MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLES MINISTRIES
International Headquarters, Lagos, Nigeria.
Sunday Worship Service
January 22nd, 2023.
Topic: THE TRAGEDY OF LAZINESS
Text: Proverbs 24:30-34, 26:13-16, Ecclesiastes 10:18
Ministering: Dr. Daniel Olukoya (G.O MFM Worldwide)
Physical laziness is very bad, but spiritual laziness is worse. Just as someone who is physically lazy may not make any progress, the man who is spiritually lazy is a time bomb waiting to explode. We see the tragedy of laziness in the scriptures. The enemy will take over your camp if you are lazy. Not only that, if you sleep too much, the Bible calls you a lazy man or woman and that excessive sleep will only bring poverty.
The lazy man is afraid to take any risk. They give all sorts of excuses and complaints. You may say it is fear, but the Bible calls it laziness. It is a form of laziness. Things will go rotten physically and spiritually when there is laziness. Laziness is actually a department in the spiritual realm where you have wasters. It is a wasting spirit.
WHAT IS LAZINESS?
– unwillingness to take action
– to be dormant.
– to be drowsy.
– being dull
– being idle
– to be Sluggish
– Dilly dallying
– Killing the time.
– Resting when you are not tired.
– Resistance to work.
Unfortunately, if you do not arrest this spirit, it will make the goals, dreams and visions of a man to end up in the dustbin of life. A lot of believers are spiritually lazy. Too lazy to pray by themselves, too lazy to read the Bible by themselves, too lazy to go into spiritual exercises that will give them fire and power.
Laziness is when you are getting used to a less demanding lifestyle. So you have put on the shoes of procrastination and your anthem is “I will do it tomorrow”.
That is why the Bible calls it a waster. It is a complete waster. Laziness does not necessarily mean you are not doing anything. It does not mean you are doing nothing. It is failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. It is lack of intense work towards any goal. It is like someone sleep walking through life, and it is a sign of spiritual decay.
🔥 I am praying for somebody here: every wasting spirit of laziness, that has made your enemies to build a stronghold against you, I bind them and I cast them out this morning, in the name of Jesus.
We have types of laziness:
– There is a type of laziness we call “laziness of procrastination”. You just postpone and keep pushing it forward.
– Laziness of doubting your capability. “can I do this?”
– Laziness of inactivity. You just do not want to do anything. This kind of laziness has put so many women and young girls in bondage. Instead of finding some hard work to do, they say “no no I cannot suffer. I will look for a man to give me the money”. So they sell their bodies because they are too lazy to work with those hands. That is why that spirit is called a waster.
– Laziness of putting in great effort into useless assignments. They put great work into nonsense. This is why somebody has said “all the sleeping saints are serving Satan”.
Laziness is a major key of the enemy against Christians. Most of all the other sins all come from laziness, if you look at them closely. That is why if you read your Bible, you will see that all the men that God called were busy men. God calls men when they are busy. Satan calls men when they are idle. That is why some people say “an idle hand is a tool of the devil”.
– Laziness of the mind. You do not want to do any thinking, you do not want to do any reasoning or task your brain. You give excuses all the time. That is laziness of lazy minds.
– Laziness of lazy bodies.
A lazy man is a dead mind that is yet to be buried. I want you to understand that no one can climb any mountain by just looking at it. It is not possible. You must make an effort.
The vehicle of laziness is that it moves fast on the load of laziness. That is why the Bible is telling us that laziness does not come in one day. It comes a little at a time. Because a little you do from time to time, goes a great way; but a little undone from time to time leads to a very great waste.
🔥 I am praying once again for someone here, that every good thing that laziness has stolen from your life, you shall repossess them in the name of Jesus.
Spiritual laziness is a disaster. When somebody is spiritually lazy, he has deep distaste for the things of God. When the lazy man begins to pray, his mind begins to wander. He cannot really concentrate to do hard praying. He prays for 20 minutes but only does hard praying for 1 minute. The rest of the time, his mind is wandering. That is not prayer. For the lazy mind, once prayer starts, the environment becomes very hostile. Immediately, all the work he has not done begins to cry for attention.
The enemy in his own clever way has adopted clever tactics adaptable to all personality types. The lazy man turns on his bed, but does not get out of it. He has not won the battle of the bed. When he comes out of the bed, he wishes he was back in it again. He hates vigils, sleeps very early at 10pm , and is too lazy to get up at 7am. He is too lazy to pray any serious prayer. If we begin to carry out an inventory this morning, and I ask “when last did you do your quiet time?”, you will realise that a lot of people do not do their quiet time.
