Before we go into this message, I would like you to lay your hand on your chest and pray like this: “My heart, cooperate with the Holy Ghost, in Jesus’ name. This message is for people who are tired of the valley and desire to live a mountain top life. People come to the house of God with different objectives just like all kinds of people watched our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for different reasons. His mother was there crying, there were some sympathetic observers. Some were there to ridicule Him, saying, ”Come down from the cross if thou be the son of God.” There were also those who were fulfilling their duty as soldiers: They killed Him because they were instructed to do so. His disciples were there too filled with fear and distress.
There are only two grounds; you are either on the mountain top or the valley. There is no middle ground. All kinds of evil things happen in the valley. For example, that is where witches hunt people down but it is not so on the mountain. They cannot get to the mountain because on the mountain you find the power of Him who is taller than the tallest, mightier than the mightiest and who is the most excellent.
One of the terrible things that can happen to a minister of God is for him to conduct a burial ceremony for a person, he knows has gone to hell fire. He gets there with his Bible looking at a hopeless situation. It can be sad because he would be wondering what he is doing at the burial ceremony of a man who had gone to hell fire and his friends gathered there smoking cigarette, chatting or doing anything that will keep them from remembering that they had come to bury their friend and afterwards they went back home for refreshment to celebrate that a person had entered into eternal prison from where he cannot come out again.
Sometime ago, a man of God on his sick bed refused to see anyone. Then one man who called himself an atheist and used to preach against Christians in the town came and the man of God said they should let him in. The man was surprised. When he was about to leave, he said to the man of God, “I beg sir, why is it that you turned other people back except me?” The man said, “It is because they are Christians. I know we shall meet again but I want to say a final bye to you.” When that atheist dies, his burial will be a profitless one. The Bible says that precious is the death of the saints in the eyes of the Lord. His angels will be there waiting to take them away. We have profitable burial and profitless burial. Romans 6: 14 says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you. For ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
We must understand that the devil has his own trinity which comprises sin, flesh and the devil himself. There is a serious cooperation between them. Now the Bible says that sin shall not have dominion over us. It means that we do not have to commit sin. Sin is not a necessity as far as the Bible is concerned. It is important for us to understand this very well because it is when sin is in the flesh that demons will eat it. It is when there is sin in the blood that demons will drink it up. The Bible says, “Awake to righteousness and sin not, little children sin not.” It also says, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.” I John 3:8 -9 says, “He that committeth sin is of the devil... Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” There is no middle camp. A child of God lives according to the standard of the Bible. Romans 8:10 - 14 says, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Colossians 3:5-7 says, “Mortify your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.”
What does the word ‘mortify’ mean? It means to make dead. What are you to mortify? Things of the earth. Your members of the earth. Kill them, let them have no more dominion over your life. When you do that, you break the trinity of the devil in your life and it will not be able to work against you. Profitable burial is when you put your body to death or mortify it. The Bible says the flesh profits nothing. It is the Spirit that quickens. You may do all kinds of things to your body. You could dress it up to any level, do manicure and pedicure or change the colour of your skin, but all that cannot change the stand of God about the flesh. He says, “Dust thou art and unto the dust thou shall return.” Meaning that the body which is the flesh is not interested in going to heaven. Since it is not going there, it co-operates with the devil. Please pray like this: I command every evil co-operation in my life to cease, in the name of Jesus.
There was a brother called John who really wanted to serve the Lord. In those days when people came to the altar, they prayed their way to salvation, when they finished with that, they prayed their way to sanctification and after that they pray also to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. One day, Brother John got to the altar and prayed himself to salvation, sanctification and baptism in the Holy Spirit. As he began to read his Bible, he found out that there were nine spiritual gifts that one could acquire. So, he decided to go on three days dry fast on each of them and he did a dry fast for 27 days because he wanted the gifts of the Spirit. He did all that but was still not satisfied. He felt that something was still wrong somewhere. Then one day he cried unto the Lord in desperation. He said, “O Lord, change me, use me mightily. I have committed my whole life into your hands. I surrender to you completely. O Lord, use me.” He cried unto the Lord and the Lord answered and said, “For me to use you, I have to kill you first.” He asked God what He meant by that and the Lord said he should continue to pray. After sometime an angel of the Lord stood before him with a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper, were written thirty two things that were wrong with the live of John. They were listed in order of priority. They included pride, occasional wandering thought, weak praying, etc. The Lord said to him, “You work on these and power will come.” He started again praying and fasting. Then one day as he was praying, he had a vision. An angel of the Lord said to him, “Follow me to the cemetery,” and he did. The angel told him to look at that tomb before him and he saw written on it, “Herein lies the remains of John.” He asked the angel, “But I am still standing here?” And the angel said, “Yes but you have mortified the flesh. You are dead now and I can use you to the fullest.”
