LOOKING UNTO JESUS
This week, by the grace of God, we are looking at a topic “Looking unto Jesus.” Our first text is taken from the book of Isaiah 8:20. It says, “To the l aw and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” In a nutshell, what that verse is saying is that as far as what you are saying is not in accordance with the word of God, there is no light in you. The Bible says, “Jesus is the only true light that lighteth every man that comes into the world.” It also says that in Him is light and that light is the light of men and it is that light that shines in darkness, and darkness cannot even understand it let alone overcome it.
One thing we should all know, even if we are not Christians is that man is a religious creature. Whenever there is anything to be worshiped, you can be sure you will find men there worshiping the thing. So you should not be surprised when you see men worshiping stones or even rims of tyres or candles or rivers. If you make a list of all the idols that we have in Nigeria alone, you will write a mighty book. Even, if you pick those in only one town, they are sufficient for a big book. So, basically, man is a religious creature. Unfortunately, beloved, much of the tragedies we have experienced in the world can be linked one way or the other to the religious nature of man. This is why we say that Christianity is not a religion. In religion, man believes in the existence of a God, a super being, for whom you have to perform certain rites in order to please. But Christianity is God’s way of seeking to save the lost. The religious act of man has caused him a lot of trouble and it is so sad when you see a lot of people doing things they believe so religiously but they are wrong.
Several years ago, I was somewhere in Harare for a conference. I noticed that every time we sat in the dining hall, a nice lady sat beside me. She would do the sign of the cross and pray quietly over her food. No other person was praying in that hall. She had a large cross over her neck and a rosary and I was impressed. When we got talking, she talked to me about science and all kinds of things and I told her about Jesus. One day, she said, “This your prayer that you have been talking about, maybe we should pray tonight.” I said, “That would be very nice.” We sat down and I called one prayer point. As we prayed, she suddenly started shouting: “Stop praying! Stop praying. Oh, look at these beautiful girls surrounding me.” I said, “Beautiful girls? Where are they?” “Oh, can’t you see?” she said. And I said, “These are not beautiful girls, they are demon spirits, I cannot see any beautiful girl here, but since you say they are here, let them receive the fire of God, in the name of Jesus.” She said, ‘No, don’t harm them.” Here was a religious person following all the rules of religion but yet was seriously possessed by all kinds of spirits.
Religion is something that the devil likes so much because it does not affect him in any way. As long as that religion is lifeless, the devil does not mind, you can do everything you want to do. For example, the devil does not mind if you build big altars and fill them with the bones of dead men. If you have very nice pews and pulpits as long as it is dead men ministering there, the devil does not mind. If you paint the pictures of all the angels on the walls, as far as the people worshiping there are dead, the devil does not mind. If you have doctorate degree in Theology or Masters in Bible Knowledge, as far as you are dead, the devil does not mind.
I was invited to a church many years ago. When I got there, I noticed that they do not pray much in that church. So I said, “In this church, I know that you don’t pray much but today we shall pray differently.” After a very short message, I asked them, “Are you now ready to pray?” They said they were ready. We started to pray but within a few minutes somebody came in by the door and spoke in good English: “Stop it, stop it. We don’t pray like this here. Stop it. Where is the bell?” I did not know him so I tapped one of the ladies who was busy praying and asked, “Who is this man?” “That’s our pastor,” she said, “But me, I’m not going to stop.” I was so embarrassed. The ladies refused to stop. I banged the bench, they didn’t stop. They just went on. When the man saw that they did not stop, he walked out in anger and the next Sunday service, he dealt with them. That time I had gone. The sad thing was that the man who said we should stop praying had problem with his kidney and he died two weeks later. Probably if he had put religion aside and had allowed those ladies to pray for him his case would have been different.
A lot of people are very religious but God is not interested in religion. He wants the reality inside your heart. Look at the number of people who have been caged and tortured. Many homes have been shattered and many young children have lost their lives in religious crusades. Because of religion twins were being killed in some parts of Nigeria before Mary Slessor came. Many people die because their religion forbids them from eating nutritious foods.
Sometime ago, one woman, who was coming to our fellowship, gave birth to a baby and suddenly we found that she was looking malnourished. We asked her what the problem was. She said, “Ah, in my husband’s family, according to their idol, when you are delivered of a baby, the only food you could eat for about two months was gari soaked in water before you could start eating proper food, and palm-oil or groundnut oil must never be added to the woman’s food. The Bible says, “Be as quiet as a dove and as wise as a serpent.” So we made an arrangement, whenever the woman came to the service we prepared good food for her and she ate before she went home to take her gari. That was religion.
