Lekki Soul Centre (LSC, 14th April, 2021)
Topic: Understanding God’s Programme for the End Time
Minister: Rev. (Mrs) Helen Oyegoke
People talk about the end time and they only dwell on the catastrophic activities on earth. However, the real thing about the end of all things is the program of salvation. In order to bring about the end of all things, God is focused on the raising of men who will trap everlasting and eternal life (Isa. 61:3). Salvation is the core of God’s intent for the end of this present age. The things responsible for salvation are the speakings of God. When God speaks, He is transferring the properties of an endless life to the hearer (Heb. 7:16).
The antichrist is also raising some men, but the solution to that, is the men of everlasting stature that God is also raising. The calendar of the end hangs on the Church. The end of all things will be determined by God and His people – those who are giving themselves to the speakings of God.
It’s so important to be focused on the speaking of God. There are many things that keep us busy, so that we won’t be engaged with what God is saying. God is passionate to speak to us; He is working to make sure that we get the things He has to offer. Sadly, many believers are not even willing to receive them. However, God in His mercy will lead us. The purpose of this leading is to change our value systems and taste buds until we are ready to be passionate for His things, even much more than we are passionate for earthly things.
Abraham was earth bound when God started leading him. This is the same way that many Christians are passionate about earthly things - we are only concerned about change in the natural. When God told Abraham to leave his father’s house for a place that He would show him (Gen. 12:1), Abraham (in his wildest imagination) knew nothing about this place; but he obeyed. However, God did not swear an oath to Abraham when he was leaving his father’s country but until he fulfilled all obedience.
It takes a lot of spiritual training to separate a man from this world, because every man is raised by this world. We were raised by standards and values of this world; and these things mean a lot to us. Therefore, God has to do a lot to make His things mean so much more than what the things of this earth mean to us.
After so much journey in obedience, Abraham came to a place of rest where God meant everything to Him. This is why he could easily offer Isaac to God. Our hunger cannot suddenly change; we must make some journey with the Lord for this to happen.
The things that God is communicating at this time are things He used to raise His Son, Jesus Christ. By words, God raised our Lord Jesus as an everlasting and an eternal man. The high priest is a man, but another kind of man who is constituted of everlasting substances. Jesus Christ is referred to as the Everlasting Father (Isa. 9:6). He was not born as a father; but He was raised by substances that belong to God the Father alone and thereby, became the everlasting father.
We labour and place more emphasis on things that perish because we do not have understanding. God can bless us with things in the natural; but just being surrounded by things on the external, and not being built in our souls is not profitable in the sight of God. It is possible for a man to be evidently blessed in the natural but remain a victim under the dominion of Satan.
A man can only be delivered from the dominion of Satan by the speakings or words of God (John 8:31-32). The men of the end are those who have been made free from Satan’s dominion and have entered God’s dominion. Through the fall of Adam, every man came under the dominion of sin, and death reigned upon all (Romans 5:12). Sin and death are rulers. Sin has a dominion; and a man cannot be free from that dominion except he is given the things of the dominion of Christ. However, this freedom is gradual.
The salvation of man is a deliverance from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of God (Acts 26:18). The Kingdom of God is a realm of God’s dominion. This is where you interprete the life you have been given.
“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” (Rev. 21:7). We should be more concerned about what we will become on our inside than things that surrounds us in the external. God wants to bring us into an eternal estate but we have to exalt the things that will bring us to this estate more than any ambition in the natural. A carnal man cannot desire things that brings the soul to an eternal estate. God is the blessing and He wants us to have Him. God can surround a man with natural blessings, and he will yet remain carnal if he does not have access to things that pertains to God’s nature.
It can only take men who have trapped the things of God to bring solution to the misery of man. Those are the sons of God who have come into all things of God (John 3:25). Creation is earnestly waiting for the manifestation of these sons of God (Romans 8:19).
Most times, men would easily yield to operations of the gift of the Spirit than to God’s commandments. However, we should learn to take steps towards God through obedience. There will never be a manifestation of sons if there are no people who will obey God’s commandments. This is because obedience to God’s word is what brings about change in the soul. The essence of God’s speakings is to change us, and so that we can begin to gradually arise out of corruption.
Scriptures talk about the world to come and it says, “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev. 22:5). The light of the Lord God is the light of dominion and whosoever has access to this light will reign. The light of the Lord God is the original light that God ordained for man (John 1:4). This is the light that men ought to live by.
