Preached on Sunday, 4th March, 2018 At THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD ONITSHA
By APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA THE SON OF MAN “THE FATHER OF ALL SPIRITS” Truth has no substitute” © BRIDE OF CHRIST MINISTRY WORLD-WIDE
INTRODUCTION
BY APOSTLE KELECHI UWAKWE
INTRODUCTION
We are very, very grateful to the Almighty God, Who has kept us alive till this very morning. Many of us came face to face with death, but God said, “No!”
2. The same road we travel every day, many travel there and that is the end of their life. But God allowed us to be alive that we might even obey His Words which we could not obey yesterday.
3. We thank God this morning, having made it possible for all of us to be in His Presence . I want all of us to pay strict attention.
4. Last Sunday, we were very grateful to God the way He moved and opened our eyes to see what idolatry is all about.
5. Before, we had that primitive idea that worshipping idol is when you just cut down a piece of wood and paint it or buy one rubber or whatever and place it in your house. We did not know that idol worship takes place in the heart. In wickedness, they do not know this.
1
FLEE FROM IDOLS (1)
We are sons and daughters of God. Every other person around us is under the power and control of the Devil. You see, let Me tell you: Before last Sunday, many of you were here as heathens, for you were promoting the course of the heathens.
2. Instead of promoting the course of Christ, you were promoting the course of the idols of your people. I wanted to revisit the Message I handled long ago, HOUSEHOLD GODS, where I exposed the different gods that are worshipped by families. There is no family without a god.
3. That is why the Bible recognized that there are too many gods, but to us children of God, there is only but One God, His Name One. And only Him shall we worship. As long as we live, that is the only God we recognize. This is because anyone you recognize is the one you will accept.
4. Before last Sunday, many of us were idolaters sitting down in the Fellowship and the Almighty God had been hammering on this long time ago. I have used many Messages to attack this. Getting rid of your community spirits became a problem. To drop the idols you have in your hearts, a big problem until you faced judgment.
5. I spoke to the Elders at length yesterday. For over two hours, I ministered yesterday to the Elders. They do not come to Me anymore expecting drinks or food. They now come for spiritual upliftment and spiritual enlightenment and they learn every minute they stay around Me. They add fresh feathers and their strength is renewed.
6. There is no family without a god. Our parents espoused us to their gods. Some of us were carried when we were infants and dedicated to family idols, requesting for protection, yet baptized in the Church. Dedicated to idols, asking for idol protection and baptized in the Church.
7. After going to Church, they will still go and pay their vows to the idol. If they promised the idol a goat yearly, that is what they will do. It would not stop them from going for their thanksgiving in the Church. They have their adage, “Give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and give to Jesus that which belongs to Jesus.”
8. But the Master said, “Will you eat in the table of Caesar and in the table of Christ at the same time? Can you be loyal and faithful to two masters at the same time?” He said, “No!”
9. Give Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and give to Jesus that which belongs to Jesus. Why? The heathens have their own clever way of seducing your hearts away from the Truth, for the remnants of the heathens today are weeping and crying because the emergence of Pentecostalism has destroyed the little that was left by the missionaries.
10. Hence in every family, you see those things in pockets now. Physically, they are in pockets. Spiritually, they inundated the hearts of all. What is more, they use their words to create [and put] fears in their children and in their fellow human beings. Always exaggerating the ferocity of those gods saying, “If you try it, aaaah! You do not know what this god is called o!”
11. When I was talking to My wife last night concerning these nonsenses, I said, “I love My Dad. I still love My Dad even in the grave.” A man that believes in practical reality.
12. It happened in My own time when I was in my first year in the secondary school. One man who was the chief priest of Amadioha, which is the god of My own kindred and if he [the chief priest] gives way, another person will take over. They know how they select it.
13. You see, this man became one of the educated people in My area, trained by whites up to Standard Six. He became the councilor and over-dominated My people because he was doing letter writing for people for a pay.
14. When he became the chief priest of Amadioha, he enriched himself using that god. But at the end of the day, he paid dearly for it. He could not erect a structure for himself. He died in misery.
15. You see, My Dad was a very nice fellow. He loved people. He opened his arms. Being a wood worker and also a farmer, he reared goats. As at that time, My father could boast of having up to fifty goats, excluding sheep. Some [people] were coming to beg and take some [of the goats], while he sold some.
16. One day, I just came back on holiday. That man came with palm frond in his mouth, with white chalk marks around his eyes and everywhere, wearing rags, with a metal staff locally called oji which makes some sounds as the bearer moves with it. You know, they love to do something that will make people to be afraid.
17. He came closer. We were living in a shanty. We could boast only of goats. He came, stooped at the little entrance and shouted, “Okwute! Okwute! Ohaeri! Okwute!”
18. My father came out. I equally came out with him. We saw him. A very lanky man. He started moping around and shaking. I said, “Something must be seriously wrong.”
19. A little while, he removed the palm frond in his mouth and said, “Okwute! I have come to see you. Amadioha sent me to come and give you the message. Tomorrow is Eke. The next day is Orie. Orie-Ukwu. You should bring one he-goat, one [keg of] palm wine, one fowl and five hundred naira.” That time money had value.
20. “Amadioha said I should tell you that these are the thing you should bring, having protected your family, including your brothers who are abroad and for one year, nobody brought back a corpse home and nobody died in your family.
21. “This is what Amadioha needs from you as thanksgiving. He said I should come and tell you. And you do it immediately. Otherwise, that which you do not expect will come.”
22. My father said, “All my children are here with me. You said my brothers who are living abroad, that Amadioha protected them. I am not doubting you. Go and tell them that Amadioha protected them. They should bring one he-goat, one [keg of] of palm wine. My son is here. He is a student. My children are here with me. For those outside, go and tell them.”
23. The man retorted, “Okwute! This is just your problem. You are stubborn. When the first and the second corpses will be carried home now, you will run to me. Do not ever make Amadiaoha angry.”
24. My father looked at him and said, “De Nwaogu! If you desperately want to eat goat meat, tell me so that I can give you one he-goat so that you will kill it and eat of it. Stop telling me about Amadioha. Leave Amadioha to come by itself. Almighty God is the one protecting me. My Lord is alive. I am not worshipping anybody. You wanted to hear from me and I have said it.”
25. The man angrily left. He went to so many other families, deceived some, created fear into them. We remained. My father never even bothered to tell his brothers that were outside. So we remained and until my father died, we never buried even one. All of them are still there. I am still alive.
26. The same way the one who said he is holding Ala came. Before our eyes, he died. He told my father we should do this and that. Otherwise, Myself and My immediate younger sister would die. He gave the date we would die and that we were dying at the same time.
27. My father looked up and looked down and said, “But if I bring all these things you said I should bring to your shrine, including one type of fowl with naturally ruffled feathers. If I bring all these things including the drinks, that means Oshimiri and Rosa will not die again.
28. “Richard! You go to Church. Yet, you still carry sacrifices to Ala. If Oshimiri and Rosa should die in one day, I am their father and I will bury them in one day. I will bury two of them in one day. But I am telling you, they are not dying, unless you will send my enemies to come and poison them.”
29. The man left. That was why they hated my father with perfect hatred.
30. One of our wives fell sick. They said it was spiritual attack and that the late husband attacked her. A woman that was having kidney problem and got swollen. They selected people that will go to one place that we use to call Umuorgu to consult an oracle to know what they will do so that the woman will live.
31. They consulted and said that my father should be among those that should go. The woman who was in the sickbed said, “Do not include Ohaeri. Ohaeri will say, ‘Instead, let Margaret die.’”
32. They said, “If Ohaeri is not going, who else will go?”
33. At the end of the day, they hardened their hearts and came. They told their lengthy story and at the end of the lengthy story, my father asked them, “Does it mean that if I follow you to this place, we do all that were prescribed to be done and enquire as you have in mind, then Margaret will survive?”
34. They all said, “Yes, once we go she will survive.”
35. My father told them that it is a lie and that it is better that Margaret dies now and he will bring out all the money he has to join in her burial instead of going with them to consult an oracle. He also advised them against going to that oracle and that if they go to consult that oracle Margaret will die before three days.
36. He also advised that if they rescind their decision, Margret will survive. He also revealed to them that Margaret and her husband never patronized native doctors and that they were only pressurizing her to agree to what she does not believe because of her illness. “Leave her alone for God will heal her!”
37. The first daughter of that our wife came. My father spoke sense into her. Nobody went anywhere again. Miraculously, this woman recovered and lasted for 101 years before she died. It happened in My compound there.
38. Stop recognizing things that are against you, things that are imaginary, which, because you have recognized their existence, when they do not exist, the information you gathered from your people built a definite form in you and started witch-hunting you.
39. Even in your sleep, you will be seeing strange pictures because of what you were told. Even if you want to come out in the night to urinate, you are not afraid of thieves but afraid of the shrine and everything.
40. I am telling you, even if you are walking alone in the night, crossing such places, you will pause and look round whether people are coming so that you join them and cross. Sometimes you run. Who is pursuing you?
41. That was why I cleared that evil forest in front of My house and planted cassava, yam and everything. Nobody runs across My compound again. But before then you will see infants, everybody;
42. They will stay at one place until they are up to ten in number. Then they will be clapping hands while crossing in the night so that the spirit will not catch them. Men will continuously hoot the horns of the vehicles while crossing.
43. My uncle collapsed one day because of something that never existed. We never knew he was afraid, while he was returning from a wake-keep with his touch. On getting very close to My house, he tapped the thing the torch could not come on.
44. He said that he tried and tried but no way. He turned the other way and flashed the torch and it flashed. Fear overpowered him and slumped as he shouted. He started foaming. They said that he saw a spirit there and the spirit quenched the torch.
45. I went there, took the torch, flashed it up and down, the torch was flashing. I said, “No! What stopped it was misapplication of his hand.” He touched the wrong button because of fear. What was he afraid of? Something that does not exist, but it built in you something that has become definite due to what you have heard.
