Programme: Tuesday Prayer Meeting (TPM)
Date: Tuesday, 30th January, 2024
Satan is very afraid of the world to come. The world to come is so real and Jesus is very eager about it. Hebrews 2:5 says, “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak”. The speakers of that world are those who have the right to that world; it is to them that the world pertains. Angels do not speak the world to come; they speak the present. They have authority in the present, so they are not learners of the present. They were born to know the present and were raised to hold it, but we will have to learn the world to come and speak it afterwards.
There is a speaking/saying of the world to come and to apprehend it, it takes a process of learning. A time will come when we will speak it differently. We have to first speak it until it becomes our conversation. The world to come will then be put under our subjection as a result, after which we will then speak the subjectivity of the world to come. We will then be able to speak the world to come the way angels speak the present. We are not yet speaking the way angels speak. Rather, we are still being trained to speak the world to come. The angels speak with authority in the present (Heb 2:2), but this manner of authorization of the world to come is not yet in our mouth. The angels are dressed to speak the present to the point of steadfastness; they have all that it takes to speak this world and their word stays.
Temptation is a thing of the present; it is an angelic word that became corrupted. What became the corruptible seed is an everlasting life of the angelic. It is a life of the highest angels. The way God divides and shares the inheritance of the spoken power of the present amongst the angelic is according to their make. There are certain angels that are more saved. Salvation is the architecture of inheritance. Although angels have salvation, it is of a lower quality. Even Adam was saved to a degree.
In the Old Testament, salvation is embedded in a way that men could comprehend it. Salvation has a sound to man and in man. Adam saw a higher demand for to be saved more than the salvation he had when God made him. He then yielded to the temptation of another provision that was weaker and lower than the salvation that God wanted. That alternative salvation presented itself as being easier.
God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). God rewarded Enoch and Abraham with some kind of salvation. While the Bible said that some men did not obtain the promise (Heb. 11:39), it also said that Abraham waited patiently until he obtained the promise (Heb. 6:15). These men had promises, but they had not received the actual promise – having only received the promise in a figure.
There is a way God defines promise in the universe and amongst beings. The power of temptation is the attitude of promise. Satan has something that he is promising. Only a promise can stop one from getting the promise. Darkness and wickedness are promises; this is why the Lord tells us not to love them.
When the Bible says, "And this is the promise…" (1 John 2:25), it indicates that there are alternative promise offerings. This is why God has designed that the world to come will not be given to people merely; such men must overcome. Creatures will not awake into reality and find the promise. They must choose the promise and do what it takes to get the promise. Thus, they must love the promise. The present creation has shown that the promise cannot be given to beings without them making a choice.
Lucifer, the son of the morning, had a promise but looked for another. Ambitions are preachings of promises. The adversary will stop at nothing to keep shelling us with promises. He will daily show us promises other than Eternal Life. He has designed and preached Eternal Life within his own context. He has gone ahead to preach what Eternal Life is. When men open their mouths to teach Eternal Life, they preach things that are entirely different from what Eternal Life is. The reason for such preachings is to throw roadblocks that hinder people from getting this Eternal Life.
What God is doing is to invest and work on beings who would be able to deny the present. Satan’s sins were heavenly; this is why he comes to us with heavens as we grow. What Satan did in Genesis was a preaching of another heaven. A heaven is an exaltation or height. Nimrod used this to captivate people. He was a preacher and a mighty hunter who detached people from the presence of God. Satan possessed him so much that he had Satan’s building and utterance.
Preachers of Satan always end up with utterances that open people into a world other than God. Satan has utterance. The beast spoke great swelling words; he spoke like the dragon. Such utterances are meant to capture hearts away from 'presence'. Satan talked to Cain to leave or depart from the presence of God.
The world to come is not kept in the hands of angels. God the Father is seriously working to present the world to come to those who have the capacity to hold it. Without being saved, we cannot have the world to come put under our subjection.
There is a connection between salvation and the subjectivity of the world to come (Heb. 2:1-5). To put the world to come in subjection is related to so-great salvation. Putting things under subjection is actually a reward. Even after we are saved, we cannot put these things in subjection ourselves; they have to be put in subjection for us. It is the honour of a king for God to bring things under our feet. What He is bringing under our feet is not the devil but the commitment of our future.
