The Sin of Unbelief. THEODORE ANDOSEH 2016 PRAYER AND FASTING CRUSADE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL - KOUME / BERTOUA

Transcription

1 The Sin of Unbelief. THEODORE ANDOSEH 2016 PRAYER AND FASTING CRUSADE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL - KOUME / BERTOUA

2 2 Kings 7:1-20 Elisha said, "Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria." 2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, "Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?" "You will see it with your own eyes," answered Elisha, "but you will not eat any of it!" 3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, 'We'll go into the city'-the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die." 5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, 6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!" 7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. 8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. 9 Then they said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace." 10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, "We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there not a sound of anyone only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were." 11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace. The king got up in the night and said to his officers, "I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, 'They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.'" 13 One of his officers answered, "Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened." 14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, "Go and find out what has happened." 15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

3 17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. 18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: "About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria." 19 The officer had said to the man of God, "Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?" The man of God had replied, "You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!" 20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died. NIV Unbelief is a sin unto death. This army general, he heard the promise of God and like a normal strategist, preoccupied with means and methods, his question was: How will it happen and then he mocked God by scepticism, because he could not see how it can be done, because he did not know the How, he went and say "even if God does this, can such thing happen?" and he died. He died for allowing the fact that he does not know how something can happen into defying the prophesy of God. This man died. He honestly did not know how it will happen, that was not where the sin was, but he challenged a Word of God. He used his human limitations to challenge A word of God and he died. Unbelief is a terrible sin. And if you are somebody who trust the fact that you have a good brain, you are a realist, you are honest, apply your Aristotelian empirism on natural facts but not on the word of God. Don't take on God. Very many leaders have listen to the many promises God has given to us and they have been asking: how will it happen, and it has transformed some into cynics and many have become cynical, and many have adopted the posture of "see don see". For many of them, they will see but they will not be part of it. They will lose the privilege of being part. Pray that God will open your eyes to the fact that unbelief is a sin unto death, that there are many questions that if you ask, your history ends and most of them are "the How questions" - How will it happen, how? Because most people who ask those questions have decided not to be used by God for it to happen. They are not offering themselves to God. Mary told the angel, "I am my Lord servants" she offered herself for the Word of the Lord. Like Zechariah, unbelief shall make you dumb. How will it take place? Hebrews says it is impossible to please God without faith. Our story with God starts with faith and it is by faith, form the first till the last. Pray that God will tear the veil from the eyes of the brethren to see the terrible sin of unbelief, the pseudo intellectualism that defy the Word of God. When God release his word, those who believe surrender themselves to the word for it to be accomplish and those who doubt start analysing the possibilities and so, the betray the fact that they are not the servants of God. Why is unbelief of God's Word so a terrible sin? It is because right from Genesis, whenever a word is release by the Lord, if it is word from God, God's word creates, non-only in Genesis, for ever. The Word of God creates. Rhema creates. In Genesis, the Bible shows us that everything that exist was created by the Word of God. In dealing with God, what God has said exist, because when God releases a word, it creates, you may not see it but those who know God, they may start looking for the smallest sing of what this work has created. When

4 Elijah declared that the rain will come by the Word of the Lord, he was satisfied by a small cloud like a hand of the man. The Word of God creates. In the passage we read, the Word of God created noise for Syrians to hear, it created circumstances and situations. The Word of God creates, creates men, creates situations. Create four lepers to bring the Gospel, to bring good news. You may be the king, you may be the leader, but when God is looking for those to accomplish his word, even lepers can do. If you will not do it, God will find even lepers to do it. If you look around very well, you will find that the things you did not do, God has found people far inferior to you to do them. The Word of God creates and for people who know God, they look even for the smallest cloud. You may ridicule them and wonder what looking for a cloud in the air, what it means! Just wait. There are those who have believed, There are those who have accepted the token and sings that God has send to encourage them. They may have seen it from afar but they have believed. You may have considered them as foolish but let's wait and see. The bible says: consider your leaders who preach the Word of God to you, consider the outcome of their lives and imitate their faith. Hebrews 13: 7-8 There are many in our ministry, they have many questions and doubts about our ministry, but the word of God command, look at this Zach Fomum, the outcome, the product of his life and imitate his faith. He followed God, he believed God, all the things you are complaining about, look at the life of Zach Fomum, from a natural point of view did you see him sick? From a professional point of view, those who did not follow God, did they go further than him? You who is questioning have you gone far? What has your own life produced? He led us to fast and pray for Cameroon, how many years of peace did we have? Can you dare ask: what has it produced? Look at how rich we are in food, and you, what has your life produced? From Cameroon, we have sent missionaries to 80 nations and you are asking what all these praying produces? Because the Word of God is seminal. That is the difference between the Word of God and the word of man. Even the words of man are creative, that is why cruse works, that is why proclamations, work, that is why confessions work, (I will do unto you the very things I heard you say) even the word of man creates. How much more the Word of God? Prophesies shape nations, move hearts in order to accomplish the Word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah. I wrote in my bible 'the God of nations shapes nations and men in order to accomplish prophesies, whether it was Jeremiah, Zach Fomum or anyone else, prophesies shape nations, prophesies shape history. Prophesy shapes history, shapes the decrees made by presidents. The word of God creates, we have brought our stupidity, ignorance and paganism to limit God and we are the losers. But for those who have believed, they have given God a chance to work in their lives. Peter says that 2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. NIV