Many potentially useful young men have been rendered useless by religion. The other day, I was at Oshodi, Lagos and I saw some young men who scrapped their hair leaving a little bit at the centre of their head. They were beating drums and jumping up and I wondered endlessly why they were doing what they were doing. It was because of religion. Some people are poor because their religion wants them to be poor. Religion makes men blind. We have a lot of religious men and traditionalists coming to church and God wants to deliver them from that spirit for God hates religion with perfect hatred.
Genesis 32:24 - 31 says, “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh got out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.”
A closer look at this simple passage reveals great lessons to be learned from Jacob's encounter:
1. The power of prevailing prayer. It shows that you can pray until you prevail.
2. The long leg of Jacob that was used for evil had to be dislocated so that he could rely on God.
3. When you see the appearance of the Lord, remarkable changes come upon your life. No one who has had an encounter with God will remain the same. I always pray that God will show the vision of heaven to Christians and also the vision of hell fire, so that they can see the difference. When they see both, they can then take the decision whether to go to that place where worms of fire are coming out of people’s noses or where there is music and joy. The Bible says, “Ears have not heard, eyes have not seen, it has not even entered into the imagination of man what God has planned for His people.” You have to make up your mind where you want to be. I shall be in heaven by God’s grace.
When a sinner meets God, or God meets a sinner, something must happen and it must be permanent. Maybe you haven’t had any encounter with God. The story of Jacob is telling you that you must have a personal encounter with God. If you do not have a personal encounter with God, then you are a religious person. You are just going to church. You can confess your sins to any priest or pastor. You can be confirmed twice. You can even sew mini wedding dress, you are still a religious person. You are not going anywhere. When you have an encounter with God, your life changes; it will be an unforgettable thing. When others are saying, “I’m even tired, I want to backslide,” you will say, “Ah, me, I dare not after what I’ve seen, I dare not.”
I could remember a church in England where women wore skirts and never came to church in trousers. They covered their hair when they prayed and it was a white man’s church. There was a time I was the only black person there and the members were so nice and loving. One day, after service, they surrounded me and were singing, “Happy birthday to you.” I first thought I was hearing the voice of angels, then when I heard ‘Daniel’ I checked my wrist watch and found that the day was my birthday. They had memorised it even though I had forgotten. So religion is not what we are talking about but the reality of people’s personal encounter with God. You will remember when you meet Him. You have been hearing of Him by the hearing of the ear but when you meet Him like Isaiah did, nobody needs to tell you how bad you are. You will know and you will adjust yourself very quickly. If you do not have that kind of encounter, everything you are doing now may still be religion. I am praying that the Lord will deliver you today, in Jesus’ name.
We are not talking about where you were born or who your father is. As far as the Bible is concerned, that is completely irrelevant. There were so many people in the Bible who were godly sons of godless fathers and we also have godless sons of godly fathers. There are both camps, so what you should now pursue is where you want to be in God. Ask yourself, “What am I achieving in God?” If for example as you are reading this message, Jesus walks in and says, “Beloved, your time is up, what you have done is enough, come up!” Are you confident that you will go to heaven? That is the most important question. But when you have a personal encounter with God, it is not a question of looking at God from far away; He would be close to you. When you see the appearance of the Lord, there must be a remarkable change in your life. Every self- interest, self-ambition and worldly ambition will die. Your focus will change, your priority will change. Your life will be revived. You will stop pursuing what you were pursuing before for a new thing. You will undergo a complete revision. Like somebody revises a book; that is how your life will be revised. What makes other people happy will not move you anymore. What would make you happy is your addiction to the Lord your God and the knowledge that at the end of the day you will reign with Jesus.
Recently, I got one of the best letters that has ever been written to me. The person wrote me about two pages. He said, “Dr. Olukoya, we thank God for MFM. All I want to say is this: although I don’t have money, I have joy and that joy cannot be explained.” He said that he knew that with that joy in his heart, it was a matter of time, every other thing would work well.”