The reason God is unable to use many of us to the fullest is because the flesh is reigning in our lives. Our spirits have become house boys, hence we say, “Oh, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. If you do not discipline yourself, your flesh will eventually send your spirit to hell fire no matter how weak it says it is. This is a time of serious self-examination. Galatians 2:18 says, “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Instead of many people coming to church to conduct a final burial ceremony for evil things in their lives they are busy reviving those that are about to die. When some need deliverance, they look serious, but immediately God begins to deliver them, they will start to do all kinds of terrible things. Why should you allow the resurrection of what God has pulled down in your life? If you go back to your old sin, your old problems will come back. If you say God has healed me of impotence and you go back to the prostitutes, the impotency will come back. Have you ever considered those things you should eliminate if you want to make heaven? Have you ever asked yourself a question like, “If I want to be on the mountain top what are the things I should get rid of in my life, or do I want to remain in the valley life? Have you asked yourself if the things you should eliminate from your life are getting stronger or weaker. Have you ever asked yourself if your own level of spirituality or fire can cause a revival in your church? Do you know who you are? Do you have recognition in hell fire? Because as a child of God on fire, you should have recognition in heaven and in hell fire. Paul had recognition in both places. Paul was taken to paradise while he was yet alive. He saw what was going on there. But when the sons of Sceva tried to drive out a demon, the demon asked them a question: “Paul, we know, Jesus we know, who are you?” It could not recognise them. Do you have recognition in hell fire?
A friend of mine went to pray for somebody who was possessed. He first of all began to confess scriptures. When he confessed the first one, the demon said, “Hold on, that Bible passage you quoted is wrong. It is not like that, but like this and it can be found in so so place not in the place you mentioned.” Then the brother said, “I command you to shut up, in the name of Jesus.” And the demon said, “I command you to shut up, in the name of Jesus.” The brother was very wise as he quickly put his Bible under his armpit and ran away. He came to me and said, “There is fire on the mountain. I spoke to a demon and the demon spoke back. It even said in the name of Jesus.” Then I frankly told him that something was wrong with him. If you see somebody who says, “I don’t know why I am always thinking of bad things.” The simple answer is because the person is bad since the Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If you are good, good things will come forth from you.
Are you running away from something? Some people are in the house of God because they are running away from something or they are after something. Are you the kind of person who comes to the house of God to seek His hand and not His face? Someone could give you something with a sad face. Have you asked the Lord why He created you? Have you asked Him your purpose in life? If you do not know your purpose in life then you are running a useless race. Did God send you here to go to school and get university degrees, marry and have children, grow old, buy a big television, and buy a big car, build houses and after that you die and go? Is that what God asked you to come and do here? He has a purpose for each life.
One of the things that makes me very sad is to be praying with a person and realises that the person is supposed to be at step 23 but the person is still sleeping on step one at that particular time. And I begin to wonder when the person will catch up. Are you making the best use of your time? Are you the kind of Christian who can chat with a friend for two hours non stop and won’t feel sleepy at that time but when it is a spiritual activity, you sleep off. If as you are reading this message, Jesus Himself comes and sits beside you, will you recognise Him? If you meet Him in the street will you recognise him? Will you recognise the Holy Spirit or the angel of God? They are all over the place. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that some people entertain angels unaware. So, they are in our midst. Ask yourself, “What is my most prevailing thought?” Is it money, comfort, marriage, revenge or bitterness? Do you use your free time to meditate on problems, listen to satanic lectures or think about heaven? I am sorry to say that many Christians do not think about heaven at all. They forget that whatsoever will not make them to qualify for heaven will also hinder them from receiving power from God. Can God trust you? Are you His ambassador in your place of work? Can he rely on you? Is your spiritual level where God wants it to be now? If you have been going to church for five years and you are not growing, I advise you to get out and look for a place where you will grow instead of allowing them to kill you and then come to sing at your burial. Some will say it is because it was their great grandfather that laid the foundation of the church, so they cannot leave. Are you a man of conflicting vision? Are you a young man who is a dream specialist when the Bible says dream is for the old and vision for the young? When Jesus sent out His disciples, demons fled, and miracles happened. But Jesus said, “Don’t rejoice because of these.” This is why we keep telling people that the ability to speak in tongues or prophesy is not the sign of spirituality. Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice over the miracles but because their names were written in the Book of life.