46. God said, “If we can use that zeal by which we admit this nonsense; If we can use that zeal to admit the existence of God, serve God, create the fear of God in ourselves and in our children, nobody will deny us of Eternal Life.”
47. A Brother told Me last Sunday saying, “Daddy, you may not understand what I am saying. I am telling you that the whole world, no matter the Church they are going, they are worshipping the Devil.”
48. He went further and said, “Even among us here, if anybody says he was worshipping God before last Sunday, the person is a liar! Everybody was having the sense of that particular god either in their community or in their own house.”
49. Sometimes, your father may even be the chief priest, who handed over to another person. It can be your family holding the shrine. Whatever setback, they say it is because of that god. Every death, that god. Every sickness, that same.
50. That was why, before God liberated the people of God from Egypt, he first of all disarmed them of the gods of Egypt and conquered them.
51. Thus, if you must be liberated, you must know the point of your liberation and what you are liberated from.
52. That is what salvation is all about. It is now that salvation has come to your doorstep. Your ability to reject with all your heart every figment of idol. Even, the knowledge of idol should be flushed completely from your system. Otherwise, you may not know when you will impart it into your children.
53. And the people that have this mind can hardly have progress, for they are highly suspicious. I am telling you. Watch all these people that serve idols, they can never be progressive.
54. Watch a family that is gifted to idol, no matter the level of Church they go, prayers they make, deliverances, there can never be progress in that family. They will live in penury. They will live in shanties. Majority will be living in squalour.
55. And if any overcomes it by revelation, he resents it and the LORD shows him the way out. Remember, it is going to be one in a million. The whole world around him will be on him. There is no blasphemous name they will not call him. And he will be highly dreaded. Nobody will even collect a glass of water from him because he is not like others.
56. What I am telling you is the Truth. Mediate on what I have just told you. Mediate on it very well. If you go to My Message, where I gave you, LIFE WORTH LIVING, it says that an unexamined life is not worth living because there is something in a man which if not properly examined, scrutinized, evaluated and checked, can make this life a regrettable ordeal.
57. Check it very well. Every man can have his own obstacle. There are too many things that are operating in us which are hindering us from achieving fuller success in life. And most of these things we are afraid of are things that do not exist, but we give them undue recognition. We created them. The thing will enter into our memories, settle down there and begin to torment us.
58. Stop creating enemies that you do not have the capacity to flush out. Amen.
2
FLEE FROM IDOLS (2)
Let us go back to the topic: FLEE FROM IDOLS. That is our topic.
2. I have seen many places where these things are working, but I have not seen one that was killed by evil spirits. Rather human beings kill and attribute the killings to the spirit so that nobody will dare talk. It never started in your day.
3. A man of God, Gideon, in the Book of Judges, filled with the zeal to do God a service according to His will, demolished shrines. The people were not happy. They were infuriated. They came up to kill him, came straight to his parents asking that Gideon should be brought to them for them to kill him.
4. The man asked them why. They said, “He desecrated our shrines and pulled down our notable shrines all in the name of his God.”
5. The father looked up and looked down and said, “All of us are Jews. We are pursuing the same course. Since Gideon could destroy your shrines and your gods, why are you coming to make a case? Do you want to tell me that your gods do not have the power to kill Gideon? Why are you coming to kill Gideon? Are you the gods? Are you the representatives of the shrines? Leave Gideon to battle it with gods.”
6. The people shamelessly went away. Gideon went further to demolish the remaining idol altars. Did anything happen to him? If the community does not kill you, there is no idol that can kill you.
7. Has there ever been anybody who killed python in Ogidi and python came to him in the night and killed him? Human beings are the ones that come looking for the alleged defaulter in the day, claiming that you desecrated their tradition, “Why did you kill this snake?”
8. You should have allowed the snake to come and attack him. Now all of you will mask yourselves in the name of masquerades to fight for a snake.
9. I just want to narrow it down to know whether our eyes are opening at all. That one you harbor in your heart which your parents told you about; all that you were told are stories. Yes, they are all stories.
10. And if you watch, whatever they want to achieve is that they are all protecting it. They are all protecting it and in the attempt to create that protective aura, they put everybody into bondage and put the whole community into bondage. If you come to that kindred, everybody is at the same level, living in penury.
11. I want everybody to be very careful. Bro Onyema! Didn’t you father tell you that, in everything, you and your siblings should move at the same pace? But I am telling you that overtaking is allowed.
12. People do not queue up in the process of making money. You can surpass your brother. Your brother can equally overtake you. Thus, go and tell your dead father that he lacks wisdom.
13. You say, “That one don pass?” Has it passed away from your heart? Thank you!
14. It is by hearing. Information is power if it is after a Godly sort. If your father is a native doctor and then you resolve that you will also be a native doctor, one that inherited his father’s ritual paraphernalia was jubilating saying that, though others got reasonable inheritances, but that he got the highest.
15. If that your inheritance was effective, why then did your father die? If that idol was effective, why then did your father die?
16. This is 21st Century, all those primitive ideas about idols prevailing everywhere. In short, I lack the adjective to qualify them. It is more than belief. It is more than ideology. Primitive creations. You can be a human being but of a primitive creation.
17. Recreate yourself. That is what I am saying. Let me recreate myself and become a modern man fashioned after godliness. Stop being a primitive man.
18. And if you watch a primitive man, his words are primitive. Dressing, primitive. His house, primitive. Everything he does is primitive. Even if he is married, the wife will be cooking primitive food.
19. If you take a closer look at him, you will notice that he is a young man by age but looks very old in appearance. He will be smelling because of his primitive ways. Watch primitive creatures, they smell. ALL IDOL WORSHIPPERS ARE DIRTY. Filthy!
20. This is because they believe in the use of bones and skulls and feathers of dead animal as a way of mystifying their shrines and it appearance, thereby creating fears in the people. When you come into such a place, it will be reeking with stench like that of a decomposing corpse.
21. He thinks that this is the way to collect money from you. Those that patronize [eat and drink in] such places are like the owners of such places. You must resemble the God you worship.
22. We are worshipping a dynamic God, a very intelligent God, full of wisdom and understanding. God who abhors every form of idolatry and who does not even recognize their existence.
23. All these primitive creatures in our midst, as old as the early men of history, begin to recreate yourselves, recreate your minds, recreate your mentalities, recreate your hearts.
24. When I was talking about ethical re-orientation, I am talking about recreating yourself, becoming a brand new fellow within and without. Once a dirty fellow will now become clean in the heart and outwardly.
25. Get rid of filthiness of the heart and of the flesh. Let us worship God in purity. Purify your hearts with the Word of God, so that there would not be any room for anything idol in your heart. Even, let the sight alone displease you.
26. You are the people I gave the testimony why I love My Dad. When he takes action I support him. When I take action he supports Me.
27. When I was building My house at home, I saw too many things. One day, the enemies packaged something. As I was driving in, he called my attention to it and said, “Oshimiri, just look at this thing? In short, these people do not know what they are doing! Look at what a human being packaged and placed here for me.” He simply picked it up with his left hand and threw the thing away.
28. I came into my office, looked around and sat down on My seat. I stood up again and deep inside Me, I knew that the seat was not the seat which I built for myself. I lifted the seat and turned it only to see a lizard pinned to the seat with white and red cloth.
29. I laughed. I alerted our Director and My colleagues in the office who came and witnessed what I had discovered and they were asking and saying, “How manage?”
30. They wondered because nobody stays around apart from Ndiuwa and his colleagues. Moreso, I was using that table as a field officer. I only come in sparingly. Sometimes, you do not even see me except on Fridays to write My reports.
31. I looked at Mr. Elunwogo of Isiala, a Deltan who carefully studied the thing and said, “These people have challenged you. The only hindrance is just this your Jesus Church. If not, I will take you to my hometown. When we get to Delta, along with this thing, he will tell us who did it. We will severely punish the person there in my hometown and come back.”
32. He pointed me to what happened when his money was stolen in the office. He went home and came back and told the person to go and replace the money. That he saw the person in the mirror and also saw how the person stole the money. He claimed that once we get there, we will see everything.
33. I asked, “Is that all?” He said, “Yes!” I told him not to worry himself. With a stick, I removed the thing, threw it away, put down my seat and sat on it. Why? I am the highest animal God created and gave me authority over lower animals.
34. I am even higher than the biggest animal, stronger than the strongest animal. Even if that animal is hippopotamus, I am higher than the animal. How is it then possible for someone to trap me with a lizard?
35. It then means my life is lower than that of a lizard. If you must get Me, you must use something whose life and blood will be higher than mine. To pin a lizard with coloured pieces of cloth for Me? Abeg go siddon.
36. So do not have this type of fear. The greatest destroyer of the heathen is fear. What if that fear is in you? The fearful and unbelieving cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Get rid of fear from your heart and from your whole family.
37. You do not stop to verify anywhere you see powder believing somebody is challenging you. You see hair on the floor, which may be that of your child, you start feeling that somebody has placed it there to challenge you.
38. What I am telling you is the Truth. When you wash and spread your cloth on the line and the wire in the line tears your cloth, you start insinuating that somebody has cut off your cloth with razor. This is because there is fear in your heart.
39. I am liberating you and I told you it is total liberation. If you are not liberated when others are liberated, you are dying and you do not have the hope of coming through Christ. This is because anybody that has divided loyalty can never step into Paradise. It is impossible.
40. It is by One Spirit that we are baptized into One Body, One God, One LORD, One Church, One Baptism, One Spirit. Everything one. Once you have divided loyalty, you are not coming there. I do not care the way you look at it.
41. At the end of the day, I will round it off with another thing, lest you go to the extreme. This is because the greatest problem facing Me has always been the problem of checking fanaticism.
42. Otherwise, you may go home now and begin to demolish idols, when you have not even preached to your people. Then you incur the wrath of the community and begin to call Me.
43. The only one you have the power to destroy is the one in your custody. The one that is in your custody. The one in your heart is already attacked, you get rid of it. You now go home and do the same, if there is one in your own personal custody.
44. Assuming I am the head of the family like My father was, the family god is under My custody. I will do what My father did. Let them go and make another one and hand it over to whoever that is interested.