God wants men who will order the world to come and rule that world from its heavens to its earth. It is difficult to preach the world to come because of the power of the present. The present is very strong and steadfast. Satan is also an angel of the present. This present world is not departing easily. Man is actually a toddler of the present; we are nothing in the present. When the present is counted, man is nothing. The question, “… What is man…” (Heb. 2:6), indicates that man is nothing in the present. He is like a worm – a crawler in the present who is of the earth. Man’s ownership of the earth is not a big deal. Adam had great authority on earth but did not have authority higher than angels in the present. Angels can still come to earth by permission and wield it more than man (2 Pet. 2:11).
When we understand this message well and break down the fabric and hold of the present, we will surely say our goodbyes to sin. God does not only want to forgive us, He also wants to make us see in order for us to choose. We cannot make a choice without having an accurate discernment of the choice. Temptation always leaves us to choose. Temptation is a thing of choice. Anytime we are faced with temptation, we are being required to choose.
Temptation is the presentation of two lives. Adam was presented with the choice of life and death in Eden, but Adam chose death. That death is another life. Man feels that it is easier to serve the devil than God. There is a conditioning of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil on our minds and souls in such a manner. God did not make man to be at home with sin. Adam was estranged in nature from the tree, but the tree found its way to present itself.
It was not very easy for Satan to move man. God did not make man weak; God made him intact. If Jesus could resist the temptation, Adam could have resisted it too. A soul can choose to be a devil or a son of God. Jesus said, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70). That devil could have changed if he wanted to change. God knew that Judas Iscariot had a tendency to be a devil, but He still brought him close, per adventure he would be saved. It was mercy that found Judas for him to have every reason to change. No matter how devilish a man is, he should change when he comes around Jesus. No soul should retain devilish tendencies when given the privilege to change.
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus…" (Heb. 3:1). Our heavenly calling ends up in two things: we are called into two heavens.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: [9] Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. (2 Tim. 2:8-9). Anyone who is teaching the message of Jesus would suffer trouble as an evildoer. When Jesus is preached, when the gospel is preached, the preacher would be termed as an evil doer by men who disallow the things of God.
"Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." (2 Tim. 2:10). What Paul endured is maligning. Satan is painting him as an evildoer. A whole lot of people because of this have left the gospel; they could not endure the challenge of being termed an evildoer. This gospel would make a preacher seem like an evil-doer because such is going to undo evil. That old serpent with his tricks would go ahead and present the preacher as an evildoer.
The elects spoken of in 2 Timothy are not referring to those who have become Christ. Paul was not just speaking about being set free from the law of sin and death; he is rather referring to the "so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3). He was enduring so that the elect would obtain salvation and eternal glory – both of which are glories. The word salvation is glory; it is the everlasting glory. When scriptures say all flesh shall see the glory of God, it's talking about salvation (Isa. 40:5; Luke 3:6). Glory is salvation while eternal glory is eternal salvation. These are the two heavens in God.
"If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? [13] And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (John 3:12-13). What Jesus is saying here is that He is in glory; He is in heaven. Jesus in His soul is in glory because He finished the work of glory. He preached from glory; He ministered from heaven. Jesus did glorious work, which is not just about the preaching of works of miracles. The miracles were little confirmations of what God was doing inside. What should be called a great witness for the work of Jesus was not seen by the works of miracles; it was transfiguration, and it was not seen by the world.
Transfiguration was higher than raising Lazarus from the dead. If the people had seen the transformation, they would not have killed Him. Transfiguration was a great sign, so He was very careful. Hence, He did not bring all His disciples; He only brought three whom He trusted and warned them never to talk about it to the rest of the nine disciples. If Judas had seen it, he would not have left Jesus alone. "And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead." (Matt. 17:9). The three brought out the account of what they saw (the transfiguration) after Jesus was resurrected.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: [15] That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. [16] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:14-16). There are two different things mentioned here. It means everlasting life would be gotten first, after which one would receive Eternal Life. These are two heavenly things; they are the two heavens. These heavens do not speak of planets or planes; they speak of realms in God. These two heavens in God do not also refer to the heavens to come because the present still stands; this is not about those alignments. What we are talking about is what God calls 'heavens'.
Heavens are two lives. The first is the "incorruptible life", while the last life is the "life of His reward" – which is the "heaven of Eternal glory". God sees heaven more than a physical abode; heaven is life.