It is not bad to run after money but when it takes priority over your spiritual life, then you become a satanic “Christmas goat” which the devil is just feeding to get fat, only to destroy it afterwards. Are you allowing your happiness to depend on business success? Are you grateful for even the little blessings you receive? When you received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, did you experience a serious explosion in your spiritual life? Do you have a greater love for studying the Bible, witnessing to people, a new ability to praise the Lord or a greater love for others? Or are witches and wizards still pressing you down? Have you ever had dreams about Jesus? After all you claim that you want to reign with him, have you ever seen heavenly visitors? Or are you one of those who will find themselves glued down when rapture happens?
God has a purpose for your life, a plan which you are not following because you do not know since you cannot hear Him because of too much of the flesh. God can remove things from a person’s life to get his attention and immediately He gets his attention, He will return everything that has been removed. But if the person fails to give Him attention, He will remove more things and push the person around. In such situations, it is useless to blame the devil or the herbalist. If the herbalist or devil is fighting you, there is no problem because your arrows of fire are enough to defeat them. Even if a pastor places a curse on you, a higher person in the Lord can cancel it. But when God is against a person, nobody can help the person.
Since you received the baptism in the Holy Spirit do you still see yourself being threatened in the dream and you are running away. Do you have a clear direction and purpose for your life now? Is there joy in your life whether you have money or not? There is something called the joy of salvation. This joy is inside those who are genuinely saved. They are confident that no matter what happens or how pleasant or terrible, or how good or bad things are, they have a master who can never fail. Do you pray as much as you worry about your problem? Do you value God’s choice more than your own choice? Do you make up your mind and just ask God to put His stamp on it not caring about His will? Do you still believe the promises of God when all you see around you are contrary. Is there anybody you dislike? If there is, you are not going to heaven unless you begin to like the person no matter how terrible the person may be. You may hate the evil in the person but you just have to like the person. The Bible says if your enemy is hungry, give him food. If he is thirsty give him water, for by so doing, you put hot coals of fire upon his head. How much have you grown spiritually in the last one year? Have you grown in the knowledge of the Bible, wisdom and discernment? Are you deceiving yourself? How did you receive your calling? Did you go to a school where you were taught one or two things about the Bible and you now say you are a pastor? Pastors, teachers and prophets are not made in Bible colleges, it is by divine appointment. Have you improved in your understanding of other people? Have you improved on your ability to cope with pressure and problems?
If Christ should come now to take you away, will you be ready to go or will you say, “I am sorry Sir, I am not ready yet.” Ask yourself if you are rapturable in your present condition. This is not the issue of church post. Many people will find out that all the church posts they are pursuing and are killing themselves for now are just like labels on bottles when they get to heaven. God will tear off the labels because He is only interested in the contents of the bottle. If God looks inside the bottle of your life, what will He find? Does your life bring glory to God? Is your life fragmented or together? Are you lazy? Do you spend your time in a fruitful manner? Are you the one controlling your habit or your habit is controlling you? What have you done in the last one week to further God’s kingdom? Are you spiritually lazy? Are your thoughts and imagination holy? Are you honest and pure in your business deals or do you tell what we call business lies?
God will not change His standard because of one person. A lot of people are lost inside the church. What good things have you promised to do for God? Some people will vow that they will do this and that for God only to fail at the end of the day. How many people have you led to Christ since you got born again? How many people do you pray for? Do you offer selfless service? Do you place your personal opinion above God’s will for your life?
A lot of people are lost. Sometime ago, in a church where I used to be, the Lord showed us the real vision of the congregation. In that vision, some people were wearing their left leg shoes on their right legs. Some wore their clothes upside down. Some of the women were wearing trousers. Some were beating drums. It was a pitiable situation. However, the praise worship of the church was wonderful physically. We did not know that as long as God was concerned, the praise worship was not getting above the roof. Some wives of church workers and some pastors’ wives are lost because they have refused to yield themselves completely to the Holy Spirit. Do you hand over the affairs of your life to the Holy Spirit? How do you communicate with God? Did you talk to God about what you are putting on now. As a sister, was it God that said you proceed to the market and buy yourself lipsticks, false nails, and extra attachment for your hair because the one you have is too short. Or do you think those kinds of details are not supposed to be told to God.
Recently, I asked somebody if he has received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he said, “Yes by faith.” I said “No. That is not it.” When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you do not need faith to know it has come. You will know that something has happened to you. How can God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit enter into somebody and the person says he is not aware. There is nobody who comes under the fire of God and remains the same. Even people around you will notice that something has happened to you. Does your life style or attitude towards people attract people to Christ or drive them away? Some people fight with their neighbours as if they want to leave in this world alone and after sometime, they will start singing, “I am in that number, I am in that number, saved by grace.” Such people will tell you that they like minding their business after they have fought with everybody instead of praying that the Lord should deliver them from the spirit of strife. If all of us decide to mind our business nobody will preach the gospel. In fact, all preachers are experts at not minding their business. Beloved, think about it.
