|
|
 advertisement
|
he Lord God Almighty has created us-human beings-with senses, minds and intellects. He didn't create us as lobotomized sissies who should do as He wants, says and we should act as dodo birds. In fact, He issues out a challenge to all His created beings in Isaiah 1: 18: "Come and let us reason together." How can we reason together with the Almighty God, if He wants us to submit to Him in all things and in all ways without engaging Him in sound discussions? The Lord God Almighty is the repository of wisdom, knowledge and understanding thus, He doesn't shy away from discussing, disputing and analyzing issues of life with us. Because He is Omnipotent-all powerful; Omnipresent-ever present everywhere and He is Omniscient-all knowing; He is ready at all times to argue, debate and analyze any matter with His created beings. But in spite of his awesomeness, there are certain things the Lord God Almighty of the heavens and the universe and all that are in them cannot do. Many have written to me and sent email complaining about my assertion in this column penultimate week that the Lord God Almighty doesn't know what is in the human heart. These "high moral Christian giants" considered it blasphemous for me to write that the Lord God Almighty doesn't know what is in the human heart. In the world today, some people have taken it upon themselves to be the "guardian and protectors" of the reputation and image of the Lord God Almighty. These "highly spiritual" human beings outplay themselves without reading the Holy Bible thoroughly and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach them. Our knowledge of the Supreme Lord God Almighty doesn't derive from what we thought or believe about Him; rather what He has said about Him as revealed in His Word-the Holy Bible.
The inability of many human beings to allow the Holy Spirit to teach them about the Lord God Almighty has given rise to popular teachings, maxims, clich�s and aphorisms among human beings, which are sensible and make us feel good about spirituality, but aren't in the Holy Bible. No wonder, Hosea 4: 6 says; "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." Here, Hosea didn't say those who are destroyed from lack of knowledge are the unbelievers, but believers. In our generation today, those who are destroyed from lack of knowledge are many Christians. You see, half-knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance, because the latter can easily be cured and met with sound knowledge, but the former gives a false sense of reality. There are certain traditional statements and age-long maxims that are popular with us and we are so used to them over the ages, yet they are not spiritually correct and totally unfounded in the Holy Bible. You hear though sensible but spiritually incorrect statements such as; "The voice of the people is the voice of God." But in the Holy Bible, from the Book of Genesis to Revelation, the voice of the majority is always the voice of Satan. We hear another one: "Heavens helps those who help themselves." A sensible statement but you can never find such saying in the Holy Bible. Another popular statement that has been twisted among human beings for decades is this; "Don't do unto others what you don't want them to do unto you." This saying of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 7: 12 and repeated in Luke 6: 31 are in the positive: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets," but what Satan and his demons have done over the years across many generations was to twist those words and render them in the negative.
Another popular yet unscriptural though sensible statement commonly in use among human beings on earth is this: "God Almighty is in control of everything; whatever happens to us for good or bad." So, if God Almighty is in control of the heavens and also oversees all things on the earth, why did our Lord Jesus Christ teach us to pray this way in Mathew 6: 9-10: "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.�" So if everything that happens on the earth is the Will of God, why should we pray His Will should be done on earth? That our Lord Jesus Christ instructed us to pray that the Will of God be done on earth as it is in heavens simply means, right now, the Will of God is 100 percent done in heaven, but His Will is not 100 percent done on earth. It simply means, there are other wills, apart from the Will of God, currently being done on earth. The wills of Satan, his demons and the wills of over 6 billion human beings on earth are also being done on earth. If God Almighty is in control of everything on earth as some "spiritual Christian giants" pound unto our hearings, why are we prosecuting rapists and murderers? Why do we send armed robbers, kidnappers and offenders to jail; after all, the Lord God Almighty caused them to be so and He is in charge; hence, armed robbers, thieves, rapists, murderers, kidnappers etc. should be let go. If the Lord God Almighty is in control of everything in the world, why are millions of children suffering, babies are aborted, millions live in poverty and squalor, millions die of hunger and many unimaginable evils are happening on earth? This stupidity and lack of understanding of the Word of God as contained in the Holy Bible by some Christians have caused many unbelievers to shy away from us, because we ascribe a lot of things to the Lord God Almighty which He isn't.