5 . God has given us everything in this present life and to participate to the divine like through his very precious promises. The promises of God are actually cheques; the promises of God are cheques. God has given you all that you need for your life here on earth, and God has given you all that you need to become like Christ, to share the divine nature, through his promises, that is what the promises are. The Word of God. 4 God has made every provision for your life and transformation, through the great promises He has made through the Lord Jesus. To choose not to believe, to choose to question is a choice. The bible says familiarity destroys faith. Matt 13: Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. 55 "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honour." 58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. NIV Unbelief limits what you can get. The whole power of God was in the Lord Jesus but by the unbelief produced by their biodata, their familiarity with him, even what he could give them, he could not give. Unbelief chained ministers. Familiarity is one manifestation of unbelief. I had watch many people come into brother Zach's life and because he loved them, serves them, after some times, once they became assured of his life, they did not bother to please him there was no respect, some people already have a psychology of debasement. Everything that touches them lose value, when you marry them, they cheapen you. Whatever touches them loses value. Once anything goes on them, it loses value. There are many people who are already like that, because of the way they think about themselves. When you consider that you are excretes, any dress that touches excreta cannot be precious. When you know that you are dirty, whatever touches you share your identity and people function with that psychology. What God gave them in order to change them, even the love they would never have got, they waste it, it does not become an ennobling influence, everything God put on them get wasted, they are just like that that is their signature in life, uselessness. When you are their friend, you become low. I have many examples, people will do a lot to enter your life, but when they are inside your life, they don't care, when they know you, they don't value you, when they see the earthly vessel, they can no more see the heavenly vessel. When they see you as a man, they don't know the divine deposit anymore. So many years ago, I asked myself how I can get very intimate with brother Zach and yet maintain reverence, without developing the over familiarity that ruins. Then the Lord taught me how to do it; he told me, every year, increase the value you place in him by what you invest into him. Most marriages follow a curve of diminishing value. Before a man marries a woman, he looks for flowers, he buys gifts, he makes calls, he writes poems, he is rich in complement. Before marriage, he woes her, before marriage, he is interested in her, he wants to know what happen to her day, he wants to share her life and as the marriage grows, she become one of the household furniture to be used but not to be noticed, she become one of the family fixture. He does not boarder what is going on and the inner story of her life, no interest, he does not

6 complement again, even if she makes her heard seventy times a year, she does not have a birthday anymore. If a man does not even know the size of her wife shoes, you cannot even ask her if he has bought a shoe for her. Year after year, you diminish the value of the person, you take the person for granted and you devalue the person. Your dependence on the person grows but you cherish less and less the person, you don't miss the person, maybe you miss her services. When you pray, how can the Eternal God use such a person to reach you? In order, not to develop familiarity and content as I saw many of us developing, I consider it was a privilege to become very close to a university professor, it acquires you to acquire wisdom in life that you would never acquire. By getting near people, what they have acquired in life robes you. I did not want to lose that sense of privilege. I had wanted him to be my disciple maker, I did not want after many years to see as if I had cut up. How did I do it? The Lord taught me only one lesson: increase the value you place on him each year by your investment; prayer, fasting giving, attention and obedience, so that what God has put in him may continue to reach me, because familiarity damaged faith. It is important to preserve the value of that which gives you God. It is not his love for me that will make me believe him, it is my value of him, it is keeping the relationship spiritual. I decided to watch it because I even see many people whom he loved falling off in years. It is one of the diseases that has killed our ministry. A familiarity that has destroyed the sense of family and faith, so that what God put in a man can no longer reach you, his ministry can no longer reach you. And many people have devalue our ministry, many missionaries have devalued the missions field by not investing more into what God gave them and so all that God put in the ministry or their mission field, they will never see it, blinded by unbelief, blinded by familiarity. Familiarity damages, it makes you be very close to a person without touching what God put into that person. Nazareth unbelief. I personally believe that the greatest co-workers of CMFI will not be Cameroonians, it will be those who believed from other nations, it will be other nationalities, because of the curse of familiarity that produces unbelief. Even Jesus said: the queen of Sheba shall rise on the last day and condemn you because she believed and yet something greater that Solomon is here but you don't believe. Our ministry will proper in the hands of halogens. They will believe, they will not have more knowledge than us, but they will believe it, they will believe God's work, they will believe Zach Fomum, they will believe the books and they will obey. Most people who will be limited or excluded will be limited or excluded because of unbelief. Many people will be shut out because of unbelief, they were waiting to see and then it left them. Pray and judge the sin of unbelief on all CMFI, especially those of us Cameroonians Judge the power of unbelief that have come over those who were closed, because of over familiarity This is the second week, so starting from today, we have to pray for the work. We will continue tomorrow. Tomorrow, i want to share a bit of what I shared with the brethren in Kigali, questions, familiarity, but there are worse faces of unbelief. An anatomy of unbelief. We want to expose it so that you hate is as you hate adultery, I hope you hate adultery.