FACING BOTH WAYS

Dr. D. K. Olukoya

Matthew7:21-22 "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devil? And in thy name done many wonderful works." Some people have not even done any work but the people in the passage said they have done many. Verse 23 says, "And then will I profess unto them (God forbid), I never knew you (although you worked miracles in my name and prophesied) depart from me, ye that work iniquity." These are heavy words.

An ancient proverb says that there was a foolish ruler. When it was hot, he wanted it cold and when it was cold, he wanted it hot. He was always looking for what was not. It is amazing that many people do not know what they want and many come to the house of God blind.

There is a class of animals called amphibians. They are defined as animals that can live both on land and in water. There are many Christians like that, they are facing both ways.

Elijah told the people at Mount Carmel, "If God be God serve Him, if He is not go away, don’t patch up. Don’t put one leg in His kingdom and another one in the kingdom of the devil." You would not be dinning with the children of the devil and be receiving divine vision at the same time. Those facing both ways have not identified thoroughly with what they believe. All such people, according to Jesus, would miss heaven. He says, "Not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Even if you worked miracles, prophesied, sang, taught or did anything else. As far as you did not do the will of the Father, I will say to you, sorry, I don’t know you. You are a worker of iniquity because you did all that with a double mind." Such people will eventually miss heaven unless they repent. This is very important.

Those facing both ways are not committed to God. They do not realize that God has a purpose for bringing them to church. He has no useless exercise. Such people come to church, pray fire prayers, listen to the word of God and yet, it is not certain where they belong. They are Christian amphibians or sub-marine Christians. They want miracle but do not want the miracle worker. When the mouth and the heart are playing different games, the person is not heading to heaven. The mouth is saying, "Lord, Lord," but the heart is saying something else. It is strange to know that the most diligent preacher around now is the devil. He is never out of the church. You cannot find him idle. It is the Christians that become idle, not the enemy. He is present in every service. His agents are anywhere God’s name is magnified, to report back to their master. He is also available. You do not need a long invitation to get him to work. It does not take you a minute to slap somebody now. It does not take you a minute to get angry. So, he is always available and does not sleep. Unfortunately, many are serving him without knowing. His best job is done by those who claim to love God. They are his best agents. Masquerades dance very hard in market places. You can see sincerity, commitment and hard work in them as they work for the devil. They do not come late to their meetings. But in the church, you have many children of God that are not committed. They are one leg in, one leg out. In their houses, you will hear worldly music which they memorize.

It is possible for somebody to be coming to the house of God and remain what you call a sweet sinner. There is also bitter sin, for example, armed robbery. Christians are the greatest sweet sinners. But sweet sins will get more people into hell fire. There could be a person who does not smoke, womanize, drink, attend parties or gamble, but he cannot witness for Christ. Such a person is still a sinner, a sweet sinner. There are people who know the Bible from the first page to the last but they have terrible temper. Any small thing provokes them. They are sinners although they know the Bible. A person could teach at the Sunday school, do praise worship, yet possesses an acidic tongue, is a sinner. Some sinners are the kindest and most respectable people you can find. They would say, "Yes sir, how are you sir?" and so on and so forth but they are terrible sinners inside. This is why the kingdom of heaven is going to be very interesting. Some people you expect to find there will never get to the gate. Jesus said to the Jews, "You keep calling yourself the children of Abraham. But I tell you on that day, you will see prostitutes, adulterers, etc, sitting at the table with Abraham and you would be locked out." They claimed that Abraham was their father but the spirit of Abraham was not in them. That is why James 2: 10-11 says, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, do not commit adultery, said also, do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law."

There are thousands of people who say, "I am trying my best. I have done this, I have done that." But the Bible says, "If you offend in one point, you have committed all the sins." So there is no difference between somebody who tells small lies and a witch. Both of them will end up in the same place when they die. There are many people who speak religious language but unfortunately, they are perishing. There are many pastors who shall perish. There are many people who, although they bear Christian names, will perish, unless they repent. Those, who are putting time and money into the things of God but have no love and sincerity, will miss heaven. There are people who come to church but have not totally forsaken their sins or are not truly broken. They may be working for God, sweating, but they are sinners. The most dangerous ones are those who have unforgiving spirit. My prayer is that the Lord shall perform a surgical operation in their lives, in Jesus’ name. Some labour to hide their sins from man but they stubbornly refuse to let all the sins go. They refuse to uproot the world from their hearts. The world is deeply entrenched in their lives although they come to church. They look different in the church from what they are outside.

