STRIVE TO KEEP PACE WITH THE FAITH Vol 1 PREACHED ON 28TH MARCH, 2021 AT PASTOR WISDOM’S HOUSE, ENUGU, NIGERIA. BY PASTOR WISDOM ODOEMENA
Now, from what we have read here, anybody quarrelling with God, is he not a foolish fellow? You are risking your life. You are blind. You are ignorant. You are poor. You are miserable. And, you know it not.
You may not come openly and say “I hate you”. It takes place in the heart.
11Enmity is in the heart. Strife is in the heart. Quarrelling is in the heart. And that heart will never see peace and will never receive favour from God. But disaster awaits that heart. I do not care who is involved.
GOLDEN NUGGETS VOL 4 Part 3 Preached ON 31ST March, 2021 pg. 114 vs 1-3
CHAPTER 1
STOP QUARRELLING WITH GOD
You and I still remain alive in this place worshipping God. God said, you do not know what God has done for you until you go outside and compare your experiences with those that are worshipping God amiss.
2. You see the level of effort and level of work that people do in the bid to do God an acceptable service and you now compare it to that which we are doing in our own day. It will really show you that you are a favoured person.
3. Not minding what is happening around you, you are still called the chosen of God. It is in Christ that we find out that it is not how big the offering is or how large the money might be or the sacrifice might be but you as an individual, are you acceptable unto God? Because for you to be acceptable, for God to accept your offering, you must offer yourself first as a living sacrifice.
4. We always sing it in our songs. “Lord prepare me a sanctuary, pure and holy, bright and true with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you. So, we are the living sanctuary of God. So, for you to be made acceptable, you must walk yourself into God.
5. From the message of Friday and the messages we have been hearing, if you are not careful and keeping pace with the message of the hour, you will not know when you have been dropped. You must first of all understand the symphony of the message of the hour, for we are in a fast Faith. A Faith that moves with time.
6. The message you are holding unto today, if you are not being careful and still holding that message, before the week runs out, God will divert into another thing. So, there is always a sharp bend in this Ministry.
7. So, if you are not careful enough to keep pace with the message of your day, keeping pace means obeying and setting aside whatever that is in you that is going to cause you not to obey that message. What God needs is instant action towards every message of God.
8. That is why today you might see God correcting you in the afternoon, in the evening He has already accosted you on the next step to take not laying hold on that previous sin again because laying hold on it will delay your movement.
9. If you are in a race and your shoe is not properly tied, in the bid to tie your shoe, we cannot because your own shoe lace has untied and the race will be stopped. At that moment you are trying to tie the lace of your shoe, the movement is still on. It is now left for you to hurriedly tie it and keep up with the pace or you will be left behind.
10. Some people are still in this Faith that you and I are in and yet they have been dropped, why? Because they are not keeping pace with the message. It is one thing to have a message, it is one thing to hear a message, it is one thing to understand a message and it is another thing to keep pace with the message that you are receiving.
11. Most of us, when we hear a message today, we say; “God, thank you. This message is for me”, but we fail to put that message into practice immediately, we keep it waiting for a convenient time you will obey it. “After, I will practice it, I know where the message is driving to. Later, later”. No! What God needs is instant obedience.
12. God says the moment the Hazrat Mahdi will appear, whatever He says you should do it. Abandon everything and cling unto Him firmly. If you are holding someone firmly, will anything ever make you to leave him? Even if you see he is turning, you have to turn immediately and follow Him. You are not waiting for the next second saying when He turns very well and relax, I will now turn, no! The moment He is making a move, do what? Take that action. If He is turning, do what? Turn so as to keep pace with what He is doing.
13. Almighty God told us that in the course of this Faith, that a time will come, that the journey would be so long that if you are not keeping pace with the Words of your Guide, that the message might say “shoot” and before it gets down to you, it must have been distorted. What you will now start hearing is “Shout”. Why? Because you are not keeping pace with your guide.
14. So, it is one thing that we gather every Sunday, every Friday, every day in our different homes but another thing is; are we keeping pace with the messages we are receiving?
15. The message that God preached last Sunday which you said you have obeyed, if God visits it back next Sunday and the message is being explained bit by bit, will your heart still prick you that even at that same Sunday there are still some elements of those same characters which you have not corrected? Because if you have not mastered a particular thing, there is no need advancing forward.
16. That is why we have pass, fail and fail-out in some schools. Hence, exam is a prove to show that you have mastered that particular thing. A test of knowledge is through examination and there is no other way God will test us if not through our lives and characters.