45. I never commanded you to go home, anywhere you see shrine, you pull down. Evil forest, you cut, whether it belongs to you or not, when you have not preached your Message. That is fanaticism. You will incur the wrath of the heathens.
46. Get rid of the idol in your hearts and the one you established and recognized in your household. Then help your extended family, because apart from your nuclear family, any other relation is under extension. Your elder brother is in extension. Your sister, extension.
47. After saving your nuclear family, if there is hope, you now turn to them and declare the Message. If they will believe, they will get rid of idols and come over to Christ.
48. Remember in My Message MODERN IDOLATRY, you can disarm anybody of idols, not Roman Catholics and Anglicans. This is because they modernized it. They now worship it inside the Church. Whatever you want to do now for the ancestors, you bring it into the Church. Once the reverend father touches it, and if you have the money, you can even invite him and he will come over and do it with you in your house.
49. I am telling you. And in their homes, you see inanimate objects which they venerate. You dare not touch any of them. You see some establishing useless altars with pictures and molded plastic images with light inside, creating a frightening picture around that area where that altar is established.
50. Shrine! It is everywhere. Even the Pentecostals now establish shrines for which cause they now proudly threaten, “If you disturb me, do not worry, tonight I will go to my shrine. If I kneel down before my shrine and mention your name two times, you will run mad in the name of Jesus.
51. I will say, “Ok. No problem. Go and mention My name. I want to run mad.”
52. Be very careful! You are a peculiar people, called out from the people around you. You now belong to God. God is your father. You want to live with God eternally. And do not ever stain your hands. Do not pollute yourselves with idols of your people.
53. By the time this Message will be through today, I will sprinkle water on all who have divorced idols from their hearts. I would not sprinkle it upon you while you are sitting down. It cannot be for everybody. You are clean, but not all.
54. But as many as have made that consecration, vowed placing their lives on the line, come what may, I cannot avoid the war because of casualties. Any controversy that is not fought headlong can never be resolved till eternity.
55. In this modern time, 21st Century, everybody should be careful. Any technology that is aimed at catching up with the past, is it a good technology? You see the problem we are having. Whatever you are doing and you are aiming at catching up with the past, you are retrogressive.
56. Idol worship is no longer in tune with the age we are in. This is the age of Christ. This is a dynamic age. An age of Reality—practical Reality. Re-examine this wisdom of yours which is taking you back to the age and practices of your fathers which never even helped them in any way.
57. How can you wake up tomorrow and organize a masquerade festival where you will join hands with your community to re-enact idol worship and practices? No! No! They bring out musical equipment and place them on the ground with ancient drummers and you join them in their chants and dances.
58. If you take a close look at these things and even the people who practice them, you will notice that they are far behind this world, living in the glare of primitive era. It is just like a situation where someone dies tomorrow, you start giving the corpse of the dead person undue respect.
59. The widow will be caged because of the death of her husband, mandating that she will not go out for one year. Will you provide food for the widow and her children?
60. If she is a civil servant, she will be dismissed. Can such a thing be done? She will be held down to shave off all the hair on her head and many other obscene practices. In this modern age?
61. I want you to understand what we are talking about. When we are talking about idols, your minds should not be fixated only on kneeling down before objects.
62. All those traditions that are against the Truth that are created to subject people to torture, to humiliate a people. Some are aimed at accusing people falsely so that they may kill that person.
63. Widows will be humiliated. Shaving off all the hair on a woman’s head with razor blade and forcing her to dress in black or white cloths every day for one year, prohibiting her from going to the market and going back to her work.
64. How can you be involved in the practice of those ancient primitive things? You shamelessly defend it as the culture and tradition of your people.
65. A Brother had a dream where his father and a late relation of his father who is an evil woman according to them, came looking for him with the intention of capturing him. He fought for himself, carried a stick and went into a fight with them.
66. He was a foolish fellow because after the fight he started crying because his mother was told about it. He does not know that the mother is the person used in fighting against him. You will not know that your mother is your enemy until you come into this Faith. You have no mother except in Christ.
67. If you cannot meet with Me in Christ, I do not belong to you. The meeting point of all the children of God must be in Christ. And in CHRIST means, IN HIS WORD. That is where we are all united: The Uniting Point.
68. If we are not united there, it then means we are not one. The Scriptures says, “We are joined there both in our marrow, sinus, arteries and veins.” And this is the point where they are all joined together.
69. When the water in you blends with your blood and your blood vessels and every other thing in you are all joined in Christ, let Me see the space available for any other thing.
70. How can you now punish a child of God with the customs and traditions of your community because it is the way your people do it? May be, because the father or mother, his wife or her husband died. Even if he is responsible or the one guilty of the murder, charge him to court.
71. Look at another thing. God said you should not take oath. People, because of being accused and forced to swear before a shrine, and then you consent to swearing.
72. Who are you swearing to? Is it to the wood which they call shrine? You do not know that people are looking for something they can lay their hands on so that they will you.
73. Once you touch that thing in an act of swearing or taking an oath, they will go home and conspire against you because all they want is whatever that could be done so that the person will die. Whether the person is shot to death or killed with a vehicle, his death by any means will be attributed to the shrine to which he swore an oath.
74. Why are you swearing or taking an oath? For what reason? Let your yea be yea and your nay, nay. And sometimes, you do not talk. You go your way because talking will mean according undue respect to a worthless thing. You know more than that.
75. When Jesus Christ noticed that his assailants had made up their minds about what to do to Him; If he speaks, he will die. If he keeps quiet, he will die. He just kept quiet. Is there anything he could say to convince them contrary? They were hardened. They had already made up their minds. Amen.
3
GET RID OF IDOLS (1)
Let Me tell you. Stop yielding to the dictates of the heathens. I do not care the way it is operating in your own area. We have only but one common ground.
2. The common area is in Christ. Common ground, Christ. Teachings, Doctrines, Life and everything, they must agree. Our Conduct, Order and Doctrine encompass all these things.
3. Thus, when we are talking about idolatry, in many forms we are idolaters. I do not know whether you understand what I am saying.
4. My father’s sister lived all her life in idolatry. Whenever it was the season for the new yam, she would come over from Ngor-Okpuala. She was always very prepared with a lot of items including yams. She then proceeded to where her idols are situated.
5. She came for the same rituals in one certain year, my mother banned her from her kitchen. Her name is Ulunma. My father banned her also from crossing his gate and told her that he had respected her as his elder sister for a long time.
6. My father insisted that she will never enter his compound again. He instructed her to do her preparation in her husband’s house, from where she would proceed to her idols and then go back to her husband’s house from there.
7. The people my kindred said that my father was harsh, since the woman was his only sister. My father told them that it does not concern anybody and that, if she dies in her idol worship, he will never take her corpse nor participate in her burial per adventure she dies before him.
8. As God would have it, do you know that My father died before that woman. This woman died at the age of over a hundred and sixteen years. We never attended. They never told Me.
9. I went home with My wife and we heard people saying that she died. We also heard that her son who happens to be the only son she had, who is also a member of Cherubim and Seraphim, does not come to our house for he is afraid.
10. He dropped and abandoned the mother’s corpse at Orient mortuary in My hometown, giving them false information that he brought her mother’s corpse from Kano and that he will go back to Kano to make arrangements for the burial.
11. The mortuary attendants collected the corpse for preservation. Do you know that this corpse was there at the mortuary for two years before we got this information!
12. I told them that the corpse was the corpse of My father’s elder sister. We investigated and found out that it was true. I remembered the words of My father. We did not go.
13. The son abandoned her there and went his way. Whatever that transpired between the mortuary and the police, we do not know till now. What was the reason? She died as an idolater. And there was no way we could get involved in that.
14. Can you imagine! The type of house she lived with her husband cannot be inhabited by a normal human being. A mud house with thatched roof.
15. If you want to continue to worship idols, go ahead! Idolatry will always be on your way to progress. I have never seen anybody that benefitted from the worship of idols.
16. Idols will only give death in place of life, giving you one thing and then taking ten from you and you will live a miserable life all the days of your life for recognizing that idol exist.
17. Are you afraid of that which you do not know? Good! I want this fear to fly away completely from everybody. Let this fear fly away completely from everybody. If you are sick of malaria fever, go to the hospital and treat it.
18. If you have stomach upset, treat it. Whether you are taking herbal or orthodox medication, treat it. Stop thinking or attributing it to your fathers’ idol or that it is as a result of your urinating on the shrine of your father’s idols.
19. I went to Egbema in 2002, after confirming the Church. Thank God, I saw Bishop Isaac Igwe there. We went outside for there was no place. In the open air, we took our bath. We saw the shrines around. We were sitting on the idols as we were taking our bath in the day. Women saw us. Men saw us and raised alarm.
20. They said we desecrated the land. What abomination we committed, taking bath naked in front of their much dreaded idols molded in the form of men and women and infants that were all made to be in a sitting position. We stood there and had our bath very well.
21. The following day, hell was let loose. They came to the Fellowship with their Okoroji masquerade. They said that anywhere Okoroji masquerade came, people must die. With palm fronds, they cordoned off the Fellowship.
22. Pastor Promise called Me and told Me the problem and I said, “Are you afraid? Did they harm any of you?” He said, “No!”
23. “They said, Okoroji! Okoroji! Are you afraid of Okoroji? Well, let Me tell you something. The same people that came with Okoroji, some of them will come and worship there. Continue!”
24. We never lost anybody. Instead, from among them, about five came into this Faith when they noticed that Okoroji had no power.
25. Let no man frighten you using idol saying, “I will report you to the shrine. You will be taken to the shrine.”
26. Is it not because you recognize the existence of idols? If someone tells you that he will report you to the idols, you will start panicking, “He said he will report me to the idols.” You have more fear for idols that the Almighty God?
27. When mention is made of idols, someone will still be panicking? If you tell him that the Almighty God will destroy him because of this practice, he will disagree and only insist in whatever justice he feels the idols will offer. He believes that the judgment of the idols is instant. He said he is reporting me to the idols.