Many people talk and sing about being free, while they are still bound by lust, greed and covetousness. A certain sister telephoned me and said, "Please, sir, help us." I said, "What is the problem?" She said, "My husband is a deacon in our church. But we have had accident three times on the road because when he was driving, he could look forward only when there was no woman by the side of the road. Whenever there was a woman, he would not look forward until he ran into something." That was a deacon. What was his problem? Sin. Jesus would say to such a man, "Although you are a deacon I don’t know you. Your name is not in our book." A person’s name can be in the book of exploits because the Bible says that they that know their God shall be strong and do exploits. It could be on record in the book of exploits that you converted so, so and so, yet your name is not in the book of life. It could be recorded that you sang and people got converted. But that is in the book of exploit. What about the book of life?

Some people decide to miss heaven because of worldly things. But I made up my mind a long time ago that come what may, I will not miss it.

A certain armed robber saw a vision of heaven and appreciated the beauty so much that he said to the angel that was conducting him, "Excuse me sir, let me stay here." The angel said, "No, you cannot. There is still one more place for you to see." He dragged him to hell fire where he saw his fellow- armed robbers, who were already shot, burning in hell. Worms of fire were entering in and out of their nostrils and they were screaming. He told the angel that he preferred the first place. The angel said, "If you don’t repent, this is where you will end up like your friends. When he woke up from his dream, he went and submitted himself to the police. He said, "Please lock me up. It is better for me to die in prison and go to heaven than to be a free man and go to hell fire." You may go to hell fire laughing but when you get there, the laughter will disappear. You may play games and be clever now, but over there, there are no games because you would meet the master game player.

When God shows you the truth, your life should not remain the same, unless you have decided to be what the Bible calls a child of perdition. There are some people who have decided to perish. There is nothing you can say to change them. Their conscience has been seared with hot iron. When somebody commits sin willfully, he grieves the heart of God, he crucifies the Lord Jesus Christ a second time. Whenever a believer commits sin, he quenches the power of the Holy Spirit. Every sinner is making attempt to overthrow God. It does not matter if the sin is still in the mind, the person is doing a lot of harm to the Creator.

Husbands, your sins could damage your wives, unless you repent. Wives, too, your sins will damage your husbands unless you repent. Murmuring, complaints, disrespect, jealousy, disobedience, anger, pride or rebellion will hand over a family to the devil for punishment. This is why at Mountain of Fire and Miracles, we do not teach anybody to fight the husband or the husband to beat the wife. We teach that the husband is the head of the home and the wife should submit to him. That is the proper order, provided what the husband wants you to submit to is not sin. That songwriter says, "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back." He says, "The cross before me, the world behind me." Is the world behind you or at your front? Have you left the shackles of the world behind? For example, if the prince of the world comes to you now, that is the devil, can he say, "I cannot find anything in this man? I cannot find anything in this woman? Can he say that about you? Not all that are called pastor, priest, singer, Sunday school teacher or whatever shall enter. The Bible says that iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall wax cold. It does not say, "it may," but that "it shall" wax cold. Pray like this: I remove my name from evil prophecy; it will not happen in my life, in the name of Jesus.

The reason some people are having backache is that they are sleeping on stolen beds. The reason some people are having stomach ulcer is that they are eating with stolen spoons. Somebody goes to a hotel and when he is checking out, he steals the towels and the cups and goes home with them. Now he says he has skin rashes. The reason is that he is using the stolen towels.

A sister stole a television set and watched it for years. But she noticed that there was no single breakthrough in her home. Each time she switched on that television the devil would start to dance because they were watching his property. In the same house, they held night vigil every last Friday and everybody prayed. But the devil was laughing because of the stolen television in the sitting room and a stolen carpet. So, nothing happened.

A certain brother who claims to be a Christian tried the first time to get a visa, he was turned down. He tried the second time and still did not succeed. Then he got another passport and changed his name from Olowu to Owuto. He now said, "Pray for me so that I will obtain a visa to travel abroad." And children of God were praying aggressively. That is an amphibian.

Ask yourself: "Have I cheated somebody in any way? Have I even been paid money that I ought not to get and I kept quiet. Have I ever cheated my employers in any way?

