Meeting: Sunday Service
Date: 17 March, 2024
Sunday School: Tribulations: A must in the journey of Salvation.
Ministers: Bro. David Kilanko
“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22).
Going through tribulation is a requirement for the believer who wants to enter the kingdom of God. Man is a tripartite being. When he died, he died on a tripartite level and so, he must also be saved on a tripartite level.
(Gen. 1:27-28) The first part of man that was created was man’s spirit, which is essential to man. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7) – The breath of life is not oxygen. It is an installation of God to man that makes him have a particular life different from other creations. Other creations like animals did not need the breath of life because his intent for that breath was for man. The essence of the breath of life is to come into an estate of life in God.
What Satan attacked in man is the breath in his spirit. Sin is the breath of Satan so he exchanged God’s breath for his breath. The Spirit is the part of the man that God can relate with and lead (Prov. 20:27). A man without the breath of God in his spirit is dead. The inner man is the man that makes one alive. When man died in the garden, man essentially died in his spirit (Gen. 2:15-17). Death in the body is that you are no longer able to exist on this plane. The death of the spirit however means a disconnection from the life of God. This means God cannot lead such a man or speak with him. A sign that you’re alive is that you are never independent of God (Gen. 3:1-9).
God created the spirit different from the form of the soul. The spirit is quick but the soul is not. The death of the spirit was instant, the saving of the spirit is/was also instant. The soul on the other hand did not die instantly so it will be saved gradually. Tribulation was not needed for the saving of our human spirit but what needs tribulation for salvation is the soul.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” (2 Cor. 4:16).
“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;” (Eph. 3:16).
Man has an inner man (spirit), an inward man (soul), and an outward man (body). The man that needs to be troubled to be saved is the soul. The presence of death in the soul made the soul grow old (Eph.4:22-24), and the soul of man needs to be fed with the word of God to be saved. The three categories of the meals needed for our salvation are; milk, meat, and strong meat.
God’s word is food to our souls (Ezek. 3:1-15, Jer. 15:16). The first true meal Adam ate in the garden was God’s commandments which his soul ate and was to continue eating (Gen. 2:16).
Tribulations won’t begin until the soul begins to eat the meat of the word. Milk is a meal for a spiritual baby, it is to help a newborn believer grow into being a child or a babe in Christ. A babe in Christ cannot be troubled. Where the meal for our growth is served is the church. Meat is called the doctrine of Christ, it is to help a child grow into a new man (Christ). Strong meat is to help the soul grow from being a new man to being a father. It is also called the word of salvation (everlasting life). In the realm of strong meat, every feeding is to teach a man to escape death, where the man is no longer subject to death but has overcome death.
Tribulation means pressing, distress, trouble, affliction, or persecution. It is to take away the things of a man that make him not live life the way God designed him to live.
THE END