Programme: Lekki Soul Centre (LSC)
Date: Wednesday, 21st June, 2023
Transcript Summary
1. (Ps. 102:13-16). One of the instructions we received from the Lord recently is this: “pay attention to your building.” This building refers to the building of our inward man. There is the corporate building, and there is a building each person is, as an individual. One would not be part of the corporate building of the house of the Lord, without having been built as an individual.
2. The Church will be built by revelation (Matt. 16:18), which is knowledge, or the hearing of knowledge. We gather materials for building by knowledge. “Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:” (Prov. 24:3). Wisdom and understanding are used to measure the process of building.
3. (Col. 1:9-10). The spirit of wisdom and understanding plays a major role in the process, and act when the believer is constantly exposed to the ‘knowledge of Him’ (Eph. 1:17) – which takes one through the process of becoming a stone. The knowledge of His will leads us to walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.
4. “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;” (Heb. 3:1). To consider the Lord Jesus is to consider His person and also the process of His building. We are to pay attention to Jesus because He is the model of the building; He is the one we ought to look like.
5. (Heb. 3:2-3). Moses was a house, a tabernacle. Without Moses, the physical tabernacle would not come into existence, as no one else had the stature to receive such a building template. The statement, “Moses was faithful in all his house” means that Moses was faithful in all the process; Moses was faithful in the Outer Court, Holy Place and Most Holy Place. Moses was glorious. When the Lord God built the house called Moses, He filled it with glory. He is the God of glory, and fills any house He builds with glory (Ps. 102:16). However, our Lord Jesus is more glorious than Moses.
6. Being faithful in this house is not that one attends all the meetings, but that one has come to the measure of the stature required for the house. One who has not been found faithful in the house of Christ would not be moved progressively to the house of God, because such a person would certainly not be able to carry God. This is why it is of utmost importance for us to pay attention to our building.
7. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (1 Cor. 15:47). Adam was a building God built at once. He was built as an everlasting man, raised with substances of the everlastingness of the earth. To be built everlasting, Adam had ‘christos’ in him. This means that Adam had a life that can be likened to Christ (that is, the anointed life). ‘Earthy’ is not the same as ‘earthly’. ‘Earthly’ means carnal; Adam was not carnal. There is a physical aspect of earth, and the spiritual aspect of earth, spiritual in the sense of unseen/invisible; and both are substances.
8. (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). There is something about our bodies that the Holy Ghost takes interest in to dwell in it. We ought to cooperate with the Holy Ghost to build Christ in our souls and ultimately, build God’s temple in us; not destroying what He builds. We destroy God’s building in us when we harden our hearts or do not give attention to our building; and also when we engage in deeds that are detrimental to the body, such as fornication (1 Cor. 6:13). However, our bodies can be preserved blameless (1 Thess. 5:23).
9. God finished the house that Adam was, but sin came in and began to break down the building including his body. Adam was built as an everlasting house that was meant to journey to the Tree of life. The way to the Tree of life (which is Life Eternal) can be likened to the way everlasting. Adam needed to engage that way but Satan stopped him. Everlasting wisdom is needed to partake of the Tree of life, which is also wisdom. The Tree of life was positioned in the midst of the garden of Eden.
10. Another Person we find in the midst of the throne is the Lamb, Jesus Christ (Rev. 7:17). He got there by a conversation He had – which is that of “a lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). Having that kind of conversation will cause a man to arrive in the very midst of the throne of God. ‘Midst’ refers to a dimension in the spirit that would require a certain obedience for a man to see. Even the tree of knowledge of good and evil required that man should see it (in its true essence) before partaking of it (Gen. 3:6).
11. One of the functions of the human spirit is worship. The sin Adam committed was a sin of worship. Jesus faced similar temptations as Adam did, with Satan. Those temptations were temptations of sons (Matt. 4:1-11), which can be summarized as: using sonship rights and abilities for oneself. But Jesus had been well raised by God. For God to send Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted (Matt. 4:1), He was confident in whom He had raised. Just like God said of Job, “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” (Job 1:8). Job was also a building, one that Satan tried to crack/shake, but he stood.