4. The infirmity of Jacob meant that he had to lean on God. We too have to lean on God.
Now, instead of learning the lessons that God wants us to learn from this message, let us see what men have done. Verse 32 says, “Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank.” Men have turned this to religion. They say, “Don’t eat that part of the leg, just as they have turned Good Friday to religion. They say, “Don’t eat meat or eat fish on Good Friday.” Some American churches have revised this. They say that you can eat meat but not much. What has eating of meat got to do with the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ? Absolutely nothing. Some cook a special meal for that day and some believers go and eat it with them. I am saying all these to let you know how men turn things to religion.
The cross is not the symbol of Christianity. An empty tomb or tongue of fire is the symbol of Christianity. If Jesus had remained on the cross, all of us would have been finished. But thank God He died and rose from the dead.
If you study church history and read your Bible, you would discover that the early Christians never considered the cross as an honourable symbol. To them, it was a device of death and shame. The disciples never trusted in the cross as an object, but they trusted in what accompanied the cross. They never hung crosses on their necks. All the hanging of cross on the neck took off from paganism. To make matters worse, the word ‘Easter’ comes from the name of a pagan idol; the idol they claim was responsible for the light of the day. So, it has nothing to do with Christianity.
According to Numbers 21:8, the children of Israel had misbehaved and something had happened. Punishment will normally follow when you make God the tail and you make yourself the head. When God says this is what He wants you to do and you say, “Oh no, I want to do something else, punishment will follow because He knows more than you. Let us recall the story from Numbers 21: 6 - 8: “And the Lord sent fiery serpents upon the people, and they bit the people and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee; Pray unto the Lord, that He take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent, set it upon a pole and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, he shall live.” There are lots of lessons too to pick from here. We shall look at the lessons later.
In John 3, Jesus made an interesting reference to this incident. John 3:14 -15 says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The lifting up of the serpent. It was serpent that was biting them; it was serpent they were told to look unto. Many died because it did not make sense to them. They would have complained thus: “Snake is biting us, they say we should be looking at snake to be saved.” But God did not ask you to rationalise or think about it until it becomes logical. If you are going to be rationalising, forget the supernatural, forget true Christianity. All God is asking you to do is look. He did not say ‘think,’ but ‘look’ and once you look, you will be saved. So, this story teaches us many lessons.
1. It speaks of Christ becoming sin for us that we may be made righteous.
2. It speaks of looking upward and living.
3. It speaks of God’s power to deliver.
4. It tells us just to believe. Don’t try to rationalise. If you start thinking: How can a brazen serpent heal? Then you will be in trouble.
5. It tells us that the world having been bitten by that old serpent has its only cure in Jesus. So, it was a shadow of something that was to come, and the Son of man like that serpent was lifted up; and all He requires from you now is to just look. Fix your eyes on Jesus. But again instead of learning these facts, what did men do? 2 Kings 18:4 says, “He removed the high places, and break the images, and cut down the groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days, the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nehushtan.” Instead of understanding what God wanted to teach them about the brazen serpent, men turned it upside down to religion. There are so many examples like that.
Do you know that there are beautiful lessons to learn from the slaying of Goliath by David who used Goliath's sword to cut off his head?
1. The sword of the enemy shall be turned against the enemy because the Bible says, “No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper.” The cross that was used by satan to kill Jesus became a weapon against satan himself. But by the next time David wanted to use the sword of Goliath, they had wrapped it up; they had turned it to religion.
The events in the life of Christ can be divided into three:
1. The wonderful way He was born. There was no ceremony attached to it. It was through His birth that our present calendar was divided into two. Angels came when He was born and the glory shone all around. Only a few shepherds and some animals witnessed His birth.
2. His death. The day He died all the angels ran away. God the Father too turned His back. People ridiculed him: “You saved others, now save yourself,” they jeered. A large number of crowd watched the trial, the verdict, the crucifixion and the death but very few watched the birth. When he resurrected too, only a few Roman guards and one or two women were able to see him. The one incident that actually put a sealing on our faith was what happened the day He died on the cross. There was darkness at an unusual hour, the ground shook and satanic powers were defeated. However, on that day, the angels that announced His birth, that protected Him as a child; that ministered to him in the wilderness, that ministered to him in the Garden of Gethsemane, that came to roll away the stone later, that announced the resurrection, all ran away. It was a very important event. It was because of this we have what is written in Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right side of the throne of God.”