17. If our lives and character are not in line with the messages we are receiving, it then shows we do not have any need for further new message. Because that which you have is not been enough to correct that old nature in you.
18. Someone the doctor gave malaria drugs to drink and after two weeks he is still covering himself, his malaria drugs are still intact. Do you need to ask him to buy drugs for typhoid or drugs for running stomach or sleeping drugs? First of all, he needs to do what? Take the malaria drugs first. Then if it now continues, you can then look for another drug and know the causative agent.
19. So, if you have tried obeying the message and it is not working, you now ask yourself, what is that sin that easily besets me, or that easily brings me down?
20. The scripture said that we should take note of it. That there are sins that weigh us down, that we should get rid of those sins that easily beset us. Amplified said, that constantly puts you down.
21. Once they talk about that area, that area will hold you captive. That place holding you captive cannot allow you to move further in this Faith. God said that the secret of this Faith is what? Forward ever and backward never. If you make a mistake today, God said you should not look at it.
22. Remember that mistake of yesterday and let that mistake of yesterday be a ladder for you to climb out. But if you are not keeping pace, if you are still running around, if the message is yet to sink well in your heart, because this is our major problem.
23. Anything you are doing in this life that does not sink well with you or whatever you are doing that you do not derive joy and happiness while doing it, you can never perform effectively in that thing.
24. Whatever you are doing that does not give you joy, most of the time we see people that have been acting movies for fifty years, for forty years because this is a career path that they love and they have chosen that path for themselves and whether they gain something or nothing from it, this is what the person loves to do and there is no other thing he can do perfectly well aside from that particular thing.
25. You might tell him to go and do business, using everything to convince him, yet he will tell you that it is his career path.
26. So, if you do not find joy, if you do not find happiness while trying to do God’s will, if it does not sink well in your heart, if it still hurts and discomforts you, there is no way that message will be effective in your life.
27. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EVERY MESSAGE IS TIED TO THE NATURE AND THE WAY WE TREAT THAT MESSAGE. THE APPLICATION OF THAT MESSAGE WILL DETERMINE HOW EFFECTIVE OR HOW REDUNDANT THAT MESSAGE WILL BE IN OUR LIVES. If I keep God’s Word aside, do I expect any miracle to happen in my life?
28. There is one particular nugget that gives me joy which says what? Quit quarrelling with God. Because when you realize that if you keep quarrelling, you are not making any way for yourself, why not recoil?
29. God said that all these years you have been quarrelling; you will find it difficult to align yourself with this truth. What has been the result? You have been getting the same result. For the same action will give you the same result. Same action will give you the same result over the years.
30. Why not pause and change that particular action and see if that result will not change. Because what happens is that when we receive the Word of God, we misunderstand the Word of God which brings us to misapplication of that Word. Misunderstanding of the Word of God must lead to misapplication of the Word of God. Because any word you cannot understand, how can you act on it?
31. So no matter the prayers that we make, no matter the supplications that we make if we don’t apply the Word of God rightly to suit the problem for which the Word of God came forth. I hope you are getting the message brethren.
32. God said there is a purpose for every message, everything that is given to us. What is that divine purpose? And we often see that why we are having problem and why that particular attribute is still mentioned in our lives is because God’s purpose for you have never been in line with the same purpose you have for yourself.
33. These are the two conflicting things that happen to many individuals in this Faith and because of that, the Word of God can never sink well. Instead of the Word of God to sink well, it will reproduce anger, it will reproduce curse, reproduce anguish, reproduce all forms of evil things in the heart of that person because that which he or she wants to be is not in line with what God wants the person to be.
34. Don’t you see there will always be clash in that family or that individual? The life of that person will always be in clash because there is a clash of two spirits. This is what I want you to be but this is what you want to be which are two things that are different miles away.
35. So for there to be peace, one must subdue one and God said that He has given us the right for us to choose the spirit that will be at work in us. If I still find myself at this very point in time still disputing or still rebelling in my heart because the worst rebellion is individual rebellion. In the sense that your brother does not know what is happening in you.
36. A message that goes forth, in your mouth you are saying yes sir and even putting it down in your jotter but deep down in your heart you are fighting against it. In your mouth you are saying praise the Lord, God touched me today but in your heart you are saying over your dead body. This is a rebellion that goes forth and none of these is ever written on the face.
