Habitation Of Spiritual Insanity

Ecclesiastes 9:3: “This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” Nowadays, we have a lot of people who are spiritually insane. Many years ago when I was working in a scientific organization, a psychiatrist was invited to give us a lecture. The old man came and talked about decent madness and many other things. But there were some things he said that I couldn’t forget. He said that there were many mad people walking around the streets with clothes on, meaning that there are many properly dressed people who are mentally sick. He said that there is madness of the brain, and madness of the heart, which is the one the Bible is talking about here. He said that our present generation has become the generation of sleeping pills, tonic, paracetamol, aspirin, codeine, chloroquine, etc. He also said that many big men are mad people who go for psychiatric treatment. He also said that 55 per cent of Nigerians suffer from one form of madness or another, and that there is an epidemic of juvenile madness. Looking back now, although the man was not born-again, we could see that he was talking facts.

When a person is used to disorder, orderliness will become his enemy that is why average Nigerians hate to queue up. In fact, one Nigerian professor said that queuing is a British disease. The worst form of madness is when the spirit of man is mad. When you say madness, you talk about stupidity, absurdity, foolishness, etc. But your definition of a particular thing is not important. What matters is how God defines it. For example, a man may define religion as a way of man seeking God and trying to please Him. But the definition of religion in the Bible is found in James 1:27, which says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” That is the Biblical definition. Adultery could be defined as somebody going about messing up with other men’s wives. But the Bible has its own definition and that is what matters.

Matthew 5:27-28: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” It means that a lot of people will go to hell fire because of adultery, even though they never touched another woman or man who is not their spouse. Such people can strip a woman or man naked in the laboratory of their heart. If you strip somebody naked in the laboratory of your heart, you’ve committed adultery. It is the divine definition that really matters. Heavenly vocabulary is different from ours. The Bible describes death as sleep because it knows that the dead will soon wake up whether to go to destruction or to go to life. Likewise, the Bible has its own definition of madness. It says that madness is in the heart of men.

This year, I have seen so many things I can call serious madness. For example, a woman, who was having problems with her husband went for prayers at a pastor’s place and the pastor said, "I will pray for you but I have to put my hand inside your pant to do the prayer." The woman did not know whether it was right or wrong because she was a young Christian so she allowed him and he was speaking in tongues. That is madness, spiritual madness. When a man gives bath to a married woman in the name of prayer, it is confusion. Somebody who knows that something is bad and does not favour him but keeps doing it, it is madness. Somebody who gets drunk is suffering from artificial madness. A man or woman who is practicing masturbation is mad. Perhaps this is how you have been living your life this year, you need to wake up and know where you are going. It is also madness for somebody to slap a believer in the chest and the believer loses his senses. That is complete spiritual madness.

One of the hard facts of Christian life is the discovery sooner or later that simply receiving Jesus Christ into your life as your Lord and Saviour does not instantly lead to holiness and deliverance in your life. It takes many pastors years to discover this. Rather they give people scriptures such as, “It is written, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new." They will say that immediately you surrender your life to Christ, that is it. You don’t need deliverance or anything again. All the generational curses are gone. But the person now discovers to his amazement, that his old problems do not go.