Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing the Vision (May Edition)
Date: Saturday, 21st May 2022
Ministering: Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
The ten commandments can be summarized in one commandment (Exo. 20) – the commandment of love (Rom. 13:8-10). The commandments that pertain to our response to God speak of how we should love God and God would reward those who love Him with mercy (Exod. 20:6).
The commandments are the works of God which He expects man to carry out; He desires that man responds to His commandments. Those who are in love with God will not have another God beside Him, nor a graven image of another god (Exo. 20:3-4). A lover of God will not make another image, and neither will such bow down to it. What follows the making of image is to bow to it, that is, to worship it. To bow down to an image is to worship it, while to make an image is to serve it.
Satan expected two things from Jesus – to “fall down” and “worship” (Matt. 4:8-10). To fall down is to serve and it is followed by worship. One has to serve before such can worship (Matt. 4:10). Service is the making up of one’s mind to break free from one's present master in order to serve another and this requires hating one and loving the other (Matt. 6:24).
To be a worshipper, one must first be in the house of service. Satan knows that God will not accommodate the service of Him with another, for He cannot take any other besides Him (Exo. 20:3). God does not allow the service of another besides Him because no one can think or give like Him. In addition, He has certain laws that He cannot compromise. Hence, if He opens up the door to others, they will be unable to give like Him and will only compromise.
Keeping the Sabbath day is the last commandment in the segment of commandments hinged on our duty to God (Exo. 20:8). The purpose of the commandments that precedes this commandment is to make us rest. Having another god, making a graven image beside Him or bowing down to another god deters one from rest. In other words, one who does not love God will not rest, for the love of God leads to the rest of God.
All the commandments that pertain to God lead to one thing – rest. No man can enter rest or cease from his works as God did (Heb. 4:10) without being empowered. The first, second and third commandments given by God are the empowerments for rest. God said that He will show mercy even unto a thousand generations to those that love Him (Exo. 20:6). Lovers are those who refuse to make an image of another god or have another god beside God or bow down to another god.
It is impossible to have a god without first making a god. It is after a god has been made that one can have something to bow to. This is why the commandments are just one; God was explaining different processes of the same thing. If one has no other god besides God (first part of the commandment), then such would not make an image of the god (second part of the commandment) and if there are no images made, there would be nothing to bow down to (third part of the commandment). One who fulfils these three commandments is a lover.
God gave these three commandments because He knows that there is another god – the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), who is also campaigning for worshippers. This god is raising mankind to worship him and is drunk by this desire. This was Lucifer’s heavenly dream and what led to his fall from heaven. Lucifer fell because he wanted to be a god in heaven, thus, wanting heaven to accommodate two gods.
The commandment is one and the essence is to defeat the sense of having another god. The process of having another god is the working of iniquity. God hates images that are not of His essence and He does not want us to bow down to such images. Many men are bowing down to evil images because of the promise of rest. Every god has a promise of a Sabbath and it is not easy for a man to resist other Sabbaths if he lacks what it takes to resist a god.
It is possible to hate God (Rom. 1:30). Haters of God are those who have the capacity to bow to another (Exo. 20:5). Every image has a name. The commandment not to use the name of the Lord in vain (Exo. 20:7) means that one should not use God’s name for another image or to live another life, that is, vanity should not be the reason for calling God or for taking His name. Many men commit this iniquity unaware because it will take the light of the Most Holy Place to reveal iniquity to a man. Those who take His name in vain are guilty and are not free from its consequence.
The Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it (Exo. 20:8-11). To hallow is to make it holy. Many people live life without respect for the Sabbath. Anyone who does so is expressing the character of an infidel, that is, such is expressing a life without God and hope. Anyone who does not believe in the Sabbath day does not believe there is a God, rather, believes in another god. This is what the Sabbath day/rest means.
To make the image of God is the work. God wants us to work and then rest, but many people work without resting and not all works are of God. God will instruct all those who come to Him on what to do so their lives can have true meaning; such will understand life so that they can understand God and own Him.