28. He is not taking you to any idols or shrine. All he is telling you is that he wants to kill you. He knows that if he kills you, the law enforcement agents will arrest him. He will now want to take you to his shrine so as to obtain the license to kill you so that your death will be attributed to the idols of the shrine.
29. Hear Me very well. All idolaters are murderers, whether ancient idolaters or modern idolaters. Modern idolaters are in the Church. Ancient idolaters are sitting down on their shrines.
30. Get rid of idolatry. The Message says, FLEE FROM IDOLS! TAKE FLIGHT FROM IDOLS! DO NOT GIVE IT ANY PLACE IN YOUR HEART. STAMP IT OUT OF YOUR FAMILIES AND OUT OF YOUR MINDS. Amen.
FLEE FROM IDOLS (3)
BY APOSTLE KELECHI UWAKWE
4
FLEE FROM IDOLS (3)
I am very grateful and we all are very grateful, how God has explained to our perfect understanding, what idolatry is all about. We have seen the ancient idolatry in the days gone by and the people participating in those things.
2. But now, I want to deal more on modern idolatry that takes place in the heart, which is the one God accused the people of Israel as time continued. And in the New Testament, the Apostles and Prophets warned us seriously concerning those modern idolaters.
3. 1 Samuel 15:22 – 23 Living Bible: “Samuel replied, “Has the Lord as much pleasure in your burnt offerings and sacrifices as in your obedience? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. He is much more interested in your listening to him than in your offering the fat of rams to him.
4. For rebellion is as bad as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as bad as worshiping idols.
5. You see what God called the rejection of his Word? Rebellion is witchcraft. Stubbornness is as bad as worshipping idols. Now, these were what God had been accusing the children of Israel of all the years.
6. And now in our midst, it is because of this stubbornness and arrogance filled in the heart, because you cannot reject God’s good instructions, good advice without being stubborn. You must be stubborn and arrogant before you reject the advice that will help you in life.
7. Jeremiah 11:8 Good News Bible: “But they did not listen or obey. Instead, everyone continued to be as stubborn and evil as ever.
8. You see it now! Because of their stubbornness which God said is as bad as worshipping idols. If you are stubborn, you are an idol worshipper.
9. This is the greatest one. God does not take it lightly. A time came in the land of Israel in the time of Judges when the people of Israel forsook God. They started worshipping every type of idol until God gave them over into the hands of five countries, the Philistines, the Amorites, the Assyrians, the Girgashites, the Jebusites and so on to torment Israel for 18 years.
10. In that punishment, they started weeping and crying and calling upon God but God said, “No! I have delivered you for so long. Now go to those gods you have chosen to worship. Go to them to deliver you in the time of trouble.”
11. Stubbornness! The modern idol of today. Whether you are man or woman, young or old, little children. That was why the Scriptures said that if your child disobeys, use the rod, a little flatling. Flog the child for flogging drives away foolishness in the hearts of children, for foolishness is borne in their hearts.
12. Zechariah 7:11-14. Good News Bible: “But my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their minds and made their hearts as hard as rock.
13. My people stubbornly refuse to listen. It is this stubbornness in our hearts that leads so many people to go to that physical idol of the ancient people.
14. Now, God warned us to flee from idolatry. Run away! Pull it down! The one in your heart that always hinders you from obeying God.
15. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION Page 32 vs. 33 – 35: “MANY OF YOU HERE ARE IDOLATERS. YET YOU DO NOT KNOW. YOU THINK THE ONLY PERSON THAT IS AN IDOLATER IS THE ONE THAT IS BOWING DOWN TO A GRAVEN IMAGE? NO! THERE ARE SO MANY GRAVEN IMAGES IN YOUR HEART. WORSHIP TAKES PLACE IN THE HEART.
16. GOD IS SAYING THAT THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS PEACE. EFFECT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS ASSURANCE. BLESSED ASSURANCE. CHRIST IS MINE. IT IS A BLESSED ASSURANCE THAT GIVES YOU A BLESSED HOPE THAT, COME WHAT MAY, I AM SECURED IN HIM ETERNALLY.
17. NOTHING UPSETS ME, BECAUSE A REAL CHILD OF GOD, NOTHING UPSETS HIM……”
18. The Gospel according to Saint Mark chapter 7. The Amplified Bible. Verse 7 – 10.
19. “In vain (fruitlessly and without profit) do they worship Me, ordering and teaching [to be obeyed] as doctrines the commandments and precepts of men.
20. You disregard and give up and ask to depart from you the commandment of God and cling to the tradition of men [keeping it carefully and faithfully].
21. And He said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting [thus thwarting and nullifying and doing away with] the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition (your own human regulations)! Amen!
22. So, it never started today. That is why they will tell you that it is beyond being a member of a Church. Church doctrine does not have any influence over it.They will bring this thing into the homes and be teaching it as doctrine and obeying them carefully and religiously.
23. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION Page 45 vs. 8: “NOW, IF I HAVE NOW NOTICED BY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE THAT GOD LOVES ME, WHAT WILL NOW MAKE ME TO HATE BROTHER JAMES? IT WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO HATE BROTHER JAMES UNTIL I SEE BROTHER JAMES HATING GOD. BECAUSE THE MOMENT BROTHER JAMES STARTS HATING GOD, I WILL HATE HIM.”
24. If you go to Psalms 139, that is the only place you will see hatred, for God, it becomes perfect.
25. Psalms 139:21 – 22: “O Lord, how I hate those who hate you! How I despise those who rebel against you! I hate them with a total hatred; I regard them as my enemies.”
26. Outside this matter, hating one that hates your God, hating one that loves those things God said, “Do not do.” Outside this, your hatred is wrong. You must hate one that hates your God.
27. As God was giving us all these teachings, that we should make sure that all these idols in our hearts are taken away, anyone that harbours one in his heart, nourishing it, then you will hate the person with perfect hatred.
28. Judges 10:14. GNB: “Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them rescue you when you get in trouble.”
29. These were the people that worshipped other gods. It is just like we are facing judgment now, if not that God in His mercy brought us back to the Word. The only place mercy can project.
30. After knowing who God is, after having the knowledge of who God is, you reject God in your heart without giving Him that due respect and start worshipping idols, God will turn His back on you and tell you to go and ask those gods you have chosen to deliver you from whatever problem that will beset you.
31. This matter caused us sorrows some years ago and made some people lost their loved ones in our midst because they attributed the things of God to a human being.
32. After attributing those things to human beings, the thing was so much that God said, “Ok! Start going your own way.” Then many lost their children. Many lost their wives. Many lost their businesses. Amen.
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GET RID OF IDOLS (2)
THE COMFORTER (Chapter 3), Page 125: “THE ORIGIN OF THE PROLIFERATION OF MANY GODS: Now, we go back to how your fathers worshipped their gods. Man was created as a worshipping being.”
2. The Lord Speaks: The Comforter, chapter 3. Preached when?
3. Apostle Kelechi: It was preached on the 22nd August, 2010
4. The Lord Speaks: The Comforter. THE ORIGIN OF PROLIFERATION OF MANY GODS. Let us hear what the Spirit said concerning the matter.
5. THE COMFORTER (Chapter 3), Page 125: “THE ORIGIN OF THE PROLIFERATION OF MANY GODS: “Now, we go back to how your fathers worshipped their gods. Man was created as a worshipping being, let Me say, by intuition. The art of reading and writing were not yet invented. Man already had the knowledge of God within him.
6. Man had already started bowing down to something he could not see. He started imagining how that thing would look like. Then, man invented for himself gods…”
7. “Then, man invented for himself gods….”
8. Man invented for himself gods. Who are we hearing his Voice? THE RESURRECTED BODY. THE ANCIENT OF DAYS. He was there when the world was without form, when there was nothing called idol.
9. And He is telling you how these things came into existence. Human beings invented these things. God created human beings. Human beings created idols for idols are manmade.
10. And God said, “Can a man make for himself God?” He said, “Such things are no God.”
11. That is why the gods of the nations are gods that were put together by human hands using carpenters, bricklayers, and everything. Every kind of craftsman will come and play his own role.
12. After putting the whole thing together, they will kill fowl and spray the blood upon it and put certain things and some leaves they call spirit leaves, from Ogirisi tree, Aloe vera, just to make the whole thing look very fearful. They will tell you, “The god of this village, this is where it is dwelling.”
13. Every four days, they will kill one animal or the other and pour the blood there. The feathers of all the fowls they slaughtered will be poured there. When they bring out food, before they will take food, see the knowledge, they dare not put anything into their mouth without first giving to the idol. Idol will take first. And they believe they are giving it to their god. God first.
14. That knowledge, God first. If he breaks colanut, God first. After every libation of offering with colanut, a bit is cut off and thrown to the gods. When served with food, he takes a lump of the fufu, uses the lump of fufu to collect a little of the soup and he throws it out as an offering to the god. If it is meat, he cuts a piece and throws out to the god. Before he will eat or even any other person will eat, these things must be done.
15. But there is a lesson to learn there. THAT GOD MUST BE FIRST IN OUR LIFE AND MUST TAKE A FIRST POSITION IN EVERYTHING WE DO, EVEN IN OUR FINANCES. LET US NOT RUN AWAY FROM IT, BECAUSE YOU CANNOT RUN AWAY. JUDGMENT IS ALREADY WITH US.
16. It is unfortunate to note that offering ceased in the Bride. I would not talk. Pastor Thomas will address all of you today. Offering ceased. Do not worry. You will know his experiences.
17. We are coming to something. We are not going to talk about money. We are talking about idolatry, but remember that the money you are holding, God called it unrighteous mammon. You are holding the Devil in your hand, but you do not know and which, if you do not know how God said you should manage it, that your money will put you into eternal hell.
18. When you hear that it is the root of all evil, have you pondered to know why. God said, “It is very difficult for rich people to enter Paradise.” That it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Paradise.
19. It is because of what his wealth is to him. If your wealth has become your god, if money is your god, you are an idolater of the first order. And that is why, if money says you should kill, you will kill. Whatever money commands, you do.
