I will conclude today the subject massage I delivered at the Glory House, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Dallas, US, on January 26, 2020. Please, read on: Unlike Demas, whose spiritual weakness was revealed when the bridegroom tarried in his life, it was a different thing with Uncle John Mark. In Pega in Pamphilia, he left Paul and Barnabas when they needed him most. In Acts 15:36-40, Barnabas wanted him to rejoin them in the missionary work, but Paul refused. It led to the separation of these two giants of the Lord. Barnabas had to go with him while Paul went with Silas.    

Writing to the Church in Colossi, Paul sent them greetings from John Mark. It meant that Barnabas had discipled him and he had also joined Paul’s missionary team – Col.4:10. In his letter to Timothy, Paul told him to send John Mark to him because he was very useful to him in the ministry – 2Tim 4:11. Time had proved that a backslider can still come back to faith. A convert, who dies immediately after his salvation, will make Heaven but when the saints are gathered at the Rapture, sharing our victory stories, he may have none to tell.

In 1998, during the Easter, Nnanna, my Uncle, reported his son to me for stopping  attending Church services. “Why should he be attending Church services? Is Church important?” I asked him. He was taken aback for my response. “Do you attend, even the one on your street? I know that you have waist pain but when somebody dies or there is a village meeting, the waist pain will go and you will attend, but on Sunday mornings, it will come back as it is your reason for not attending Church services,” I told him. He laughed and promised me that he would be attending.

Three months later, I visited home and enquired from his wife whether he had started attending Church services. She told me that he had not, but she gave me a firm promise that when she returned to Enugu during the weekend, she would ensure that he would attend on Sunday. That Sunday, he was in the Church and after hearing the Word of God, he was convicted and gave his life to the Lord Jesus. At home, he challenged his wife and children that they were not born-again based on his spiritual expectation from them. The next day, without suffering from any sickness, he passed on. When his wife informed the Church, the Pastor’s wife told her that in her dream, she saw the angels of God carrying him to Heaven and that she did not know that it was his death.

In Heaven, sure, he is there but he never decreed a thing and it came to pass as Job 22:28 enjoined the believers. He did not resist the devil for it to flee from him as James said that believers will do. I remember how I set the questions, marked the answer scripts, interviewed and recommended the employment of someone as an Accountant. With time, he developed wings, started looking for my job, stopped attending our Christian Fellowship meeting and would smoke before me. When he travelled outside Lagos during the weekend, early on Monday mornings, he would call me. “Good morning. I thank God you are back. How was your journey?” I would enquire. He would keep quiet for a while before responding. Later,  I added one and two together, and suspected that Baba must have told him that by the time he arrived Lagos, my obituary would be on the notice board!

The ‘Bridegroom tarried’, and that was why Moses and the people of God arrived Canaan in forty years instead of forty days. When they reached the desert of Zin, there was no water – Num 20:1-12. God told Moses to take his rod, and let him and Aaron gather His people, and that he should then speak to the rock in their presence. He promised that water would come out from it for their use. Moses did all that but called the people, God’s people, ‘rebels’. Imagine!

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Some believers still use foul languages. Some call their children ‘Idiot’. Death and life are in the power of the tongue – Prov. 18:21. I heard that a child was asked his mom’s name in school and he said, ‘Idiot’. The teacher told him that her mom could not be called ‘Idiot’.  “That is what my Daddy calls her,” he defended. One of my drivers was fond of quarreling with other drivers on the road. “He called me ‘idiot, stupid ass’, that is why I am rebuking him,” he would defend always. “Are you an ‘idiot’? Are you ‘stupid ass’? I would ask them, “if you are not, how do you know that he is referring to you?” It is wrong to use insulting words on others. If you call me Samuel Okeke, I will not answer. I will continue to go my way, because that is not my name. By the grace of God, for the forty eight years I was born-again, I have never used a foul language on anybody: housemaids, servants, drivers, or staff members.  Christians should not.

Anger made Moses to strike the rock instead of speaking to it as directed by God, so that He would be glorified by His people – v.11. Anger has caused some people to kill when they did not intend to do so. Anger! It pains me to hear that a child of God will act or react because of anger. It is wrong to take a decision in anger. God told him that he and Aaron would not enter the Promised Land because of this. Later on, in verse 24, God told them that Aaron would die that day. And he did. When the people of God were close to Canaan, God told Moses that he would die on that mountain because of the sin of disobedience he and Aaron had committed, but that he would see the Promised Land, but he would not enter there. It is unfortunate that in spite of God’s repeated reasons why they would die, they never pleaded for mercy. In whatever thing we do, we must remember the message sent to Pastor Archichippus, for him to take heed to the ministry God had given him so that he would fulfill it – Col. 4:17.

God’s attitude to sin is very serious. When His people reached the Promised Land, He showed it to Moses and told him that he would not enter there – Deut. 34:4. And he did not because of his anger and disobedience. Some people claim that anger runs in their family. This is the price to pay for it.  Moses, no doubt, started well but failed midstream.

God rules by His Law. In Rev. 21:27, He declares, “There shall in no wise enter into it [Heaven] anything that defiles or works abomination or tells lies. ‘There shall in no wise’ means that nobody is exempted and no reason is acceptable to Him. “The soul that sins must die,” – Ezekiel 18:4. No court of Law can reverse it. Repentance is the only way out.

For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi:  0802 3002-471; [email protected]