Anyone who is living on earth without the Sabbath (rest) in view is not living but only existing. True life is defined by the arrangement of life that God has arranged for man, which is for him to live (work) and afterwards rest. God desires that man works for six days while he rests on the seventh day (Exo. 20:11). However, the adversary works (1 Pet. 5:8) against man’s rest. The adversary understands that God has given man the strength to work. Hence, he has designed a life against man coming into God’s end (rest). He understands this because he has been in the secret place before.
Man is the image-making being that has the right to co-work with God and build an image with Him. Man was raised to build God’s image so that God can rest (Isa. 66:1-2). Man ought to be a collector of light; he is meant to receive light from day one till day five, and then the image of God will be formed in him. Once the man is conformed to the image of whom he is to bear, he is fully formed.
Man was designed after God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27) in order to actually build God’s image. Man was not created in God’s exact image, but after His image. Hence, the calling of God upon man never changed. Even when the first man failed, God brought another man to fulfil that destiny. The first image was a living soul, but God’s goal was an image with the properties of a quickening spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Although both are images, the difference lies in the nature of the light used to form them. The character/materiality of the light is what determines the strength of an image. An image created of gold and another of silver are not the same even if they have the same shape and size because their materiality differs.
The first man was made a living soul with unique materials; He looked like the image of God, however, he was not the exact image – he was not the gold of God. Immediately after Adam was formed, God ceased from His works and fell into rest (Gen. 2:2-3). This shows that man is the trigger to the rest of God.
Rest is not an ordinary thing. Other days were described as good, but God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it (Gen. 2:3). The blessing God placed on the seventh day is different from the blessing He placed upon the remaining creatures. Spiritually, man has a six-day journey, wherein he will be worked upon until the image of God is formed in him. Without the image of God being formed in a man, he will not be able to handle rest.
Satan is afraid of this present season because men are about to fulfil obedience. When obedience is fulfilled, God will avenge all disobedience (2 Cor. 10:6). The words of the ten commandments, which God spoke are aimed at chiselling out a man who can enter rest. In the New Testament, God will not write words on the hearts of men, rather, He will create an image. This means that all the words of the ten commandments are the formation of a person, in whom are all the laws and covenants.
God is an artist. As such, every one of the commandments can be likened to the stroke of His brush, or an engraving until the image of God is formed in him. This image is a Person. When God’s person has been formed in a man, that man has been conformed to the law of God. The law of the promised land or the law of rest is the image of Jesus, which is the covenant of God. Therefore, the formation of a person is a covenant.
The ten commandments are actually one law that makes up a Person. No one can complete the course of everlasting life except the Son of God. Thus, the preaching of everlasting life or the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus is the preaching of a Person.
What is meant to shine is a person–an image (2 Cor. 4:4). This image would cut deep into the heart of flesh and be engraved in it. The way to write inside a man is to chisel Christ into him through the Spirit. The Spirit gives life, but the letter kills (2 Cor. 3:6). Therefore, it is the speakings of the Holy Ghost that imprint God’s image on people; He carries out this task through preachers. Thus, when the light of God shines upon the heart of a man through preaching, and he agrees with the process of image formation, a covenant is made with him.
The image of the Son is the work of God’s covenant. When the image of God is fully formed in a man, he will then enter into the life which he ought to live – rest. Rest is a difficult thing for one who is always busy. One is busy because of fear, but rest knocks out fear and breaks its covenant. The whole lifetime of men is lived in fear (Heb. 2:15). What makes men make hasty and discourages them from adhering to the protocols of God for man is the fear of death. This is what makes them unable to wait on God.
The most difficult thing for a man to practise is rest. Rather than do nothing (at God’s instruction) and rest, man would rather use his intellect. Satan wants to break down the image of God in man so that man would serve him instead; he wants to raise true worshippers unto himself. True worshippers do not break allegiance, for they have made a covenant with their god.
In Revelation 16, no one gave instruction to men to refuse God and harden their hearts against God when His wrath is poured out upon them. This tells us that such men constitute a person–a writing. The beast that has the horn persuaded men and all nations of the earth, whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life and no one could make war with him (Rev. 13:4). The Lamb did not even make war with the beast, for the brightness of His coming alone defeated him (2 Thess. 2:8); the glory of the Lamb conquered him.