20. As long as you do not know what money is, you do not know why God has given you money, you cannot employ it in the way God wants you to employ it.
21. Whenever money comes, find out from God, “What is this money for? How can I use it?” Otherwise, your money can bring condemnation to you. Whatever you have can bring condemnation to you if not properly administered.
22. There is nothing bad in somebody becoming wealthy. If there is any evil side of it, it is in the heart of the wealthy man. It is in the heart. If you read the Book of James, you will see what the Bible said concerning wealthy people and why they will not make eternal life.
23. It is because of the way they handle that wealth. They use it to oppress the poor. They use it to oppress the widows. They use it to wield fame. They do not employ it in the work of God. They do not use it to help the needy. They do not use it in a way that even the masses can benefit. They do not even use for the furtherance of the Gospel of God.
24. God is decreed out of their money. Some think that if they do it, God will become richer. That is where they fail. God can never be poor, has never been poor and will never be poor.
25. So, underline that in your heart. I will come to that, but not today. And that is when we come to MANY FORMS OF IDOLATRY, so that you begin to see the many ways you worship idols.
26. Your wife can be your idol. Your husband can be your idol which you worship. Not respect. Not fear. Real veneration. Your husband is your idol. It can be your children. It can be your work. Some worship their work. What I am telling you is the Truth. Some worship their work. And they have their adage, “I do not joke with my work at all!” But they can joke with the work of God.
27. I was commanding Bro Ojiakor one day, “I do not care who is calling you. Let that patient die in the theatre. Until I finish with you, a greater than any call is what you are entertaining. Then after that, go home and attend to whatever.” He got there after hearing from Me, he met the patient dead. Before his eyes, the patient woke up.
28. That is why people miss a lot of things. And at times, if I call you and you do not respond, make no mistake of calling back until after 3 hours, for it will be provoking Me more. This is because you should be on the alert.
29. I should not be on the alert for your call. You should be on the alert for My call because I can call you anytime, any day and you do not know the mission I will send you.
30. Thus, whether you are driving or whether you are sleeping, keep your phone on. I can stop you on the highway. The highest I can ask you is, “Are you safe where you are? Park in a safe corner and pay attention.”
31. That is how the Word of God comes to people. God does not speak through the air again. He now uses agency of men. But in sundry times, He was speaking through dreams, visions and things like that. Now He speaks through A MAN He has chosen.
32. Thus, A MAN is now His mouthpiece. The same way, God spoke to Moses. Moses spoke to the people. That is where we are now.
33. If you say, “I will not believe until I hear from the whirlwind,” go ahead! You will not hear from the whirlwind. Neither will you hear from the thunder or from the storm. You have missed it.
34. I am against those that put their phones on silence and at the end of the meeting, they will not remove it. It is no excuse. What if I say, “I wanted to pass information that I am going away and I will like to go with you.” And I called, you did not pick. I will change My mind and pick another person one way! And you have missed it. Ok! Let’s go!
35. “When the art of reading and writing were not yet invented, man already had the knowledge of God within him. Man had already started bowing down to something he could not see. He started imaging how that thing would look like.
36. Then, man invented for himself, gods since he longed to see somebody he could respect, somebody he could even pay back for his goodness and protections. Hence, too many festivals emerged.
37. Festivals were designated as a means where men could show appreciations to their god; hence, they looked at their bumper harvests every harvest season, and they said, “No, the god of harvest must surely be praised for this!” That is the origin of New Yam Festival.
38. No matter the time it is done in Igboland, every nation has her own period. In the areas or regions where they do not cultivate root crops (e.g yam and cassava) but grains (e.g rice and maize), they still give glory unto the queen of heavens.
39. They say she prospers their grains in order to produce better harvests. They considered the moon, the stars and said, “Oh! The god of the moon is worthy to be given thanks.”
40. As a result, they established a god for the moon. They considered the stars, and then established a god for the star. They saw the way lightning flashes from one end of the Earth to another end of the Earth, they marvelled at that and said there must be god of thunder.
41. They considered the river; the thing was very marvellous to them and they said, “The god of the river who has put a boundary so that water will not overflow and drown us all must be appeased.”
42. You will see the origin of too many gods. When they considered the sun they said, “No, this is too much! We will appease the god of the sun.” Thus, everything has a god that is attached to it.
43. This is the origin of proliferation of too many gods,…” Period! “…not only in Rome; it is equally seen in your own area.”
44. Not only in Rome. It is also existing in your own area.Every festival is strictly dedicated to a particular god. U see, the gods are too many.
45. Why is it so? The Devil vowed a vow that as long as he missed that Garden of Eden, he forfeited it, he vowed that he will never live to see any man benefitting from it. Just like Saul went after David, seeing that he had already lost the coveted throne.
46. Saul said to himself according to Scriptures, “What else can he have but the kingdom.”
47. He said, “Over my dead body.” He muted out plans to execute David. Even setting his daughter out for a trap, presenting his daughter as a wife, Michal, to lure David into the palace.
48. The Devil is crafty. We believe he exists because he was one of the best angels, Lucifer. There are so many luciferians in the world. Luciferians! Let Me just say it. I do not care the way you look at it.
49. Every Church, forget about the name, every association, every cult, every society, be it secret or open, every pagan worship, check all of them; they are all controlled by Lucifer. The members are luciferians, but they can never believe it, for they do not know what it takes to be a luciferian.
50. It takes you and I, with eyes of the holy Scriptures to detect it. Without the eyes of the Scriptures, nobody can notice the presence of an idolater in the midst or in the gathering of the Saints.
51. Mark chapter 7 verse 6 through 9. “But He said to them, Excellently and truly [ so that there will be no room for blame] did Isaiah prophesy of you, the pretenders and hypocrites, as it stands written: These people [constantly] honor Me with their lips,…”
52. Look at the words: “Pretenders!” “Hypocrites!” Isaiah saw them. Before Jesus appeared, Isaiah had already spoken concerning them. When the Church had not been established, the prophet saw them. Pretenders! Hypocrites, sitting down in worship with the Saints.
53. “These people [constantly] honor Me with their lips, but their hearts hold off and are far distant from Me. In vain (fruitlessly and without profit) do they worship Me,…”
54. In vain, fruitlessly, without profit, which means they are wasting their time. Like I am talking to you now, I was talking to Pastor Thomas saying, “Do you see what they wrote in the Bible fulfilling?”
55. It was this type of thing that provoked Moses. He said to God, “Do not accept the offering of these people and I will not accept it.”
56. God said, “So, be it.” and the Lord came and shattered their means of livelihood.
57. I said, “Who can believe that this is offering made to God?”
58. Why is Pastor Ejike not in the Fellowship? Pastor Ejike, are you in the Fellowship? Thank God. I will talk to you again. Anybody can depart from idol, not you. Anybody can abhor idol, even in his heart, not you.
59. I will still visit you in my own way. Your idolatrous practices have made me sick, but I thank God, Scriptures are fulfilling again and again.
60. He delivered them from Egypt, gave them everything. In the wilderness, he spoke truly to them saying, “Among them were wicked people. With many of them, God was not pleased.” With many of them, God was not pleased.
61. Saint Paul said he was preaching to see whether he could save some. Jesus came and said, “Some.” Why not include yourself in that SOME? But some instead of walking to getting included into the salvation plan, they are walking away. Seeing the Kingdom, yet could not enter.
62. Hear Me very well. You can know Scriptures without knowing God. You can know Scriptures, A to Z, teach Scriptures, be eloquent in the Scriptures without knowing God. But you can know God without knowing Scriptures.
63. Which one is better: to know God without knowing Scriptures or to know Scriptures without knowing God? That is, holding the Scriptures and missing God and without any knowledge of the Scriptures, you know God. You reverence God.
64. I am saying that these people that were idolaters, a good number of them knew not Scriptures, neither did they know the power of God. If anybody could be, at least, pardoned, they could be considered.
65. But what can you say about somebody who knows Scriptures, eloquent in the Scriptures, knowledgeable in the Scriptures, but he does not know God. And when he said he knows God, he does not revere, he does not venerate, he does not obey, he does not fear God. Of what use is that knowledge?
66. People are making fair show of knowledge of Scriptures, but God wants you to make a fair show of the knowledge of who He is. Let him that glory, glory in that he knows the LORD. He is personally and practically acquainted with Him. He fears, he honours, respects, he venerates; he obeys Him as the God of Judgment and Equity.
67. Thus, if you are basking with the knowledge you have so far acquired from The Son of Man because nobody has opened the Scriptures more than Him, you may hold these Scriptures and still perish.
68. Scriptures can only make me to worship God, if you know that which the Scriptures command you to do. But as long as you are in default, there is no better way of doing a wrong thing. You are still under condemnation.
69. And everything we are considering that hinders us from giving our full allegiance, loyalty to God boils down to idolatry. Placing many more things in our heart before God. We have our priorities. God is at the back bench. God is remembered at last. God is at the backbench. In all our priorities, God is at the backbench.
70. These pagans are better than us. Their gods were always at the front. Hence they could do nothing, they dare not step out without that god. They dare not go to bed without consulting. They dare not go to farm without consulting it. Whenever they come back, you see them going there to thank. From time to time, you see them carrying their fowl, killing and sacrificing. That was the little they knew.
71. But now you know better, you should have performed better. Why do you condemn people when you have not performed better? You condemn Pentecostals, but the Pentecostals are better than you in many ways.
72. I am telling you God’s Truth. Pentecostals are better than you, for if the knowledge you have is given to Pentecostals, I believe they would not be what they are.
73. In vain do they worship Me. Hypocrites! Pretenders! With their oratory and everything, they approach Me.
74. In vain (fruitlessly and without profit) do they worship Me, ordering and teaching [to be obeyed] as doctrines the commandments and precepts of men.”
75. Ordering. Teaching. Commanding.
76. “You disregard and give up and ask to depart from you the commandment of God…”
77. It is of no use to them. An idolater will say, “It is beyond being a member of a Church. This matter I am telling you about is beyond the Church. You cannot avoid it by going to Church. Forget about what they are saying in the Church. I say, forget about what they are saying in the Church. That is what the white man brought down here. This one is the tradition of our land.”
