AND JESUS WILL SAY, “GO TO HELL WITH YOUR MIRACLES”

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from me, your workers of lawlessness. Matthew 7:21-24.

We live in an age of great satanic deception like I have never seen in my short life. False prophets are on every corner of this continent ready to promise you the world and, of course, take your money in the process. The secret behind their “success” is that they can do miracles, signs and wonders, the very things that some of us pastors are said to be unable to do. So they are perceived as the real “men of God” who display the power of God spiritually and even financially. But here is what Jesus is saying in these verses: It is possible for one to perform miracles but to still go to hell because one never knew Jesus and was therefore “a worker of lawlessness”.

That miracles were performed by these “workers of lawlessness” Jesus does not deny. This should remind us that there are other sources of spiritual power in this world and that God can sovereignly grant miracles according to a believer’s sincere faith in spite of a false prophet. The Bible is awash with stories of false prophets performing miracles like the sorcerers and magicians of Egypt whose rods also turned into snakes like Moses’ (Exodus 7:10-11). We in Africa have our share of such powerful sorcerers. In the northern part of Malawi from about the 50s to the 60s, there was one Nchimi (prophet) Chikanga who could detail peoples’ the conversations they had had the day before. He could tell total strangers accurate details about their personal lives. The practice is known as “kuthwasa” in the north. A “nchimi” consults ancestral spirits by whom he/she also heals people. For more on Nchimi Chikanga, you may want to read Professor Boston Soko’s book, Nchimi Chikanga: The Battle against Witchcraft in Malawi (http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/nchimi-chikanga). So when a prophet starts telling you your phone number, personal details you have not shared with anybody, or the color of your underwear (some of these wicked prophets actually do that), please don’t be fooled to think that such revelation can only come from God. Heed the words of Paul who said that “the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Timothy 2:9-10).

Sometimes God in His sovereignty may just respond to the sincere faith of an innocent believer caught up in this diabolical environment who may not know of the wickedness at the time. There are those that have gone to some of these charlatans not knowing what they truly were but just trusted God for their healing and God healed them. How do I know it was God and not satanic healing? Because they loved and served God more and did not linger in the spiritually toxic environment of the pseudo-prophets.

These “workers of lawlessness” don’t know Jesus hence they work lawlessness. To know Jesus is to have an intimate relationship with him that comes by receiving him as your master and the one that saves your life from eternal damnation (John 3:16) so that when you believe thus you become a child of God (John 1:12). And as a child of God, you are commissioned by Jesus to take his Good News of the kingdom of God to the whole world as you disciple and teach others obedience to God until Jesus returns (Matthew 28:16-20). Obviously if you know him you can’t also be working lawlessness. Peter describes the workers of lawlessness to us: “They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness… They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:14-16, 19).

No wonder we hear of prophets that go to witchdoctors to seek spiritual power as Prophet Trevor Kautsire has revealed (http://www.nyasatimes.com/prophet-kautsire-confesses-meeti…/). Nana Kwaku Bonsam, a world famous traditional priest from Ghana, claims that pastors go to him for spiritual power (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USogrjgiAtI) and once collected a god from a pastor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI_lFCutgLo). The lives of brazen sin lived by these false prophets speak of their lawlessness and the demonic agents of deception that they are. One prophet is notorious for his sexual prowess that extends to the wives of his inner circle, praise team and choir members, even to the point that some women change hands amongst the leaders in that “church”. One of the choir girls, due to her adulterous affair with the prophet, is even called “Mama Prophet”. Another girl, perhaps out of bitterness, did publish a long list of the names of another man of God’s sexual liaisons on Facebook. Closer to home, it was sad to hear one lady testify that a so-called prophet once told her that to ensure her pregnancy was carried to full term without any demonic interference, he needed to anoint her with olive oil on “every part of her body”. Seriously?!

So on Judgment Day, not all those that pray to the Lord, not all that cast out demons, not all that prophesy, not all that work miracles in Jesus’ name, shall be saved. Reason? They didn’t have a true living relationship with Jesus. They were not truly born-again. They did not seek to enter by the narrow gate. Their lives did not show fruit worthy of repentance. I think Jesus will say to them on that day when there will be no PRO to defend them, “Go to hell with your miracles!”.

BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Matthew 7:15-20.

In Matthew 7: 13 onwards, Jesus is wrapping up his kingdom manifesto that is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount in which he lays out the ethics of the kingdom he came to inaugurate and will be consummated at his second coming. In verses 15 to 20, he warns of fake prophets, infiltrators from Satan’s kingdom. What are they, what do they do, how can you recognize them, and what is their end?
False prophets come to believers “in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves”. They act like Christians but they have other intentions. Paul speaks of them as those that rise up within the church and “speak twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). They twist the truth of God’s word in such a way that they appeal to our carnal desires so that our attention is diverted from seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33) to seeking first the stuff of this world. They preach shallow unsound messages geared towards shallow unsound believers who “having itching ears … accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passion and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:4). Hence the myths of miracle money, spiritual wives/spiritual husbands, and all sorts of witchcraft sounding doctrines that seem to come out of a Nollywood juju blockbuster as opposed to the Bible. So these false prophets start off preaching what is from the Bible to lure believers but eventually the Bible is thrown out the window as their focus and authority becomes their prophetic words geared to drawing the disciples to themselves for the false prophets’ own economic profit. Peter aptly put it, “And many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (2 Peter 2:2-3a). Like ravenous wolves, their aim is to devour the gullible sheep by shifting their worship from Jesus to themselves so that they can demand from these sheep the money, sex, and power they have always craved for.

