Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing the Vision (September Edition)
Date: Saturday, 24th September 2022
“[25] After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. [26] For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he comes.” (1 Cor. 11:24-26). The life of the New Testament is a life that is demonstrated in death. This conversation of the New Testament is the conversation of the Godhead, which They want to give us. In doing so, They demonstrate a life of complete sacrifice – a witness of death to death.
God is an eternal fountain of life that always founts. This means that God is always on a consistent program of dying. Hence, the reason why He is always living. God is an entity of life (John 1:4). If God is a wellspring of life, it means God is in constant sacrifice. That sacrifice is the wisdom for generating life. God’s ability to sit on the throne lies in His perpetual nature to die. The only beings that can manage the throne are eternal sacrificial beings. The Godhead are all Lambs that have been slain.
“And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” (Rev. 5:6). The midst typifies the core and this is where the Lamb was slain. Without sacrifice, there is no covenant. Covenants are attached to sacrifices. God Himself made a sacrifice to bring the covenant of His life to mankind. As such, there are certain sacrifices we need to fulfill in order to access that covenant.
There are ordinances of coming to God. In coming to God, there are sacrifices we must give Him. God will not release certain things except we give Him venison. The Old Testament is a prophecy of the nature of God. It took a kind of venison to provoke the blessing from Isaac to Jacob. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are patriarchs of the covenant. At the time Isaac was about to pass away, he already had the covenant – everything that was upon Abraham had been transferred to him.
Rebecca gave Jacob the wisdom to receive the blessing though it ought not to have been him. God loved Jacob because of his heart for the covenant (Romans 9:13). As such, the spirit of the covenant began to subject him to dealings. Jacob, who was called a supplanter, was led to the house of Laban who was a greater supplanter (Gen. 29). This is so that the sacrifices would be complete.
Without sacrifices, God would not bring forth blessings. There was a certain venison that Jacob had to bring for Isaac to bless him (Gen. 27:33). Jacob fulfilled the ordinances. There are ordinances that can bring God to make a covenant with us, which are ordinances of death. It is from death to death. The new covenant is demonstrated in death, and death is expressed in weakness.
Weakness is the wisdom of God for the giving of the covenant. When God wants to give Himself, He would demonstrate Himself through many weaknesses. In that, He is showing the way to receive what He keeps. The fountain of life in God is held by a nature called weakness, without which we cannot come to Him.
The cup and the bread of the Lord’s table are everlasting ordinances (1 Cor. 11:24-26). We only partake of a share through Christ; it is in everlasting life that we come into the blessing of the bread and of the cup, which are baptisms into covenants. Communion is a sacrifice; it is a demonstration of the kind of life that we would begin to be subjected to. The ordinances of God should prepare us as a perfect sacrifice.
“Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. [6] And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.” (Psalms 50:5-6). These saints have fulfilled a level of sacrifice with the doctrine of Christ, which requires obedience to the leading of the Spirit. The doctrine of Christ fashions a kind of leading, where circumstances for our death are arranged. Death is the means through which They bring us into the blessing of the cup of Christ. These saints who have attended to the commandments of Christ unto charity must be gathered.
We need to progress from charity to fervent charity for the incorruptible life to be sown in us. Charity would be demanded much more in the season of everlasting life and if we are not gathered, we would not come unto a higher law of obedience. That is because in this order, our love walk with one another is a sacrifice.
We must have an unfailing love for one another – one in which Satan cannot convince us otherwise. It is a kind of love that would stay through any situation, even in the weakness of another brother/sister. This entails obediences which we must keep for the blessing to come upon us. The saints of Christ must be gathered again. These are those who have used the doctrine to become meek, for it is the meek that are guided in judgment (Psalms 25:9).
There is a meekness stature of the earth that is necessary for ascension. Moses was described as the meekest man on earth (Num. 12:3), but that meekness still had to be subjected. God had to bring Moses to a point where he was broken, for him to lead His people. God predestined Moses as a saviour, and that was what brought the program of leading. He became a sheep tender in his father-in-law’s house so he could be raised a saviour that would bear the covenant. Moses was a type of Christ to the people of Israel.