Disaster follows when you fix your eyes on other things apart from Jesus. Peter tried it and he almost sank. Jesus Himself said that as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up. When you look, you shall be saved. What does that “looking” mean? It means to focus your attention on Jesus as your example. When you focus on Him as your example and as your physician, you shall be made whole. If you focus your attention on Him as a teacher, you shall be taught. If you focus your attention on Him as your comforter, you shall be encouraged. If you focus your attention on Him as your strength, you will never be made weak. If you focus your attention on Him as your life, then you have what is called abundant life. That is why the Bible says, “Look unto me and be saved.”
Fix your eyes on Jesus. Don’t fix your eyes on man. Man can fail you at any moment. The Bible says the only person that you can trust all the time is Jesus. When you have too much to do, fix your attention on Jesus. When you know it seems as if things are a little bit rough, don’t take your eyes off Jesus. When you fix your eyes on Jesus, everything like loneliness, frustration and depression will fly away. When there is no mother or father to love you, if you fix attention on Jesus, He will look after you. When others disappoint you, Jesus will take care of you.
I remember a sister: on her wedding day, the service was supposed to start by 9 a.m. Between 10 a.m. and noon they expected the bridegroom and he did not show up. The man of God who was getting impatient asked, “Are you sure this man wants to come for this wedding?” “I saw him last night. We had our bachelor’s eve. He’s supposed to be here,” the bride replied. Eventually, the man did not come. At exactly 1 p.m. somebody decided to go and look for him at home. He did not find him there but he found somebody who said he left a message that he had gone to play tennis. They went there and found him playing lawn-tennis. “Ah, Mr. man, they’re waiting for you in the church,” they told him. He said, “Eh, I decided to ditch it, I’m not interested again.” The man who was sent to look for him said, “But if you’re not interested, why don’t you just go there and say so?” He retorted, “If they don’t see me, they will go home.” And they did. The man of God said, “This wedding is postponed for circumstances beyond our control.” In fact, the bride-to-be was carried home half dead. Some people were pouring cold water on the head of her mother who had invited the Morning Star society of her church to accompany her to the wedding. It was a good thing the Morning Star people were around for they were the people that revived her. The sister then decided to fix her eyes on Jesus and did not give up. She did not die as some people were expecting and she refused to drink acid. As she fixed her eyes on Jesus, things became clear one day. She realised that the Lord had a purpose and that it was good that the wedding did not take place because within two months from that time, the bridegroom to be died under mysterious circumstances. This sister is now married because her attention was fixed on Jesus.
So, when you are sad, look unto Jesus. If there is a country with internal unrest, such a country would not be able to face an attack from outside. If a believer is sad, already there is problem from the inside so when attack from the outside comes, he will not be able to fight because already there are spies inside. So, fix your eyes on Jesus, even when you are dissatisfied, when you are afraid or when people misunderstand or maltreat you. When you are struggling financially, fix your eyes on Jesus. Do not fix your eyes on yourself. If you are looking at yourself, you will get into more trouble. Don’t fix your eyes on man because you don’t know what others are doing. Don’t fix your eyes on your trouble because if you do, you will sink. Don’t fix your eyes on the devil too, because the devil is looking for who will give him some attention. Don’t fix your eyes on false hopes; let your hope be in the Lord.
You will not receive any forgiveness if you are forever focusing on the sins you have repented from. Somebody needing deliverance will not receive deliverance by buying books on deliverance and by reading about demons. That is not what will get a person out. What will get the person out is ministration.
Some people make the mistake of always looking backward. When you look backward, you are living in the past. You must refuse to live in the past. How can you come to the house of God and allow one mistake you made 15 years ago to spoil the rest of your future. Some people come and say, “Please, help me, 15 years ago, I was sexually abused. This is why I am having problems.” “Has God not forgiven you?” I would usually ask. They would say, “Yes.” “Have you gone for any deliverance?” “In fact, I did three.” “Then what is the problem now?” “Well, I just feel that nothing is happening.” How can you allow a mistake you made 15 years ago to be directing your present life? You must refuse to live in the past. Paul said, “Forgetting those things that are behind and looking forward...”
This is one of the successes of Joseph. He refused to live in the past. He rejected the temptation to harbour resentment against his brothers. Many spoil the whole of their lives by carrying wounds and grudges about past events. They remember the way somebody treated them many years ago. With the ugly roots of bitterness inside, their lives do not bear fruits and they are wondering why. How can it bear fruit when there is root of bitterness inside? Beloved, if at any point in time in your life, you have said, “If it had not been for so, so and so, my life would not have been like this,” then, you are living in the past. You may have been unjustly treated but you must determine to leave the past behind and walk along.