78. “…and cling to the tradition of men [keeping it carefully and faithfully]. And He said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting [thus thwarting and nullifying…”
79. A fine way of rejecting. Thus, nullifying, thwarting the Word of God, only to establish the traditions of your fathers.
80. “…You have a fine way of rejecting [thus thwarting and nullifying and doing away with] the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition (your own human regulations)!”
81. Your own human regulations, which your fathers invented or created. Amen.
6
GET RID OF IDOLS (3)
Apostle Kelechi! It is better we give you a chair to help you because we are going to do a lengthy reading from there. I have My own way of being in the pulpit today.
2. THE COMFORTER, chapter 3. That is where we are. THE ORIGIN OF PROLIFERATION OF MANY GODS:
3. “This is the origin of proliferation of too many gods, not only in Rome; it is equally seen in your own area.”
4. There is no area that does not have more than 20 gods. Some, 50 gods. Yes! With different names and worshipped in different ways. One man alone can worship more than 30 gods in the community.
5. Who is free from the pollution of idols? Concerning the worship of idols, who is free? I never knew that people would troop into this Fellowship today. I thought that after last week, everybody would have escaped through the window, saying, “It is time we go.”
6. You are asking where you will run to. You run to idols. Idols are better, in this 21st Century. You are not even ashamed that you are called an idol worshipper in 21st Century. Do you know what it means? Something that stinks from the ears, the nose and the eyes?
7. You even see people seated in such places, dishing out orders and threats, “Our land will strike you dead. The land will strike you dead.”
8. You will be wondering the land that will strike you dead. Is it the land I am farming on, eating the fruits thereof and going my way? They keep threatening, “the land will strike you dead. The land will strike you dead.”
9. And when you see them demonstrating, it will look like the clowns that merchandise herbal remedies in the open market, promoting the power of the god of the land.
10. “They considered their lives, the lives of their children, they said that there must be a god that protected those lives and they established that one. They considered their lives, the lives of their children, they said that there must be a god that protected those lives and they established that one.
11. They considered their businesses; they said that there must be a god in charge of their businesses. In general, they monitored developments around these gods. If any area of their lives was not performing well, they would attribute the non-performance to the crime the land committed against that god.
12. Any aspect of their lives—whether social, marital, agricultural—that was not doing well, they would conclude that they had offended the god in charge of that area.” That is Truth!
13. “Any year they failed to get bumper harvest, it was their general belief that the god of harvest had been offended. Hence, their crops had refused to bring their increase.
14. They would gather; reason together and come out with a way they would go and appease the god of harvest. They would buy many things, call the people together and present it to the god of harvest. It was called their sin offerings.
15. Then, if peradventure the next season, they got bumper harvest, they would attribute it to the atonement they made to a particular god.
16. They would conclude that it was the sacrifice they made to that god, that is, the atonement they made for their sins to appease that god. To them, the god has started blessing the land.
17. That year, instead of bringing offerings for sins, they would bring offerings for thanksgiving. It would be celebrations and no longer mourning or sorrowing. Please, I want your understanding spiritually and carnally also.
18. If you study the Bible very well, you will see that Israel was prevalent with too many ceremonies such as New Moon Festival, New Yam Festival, this festival and that festival until God said, “I am tired of all these festivals all this while.”
19. If you watch Israel, by tradition, they offer different sin offerings. Every iniquity had its own offerings. These things happened according to their own tradition and they inherited them from their fathers. Their fathers later gave those things unto their children as ordinances to keep.
20. This is to say that traditions have become laws to the extent that if anybody infringes on any of them, punishment must follow.” That is Truth! “It is the people’s beliefs that guide their lives and their activities.
21. Please, follow me strictly; I am handling something. If you miss my background, you will miss it all; for I am rounding off this Message entitled THE COMFORTER. Once you miss this background message, you will complicate it all.
22. Note, anytime something they did not like happens, if an evil omen befalls them, maybe their youths started dying or their pregnant wives started experiencing premature deliveries or miscarriages, accidents began to occur; that is if unhealthy developments were noticed, note what normally takes place.
23. They would conclude within themselves that they had committed iniquity against the gods they believed could cause those things. Hence, the community would gather with too many things—as they would agree on—to offer to those gods in order for the gods to roll away their anger.
24. These things are still in vogue; they are still presently being practiced in many villages, even in our own Igbo land till this very day.” Yes! “What am I doing? I want you to see the condition under which you were born;
25. I want you to see what your fathers inherited, which later became their ordinances and they were observing them with their accompanying rituals. Worshipping such gods was accompanied with rituals. There is no way you could worship those gods without rituals being involved.
26. You must go with goat, ram, coin or paper money; sometimes, pieces of cloth, sometimes, you are required to get some parts of your body or bring sand from your footprint. The things required are those things that have no place in the real worship of the real God, but these are what human beings made for themselves.
27. That is why the Scriptures said, “Can a man make for himself gods? Yet, such are no gods, for the idols of nations are woods, silver, golden ornaments, things they imagined for themselves and these are the things that bring destructions to them by forsaking the real God.”
28. They give allegiance to gods that are no God; gods that cannot protect them. That is why the Scriptures went further to say that those who worship idols are like the idols they worship, for there is no life in those things.
29. To such idol worshippers, there is one thing common among them: as far as they are concerned, there is nothing called natural occurrence. They do not recognize natural occurrences.” At all! “For anything to occur, that thing must be traced to a cause. They held on to that belief.
30. Even, when Jesus the Christ appeared; they came to Him and said, “A building just collapsed there and killed many people. What can you say about it?” He said, “Do you suppose that you are more righteous than those people that were trapped in that building?”
31. It was because they believed that for calamity to befall anybody, that person must have offended the god of the land or offended the god responsible for protecting him.
32. Jesus the Christ met them with that same mind and imagination, which prompted Him to say, “Do you suppose you are more righteous than they were? Or do you suppose that they were trapped there because of their sins? I want to tell you, if you do not repent, you shall in likewise perish.”
33. Another set came to report a similar case saying, “Herod has used human beings to make sacrifice to his gods.” He asked them, “Do you suppose you are more righteous than the people he used for his sacrifice? Of cause not. I want to tell you that if you do not repent, you shall in likewise perish.”
34. Why did He say that to them? He said it because it was in their own notion and belief that those people Herod used for his sacrifice deserved it since they must have offended the god of the land, the god that offered them protection, in one way or the other.
35. He met another set of people who came to Him and said, “Rabbi, we have seen great things you have been doing in this city. Look at this man, he is deaf and dumb, and also blind; what could be responsible for this? Could it be his own sin or the sin of his parents?”
36. Jesus the Christ looked at them, shook his head and said, “He committed no sin; neither did his parents commit any sin. Rather, he is in this way that the Name of God be glorified.”
37. Note, each time calamities befall our fathers when they knew not God, they made for themselves many gods.
38. By intuition man knows that there is a Supreme Being but the way He is, he does not know. How He (the Supreme Being) works, man does not know. By his own imagination, he started making something real.
39. Remember that Aaron was able to make a golden calf. When Aaron made the golden calf, he called the people to go and behold their god who brought them out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, that idea of making a god with gold and silver did not start today.
40. Remember that what Aaron used in making it was the ornaments he recovered from the women. He then melted and molded that calf. In other words, that heart, that mind was still in Aaron; he had not forgotten the act of worshipping god the way his fathers did it. The spirit was still there. The mind was still there.
41. Thus, things were happening to Aaron according to what he inherited from his fathers. Was the molten calf introduced to the people by Moses? No. What Moses introduced to the people was it not the Supreme God, Who spoke with them and ate with them?
42. Could the molded image of calf talk? No. Could it eat and drink with the people? No. Yet, the people delighted in it because that was how their fathers knew god; all of them joined hands with Aaron in running round the molded calf they called god. They made joyful sound for the molten calf.
43. This was the origin of all these things. Because their people worshipped a calf as god, the eating of calf was prohibited in their own area. It was a great abomination for the people of their own tribe to eat the meat of a calf.
44. Note it. You eat snail, I eat snail also. Many people do eat snail, but it is an abomination in some areas. Why? It is because they worship snail as their god. I eat goat meat, but there are some places in Nnewi in Anambra State of Nigeria where they do not eat goat meat. Even the giant rat, Nnewi people do not eat it because they worship it as god, it is a taboo for anybody to kill it.
45. What about the snake everybody see every day? It is called viper, short in nature. If you kill it in Idemmili Local Government Area in Anambra State of Nigeria, you will bury it like a human being because it is their god.
46. I am tracing something. Watch that thing which is a taboo in your hometown, in your family or your kindred, that is automatically what your people gave their allegiance to as their god, even till this day. Some even do not eat some vegetables.
47. There is one vegetable we call ukpo they use it like they use the thing they call achi; do you know that some people do not eat it? Some do not eat cocoyam; it is an abomination to some. Some do not eat ukazi; they do not even bring it into their houses.
48. Some reverence the little tuber we call Ona; It is reverenced by some people in Igbo land. They kneel down before it. I want you to see the great favour you have received from Christ.”
49. We are the most favoured.
50. “If Christ never appeared and opened your eyes, you would have been like they are, worshipping idols; worshipping dumb, dumb things.
51. Man used his wicked heart and his mouth to inject powers into something that has no power. Yes! Man used his mouth to give common snail power, something my wife can easily use to prepare a very delicious meal for me; that is what one that calls himself a sensible human being will carry a cock and sacrifice to as his God.
52. YOU ARE LIKE THE GOD YOU WORSHIP: I do not know how best to make this Message sink deep into your heart for you to understand what Christ has really done for you by opening your eyes of understanding.
53. While they were trying to bring God into focus, they started developing those things. Remember, they turned their intelligence upside down and from that time, things started working against them. No idol worshipper ever prospers; go and cross check.
