Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing The Vision Prayer Meeting (WTVPM)
Date: Wednesday, 20th April 2022
Ministering: Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” (John 16:7). This scripture shows the ministry of the Holy Ghost in the era of everlasting life, as it pertains to the issue of sin, transgression and iniquity which describe the world. The world is not without its own spirits. The spirit that drives this world is the spirit of this age, which is also called the antichrist spirit. Although the world was already existent, there was no need for the antichrist until Christ appeared.
“The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psa. 24:1). The Greek interpretation of the word "world'' is "cosmos", which means an arrangement. Satan did not create the earth, for the earth is the Lord’s. The present world is not the same as that “world” which was of the Lord. The world of the Lord consists of arrangements of life that would govern the world in order to harness the earth(in righteousness). The arrangement by which the earth can be harnessed is a wisdom of life, governance and rulership.
“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). This world refers to a wisdom of life. This life does not refer to “bios” (biological life). A man who seeks to keep his bios has to first keep something else, which is also tied to his bios. The present wisdom on earth, which is of this world, teaches man how to keep his bios. Much more, it teaches him how he should live. The keeping of one's life is the first principle of the oracle of iniquity, just like we have oracles of God. When a man thinks that he is keeping his bios, he is actually keeping something else.
Self consciousness and self reliance are some of the things that Satan has taught man to make him care for his life. Satan made it a wisdom that is inescapable for man. When a man is keeping his life, he is keeping a system that Satan has designed.
There was a world that was before the fall; it was a world that Adam was the god of. This means that there was a wisdom of life that was existing then. That wisdom is a wisdom of the earthly order of everlasting life. This present world also has an everlasting order, but with a dark tone. It was a wisdom of life that a living soul had.
The living soul is an expression of a wisdom of life that God accepts as the way one should live. It is an arrangement of a kind of life or wisdom. Adam was the god of the world before the fall because he was a living soul. Man can be arranged to be a living soul or a beast. The enemy has tampered with the genes of man.
This world is a system that Satan is sitting on. He is not after money; he only wants to take life from men. He is sustained by the life that is supplied from men's souls all over the world. Satan's government is beyond a physical location; it cuts across the whole world. The world is a system of rulership, a life and conversation that will enable one to harness the earth. The wisdom of Satan plunders the earth. His rule and reign is called death, and the strength of the present arrangement in the world is sin.
Satan rules over all the institutions on the earth but God is not seeking to rule over any of them. What makes believers want to take over those industries is also an arrangement of Satan. The system of this world is diabolic, for it is tied to a wisdom.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:26). No one can have dominion over the earth without the world. Satan could not use the arrangements of God because it will always flow back to God. So when Adam fell, Satan brought him another world or arrangement of a wisdom called “sin”. What ties man to the present is sin. If sin, transgressions and iniquity are dealt with in a man, he would experience freedom and his tie with this world will be severed.
“Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves…” (Isa. 28:15). Satan deceived man and diverted his attention from the real thing called death. Man then gladly made a covenant with death. We make covenants by choosing a lifestyle. Jesus came to deliver us from the lifestyle of sin but in spite of this, men chose darkness rather than light. Men love darkness rather than light because their arrangements (deeds) are evil (John 3:19). Jesus referred to these arrangements in men as “evil eyes” (Matt. 6:23).
Adam was the god of the world before the fall; that is the world in Psalm 24. After the fall, Satan set up his kingdoms, which includes his world, with a perverted wisdom. But he could not do it without man. Babylon, Persia, Greece are expressions of kingdoms in the spirit. There is the prince of Persia who is not a man but a spirit, and he has the wisdom called Persia. There is the real Persia in the air. Kingdoms come and go but they are all expressions of the world.
