Where Then Are The Unbelievers?

“They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate — Titus 1:16

AS one looks around daily and sees the multitudes of people out there claiming to be born-again, children of God, Christians, Gospel ministers, pastors or bishops, as one observes their lifestyles, and the hell-guaranteeing ideas and activities they propagate and endorse, the inevitable question one is forced to ask is: where then are the sinners and unbelievers?

Indeed, if all these people, whose nearly every conduct and preoccupation constitute grave offence to God are all “Christians,” “born-again,” and “men of God,” then no one should blame anyone who flatly declares that non-Christians and unbelievers no longer exist! The clear demarcation between the two camps appears to have since collapsed.

Everything has been muddled up, and there is confusion everywhere, to the juicy delight of the devils. But in the midst of the confusion, however, those holding on to the genuine thing are not ready to let go!

Now, the devil has one major objective in this world, namely, to stop multitudes of people from having genuine experience of salvation from sin, living worthy Christian lives in this world like the Apostles did, and making heaven at last. Having forever lost his place in heaven due to pride and rebellion, he is so desperate to get so many people to suffer the eternal torments of hell with him.

No matter whatever else he does in this world, he does not lose sight of this singular objective which is very dear to his murky heart. He pursues it with unequalled dedication, resilience and meticulousness, and appears to succeed so marvelously, whenever and wherever he succeeds in making people indifferent, oblivious or doubtful of his activities and definite mission.

The devil’s savage battles with believers have raged for ages, but, seeing that he has not made much progress with frontal confrontations, he has added a more subtle, but much more insidious strategy. This time, what he has embarked upon is the mass-production of counterfeits and parodies.

These counterfeits may look every bit like the genuine one, but they are not. Only those with scanty knowledge of, or indifferent to, God’s standards as revealed in the Bible are hoodwinked and entrapped. And many, most unfortunately, are today!

The major attraction of these counterfeits is that they offer “made-easy” and “modern” Christianity to all and sundry. They do not offer solution to the problem of sin and worldliness.

They instead sanction, rationalize or even justify them; they simplify everything and offer limitless freedom, so much so, that even after a night of immorality and sundry sins, someone can still enter the Church the next morning, and “speak in tongues”, do “miracles,” and deliver wonderful “sermons”.

The other day, I stumbled on an interview with a certain lady who introduced herself as a “Gospel musician.” The interview was published in Saturday Independent, February 25, 2006. Even on a whore, the dress this lady wore would still be considered extremely indecent. But then, there she was, in that Jezebelic outfit, claiming to be a “Gospel artist”, and declaring that she used her music to “win (read damn) souls.”

Now, if one may dare ask: what do these people really understand by the Gospel and “soul-winning”? Who do they really take God for? How can someone make herself extremely offensive to God by her appearance and utterances and still boldly claim to be a “Gospel Minister”? Now, that’s the problem!

The lady also claimed in the interview that she was spirit-filled, spoke in tongues, laid hands on people, and prayed for them in her Church (which is headed by a well-known, eloquent television preacher). Then the reporter asked her whether she endorsed fornication, that is, pre-marital sex, and she said yes.

In their Church, she said, it was not that they endorsed promiscuity, but when a boy and girl were in a serious relationship which they believed would most likely lead to marriage, they could go ahead wallowing in sexual immorality. For her, that was the real meaning of courtship. When the reporter asked her what would happen if the boy dumped the girl after he had had his fun, she replied that life was full of risks!

The final question lady “Gospel Minister” took from the reporter was this:

Reporter“Once in a while you need male attention intimately, how do you handle such?”

Lady“I have intimate friends and when the need arises, we will find solution to it”

So, are we to take it that this one, too, is a “Christian” let alone “Minister of the Gospel,” and that whatever she does tomorrow should provide incentive for some people who are totally ignorant of the meaning and practice of Christianity to cast aspersions on the most holy faith?

This lady, who is a divorcee, had told the reporter that the legacy she would want to leave behind was for people to be saying after she had gone: “She was a renowned woman of God.”

Indeed, other “women of God” like her abound in the world today, damning the souls of men and women and attracting a smear to the most holy faith. One cannot but be totally appalled at the way she was dishing out those hell-guaranteeing blasphemies with revolting authoritativeness.

Make no mistakes about it: if tomorrow you hear that she is “performing miracles” at one corner of the city, multitudes will still throng her services and hail her as “a great woman of God.”

That is the world we are in today. But God’s Word in 2Timothy 2:19 is clear:  “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

Indeed, a polluted tree, as the Scripture says, cannot produce goodly fruits. The Holy Ghost cannot operate through an unholy, polluted vessel! A tree is known by its fruits. The holy God uses only holy instruments. And He is not a respecter of persons.

The point being made here is that if you are “born-again” and the experience was not able to kill the appetite for sin in your life, then, know assuredly that you may have got the fake version. You must forthwith investigate what you think you have; either you have lost what you once had, or you never had it in the first place.

Something cannot be new and old at the same time. (2Corithians 5:17). Conversion means, changing something from what it was, to something entirely new and different. It is real, and many people have experienced it.

If you do not have it, you do not have it, no matter what your posh-speaking pastor may be saying to you to assuage your mind, in order to retain you in his Church.

