Preached on Tuesday, 12th September, 2003 By THE SON OF MAN APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA at the HOUSEHOLD OF GOD ONITSHA
I am the Author of life, HE that knows the secrets of the heart. The beginning and the end, the Lord God Almighty. Believe it if you can… -THE SON OF MAN
To you that have remained in this Faith till today, do you really understand the meaning of Christ? Christ means nothing but the Anointed
One, the Messiah, the Saviour—that is Christ. Anointed with what? Anointed with the Spirit of God. -THE SON OF MAN
From the Message: DO NOT BE CORRUPTED BY THE SIMPLICITY THAT IS IN CHRIST
PRAYER
Holy Father, tonight we come before You to listen to You speak to us.
2. Father, we invite Your blessings. You are in our midst and You promised never to depart from among us forever and ever.
3. We surrender our lives to Your care and we open our ears and our hearts to receive Your Word that it might be well with us.
4. Mercifully consider us tonight and speak to us through the appointed Vessel. We shall hear and obey. In any way that Satan will distract our attention, may his plans never come to light.
5. Father, prove Yourself to be the Almighty God among us and have dominion over every flesh.
6. Subject every thought of man here to your Words so that at the end of tonight’s service, we will go home blessed that Your Name may be glorified through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
PROLOGUE
Remain blessed Brethren. You had better stay where you know you can easily benefit from this evening service. We do not have any loud speaker here and I do not think I will strain my voice.
2. Because of the importance of this Message to Me and to the Elect, I am going to handle this message without any interpreter
3. I am going to preach this message in English Language. I will try as much as I can to explain where it is necessary.
4. This is very necessary because after preaching this message, I will work on it as well to make sure that I produce it in print. I will do that because I know that the message will be a guide to many.
5. This night, I want to speak briefly on my topic. It is not going to be a lengthy message. It is just a short exhortation and I want to document it for a reason.
6. You know the message very well. It will help someone that needs help from God; but, it will destroy somebody who had already been ear-marked for destruction. This is because you are either going to be saved or destroyed.
7. I am not going to handle this message so that you will follow me, no. I am going to handle this message so that even if you look for Me and you do not see Me, you will not have any problem.
8. Anywhere you find yourself, whether in Nigeria or America or London, anywhere at all, you will not have any problem provided you want to serve Jehovah. If you really want to serve Jehovah, the Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, I want to show you a little guide that will help you now and till eternity.
9. This Message will not be lengthy; it will be very brief. Only King James Version. If you have Amplified, keep it closer.
10. Pastor Dan, if you do not have your Bible, I will send you where I cannot pick you again for life. This is because I have warned, warned and warned that Pastors should be coming to Fellowship with all the Bible translations. I have said it time without number.
11. If you are ashamed of carrying the books, God is equally ashamed of calling you Pastor.
12. Any other person can keep his at home not Pastors; not Ministers. I do not see the reason why a soldier will go to war and keep his riffle down. A real soldier goes everywhere with his riffle.
13. You do not know where emergency will meet you. Then you sit down there and fight it out with that person.
14. Assuming you come here and somebody becomes confused and the person comes to you and says, “Pastor, please look at my question,” what will you do? You will say, “Well, I do not have my Bible here. Wait till I go home and come back.”
15. I do not like it; it is not a good character. I have warned you several times; you and Pastor Christian.
16. Nobody should feign ignorance of this; otherwise, we will be wasting our time here. I do not want to be provoked here. Please, let no one provoke me here. Let me see whether I can achieve something.
17. Now, I pronounced the title of the message last Sunday, but I want to remind you of it once more. The title of the message is: FOLLOW THE CLOUD.
18. Do you have any Amplified Bible here? Give Me Amplified Bible Church or Bride or whatever you call yourself.
19. I told you I was coming to handle a teaching here today so you should come with your Bibles; we will turn the pages. Nobody is here with Amplified; not even a copy.
20. Even Brother Amankem who used to come with one does not have any today. It is a shameful thing. Remember it is in tape. And whenever I am transcribing this tape, I will transcribe all these things.
21. It is a sign of unbelief; if you had believed Me, you would have obeyed My instructions. Not even a single person came with one.