The kingdoms of the world kept morphing and reigning until Jesus Christ came to the earth. As such, the first thing he attacked was that wisdom. He gave instructions that dealt with the arrangements of this world within us because that wisdom is what makes you a dweller in this world. We need to be freed from this world and God will do this by retraining and teaching us another wisdom. The first wisdom that God taught man is Christ (1 Cor. 1:24).
The wisdom called Christ is directly opposed to darkness. Christ is a whole life; it is not just about turning the other cheek (Matt. 5:39), but a wisdom of life that would defeat the world inside you. It is a wisdom of conversation that defies the world, if a man can align with it. When Satan saw the wisdom of Christ, he brought about the Antichrist.
“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 John 4:3). The antichrist spirit has gone into this world. He is the one who does not confess that Christ has come into the world. This spirit is now in this world. The system of the world is no longer the way it used to be because the spirit of the antichrist has gone into it. Sin does not want to go; to perpetuate its reign, it needs a man.
The major reason for the Comforter is to destroy the spirit of the antichrist. This spirit has gone into the world to fortify it and make it last. This present world will however be rolled away. There is the world to come which is for the new heaven and the new earth. It is a wisdom that we are expected to live by on earth; this is the work of the comforter. Just as this present world has its strength in sin, the world to come would have its strength in righteousness (2 Pet. 3.13).
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). Righteousness is a wisdom of dominion. The righteousness Adam had was after the order of the living soul, but this righteousness is the everlasting righteousness. Everlasting righteousness is our system that would use this earth. The earth was not created for sin or iniquity.
The beauty of this present earth won’t be seen until righteousness springs forth. This earth should be harnessed with righteousness. The righteousness here would be as a result of the incorruptible seed. The seed that is being planted on this earth is higher than the earth. It is the compensation of the earth for all the years that sin has reigned. The compensation is for the earth to bring forth everlasting righteousness. This is what God will harvest and bring into the earth that is to come.
“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [18] But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17-18). This verse is referring to the glory on the face of the Son. Jesus Christ became a stature that could bear something. What is on the face of Christ is “spirit", which is glory.
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God that is on Jesus’ face means His face is an interpretation of a Person. We need the Comforter to accurately interpret scripture, so He comes also as the Spirit of glory. This glory is not defined by shining; it is an interpretation of a person or an arrangement of someone that is on the inside.
Christ stepped from just being the Spirit of Christ to “the Lord who is that Spirit”, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. This liberty is liberty from sin, transgression, and iniquity. There cannot be liberty without the Spirit. What the Spirit teaches is glory, which means the interpretation of a person.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). What the Spirit teaches is glory, which is the interpretation of a Person. As the Spirit interprets Him, we would be changed into what we are seeing, which is a man of liberty. There is no change without the ministry of the Comforter.
“Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; [2] but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:1-2). This ministry is the ministry of everlasting life, which is the ministry of the Comforter. It is not a ministry in the form of preaching or evangelism. It is a ministry that is available for all saints. However, not all the saints have arrived at this point because the prerequisite for it is that one must receive mercy. Mercy is needed because it is possible to faint when the world is about to be collected from us. This ministry is necessary for us to denounce hidden things of dishonesty.
The Comforter will reprove the world of sin (John 16:8). We do not know what sin is. It takes light to reprove because what makes manifest is light (Eph. 5:13). The light that will be used is the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. When that light shines, things are made manifest. What will be reproved is the world inside every one of us, not unbelievers. It is the world inside us that restricted the definition of sin to actions and commissions. Meanwhile, the real sin is a law. The Spirit of God will then begin to reprove us, to show us what sin really is.
Another word for "reprove" is "convict". It means to convict a man of sin. We will continue to be reproved of sin until we get to a point where we denounce hidden things. These things are hidden because we can not see them until light comes. It is at that point that we realise that what we have concluded as sin is not everything about sin. There are both open and hidden things of dishonesty. Open things are seen by all and we are ashamed of them. On the other hand, hidden things of dishonesty are not known to be sin until light shines.