Do not be the kind of woman who would say, “After my husband had turned me to second hand, then he abandoned me.” Who told you that you are second hand? Do not be the kind of child who would say: “It’s my daddy. My daddy chased away all my mummy’s children and my step-mother stopped our education.” You are living in the past. Do not be the kind of girl who would say: “It’s my parents: they made me lose the best husband I would have married.” That is already gone. Yesterday is too late. Why do you want to worry your spirit about that? As long as you live in the past, you will never be a successful person because that root of bitterness will spoil everything for you. You must forgive and forget. You must do all things without grumbling and complaining.
Some people too are experts at looking at unfavorable circumstances. They forget about Peter who was studying the waves and began to sink. All he needed to do was to face Jesus. As long as you focus your attention on Him and keep following Him, you will be secured. When Peter took his eyes off Jesus, he started to sink.
People sink when they take their eyes off the Lord and look at somebody else. Somebody could go to a house fellowship and simply because he found the leader eating alligator pepper and kola-nut and drinking beer, he would say, “Ah, because of this I won’t serve God again.” Such a person is looking at circumstances. Don’t do that. Fix your eyes on Jesus. When you fix your eyes on Him, you can never go wrong. It is when we take our eyes off Him and begin to look at ourselves and at other people’s mistakes that we get into trouble. One problem that so many people will receive judgment for is this: when others are struggling to serve the Lord and are doing their best and you just stand at the back, not doing anything but saying, “It is wrong, it should have been done like this or like that, ” you make yourself a spiritual referee and as far as God is concerned, He is pleased with the people struggling. It is you that is not impressed. Your not being impressed does not matter as far as God is concerned. As far as God is impressed with the people, He cannot be concerned with what you think. If God is for you, it does not matter who is against you; but if God is against you, nobody can help you.
Some people try to protect themselves so much that they wear bullet-proof vests and build their walls high with barb wires. What they forget is that there are thousands of things that can walk into their houses without bothering to open any gate. They can walk through the wall. Barb wires cannot prevent demons from walking in. There was a brother that a demon walked to and called by his first name that nobody used to call him. The demon said: “I have been sent to deal with you.” The brother said, “In Jesus’ name you made a mistake.” And light came from heaven on the demon and it grew weak and ran away. The house had a security system at the gate yet the demon came in. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Don’t fix your eyes on your problem because that is what satan wants you to do. Anytime you fix your eyes on your problem and pamper it, he is happy. Fix your eyes on Jesus and see what God can do. By sitting down to ponder and worry about your circumstances, you achieve nothing. By allowing circumstances to discourage, you achieve nothing. By looking at the roughness of the weather, you achieve nothing. Sometimes, when we say, pray, some people would be busy meditating on their problems. When the message is being preached, they would be meditating on their problems. During the Praise-worship session, they would meditate on their problems. After the service, they continue to meditate on their problems regardless of the powerful manifestations during the service. They do not play any active role in their deliverance. They want it automatically. You must play a role. The Bible says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.”
It is like somebody who came for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. She prayed and nothing happened. I said, “Why now?” She said, “I have a feeling that somebody will drop something like a radio transistor inside me and the radio transistor would be talking.” I said, “It’s not so. If a radio transistor is talking inside your tommy, that is a demon. But for the Holy Spirit, you will be the one that will be talking while the Spirit gives you utterance.” She said, “If that is so, sir, pray for me.” Then I prayed and she began to pray in tongues. After she did that for about 20 minutes, she sat down and was looking worried again. I said, “Madam, what is the matter again?” She said, “Why am I not rolling on the floor like those people?” I asked her, “Why do you want to roll on the floor? Those people are possessed.” She said, “But they are rolling on the floor. I too want to roll on the floor.” She was looking at circumstances forgetting that circumstances can discourage one. Take your eyes off them. What we call faith sometimes looks like madness. When you look at circumstances and you begin to envy other people, you forget that God’s plans for our individual lives are different. Don’t work by other peoples’ time-table. “Looking unto Jesus,” the Bible says, “the author and finisher of our faith.”
Beloved, pray for that grace to fix your eyes on Jesus and on Him alone, not on the pastor, not on the house fellowship leader, not on the group leader.
PRAYER POINT
1. O Lord, give me the grace to fix my eyes upon you all the time, in the name of Jesus.