22. I am happy tonight that the rain has made it impossible for any other person to be added here.
23. Hear me very well; it pays to be an eye-witness. No matter the day I will reproduce it in tape or in print form, it can never be like today.
24. I can reproduce everything in book form, can I reproduce the rain? I thank God because I have been praying since yesterday concerning this meeting. I prayed that God should make it in such a way that anybody that is not a part of His programme no matter how he claims to be here, that He should find a way to lock him out.
25. On my own, mercy and compassion can never permit me to ask people to go out. That was why I delayed my coming to the pulpit. I created enough allowance to see whether some will join, but I thank God that no other person can join except those that are here. Amen.
CHAPTER ONE
THIS PHYSICAL LIFE IS PRECIOUS
Please note, why it looks as if God is pleading with us to get saved is because we do not know what destruction is all about and we have not witnessed any destruction before.
2. If human destruction could force a President to run for his life, what do you think God’s destruction can do?
3. I mean in spite of all resistances, today, Charles Tailor is a Nigerian. The battle became so hot that he could not bear it any longer.
4. Soldiers besieged the barracks. With the help of Nigerian soldiers, he secured release to the airport.
5. A Nigerian jet; a presidential jet from Nigeria, picked him up from Liberia and brought him to Abuja International Airport at exactly 1: 30am. This is to show you how important life is.
6. Look at Saddam Hussein of Iraq; the man they said is the strongest of the age. When the Allied Forces besieged his palace, he had to take his flight. It has been like that.
7. Even Jesus the Christ did not want to sacrifice His life just like that. Many times they wanted to arrest Him He escaped—running from one place to the other.
8. I am trying to tell you that this life is very precious. If this physical life is so precious, what can you say about the life of your soul?
9. I know that the Lord has already fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness; I know that very well.
10. Apart from Scriptures, there is something God placed in man that will always remind him that there is Intelligent Judgement everyone must pass through. That will not last long.
11. It is going to be a one-day judgement and it is going to be very, very painful in the sense that you will see yourself either in “eternal punishment” or “eternal glory.” You cannot reap the two at the same time.
12. I believe in the Law of Sowing and Reaping: “Any seed a man soweth that he must reap.” Amen.
The time of that ignorance God overlooked. When people were supposing Him to look like this or like that. Now He has made Himself plain.
Anybody that continues to suppose that God is like this or like that, that is unbelief. Accept Him as He is. If a man introduces himself to you and you do not believe his introduction, do you know him more than himself?
– The Son of Man
(MY PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW ME)
CHAPTER TWO
A LIE REMAINS A LIE NO MATTER THE TIME IT HAS LASTED
I have been handling something that is very delicate for quite some time now. The thing is delicate in the sense that we are trailing on the path where no human being has ever trailed.
2. All the teachings you are receiving in this Faith, you have become so much acquainted with them that you think it is a common knowledge. I want you to know that what you have been receiving in this Faith is no common knowledge.
3. Since the world began; since the history of man; since the history of the Bible, no man has ever courageously come out to challenge the Bible; I mean to query the contents of the Bible.
4. Before now, it had been the belief of all that anybody challenging the Bible is challenging God.
5. In other words, human beings before now have been made to believe that the Bible is nothing but God. In other words, you can call the Bible “God in print.”
6. You see, this is a lie that has lasted for so many years. That goes to prove that no matter the number of years a lie has lasted, it must remain a lie.
MAN IS THE IMAGE OF GOD
I thank God that whatever any human being could document, it is his entitlement. You have the right to document it but God will prove all things.
8. Each time God appears in human form, He must prove whatever human beings are saying. That is why He warned us using some of His Messengers in time past saying: “We should be careful the way we talk lest when the Lord will speak, we shall be found to be liars.”
9. Thus, you can open your mouth and talk. It is your right; but, when the Lord speaks on that same matter, you may be on the wrong side.
10. Before now, nobody has ever come out boldly even to declare that God could change His mind concerning His Word. We have been hearing it that God can never change His mind concerning His Word; that in Him, His Words are yea and amen.
11. In other words, whatever He said should remain like that; nothing should be added, and nothing should be subtracted. We have been hearing those things.
