“For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through [the full, personal] knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition is worse [for them] than the first.
21 For never to have obtained a [full, personal] knowledge of the way of righteousness would have been better for them than, having obtained [such knowledge], to turn back from the holy commandment which was [verbally] delivered to them.
22 There has befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and, The sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire. [Prov. 26:11.]”
Dear people of God, during morning devotion this past Saturday April 18, 2020, the Lord placed it upon my heart to visit a certain area within our neighbourhood for our weekly Evangelism.
I told my partner and then after prayers, we proceeded for the Evangelism. The first shocker we got was the sad news of the death of an artisan since last December 2019, who, we were told suddenly collapsed around 6.30a.m. that fateful December 2019 morning and passed on.
This was someone who was not a Christian and I had cautioned him severally about his dishonest ways and even admonished him to repent and accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord.
Each time he would argue with me and he once told me he was a Nigerian and no Nigerian was honest; he said he was also serving God in his own religion and did not need to become a Christian.
I really felt pained because I know for sure that he did not make it to heaven with his sudden death.
I used the opportunity of the story of his demise to preach to his artisan colleagues to admonish them to repent and follow Jesus Christ before it was too late.
I had thought that that was the reason the Lord wanted us to visit that area but we were wrong.
On our way back home, one of the persons we earlier gave a Gospel track called our attention and said he wanted to discuss a matter with us.
He wanted to know how one could live above sin because he was in deep financial dire straits and was finding it difficult to live well.
We began a conversation and he kept asking questions and even distracting us to the point that I had to caution him more than once to listen more and talk less so that he could benefit from the conversation.
It turned out that his grouse was that God had abandoned him and he, though a University graduate as far back as 2008 was currently employed as a security guard of the company where he worked.
The government declared lockdown as a containment measure against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic had taken a severe toll on his finances and he was completely out of cash and unable to even go home to his wife and kids to support them.
He told us how he was facing a number of temptations from his family and friends who were into occultic practices and other nefarious activities and who appeared to be doing well because nothing untoward had happened to them.
He told us how his family in his native home had a shrine run by an elderly woman and every one of them giving obeisance to the idol there was progressing in life except him who had refused to continue to pay homage to the demon there.
He gave us past examples of how this demon had helped him even to the point of securing a good job; however, one night as he slept, an angel of God appeared to him and told him to go and meet the priestess of the shrine to tell her he was no longer interested in serving the idol.
He obeyed, went and told the priestess, who told him he was going to suffer and he left, went to his workplace and resigned his appointment with them and that was the beginning of his problems.
He said all his family members still following the demon idol were mocking him for abandoning something that was working for them and this had put him under tremendous pressure to return to join them as nothing seemed to be working for him.
We now understood why God wanted us to visit him to counsel him.
We made it clear to him using today’s lead Holy Bible text above and many others to show that it was dangerous for him to return to the demon since he himself admitted that he knew that following the demon was clearly unacceptable to God.
We told him what to do, which was to read Scriptures, make a declaration severing whatever allegiance he had with the demon idol and he should openly declare for Jesus Christ and then study God’s Word in the Bible to know his rights as a child of God and how to appropriate them.
We made it clear to him that God would never tolerate him engaging in wrong and sinful acts in the name of doing any business because he would need to pay tithes from the business to God and it should be from righteous labours alone.
Dear friend, are you in a similar situation where a demon is deceiving you into believing that he cares for you and can help you even when God has told you to leave such demonic practice?
That is dangerous because you are giving the glory that belongs to God to an idol and God cannot tolerate any rival.
See what God’s Word says in Proverbs 14:12 (repeated in Proverbs 16:25) (AMPC), “There is a way which seems right to a man and appears straight before him, but at the end of it is the way of death.”
Know today that there is nothing the devil can give you without asking for something grave in return.
It is only Jesus Christ Who can bless you without adding any sorrow as His Word says in Proverbs 10:22.
Therefore, severe whatever ties you have with the devil and run today and now to Jesus Christ before it is too late for you.
The devil cannot do you anything once you are in Christ Jesus as His child because Jesus has given all Christian Believers authority over ALL the powers of the devil, demons and their human agents and nothing these agents of darkness do that can harm the child of God who resists and rebukes them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ – Luke 10:19.
Dear friend, Jesus Christ is coming NOW. Repent now and come to Him before it is too late.
May the good Lord bless you as you heed His Word today, act on it and share with others in Jesus’ Most Merciful Name, Amen.
Gabriel Ama.
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