Programme: Believers’ Convention Prayer Meeting (Week 2_Day 4)
Date: Friday, 19th July 2024
Transcript Summary
1. When the lamb is being fed with milk, though it is a carnal thing, it is a separated carnal milk from the Father which is intended to make the lambs grow. It is not like the carnal provision of the world, rather, it will help the lambs grow and develop to an estate of becoming spiritually minded – which is one that will become a sheep. It will help them develop such that they can learn and walk in the spirit. They will be lambs that are willing to submit to the lessons of being spiritually minded.
2. Some things, when taught, can sound very high, but it is not really knowledge. There is a difference between knowledge and truth. True knowledge heals ignorance, gives understanding and opens the eyes of one’s darkened understanding. It is impossible to teach truth without teaching knowledge. Knowledge graduates one into truth; one cannot locate truth without knowledge.
3. The Holy Ghost constructs the door for the sheepfold. It is the door that lets Jesus know that the sheep is ready. If the door is not accurately framed, it means every other person would enter, but it is only the Shepherd that should be able to pass through the door. If the door were to be for everyone, the Shepherd will not come in through it because the house that must be built for God must be after the pattern (Exo. 25:40).
4. Before a man can be given to Jesus as a gift, he must be sanctified. The principle of sanctification follows the pattern of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2). This is the spirit by which the Lord Jesus sanctifies. When the sanctification process is completed, the person becomes free. This teaching is handling the testimony and entering into the covenant. Without the cup of the covenant, there is no freedom from sin and death; such a person has become reserved and preserved unto salvation (1. Pet. 1:5).
5. It is the soul that is led by the Holy Ghost because the soul is the sheep, not the spirit. The objective leading of the Spirit lies in the spirit-man while the subjective leading of the Spirit belongs to the soul. The spirit already knows everything that concerns the believer, however, the soul is ignorant. Thus, the Shepherd leads the soul until it becomes like the spirit.
6. To commit a sin unto death (1 John 5:16) is to completely turn away from God and have no desire to ever return to Him. Satan killed his soul by thoughts, inventions, trafficking and trading. Satan became self-willed until he had matured and perfected lust, which became lies and ultimately became death. Thus, when Satan wants to kill a man, he gives him lust with the ultimate intention of leading him to death (a point where the man would never return to God).
7. The true ministry of Jesus starts from the Sanctuary. Thus, where the people are operating outside the Camp, although the Lord will be with them, He will not function at the capacity He was raised for. The devil knows this and so he prefers that men are not raised, thereby, making the Lord minister to lambs rather than sheep. When the Lord is able to access the sheep, He would defeat death and save the sheep to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25).
8. A sheepfold that is secure is one whose door does not take strangers (John 10:2-5). The sheepfold should see only the Shepherd (Jesus). To keep the door means keeping entrance into the sheepfold and it is in the sheep. There is a temptation for every minister to believe they own the sheep, but the heart of ministers should be one of fear and being unqualified to feed the sheep.
9. A healthy sheepfold are door keepers, but an unhealthy sheepfold brings in strangers. One thing about a New Testament minister is that God would make him strict regarding the sheepfold. It is the responsibility of undershepherds (ministers) to guide the door to the sheep; they must align with the Porter and gain the nature of the Porter. The Holy Ghost is the Porter and He empowers men with the capacity to be faithful with the sheep.
10 To “enter in” means to enter into the sheepfold (John 10:9-11). All that the sheep need is life; the end of the sheep is that he finds life. There is ‘in’ and ‘out’. Coming in is coming into a house to build them up as a temple, but they need to be led as a sheep out. The sheep has two behavioural manners of conversation: they go in and they go out. To go out can also mean an entrance into another pasture, which is something higher than the previous pasture.
11. The bishop does not lead, for he is an overseer; it is the shepherd that leads. A shepherd is mobile; he leads out and brings in, but the bishop oversees. The high priestly ministry of Jesus has a dual operation: a Bishop and a Priest, and a Shepherd and a Priest. The apostolic ministry of Judas was called a bishopric (Acts 1:20). An apostle is a bishop while a shepherd is a priest that leads, and both work hand in hand.
12. The sheep grow and are built up by the work of a bishop while they make covenant by the shepherdic ministry. When the Shepherd is leading them, He is making them to cut covenant, but when they are stationary, they are being built. To gain the discipline of stability (not to be tossed to and fro) (Eph. 4:14), one needs a bishop.
13. (2 Pet. 3:16) Unstable souls will always fall into destruction. One who is unstable does not like staying under a shepherd. Some people cannot stay in a church (local assembly). The ministry of a bishop is so strong that it involves one’s nature; it is tied to helping one’s salvation. An example is marriage, for it is designed to make one saved. However, some brothers cannot stay in marriage because they cannot take the discipline of marriage; such are unstable souls.
14. One that cannot stay under a pastor is unstable. There is a pastor for every soul. Jesus deals with sheep that attend local assemblies, for the Church has a local base. God ordains bishops to oversee the flock. The interpretation of the body and the soul needs a strong bishopric oversight and that is where the devil fights the soul. He wars through the body with the soul to kill the flock. Thus, one needs a pastor in the flesh, not a pastor in the spirit.
15. Jesus as a priest has two jobs: He is both a Bishop and a Shepherd (1 Pet. 2:29). We find it in His priestly regalia. As a bishop, He takes oversight to build the Church. In the same way, Moses was both a bishop and a shepherd. He could not build the tabernacle being mobile; he had to be static to build. This is significant in the spirit. Where we do not move ahead, the people are being built.
16. A shepherd becomes a bishop when he is no longer moving. Immediately he begins to move, his sherpherdic work begins to find expression; he folds up the bishopric to assume the work of a shepherd. That is the season he begins to lead the flock to receive the law. inside the house.
17. Jesus is both the Builder of the house and a Surety or Guarantor of the covenant (Heb 7:22). Jesus wants the Church to make covenant and to fulfil this desire, we must stay under the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25). When God was leading Israel, the two things He did was to build the tabernacle and write the law; He made a covenant with them.
18. To write the law in the heart of a people is to lead a people. Wrong laws were written in man by the leading of evil spirits and by reason of those laws, man went astray (1 Pet. 2:25). Jesus understands that a wrong work was done in the sheep which the sheep needs to be dispossessed of. A work is a written law in men and this written law is the covenant. That is why work is termed to be life.
19. When a life (work) matures and is able to bear fruit, death is easily accelerated in the soul when the fruit is eaten. Life is the fruit of the covenant. Another word for fruit or life is manifestation. The life of the tree is the fruit. When the fruit appeared in Eden, Adam and Eve ate life. Death is faster when life is produced. What keeps people in death is because of the manifestation of life. Manifestation of life is not healing the sick or raising the dead; it is promises. When the promise appears, men will make up their mind for it.
20. Promises are in us; we carry promises of different lives. There are promises, but there is the promise. We have the promise of the life that now is, the promise of everlasting life and the promise which is called Eternal Life. A time will come when men that are saved will be seen. At this point, the life has borne fruits and people will then come to partake of the fruit. Thus, we should not cast away our confidence that has a great recompense of reward.
21. There are substances of death that are within us which we are not aware of. The raising of Lazarus was showing the ministry that Jesus was about to enter into. There are things we do not know that we need, but the High Priest is standing and making intercession for us so that we can know and be aware of them (Heb. 7:25).
Blessings!
Lydia Modupe Ogunleye - 3 months ago