In the past two weeks, I have lost two close friends and relatives, both in Chicago where I live and in my hometown of Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria. The two of them died of ailments that could have been treated. As we mourned for both women, someone said it was their time to die because it was their destinies. I replied instantly that it wasn't their times to die and there is nothing called and known as destiny in the Holy Bible. The concept of destiny as it is taken among people of the world is that; the Sovereign Lord God Almighty has created every human being with a fixed future in mind and there is nothing anyone can do about it. But this idea is sensible but it is unscriptural and unbiblical. Throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, the statement of the Lord God Almighty is always prefixed with the word: "if." In Exodus 15: 26: He warned: " "If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you." In Leviticus 26: 3, He said: "'If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands�" In Deuteronomy 10: 12 and 28: 1, again we saw the word; "if" again and again; "If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth."
Everything that the Lord God Almighty does in the lives of the human race is dependent on our crying and longing for Him. The Sovereign Lord God Almighty is a God of Love and one of the attributes of Love is non-compulsion. In other words, God Almighty has not, will not, and will never force His Will on us. There are many things He cannot do in our individual lives, even though He's Sovereign. He cannot lie (Numbers 23: 19, Titus 1: 2, Hebrews 6: 18). God cannot forget (Isaiah 49: 15; Hebrews 6: 8) and since He cannot forget, what He does to our sins when we turn unto Him for forgiveness is that as revealed by Him thus: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43: 25). Again, He repeated the same thing in Hebrews 8: 12 because He is a God who cannot forget, but He can choose to remember no more: "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Even in the matters of salvation and eternity, the Sovereign Lord God Almighty doesn't have the power to save everyone unless all of us want to be saved. In other words, He has made provision for all human beings NOT to go to hell but to make it to heaven; nevertheless, He has left it to every human being on earth to make a choice. In spite of His awesomeness, power and almightiness, He cannot force or compel any human being to come to heaven, although He has made the way for everyone. While His Love makes it imperative for Him to make every human being escapes the punishment of hell, because of the disobedience of our First Parents; Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden by making Jesus Christ die for us; in the same vein, His Love precludes Him from forcing any human being to accept His forgiveness and salvation. This was stated plainly in John 3: 16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Now, do you see the choice again in that verse: "whoever?" Furthermore, He left open the choice of salvation once again to our individual choice in Romans 10: 9-10: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Do you see the word; "if" again in that verse? In other words, what the Lord God Almighty is saying is this; it is my Will that all human beings that I have created and sent to the world to accomplish such and such tasks should accomplish those tasks and return back to me; nevertheless, I will not force any of you to return back to Me in heaven, because I am a Loving God Who will never compel any of you to love me back. However, if you Love me back by obeying Me and do that particular tasks have sent you to accomplish on earth, here are your rewards. On the other hand, if you live for your selfish self while on earth, disobey and ignore Me, cast your lots with my enemies' Satan and his demons, you will not come back to Me and hell will be your abode, period! By giving each and every one of us a choice to obey or disobey, listen or ignore; serve or not serve, worship or not worship Him, the Lord God Almighty has taken destiny off the table.
Every human being that has ever been born and is being born and will ever be born on earth has a stake and, in fact plays a prominent role and significant part in his/her eternal destination. It starts with your will and who you will give it to: God, Satan or you? Your will to obey or disobey, worship or not worship, listen or ignore the Lord God Almighty is entirely yours. God, Satan and the demons do not have the right to override your will to worship whoever you want to worship. Although the Lord God Almighty has the power to override our individual wills to serve or not serve Him, but His Love precludes Him to use such power. He is a God who doesn't oppress. By leaving each and every one of us to use our individual wills to determine who we will serve and worship on this earth, the Sovereign Lord God Almighty demonstrates His awesomeness and sense of justice, Hallelujah! That is why He commanded and admonished each and every one of us in Joshua 24: 15: "�then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve�"
HOW THE LORD FINDS OUT WHAT IS IN THE HUMAN HEART? It is organized religion and its proponents in their ignorant zealous desire to "protect" the Lord God Almighty that parrots the unbiblical teaching that the Sovereign Lord God Almighty knows what is in the human heart. Yes, He is powerful, all-knowing and all-wise, but just as He cannot force any one to serve, obey and worship Him; just as He cannot forget but chooses to remember the sins of repented souls no more, so also He has chosen not to know what is in the human heart until we individually come to His knowledge and Grace. If He already knew what is in everyone's heart and thus knew before hand or has created every human being with a fixed destination on earth, then He doesn't have the moral right to send any human being to either heaven or hell. After all, He had already known who will go to heaven or hell, so why should He reward anyone with heaven or punish any one with hell? But in His revealed Word in the Holy Bible, the Lord God Almighty tests each and every one of us to know what is in our individual hearts.