Have you ever stolen money, equipment or anything? Have you made a false claim to exaggerate things? Have you claimed money for any work you did not do? If you are committing secret sins like that, the voice will sound out, "I know you not." Or are you the kind of person that close your eyes when people are committing sins? Have you ever stolen anything from anywhere? Are you the kind of person, they give change and the change is over what you should get and you do not return it? There was a time that I had something to do and I employed three carpenters. I said that I was going to give them a test to see who I should continue with. I asked them how much they needed to do the work. The first one said, N2,500; the second one said, N2,500, and the third one said, N2,400. Each of them was given N3,000. I wanted to know the honest one. Of course, two just said, "Thank you sir" and went away, and never returned any change. Only one of them came back and said, "Sorry sir, there is a mistake, the money is supposed to be N2,500, but there is extra N500, so I have brought it back." I decided that he would be the permanent worker. The others kept quiet and later started complaining, that that one, whom I was giving jobs, was not good: he was bad, he was mad, he was this and that but they were thieves.

So, sometimes when you think you are being clever, you cannot be smarter than the devil. Are you the kind of person who borrows from people and decides not to pay back. Some people keep their money in the bank. They have N40,000 in the bank and are roaming around looking for somebody to lend them N5,000. It is madness, because that money has become an idol. If you say, "I want to keep it there to yield interest," whose interest, when the Bible says, "owe no man."

Not all they that call me Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

If you are reading this bulletin and you falsified your age to get admission, or to obtain a job, you are a sweet sinner, an amphibian. Anytime you have the opportunity of getting into somebody’s house, where you can use free telephone and you overuse it, you phone the whole world, you are a sinner. You propose marriage to somebody and later find somebody better and you break your first promise, you are an amphibian Christian. May be you got somebody pregnant and because you have no money, you now say, "I didn’t do it," you are an amphibian. You smile at people, but internally, if they fall down and hit their heads on the ground, you really do not mind. God sees your heart. If we all gather into the house of God and the only thing we want is for His glory to be manifested, nobody will fight. If all that God requires from you is to be cleaning shoes for His glory to be manifested, then you do it. If all He wants you to say is Amen, and it is for His glory to be manifested, that is okay. But the moment people want their own glory, there will be fight.

A man, a very top official in a church, came to me and said he was in trouble. He wanted prayer. I said, "Why do you want prayer now?" He said that when he wanted to take up the church post, four other people wanted it. So he went to a herbalist somewhere close to Ikorodu, who he learnt was every effective. He gave him a charm so that he could win the post. Now he won the church post by using wicked herbal means and there was a quarrel. The herbalist threatened to come and report him to the church, that he was the one that did this and that for him to become this and that. Now he wants prayer from me so that he could defeat the herbalist. I said, "Who did you want to serve with the post?" He said, "God." I said, "If it is God you want to serve, and you want only His glory, why should you go and use satanic means to get the post?" I thought it was the end. I did not know that all the other contestants had been rendered paralysed. The ignorant members of that church would sit down and say, "It is my father’s church, I will die there."

So, serving God with an unclean heart is like you are saying, "Lord, Lord," but in reality, you do not belong. It is possible for you be coming to a church and not contributing anything to the holiness there. The world is just looking at some people to change so that their lives alone would make thousands to rush into the kingdom of heaven. God is waiting for that change, but they are not moving fast. Instead, they are advertising the enemy. They use their attachments to advertise him. They paint their fingernails to advertise him. They wear their 666 chain over their necks to advertise him.

Do you know where you are going? Pray like this: I remove my name from the list of backsliders, in the name of Jesus.

Confess your sins to the Lord and refuse to be used as a bad example. Talk to the Lord yourself. He uses His x-ray machine to look into your innermost being, to the deepest part of your life. He can see the areas where people have covered so cleverly. Confess your sins to Him. Tell Him that you are sorry, tell Him to help you. He is available to help.

PRAYER POINTS

1. O Lord, deliver me from every bondage of sin, in Jesus’ name.
2. Every power quenching the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, release it, in the name of Jesus.
3. I must rest in the Lord and not on any other thing, in the name of Jesus.
4. O Lord, lift me up, in Jesus' name.
5. Every spirit of lukewarmness, depart from my life, in the name of Jesus.
6. I refuse to be intimidated by any stranger, in Jesus' name.
7. O Lord, manifest your power in my life, in the name of Jesus.