Counterfeit Christianity Part 1Dr. D. K. Olukoya
Judas heard the word from the Lord: “One
of you is going to betray me tonight.” Everyone of Jesus' disciples began to
say">
Judas heard the word from the Lord: “One
of you is going to betray me tonight.” Everyone of Jesus' disciples began to
say">
Judas heard the word from the Lord: “One
of you is going to betray me tonight.” Everyone of Jesus' disciples began to
say">
Judas heard the word from the Lord: “One
of you is going to betray me tonight.” Everyone of Jesus' disciples began to
say, “Lord, is it I?” When Judas asked the same question, the Lord said,
“You said so.” That was enough for somebody whose head was not anchored
to defeat. Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your power, that I
might destroy you.” Samson heard that and still allowed it to happen to him.
The Lord has been warning that many people are
working behind schedule, and that is scarring. He says that there are so many
prophets and prophetesses who by themselves have gone on continuous incubation
without hatching, and that many prophets have become parrots, talking too much.
Many evangelists have become oracles of the devil and God is now in the process
of project transfer, that is, “If this one is silent, the stones shall speak.” I
pray that the Lord will not replace us in Jesus’ name. These are very serious
matters.
When the Lord says, “Stones shall arise,” He
does not mean that stones shall come up and begin to talk. He is saying that
hardened people that we never thought would accept the Lord will accept Him and
He will bombard them with power and those who have been born again for years
will now be carrying their bags for them. It is very sad that we are working
behind schedule.
John 18:17:
“Then saith the damsel that
kept the door unto Peter, Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples? He
saith, I am not.”
The word “Christians” is mentioned only once
in the Bible and the word “Christian” appears twice. But in the New Testament,
believers are called disciples over and over again
WHO IS A CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE?
A Christian disciple is one who learns of
Christ; who follows Christ and obeys Him. In the Bible, we see that the
Pharisees had their own disciples. John the Baptist, had his own disciples, and
in His days on earth Jesus had His own amongst whom were the apostles whom He
chose to be with Him.
In the Bible as well, the term “disciple” is
applied to all who followed the Lord, many of whom the book of John tells us
that after He had preached a message, they said, “This is a hard saying, who can
bear it?” So, they went away and walked no more with Him.
Christ has very many disciples throughout the
whole world today. Every Christian should be a disciple. Unfortunately, this is
not so and that is why the church of God has problems. We need to make a
distinction between being a Christian and being a disciple. Somebody may hear an
altar call and come forward to surrender his life to Jesus. He may go through a
foundational class, be baptized in water, and by the grace of God got to know
about sanctification and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He could pass through
all these experiences but it does not mean that he is a disciple. You are a
believer, okay; but that is completely different from being a disciple. It is
possible to be a Christian, be saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost
and still not be a disciple. Many of them are eaters and not givers. Many
churchgoers are following their brains, their persons, their families and their
pastors, but not Jesus. This is because they are not disciples.
To be a disciple means to be a disciplined
Christian. A Christian who is a disciple does not lose his temper and start
fighting. He can discipline his temper. A disciplined Christian is not the kind
that would break his fast and be pretending as if he was fasting.
A disciple does not only become a Christian
but follows on to know the Lord. No wonder the Bible says, “Unto the children of
Israel, God shows His works but unto Moses, He shows His ways.” Which one is
better? It is only a disciple that can know the way. The miracle seekers know
only the works of God, they are afraid of discipline.
A disciple follows on to know the Lord. Paul
said, “That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His suffering.” A disciple is like Mary of Bethany who sat at the
feet of Jesus and learned of Him. Discipleship is therefore a costly business;
very costly. For example, you would be rejected and ridiculed by others. You
would be asked to do things for others whether they deserve it or not. You
follow God’s leading, no matter the personal cost it involves. So, discipleship
has a price. And because it is a costly business, 90% of churchgoers are not
disciples. This is unfortunate.
Singing does not make you a disciple. Ushering
does not turn you to a disciple. Even wearing the pastor’s collar does not make
you a disciple. To be quite honest with you, many pastors are not disciples yet.
Many deliverance ministers do not even understand the meaning of the word
disciple. A disciple is not someone who is satisfied only with the fact that he
is going to heaven. Salvation does not cost you anything but to be a disciple of
Christ is very costly. To get saved, you need only to repent before God and have
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the conditions for discipleship are quite
different and demanding. The question is, “Art thou also one of His disciples?”
It is a question you will answer in your heart. They threw the question at Peter
and it destabilized him.