From the Book of Genesis to Revelation, every person who came to Him passed through some tests so that He could know certainly that our hearts are indeed after and loving toward Him. We read in Genesis 22:1-2: "Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you�" We are all familiar with the story. After the Lord Tested Abraham and he passed, hear what the Lord said in verse 22: "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Saul, David, Solomon etc. were all tested. As Moses told the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 13: 3:"�The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul." Again, in Deuteronomy 8: 2, Moses reminded the children of Israel thus: "Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands." If the Lord God Almighty already knew what was in the human heart, why test us? Why should He want to know what is in your heart, if He already knew it as we are erroneously taught by organized religion? Hear Jeremiah in 17: 10: "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve." Why search the human heart, if the Lord God Almighty already knew what was in the human heart?
In the New Testament, Apostle Peter amplified more on this fact that, when an unbeliever gives his/her life to the Lord, the Lord God Almighty proceeds further to find out whether that person is serious or not. He wants to know what is in that person's heart as He said in 1 Samuel 16: 7: "The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." Do you notice that the verse in 1 Samuel 16: 7 above didn't say "know" but "look? Similarly, when God came in the flesh in our Lord Jesus Christ, He made the same comment in Luke 16: 15 thus: "He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight." Talking about the Pharisees and the religious leaders, God already knew their hearts after they refused to honor and put their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees were tested by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and they didn't believe in Him, making our Lord Jesus Christ to conclude thus in John 15: 24: "If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father," thus sealing the eternal fate and destination of the Pharisees and the self-righteous religious leaders of the day.
Every born-again child of the Most High God and redeemed Christian must be tested so that our Lord Jesus Christ would know what exactly is in your heart and your faith must be assessed as either genuine or fake. According to James 1: 2-4: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Similarly, Apostle Peter made the same remark of testing of the Christian's faith in 1 Peter 1: 3-7: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." Again, do you see the trials and tests that James and Peter referred to in those two scriptures? Yes, the True Jehovah Lord God Almighty uses trials and tests to assess our faiths and to know what is in our individual hearts as human beings. He doesn't pre-judge any of us and hasn't created some human beings to go to heaven and some to go to hell. He reveals Himself to us individually and then allows each and every one of us to make a decision whether to obey or disobey, believe or disbelieve, worship or not worship Him. Consequently, the Holy Bible is not a book of destiny but of decision.
Have you been tested by the Lord God Almighty? Has God known your heart? Is your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ fake or genuine? Are you truly born-again child of the Lord God Almighty? Are you genuinely born-again or playing church? Ask the Holy Spirit, He will show you.
FROM MY MAILBAG THIS WEEK
Dear Dr Moshood Fayemiwo,I have diligently gone through your Prophecies and Predictions for 2014 and the one you have just released for 2015, including the two open letters to the frontline presidential candidates in Nigeria's presidential elections; President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. What intrigued me the most was really the prophecy for 2014 particularly that of Mr. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor and the one on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, These prophecies really confirm that our God rules in the affairs of the children of men. The 2015 elections in Nigeria and the prophecies and the prayer points are noted. I pray for you sir that the Lord God Almighty would continue to imbue you with his grace and uphold you. The genuine voices like yours make it easier to decipher the spiritual charlatans that are everywhere. Thank you---Mr. David Odeseye, Lagos, Nigeria
Thank you Mr Odeseye for your keen observation. We are just messengers of the Most High God and it's up to everyone to take our prophecies and predictions seriously or not. As the Word of Life aptly says in 2 Peter 1: 21: "For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
