begins with the knowledge of salvation, which is everlasting life. All flesh does not refer to everybody on earth but to those who have acquired a heart of flesh. It refers to those who have the ways of the Lord in their heart. If there is no way in a man’s heart, he will not see the glory of God (Isa. 40:5).
The ark is a glorious work. What rested on the ark was glory but the ark is also glorious; it is a wood overlaid with gold. When a soul has been made an ark, the soul has testimony. If you do not have the testimony, you are merely a box. The ark is incomplete if it does not have testimony. It is only the ark that can inherit glory; it is upon the ark that the reward will rest. The reward is just pure gold and it will rest upon the ark that has become a work. Christ, the Son of God, is the work of God. The work of God speaks of things that are wrought with everlasting substances. What prevents a man from perishing is when God’s work has been wrought in him.
Raising and quickening are glorious works. The Father is the one who has the ability to raise, but He also has the ability to quicken (John 5:21). The Father will only quicken what He has raised. The last day is the day when the last work is being done and it is a work that only a high priest can do (John 6:39). The first thing that the Father gave to Jesus was all judgment. The Father will not do the work of judging anymore because He has committed that duty to the Son.
If you come short in judgement, it will show in the time of raising because you will fall short of glory (Rom. 3:23). The soul must be raised before it can be quickened. Raising is the first thing and it is done when judgement is being given to the soul. Judgement makes one better. To give you judgement is to give you things or commandments of everlasting life.
The Father raises the soul from death. The Father will have to uphold judgement and a man will lose judgement if he does not do them. The judgement of the Father must be kept. What a man keeps will determine how he will be raised. The Father uses judgement to raise a Christ (Col. 3:1). Any judgement that is lost is tantamount to losing raising. All the commandments of the Father are life everlasting (John 12:50).
“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”(John 6:40). It is not everybody on earth that would see the glory of God because one has to see the Son. To see the Son of God is to discern the Son as the work of God. It is possible to have discerned the Son as Christ, but there is yet another level of seeing Him as the Son of God.
To see is not with the physical eyes because that does not cause the work of God to be wrought in the soul. The soul does not hold things by visibly seeing or prophetically seeing them. The pathway to acquiring works in the soul is via faith or understanding. This is what will make us spiritual. There is something that happens to our soul when we believe without seeing. The blessing of believing without seeing is the inheritance of a work; that is how the soul is raised.
The flesh that will see the glory of God is the heart of flesh. We can only see the Son by knowledge. God’s will is that man should see the Son, which is to discern what God has done in the Son and the judgement that framed Him. Whosoever sees the Son and believes on Him should have everlasting life. Each time we discern the Son of God, what we are receiving are crucibles of everlasting life. We have not really heard a thing until we see it, that is, comprehend it. It takes a multitude of hearing for a man to comprehend. Therefore, we must not become too familiar with the things that we are hearing.
“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” (John 5:17). The work that the Father is doing in heaven is not a work of healing; angels do not need healing in heaven. God does not need to be present for healing to happen in meetings. The anointing upon the High Priest is too high for just healing of the physical body. The mixture of oil on the head of Jesus is for salvation, not for physical healing.
Because Jesus went about healing the sick, it is possible to make the mistake to think that the work of the Father is healing. There is a work that the Father is doing and that work is not physical healing or anything that pertains to the earth because the Father is an everlasting worker. It is in the work of God that we become like Him. If we do not have the Spirit of God as a work, God cannot call us His own. The absence of the work of God in us indicates the presence of Satan’s work in us.
As we come into sonship, we cannot do everything but are only allowed to do what the Father is doing (John 5:19). You are only allowed to do according to the work that has been wrought in you; doing otherwise is committing transgression. The Son will not raise or quicken anyone the Father is not doing the same to. “For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel” (John 5:20). What the Father was showing Jesus was judgement. As we keep receiving God’s judgement, we will be commanded (Psa. 119:98).
There are certain obvious sins that can make us lose life but there are also sins that are not obvious. There are instances wherein we are expected to respond to a situation with the judgment that has been given to us but we respond to such situations carnally. Jesus could have given a verdict lower than the judgment of the Father concerning the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. Jesus could have literally applied the law of Moses, but He would have fallen short of becoming the author of eternal salvation.
When we are not responding to the judgement being committed to us, we become insensitive to life. Every life that is committed to us brings us to a place of sensitivity for the next allocation of life. The greater works that is spoken of in John 5:20 does not refer to physical miracles but walk in life. Work is designed to raise while greater works is meant to quicken. Those are the works that the Father does.
Judgments are in levels. There is a judgement for raising and there is another for quickening (John 5:21-22). There is a judgement that will make a man become a quickening spirit, but the Father cannot quicken one who has not been raised. Just as raising is a giving of judgement, quickening also is a giving of judgement. Whosoever has the highway is a quickened man.
The judgement of quickening is what is referred to as mercy. There are three things that are weightier matters of the law: faith, judgement and mercy (Matt. 23:23). In the realm of God, there is also faith, judgement and mercy. This faith is the most holy faith. Faith is required for raising. Mercy is a judgement that is higher than judgment. It is a knowledge that surpasses the knowledge of the Father. This judgement of mercy is necessary to sit on the throne. That seat is not a physical throne but describes how a man is set in his soul. This setting is through the judgement of Eternal Life. Eternal Life is a product of mercy and the mercy seat is a seat of Eternal Life.
Blessings!