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There Is Madness In Their Heart By Dr. D.K Olukoya
THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLE MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
SUNDAY SERVICE
TOPIC: THERE IS MADNESS IN THEIR HEART
ANCHORED TEXT: ECCLESIASTES 9:3
MINISTER: DR. DANIEL OLUKOYA (G.O MFM WORLDWIDE)
The MESSAGE
Ecclesiastes 9:3 (KJV): This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
When you say madness or insanity to a man, in normal speaking, men understand it as something that has to do with disturbance of the brain. That is the definition that men understand. But the definition of the Bible is fuller than that. The Bible divides insanity into two kinds. There is the normal one you understand, known as insanity of the brain. Then there is a greater one called “the madness of the heart.”
When you talk about the normal madness human beings understand, a person may start having feelings of depression, sadness, and not wanting to talk to people. He may claim that he is an introvert, but he does not want to talk to people. It is an inner depression. A person may have this feeling of despair and loneliness even though he is among many people. Men call it madness or mental disturbance. The person may begin to lose energy, although he is eating and resting well, and may be suffering from unexplainable exhaustion.
It is part of what men call depression. As a believer, he has lost control of his own life. He does not want to do anything. Men call this insanity. The person may lose control over his personal profession. The person may be filled with anger, frustration, and a lack of patience and spark up at any small thing. He is mad, although he looks normal. The person may lose identity, purpose, and meaning in life. He may have this sense of being abandoned by God; he does not want to pray again, trust God again, or come to church again.
He may not even have self-confidence. Sometimes such people go into spontaneous crying and weeping, and people do not know why. Sometimes they just feel inadequate, and sometimes they just withdraw from everyday routine, lock themselves up in a room, and do not want to talk to anyone, although they are not violent. It is insanity. It is another level when they turn violent and begin to fight everybody, including themselves, like by cutting themselves with objects. It is insanity.
Sometimes, such people have this feeling of letting life just go. Any small thing that goes wrong, they are very quick to blame others, and they keep saying they are tired of everything. That is why somebody defined insanity or madness as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. No. It is not so. You keep doing the same thing over and over, hoping that somehow it will transform into something different. It is insanity.
Let us take the spiritual life, for instance. You want a change in your spiritual life. You are tired of having no vision, no revelation, not hearing anything, or not becoming a spiritual giant. But it is still the same amount of Bible reading you are doing, the same amount of prayer, and the same amount of going to church, and you think there will be a different result? That is spiritual madness. Nothing will change until you do something different.
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The Yorubas say, “When you want to become what others have never become, you have to do what others have never done. And if you want to do what others have never done, you have to suffer some inconvenience”. It is not going to be easy. Nobody will tell you that it is easy. A man who is used to eating breakfast every day at 7 a.m. all of a sudden realised that he was being suffocated on the bed and decided to go on a 7-day prayer and fast. Such a man has taken a drastic step, doing something he has never done before. Definitely, it will yield results.
The truth is this: if you continue this level of quiet time, this level of kindergarten prayers you are praying, this level of vigil, and this level of Bible reading, you will remain as you are. Let me not deceive you. Until you do something drastic, you remain the same. I am just diverting to your spiritual life to explain this spiritual insanity. For a change to occur, some may need to increase their solitary time with God. Some may need to increase their fasting. Some may need to avoid certain foods, habits, or interactions.
Some may need to say bye bye to certain friends because their friendship is bringing them down spiritually. Some may need to do a deeper reading of the scriptures. Some may have to read 10 chapters of the Bible per day. When you are doing something entirely different like that, things will change. So, to keep doing regular things like that and expecting things to be different is madness—spiritual insanity.
The truth is that there are many mad people walking about on our streets with clothes on. Serpents in three-piece suits. Crazy and mad people. A sister rushed here one day when we were doing counselling. She was so upset and was crying. She just got a job, and she was happy. The first day she arrived at the office, they said the managing director would like to see her. And so, happily, she went to see him in his office. She said that when she got there, she found that the man had already removed his trousers with his male organ out.
She wanted to run away, but he said “No, do not run back; it is because of you that I took them off”. She said, “At work?” This man has a PhD in Economics, and is a deacon in his church? He must be a mad man. He is just heading a company. Economic brain is different from what we are talking about. You could be economically wise or business wise but you are spiritually insane. So she ran from the office here. The instruction we gave her was “go and resign”. So she went there and threw in her resignation.
Many mad people and crazy individuals are walking on the streets. Many big men are on our streets who cannot do without taking drugs in the morning so they can be normal. Unfortunately for our generation, our generation has become the generation of valium, lexotherm, paracetamol, aspirin, codeine, and all kinds of things, and some consume such things every day. When a person is used to disorder and crisis has become his culture, then orderliness becomes his enemy.
There is plenty of environmental insanity. This is where we need Christ, prayer, purging, and deliverance of the mind. One of the hard facts of Christian life is to discover that sooner or later, simply receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord does not lead to the wholeness or complete deliverance of your life. You must now work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
When you do not work it out like that, it is part of the spiritual insanity we are talking about. The Bible says that “the heart of man is desperately evil, and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and after that, they go to the dead”. The heart of an unregenerated man is like a zoo where all kinds of animals are there, like serpents, scorpions, antelope, and so on. It is when the fire of God, the purging fire of the Holy Ghost, and the blood of Jesus move into that heart that all those things run away.
