Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 31st March 2022
Ministering: Pastor Thompson Ehima
Satan has given every fallen spirit a mission, which is to make sure that Christ is not come or unveiled to the Church. The assault of the antichrist is to ensure that Christ does not come, that is, Christ should not be unveiled to the Church (1John 4:3). The coming of Christ is the revelation of Christ; that is, His appearance or revelation in flesh.
The work of the antichrist is in two ways, one of which is to ensure that a man does not comprehend all things of Christ. This comprehension is the fellowship of the hidden man with reality. There are certain things that are present in the soul of man, including sea, land and heaven. This heaven is the temple of God and it is where the man of sin wants to occupy (2 Thess. 2:4). Adam was brought forth from the ground, which is an invisible realm of the earth that has its earth, sea and heaven.
Similarly, the Church has her own ground. The Church is not earthly and she should not settle until she has fully arrived on her ground which is the realm beyond corruption. The Church of the living God has a ground and a pillar. This is what Paul referred to as the Church of the firstborn (Heb. 12:22-23). Every believer must first arrive at Mount Zion, that’s our land of nativity.
There must be a knowing and an exchange of our life with God’s life for the Lord to establish His ground in us (Psa. 87:4-5). God cannot know us if we have not made haste to know Him. Those who know God are those who have acquired some level of judgment and understanding; they have obeyed the knowledge of the Lord.
We cannot know the Lord without His knowledge which is meant to move into our hidden parts. The hidden part is our temple or the Sanctuary of God (Psa. 51:6). This Sanctuary of God is not the Holy Place, but God’s place. Knowledge must go from our inward parts into our hidden parts for us to come into experiential knowledge. It is in experience that we hold on to the reality of knowledge.
Keeping knowledge is beyond obeying; it is achieved when the word dwells in us and we give attention to it. Just like Mary kept the sayings of Jesus in her heart, we must also keep the sayings of Jesus. If we do not do so, we cannot obey. It is by keeping the words we hear that they become life in us.
To keep a thing is to dwell on it. Every man is a keeper of things, because God designed us so. What a man keeps is what he obeys. When you keep a thing, it becomes your meditation. If we do not keep the word of God in our hearts, we will sin.
Although there are other sub categories, our inward parts are divided mainly into the heart and mind. The hidden part is the place of intercourse with what a man is keeping. That part is to be united with what we are knowing until we can, like Paul, say that “I know whom I’ve believed” (2 Tim. 1:12).
We cannot know the Lord until laws have been written in our hearts and minds (Heb. 8:10-11). The giving of truth in the inward part is the writing of laws in the inward part. We have been called to know Jesus, but we must grow to know Him.
There is a law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which is the knowledge of Christ (Rom. 8:2). We know Christ when this law has been written in our heart and mind. The law in our hearts and mind connects us to the place where the secrets of God are continually in abundant supply to us.
The work of God is the writing of God (Exo. 32:16). Christ and the Son of God are both works of God. The work of God is far beyond things we do for God which men can see, rather it is an inward writing upon the soul. It can only take the work of God being resident in the soul of a man to say that such a one has known the Lord. If the work or writing of God has not been written in our hearts and minds, we cannot know Him.
Christ is a law of God’s accepted life. Christ is the law that runs a godly man. Christ is a law that ensures peace or acceptance with God. Christianity is a heart thing; it has nothing to do with our dressing or how we look. The faith is a heart thing and that’s why we are called believers. It is with the heart that we believe. Knowing God is a thing of the heart. Anytime we bring Christianity to the realm of outward appearance, we forfeit the provision of grace and this is an abuse to the faith.
Knowing the Lord is arriving at the place where we hold the reality of knowledge. This is a work within. In the realm of knowing, there are levels from least to greatest. What distinguishes the least from the greatest is the measure of laws that they have received. The laws are written in our hearts and mind as we go through different seasons of writing until our souls receive all the laws. The level of laws that has been written in a man’s soul is the measure of knowledge of the Lord that he has come into.
Our discernment of things that are sinful or righteous is sharpened as more laws are written in our hearts and minds. The laws of God give us a sense of God’s standards. We cannot abound in knowledge and all judgment until laws are written upon our souls (Philp. 1:9). There are certain things we currently understand as evil but do not yet have power to refuse. We need knowledge to refuse such things.
For a man to be able to escape corruption, the laws of Christ must have been written in his heart and mind. Corruption is a body of knowledge. Until a man has moved into a realm where the incorruptible seed of God is abiding in him, he can still sin. A man who has the abiding incorruptible seed can no longer be tempted with sin. Incorruptibility is inability to be tempted. God cannot be tempted because the incorruptible seed abides in him.
Satan tempts so that we can sin. Sin is a transgression of the law and is designed to make man break the law of incorruptibility. Jesus was tempted at all points, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). We cannot talk about sin without talking about temptation. When a man is still in the realm of “living”, he can still be tempted and can still sin.