We have heard some people say: I am a Christian, but I am not born-again. That is a huge contradiction. Just like someone saying: I am a physician, but I did not go to medical school! You are either a Christian or not, no matter the name you bear, and the Church you attend.

In Ezekiel 36:26, God promises to give us a new heart and new spirit, after taking away our old heart. That was exactly what Jesus was telling Nicodemus, a prominent religious leader, in John Chap. 3. Jesus had told him that he must be born-again, if he must inherit the Kingdom of God.

The aim is for the person to regain the original nature in which Adam was created (in the image and likeness of God) which he lost when he sinned against God.

You see, because of this nature (not the sin he committed) which we inherited from Adam, the first man, the natural man is always full of sinful desires, which make him to indulge even in some things he dislikes. Many are trapped in very dangerous habits today because of this depraved, Adamic nature we were all born with. (In Romans 7:14-17, Paul relates his own experience in this regard).

We can’t help ourselves out of this situation, but when we sincerely repent of our sins, and invite Jesus into our lives, He will come in to destroy this sinful nature, and as we continue to live for Him in daily communion, fellowship and careful study of His Word, we are able to maintain that which we have received, and nurture it.

As this world winds up with incredible speed, the Church is fighting a big battle against the confusion the devil has unleashed in the body of Christ, to blindfold men and women, keep them entrapped in places of false religious teachings, and damn their souls eventually. Too many people are preaching too many strange things these days, and yet performing astounding miracles.

It took the open and undenied ministerial collaboration between a strange “miracle man” of doubtful salvation experience in Lagos and a popular, posh-speaking, yuppie pastor not too long ago to alert us to the extent of the enemy’s infiltration, and the seriousness he (the devil) attaches to this business of misleading the unwary.

Yet despite such a clear warning to all to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff, people are still thronging the places of gathering of those two preachers.

Sadly, most of these people lack the proper discernment to discover that there must be something terribly suspicious about this show of power without purity and about preachers and miracle workers with doubtful salvation experience. Only recently, a certain preacher was told that he was in serious error, and he fired back: if really I am in error, why am I still able to perform miracles?

A naïve question, if you ask me! Maybe, this preacher may have to go back to the Scriptures and read Jesus’ account of what would happen on the last day (see Matthew 7:22-23): “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Yes, some miracle workers will be cast out, and sent to the eternal torments of hell! That is just the truth. Miracles performed cannot influence God to overlook someone’s lack of salvation experience or backslidden state.

Revelation 21:27 says: “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth neither anything that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life”

The truth is that the devil is not bothered by whatever anyone is doing out there or the number of miracles such a person was performing daily; so long as the devil is assured that the person is living in error, he (devil) is not bothered, since he knows full well that the so-called preacher or “miracle man” will eventually join him in hell eventually if he does not repent.

The “miracles” he is performing are serving a great purpose for the devil. It is helping to blindfold people, and hinder them from seeing the ungodly pre-occupations the person may be wallowing in. Jesus had warned us that we should distinguish false preachers by the fruits (of unrighteousness) they manifest (and not the gifts they are able to flaunt). The devil can perform miracles too.

Have we forgotten the case of Pharaoh’s magicians in the Old Testament and Simon the Sorcerer in Acts Chap 8? These two were miracle workers too, but they were not children of God.

Now, all these female Rev. Pastors, Bishops or Evangelists laying hands on people and praying for them with micro-mini skirts, body-hugging clothes that emphasize their delicate parts, or low-neck blouses that ensure generous displays of their chests, so they are also worshipping the holy God? The strangest thing I have seen in this age is the futile attempt by people to worship a holy God in a most ungodly and unholy manner.

Some “pastors” of “modern churches” encourage their members to wear horribly revealing dresses to Church (weddings have turned into chest exhibitions for the brides!), and some men in these Churches have been seduced by these ungodly displays and burnt with lusts in their hearts, while some others have gone on to commit fornication, after ogling these obscenely dressed ladies.

All happening in a place they claim is the house of the holy God! Now, Jesus’ word that a man who looks at a woman to lust after her, has committed fornication with her in his heart, also has some implications for women. If a woman, by her revealing dress seduces men into immoral thoughts and acts, she too is guilty of the same sin.

It takes two to commit fornication. Moreover, Jesus’ words that whoever causes one of the people that believe in Him to offend, that it would be better that a millstone is hung on the person’s neck and be dumped into the sea, is one of the most popular Scriptural verses.  And means exactly what He said there!

Unfortunately, many of the people we call pastors and preachers out there today are merely motivational speakers who just manage to spice up their lectures with some Scripture verses. Others are mere magicians in active business.

They hardly know anything about how a man can be saved from sin and prepared for the coming of Christ, because such an experience is totally alien to them. In fact, that is not even part of their agenda.

But the consolation is that before the trumpet sounds, God, in answer to the prayers of His genuine children, will overthrow many places of false religious practices and rescue the multitudes trapped there by miracle exhibitions or teachings about Godless prosperity.

But then, must one wait for that time to run for one’s dear life? God has given enough warnings and directions in the Bible and through His true servants. Your life is in your hands.

You either take practical steps to save it, or let it be damned. It is an individual decision. You only have yourself to blame if you go to hell.

That’s just the point.