The Image and Nature of the World to Come
Theme: Prophets of the World to Come
Date: Sunday, 17th May 2026
Minister: Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
“[3] According to his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” (2 Peter 1:2-3). God has called us unto glory and virtue. For this calling, He gave us things of life and godliness by His divine power through the knowledge of Him. Thus, we must have life and godliness before we can attain glory. When we have gotten the things of life and godliness, we would have gotten divine power through His knowledge.
Knowledge gives access to power. We need knowledge to do certain things, such as practising our professions in the natural. Spiritually, there are things with life that we cannot ordinarily see, for there is no knowledge or instrument on earth to see such life/things. The existence of this life/things is out of our biological existence and such things include life and godliness.
God offers these things freely for us to learn in the Church and anoints His lecturers to teach them. This is why He gave gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers unto us to make us see (Ephesians 4:11). The learning of the new creation man is greater than any learning in this world. The world cannot teach life and godliness, for it is the honour and glory of the Church to have these teachings.
There is no other body outside the Church where these things are being taught because man does not know these things. For instance, godliness is a life in the spirit called peace; it is not a conduct of a man. We cannot access power to see it except through knowledge. As such, knowledge is very important to us.
Spiritual knowledge is spiritual things set aside from power; it is a gift from/of God. It is a knowledge of/for spirits. Knowledge is an important material in the realm of the spirit because it opens the gateway into the realm of the unseen; it opens one’s eyes in the realm of the spirit. When eyes are opened, power comes, for eyes are opened to access power both for darkness and light.
When a person’s eyes are opened, he is turned from darkness to light and is exposed to power (Acts 26:18). The opening of the eyes is only an exposure to activities of power, but does not automatically confer power to a person. As such, one may see but refuse to participate in power. Every man is subservient to or using a power and when a different power is introduced, we can tell which power we have been exposed to and respond with an enlightened understanding.
Every power has its demand. Light and darkness each have their demands and can be profitable. When we are exposed to two different powers, we are to choose one. As such, one
may choose to draw back and remain with the power of darkness that has “profited” one until later, thereby procrastinating change.
Godliness is an attribute we get from the power of light but we cannot touch power without knowledge. When our eyes are opened with knowledge, we come into power. A person can have a form of godliness yet deny the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). One can be cleansed from obvious sins but not be released from the life of those sins. For instance, the Pharisees appeared clean outwardly but were dirty within; they were considered holy men until exposed by Jesus (Luke 11:39-44; Mark 12:38-40).
A Christian may sometimes be sincere about living a “holy life”. However, a holy life is not only measured by good conduct but by what is within. Thus, one may be expressing an outward show of holiness without having life within. A lot of people consider themselves holy because of fasting and prayer and not because of a transition of life into them through knowledge and power, so their holy lives are not formed by doctrine.
Fasting and prayer is good as certain fleshly conducts can be dealt, but attaining healing from certain habits is not having life. Outward sins like smoking, drunkenness and fornication weaken believers from experiencing life within, handling knowledge and engaging in the power of the true form of life.
There is a realm beyond godliness, that is, the place of glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3). A man that is godly is one with divine power and the expectation for him is to come to the place of glory and virtue. God made available exceeding great and precious for the sake of glory and virtue, and by these, we may be partakers of divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
Life and godliness are both natures and powers created through divine power (2 Peter 1:3). The Holy Ghost leads us till life and godliness are formed in us. After these, we are supplied exceeding great and precious promises to attain glory and virtue. Afterwards, we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Divine nature is a higher life than life and godliness. Life and godliness is the life of Christ while divine nature is the life of glory and virtue; it is God’s life.
Divine power births life and godly nature (2 Peter 1:3). Divine nature is higher than life and godliness. God’s life is above the life of Christ. Divine nature sends divine power down as an aid to bring a man up to divine nature. Therefore, anyone lower than life and godliness cannot attain divine nature, for it is an impossible power for the natural man. Divine power is the energy from divine nature bridging the divine life to life and godliness. God sent down power for us to reach Him which is Christ; Christ is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).