When you do not do any meaningful quiet time before God, it is laziness which will lead to wastage later. All the dry devotional lives are results of laziness. Somebody wakes up and decides not to go to church, not knowing that that particular day is the day his angel of blessing is waiting for him at the particular place where he sits. When you see a spiritually lazy man, he is Sunday Sunday medicine. It is only on Sundays and on special occasions you see him. Some even avoid PMCH programs. You ask them why they are not fasting, and they have a reason.
Spiritual laziness is refusal to plan ahead. When you hate all spiritual activities that will move you forward, it is laziness. When you have a multitude of great ideas, but you refuse to move beyond those ideas, it is spiritual laziness. When a person wants to start up something but does not bother to do any investigation or prayerful research about it, it is laziness. When you become indifferent to the things of the Lord, it is laziness.
So one of the greatest impediments to spiritual growth is laziness. Too lazy to pray, tarry, study the Bible, and read spiritual books.
When a person does very little spiritually, and puts very little effort towards spiritual things, it is laziness and this is why I am bringing this to your attention this morning, and you can see the way the Bible describes it. And the great tragedy of it is the way this laziness has killed so many lives. They are too lazy to memorise any scripture or do any spiritual activity.
The tragedy of it is this: the lazy man or woman will never experience the raw power of God. If you read the Bible very well, all those men of God who moved mountains were very busy when God found them.
Moses was busy tending the sheep in the desert when God found him. Gideon was busy in the winepress when God found him. Elisha was very busy in his father’s farm when God found him.
Tragedy of Laziness.
– God will not use the lazy man or the lazy women.
– the enemy will defeat us easily if we are spiritually lazy.
– Laziness is a big sin. It is such a big sin that it can cause a lot of tragedy. This is why we need to repent from it, change from it, and begin to do what God wants us to do.
– It makes a man to miss his destiny by procrastination. Sometimes he will not start any progress, sometimes he will agree to start, but start putting it off and little by little, they surrender, and very quickly it becomes a defeat. They never go on. They never develop a sense of urgency about life. They just keep pushing it forward until that time will go.
🔥 May that not be your lot, in the mighty name of Jesus!
– the lazy man has a lot of unfinished projects all around. He starts halfway and never finishes. It is a tragedy.
– lazy people do not contribute anything positively to any body’s life. It is therefore a tragedy when you marry a lazy man or woman. The whole family will suffer because one partner is lazy. And this is a very very serious matter.
– the lazy man is a helpless man. Any small hardship, he turns back.
– a lazy man is unteachable. He thinks he knows every thing.
– to crown it all, a lazy man is forever a servant to others.
A lazy man is doomed to poverty as far as heaven is concerned. That laziness will trap him to the bottom place of life.
WHAT TO DO.
1. Recognise that that laziness is a sin.
2. Decide to come to terms with yourself and confront your laziness. Confront your laziness and do not pamper it.
3. Counter laziness with aggression. It is infact not a bad idea if you decide to do a 3 days dry fast to combat laziness.
4. Learn the principle of diligence and hard work.
5. Learn the discipline of waking up early. Discipline really is the key. There is no easy way to learn discipline. Discipline is tough. You have to be hard on your life. You have to start now. Discipline starts now.
6. Examine your family altar. Is there any prayer altar in your family?
7. Examine your Bible reading. Can you really say you are a Bible addict? The Bible says that the Bible should be like honey in your mouth. Is it really like honey in your mouth?
8. Examine your Bible memorisation. Do you really memorise scriptures, or it is the same thing that you know?
9. Examine your witnessing. When last did you really walk up to somebody and preach the gospel to the person? Is there anybody you can confidently say you converted and now the person is a Christian? Are you witnessing to people?
10. Examine your fasting life. Are you really living a fasted life?
11. Examine your time spending. Do some calculations. Examine how much time you spend for God, how much time you spend on yourself, how much time you spend on things that are useless.
PRAYER POINTS
[Before Message]
1. Powers spying my time to disgrace me, you are liars, die! in the name of Jesus.
2. Powers timing my glory to disgrace me, you are liars, die! in the name of Jesus.
3. Opportunity wasters, I am not your candidate, die! in the name of Jesus.
[After Message]
1. Wasting powers of laziness in my life, die in the name of Jesus.
God bless you🙏