54. Majority of them, their children are useless, their children turn hooligans, unprofitable and good for nothing.”
55. That is Truth!
56. “They may be numerous because they marry many wives, produce numerous children that are chaffs. Yes!
57. Because they have nothing to offer to their children than what they have already done. They espouse their children to their different gods and they pay obeisance to them.
58. Do you know that some people especially in the riverside areas worship rivers to the point that even now, some believe in many things concerning the water. You see the River Niger we bathe in and even drink from, many people are worshipping it.
59. Some carry sacrifices and pour them into the River Niger every night and every morning. Go to some place at Upper Iweka in Onitsha, you will still see goats that are tired hands and feet; you will see some eggs left in a saucer (plate or bowl) placed at the junctions with some coins and old Naira notes.
60. Sometimes, when I see these things, I laugh. Even in Onitsha—the home of idolatry in Igbo land—they carry live cow and drop it into the River Niger.”
61. That is Truth!
62. “The moment they vacate, the Hausa people will come and carry the cow; slaughter the cow and sell it in the Main Market.
63. Sometimes, they do slaughter a cow which they will never use any pot to cook. All of them will gather opposite Union Bank building at Ose Market beside the Main Market and roast it on fire.
64. What will they do with it after roasting it? They will eat the meat until the whole cow finishes. Whatever that is left, they will pour it into the River Niger.”
65. Note it. In any community where idol worship is prominent, that is also the place where you find proliferation of Churches and the Churches will be in a greater number because the same people who worship the idols are the same people in the Churches. Amen.
7
GET RID OF THE IDOLS IN YOUR HEART (1)
Another thing you will notice in a community where idol worship is prominent is that they do not joke with title-taking ceremonies.
2. There, everybody would want to be a red cap chief both those strongly inclined to the idols only and those who are members of the Churches. As a rule, he must take title.
3. A man will take a title and even take on behalf of the children who are not yet of age, so that when they are of age, they will be parading themselves with the regalia of the chieftaincy title. The will be priding themselves about in the community that they are titled men.
4. What is that title you have? Your father has initiated and dedicated you to idols. Did you go to the venue of the title taking to know the rituals that are involved in it? Is there anywhere titles are taken without idols been worshipped? Do you really know the implications of the red cap that was put on your head? You have been made a king of the gods. King of idolaters.
5. You worship in the so called Churches and also with the worshippers of your community idols. They hail you, “Igweeeee!” The traditional ruler of Onitsha is the head of all the idol worshippers in Onitsha town, yet he is a knight of the Catholic Church.
6. That is why they say that it is beyond Church. Educated, influential and the wealthy elites of the community are all staunch and loyal worshippers of these idols. Reverend fathers are also involved. Reverend fathers take titles. They will give him the idolatrous title and put a red cap on his head and all other rituals immediately. Pastors are involved.
7. They will tell you that there is nothing in it. Pentecostals are also taking these titles. When he makes money, he will tell you that his people have decided to give him a chieftaincy title.
8. “My people said I should come so that they will give me a chieftaincy title. What is your title name? Okaa Omee I. He will be proudly showing you his regalia and paraphernalia, asking proudly, “Do you know what it took me to get this title? It was officially conferred on me.”
9. Nobody can escape this thing except one that is in Christ. Being in the Church is not the same thing as being in Christ. You can be here, yet you are operating outside. You are with your people. God knows all that are in His hands and those that are in His hearts.
10. Everybody is in the Church claiming to be the children of God, but God knows His own people. Everybody is carrying Bible about claiming to be the children of God, but God knows His own people. He that we worship knows His own. Jehovah knows His own.
11. God knows all that worship Him in spirit and in truth. Go and have a look at Nze, Okaa Omee, Ozor, Ichie and all the title holdersthat are coming from here and there, they are all in the Churches.
12. They will even take the title of knight. He will afterwards brag that he has completed his title-taking. “It is now complete. In the Church, we are the elites. In customs and traditions of our people, we are in charge!”
13. Once he builds a house and buys a car, the next thing is to take a chieftaincy title in the community. When he gets the title, he will come up to the city to join his colleagues.
14. I was living with one here in Onitsha. Immediately he got married, the wife had two issues, a female and a male. He told us that there was nothing left. I thought he was kidding.
15. He said, “I will now go home and fulfill the traditional rites so that I will have a place in my home.”
16. Before our eyes, this man went home, printed invitation cards, withdrew a large sum of money, bought a large quantity of drinks and everything and took them home. All the daytime and night time rituals and running round the village market, he fulfilled all including the final Ozor title-taking ritual [Imacha Ozor]. This thing took this young man over five hundred thousand Naira [N500,000.00] in his hometown Lilu.
17. After that title-taking, he became poor. The wife became a Lolo in infancy and her husband, chief. He was shuttling the village on a weekly basis to attend the meetings of the chiefs. He also attends that of the Church at Holy Trinity Cathedral. He also attends that of his chieftaincy group in his hometown.
18. Are we sure that there are no red cap chiefs in our midst? Are you sure that in our midst that some people have not taken these chieftaincy titles? Even those who camouflage and feign ignorance claiming that it was their father that got it for them?
19. There is nowhere title-taking will be done without the worship of idols. Chieftaincy titles are taken according to the traditions and customs of the awarding community. There is nowhere customs and traditions of a people will not involve idols. Every titled man is a prominent idolater.
20. Are you sure we are not harbouring people with their red caps in our midst? Even those who wear their bangles and conceal others at home? While coming to Fellowship, they will keep back some of these items. God knows you are still harbouring idols under your beds.
21. You must denounce it. Destroy it. Get rid of any sign. The Bible said, “The semblance of…”
22. If you resemble the God you worship, praise God. Jesus was confronted by the people to make him king, but he refused. Was there any prophet that was conferred with any title? Did any prophet take any title?
23. This chieftaincy title has become such a dreaded thing that a lot of young men are dying for these titles. It is now competition. Anyone of them you meet introduces himself as chief.
24. If you come to Imo state, Mbaise in particular, those that do not have a place of abode, even Okada riders, all adorn themselves with either the black or the red cap, yet moving about in bathroom slippers, looking dreadful malnourished and they still go to Church.
25. I have one in My compound. He is a catechist as well as a chief. If you take a close look at him, you will prefer to go to hell.
26. Please do not recognize those things. Do not subscribe to those things, but if you have done them already, God said, “Get rid of all!” Remove them from your eyes. Some are bragging with their own. Some even hang or display their regalia in their parlour, decorating it with all types of Yoruba and Igbo beads and you will think that it is a human being.
27. This is the type of thing Pascal from Enugu can do. He can do it. He has the tendency. He can do it. Some people wear this red cap in the cities but when they get to their hometown, they remove it for it was not traditionally conferred on them, but they want to attract some level of majesty to themselves, even bragging and asking to find out other people’s chieftaincy title names, “What is your chieftaincy title? Which title have you taken? What is your chieftaincy title?”
28. When he is travelling to his hometown, as soon as the vehicle he boarded gets close to his hometown, he removes the red cap from his head.
29. “Very early in the morning on Sunday, go there, you will see some women sitting there already. They are dedicated to their god and that god does not make a move since Onitsha existed or was discovered as a village, or as a town, that god is still there opposite Union Bank building at Ose Market beside the Main Market.”
30. Even as we are reading here now, go there now, you see elderly women, half-naked, sitting down there now. All of them educated. One happens to be a retired Principal of QRS [Queen of the Rosary College]. The people that worship the idol referred to as the Ani Onitsha [The land of Onitsha].
31. They call it Ani Onitsha which literally means the Land of Onitsha. Go and check. Women are still there now with too many things they spread there even now, in this 21st century.
32. If Christ never appeared, up till today, twins would have remained abomination in your villages; is that not true? This is because they do not believe in anything natural gift. Thus, if a woman delivers twins, they see it as an abomination.
33. Initially, they were killing both the woman and her twins; later, they said that only the last one that came out among the two kids would be killed. They would spare the woman, spare the first child and kill the second child.
34. They said it was an abomination; that either the man or the woman committed a crime against the god of the land for which cause the woman delivered twins. This spirits are still at work in all idol worshippers and their children even to this moment.
35. When we are saying “get rid of your community spirit,” you think it is a small thing. Do you know that it was not easy for Aaron to get rid of his own? Do you know how many years he stayed in Egypt? Was he not the one that saw God face-to-face? God made him a prophet.
36. Was Aaron not working hand in hand with Moses? Didn’t he see the glory of God? Was he not among the seventy elders that saw God and dinned with Him? Yet, idolatry was in him.
37. No wonder God later remembered it, called him to the mountain, presented the judgment to Aaron saying, “Aaron, now is your own cup full. So, so and so years ago, you moulded an image and introduced it to my people to worship as their god, thereby committing great iniquity against Me. Now, can you tell Me why you did it?” God postponed killing him because they were on course, that is, on a journey.
38. Finally, when they had already settled down; God said, “Aaron, your cup is now full. I will strip you of all your garments and the whole Israel will see your nakedness. In your place, your son Eleazer will take over the priesthood.”
39. You see how the priesthood departed from Aaron. God made him naked on the mountain; everybody saw Aaron on top of the mountain naked. Before their eyes, the Lord smote him dead.
40. All the same, if you can remember what happened in the wilderness when Moses said, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Aaron was the first to run to his side and the rest killed themselves at the command of Moses.
41. Yet, Moses knew very deep in him that it was not well with Aaron; for the Lord was the One who commanded Moses to carry on with him since there was no other person suitable to do the job he was doing. As a result, God used him; after, He then destroyed him.
42. The idols of the nations are silver, gold and wood, ornament and things like that, made with human hands. Can the Almighty God be in such things made with human hands? The Almighty God is the Creator of Heavens and Earth.
43. THE BIBLE BROUGHT THE DEVIL INTO FOCUS:
44. Note it.
45. Now, another thing I want you to understand is this: in all those calamities they were passing through, for which cause they were pouring their libations and sin offerings, your fathers never attributed anything to the Devil; they never said the Devil was punishing them.