The wrath of God will be revealed against the opposite nature of life and godliness (Romans 1:18). Unrighteousness is the life against everlasting life or divine nature. When sin is as red as crimson (Isaiah 1:18), it is the opposite life to divine nature. Sins can be described either as ways or thoughts (Isaiah 55:7). Thoughts are grains while wool is a way (Isaiah 1:18).
A way can be white. There is snow and wool, and as we reason with God, we receive a cleansing to become white (Isaiah 1:18). “White” is the realm of being made pure. “[13] And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.” (Revelation 19:11-14). The vesture must have been white before it was dipped in blood.
The Faithful and True was the only one whose garment was dipped in blood while on a white horse. The armies that followed Him had white and clean linen (Revelation 19:14). “[11-12] [11] Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes…” (Genesis 49:9-12). This scripture refers to the prophecy of Jesus; He went up to heaven after swallowing up hell in victory, then sat at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3).
Grapes refer to promises; Jesus must have had promises to dip His garment in the blood of grapes. Possessing divine nature means partaking of the promises of God and this is God’s intention for us. The red dragon is a spirit in the air (Revelation 12:3); it fell and handed over its authority to a scarlet-coloured leopard (a beast) worshipped by those dwelling on the earth (Revelation 13:1-4).
These men started by serving the beast and ended with worshipping him. Through service, they built his image, gave life to it until the image was able to speak (Revelation 13:14-15). The desire of any god who wants to reign supreme over its subjects is that they eventually look like him. The gift of any god is its image that comes from beholding him; to serve a god is to build an image of the god through beholding it.
Similarly, we are to behold in a glass the glory of the Lord as we are being changed into His image from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Beholding is a work; it is service. To behold is to serve and when we behold, an image is made which gives the ability to worship. Worship comes from having life in the image that is built and thereafter, ends when the image begins to speak.
There are two kinds of worship and one service. Building image is service, having life is worship and expressing life is also worship. One who has life and speaks life has become a professor of that life. The scarlet-coloured beast was aided by his own prophet who taught the people remaining on the earth to make an image (Revelation 19:11-14) and their intention was to produce vines out of the earth.
As God is interested in planting vineyards, Satan is also raising his own vineyard. This emphasizes why Jesus called Himself the true vine (John 15:1) because He is the actual promise. The people who were cast into the winepress of the wrath of God are vines made by the antichrist and the prophet (Revelation 14:18-19). The vine making process involves image making, the life in the image and the speaking of the image; it makes the vines ready for reaping.
Revelation 14 is a prophecy of the destruction of men who have taken on an opposite everlasting life. The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne will judge such men and slay the antichrist. The beast and the false prophet would be taken and cast alive into a lake of fire while the armies would be slain by the spirit of the Lamb’s mouth (Revelation 19:19-21).
“And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs” (Revelation 14:20). The vines are men; they will be killed and pressed by the horses of Jesus and the armies of heaven. Realistically, the movement of the blood will be across an extensive length and breadth and if it will be on horse bridles, then the garments of the horse riders will also be bloodied. This movement signifies victory over wrong divine nature.
The vines were not ordinary people but those who rejected Jesus with all His manifestations and chose to hold the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). They will refuse the change so God sent them a delusion to believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11); they are persons of ‘lie’. Lie is the devil; it is the dragon/ beast/false prophet. They preached a lie and people believed it; these people refused the truth.
The reward of these men is the seven plagues (Revelation 15:1) and ends with the wrath of the Almighty God (Revelation 19:15). These beings would go through the wrath of God and will not change, for they would have been fully matured vines. The prophet and the antichrist would have prepared them (grown them from image to vines) to be able to resist God, which they did. The beast also came into his evil divine nature by resisting God. Anyone who wars against God has the potential to become a beast.
The blood life can either be constructive or destructive; it can be a sign of total annihilation and destruction. The vines got to a high blood life by exalting themselves above all that is called God (2 Thessalonians 2:4); this is destruction. God did not design man to be easily taken; He put in us gentleness, kindness, and affection. However, the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:3) took away every God content in humanity and fought away everything that could make him respond to God.