God wants us to have a heaven inside us for us to be saved/safe. We can be caught up in our spirit and soul to this present third heaven and still not have the heavens of God. To really have the heavens of God, we need glory. The first is the "glory of salvation" and the second is "eternal glory". We need a divine composition of words (which is required) to identify these glories.
“Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” (2 Tim. 2:10). Glory is life, and it is a state. It is a state of one's being. It is the essence of one's person, nature, texture and material. When we see something that is not fading away, we term it glorious. That which constitutes the materiality of something that does not fade is something glorious; this is a powerful life because it does not fade. The reason man became grass is because of a force called corruption, but God has something in Him which is an answer to corruption.
Corruption is the angelic seed; it is the wisdom of a particular life; it is the constitution of a high wisdom. Adam was not in the world of the wisdom with which angels speak. The faculty, comprehension, and exposure that angels have, especially in the realm of princes, could not be understood by Adam. The word prince is not an ordinary word in scripture. When the Bible describes someone as a prince of life, it is not an ordinary thing. Princes are those who have a stake in inheritance; they are heirs of a universe. Universe is not referring to earth but all universes. Princes are those whom God would give the control of the universe into their hands. It is a reward that is written in a name that God gives – a name which no man knows.
God is a rewarder of Eternal Life. When God is pouring out Eternal Life, He pours it in diversities. Eternal Life is a rod of iron, it is a garment, it is a white stone, and it is a manna (Rev. 2, 22); Eternal Life is all these things. Eternal Life cannot be limited to one thing; all these things have to be put together to see Life. We cannot be a high stakeholder of Life if our souls are not fully redeemed. The soul must be redeemed from among men and the earth to be able to have a share in the reward.
"And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." (Rev. 13:7). Something is in Satan to be able to rule humanity. To rule humanity, Satan has within himself a perverted reward. This in itself explains the name he was given. This teaching is an expansion of Hebrews 3. Our calling is also our election. We have to make this calling and election sure; this is the evidence God needs from us before we can be rewarded. This is what it means to make our calling heavenly – being written in heaven. We ought to take the heavenly identity by defining ourselves in the heavens in God. We are to do heaven; this speaks of heavenly things. The Lord is very pertinent and serious concerning us when it comes to doing heavenly things because it is the same as doing the work.
There are two heavens God constitutes: works and reward. Revelation 1 is presentation of works, while Revelation 22 is that of the reward. The first works is the first heaven that we must do; this is how God wants us to inherit His incorruption. He is an incorruptible God – His first glorious state. He has the glory that cannot turn or change. He is a Person with a calling that is sure. One who is sure is one who has attained the incorruptible; he is undefiled and cannot fade away (1 Pet. 1:4). These are the beings whom God would harvest into eternal glory, which is the last glory.
Eternal glory is not about shining in a lustrous light; it is to exhibit something beyond unfadingness. This means it is not enough to be unfading. The reason we should be unfading is so that when the light of eternal glory comes on us, we would not use it to drive a life that fades. When we reach unfadingness in the sight of God, we would be so sure; this means we have finished our surety. We are sure in the sight of God when we attain the unfading state, and as such, the eternal weight can then rest on us. It is in everlasting life (the state of surety) that we can gather the account for eternal weight of glory; this is how we can gather treasures to prepare us for the eternal weight.
All of us might be doing the same thing but not at the same level; this is why we are not going to carry the same eternal weight. For example, a present-day minister cannot be like Paul in the measure of eternal weight. Similarly, nobody can be like Jesus, even when we have eternal glory. Eternal glory differs; all of its measures are weighty but some are weightier. What the Son of God is carrying as eternal weight is different from ours; He is an Eternal Man that all new heavens would worship. That is how weightier Jesus’ glory is.
Satan gives an idea of people commercialising events that surround ministering to people. When such commercialisation happened in the temple of God at Jerusalem, Satan moved the industrial world into the temple. When Jesus saw that, He saw something different. This reflects that business can thrive in the temple. When gain is present in a place, it becomes dangerous.
God owns the people of nations who have not yet believed; they are being preserved against the present-day corruption that is infiltrating Christianity. The largest number of people who are not saved are presently stored in their traditions and religions because God is waiting for men to sit on the throne – men who would have completely obliterated sin. Satan will keep bargaining with men at any height, but this will stop when men are completely out of his clutches. Some men make a show of their accomplishments when their ministries are established abroad, but those are filthy expressions. The Lord is doing a beautiful work inside us. He would raise us and raise the present churches; making them strong against corruption.
Blessings!