12. Sometimes, we hear the one that says that God will watch over His Word, bringing it to pass by and by whether good or bad.
13. They are good statements, but sometimes, people read them as letters and lack the interpretations thereof. It is only in this dispensation that we can see God from the angle God wants us to see Him.
14. What God produced at the beginning was something like God. God reproduced Himself and gave him the authority to create.
15. In the beginning, what God produced was nothing but God; a replica of God, not an ordinary image. If it were an ordinary image, it could not have been able to move about. God reproduced Himself.
16. If you are in this Faith and you are a man, what you are reproducing as your children is nothing but yourself. A man cannot reproduce a dog or a goat. You reproduce yourself—your carbon copy. That is exactly what God reproduced.
17. In other words, one can look at man and say: “Surely, I have seen God.”
18. St. John wanted to narrow the thing down so that they will understand what he was saying. Although he told them that he saw God, touched God and heard Him speak, yet while trying to teach man about God, he said, “If you want to know who God is and you want to worship Him; your relationship with Him, measure it with that of your neighbour sitting by your side.”
19. “If you do not love the man, your neighbour who is by your side, who you are seeing everyday, how do you say you love God whom you do not see or know?”
20. That is to say, whenever you are looking at your fellow human being, whatever you are doing to him, you are expressly doing to God. That man is God to you.
THE BIBLE PAINTED THE PICTURE OF A WICKED GOD
There was no way they (God’s Messengers) did not try to bring the thing nearer, but theologians and scholars drove God too far away from the people. Too much knowledge can drive God too far away from you.
22. If you have the knowledge that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is so big that the world cannot accommodate Him, even the heavens or the heaven of heavens cannot accommodate Him, you begin to wonder whether this God is nil or abstract.
23. This is because if He is not living in wherever you call heaven or the heaven of heavens, He is living on Earth. Even if you say He is living in the air, air has space. I do not want to speak on that now.
24. There are certain areas air cannot cross. So, air has space; air is limited.
25. As we progress, with your little knowledge now, you cannot limit air but I can. Air has limit. There are certain areas you will get to and you will not see air.
26. It is just like life we talk about all the time; life has limit. There are certain areas you will get to, you see no life there; but, they are part of the whole Universe.
27. Now, I thank God for our Brother, Apostle Joseph who single-handedly preached this sermon on the 20th of May, 2003. He x-rayed many things there using Genesis alone. He declared it there that whomsoever that is holding the Bible and is trying to find fault with the Son of Man is not included in God’s programme.
28. This is because from the very beginning, if you were to sit down so as to find faults(s), you will start faulting Him from the very first statement He made. If you want to see God and His errors, God and His mistakes and everything, just look into the book of Genesis alone. You will see God as one that does trial and error.
29. You cannot believe that God actually made anything perfect because God was not perfect from the beginning. This is hard to believe. I said God was not perfect in the beginning; even till now.
30. I will talk to you about the perfection of God. If I am perfect, God is perfect. If I am not perfect, God is not perfect. But, you must know the meaning of PERFECTION and know the angle from which God views Perfection.
31. So, God (God of the Bible) contradicted Himself and many other things. He even regretted many of His actions. Sometimes, you say that God does not make mistakes but if you hold this Bible as your absolute, I wonder what you will call God.
32. This is because the Bible is full of mistakes credited to God; many mistakes credited to God: actions God took and regretted; things God did and even blamed Himself for doing them.
33. Even God used error to correct error and run into trouble and even got confused. At a point, God was confused. So, God can be confused.
34. At a point, God was misled. God was querying some people for misleading Him, yet He is a Perfect God. If He never depended on them, He will not be blaming them for misleading Him.
35. You say He knows everything; He knows the end from the beginning, well, we believe that; He knows the end from the beginning, but He proved in the Bible that He did not know the end from the beginning. It is all there in your Scriptures but this is not why I want to teach you here.
THE BIBLE IS FULL OF ERRORS
With time, we will look into your Bible and you will throw it away because it is blocking your vision, making it impossible for you to serve God from your hearts.
37. You cannot hold the Bible and retain God in your heart. There are many things you read in the Bible that contradict what you know to be true. There are things you know to be true, even your conscience bearing you witness that they are true, but the Bible will be challenging the truth you know very well that is evidently set clear before you.