One cannot make a covenant without sacrifices (Psalms 50:5). Sacrifices are generated from obedience to the commandments of the covenant. My sacrifice is my hearkening to the instructions that are being released through the spirit of the covenant. There is no priesthood without sacrifice. The levitical order had sacrifices, but the everlasting priesthood has better sacrifices. These sacrifices are everlasting in nature; they are sacrifices in which God would command those whom He will make covenant with. God cannot make a covenant with us without our sacrifices.
“The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.” (Psalms 25:9). There is a level of meekness one must have for the Lord to guide one. It is possible for a spiritual man to reject an everlasting sacrifice if he lacks judgement. It took everlasting judgement for Jesus to die on the cross. Jesus must have finished sacrifices before He could enter into glory.
Jesus died as a criminal; He died as the worst kind of man that nobody would desire. If at all a man would die, he would want to die gloriously; but Jesus died a shameful death. Men do not like this type of shame even when it involves performing the sacrifices of God.
God is a child and this is the wisdom of His greatness. The power of God is tied to His childlikeness. To say God is great means He is the least. When we all gather with God in our midst, He is the least of us; He is so little. Jesus Christ being anointed above the rest of His fellows means He was more little than His fellows (Heb. 1:9). He could receive a certain honour that comes with being little.
The way of God leads us to God (Psalms 25:9). The way of God is God’s secret. The secrets of the Lord are His sacrifices; they are the ordinances that would kill us. His secrets show us how to die and sow ourselves as a seed so that we would not abide alone but break forth into glory. The secrets of God entail dying to enter into glory.
“And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” (1 Cor. 2:1-3). ‘Weakness, fear and much trembling’ define the attitude of coming to God. We must keep sacrificial ordinances to be carriers of the Testament. God's secrets would only come to a heart that trembles.
God can only dwell in a sacrificial house (Isaiah 66:1-2). A temple is built as a place for sacrifices. Worship is sacrifice. We need to attain a level of meekness for God to visit us with His secrets. There is a secret of God that can only be written on the tabernacle of men that have attained a level of meekness.
God gives His secrets to those that fear Him (Psalms 25:14). Fear comes in calibrations. We must have a kind of trembling that causes God to give us His secrets. Fear is a place we ought to journey to; it is a journey into the unknown. All men are subjected to the fear of death, and the deliverance from such fear lies in the fear of God. This fear is a walk in the world of the unknown and this is the realm where we encounter God. God hides in that realm. Fear is the visitation of the unknown God.
Jesus Christ had attained the status of a Father when He was crucified. The secret of fathers is the secret of death. Fathers know how to die and therein lies their wisdom. He who was slain on the cross was a Father and that was the secret to pave way for eternal blessing. We must embrace the sacrifices of death.
“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.” (Psalms 51:16). This speaks of a kind of sacrifice in the Old Testament. Every testament has its sacrifice. The order of the sacrifices of the Old Testament was going to pass away and David knew this, hence his manner of writing in scriptures.
“Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.” (Psalms 40:6). An open ear is a blessed ear and open ears would lead to opened eyes.
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.” (Prov. 20:12). When ears are opened, the intention is for the eyes to be opened also. Hearing and seeing are twain; when we are hearing, we should also be seeing. When God desires for a man to begin to offer His order of sacrifice, They begin to open his ears. We need open ears and eyes to offer sacrifices.
Sacrifice is obedience. Without open ears, we cannot hear commandments and without seeing eyes, we cannot do obedience. Hence, it is important to stay in the word. We need time, staying on the word for our ears to be open. Vanity has deafened our ears for many years and it needs to be flushed out. As the ears are open, sight is being calibrated. When we begin to walk, we give our bullocks which would graduate to us giving rams, because obedience is better than sacrifice.
“And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to hearken than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22). Hearkening is a higher level of sacrifice. As we approach the Most Holy, obedience must be heightened. Those who will serve God well must hearken. Thus, we must move from obedience to hearkening.
To delight in doing God's will (Psalms 40:8) typifies a sacrificial nature in total obedience to God. “[17] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalms 51:16-17). The sacrifices of God are the secrets of cutting a covenant. God would only make covenants with children. In the company of the little flock, there are little children, young men and fathers. The fathers are the least and they are the closest to the throne. Those fathers in their state are children.
When we are prepared to come to God, one evident character that will be seen in us is brokenness. We come into this broken state by being slain in the season of Christ. Christ would work in us a level of broken spirit that must be heightened as we move into the Most Holy.
