Which god does the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry pray to?
One of the remarkable things that happened in Nigeria in the 1980s was what someone called ‘the popularization of christianity’. Christianity ceased from being a fairly cloistered phenomenon to being almost a house-hold thing, particularly in the South-Western part of the country.[sgmb id=”1″] With the formation of the Deeper Christian Life Bible Church as a formal institutional church organization and the apparent resuscitation of the Redeemed Christian Church of God came various other groups angling for a cut of the pie.
A pie? The faith of the Man of Sorrows? The faith in which it was stated that as Paul ‘reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come (Governor) Felix trembled’ (Acts 24:25), the picture of nothing but food? Various outfits soon cashed in on the new lucrative business in town. And since they were business outfits, they never failed to internalize the main strategy for success used by other successful businesses: make sure you pitch your sale in such a way that the largest segment of the market is kept permanently hooked to what you have on offer! Coca-cola and Heineken and Mercedes have done this for decades. If it worked for Coke, well, it would work for the ‘christian’ religion, too!
The Mountain of Fire And Miracles Ministry And The Bastardization of the character of God
How do we know we are being deceived by a false religion? We know when the thrust of the doctrine of the movement is veering further and further from ‘THE FAITH which was once delivered to the saints’. One of the earliest signs you must look out for is what I call the bastardization of the character of God. The story in 2 Kings 21 is one we can read to learn a little more about the Person we have to deal with. You should read the whole passage but let me summarize the main points the best I can. Ahab, the king, desired the vineyard of a commoner and was ready to pay for it in cash or in exchange with another vineyard somewhere else. But, Naboth, the owner of the vineyard refused to sell to the king under any circumstance. The King became sad and would not eat. The queen organized a judicial murder of Naboth and transferred the vineyard to her husband after that. Then Elijah showed up the day the king went to take formal possession of his new vineyard and pronounced dire judgments from God on the king. The king did the unthinkable: he repented of his evil, tore his dress and exhibited real contrition. It is what happened next that we really must take special note of: God actually sent Elijah back to Ahab to tell the king He noticed his repentance and would defer the punishments till after the death of the king. The Bible continually repeats itself on this issue: one of God’s main attributes is that He is quick to forgive contrite sinners.
The Mountain of Fires and Miracles Ministry and Alien Doctrines
But one of the main and growing ‘churches’ in Nigeria has no other special thing it is known for than chants of, ‘Return to sender’, ‘drop and die’, and ‘holy ghost fire on my enemies’. Which god does the Mountain of fire and Miracles pray to? The God of the Bible? The God that said, ‘bless, curse not’? The God that asked you to, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you’? Matt 5:44.
Some people may try to justify this serious doctrinal error by saying the curses are directed, not at human beings, but at spiritual ones. The truth is that there is no example of such brazen activities, even against demons, in the Bible. None. Human beings, in their very best ‘holiness’ have not been given the power to pronounce punishments on any angel, fallen or not. That is still a prerogative God continues to reserve for Himself alone. It is presumptuous for any human being to think he can appropriate to himself powers that God has not delegated. The brief passage in Jude 1:8-9 is important here: ‘Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee’.
But some people might even say that the enemies the Mountain of Fire and Miracles pray against are actually human. This is a worse error. Human beings, at their worst state, are actually in the image of God. God’s stated objective on everyone of them, even in their worst state, is that they come to repentance. No human being can, seriously speaking, push God, by prayer or whatever, to destroy anyone carrying His image. Every such prayer, being prayers that are not within the expressed will of God, will not be answered by the God of heaven. My own copy of the Bible in Ezekiel 33:11 has, ‘As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his ways and live’. Yes. There is one person that would answer all such ‘prayers’. By now I hope the reader is awake to the god that is inordinately interested only in the death and destruction of God’s image.
One other reason why the doctrine of ‘drop down and die’ is not from the God of the Bible and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is that that statement is in stark opposition to the main doctrine of Christianity: we all are offenders before God. We cannot, by ourselves in any way or fashion, pay the penalty for our rebellion and we must die. But, God in Christ and out of His own special love, decides to make His forgiveness available to anyone who believes in the death and resurrection of Christ and calls on Him. It is a joke of our understanding of the depth of our indebtedness to God if we think the other person’s offence against us is so huge that the appropriate thing for them is death.
If a human being offends us so much that he must die or else we are not assuaged, we have not met or known Christ. The parable of the servant that would not forgive his fellow servant in Matthew 18:23-35 is at the core of real Christianity. But the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry does not preach forgiveness to its enemies. Who does the Ministry pray to? Surely not to the Jesus that laid down His Life that men might live. How do you square the Mountain of Fires and Miracles Ministry’s teaching with Romans 5:8 of ‘…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’?
Some might say we are not supposed to judge. This is a misapplication of the Bible. We are to judge doctrines and test every spirit that tells us he has anything to tell us in the name of God. 1 John 4:1 asks us NOT to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they are of God. To everyone opportune to read this, please listen carefully: You will have no excuse if you are deceived by any spirit of error. God asks us to try every spirit and ask Him whether what the spirit is talking about is from God. We must not allow the devil to destroy us by the misapplication of the scripture of ‘Judge not and you will not be judged’. That does not apply wherever people are talking about what God wants or says. What God wants or says, in the layman’s language, is what is called doctrine.
Every doctrine must be judged in the light of clear provisions of the written word of God. Flee from any human being, no matter how materially successful his ministry is or how ‘holy’ he presents himself, once he says you cannot ask questions on whatever he says. Such is not the Christianity of the Apostles of the New Testament. Only Christ, being God, has the title of infallible and even He allowed people ask questions in His time here on Earth. Paul was queried; Peter was. They all had to refer the brethren to specific passages in the Bible or revelation as basis for whatever action they did or doctrine they held.
What I have written here draws substantially on the teachings and doctrines of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles ministry. There are many other ministries out there teaching doctrines that do not make for godliness: doctrines that are sourced from demons. The fact that they have gigantic cathedrals and massive physical and financial assets and are applauded by the majority of men must not blind our minds to putting each of them and their doctrines through basic biblical tests of compliance with the word of God. If our aim in life is to see God when we die, we must listen to what He says when we are here on earth. The devil will try his best to get us dazzled by wealth or academic erudition of the other person. Our souls mean more to God than all the wealth of the Earth.
If you would run from a curled cobra ready to strike on first instinct, run from every enterprise of Satan, even if it is called ‘church’.
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