A disciple is a champion survivor. When others
are falling, the disciple will keep standing. A disciple would trust God no
matter the situation he encounters. He is not the kind of person that says,
“Well, I asked you people to pray for me and you did not pray for me. There are
so many churches in town. I am not coming to this place again.” That is the
attitude of miracle collectors. Disciples are not people who say, “Don’t you
know who I am in this place? In case you don’t know me, I am so so and so. So I
demand respect.”
A disciple obeys God’s commands and would
follow the plan that God has chosen for his life. Jesus is number one priority
for a disciple. Any other thing is secondary. The priority of many people is
marital breakthrough. For some, it is financial breakthrough. May be that is why
they are not being blessed. Their priority is wrong. Every disciple is a
believer in Jesus but not every believer is a disciple of Jesus.
The benefits of
discipleship are so much. The Bible promises Jesus’ disciples wealth and riches.
It says that wealth and riches will be in their house. Also, the Bible promises
that when dark circumstances surround the Lord’s disciples, God will be there to
help them out. It promises that whatever was meant for evil in the lives of
disciples shall be transformed into good. It also promises that they will never
be shaken from the foundation of their faith. It promises that God’s divine
protection shall be upon them and their families. The question again is, “Art
thou also one of this man’s disciples or not?” Many people are not doing what God wants them
to do. Many are just warming the benches in the churches, and some are lost
there. It is a tragedy for somebody not to know where he is going at the age of
40 - 45.
A sister went to the bank with a cheque of
Many people would say, “Pray for me so that
the witches disturbing me will die. Pray for me that all shall be well with me.”
But these things end here. Witches do not go beyond this place. Once a person
dies, he or she is free from witches. He will then face either struggling with
Satan in hell fire or he is enjoying with the Master in heaven. The choice is
yours.
CONDITION FOR BEING A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST
1.
Hatred to self:
Luke 14:
26: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife,
and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot
be my disciple”.
So,
the first condition is hatred. Does this mean that we must hate those who are
close to us? No. It means that we must give the Lord supreme place in our lives.
It means that we must love Him better than we love anyone or anything else.
Jesus must come first in our affection and there must be no rival. Some people’s
fiancées are rivaling Jesus in their lives. A person sits down to wait before
the Lord and wants to receive from Him. As she is reading her Bible, there is a
knock at the door and somebody enters, a friend she loves. Then she drops her
Bible, the quiet time and the meditation ends, and for the next three hours she
is chatting with the visitor. “Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?” If
you are, you will arrange your priority well. Jesus must come first in our
affection. There must be no rivalry. That is what He is telling us. If a
situation arises where we must make a difficult choice between obedience to our
parents or obedience to Christ, we must put Christ first. That is what he is
saying.
I know of a sister
who bought a wedding gown and everything for her wedding. Three days to the
wedding she came to the pastor and told him that there was an emergency. “What
is the emergency?” The pastor asked. She said, “Sorry sir, you know that
Saturday is the wedding, but I have found out that the man drinks although he
says that he is born again, I have even found a bottle of gin hidden under his
bed. After taking alcohol, the brother used peppermint or something else to
wash his mouth. When the sister told her parents about this, they rose against
her calling her names, because they wanted her to marry that brother. But she
looked at the man and said. “If I marry this one, I will lose Jesus.” She loved
the man, but Jesus had the first place in her life. So, she broke the
engagement. How many sisters can do that? Many would decide to marry the man
and manage with him. Then when they settle down with him, he may be boxing them
at night. In Matthew chapter 10:34-37 Jesus says:
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send
peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father
and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that
loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”
So it must be Christ first all the time. When
Christ has the rightful place in our lives, we shall love our parents the more.
When Christ takes the first place in your life, you will love your wife the
more.
Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?
Does He have preeminence over your life. Do you hate anything that will come
between you and Christ? That place you are working and stealing and telling
lies, is placing a wall between you and Christ. Is Christ the first place in
every part of your life? Examine yourself now. This is why the Lord said that
we are working behind schedule.
2.
Hatred to worldliness:
Any Christian who can still boldly stand
in the middle of unbelievers’ party and dance to worldly music, may the Lord
have mercy upon him. It means he is still very far from the Lord. If a
Christian still has friends who are only interested in parties, he is still
far. He needs to recover himself today.
3.
Carrying the cross:
Luke 14:27 says, “And
whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
These words are very clear and emphatic. They mean that if we are not bearing
the cross of Jesus, and growing after Him, we are not true disciples. You can be
the disciple of your General Overseer. You can be the disciple of your pastor,
you can even be carrying his bag about. You can even give yourself a name,
“Pastor's boy,” but if you don’t carry the cross, you are not a disciple. The
pastor may be shaking your hands saying, “Well done my boy, well done,” but the
Lord may be saying, “This one is stinking, take him away from me."