So how can you recognize them? “You shall recognize them by their fruit”, says Jesus. Fruit is character. For the believer in Jesus, this is character that the Holy Spirit forges in him/her as he/she abides in Christ. It is forged in suffering for the kingdom so that Paul can say that Christians rejoice in suffering because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces a godly hope that does not disappoint due to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Romans 5:3-5). This whole process happens when we abide in Christ by walking in loving obedience to him who is our vine and of whom we are branches (John 15:5) so that we can produce fruit/character that is consistent with the vine, Jesus. This “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). False prophets can’t produce these in their lives but rather “the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these” (Galatians 5:21). A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

The end of false prophets and those that do not bear the fruit of the Spirit is that they will be thrown into the fire of eternal destruction since they did not produce good fruit. A word of caution for the rest of us is in order here lest we think this fate is only for the false prophets. All those that do not abide in Christ and do not bear the fruit of the Spirit are also going to be cut down from the vine and thrown into the fire of destruction (John 15:6). False prophets may live large now and attract all the publicity and popularity of this world that they have invested themselves in but “their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (2 Peter 2:3b). One day God will repay false prophets and their non-fruit bearing relatives in kind.

ENTER BY THE NARROW GATE

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Matthew 7:13-14.


Right at the tail-end of his manifesto – the Sermon on the Mount spanning Matthew 5 to 7 in which he explains the ethics of the kingdom he has come to inaugurate and which will be consummated at his return – Jesus wants to set the record straight about what is fake and what is genuine when it comes to our eternal destinies. He says there are simply two gates and nothing in between and we are all called to make our choice. Bear in mind here that gates are points of access and, in this context, point to the eternal destinies of our souls.

The first gate is the popular one: it’s broad, it’s easy, and many enter into it. Here is easy-believism where God exists to bless you with health and wealth. God is like Aladdin’s genie that you simply rub the right way with your tithes and offerings (of course, these go to the “man/woman of God” or your “papa”) and, “Abracadabra!”, in comes your blessings. Sure it does sound like magic but isn’t it really? Money from nowhere landing into your account or your pocket? Anyway, needless to say, that is where most of us want to be at. We want the money to flow and to be younger and healthier with each passing day. It’s an easy gate to get into because it just doesn’t make demands on you like asking you to stop stealing/cashgating, lying, fornicating, or taking God’s name in vain. You don’t have to change. You remain your sinful racist, tribalistic, gossiping self and you are okay. And nobody will keep you accountable about your so-called faith. No wonder this gate is so popular. But, here is the problem: it ends in destruction. It’s a really nice screen-saver but behind it are horrors unimaginable that endure for eternity.

Then there is the second gate: it’s narrow, it’s hard, and you have to seek it to find it. Here is the school of hard-knocks where you follow Jesus not for the blessings he brings into your life but even when he allows you to suffer and die for his glory. This is the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedneggo that answers King Nebuchadnezzar’s threat to worship the king’s idol or burn: “O Nebuchadnezzer, we have no need to answer you on this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18 – emphasis mine). In other words, “If you don’t positively answer our prayers, Lord, it’s okay. We will gladly die for you and your kingdom”. This way is really hard. Not only that but to get to the gate, you must seek it so you can find it. Contrast that with the broad gate that is so easily accessed you don’t even have to seek it. This is where you pray with Jesus in the face of an excruciating and humiliating death, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). No wonder few find it.

So there you have it, there are two gates to eternity. One leads to eternal destruction; the other leads to eternal life. One can’t sit on the fence of either because there really is no middle way or middle gate. These are mutually exclusive paths that lead to different gates. And it doesn’t take a psycho-analysis PhD to know where exactly you stand. You know if you are on the popular, easy, happy-go-lucky, double-double way that everybody you know is on; on the other hand, you know the heartbreaks and loneliness that assail you because you are living for a kingdom and a day that has not fully dawned yet. So, my friend, stop and look again at the way you have taken. Will it take you to the narrow gate or the broad gate? May you to enter by the narrow gate.

The Day I Thanked God I am Malawian

I did the most foolish thing you should never do: forget your health passport when going to a country that explicitly states that all travelers from Africa and Latin America should show proof of their yellow fever vaccination. May be because I don’t usually travel to such countries and so I don’t have to carry my health passport with me everywhere I go, I just plain forgot to take it with me. I can still see exactly in my mind where I left it. Anyways, there I was in Bangkok on Wednesday afternoon around 3 pm and about to retrieve my baggage and then, lo and behold, I see the health passport booth teeming with people, many of who I recognized from my Ethiopian Airways flight to be pastors attending the Global Proclamation Congress for Pastoral Trainers (www.gprocongress.org). That’s when it dawned on me. I had left the health passport behind! Now, we say in Malawi that rain water does not forget its path so I found my default setting conjuring up plans on how I was going to lie that I had lost it on the way or some sad African story. But then Pastor Felix kicked in and said that’s a sin. Then I started making plans about how I was going to call my wife Towela (very much dreading the thought) to ask her to DHL it. But would it get here in time for me to speak at the exposition session Thursday morning at 9 am? I didn’t think so. So I said, “Lord, whatever you decide for me because You knew about this moment long before I got here.” Then I saw some people going to a male nurse behind the counter seemingly to get a vaccination with some Benjamins in their hands. I thought to myself, smart people these Thais: they don’t want to lose your tourist dollars because you don’t have proof of your yellow fever vaccination so they make you pay. I resigned myself to whatever would happen to me including parting with my dear Benjamins so that when I got to the counter some 30 minutes later, I just told the nurse that I had forgotten my health passport. The nurse smiled at me and said, “No problem at all. Malawi is not on our list of countries that have yellow fever.” Hallelujah! I love you Ministry of Health officials! I love you Republic of Malawi! I love you Mr. President and the state of Malawi. I love all of you Malawians!