This world has its own righteousness, which makes it stand. If we have not done the righteousness of this world, it can cause us to be ashamed. Those righteousnesses are expectations, hopes, standards and achievements. This is why the righteousness that Christ begins to teach is faith and it makes nonsense of this world. As weak as the arrangement of faith looks, it is against this world. If you can take a step in the direction of what God has said, you can take another. The more you take steps you come into righteousness. Faith is the beginning of righteousness, which is a lifestyle that is disobeying sin.
There are things that the Lord wants us to do, but the standards of this world want us to forsake them. Righteousness are standards against this world and it begins with faith. Steps that are taken in faith deal with an arrangement on the inside of the soul called this world. That arrangement is called sin and it is a life that decides how we should live on this earth. We should disagree and rather choose to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4) in order to come out of that system. Faith is right but it doesn’t end there. It should take you further into everlasting righteousness.
Righteousness means moving towards everlasting life; it is a movement away from the world and that which passes away, into everlasting life. When a man moves like that, he will be seen no more, for he will lose his life.
“And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: [9] of sin, because they believe not on me; [10] of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more [11] of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (John 16:8-10). We need judgement to be free from the prince of this world. There is a judgement that we need to possess to be free from the prince of this world. We need judgement to be higher than sin. It is a progression from sin to righteousness, and to judgement. By arriving at righteousness, a higher level of sin is dealt with. Ultimately, arriving at judgement deals with the opposite everlastingness of this world.
We need to be given judgement. Sin will still tackle and flaw us in a measure because of lack of judgement. The judgement of the prince of this world is a result of the disobedience of some people (Jn. 12:31; 16:11). We come into judgement through our walk, conversation, disobedience to an order and then, come into the judgement that will cast Satan down. We need that high judgement to judge angels. There is a judgement that is in Christ Jesus as the Son of God, which made Him the prince of everlasting life. Arriving at that judgement is an escape.
Sin is also a judgement but there is a judgement that is higher than it. The judgement we have held hitherto is not enough; hence, we need to be reproved. What will reprove us is the light that is in the face of Jesus. This is why He said that when the Spirit comes, He will show us things to come (Jn. 16:13). Even though He will remind us of certain things, He will speak much more of things to come which are the things in the face of Jesus. These are not the things of the doctrine of Christ but the things of the Father.
The Father gave Jesus life by giving Him judgments. The judgments of everlasting life will outwit sin and iniquity. By light, we will continue to be reproved until we are fully reproved and approved. God will not approve what He has not reproved. We have to be tried, proven and reproved till we are finally approved. Then, God will certify us, like He did Jesus when He said, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5).
Blessings!
Summary
1. The world is not without its own spirits. The spirit that drives this world is the spirit of this age, which is also called the antichrist spirit.
2. (Psa. 24:1) The present world is not the same as that “world” which is of the Lord. The world of the Lord consists of arrangements of life that would govern the world in order to harness the earth (in righteousness).
3. What ties man to the present is sin. If sin, transgressions and iniquity are dealt with in a man, he would experience freedom and his tie with this world will be severed.
4. Christ is a wisdom of conversation that defies the world, if a man can align with it.
5. Just as this present world has its strength in sin, the world to come would have its strength in righteousness (2 Pet. 3.13).
6. (Matt. 6:33) Righteousness is a wisdom of dominion. The beauty of this present earth won’t be seen until righteousness springs forth.
7. (2 Cor. 4:1-2) The ministry of everlasting life is the ministry of the Comforter.
8. Righteousness are standards against this world and it begins with faith. Steps that are taken in faith deal with an arrangement on the inside of the soul called this world.
9. Faith is right but it doesn’t end there. It should take you further into everlasting righteousness. Ultimately, arriving at judgement deals with the opposite everlastingness of this world (John 16:8-10).
10. There is a judgement that is in Christ Jesus as the Son of God, which made Him the prince of everlasting life. Arriving at this judgement is an escape.