The beast probably assumed that the Lamb will be lesser than the devil in glory. The same beast, who was wondered at, saw the Lamb coming with glory from heaven and saw how beautiful He was, and his image crumbled. He was still in a stupor of what he had seen when he was taken to the bottomless pit (Rev. 19:20).
Glory can kill a man; it can take a spirit out of the body (1 Kings 10:5). Jesus will slay many. We are so much in love with Jesus because He is of far greater worth than what this world can ever offer. There is something in the image of the Son. The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecc. 12:13). God’s commandments to man go beyond not stealing or other works of the flesh; the duty required of man is to work for God.
God is recruiting servants and the application has just been served to us from heaven; we should all enrol into this service. There is a vacancy in the service of God and the security of this job is beyond human imagination. The job is to make the image in our hearts at no cost to us, with all expenses paid and with ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation (Heb. 1:14) – those who are making the image of God.
The Old Testament was regarded as the ministration of death, yet it was glorious (2 Cor. 3:7), but there is a glory which excelleth (2 Cor. 3:10) – the glory of the New Testament. We are in the age of the New Testament glory but we are not yet seeing this glory because the Church is not yet interacting with it.
The glory of the New Testament requires man to love the invisible and seek what natural men cannot see. It is a difficult task to love God when He cannot be seen. Although the visible is real, the invisible is much more real. When a man walks with God, he learns to rely more on the unseen than on things in the physical realm.
The call to us today is to make the image of God in us. God holds every man from completely falling over to darkness. However, when a man persists in staying in darkness, despite God's efforts, God would give up on such a person. When Ephraim is joined to his idols, he needs to be let alone (Hos. 4:17). The men who prevailed over God in the book of Revelation believed a lie afterwards and soon began to make images because they are after the name of blasphemy that is upon the head of the beast (Rev. 13:1).
Name speaks of resemblance. Scriptures called this being a beast, however, it probably may not have looked like a beast; he may resemble a natural man but is a being possessed by Satan, having lustre and very attractive. Hence, it is necessary that one has the image of God formed in him in order not to lust or wonder at the beast, but rather to count it as of no value (Isa. 14:16).
Men keep on crafting things in a bid to disprove scriptures with their inventions; they are working for another god, raising standards for him. However, God is raising emissaries who will finish the formation of the image of the Son of God in them. There is a whole lot attached to the formation of the image of God in a man. The land of rest can be regarded as the holy day and access to that land is granted only to those who have the image of God in them.
Blessings!
Summary
1. (Exo. 20:3-4) A lover of God will not make another image, neither will such bow down to it. To bow down to an image is to worship it, while to make an image is to serve it.
2. Service is the making up of one’s mind to break free from one's present master in order to serve another and this requires hating one and loving the other (Matt. 6:24).
3. (Exo. 20:8). The purpose of the commandments that precedes the commandment of Sabbath is to make us rest. In other words, one who does not love God will not rest, for the love of God leads to the rest of God.
4. Many men are bowing down to evil images because of the promise of rest. Every god has a promise of a Sabbath and it is not easy for a man to resist other Sabbaths, if he lacks what it takes to resist a god.
5. Anyone who is living on earth without the Sabbath (rest) in view is not living but only existing. True life is defined by the arrangement of life that God has arranged for man, which is for him to live (work) and afterwards rest.,
6. Man was raised to build God’s image so that God can rest (Isa. 66:1-2). Immediately after Adam was formed, God ceased from His works and fell into rest (Gen. 2:2-3). This shows that man is the trigger to the rest of God.
7. (Exo. 20:3) Iniquity is to have a god besides the Eternal God; it is to have another god in addition to God.We must not usurp authority over the person the Lord has placed over us.
8. Anyone who is living on earth without the Sabbath (rest) in view is not living but only existing. True life is defined by the arrangement of life that God has arranged for man, which is for him to live (work) and afterwards rest.
9. Without the image of God being formed in a man, he will not be able to handle rest. This image is a Person. When God’s person has been formed in a man, that man that he has been conformed to the law of God.
10. The glory of the New Testament requires man to love the invisible and seek what natural men cannot see.
11. Men keep on crafting things in a bid to disprove scriptures with their inventions; they are working for another god, raising standards for him. However, God is raising emissaries who will finish the formation of the image of the Son of God in them.