Su230423 – The Company of Holy Addicts

MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLES MINISTRIES
International Headquarters, Lagos, Nigeria.
Sunday Worship Service
April 23rd, 2023.

Topic: THE COMPANY OF HOLY ADDICTS (3)
Text: 1 Corinthians 16:15; Mark 4:1–9; Ezekiel 36:26.
Ministering: Dr. Daniel Olukoya (G.O. MFM Worldwide).

1 Corinthians 16:15 (KJV) says: “I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,)”

It was an intentional thing that these people addicted themselves. And I explained to you that addiction is:
– inability to stop something.
– inability to stop using something.
– strong liking for something
– inability to give up a habit.

It is this kind of addiction that God wants for His children—to be addicted to Jesus. And last week, I began to mention what you should be addicted to. We covered the first. You have to be addicted to:
1. The presence of God. The greatest possession you can have on earth is His presence. God was with Joseph; he prospered, and the boss he was working with also prospered. That is the first thing you must be addicted to, and it is important that you take it seriously. And to enjoy the presence of God, you must become a friend of the Holy Spirit. That is why it is dangerous not to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “I am going away, And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the spirit of truth.”

You need to become friends with the Holy Ghost and enjoy His presence. Once the presence of God has been taken out of a place or a life, the person becomes prey to all kinds of terrible spirits. But when the presence of God is available, no dark force can stay. It is then that you will understand the scripture that says, “And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee.” Listen: the reason they will not prevail is because of that presence around you.

2. The second thing to get addicted to, is the Word of God. Mark 4 is the parable of the sower. Who is a sower? A sower is a planter. A sower will look for good seed to plant. A sower is a consistent person. A sower is a hopeful person, a persistent person, and a labourer. All sowers and planters are like that. Jesus is telling us here the parable of the sower. Jesus started this parable with “hearken”.

The four categories of seeds are:
– the wayside people.
– the stony people.
– the thorny hearts/people.
– the good seed had some 30, some 60, and some 100.

This parable is very important. Note that when Jesus finished this parable, He seemed to be very final about it, that whosoever wants to hear the things of the kingdom, whosoever has ears to hear the reality and things that will take them to heaven, let him hear it. Jesus seemed to say, “Well, I have spoken my mind. I have told you the truth. If you have ears, listen”. This shows us that this particular parable must have been so important to Jesus that when He started it, He said, “Hearken!”

And when He finished, He said, “If you have ears to hear, hear. If your ears are not blocked, hear. It will make you prosper. Hear the things that will take you to heaven. Hear the things that will benefit your life if your ears are not blocked”. The Bible says that the ears of some people are blocked, that they may not hear the truth. He said, “You better hear it and consider it”. Here, Jesus was being very particular. He was not speaking to them as a group or as friends. He was speaking to you as an individual, not to your husband or group of friends. And you must not compare your response to God with how other people respond.

It is a lamentable tragedy for somebody to say, “This thing you are doing is not good,” and you reply, “But there are other people doing it. So what have you done about that?”. Other people are not you. Once you see somebody who is doing something wrong and you correct them, but they compare themselves to other people, their ears are blocked. Jesus said, “He that hath ears,” whether it is your husband, wife, or partner, anybody that has ears to hear the things of God, the things of eternity, let them hear now.

So I ask you a question this morning: Do you have ears? Then listen and pay attention to what Jesus is saying through this parable. Look at the parable again, verse 13 especially. It says: “And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables?” The parable of the sower is a prerequisite to knowing anything about God for your life. Then Jesus began to explain the parable in the subsequent verses:

Mark 4:14–15 (KJV): “The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the wayside, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.”

There is no way you can know anything, sustain anything, or retain anything of God; there is no way you can correct your life; there is no way you can access the power of God until you deal with the condition of your heart. The Bible says that the heart of man is desperately wicked. Until you have dealt with the condition of your heart, you have not started moving with God. Or if you just presume that coming to church, singing, doing praise and worship, and going to prayer meetings are all that are required, then you are mistaken.