37. It might be your brother or your sister sitting beside you, message will be going forth and she is claiming that message with the intent to make you feel that you and her or both of you are together in it. He will give you the impression that he is with you, shouting its pure truth! Its pure truth! He will clap and clap and clap, you will be thinking that it is touching him not knowing he is giving you an impression that he is with you so that you will not discard him.
38. Because he knows that the moment he starts speaking it out or showing it on his countenance or words, you will surely do what? Avoid him. He will now do what? Get another strategy that is why God told us that we should not be deceived by the strategies of the devil.
39. There is no step the devil will not take to stop the child of God from living a pure life and the greatest one of it is deceiving the hearts of such people with, “what will happen will happen”. The moment you come to that level as a child of God, God has concluded your matter. You will now be saying whatever that will happen, let it happen that you will like to see it. This is where the devil is holding all children of God. What is more, he will start giving you examples of those that have done it and nothing have been done to them yet.
40. God said that because the transgression of an enemy or the sins of a sinner is not punished instantly, that it has given men over to sin without restraint. The person will have no remorse for God again. If you try to caution him, he will quote somebody doing the same thing. Asking you whether that person doing the same thing has two heads. Please you people should leave all those stories you are saying.
41. Didn’t this brother do the same thing? Has he died? Is he not the one moving about riding cars? Please free me. They have litany of examples they are holding unto for which cause they are justifying themselves in iniquity.
CHAPTER 2
JUDGE YOURSELF
I have searched the scriptures, I have read the scriptures, I have never seen a place where humans are right and God is wrong. It has never happened and will never happen.
2. At the moment of that correction, it can never give you joy. It will be like all hope is gone. Brethren I bet you if you anchor on that correction, you will smile at the end of the day.
3. If you listen to the hot correction or hot chastisement from the Son of Man, the tone from which it is coming forth, if you tie yourself to it, I tell you that you will never move forward because you will think that heaven and hell is against you. But if you can anchor your faith, I will use the last epistle where God was admonishing you that if you are wrong, if the church say you are wrong, God said do what? Close your mouth.
4. Continue to believe, continue to follow, continue to move without questioning any authority God has placed over you peradventure at the end, your sins might be forgiven. It is documented in the book of lamentation.
5. So, if you continue to look at that present time, there is nothing wrong with you again, at that present instant the message is coming forth, you have every reason to justify yourself. But if you can set that self-ego aside that has been hurt because God told us that the greatest obstacle that is holding every human being is for us to overcome our self-ego and in the bid to protect the self-ego, people have blasphemed the name of God. “Do you know who I am? Who are you to talk to me like that?” All these comments and references are referring to God.
6. Is it because I am here? Is it because I am with you people? I am doing this with you, I am doing that with you, that is why you can talk to me anyhow. If you can for one second remove that self-ego, because people can go to any length to make sure that they uphold their self-ego.
7. We heard it from the Apostle on Friday that even some people, the person might know that they are wrong. They are now sure that they messed up but that ego will never allow that person even when he or she knows that they are wrong, the ego will still make him to justify himself in that same situation, in that same error because he is finding it difficult to accept that he can be wrong. “Is it for me to accept my wrong so that they will all clamp down on me? I did not do it. Let me stand on my grounds”. And this is why God said that the only thing that is going to paradise is children’s faith.
8. That an adult sense is one that is mindful of his self-ego. Does a small child know what self-ego is? If you beat him, after crying he will still come back to you but it is that same ego that rejects correction. “You have finished talking right? No problem, I am the one that gave you the reason to talk to me, if I didn’t talk to you, if I didn’t meet you, will you say all these things to me? It is fine.” This is an adult.
9. But if you can set aside that self-ego and bring yourself just as you are before God, even at the highest grievance, if God has no other reason to forgive but for the fact he has seen you accepting your error.
10. There is a quote in Proverb where we saw it; that God will always forgive those that accept their errors. Hence, if God has no other reason, for setting aside that self-ego and telling God ‘I did it’ and you say please forgive me. That is why in our world, it is very difficult for people to say I am sorry.
11. Some will say ‘how am I sorry?’ And these have given birth to many, many problems that we are having. And all these problems are in one way or the other affecting our spiritual race. And these are things contributing to stopping you from going to paradise.
12. It does not happen in a day, it comes bit by bit, it comes by thoughts, it comes by rejected corrections, it comes by different forms and they are accumulating. Day by day, it is building up, bit by bit, precepts upon precepts before you know it, you will be an embodiment of every evil character and you will not understand what God is trying to do for you until the day the eyes of your revelation will be opened. You will see the extent God has gone. For when God said that it is very difficult to save a human being, I put it to you that it is pure truth.