46. Rather they said that the god in whom they believed was the one punishing them for being wicked to that god. Therefore, to them, Devil did not exist. To them, anybody called the Devil never existed for every calamity that befalls them was attributed to their disobedience to the god in charge of that thing. Pure Truth!
47. If the rain delays longer than necessary, they believe they had committed a crime against the god of the rain, for which cause the god of the rain has refused to give them rain. Whatever might be their sin offerings or libations would be gathered together and offered to the god of the rain; note, not to the Devil.
48. For all the crimes they committed, there was not even one they attributed to anything called Devil because they never believed they were worshiping anything called Devil, and there was no idol they erected and called it Devil.
49. Whatever they erected was good in their eyes. As a result, their disobedience to that—according to their own judgment—would bounce back on them. In other words, for their disobedience, there must be repercussions.
50. It was the knowledge of the written word; that is the knowledge of the Scripture that brought the existence of the Devil into focus. Without the Scripture, nobody would have known whatever encounter Adam and Eve had with God and with anybody called Devil in the Garden of Eden.
51. It is what was documented that painted the picture of the Devil, which anybody could see and identify. Whether it is real or not is not what I want to say.
52. Even in that picture, there is no evidence of any place, in the Old Testament, where people offended God and the Devil punished them for offending God.
53. There is no place like that in the Bible; rather, you will see places where people broke their allegiance with God by establishing something that is not God and God would call it idolatry for He said, “Only I shall you worship.
54. You shall not make anything god, in resemblance of anything in Heaven or on Earth or beneath anything anywhere at all. You should not do it and you should not bow down to them.”
55. When Saint Paul appeared on the scene, he said, “You suppose that the idols of the nations are this and that; but today, God has come into plain view.”
56. The time when you supposed that God was like silver or this or that is over for God is not like those things and can never be like those things. Amen.
GET RID OF THE IDOLS
IN YOUR HEART (2)
By Apostle Kelechi Uwakwe
8
GET RID OF THE IDOLS IN YOUR HEART (2)
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e thank God, we have seen the origin of idols. How man invented idols by himself with his own hands.
2. The LORD Speaks: God created human beings. Human beings created idols. Instead of worshipping their creator, they started worshipping their creature.
3. Instead of man to bow down in worship of his Creator, he is now bowing down in worship of the thing he created by himself. The one he created for himself.
4. That is the thing man is now offering food and sacrificing fowls to, and even fearing and giving up for the sake of these idols the land he should have been using for the production of food. Man even sacrificed his children to this thing he created.
5. Apostle Kelechi continues: The same thing today. God has given us His character through the teaching for us to emulate Him and allow His Word to be in us.
6. If you refuse the Word of God to be in you, to change your life, then you have molded for yourself your own character through the thought of your heart, you depict that your own character, which you will pass on to your children and they will become wicked.
7. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION Pg. 69:12 – 13 “ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT THERE IS NOBODY IN THIS MOST HOLY FAITH THAT DOES NOT KNOW WHETHER HE IS KEEPING GOD’S COMMAND OR NOT. DOES IT REQUIRE PROPHECY? YOU KNOW THE TEACHINGS YOU HAVE RECEIVED IN THIS CHURCH AT VARIOUS TIMES.
8. IF YOU OBEY THEM, YOU KNOW. IF YOU ARE NOT OBEYING, YOU KNOW. IT DOES NOT REQUIRE BROTHER TELL ME. SISTER, TELL ME WHEREIN I HAVE OFFENDED. BROTHER, TELL ME WHEREIN I HAVE ERRED. NO! YOU KNOW WHERE YOU HAVE ERRED.
9. BECAUSE I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING PERTAINING TO GODLINESS THAT YOU MIGHT ATTAIN HIS DIVINE NATURE. HAVE YOU REALLY ATTAINED HIS DIVINE NATURE? IF AFTER RECEIVING ALL THESE TEACHINGS AND YOU HAVE NOT ATTAINED GOD’S DIVINE NATURE, SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU AND NOT WITH THE MESSAGE.”
10. By disobeying the teaching, you have already invented for yourself behaviours and characters which God rejected. That is what you are doing and that is what you will pass unto your children.
11. Ephesians 4:19 – 19 GNB: “In the Lord’s name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless…”
12. Have you seen now? The heathens’ thoughts are worthless. They cannot think the right thing. The same thing is applicable to one sitting down here, after hearing all these teachings, he refuses to accept the teachings in his or her heart. Then his heart, his thought will be worthless.
13. “In the Lord’s name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless and whose minds are in the dark. They have no part in the life that God gives, for they are completely ignorant and stubborn.
14. They have lost all feeling of shame; they give themselves over to vice and do all sorts of indecent things without restraint. That was not what you learnt about Christ! You certainly heard about him, and as his followers you were taught the truth that is in Jesus.”
15. As Christ’s followers, we were taught the Truth that is in Christ. The Truth that is in Christ is what we are receiving now. Christ telling us that there is no real existence of idols. There is no one before Him and there is no one after Him.
16. In heaven, under the heaven and beneath the earth, there is no being existing before God and after God. Human beings used their hands to invent all these things.
17. The LORD Speaks: Everybody established his or her own in the heart.
18. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION Pg. 84:29 – 30 “ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT ALL OF US ARE STILL OPERATING WITH YOUR OLD STUBBORN AND STONY HEARTS. NO MATTER HOW THE WORD OF GOD IS PREACHED, WHICH IS THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY HAVE NOT BELIEVED. IF THEY HAVE BELIEVED, RIGHT FROM THE HEART WOULD HAVE COME OUT TRANSFORMATION.”
19. The LORD Speaks: That is Truth.
20. “Don’t you know that when you believe the Word of God from your heart, automatically from your heart, you are regenerated?”
21. This is why God is giving us this teaching, putting us in remembrance of the things He taught us.
22. In one of our Messages called JUDGMENT, God said that the reason why He puts us in remembrance of the things He taught us is because it is the only way to hinder us from erring.
23. The only way to bring us back if we have erred is to come back to God. And that was why God said last Sunday that somebody must be saved. If, after hearing this teaching, you go back home and allow those idols to remain in your heart, you have committed suicide.
24. “…YOU ARE NOW A NEW INDIVIDUAL? YOUR OLD WAY OF THINKING, OLD WAY OF DOING THINGS WILL PASS AWAY. OLD HABITS WILL PASS AWAY. A NEW SPIRIT IS NOW IN YOU, LEADING YOU INTO A NEW LIFE. A NEW EXPERIENCE.”
25. When one is in Christ, it does not mean sitting down here. Being in Christ is a definite experience which only you as an individual will experience it and the manifestation will come out through your character which all around you will see and say, “Of a truth, this Brother, this Sister, this Church; they are different from other Churches and other human beings on earth.”
26. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION Pg. 79:13 – 15 “Thus, you can be in this Most Holy Faith, yet you are not born of God.”
27. This is where we ought to purse and meditate deeply as it concerns us as individuals.
28. That you are in this Most Holy Faith as you are in this Most holy Faith, God said, “You can be in this Most Holy Faith, yet you are not born of God. You did not proceed from God.”
29. “AS MANY AS WERE BORN OF GOD HERE MUST AGREE WITH WHAT GOD IS DOING IN THEIR DAY AND WILL BE A PART OF IT.”
30. And this is how to know whether you are born of God or not. If your agreement with what God is doing here is directed by God’s Word, you see yourself obeying. You see yourself doing it without duress, without threat to your life. Then you are from God.
31. “HOWEVER, IF YOU ARE IN THIS MOST HOLY FAITH AND YOU ARE NOT A PART OF WHAT GOD IS DOING, MAY BE YOU ARE IN OUR MIDST, PRYING INTO THE SECRET OF OUR LIBERTY, YOU ARE A STRANGER IN OUR MIDST…”
32. Remember, it were strangers that came out of Egypt and joined the people of God coming down to the Promised Land that stirred them up in murmuring. Those strangers were those that came with their different gods.
33. The Scriptures said that the mixed multitude among the people of Israel stirred the congregation up to murmur against Moses and against Aaron.
34. You see why you must be very very careful. Monitor all around you. The Scriptures said, “Note those that cause division among you.” Those that twist the Message. Those that twist the teachings through their life and character. The Scriptures said, “Avoid them.” Now, they are spying into the secret of our liberty. You are a stranger in our midst.
35. “…IF YOU ARE NOT BORN OF GOD, YOU ARE A BORN OF THE FLESH OR YOU ARE BORN OF THE WORLD. FIRST OF ALL, CHECK. ARE YOU REALLY BORN OF GOD? THE BASIS OF THE NEW FLESH LIES IN HAVING FLESHY HEART THAT IS RECEPTIVE TO GOD’S WORD.”
36. This Message we read, titled THE COMFORTER, not everybody was here when it was preached. And many of us that were here when the Message was preached have not gone through that Message. Some have gone through it but have forgotten. And God has re-enacted it now, making it fresh for us to accept.
37. In the time of Israel, God told them in Deuteronomy chapter 13 and said “Watch! Anybody that is an Israelite that tells you, ‘come let us go to this place and worship idol,’ He said, ‘Do not go. Be the first to stone the person to death.’”
38. But now, in this modern age, if you see someone coming to you, telling you things, telling you stories contrary to this Faith, you still have the guts to walk with the person, eat with the person, interact with the person, you do not know that he is imparting into you false anointing for words are spirits.
39. The same way, the Word of God is Spirit and the life, entering into us all this while. It is casting out demons, for preaching the Word of God is casting out demons and all these evil spirits that are causing us to draw back spiritually.
40. The LORD Speaks: That is Truth.
41. Let me tell you something in the Message SPIRITUAL PARALYSIS.
42. The LORD Speaks: Every character is controlled by a demon. Mary Magdalene had seven different characters depicted by seven different demons. Jesus cast all of them out of her.
43. Many of us are possessed by more than forty. In some, more than two hundred like Njom family. Mary Njom, Onyema Njom and the rest of them.
44. All the Njoms here. As njo (ugly/bad) as Njom. I do not know whether your deliverance will come from the moon. Amen.