The things of God do not start there. It will be a very serious mistake if you think those are the things God loves more. His very first concern is the condition of your heart. As you sit there, what are you thinking there? What were the thoughts of your heart before you came this morning? If you neglect the issue of your heart, you become a powerless, spineless Christian.

🔥 I pray that God will open your heart to understand this parable.

The scripture says, “Behold, a sower went out to sow”. The seed is the Word of God. What are the implications of this? The Christian life begins when a proper seed of the Word of God is sown in your heart. Every time God has a programme to do and wants to save a soul, His first action is to sow His word into your life. Each time God wants to change the life of somebody or the destiny of a person, it is the same method: He sows His word into that life. The Bible says that the gospel is the power of God to deliver.

There is no other way to correct your life. There is no other way to change you. There is no other way to be redirected in life to change you. There is no other way for your life to take the correct shape. There is no other way to make you a better man than for the sower to sow the seed of God into your heart. God sends messages to people to start a new beginning in their lives. As you are listening to me now, you are taking in the seed of life—the seed of divine life—the incorruptible Word of God. In the Christian life, you begin to grow when the incorruptible seed of the Word of God is sown in your life.

There is nothing wrong with the word. There is wrong with the seed of the sower. It is with the heart that it is accepted. The Word of God is perfect. It can never fail. As you are listening to me now, that Bible you are putting beneath your pillow and that you carry about is the same Word that has changed lives. It is that same Word in that book that has brought revival and has brought men to change their destinies for good. It is that same Word in that book that is making men live holy, righteous lives. There is nothing wrong with the seed of the Word of God.

So if the Word of God is perfect, it will ever remain relevant. It is the incorruptible seed of God. Then the basic thing about Christianity is the condition of your heart. On what ground in your heart does the seed of the Word of God fall? Are you concerned about this? Some of you have been listening to the Word of God for many years. Some even claim that they were born in mission houses. Some claim that they started MFM together. Some say they have been to ten churches. Thank you. Thank God for your experience.

But how much of the kingdom life of Jesus is springing out of your life? What kind of heart do you possess? Now, let us look at what Jesus called “the wayside heart”. When they put the seed by the wayside, all kinds of things happen to that kind of seed. What is a wayside heart? If you are here this morning, I want to be brutally honest with you. If any time you hear the Word of God, it does not make an impact in your heart, you are a wayside heart. Each time you listen to the Word of God, there is no result; you are a wayside heart.

Sometimes you will tremble physically, sometimes you cry, sometimes you say “I am going to do something about it”, but very soon it jumps out of the heart. You have gone through what is known as “emotional gyration”. It is a wayside heart. The person with a wayside heart receives the word of God on a flat surface anytime it comes to them, as if nothing happens to it. Listen: when you consider a house that is built or that you build by a roadside or wayside, the first thing that you notice is that it is always full of dust because every vehicle that passes by blows dust on it and it settles on it.

If you live in that house and you want it to be clean, you have to clean it several times because the house is on the wayside. Are you here, and your heart is always on the periphery of sin? When a new sin is introduced, you are the first person that the sin will attack. All the dirtiness of the world is settling in your heart. They bring pornography, and you want to watch it. They bring naked people; you want to watch it. They pierce their noses; you want to pierce yours. They put chains on their legs; you want to put yours on. They put rings on their toes; you want to put yours on.

Every single thing that is going on is just settling in your life, and you fall at every temptation. Every girl or woman that passes by catches your attention. You cannot just look and turn away; you have to stare, and your heart is running after them, even though you are married. You know the answer? Your heart is on the roadside. That is why all kinds of dust are settling on it. Some will say “I am born again; I have been a Christian for years; I even did water baptism”. The honest truth is this: look at your heart. Can you not see the particles of sin in your life? Look at the terrible thoughts of sin that are going on in your heart day by day.

Look at all the evil imagination and satanic daydreaming that you do. Such people sometimes cannot really kneel down to pray correct prayers because particles of sin have settled in their hearts. So, I want to ask you today: What is the condition of your heart? Again, when you look at a house built by the wayside, it is always full of noise—the noises of all the vehicles passing by. You cannot stay in that wayside house without having distractions. It is a house where you stay, and you cannot concentrate because of the external noise. Are you so close to the world that you cannot concentrate on Jesus?