38. This is because you hold the Bible higher than God Himself. You esteem the Bible higher than God.
39. The Bible is not God and the Bible can never be God. The Bible is a compilation of books written by different authors at different times under different circumstances—that is what the Bible is all about.
40. It is just a collection of books. It cannot be God. No writer writes without faults.
41. Let twenty writers sit down and write together, they can never do so without faults. So, there are too many faults in the Bible. That is not my reason for this teaching. But let me just talk about this God.
GOD IS FLEXIBLE—YET MINDFUL OF HIS WORD
God promised the people of Israel that He will take them to Egypt and there they will sojourn as strangers and that they will stay there for 400 years. Then, He will bring them back after 400 years.
43. If you were there in Egypt and you noted the day you took off or your fathers told you; you kept your calendar very well and everyday you try to record something. If you do not know God as one that is flexible; one that could change His mind anytime, you will run into difficulties.
44. Any man that sees God as being rigid or wants to correct Him, surely, will run into difficulties with God everyday.
45. They stayed there for 400 years. What if you were there that particular day it clocked 400 years? I believe you will throw away your purse, destroy whatever you acquired in Egypt. You will even tell your friends: “You know, tomorrow, we are flying back to Canaan. Our God told us that it will be 400 years and tomorrow will make it 400 years exactly.”
46. Moses was there. You never heard from Moses. Moses never spoke on the matter. Even if you consulted Moses, he would say, “Yes, the Lord said 400 years; all of us heard it—400 years.”
47. They were there. 400 years finished and the Lord stood still—quiet. He never made any move. Then they rolled into 401 years.
48. If you believed God so much you will come out and challenge God saying: “This is not the promise.” If you do not challenge God, you will challenge Moses: “Moses, you told us lies; are you sure God told you this?” And Moses will reply, “Yes, God told me 400 years ago.” “But, this is 401; how can He tell you 400 years and we roll into 401 years; this is 401.”
49. 401,402,403,404 years—ah, ah, no— you will surely run out of patience: “My friend, stop deceiving us. We better relax in Egypt; we are perishing here.”
50. What is more, if anybody tells you it is 400 years, you will slap him.
51. Did God say 400 years? The answer is yes. But, now, it has clocked 405 years. What if you remain there 410, 420 years? In short, nobody dares mention going back to Canaan again to him when many that received the Promise had died.
52. God was quiet. People were complaining; Moses was equally complaining. Moses even became ashamed of his proclamation, yet God was there.
53. If I promise you that I am coming to take you in ten years time and you take note of the statement and in ten years time you fail to see me—fifteen years, twenty years, thirty years you do not see me—will you be happy? Have I kept my word? I have failed you, but God is mindful of His Word.
54. The people clocked 430 years. When they lost the idea, when they were no longer interested in hearing the thing, when they were tired and fed up with the whole thing, one morning like that, Moses came.
55. How many were ready? Not even a single person. The thought of going back, I mean the Promise became offensive. Mentioning it to somebody caused trouble. I said mentioning the Promise saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” became offensive.
56. God was there. At a time when it pleased Him being the Almighty, He woke, summoned Moses to go and tell them: “About this time tomorrow, this is what I want them to do; we are moving.” Full stop. And that settled the matter. It was not noised abroad.
57. That was why only few people knew about it. The elders went round and labelled the people. Around that same time the following day, they left. With just a little permission: “Pharaoh, permit us; we want to go to the wilderness and worship our God in our own way after which we will come back.” It is in your Scripture. That was the excuse Moses used.
58. Did they come back? Did he (Moses) not know that they would not come back? Who told lies? Since Moses was God to the children of Israel during his day, who then told lies to Pharaoh? God. But you want to find fault with God.
59. Pharaoh was just watching them. It was later that he realized that they would not come back. After waiting for them for so many hours, he decided to go after them. Let Me halt it there. It is not my Message.
“LOCKING GOD OUTSIDE”
I am trying to say that you should be very careful about the Bible that you are holding. It will take God to disarm you of the Bible. How is He going to do that? You will still hold it in your hands; but, He will be the One to tell you how to use it so that you will be saved. He will guide you on how to use the Bible.