The man of sin would come into the fullness of his own divine state as scarlet. The red dragon would show him what to do before he can have his seat and authority (Revelation 13:2). “[3]And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.” (Revelation 4:1-3). All these colours are red in nature and describe pure blood.
In attaining another godkind of dimension, Satan fabricated his own red coloured life, but his blood is polluted and negative. Jesus is coming for a vine nature; He is also coming to judge and destroy the vine nature that is contrary to the vine of God. The lie of the antichrist is the god genetics. Satan’s promise to everyone is that he can make them gods (Genesis 3:5).
What Satan is painting to men is a false state of exaltation. The antichrist exalted himself against all that is called God (2 Thessalonians 2:4); he will oppose God until every element of God would vanish away in his own memory. Satan would sell to him a lying height such that he would raise his heart more than anything on earth. The antichrist would succeed more than any other person who had exalted himself against God.
Nebuchadnezzar had this same nature as the antichrist but God cut it off (Daniel 4). Satan gave him a lie of exaltation. Satan tunes the heart of a man away from God by starting with the lie that there is no God and gradually, into believing that he is higher than God (Ezekiel 28:1-7).
Satan deceives man by inventions; he teaches man a false divine life and shows him evidence of that kind of life. The programme of divineness is in the image of the beast. The image is the building of a capacity to show a kind of god that is anti-God; it is to produce a life in humanity.
It is the image that makes an army. To be armed is to have an image, to be further armed is to give life to the image and to be most armed is to speak the image. This is the hierarchy in the Kingdom, even in the kingdom of the beast. The expectation is not just to enter the kingdom but to also grow within it. As such, there would be competition to grow even in the kingdom of Satan.
“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads” (Revelation 13:16). This was the false prophet preaching to men. When the mark is in the right hand of men, they have become workers, not soldiers. Workers are builders but the mark in hand alone can condemn them into the lake of fire. Jesus would however meet with the armies, that is, those who have speed, finished building the image and were quick to speak the image.
The mark on the head means the image has been fully built because the name is also on the head. The mark is both on the hand and forehead; it starts on the hand and ends on the head. Those who would work to reach the mark on the head would be named. The purpose of the mark on the hand is to tell them their final destination, that is, to build the image completely – they are to become the image.
The image of the antichrist is the hidden image of the dragon; it is the image for which God designed the lake of fire. It is the image God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit want to punish; it is the image that opposes everything God. Sitting is another height for the image. The sitting of an image in the temple of God signifies its prosperity. To be seated is to have a testimony. The end of the beast is that he can speak great blasphemy. If the image speaks and we are not helped by God, we can be caught by him.
The two witnesses (Revelation 11:3) will fight the beast so that those who would be beheaded, that is, those who would not worship the beast will have time to be built up and
finish worship to God. When worship to God is finished, no other worship can have an encroachment. They would therefore be able to refuse the beast because they have been sealed; they will have victory (Revelation 15:2).
Spiritually, armies must be builders first, have life and be able to speak. The beast did not stop at image making; he brought his army into testimony/covenant. This is why they could be called vines as an army. They fulfilled all the prophetic things concerning the beast. The doctrine of the beast raised a false prophet with a negative divine nature.
The vines of the earth in Revelation 14:18 were not figs, but negative vines of the earth. The antichrist was able to war with the two witnesses because he was a vine himself (Revelation 11:7). The witnesses were vines that were anointed; they were olive trees with oil. The vine is their nature and the olive is the oil over the vine. This means a vine that can witness. They stay at the temple so that the beast would not disrupt those who are worshipping.
There is a measure of the vine nature of God on earth and in heaven. Witnesses represent God on earth; they are two candlesticks and the olive trees standing before God (Revelation 11:3-4). They protect the people on the earth who should come into the measure of the God of the earth, that is, the divine nature expected of the earth. These people are preserved by God to overcome the world because they have divine nature in them.
This present order does not necessarily follow the doctrine of Christ because it has a limit to God’s expression. Men like Adam, Enoch, Moses and Elijah had the stature of God for earth, but were not Christ; they had the covenant of God upon the earth. They are like olive trees upon the face of the earth.