When we say cross, some people think it is a
problem. No, no, it is not a problem that we are talking about. If it refers to
problem then it means that everybody is bearing the cross, because there is
nobody in this world without one problem or the other. But that is not what we
mean.
Several years back, I was sent to a church to
represent my own church. There, after the praise and worship, choir
ministrations and the message and everything, the pastor came to the front with
a microphone and said, “We have been doing pleasant things all along, but when
unpleasant duties arise, it is our duty to carry them out.” Then he called one
Brother Samuel to come out. The handsome brother came out: The pastor then said,
“This brother has slept with three members of this church and has impregnated
the three of them.” And turning to Brother Samuel he said, “Therefore, in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we excommunicate you
from this church, and we hand you over to satan.” And he asked him to go back to
his seat. When the pastor called on the congregation to share the grace, I
could not stand up. It was a very sad thing.
We need to be very careful. For that man to
get into that kind of situation means that he was not a disciple. The sisters
who were roaming around him because he was handsome were also not disciples. All
those three women he impregnated were cursed, not by the devil, but by man. Who
will remove the curse?
To bear the cross
is to take up the cross and follow Jesus. It means you voluntarily share in His
reproach and suffering. It means that the kind of suffering Jesus went through,
you are willingly to share in it. It means you are willing to put aside your own
dreams, your own plans, your own ambition and your own goals in exchange for the
will of God. It means that in a situation where your desire and that of God are
opposite each other, you should follow that of God. Some people say, “Eh, my
wife is my cross.” No, she is not. If she is your cross, you will be carrying
her about every day. The cross that we are talking about is that you are willing
to put aside anything that pleases you in order to follow the Lord.
To Jesus, the cross meant suffering and shame.
It meant laying down His life. This is what we find in
Hebrews 12:2:
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down
at the right hand of the throne of God.”
If we are to be Jesus’ disciples, we must be
willing to share His sufferings. Some people are ashamed to carry their Bibles
in the open. They hide it inside their bags. They don’t want people to call them
fanatics.
To be His disciple means to be hated,
persecuted and misunderstood as He was. To take up the cross, means that we are
willing to bear all the suffering and shame, out of love for Jesus, who out of
love for us agreed to be numbered with the transgressors and was crucified on
the cross. When Jesus was here on earth, Herod sought to destroy Him as a baby.
His town’s men at Nazareth wanted to throw Him over a cliff. The scribes charged
Him with being in league with Beelzebub. The people tried to stone Him. The
chief priest and the elders paid Judas to betray Him and accuse Him falsely
before Caiphas. He was charged for treason before Pilate. Pilate asked the Jews
“Whom shall I set free for you? You want Barabbas, the robber or Jesus?” They
said, “give us Barabbas.” Pilate then condemned Jesus to death. And He was
crucified between two thieves.
How do we pass
the test of discipleship?
Have we taken our stand openly for Jesus? Do
our friends and loved ones know that we are Christians? Are you willing to deny
yourself and bear shame and suffering, if it is necessary, because of Jesus? If
you don’t carry your cross, He says, you cannot be His disciple.
THE CROSS
The cross is a place of death. It is a place
of humiliation. It is a place of suffering. It is a place of self-mortification.
It is the most wicked instrument of death devised by the heart of man; nails are
forced through the palms and the ankles, the lungs stretch out and the body
sags. The victim now suffocates. He dies painfully and slowly. That cross is the
end of your old life. It destroys the old pattern, the pattern of Adam.
When your old life dies on the cross that is
true Christianity. Many people are coming to the church but very few are
recognized in heaven. Many even call themselves pastors or ministers of God but
they are not recognized in heaven. Why? They fail to listen to the words of
Jesus: "Whosoever does not bear His cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
"Art thou also one of this man’s disciples.
4.
Forsaking all: Luke 14:33
says, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he
hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
Beloved, the Lord says that there are some
miracles He has not started doing because we believers are not ready for them
yet. There are a lot of things that are disturbing the power of God from
flowing.
What does it mean to forsake? It means
that you must forsake all that you have. It means that I must reach the point
where I can honestly say,” I am taking my hands off my life. I am taking my
hands off my home. I am taking my hands off my loved ones. I am taking my hands
off my money. I am taking my hands off my possession. I am taking my hands off
all that I have. I am taking my hands off all I have looked upon as my own. I
will henceforth look upon them as Jesus’ own. I will no longer have any claim to
them.” That is what forsaking means.
