Jude 1:12: “These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are without water, carried about of winds: trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.”
Psalm 49:16-17 says, “Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him.” Ecclesiastes 5:15 says, “As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.” I Timothy 6:6-7 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
Many years ago, there was a man to whom people referred to as anti-christ. His name was Adolph Hitler. I read a story about him, which was very strange. They caught a German spy working for the enemy and brought him to him. Adolph Hitler looked at the man and said that the kind of punishment he deserved was to die twice. So, he ordered his soldiers to tie him to the stake and warned that those who were going to shoot him should ensure that he did not die immediately. So, they shot him in the leg and avoided his head and heart. When the man was about to give up, he brought some doctors to treat him. So, they took the man to the hospital, extracted the bullets, looked after him and fed him until he was very strong and healthy again. Then Hitler ordered that he should be tied to the stake again. He said that the man had to die twice I felt so grieved within me that was inhumane.
Sometimes ago, a sister came to MFM church when she discovered that her life was not moving forward in her former church. Though she was the praise worship leader there, her life was stagnant. At MFM church, she was counseled to go for deliverance and she agreed with the man of God. She started coming to the services. She went for deliverance and in two weeks, she was promoted. She got a car and a house and several marriage proposals. After she got these breakthroughs, she stopped coming and went back to the dead church. One day, the white man, the owner of the business who promoted her and gave her a car, and a house came and said, “Hello! What are you doing here?” She said, “I am the Assistant General Manager.” He said, “Of where? Who promoted somebody like you to that place? She said, “It was you sir.” He said, “No it must be a mistake. It is not possible,” and that same day the man not only demoted her, also took the car away from her. By the next day she was sacked. She now ran back to her MFM church. She attended only one service before she was shot dead by armed robbers, who were exchanging bullets somewhere with some policemen. At this juncture I would like you to take the following prayer point: “Every power that will take me away from my place of destiny, die, in the name of Jesus."
DEATH
These are not the days to backslide because before you can slide back to Jesus, the enemy may strike and you will be dead, thereby giving you no opportunity to retrace your step. Death is inevitable, inescapable and unavoidable. In fact, the surest thing on earth is that everybody living on earth shall die. There is nothing as inevitable as death. It is the unavoidable hated enemy of man. Men hate death with perfect hatred; many even try to ignore it as if it will not come. Many try to defy it, many attempt to just forget it while some decide to just postpone it. Many believe that it is for some people and not for them. Death is that silent ever present enemy. It is the final mystery. It is the ultimate deadline. That is why the Bible says, “Seekest thou anything great for thyself, seek them not seek.” Life is the corridor while death is the door. Death reminds us of our brief stay here on earth. It is an inevitable appointment. Jesus prayed for Lazarus to come back. So, Lazarus was able to postpone death but he had to still die the second time. Death is the only last and true democracy because all men will at last be equal no matter their rank or position. There is no governor, minister or president in the republic of the grave. Death reminds us of our mortality. It shows us that we are just human beings who become carcasses as soon as our breath is withdrawn.
Death has been the source of many studies and many scientific experiments yet men will not understand it. People are afraid of death. By the time a research was carried out on what people fear most. It was discovered that 90 per cent were afraid of death. Death has done something that no other thing can do. Men have studied it, hated it, decried it, and tried to see whether they can stop it but nobody has succeeded. Glorious kings and wonderful authority were buried by death. Champions, warriors, sportsmen, dictators, etc. have died. Death caught them down. Politicians who employed musicians to sing that they would not die eventually died. Death got rid of them. Death got rid of the popular artists, great criminals, boxers, wrestlers, who believed they were unbeatable. Death got rid of great leaders who have written great books, rich people who thought that their money could buy them everything and famous and unbeatable athletes. All of them without any exception succumbed to this great enemy.
The wealthy cannot bribe death. The strong cannot fight it. The intelligent one cannot outsmart him. The legal giant in court cannot argue against death and succeed, and the famous ones cannot impress death. The businessman cannot cheat death because it will accept no deal from anybody. It is the mighty leveler; it levels everybody that is why no one really wants to die. Death will take no price and it respects nobody including you. Mr. Death has dealt with giants, tyrants, dictators, professionals, great men, philosophers, etc. So, who really do you think you are?
You may think that you are very young and you still have your life ahead of you. In five minutes, death could knock you off. It is an inevitable appointment that everyone must keep. It really does not matter what they sing at your burial. Most of those songs are fake anyway because you never could tell where the fellow who has died has gone. Death is man’s greatest fear.
WHY DO PEOPLE FEAR DEATH?
1. Fear of the unknown: People fear death because of the unknown. What do we mean by fear of the unknown? It means that you know that you are not satisfying your God and so you never could tell what may happen to you immediately you close your eyes in death. Those who say they are very young and still want to enjoy themselves should pay a visit to the mortuary and see that young people are dying also. If you don’t know where you are going, you will be afraid of death. If you are not in good standing with God you will be afraid of death. If you have never seen a vision of heaven before, you will be afraid. If there is still something that is hiding in the laboratory of your heart keeping you away from the fire of God, you will be afraid.