Eternal Life is the gift or promise of God to men (Romans 6:23). Eternal Life is the original intention of God for men. However, men subscribed to the pursuit of a pseudo life that Satan offered; and we accepted this life because of blindness (Eph. 4:17-18).
God wants to pour all of Himself into man. God is so loving that He can go to any length to pursue after believers who are not even willing. God is tenderly and passionately following us so that we would get His good gift. God wants to communicate to us the things that makes Him good (Luke 18:19). These good things that make up His nature will help us to get rid of all evil formation in us.
It takes somebody who is spiritual to appreciate what the Bible is speaking because the wisdom of scriptures is foolishness to the people of this world (1 Corin. 1:21). God’s life is communicated through speakings; and we should yield to these words of Life. We would be increasing in understanding, even as we grow up spiritually. However, growth comes by obedience to what has been spoken to us. When we appreciate in spiritual stature, our understanding increases.
At the point of the New Birth, we could not use or obey the light of God; so, we begin with the light of the milk of the word. Many Christian wrongly assume that the realm of the milk of the word is a realm of spiritual irresponsibility, but this is not so. There are things in the milk of the word that a believer must cooperate with and give himself to. This is what will qualify that believer for another level of God’s oracles or speaking.
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31). A believer must continue in the words of our Lord Jesus in order to qualify for the next level, which is the truth of Christ, or the meat of the word (1 Corin. 3:2-3). Many believers are stuck in one state because they never cooperated with the demands of that level that should guarantee their movement into the next level.
A believer who stays too long in a level and refuses to grow up spiritually will eventually branch out of truth into strange doctrines. Rudiments of this world, motivation talks, philosophies and traditions of men are all doctrines that a believer should not binge on (Col. 2:8).
Our ascension in the spirit has to do with our cooperation with the demands of the Lord, for any level that we are in. The demands placed on a man who has an enlightened eye is higher than the demands placed on a man who is still being exercised in the faith of the milk of the word (Eph. 1:15,18). However, we must do well with obedience at every stage of our spiritual journey.
It is when we are yielding or obeying the demands of the understanding that comes to us par time that we are profiting with light. Understanding comes by revelation and revelation comes to give us commandments that we should obey. So, when you’re learning revelation of God’s word, you are receiving instructions on what to do. When revelation or light is coming to a man, standards are being raised in his heart which when adhered to or obeyed, will result in appreciation in spiritual stature.
The natural or carnal man has a stature of sin in his soul. Therefore, the purpose of spiritual growth is to reduce the stature of sin in our souls. Removal or remission of sins in the soul is tantamount to an increase in spiritual age. A spiritual man is one who can obey the laws of the Spirit of Life that are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). These laws are given to us by the revelation of Christ. Christ is a stature that is formed by laws.
When God gives an instruction, you may not fully understand why the instruction is given, but you will begin to comprehend as you yield to the instruction. We often do not have quick comprehension because we do not promptly obey instructions of the Lord. Our comprehension of spiritual things increases as we become quick in obedience.
A man’s response to natural situations and circumstances will change as he begins to learn Christ. It can only take a spiritual man to comprehend the things of God (1 Corin. 2:14). Any man who receives the revelation of Christ will be weaned from the pressure of this world that makes men to compromise the standards of Christ. Any man who loves our Lord Jesus Christ will obey His commandments (John 14:15).
A believer who has not heard and obeyed the things of Christ cannot receive the things of God because he is still carnal. The things of Christ is the meat of the word while the things of God is the strong meat of the word (Heb. 5:112-14). The things that God is speaking to us in this time are things of the strong meat of the word. They are the revelations of God; and they come through His speakings. They are the things that were downloaded into our Lord Jesus that made him become the begotten Son of God (Heb. 1:1-2).
“Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” (1 John 3:7). Every man that obeys the revealed righteous standards of God is the one who is righteous, not a man who only shares or quotes revelations. A man can only be made right by obedience (Romans 2:13). Our profiting in life is what we become in our souls by the gospel (1 Tim. 4:15).
The program of the end is for men to come and hear the speakings of God. The promise of the Gospel are the very things that make up God. So, God is offering to us, the very things that fabricated Him. What manner of love! The demonstration of God’s love towards us is that He wants to give us His very essence. And this comes via the words of God. So, when you refuse to obey the life that these words are painting, you are refusing the very essence of God. All things of God are Eternal Life. Keeping the things of God will come at a cost to all other things that we are presently holding, whose sum is vanity!