But some never allow God to do that deep work in them. You are here; can you mention one spiritual contribution that you have made for God? The reward of a preacher is that one day the people will know that a prophet has passed among them. They did not value the prophet at the moment, but when they realised he was gone, their eyes opened. There is one thing worse than not coming to church, and that is to come to church and do nothing about the message.
You come there, hear the message, and do not do anything. Any man who gambles with the devil will eventually find that his defeat is sure. That is why the enemy has stolen the wings of many eagles among the children of God. They can no longer fly.
Many churchgoers have become so worthless that the devil does not even waste time on them anymore. Let me tell you one truth today: when your spiritual temperature is high enough, it will kill every arrow fired against you.
But if it is not hot enough, the arrows not only come in, they begin to work in the person’s life. And sometimes, when you say, “What has happened here?” The person says “Our group held a vigil, and we prayed”. The truth is that 1,000 blind men cannot see better than one blind man. Where two or three sinners are gathered in His name, there is no strength in their numbers. Their heavens cannot open, no matter how they shout. How can you make heaven beloveth when TV watching is the Lord of all your evenings?
Many have become spiritually sick. There is one characteristic of the sick: things are always very quiet around them. Things are always quiet around the dead and in the graveyard. So if your spiritual life is dead, your environment and life will not experience signs and wonders. Your backsliding and re-repenting are sure signs that you are spiritually insane. Many of us who are supposed to be battling lions are fighting mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes are not even dying.
I am praying for somebody here that every power that wants your life to disgrace heaven, no matter how close you are to that power, I break you loose! in the name of Jesus.
Madness of the brain, madness of the heart. What does the Bible call madness of the heart, which it says has filled the hearts of men? It means you are not able to know that your problem started at the root of sin. You just thought you could do what you liked, and the problem would just go away. Jesus told the man who was healed from blindness “Go and sin no more”. Jesus told the man who was healed at the pool of Bethesda, “Go and sin no more.” He had been there for 38 years. Sin locked him up for 38 years. Sin is bad.
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When you are suffering from madness of the heart,
When you do not realise the badness and wickedness of sin, there is madness in your heart.
When you despise correction and wisdom, and hate learning, there is madness in your heart.
When your own opinion is always right and everyone else’s is wrong, then you are suffering from the madness of the heart.
When you think your own way is right in your own heart,
When you are mocking sin and taking it lightly.
When you, as a young person, are despising your parents’ instructions, you are a first-class insane person, because the Bible says “Honour your father and mother that your days may be long and that it shall be well”. There are two curses attached to children who do not honour their parents:
1 Their days will be short.
2 It shall not be well with them.
I did not write it, it is in the Bible.
When you keep backsliding and keep repenting.
When anger is ruling your life.
When anger is controlling your emotions, you are mad. Because anger is spiritual insanity.
When you are not planning for heaven at all.
I remember one big and prosperous king who had a full-time joker in his palace. The duty of the joker was to make people laugh in the palace. That was what he was paid to do. All of a sudden, the king became sick, and everybody became sad because he was getting weaker and weaker. He could not discuss it with people again. People were going to pay him condolence visits. One day, the joker came to the king and asked him how he was. He said “very bad. I am dying”.
Then the joker asked the king, “King, you know you are dying now. But where are you going when you die? Do you know the place?” The king said, “I have no idea.” Then the joker took off his cap and looked at the King and said, “If you ever find a bigger fool than yourself, I will congratulate you. King, you are a big fool for not knowing where you are going.” The king eventually died. Then he discovered that he was not king any longer. He could not take his crown and kingdom with him. He came into the world naked and left it naked. He came into the world as an ignorant man and died as a fool.
So is everyone who lives and dies like that. It is better never to have been born than to have been born; then you fail to be sure of eternity and are unprepared for heaven. The fact that you were given birth to is a man’s opportunity. It is a journey from which there is no return. Death, too, is a commitment from which there is no escape. At birth, we all begin the journey from this world to the next. You cannot turn back from this journey or press a pause button. Listen, beloveth: it is only bodily that man is a creature of this earth.
Spiritually, he is a creature of eternity. So it is utter insanity for any man to presume that he can find his way to God on his death bed. God does not guarantee that kind of foolishness. It is a very risky thing not to be sure of heaven, and an unexpected accident can throw a person into hellfire or eternity suddenly. Nobody is born into the way of Christianity. It has to be sought and found. So, when you neglect the opportunity that God is giving you now, it will lead to a rejection of grace.
And if you persist in unbelief, the person will be prevented from entering life. So refusing to respond to God is spiritual insanity. Are you spiritually insane? I hope not. But if you are, repent.
PRAYER POINTS.
- O God that troubleth Pharaoh, trouble my enemies now! in the name of Jesus.
[After Message] Say, Father, remove any form of spiritual insanity from me.
Make me the kind of person you want me to be.
Educate my spirit by your fire, in the name of Jesus.
God bless you