2. Ignorance: The second reason people fear death is the neglect or ignorance of their destiny. One of the world greatest tragedies is that many people die for nothing, they just kill themselves. In the kingdom of heaven, when I get there, nobody will ask me why I am not Elijah or Jeremiah. What they will ask me is: “Why were you not Daniel Olukoya" because a lot of people die without living and many people become experts at what God did not ask them to do. The Scripture in the book of Jude is saying that there are people who are twice dead. Somebody was dead in sin before he came to Jesus, and after he surrenders his life, he becomes alive. That song writer says, “When I got to the cross there I found life, there my burden of sin was rolled away.” So, they came to the cross, found the light of the gospel, surrendered their lives to Jesus and they were raised from their trespasses. They were dead in sin but now have received life through Jesus, but later go back to sin and die again the second time. Having known the truth they die again. In spite of the fact that they came out of one deadness, they went into another deadness. Any believer that goes to hell fire would have died twice. He was dead before Jesus brought him to life, he now died spiritually again, twice dead.
If you die without fulfilling your divine destiny then you are twice dead. A lot of people died without ever living. Some are saying, “I posses my possession” but they have never even seen that possession let alone possessing it. What some people are calling possession are crumbs from the table of the enemy that they are able to pick up. Many are living as an egg, they refuse to be hatched so they go bad. Once you refuse the Holy Spirit to incubate your life and to hatch you, you decay and die. The people I feel sorry for most are those that die before they are even fully born. But you don’t have to die in the pit from which you were born. All of us were born to complete our assignment. The Bible says that there is a time and season for everything. Everything that God has created has a purpose for it and there is a time and season attached to it. The Lord is saying that many of His people are behind their schedule physically, spiritually and financially. That is, somebody who’s supposed to be on step 10 is still on No 2. There is a time and season attached to everything that the Lord has made and that includes you. So you were not born to come here, and hang around on earth. God did not establish MFM for the purpose of giving some people job to do. He put it down so that people will fulfill their divine destiny and make heaven. God would not have allowed you to be conceived at all if there was no divine assignment for you. God timed your birth, you were born for a purpose. You must discover what you were born to do and do it as soon as possible. If you die without fulfilling your purpose then you die twice. You deny the present generation of your contribution, you deny the coming generation too of your input, then you die unfulfilled. What the Bible is saying is that you were born to do something and there is a time schedule attached to it. Your time starts from the womb to the grave. The minute you are born, your time begins and if you do not discover what you were born to do then there is a problem because time does not wait for anyone.
Time is an unfriendly person. Time does not wait till you find God’s will or until you find what you were born to do. Life is a labour. If a man who does not know his purpose in God, marries a woman who does not know her purpose in God , what you have is zero plus zero which will amount to zero. Until you find out what you are born to do, life would be a waste of time. Perhaps as you are reading this magazine, you hate the kind of job you are doing now, something within you is saying, “This is not what you are supposed to do.” Many people have not discovered their purpose in life. Thank God many people are playing America Visa lottery now and they are winning. If that is what God wants you to do, fine so be it, but if you are not careful it could be a diversion. The enemy has given people lottery visa when their breakthrough here was about to come. They now ran abroad and began to suffer. You will waste your time and life if you don’t know why you were born. Once you are getting to the age of thirty and you don’t know why you were born there is a problem. That is why at the age of 30, many people get very nervous. At 40 you are half-way down the road and if you don’t know what God wants you to do at that age, it will result in tragedy. You should know that you need a lot of spiritual overhauling and deliverance. If at 50 you are still roaming about then you are finished unless you cry to the Lord because death is not a full stop but a comma because you will still go and face somebody who will say, “Why have you not fulfilled your destiny? Time is not waiting for you at all and time is not very friendly. When somebody is approaching the age of thirty, he will look more carefully. When the person is getting to 45, he will look and may still beg another person to look. At 60, he will now say, “Please hold my hand.” It is a tragedy to spend three-quarter of your life without doing anything with it.
There are confused small girls and boys, confused young men and young ladies, confused old men and old women. Jesus told the women of Jerusalem who were crying after Him: “Don’t weep for me, weep for yourself and your children because I have fulfilled my own destiny but you are still here.” Growing old or living long is nothing to God but finishing the assignment He asked you to come and do here is the most important thing. Ask yourself this very important question today; "at my age what have I done with my life so far?" If at the age of 60, you are still committing fornication you are finished completely. The fact that the master will say to you, “Well done,” means that He expects you to do something. It is when you have worked that He will say “well-done.” But when you have not done what God wants you to do and you don’t know why you were born and you waste your time and your life, when you arrive before Him, He will say, “I know you not.” You may claim to be anything but as far as God is concerned, you are nothing. If you know what you were born to do, your divine destiny, you won’t have time for drinking and smoking. You won’t have time for fornicating, gossiping, telling lies, etc.