61. The way you hold the Bible is not the way you should hold it. The Bible has been there. People have been reading the Bible for long, yet God continued to speak and God is still speaking till today.
62. Let it be known to you that God is not a “rubber stamp” or a “robot.” It is very easy to believe that He has mouth and speaks; but, you hardly believe that He speaks daily.
63. You can call Him your Father. If He is your Father and He does not speak to you on a daily basis, what then makes Him your Father?
64. Many of you, from the way you were going before were thinking that God would take you back to Egypt to continue with Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” I am telling you the truth because the message that was given to Moses to be delivered to Pharaoh was: “Pharaoh, let my people go.”
65. Nevertheless, as they continued, was that the only message that God gave? Everyday, God talked to Moses: “Go and tell my people; go and tell Pharaoh.” God spoke many, many things. Then, God was talking using the vessels.
66. What if you believe it when He said, “Pharaoh, let my people go” and another day, He says something else and you say, “No, this cannot be God.” What do you think will happen?
67. What people are trying to tell us is that whatever we heard in the year 1992 is where we should stop only to continue repeating it over and over again everyday so that our Message will be consistent.
68. You see, that is a denomination. That is a Pentecostal movement. If you watch Pentecostals, it is the same message they preach all through, from year to year. They can only change the language; change the grammar, but it will mean the same thing year in, year out.
69. If you watch the Roman Catholics, they print theirs in their manual(s). The same chaplet they started reciting since AD 70, is what they are still reciting till today. No change in the mode of their mass.
70. That is why God cannot work with them because by so doing, they have perpetually locked God outside. They will say, “We do not want to hear from you.” So, the message they heard on Pentecost, they like that one and therefore remained there—no shifting.
GOD TALKS TO YOU DAILY
Anybody who is telling you that you should remain in 1994 Message: “Why should the message change in 1995; change in 1997; change this, change that,” tell the person: “Yes, that is the way it is supposed to change.”
72. This is because God is talking to us daily. We know His mind on a daily basis. It is only unfortunate that we do not know how to serve God.
73. Before now, people used to enquire from God on a daily basis. They go to the Vessel God is using: “Please, this is what we want to do, inquire of the Lord concerning it.”
74. Books will be lying down there and the man of God will inquire of the Lord and say, “Look at what the Lord said.”
75. Thus, if you think you are in stagnant water, well, this water is not stagnant. This water is flowing. Stagnant water is never fresh, but flowing water is always fresh.
76. Any water that flows is always fresh and it can never have anything like guinea worm. Once it is flowing, it can never be a cage of unclean birds; but, once it is stagnant, everything will just jump in there. That is exactly what is happening everywhere.
THE TRUE FOUNTAIN IS WITH THE BRIDE
This is the only water that is flowing. This is because the fountain of life is fresh water. Nothing obstructs it. It is flowing; the water remains fresh. We do not beg you to be in this Bridal Faith—no. But, we try as much as we can to help you to serve God so that you will be saved at the end.
78. We tell you the whole truth we know about Him. You have the right to believe; you also have the right not to believe. When you say you will not believe, you will surely leave us. This is because you cannot stay in a place where you do not believe what they are saying. You must go to a place where you must believe what they are saying.
79. If what we are preaching, what we are teaching does not sink well with you, it then goes to show that it is not meant for you and you are not meant to be in our midst. You are not meant to be in places where such things are being said or taught.
YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO BE IN THIS FAITH
Please, take note of these things because I do not want to repeat them again. We have begged you enough; nobody is pinning you down in the Faith; nobody is bribing your conscience. We allow you to have your freedom as much as you can.
81. Hence, it is in your hands to decide whether to believe or not to believe.
82. Furthermore, saying, “I would not believe,” means going away because there is no need staying in the Faith, spend your money every Tuesday and Thursday, waste your time; the time you could have used to do something better for your life, you waste the time coming down to Fellowship. In the end, you will get disappointed.
83. Of what use is it then? Do you come to Fellowship to see human beings? Do you not see human beings on the streets? Unless you do not have a better thing to do for your life.
84. I believe that you have something better than coming to a place where you know that you do not believe what they are saying. Amen.