Are you so close to the kingdom of darkness that your closest friend is a child of the devil? Does your heart get distracted all the time? Are you able to focus on God? Is it that spiritual things do not last in your life because of distraction? You get confused by little things? You are a house by the wayside. Another characteristic of a house by the roadside is that, because of its proximity to the roadside, it is often the victim of accidents. Vehicles run into them. Every little mistake comes down on the “roadside” heart.

I still want to ask you some questions: my friends, brothers and sisters, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, are you always falling at just any little temptation? Are you always falling into every unconscious accidents? Spiritual accidents, errors, and mistakes that take you into all kinds of errors? This is what happens to the wayside heart. The roadside heart is also a marginal heart—a heart at the boundary. He stays at the periphery of sin and the periphery of the world.

I want to ask you: why is it that you cannot go deep with Jesus? Why are you being on the surface? Why are you a “boundary” Christian? Why is it that the only thing that interests you is aggressive praying and not a holy life? Why are you coming to a place like this, and you have one leg inside and one leg outside? Why do you like to stay by the roadside? Why are you so interested in looking at everyone that is passing by? Woman, why are you accessible to men who are unstable? Why are you accessible to the things of the world? My friend, where is your heart?

The final thing about the roadside house is that it is always available for unwanted visitors. Some who could not get to their destinations while travelling, dumped their luggage in that house. So, the owner of that house will keep a lot of loads because he is the closest person they see around there. Does the devil find it easy to dump useless loads into your life? It is because your heart is a wayside heart. Does the devil dump unnecessary relationships into your life? It is because your heart is a wayside heart. This is a very serious matter.

Years ago, in 1995, a lady in this church brought a man to my office and said, “G.O., this is the man I wish to marry.” But as the man was standing in front of me, I could hear loud disco music in my ears. So I asked the man to step out. I said “Young lady, who is this man?”. She said they worked in the same office. I asked, “Have you prayed?” She said, “Yes, daddy. We prayed.” I said, “Is this who God asked you to marry?” She said, “Yes”. I told her to go and pray again.

Now, anytime a prophet or a man of God looks at you after you tell him certain things and he says “Go and pray again”, what he is indirectly telling you is that there is no road where you are going; it is wrong. But she said, “We have prayed. We went to so so and so mountain”. That was a wayside heart. So they went ahead. On the engagement and introduction day, the ceremony was going on when, all of a sudden, two ladies showed up with one-week-old babies each.

They said that the man getting married is the father. He had impregnated two ladies at the same time; two of them gave birth at the same time, and two of them brought them to the engagement to say he could not marry anybody else. Then the girl from MFM began to cry. She said “G.O. said so o”. She had a wayside heart. Some will listen to the Word of God but then go ahead and do what their hearts are telling them to do.

But the beautiful thing is this: the Bible tells us in Ezekiel 36:26 (KJV) that: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” You do not have to die with a roadside heart. You do not have to die with particles of sin in your heart. You do not have to die and miss heaven. That your heart must be changed.

You need divine heart surgery from Jesus Christ. What are you going to do with what you are hearing here this morning? Will you again allow Satan to take away your convictions before you start to repent? Why the procrastination? Why will you remain with a roadside heart and a divided heart while eternity is just a few seconds away? Why not talk to the Lord and say, “Lord Jesus, this is my condition. Lord Jesus, come! And create in me a new heart”?

PRAYER POINTS.
[Before Message]
1. Powers assigned to use my life for evil promotion, die in the name of Jesus.
2. Anyone spreading my name from shrine to shrine, O God, arise, multiply their troubles, in the name of Jesus.
3. Arrows from heaven, arise! Locate the enemies expecting my obituary, in the name of Jesus.
4. Powers assigned to rubbish my destiny: you are liars; die, in the name of Jesus.

[After Message]
1. My Father, create a new heart within me! in the name of Jesus.
2. I bind and cast out every spirit of death and hell, in the name of Jesus.
3. My Father, have mercy on me, in the name of Jesus.

God bless you🙏