The everlasting seed has two dimensions; the living and the abiding dimension. The state of abiding is the state where you can no longer be tempted. Satan does not waste his temptations, just as Jesus will not offer goodly and great pearls to dogs or swine.
Temptation are pearls; they are gifts of Satan or offers of corruption and he does not want to waste them. Satan tempted Jesus with the kingdoms of this world and their glories (Matt. 4:8). What Jesus was tempted with was beyond works of the flesh. Such temptations are evil but “glorious looking” offers.
The world has two operations: darkness and wickedness. The laws of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus deal with the darkness of the world, but the law of everlasting life deals with the wickedness of the world. The beast is the wicked one being carried by the woman (Babylon).
What Satan showed to Jesus as lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life were in the category of evil or wickedness, which is a realm beyond darkness. Even Apostle John, who had finished the curriculum of Christ, admired the great Babylon when he saw her. This is why we must not be overly confident in the season of everlasting life; we must be meek.
The living realm is a law that is followed by the abiding realm where the seed of God will remain in a man. Charity is a training to start learning what it means to abide (1 Cor. 13:13). The abiding realm of Christ is where we are rooted and grounded in the hope of the gospel. Godly exercise is a place of profitability (1Tim. 4:8). Therefore, when it is not done, one cannot endure the season of everlasting life. If you exercise yourself well in godliness, you will be able to keep exercising in the realm of everlasting life.
The realm of abiding is the state of the soul where offerings and gifts of corruption cannot turn it anymore. Satan knows when an abiding work has been wrought in a man. However, he had his doubts and still tempted Jesus on the cross. Doubt is a work of Satan. God did not create doubt in the beginning; the soul is meant to be a believer. Paul warned Timothy from those who doubt, such people are profane as a result of a work done in them.
God knows that the work He had done in our Lord Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration was perfect. The temptations that Satan brought to Jesus afterwards were to make an open show of fallen spirits. One who has the seed of God in him has a law written in him that makes him impermissible to Satan’s temptation.
God knows the limiting strength and end of Satan. His strength can be determined by the materiality of the things in him that he perverted, from which he fetches his temptations. Temptations are the things Satan offers to men as gifts. The Father also gives gifts. Satan’s premium gifts are only offered to men who have high laws of God written on them. God will not allow a man to be tempted beyond the laws that have been written in him or that he can bear.
Satan’s temptations are gifts (James 1:13-15). God's provision for us to resist temptations are His laws; firstly, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and then the law of incorruptibility. Sin and death are gifts Satan offers a man. Satan can offer a man a “big ministry”, while the temptations that lie therein are unknown to him.
It will take discernment to differentiate between Satan’s gift and God’s gift. Our Lord Jesus grew so much in stature that there was nothing Satan could offer to tempt him. Satan tempted Jesus with the best of what he has; the kingdoms of this world and the glory of it. Yet Jesus overcame the temptation.
The Prince of Persia withstood the supplication of Daniel the beloved (Dan. 10:11-14). The prince was not an ordinary being and it took Michael, the chief of the princes of heaven, to liberate Daniel from the opposition of this prince. This tells us that what Daniel was asking for was not ordinary. The understanding that was coming is to make an end of sin, or of what Satan uses to tempt men. Daniel broke into the vision of the Messiah, who will make an end of sin and finish transgression (Dan. 9:24-25).
Daniel was praying for an understanding that will deal with transgression and make an end of it. The burden of his heart for a righteousness that is everlasting was answered. He desired that his people would be able to keep the law of the land without transgressing and abide in it. What makes us unable to abide is the presence of sin and iniquity. Daniel’s prayer was to fetch an answer to this agelong issue that had troubled generations of men (Dan. 9:24).
Recall that the work of God is His writings (Exo. 32:16, Heb 8:10-11). The level to which God has worked on a man is the level to which He has put/written His laws in the man. Putting laws in the souls of men should be the labor of the Church and the gifts of Christ.
God did a work in the Son that would not allow sin to stay. The prince of this world came to our Lord Jesus and found nothing in him. This is why He is the one who will be manifested to take away sins (John 3:5). Our Lord Jesus has the antidote to sins on His inside; it was given to Him by His Father and God.
A man who has arrived at the abiding realm of God is one in whom there is no occasion of stumbling nor sin in him. God does not just want us to live by the incorruptible seed, He wants us to abide. The children of Israel were in the promised land but they could not abide.
God wants us to keep the incorruptible seed until it abides in us. A man who has been born of the incorruptible seed is an overcomer. We cannot be born of the incorruptible seed merely by hearing the word but by obeying the demands of the seed. Our birth by the incorruptible seed is a process of writing (1Peter 1:23).
