THEY ASKED ME QUESTIONS:
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TURNED (MO)DELE (WIFE) TO!
SEE THE MISERABLE STUDENTS YOU ARE PREACHING TO!
IF I ALLOWED THEM THAT DAY, I WILL NOT BE HERE TODAY.
I AM A LIVING WITNESS THAT NOBODY CAN TRULY FOLLOW GOD AND SUFFER.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT ‘CAN GOD MAKE YOU?’, THE PROBLEM IS ‘CAN YOU FOLLOW?
-Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo at COZA Sunday.
- If God cannot make you do what you are supposed to do, you will not see what you are supposed to see.
- The route with which you move from where you are to where you are supposed to be is ‘following’.
Isaiah 41: 14-20. Halleluyah.
God says, ‘Behold’ in verse 15. Behold means pause, look intently and observe carefully. What will he pause and look intently at? God says, ‘I will make you a threshing instrument’. The description of the person was like that of a worm but God said He would make him into a sledge. It is only God that can turn a worm into a sledge. So, when I am saying that God wants to do the first, I’m not talking about where you are coming from. The person wasn’t that thing, yet God says, ‘I will make you from a worm into a threshing sledge’, a sledge that will beat down mountains and bring down hills.
What do I mean when I say, ‘The Season of the First’? Because if you don’t know what you are expecting, you will bypass that thing. If I tell you that I’m sending someone from Lagos, go to the airport to meet that person but you forgot to collect the description of that person. You will be like, ‘Ah, there is no network, my phone is off. How do I know the person?’. ChurchGist. However, if I already gave you that person’s picture, as the person is coming you will just go and meet the person. So, I want to give you the picture of what is coming so that it will not bypass you.
There are things that as old as you are, you’ve never encountered them before, so when you encounter them, they become the first. Well, God has asked me to tell you, this is the season of the first. In verse 14, He says, ‘Fear not’. This fear is not the fear of when you see a rattlesnake, it is a fear of the unknown. Fear not, don’t be worried, don’t be calculative, it’s all going to be by God’s help. How do worms become threshing instruments?
If fear does not stop you, there is something you need to do for God’s miracle to happen. Whatever the Lord tells you to do, do it. The problem is not ‘Can God make you?’, the problem is ‘Can you follow?’. The problem is not with the making, the problem is with the following. If God cannot make you do what you are supposed to do, you will not see what you are supposed to see. The route with which a worm becomes a sledge is following.
Elisha, you can imagine following Elijah. He had lost his business and lost everything, following a man without a house and a man who was carried by the spirit anywhere, but do you know what happened, Elisha was so anointed that many years after he died, his dry bones were still raising the dead. ChurchGist. What happened to Elisha that even in his death, his bones could still cause a revival? Let me tell you something, Elisha died to himself.
When I entered into ministry fulltime in the year 1998, that was when new-generational banks exploded. All my friends were working there and when they came home for Easter or Christmas, sometimes I would want to go and hide because even if you gave me all the offering of COZA, it could not stand near them. I cannot forget when two of my childhood friends came for Christmas and they had to stay for 2 weeks, they came to my church for every service. The two of them pulled me to my office and they said, ‘Biodun, what is wrong with you? Is this what you want to do with your life? See the miserable students you are preaching to, see how you are, you are not even looking fine anymore, see everything about you’. They used to know my wife, they said, ‘Look at what you’ve turned Dele to. See her hair, see everything’. ChurchGist. If I had allowed them to twerk me that day, this morning would not hold. I had no idea that pastoring would be glamorous, I thought I was going to be poor because of the examples of Pastors I saw around me. I just followed the Lord blindly. In fact, two of my friends had to give me their cars just to encourage me. David said, ‘The Lord will choose my inheritance for me’.
Some of you don’t understand what covenant is. Noah, one day, did something that God was impressed with. He made a sacrifice to God and God smelt it and said, ‘I will never destroy the earth again like this’. Do you know that all through the lifetime of Noah, God did not destroy the earth with water? Do you know that even after Noah was dead till now, if you see a rain fall beyond normal and it’s becoming over the top, as soon as you see the rainbow, go to sleep because even in his death, God keeps covenant? The Noah I’m talking to you about was drunk before, He even committed incest. That was the man that God changed his life, made a covenant with and that covenant still stands today. I prophesy to you, what is coming out of you after this service will be an everlasting thing, your children will benefit out of it, your children’s children will benefit out of it.
Numbers 32: 11. There are people in church today who will rise up in the morning without following God. You are following God somehow but for some people the instructions of God, the word of God is like departmental store to them, they select only the ones they want. I’m a living witness that nobody can truly follow God and suffer. ChurchGist. If you do what God has asked you to do, after a while you will see results. Nobody can be more faithful than God, God will always outdo you. Numbers 32: 11, child of God you are listening to me now, can you say you are wholly or fully following God? It is not that God cannot make you; the ‘following’ is the problem.
I was meditating on Psalm 23: 6 just before I came to church. It says, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life’. What do I need to do for it to follow me? It says, I must dwell not visit. I must wholly follow the Lord. Look at Numbers 32: 11-12. Many Theologians including myself believe that Kenezites were some of the mixed multitudes that followed the Israelites. He was not supposed to have an inheritance there, but because he wholly followed the Lord, he got one. Where are you from? What do you lack? What curse is in your bloodline? If you make up your mind today to wholly follow the Lord, you will put a spotlight on yourself, you will stand out. Joshua was the son of Nun; he was like the son of ‘Nobody’. Are you here today? One of the reasons you are afraid about your future is because you don’t have anybody. Don’t take steps in fear because God has said, ‘I will help you’.
In Mathew 4: 19, He told Peter, ‘Follow me and I will make you’. Spiritual 419 is just follow God and He will make you. Mine and yours is to follow; God’s is to make us. What I’m just thinking is, ‘Lord, if you can make a worm become a sledge, you are worth following’. Rahab the harlot mixed with the Jews and she gave birth to Obed, Obed gave birth to Jesse, Jesse gave birth to David and if you continue to trace, that was where Jesus came from, by one decision. When you are down to nothing and you follow God, God is up to something. ChurchGist. Man’s extremities are God’s opportunities. Where you end in your thoughts, that’s where God starts from. God wants you to know that it doesn’t matter where you are come from, where He is taking you will not look like where you are coming from. There is something God wants to make you, if you are not ready to follow, He cannot make you. Elijah the Tishbite, he had no pedigree but at the Mountain of Transfiguration, he was the one that represented the prophets, he stepped on the Promise Land, that place where they stood was the Promise Land. There is nothing God has promised you that He will not bring to pass. I’m here to let you know that if Elijah was a child of nobody and God gave him a name and turned his life around. If God could use Rahab the Harlot, who is that person that God cannot take and turn his/her life around?
#MondayMoments
#COZASunday
#Sunday9thAugust 2021
#PastorBiodunFatoyinbo
#ChurchGist
Pictures!Courtesy: Biodun Fatoyinbo