Jesus was made a little lower than the angels (Hebrews 2:9), but what was in Him was not the measure of God for the earth. Jesus ascended into heaven (John 3:13) which is what was expected of Adam but was stopped by Satan in the garden of Eden. God’s visitation to Adam in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8) was to create a conducive environment for Adam to ascend into heaven but he remained earthy. He was made a little lower than angels, that is, a little lower than heaven but he did not ascend; the ascension was his calling.
God’s coming to Adam in Eden and giving him dominion was to put heavens, earth, and the world to come under the subjection of man through obedience (Hebrews 2:8). If this had been done, Jesus Christ would not have come to the earth; He was never a man and never created. He was a Creator but become a man to come and do what Adam should have done (Hebrews 2:9).
To put under subjection is different from being set over (Hebrews 2:5-7). God put Adam over everything in the beginning and then, put all things (including the world to come) to be subject under him (Hebrews 2:7-8). God destined man to go above all the strata of heaven and sit on His throne. This is why Satan assaults us; he was in the heavens and did not have
the right of ascension yet the right to ascend, even in the world to come was given to a lower being – man.
Satan assaults man to insult God. No man can be as jealous as him; he has hatred in his heart towards man, which is why the angels around him are called hateful birds (Revelation 18:2). “[5] And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” (Revelation 13:5-6). The speaking of the mouth of the beast connotes the time of the destruction of God’s image in him; it is the time for the resistance of God’s content in man.
God’s tabernacle is His house and the name of God seals the tabernacle. Thus, anyone who has the tabernacle becomes a heavenly dweller. An archetype of the beast’s destruction of God’s image is the raising of earthly warriors over the beast (Revelation 15:2). To attack the beast, one must attack his image; the image of the beast is the tabernacle of the dragon. Image is tabernacle; the tabernacle is where the things of worship are kept (Hebrews 9:1-3; Revelation 21:1-3, 22). It is also the inner structure of God.
When the antichrist was speaking blasphemy against God, it was against God as a temple, that is, the inner structure/image of God (Revelation 13:6). He was inferring that the image of God is unnecessary, but a being can not dwell in heaven without the image of God.
Ultimately, the antichrist wars against the call of God to man to ascend to heaven irrespective of his physical location on earth. Man cannot reign on the earth without ascending; God is the only person that can reign on the earth because He is the possessor of heaven and earth (Genesis 14:22). The earth is for reigning; man’s body is also for reigning.
In the world to come, there are beings who will dwell in the heavens and on earth. In that world, we will no longer be Christians but saints/heavenly saints/perfect saints. Heavenly dwellers will be called sons of God while the earthly dwellers will be saints of the earth. God’s instructions to Moses for building the tabernacle (Exodus 25) was a type of outward dimension of what is built inside Him.
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost have Their image which They keep and within it, is a life that is hidden. Life is a person; it is a spirit. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy and dwells in the image itself (Revelation 19:10). To find God, His image must be opened up to find His prophet and within the prophet is also a person – the book. The book is inside the prophecy which is inside the testimony.
No eye can see the image of God (John 1:18). God showed His image to Jesus so that can man can receive it. Jesus was not born on earth with the image of God. Otherwise, it would have been difficult for man to see God’s image like Jesus did. As such, Jesus came to earth as a pattern that man could replicate.
The image, the testimony and the book are inheritances. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26). The greatest treasure of the Godhead is Their essence/image. Satan wanted to change his image into Their kind of image; he tried to change himself by his will. However, only God can give the right of way to His image, for it not by sheer will.
Image is essence; it is the first thing seen about God which will only be visible to us if He shows it. He revealed invisible things of Himself to some (Romans 1:19-20). God’s image is invisible; no man or angel has truly seen Him. God can put up a form of His person, not His real person, to reveal a being’s true identity.