We must submit ourselves to the dealings of God in the area of incorruption. God has been dealing with the issues of our conscience. We have to be jealous about the issues of our conscience. Anytime our conscience rebukes us, we should quickly align or adjust. There are certain things of dishonesty that hide in our hidden parts (2Cor. 4:1-2). We need our hidden parts to carry out exercise and to know the Lord. Thus, the exercise of our conscience is very important at this point.
Allowing the seed of God to abide is an age long warfare both amongst men and angels. The scriptures tell us about angels who could not abide but left their habitation and whom God reserved in chains (Jude 6). It is not enough to gain entrance or have a portion in the land of the living but to abide there. There are things that can take a man out of the land of the living.
Lucifer was not content with how God made him. Therefore, a desire for more is not only a feature of man but angels also. This is why angels desire to look into the things of salvation (1Pet. 1:12). God put that operation in angels for the purpose of service to Him. Without it, men will easily settle or be at peace.
The answer to this quest is that the heirs of salvation enter and abide in the land of the living and access Eternal Life. God has ordained that it is man who can come into the land of the living and abide there. The angels that fell could not abide in their estate because they were tempted out of it. Adam and Eve were sent out of Eden because they could not abide and were tempted. Therefore, it is not enough to come into the land of the living but we must have what it takes to abide. This is why God must train our conscience with the word of God.
“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. 4:2). The word of God here is the incorruptible seed, while the manifestation of the truth is the manifestation of the Son of God. When truth is being manifested, the Son is being manifested to put things in us that will make us abide in the land of the living.
To be living an everlasting life is to be good, while to be perfected is to abide. God wants us to be perfected and the Son is the One who will make us perfect in every good work (Heb. 13:20-21). What brings forth the abiding operation is the blood of the everlasting covenant. This is the abiding substance that must work on the soul that is living in the good land. This is what Paul meant by saying that nothing “… shall be able to separate us from the love of God…” (Rom. 8:39).
To be separated from the love of God is to die. Therefore, a man must keep himself in the love of God while looking for the mercy of God unto Eternal Life (Jude 21). This means that the love of God is the realm of the abiding incorruptible seed.
There is a state a man will get to in God where he cannot be separated from Him (Rom. 8:38-39). Such a man has received the seal of love on his forehead. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
The Son is the giver of everlasting life. The things freely given to us are the things of God. When the Son is giving us All Things, He is giving us Himself with Him, including His nature, His love and His life.
Summary
1. (1John 4:3). The coming of Christ is the revelation of Christ; that is, His appearance or revelation in flesh. The work of the antichrist is in two ways, one of which is to ensure that a man does not comprehend all things of Christ.
2. There must be a knowing and an exchange of our life with God’s life for the Lord to establish His ground in us (Psa. 87:4-5). We cannot know the Lord without His knowledge which is meant to move into our hidden parts. The hidden part is our temple or the Sanctuary of God (Psa. 51:6).
3. Keeping knowledge is achieved when the word dwells in us and we give attention to it. It is by keeping the words we hear that they become life in us. To keep a thing is to dwell on it. What a man keeps is what he obeys. When you keep a thing, it becomes your meditation. If we do not keep the word of God in our hearts, we will sin.
4. We cannot know the Lord until laws have been written in our hearts and minds (Heb. 8:10-11). The work of God is the writing of God (Exo. 32:16). Christ and the Son of God are both works of God. When the work of God resides in the soul of a man, such a one has known the Lord.
5. Corruption is a body of knowledge. Until a man has moved into a realm where the incorruptible seed of God is abiding in him, he can still sin. Incorruptibility is inability to be tempted. God cannot be tempted because the incorruptible seed abides in him.
6. God wants us to keep the incorruptible seed until it abides in us. A man who has been born of the incorruptible seed is an overcomer. We cannot be born of the incorruptible seed merely by hearing the word but by obeying the demands of the seed. Our birth by the incorruptible seed is a process of writing (1Peter 1:23).
7. The exercise of our conscience is very important at this point. We have to be jealous about the issues of our conscience. Anytime our conscience rebukes us, we should quickly align or adjust. There are certain things of dishonesty that hide in our hidden parts (2Cor. 4:1-2). We need our hidden parts to carry out exercise and to know the Lord.
8. (2 Cor. 4:2) The word of God is the incorruptible seed, while the manifestation of the truth is the manifestation of the Son of God. When truth is being manifested, the Son is being manifested to put things in us that will make us abide in the land of the living.
9. To be living an everlasting life is to be good, while to be perfected is to abide. God wants us to be perfected and the Son is the one who will make us perfect in every good work (Heb. 13:20-21). What brings forth the abiding operation is the blood of the everlasting covenant.
10. (Romans 8:32) The Son is the giver of everlasting life. The things freely given to us are the things of God. When the Son is giving us All Things, He is giving us Himself with Him, including His nature, His love and His life.