There are boxes scattered in the church for
people to put in money for the needy. I am sure that there are many people who
have not put one kobo inside any of those boxes. It would be helpful for you to
make a list of the things you regard as yours. They may be your wife, children,
home, bank account, car, house and certificates. Make a list and hand them over
to God. Recognise that they belong to Jesus. That songwriter says, “Take my life
and let it be, consecrated, Lord to thee…" Take everything. That is what it
means to forsake.
“Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?”
Forsake every thing. Someone was harassing me: "Excuse me sir, post me out to
go and do the work of God, post me out to go and do the work of God.” I said he
should go to a certain place where there is religious turmoil and he said “G.O,
don’t crack jokes. This is a serious matter. You don’t joke with things like
this.” What he was telling me is, “Post me to a comfortable area.”
A true disciple would forsake everything to
please the Master.
5.
Continuity:
In John 8:31, Jesus said to the Jews: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye
my disciples indeed.” Continuous, not temporary action, not acting when you feel
like, not epileptic action. To continue means to abide in Christ, to grow up
into Christ, to shape our lives in conformity with the word of God. It means
that we should accept the word of God as the final authority in our lives. It
means that we should seek day by day to live in submission to the word, and in
obedience to the Lord.
Many churchgoers are not really getting ready
for the Second Coming of Christ. They don’t pray up to half an hour a day. They
don’t read their Bibles up to half an hour a day. They don’t witness to anybody.
They just dress up, go into their cars, go to their places of work, come back,
go to fellowship at times and go home and sleep. This is dangerous.
What Jesus sometimes wants us to do can
conflict with what we want to do or what our friends want us to do. We should be
asking ourselves, “What does the Lord want of me? Why has He saved me and called
me? There are so many that are roaming about, who are not saved, why did you
save me? How will His glory be manifested in my life? Am I reading and
meditating and feeding on His word?”
“Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?”
The time has come when God will no longer permit His temple to be polluted.
There are lots of criminals now in the house of God. A man ran away from the
world because the pollution of the world wanted to kill him, he then ran into
the church of God, only for him to meet a greater destruction there. He ran away
from the Jezebel in the world, only to find out that there are worse Jezebels in
the house of God.
When people are pursuing a thief and he runs
into a police station, they would stop chasing him at least in the hope that he
has given himself up. But it is not always so. Now, Somebody who is a sinner,
whose heart is polluted, runs into a church, and one would have thought that by
so doing the sinner is now safe. But it is not so. There are many evil workers
that Satan has raised up, who are in the house of God, and are not willing to
change.
“Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?”
What is the sense in coming to church when you do not want to be a disciple?
What is the sense in coming to church when at the end of the day, the Lord will
say, “Who are you? I don’t know you. Where did you come from?” And you may now
say, “Sir, remember that I gave my life to Jesus at so and so crusade. I
attended so and so Bible College.” And the voice will say, “Get away from me,
you worker of iniquity.” You may say, I used to sing,” was your life in
conformity with what you were singing?” I am a pastor.” The voice will say,
“Fine, you preached this message, you preached that message, what is the impact
of your messages on your life?" You may say, “I was a Sunday school teacher.”
The voice will say, “Yes, but you were a worker of iniquity, you were teaching
in sin.”
Are you one of those people who are making
your church to work behind schedule? Are you a prophet or prophetess whose life
is slowing your church down? Are you the type of person that God has been
calling and talking to and you put His words aside while pursuing your own
agenda? Are you the type that walk with your two eyes open into sin, and you
come out and ask God to forgive you? And if He forgives you, you walk into the
sin again? When will you be serious with the Master?
PRAYER POINTS
1. Every enemy of discipleship in my life must
go today, in Jesus’ name.
2. O Lord, let sin be slaughtered in my life,
in the name of Jesus.
3. Every spiritual veil preventing me from
seeing, be roasted, in the name of Jesus.
4. My hypocrisy must die, in the name of
Jesus.
5. Power to save myself from this wicked
generation, fall upon my life, in the name of Jesus.
6. O mountain of iniquity, clear away from my
life, in the name of Jesus.
7. I shall not go back into perdition, in the
name of Jesus.
8. My Father, let Your glory possess me, in
the name of Jesus.
9. O Lord, deliver me from evil conscience, in
the name of Jesus.
10. Every satanic strangulation on my
neck, break, in the name of Jesus.
11. Lord, sprinkle my heart with Your
blood, in the name of Jesus.
12. Lord, destroy the evil in my flesh, in
the name of Jesus.
13. Every spiritual irritation, be lifted
away, in Jesus’ name.
14. Mountains of hindrance get out of my
situation, in the name of Jesus.
15. Every hindrance to open doors in my
life, clear away, in the name of Jesus. |