13. The most difficult thing to do is to save a human being. I am not different. Human beings have a very bad nature that is only God that can overcome. No human being can ever acknowledge that he is wrong.
14. And God said that if you are left without check and correction even when the message says a life that is not well examined from time to time is not worth living. Heathens know this one more than us. Ask yourself why a heathen, a catholic family can never allow their son or their daughter to marry outside the catholic family.
15. Those families that hold religion very tight, they will say my son or daughter must marry a Pentecostal and that is true, no other person will marry from that family if you are not a Pentecostal because they believe that any individual that does not have anybody he reverences, that does not have somebody who has the final say in his life, somebody that can have absolute control in every of your affair, the pride in that person will make him or her do outrageous things. I am telling you the truth. I am not talking about having God in this matter, I mean having somebody (Your fellow human being).
16. People we call heathens that roam about, they even know this. My lecturer was saying it in the class; Dr. Onodugo, that if you are in this life and you do not have anybody who you fear and respect; somebody that can even go as far as telling you to forget your exam and you abide by it. If you do not have such person in your life, you can never regard anything superiority. What is more, you will see respect as insult.
17. When you are asked to respect someone, you start asking how much the person has. You hear people making that statement. How much is he holding? What does respect have to do with the amount of money the individual has? Why? Because there is nobody he or she has regard for. So his own term of respect is weighed by the level of wealth you have. “How much does he have? Where is his shop located? What does he have? Forget this person. We are talking about something and you are telling me this.”
18. Watch all these people; they have people that they respect, people that are in their lives. How do you know him, at every point he must have restrictions to whatever he does. No matter how you try to compel him, he will tell you that there is something or somebody he cannot bypass his command. Ask them what is that thing that is stopping them from doing that, it may be his church, it might be his pastor, it might be his belief, it might be somebody; his senior brother or senior sister, it must be somebody who he or she has special reverence and respect for.
19. So, do not ever think you can come to a point where you think that you are filled, mastery of all knowledge, there is nothing that kills more than that and when you have mastery of all knowledge, you weigh every correction, every Word of God from your own perspective. If it fails to suit your perspective, automatically that Word of God becomes nonsense to you.
20. He measures things by his own standards and watch, he will not only have difficulty in worshipping God but in also human relations because he expects that his view must be the standard view in everything. ‘If it is not the way I said it, it is not the way it should be’.
21. These are the difficult people. They always believe that they have the mastery to all knowledge. So the essence of the Word of God is to voice all these things out to us. For if after we leave the presence of God and by the time we come back again to worship God, we still find these things prevalent in our lives.
22. Brethren, if you were to be the teacher and you have taught for 29 years and they have not still come to the mastery of that course, let us ask ourselves this question, will any of us be happy?
23. People you have been teaching in a private lesson, you have been teaching them for twenty something years and yet the elementary stage of the ministry, elementary subject you started with, when you ask them questions, they still have Failure in their exams. You as a teacher, even if their parents are paying you, will you have the conscience to be collecting that money for over twenty something years? There is no joy again in your heart because it means that your efforts are all in vain.
24. There was a time we were writing exams in Umudike, one of my lecturers entered. The man was like, “Please make me proud” that they give a certain amount of money for every lecturer in every college that the review of all students’ result over that particular period of year will make the lecturer to be the best lecturer in that college.
25. The man was like since the inception of the course that nobody has had D or E in his results. That the least has always been C, ‘I say please don’t stain my records. I say please’. Exam has started, he was going seat by seat begging everybody, each row. “Please make me proud, check all the questions, answer two questions from your assessment to secure you 18 marks. This and that will give you so, so and so.” He was just saying it and was going round. Why? Because he does not want that effort to be in vain.
26. It does not subtract anything from Son of Man to leave this world and go to paradise alone without everybody, it does not subtract anything from him but we are the ones that will still be left out. What is he doing this time around? Reconciling these messages, do this thing, bring this one, do that one to make sure that you do not fail him.
27. And seeing the efforts He has made, ask yourself; the scripture said, “Who am I that God is so mindful of me?” Brethren, until we understand this question, you will continue to shift messages to people. You can never obey the Word of God. Attribute every Word of God to yourself.
