We all need a baptism, through experiencing God. Have you been baptized, not into Christ, into Zach Fomum? That is being part of his ministry. It comes from encountering God in the ministry. When the Israelites encountered God through Moses, the Bible says they were baptized into Moses. They became part of Moses, not part of Moses’ genes, but spiritually.
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)
As we think about the convention, when the children of Israel left Egypt after they had been under the blood, they came under the cloud, and they when through the water. What did He do to them, they were baptized into the water, baptized into the cloud, and that baptism, the Bible calls it that they were baptized into Moses. There is a baptism into the ministry, if you are in somebody’s ministry, you may have your own ideas, because you are not part of it. It is God that puts people into somebody’s ministry, and God does it by a baptism. This is not a baptism into water after you believe, God soaks you into somebody’s ministry, through the cloud of His presence? For the Israelites, He gave them to drink; God gave them a drink from, Christ, God gave them food, from heaven, God covered them with His cloud. It was this experience of God, in such a tangible way, under the ministry of Moses, that made them part of Moses. There are many people who are struggling to be in our ministry, they don’t understand many things and they compare ministries, they do church shopping, and they are just not part of it. There is a baptism, and God is the one that does it, through the manifestation of His presence and His power. God comes down in the cloud that leads the people. God comes through by providing food from heaven, through His provisions, through His word, through His presence, through His cloud. And the bible says, “They were baptized into Moses.”
All these manifestations of the divine presence—the cloud, the sea, the food, the drink, all of that, the bible says, “They were baptized into Moses.” They became part of Moses, not part of Moses’ genes, but spiritually. You can be in our ministry and be of a different spirit (and there are many). For those of us who grew partly in the village, one thing you will learn when you go to the stream is that there are many stones, that have been in that stream for forty/fifty years, but the river has never been inside them. If you break that stone, the inside is dry – in the water, without the water, in the water, without water. It’s all around them, but it’s not in them. And there are many like that, it’s all around them; the ministry is all around them, books, tracts, teaching, but it’s not in them. One reason why I am burning that God should encounter us is this baptism. There are some people that just … just imagine if you take somebody’s child in your house, the child finds everything strange, even if in their house they don’t even eat “nbounga – a type of dried fish”, the child prefers to go to her father’s house and die there. Some people are like that in the ministry, they are not at home, they don’t feel at home. All over you, but not in you, the books are there, you see them, you touch them, you hear them, but it’s not in you. There is a baptism, there is a baptism, and that baptism is produced by an encounter with God in a ministry. Because when they started following Moses, they went through the sea, without being drowned, the came under the cloud, and they were led. They ate the food, that God gave in answer to prayer, a rock accompanied them, to give them drink, throughout the forty years of their journey, and that rock was Christ and the bible says that: “They were baptized into Moses” they were baptized into Moses. What we are dreaming is that December will be
- an encounter with God’s presence,
- an encounter with God’s power,
- an encounter with God’s Spirit,
so as to produce this baptism. It gives us people who are in our ministry, it will give us members, instead of those who attend our meetings. It will give us members; people of the ministry, not those who have come to the ministry. The goal will be their goal, (the life will be their life) they will live the life, they will walk the Christian walk as we have been taught, they will walk. It is their thing, it becomes their genome. It becomes their thing, they have been baptized into it, they are no longer strangers. They will not be like Jacob, the skin is the skin of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. Outside, you are part of it, when you speak, from inside, you are another person. I went to a seminary in Nigeria called, West African Theological Seminary. … When I went to that seminary, I was holding a revival week for the students; then there was some tall handsome guy there, with a big beautiful Bible. I looked at him, and I called him. I asked him, “What are you doing here?” He said,
“Wèèh pastor you see hein, in our university, I was in the occult, and I wanted to leave, so they told me, that the only way I can leave, without being followed by my fraternity to kill me is to get born again and they told me, let it be the bad kind of born again. Buy the fattest bible from the bookshop, and when you are walking on the campus, be singing choruses, and make as if you are seeing nobody; because it has caught you” so he said “Pastor, as you, that was what I did, and it was when I was acting that drama that I decided to come to theological college; so if you see me like this, I am not inside here. I don’t understand what they are doing here; every day, all that they are teaching in that class, I don’t understand anything. I just wanted to leave the sect; so I got born again the bad way, with the bible singing choruses every day like somebody who is off, in the school, because the Holy Ghost has caught me; so that’s why you see me here like this, but, as for this thing, I don’t know what I am doing here.
You can be inside and it is not inside. You are like that Obi, you only bought a big Bible, and walking like a ‘spiritos’, and it may even carry you to the theological seminary. But it has not caught you. I told him to pack and leave before he impregnates some people’s daughters in the school.
We all need a baptism, through experiencing God. They came under the blood, they came through the sea, they came under the cloud, they ate the food of heaven, they drank from Christ, they were part of Moses, they became part of Moses. So what we are crying out to God for; through this encounter with God, is that the multitudes that mass in our churches, would be part of our ministry, that they would be part of our ministry. That the hunger for God will be inside, that walking with God will become something they admire, that the way of the cross, will be a normal way as disciples of Christ, not something you are doing, so that God may bless your children. Only a prostitute sells love in exchange for money, love is not something you sell. Some people are prostitute children of God, they are ready to love God, worship God, pray, fast, in exchange for what they are asking. God is not enough, all the good things are just gimmicks. Normally love should not be sold, people sell groundnut and you sell love? I love you; hmm! For money, you are a heavy merchant. Why didn’t go and sell the melon? If it is money you want, what do you want to trade in love?
My prayer is that God will visit us, in December, so that the multitudes that are in our meetings, maybe baptized into our ministry; so that it becomes their thing so that the life is their life so that the walk is their walk and the goal is their goal. We need that encounter; if not we will assemble people in our meetings and believe that we have grown.
Who has understood the burden?
Have you been baptized, not into Christ, into Zach Fomum? That is being part of his ministry. It comes from, encountering God in the ministry. When the Israelites encountered God through Moses, the Bible says they were baptized into Moses.
Who has understood?
The big encounter we are looking for is a kind of baptism so that you will no longer be an outsider, you will be inside, God will soak you inside, God will bury you inside, it becomes your thing.
Pray that God will give us that encounter in December!
They were baptized into Moses, and that baptism was an encounter with God, under the blood, through the sea, under the cloud, with the food from heaven and with the drink from Christ, they became part of Moses.
