The Madness Of Faith

This message entitled, “Madness of faith” would serve to strengthen the faith of those who have been overtaken by the spirit of doubt.

If as a Christian, nobody has ever accused you of being a fanatic, it means that you are not yet serious with your Christian life. Anyone who is serious with his Christian life operates sometimes in a way that is not logical. If unbelievers call you a fanatic, you should rejoice for it means you are doing well. If the people of the world speak well of you, there is a problem. Jesus says, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).

A long time ago, I was the chairman of a group of people that organized a get-together in my place of work. As the chairman, I was supposed to approve the money for the purchase of food and drinks. But when I noticed that alcohol took a lion’s share of the budget for the programme, I cancelled the whole list they brought to me. And as usual, they called me a fanatic. If you have not got to the level where you are called a fanatic, you have not started your Christian journey. Some sisters keep quiet when they are touched by the opposite sex for fear of being called fanatics. We also have those who would discourage men from coming very close to them by their attitude, call them fanatics, they do not care. To the people of the world, the reaction of the latter is fanatical. Christians who cannot compromise are described as mad. Sometime ago, God told a friend of mine, a fine prophet, to go to the forest and preach about the love of Christ in the early hours of the morning. Initially he was skeptical about the command, but had to obey because he understood very well the consequences of disobeying the voice of God. When he got to his fellowship in the evening, a brother gave a testimony of how he went to the bush with a rope to commit suicide early in the morning that day, and as he was about to hang himself, he heard a voice saying, “God is love, God is love.” He paused, wanting to hear more of the message, and after listening to the message, he decided not to commit suicide. If the brother had refused to go, so that he would not be a fanatic, that brother’s blood would be required from him.

The life of faith goes beyond human logic and common sense. Abraham, the father of faith, would be described as a mad man if one looks at his faithfulness to God with human logic. The problem with most people is that they rely much on their brains and education, contrary to the case of men of God of old who were not as educated, yet they moved mountains for God because they believed His word in totality. When you come to God, you must forget whatever knowledge you have. Brother Smith Wigglesworth accompanied someone to visit a patient in a hospital. The patient was dying of cancer of the liver and had a protruded stomach. When Bro. Wigglesworth got to the sick man, he gave him a heavy punch on his stomach and he fell down from his bed. The doctor raised an alarm. But to his amazement and that of other hospital staff, the man who had been under life support jumped up and started to shout for joy saying, “Doctor, I am healed, I am healed.” Before they knew it, Bro. Wigglesworth was on the third bed dragging another patient. Eventually, he emptied the hospital beds of patients that day. If he were an educated person, he would have thought about what science said about the condition of those patients and would not have been able to move in faith the way he did. So, we should do away with many things if we want to start moving in the ways of God.

The Bible talks about Apostle Paul who preached and ministered in the streets. There was an occasion when he accosted some men preaching in the street, and asked if they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed. And they answered, “We have never heard of anything called the Holy Spirit.” They told him that they only received the baptism of John. Paul laid his hands on them and prayed for them and they began to prophesy and speak in tongues right there in the streets. A modern man would find that very difficult. He would ask the preacher to look for a hidden corner to pray.

A friend of mine who went to India to work told me a story of how somebody was bitten by a snake and they brought the person to him because it would take six hours by road to travel to the nearest hospital. But as he was thinking of what to do, a man emerged from where he was cutting grass and commanded the snake poison to come out in the name of Jesus. Immediately, the poison inside the body of the victim started to come out. This miracle changed the life of my friend. If we take a close look at the life of father Abraham, we would agree that faith goes beyond logic. Abraham is regarded as the father of faith in spite of his limitations. He had no Bible or any reference material to read like we have now. The great grandfathers of the writers of the Bibles we have now had not been born during his time, but he held on to the promises of God. Galatians 3:6-9 says of him, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”