God, the creator of Lucifer, was humble before him. Lucifer fell from heaven and was lifted up with pride even before God (Job 1:6-7); he dies further when he is in the presence of God. God is the only wise God (1 Timothy 1:17); He can permit the hearts of men to be more hardened so He can discipline them. An example of such men is Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s heart was stronger than his magicians’ and remained hardened beyond the death of his first born. This caused him to follow the Israelites till the Red Sea and be destroyed (Exodus 14).
From history, Egypt has not risen again since their drowning at the Red Sea. The destruction of Egypt was necessary; otherwise they would have been worse than Babylon. Images are veils/spiritual garments. What John saw in Revelation 4:1-3 was a veil. God has many sides and layers that His real essence remains veiled. The only one who can see His essence is the one the Father loves (John 3:35); God had not loved any man until Jesus came.
We can see many veils of God and still not finish Him. Daniel was beloved but not at the pedigree of the Son. The Son is greatly loved by the Father; He saw the shape of God and began to do it (John 5:20, 37). When the Father shows Himself, it is an injunction to walk/build. God is a work not made with hands. A man that is given the opportunity by God to inherit Him has a lifetime opportunity. Such a man could end up in the lake of fire if he refuses but is blessed if he sees God’s work and does it.
God is only comfortable in Himself; He cannot dwell in a house except He has downloaded Himself into the building. He chooses the lowly because they are poor (Isaiah 66:2) and are a place to pour Himself. To be poor is to not have a building on the soul. God cannot build where the devil builds, so He gets rid of every other building first. Thus, the soul of man must be poor and contrite for the building of God. He gives building materials to the soul of man to build His image.
After building the image of God, life (testimony) must be put in the image. Testimony is a spirit (Revelation 19:10); it takes shape with its image. It is more fluid than the image and can take everything of God. God gave Jesus the testimony. The image and the testimony are the same; the image is the ark of God and the testimony is a fluid image. The book does not necessarily mean a document; it can be a gene where the nature of an individual is stored.
The DNA of a man is his book. The book is also the revelation of God given to Jesus to make it His own (Revelation 1:1). Jesus used His life to own God completely. The book is quicker than the testimony which is faster than the image. The book accelerates us to get the image and the testimony. These things of God are vehicles of speed for reward (Revelation 22:7, 12).
The book quickens us for the reward; it is a quick spirit which endows us with speed unto Eternal Life (Revelation 22:12). As we eat the book, it changes our speed and prepares us. The book is an aid unto Eternal Life; it is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ into Eternal Life.
Jesus comes to a man as everlasting life for image, testimony and the book; His book is the zenith unto Eternal Life. This is why Jesus was angry with the candlestick churches who were being prepared for Eternal Life (Revelation 2-3). For instance, the doctrine of Balaam was to cast a stumbling block on the quick work of the Lamb (Revelation 2:14).
Man needs speed to partake of Eternal Life. In the place of Eternal Life, there is a suspension of time yet ages may have passed. Eternal Life is the place of an ability to have a momentum that is in consonance with the speed for reward. God makes us gain speed with the reward. The birth of the manchild was by speed; Satan could not tell the time of his birth and could not devour him (Revelation 12:4-5).
The book compresses time and speed so a man who is too heavy will be dragged back; it is only a man that has the weight of a baby that can gain flight. There are weights that easily beset a man (Hebrews 12:1); there are even legitimate weights that might seem harmless or sinless. It is possible to almost be sinless with testimony yet there is a weight. Our thought patterns can be weights, making a need for conversion.
Weight is therefore taken away from us so that we can be light and respond with speed; this is exoneration from legitimate encumbrances. The manchild is a little child that can be lifted. He is a child of the hand; he is lifted in the hand of an angel. This typifies the hand-like fallopian tube that holds ovaries in women. Evidently, weight matters and we must be delivered from the weight that prevents us from being children of the hand. If we understand this, we will be able to refuse the devil by refusing to carry any weights.
We must learn to cast all our cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7). It is a baby that does not bother about himself. Jesus died in faith without worrying about resurrection (Luke 23:46); He died in hope that He would rise again on the third day. We must be able to rest in faith and be thankful always. We must also desire to be consumed by eternity above our needs or wants.
Message Ends