To be contrite at heart talks about a heart that has been crushed or broken. Everlasting sacrifices are sacrifices constituted of people that have been grounded till they have become fine flour. This is the real crushing! God cannot write on a heart that He has not crushed nor can He come on a soul that He has not broken. When we come into greater brokenness and attain a contrite spirit, God will come to us. What pulls God is a contrite heart, which is a heart that can keep covenant. God wants to be sure that we can keep His covenant and we have to obey sacrifices to prove to God that He can come to us. We must be guided with a sacrificial heart.
“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” (1 Peter 2:20). To do well is to sacrifice and give God a perfect offering through our suffering. The scripture speaks of an everlasting sacrifice that the Eternal God can take.
Jesus suffered, leaving an example for us (1 Peter 2:21-23) so that we can walk in His steps. Suffering is sacrifice and sacrifice is obedience. We must be full of the sacrifice of obedience. We must offer sacrifices daily. Solomon offered a thousand sacrifices and God showed up to attend to his need (1 Kings 3:4). There are sacrifices we would make daily that would bring God.
A total sacrifice is one we do when reviled and we do not revile back. To revile back is to spoil the sacrifice. It is not easy to be weak. Most times we cannot follow a minister who we consider weak because their supposed faith cannot deliver them from external contradictions. When we do not defend ourselves when accused, we look foolish. For every situation we are faced with, there is a comfort, a visitation from the Lord (2 Cor. 12:9). If we are faithful, there would come a season when the righteous God would judge.
We ought to cooperate with God to go through the dealings that God would bring our way. We cannot determine the way God would temper His sacrifices. When John the Baptist was undergoing an everlasting trial, he sent disciples to Jesus to ask if He was the Christ (Luke 7:19). John had gone through sufferings all his life; he lived and grew in the wilderness, but another season of temptation opened over him and Jesus did not come for him as he expected.
May God give us understanding on how to comport ourselves, order our speech, thoughts and conversations in the zones of everlasting temptation. We are in a realm where everything of man is taken away from us – where human strength would fail us. As such, we must trust God and much more, pray for His help in this season.
Blessings!
Summary
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The life of the New Testament is a life that is demonstrated in death (1 Cor. 11:24-26). This conversation of the New Testament is the conversation of the Godhead, which is about Their life of sacrifice that They want to give us.
-
God’s ability to sit on the throne lies in His perpetual nature to die. The only beings who can manage the throne are eternal sacrificial beings. This is why the Godhead are all Lambs that have been slain (Rev. 5:6).
-
There are ordinances of death that can bring God down to make a covenant with us. Without these sacrifices, God would not bring forth blessings. There was a certain venison that Jacob had to bring for Isaac to bless him (Gen. 27:33).
-
The new covenant is demonstrated in death, and death is expressed in weakness. When God wants to give Himself, He would demonstrate Himself through many weaknesses. In doing so, He is showing us the way to receive what He keeps.
-
It is the doctrine of Christ that fashions a kind of leading where circumstances for our death are arranged. Death is the means through which the Godhead bring us into the blessing of the cup of Christ.
-
One cannot make a covenant without sacrifices (Ps. 50:5). Sacrifices are generated from obedience to the commandments of the covenant. My sacrifice is my hearkening (obedience) to the instructions that are being released through the spirit of the covenant. God cannot make a covenant with us without sacrifices.
-
God can only dwell in a sacrificial house (Isa. 66:1-2). A temple is built as a place for sacrifices. Worship is sacrifice. We need to attain a level of meekness for God to visit us with His secrets.
-
God gives His secrets to those that fear Him (Ps. 25:14). Fear comes in calibrations. We must have a kind of trembling that causes God to give us His secrets. Fear is a place we ought to journey to; it is a journey into the unknown. All men are subjected to the fear of death, and the deliverance from such fear lies in the fear of God.
-
When ears are opened, the intention is for the eyes to be opened also (Prov. 20:12). Hearing and seeing are twain; when we are hearing, we should also be seeing. When God desires that a man begins to offer His order of sacrifice, He begins to open his ears. We need the opening of our ears and eyes to offer sacrifices that will please God.
-
Sacrifice is obedience. Without open ears, we cannot hear commandments and without seeing eyes, we cannot do obedience (Ps. 40:6). Hence, it is important to stay in the word. We need time to stay on the word for our ears to be open. Vanity has deafened our ears for many years and it needs to be flushed out.