12. When Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread, it was not just about the bread, he knew eating meant more than just a meal to the Son. Eating was a doing of a will (John 4:34). For a son, eating was an obedience that needed to be fulfilled. For a son to turn stones to bread, there is a wisdom he has that he turns into what to live for. What one lives for actively informs one’s conversation, which constitutes one’s value system, and invariably constitute what one would labour for – that is worship. Satan was tempting Jesus to have a conversation that is contrary to the life God has given to Him.
13. (John 4:34). Jesus expresses the will of He that sent Him in His lifestyle. There is a kind of life God desires that Jesus lives, He has to discover it and live it. There is a kind of life that God desires for man to live (Deut. 8:3). Before life on earth is over, that life will be recorded on earth. Although Adam first possessed this kind of life but fell, Jesus, the last Adam has come to initiate a life completely governed by the thoughts of God.
14. Satan derives strength and worship from people taking his thoughts. A time is coming when the world will worship the Antichrist (Rev. 13:3); this means that they would consider him. This is why we are told to consider Jesus (Heb. 3:1), that is, take His thoughts. He is the one who knows how to worship God and is leading us to worship God.
15. Like our Lord Jesus, our building will be challenged. Even after that temptation experience, the Bible says the devil left Jesus for a season (Lk. 4:13); the devil came back later and kept coming back. The devil will keep coming against us with his wiles and wisdom till he finds that our house has also become a house of wisdom. And God structured it this way, such that as you overcome him, your building will be qualified the more. And you keep getting qualified by overcoming him until you inherit all things (Rev. 21:7).
16. (Matt. 4:6). The second temptation Jesus faced is similar to the first. Here, Satan was quoting Psalm 91:11. Without the mercy of God and the help of Jesus, we cannot overcome Satan on our own accord, because we have not been built. It is possible for Satan to be leading a soul and such would think it is the Spirit of the Lord because Satan also quotes the Scriptures. “...But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able…” (1 Cor. 10:13). This second temptation was aimed at causing God to do something He did not plan to do or is not within His programme to do; and that is tempting God.
17. (Matt. 4:8-10). The last temptation Satan presented was to take Jesus to an exceeding high mountain, signifying very high thoughts, thoughts of glory. Satan presented to Him the glory of the kingdoms of this world, which were realms of his rulership in the air – his accomplishments and the possibilities attached to him. He showed these to the Antichrist too, who then concluded Satan to be God. Satan wanted to become a god unto Jesus, and probably make Jesus his prophet. Jesus’ response revealed Satan’s transgression, in that when he ought to worship God, he did not, rather he worshiped the things that God kept in Him.
18. Examining Jesus’ response to the temptations Satan presented shows us the kind of building that He is. It would take this kind of building to withstand the adversary. Therefore when Jesus says, “...upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18), He is referring to a Church that has been built. Those temptations are gates of hell. The gates of hell will still prevail over a Church that is not built. They show up as thoughts not easy to discern, one might have followed it and lived by it before realizing that one had been following the wrong thing as opposed following God.
19. There are many dreams one may have pursued supposing that they were from God. For example, Satan can give a minister a wrong definition of what ministry should be. Satan might present temptations to a young minister serving under another minister of the gospel, that such a one is wasting his ministry. The carnal believer thinks ministry is when there is some sort of structure, with one man at the head of affairs. However, one may stay in the place of service and it would be counted as a ministry greater than someone heading a congregation. This person may stay in the place of service and lay hold on Eternal Life, and come to sit on God’s throne; while another who has several high and international platforms might not see Christ.
20. The seven spirits are spirits of building. When they have finished raising a man into a building, they would give him sight; which is called judgment. Judgment is quick understanding (Isa. 11:3). It first begins with the gradual opening of the eyes, then turning the believer from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18).
21. God is demanding us to grow. Anyone who is doing otherwise in this season is wasting time. There is no more time. The time that we are in is very short. We do not have enough time. So engaging in anything that is not helping our spiritual growth – growing to be like Jesus – is a waste of our precious time. There is no time anymore! The present age is winding up, anyone that is not grown in the next few years, would be swept away easily. The answer to the strong delusion that is coming upon the earth is growth. Men will believe lies which are gates of hell, because they are not built (2 Thess. 2:11). A man who is built would have judgment to discern what is God’s and what is not.
Blessings!