28. When we were at GTC, God said; ‘Come to fellowship. Do not look at people beside you’. When the voice says, “Lift up your hands”, and you start looking sideways whether somebody by your side raised their hands so you can join them or not. God said, see only yourself. If I see myself in the light of the message, whatever I am doing, I will tell myself, “All these teachings including the ones that will come out today are all for me. I do not know for another person, it is for me. And God is still shouting on my head to do this and that.
29. So, ask yourself why is God so mindful of you? What is it that you have that will make God if brother A is misbehaving, brother B is misbehaving but He takes special interest in my own affair? Why? You see that it is what? A special type of love. It is God’s love for us that he reaches out to us individually.
30. There will be record of brethren behaving the same way or having the same record that you have, you see God not even having interest in them but when it comes to you and I, he clamps down on us for us to see the place He placed us. ‘Look at where you are standing before me, I do not believe that this type of report should be associated with you’.
31. It is that level of love he has that hurts him to note that even at this point, something like this is still being mentioned in your life. It hurts him to note that this kind of thing is still at work in you. So, what I am trying to say this morning is that the messages that we have been receiving, that we have received and will still receive tomorrow then forever and ever, how often have we aligned the truth to our lifestyles for which cause we hear the word of God and we can say amen. Amen because there is that peace in your life, there is that peace in your soul.
32. Song: When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my Lot thou has thought me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.
33. It is well, it is well, with my soul, with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.
34. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed His own blood for my soul.
35. It is well with my soul.
36. It is well, it is well, with my soul, with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.
37. That second stanza said, though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, allow this blessed assurance do what? Take control!
38. If you do not understand the correction, if it is harsh, if it is burdensome, just hold onto that word, it is well. Just mutter that word “it is well”. Leave the rest for God. Do not find fault with it, do not be angry at it, leave yourself alone and tell yourself it is well and then now see how God will allow that blessed assurance that you have that it is well to calm down.
39. He will start giving you divine explanations to all the messages, He will start giving you divine understanding to that correction. He will start giving you the divine peace that comes from the understanding of that correction.
40. Watch that second stanza; if trials should come, let this blessed assurance take control that Christ has regarded your helpless estate…, because at that time that correction is coming forth, you are no longer yourself, you are no longer at peace, you are warring, the devil has taken over your soul.
41. You yourself you are trying to recover yourself from the hand of the devil, it is two things that are clashing. At that point in time, your strength can no longer save you. Your own understanding has deceived you. That is why the bible said, ‘lean not on your own understanding’. At that point in time, you are in a helpless position.
42. Your only trust and confidence at that point should rest completely on God. And the moment it rests on God, that blessed assurance, you are assured that God; ‘you that permitted this problem to come my way, you that is giving me hot chastisement, I believe that you know what you want to achieve. Let the assurance I have in this save me from this situation’.
43. Automatically, you see the best attitude coming forth from you. You see yourself, while you are trying to be angry, you see yourself singing, you see yourself being happy, you see yourself appreciating little, little things He has done because you have allowed the assurance that He is there, you are not thinking about the correction again or the hot chastisement or whatever, you have given yourself to Him.
44. That you have regarded yourself to be in a helpless estate, ‘God I am in your hands’. You have tried over the time to understand; anger due to the correction has filled your heart. It is not the anger; it is that spirit of the devil in you trying to confuse you but God said if you can just mutter that word saying it is well.
45. Why is it? Because that statement will calm that angry word for you. If you move with the same angle the person is coming from, it will be a clash. The person will speak, speak, speak, you shake your head, shake your head and look at him, it is well.
46. That it is well, is the only word God needs to calm that situation in your heart that time and in that point you will manifest the highest level of wisdom because you are no longer operating on that human realm again. So, the person is seeing problems, it might be accident that occurred and the person will be roaring, you will simply tell the person to go. People around will be amazed.
47. I am just setting an example because at that point in time, you left that human realm; you are no longer with them. They are reasoning as humans but at that point you got a divine ministration and you are now acting on that divine ministration.
48. So, no matter what we go through I just want to tell us that we should have this song in our heart. Tell yourself that it is well. Is God angry at you? Is the situation turning around to the direct opposite of what you expect? Tell yourself it is well. I want us to sing that song again, that stanza two.
49. Song: Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, it is well, it is well with my soul.
50. It is well, it is well, it is well, it is well with my soul. Amen.
51. With this anointing, I call upon the Apostle who will give us his ministration for today. Let us give him our ear and we believe that God will meet us at the point of our needs as He has always done. With this joy in our hearts and the acknowledgement that it is well with us. Let us open our hearts and listen to this message. Amen.