Have you ever asked yourself why your deliverance is taking so long? It may be because you have not succeeded in overcoming the flesh. Remember that the flesh is the food of the enemy. It may also be due to the fact that you are protecting your enemy through pride, sturbborness and stylish disobedience. Some of our sisters are stylishly disobedient. The Bible’s rule for marriage is that when a husband tells his wife to shut up, she should do so. Anything outside that is rebellion. The wife may say, “But I am not a fool, that is why I went to school,” forgetting that she did not marry her certificate. I am yet to see a woman that was seriously beaten up by her husband for not talking. In Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, we do not teach women to fight their husbands or to argue with them. We only teach them not to comply when they are told to commit sin. For example, some husbands ask their wives to go and buy them Indian hemp. Some even encourage their wives to do prostitution to bring in money.
Will you allow your enemy to laugh you to scorn? Why should you allow your enemy to grind you to powder because you want to please men? Why are you so concerned about your outside appearance when your inner part is useless before God. If everybody were blind and you are the only person who can see, will you still be painting your lips? A sinning man will stop praying and a praying man will stop sinning. Since the Holy Spirit has brought you to the Lord, why do you want to put your new wine into your old wine skin?
It is sad but true that many people who come to church are not broken. They argue with men of God. There are many people that are confirmed prophets and prophetesses of God, but are still busy drinking soft drinks with straws and pursuing a life of comfort. If you attend MFM for 3 months and there is no change in your life, it means that you are holding on to something that God wants you to drop. If I with my own hands build up what I have destroyed, the Bible says, I myself, am a transgressor. God knows those who come to church and are still living in adultery and fornication. Matthew 5:27-32 says, “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. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy member should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish. And not that thy whole body should be cast into hell fire. It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commiteth adultery.” In MFM, we do not encourage breaking people’s homes. We prefer joining homes together.
Therefore, conduct a final burial ceremony for every fleshy attachment now. All the ungodly things that have died in our lives must be buried. God is not interested in your make up, jewelry, chains, bangles and hair attachment. He is interested in your Spirit. If you decide to make yourself a deliverance candidate, that is your business. Anyone who wants to keep his or her demons can keep them. When trouble comes, those people you want to please can only tell you sorry. They will abandon you to your faith.
What are you doing with the flesh? It is the enemy in our camp. It is the strongest member in our lives that builds a camp for the enemy. The Bible says, “Mortify it.” Pray against it until it is dead, resist it until it is dead. When the flesh is dead, you will not know whether somebody is looking at you some how. You won’t even know whether people are gossiping about you. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless, I live...” So Paul died a long time ago. No wonder the devil could not defeat him. When the devil fires his arrow at some people and sees pride or anger, it enters their bodies quickly. Such people would be complaining that they do not know why their problems persist.
Have you mortified the flesh? Do you make conscious effort backed by the power of the Holy Spirit to see that every power and activity of the flesh dies in your life? Some people say, “I have already made up my mind about the person I want to marry. She must have long legs and neck.” After they have done that, they start to search. Sooner or later they will say, “I saw this sister or brother in my dream and God says he is His will for me.” God did not say so. It is the picture they have in their mind that became a dream. They manufacture things and say that God said to them. We will know very soon those who are lying against God.
However, if you do not allow God to execute your flesh then you are going to watch another execution very soon. I wonder if you have watched execution. It is bad enough to watch somebody die a natural death but it is worse to see somebody being executed. Every reader of the Bible knows that God did a lot of execution in the Bible and there are so many people who are executing themselves. Jesus too was executed. There will be a permanent execution one day. The Bible says that everyone shall give an account before the throne of God, both young and old as long as they are of age of accountability and a book shall be opened and another book shall be opened. If any man’s name was not found written in the Book of life, he will be cast into the lake of fire. It does not matter whether the person is a pastor, general overseer, superintendent, or senior apostle. God is not a respecter of any man. Will you now say that you did not hear the truth?
HOW TO CONQUER THE FLESH
1. The first thing to do is to vomit the power by which the flesh is failing you.
2. You have to pray for cleansing by the blood of Jesus.
3. You need to pray for the baptism of fire.
PRAYER POINTS
1. O Lord, change me to what you want me to be, in Jesus’ name.
2. Every darkness in me, disappear now, in the name of Jesus.
3. The power to execute the flesh, come upon me now, in the name of Jesus.
4. I crucify the flesh, in the name of Jesus.
5. I bury all the activities of the flesh, in the name of Jesus.