Anybody with a divine destiny cannot be a prostitute. Sinners don’t know why they are here that is why they are doing what they are doing. Death brings people to reality of what they have not done. Many people know within them that something is telling them that, “Son, daughter, you have not done what you are supposed to do, so they are all afraid . Even those who claim to be bold and will say, "Let death come anytime. I will go with the Lord," it is a lie, within, they are not ready. Although there is a set time for everyone to live and to die but sometimes Mr. Death will jump before the time but when he tries to jump the gun you may say, “Sorry you can’t kill me I have not finished what I am here to do.” But if it comes to somebody and wants to grab the person and the person says, “Leave me alone.” It will say, “What are you doing here now after all you are supposed to be working in Malawi now. That is where God assigned you to but you are here selling puff-puff and you say I should not kill you, you are useless” and the person goes. The sickness that will kill the person will refuse to go. Because the useless dead man who is not doing anything for God here is not supposed to be here again, so it kills him. Do you have something to say to death if death decides to jump the gun?
Beloveth, you were born to give something to this planet earth, something that only you can give. But if you go without giving it, you are in trouble. I read a story long time ago. There was a serious battle and many soldiers were wounded and were hurting and dying at the war front. The Military Surgeon was brought to the warfront. As he was going about, he heard a voice saying, ‘here.’ It was a wounded eighteen year old soldier who was dying. Immediately the surgeon rushed there and said, “Son, I am here I will do everything I can to help you.” The soldier opened his eyes briefly and said, “Sir, I was not calling you.” Then the surgeon said, “Why are you staying “here?” the soldier said, “Sir, about 10 minutes ago, they began to call a roll in heaven I heard my name about 3 minutes ago and I was just telling those angels that I am here. So, I am not calling you, you can go, sir.” And this soldier closed his eyes there and went to be with the Lord. He had fulfilled his assignment.
You are twice dead if you don’t know why you were born. You are twice dead if you don’t know the reason for your living. You are twice dead if you don’t have a sense of significance. You are twice dead if you do not know God’s plan for your life. You are twice dead if you don’t know what have been written in heaven’s record concerning you. You are twice dead if God weighs you and finds you wanting. You are twice dead, when the verdict of Almighty God on your life is that you live in rebellion. Rebellion is as iniquity as witchcraft. You are twice dead, when you sit down and survey your life and it has no meaning. You are twice dead when you are even contemplating taking your own life. You are twice dead when your life does not count anymore. Sometimes, some people are happy at the death of others because of what they will inherit from them.
You are twice dead when your life is making a negative impact on other people’s lives. You are twice dead when God’s highest purpose for your life is frustrated. The highest purpose of God for your life is for you to conform to the character of Christ. Once you have fallen in that area, you are twice dead. You are twice dead when your life does not bring glory to God but to the devil. You are twice dead, when the major thing you spend your life chasing after is worldly things. You are twice dead when you are sexually loose.You are twice dead, when you are permanently engaged in negative thinking. You are twice dead when you fail to have your Joseph dream. Joseph knew his destiny, he had his dream. When you don’t know your Joseph dream, you are twice dead. You are twice dead when your life is aimless and goalless. You are twice dead when your talent and ability die before you die. You are twice dead, when you don’t know the why of your life.
You must cry out to the Lord today. The face of the Lord this day is not very easy to behold because a lot of prophets have become parrots and those who are supposed to be God’s messengers have become the messengers of the devil. Those that God has called are suddenly failing in their environment.
Beloved, this message is not coming to you by chance but by divine appointment. It is for a divine purpose and that is why we are confident in God that as you obey, He will bless you by Himself. I want you to know that if you will cry out to the Lord today, the Lord will deliver you from that power that swallows destiny. He will make you to see the uselessness and the vanity of this life until you begin to fulfill your divine destiny. The fact that what you are doing is a good idea does not mean that it is God’s idea. You may be doing something that is good and you are happy doing it and it is the opposite of what the Almighty wants you to do.
Confess every sin of destiny diversion to the Lord because the Lord will hold you personally responsible for missing your way. Perhaps you have spent your life to study the wrong course, you have learned the wrong trade, and you have gone into the wrong business, you married the wrong husband or the wrong wife, today is the day you should cry to the heaven and be delivered from that stagnancy.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Every dark power writing Ichabod on my destiny, die, in the name of Jesus.
2. Thou power of God, withdraw my step from the wrong way, in the name of Jesus.
3. O heavens, come down into my dream life, in the name of Jesus.
4. I refused to be wasted, in the name of Jesus.
5. You my life, move forward by fire, in Jesus’ name.
