DON'T DARE THE ANOINTING

 The Life and Ministry of Prophet Elisha 6

DON’T DARE THE ANOINTING

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. 2 Kings 2:23-24NIV

Elisha was returning from a place of supernatural encounter. It is possible that these young people knew Elisha before now but the person walking past today is not the person they used to mess around. He was carrying the anointing; he was carrying the spirit that was upon Elijah and they ought not to treat him the same way anymore. Perhaps he was your son or younger brother; you ought to recognize the change. If he is your husband, you need to understand that this man is the Lord’s anointed. Some theologians are still wondering if the punishment on these youths was not to the extreme but they died all the same. We have another record how some soldiers had addressed Elijah irreverently and he called down fire from heaven to destroy them.

At this the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, "Man of God, this is what the king says, 'Come down at once!'" "If I am a man of God," Elijah replied, "may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!" Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men. 2 Kings 1:11-12NIV

Another captain who had the same assignment, rank and authority had better manners than the first two and his life was spared.

So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. "Man of God," he begged, "please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!" 2 Kings 1:13-14NIV

You can debate all you want but those who died by the fire of judgment are gone and the best thing for us is to watch our behaviour when we are around or before anointed servants of God. 

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? 2 Cor 2:15-16NIV

The same anointing that brings salvation, healing, deliverance and revelation can harm those who treat the anointed irreverently. It does not matter whether the anointed is poor or rich; the hand of God is upon him. It does not matter whether he is educated or ignorant, I advise you to be careful what you do with him. God did not consult you before He anointed him and it will be to your interest not to draw the anger of the Lord’s anointed. I warn my children never to lie to me while looking at my face. It does not matter if I am their father or not; I carry the anointing. Peter was so anointed that his shadow drove out demons and healed the sick, but some church folks felt they could still play around him.

Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Acts 5:3-5NIV

You may not like the way and manner Peter passed judgment on them but they were dead and buried. You may even argue that Peter was in the flesh when he passed the judgment, my advice is that you do not try what they did, or you may end up the same way. I am not saying this in defence of anointed servants of God but as a personal witness of how the anointing on a man can harm those who treat him with disrespect.

In my early days in the ministry, I organized a crusade in Avu Market Square. Avu is in Owerri West Local Government Area in Imo State, Nigeria; I think it was a four days crusade and it fell within the Christmas festive period. The young people in the community would not let me be. They kept disrupting my message with their fireworks, what we call “knock-Out”. They would throw it into the air and in the midst of people. They were disrupting my program. I did not like that and I believe God did not like it too. My plea with them to leave the venue of the crusade if they were not interested in the gospel fell on deaf ears. Then I said something like, “If the person throwing those things thinks that he is fearless let him try and throw that Knock-Out again”.

I heard some jeering sound that suggested that they meant that I couldn’t do anything. Afterward, there was a sharp scream and an accompanying reaction from the crowd, and everywhere became quiet. Since they were not close to me, I did not know what happened. I finished my crusade and went home. It was after a long time I learnt what actually caused the young men to leave the crusade venue. One of the young men still ventured to throw a “knock-out” into the air and in the view of those standing nearby, fire came down from heaven, following the direction of the “knock-out” and damaged his hand. He screamed home. Yes, you read me right; fire fell from heaven to punish the young man that was disrupting the crusade.

On my first assignment as an in-house evangelist, the president of the organization who was a medical doctor gave me an assignment. The organization had a hospital and a ministry centre. He told me to pray and loose an eighteen-seater bus in the ministry premises because he believed it was under witchcraft monitoring. He said that anytime they tried to put it out for business, it would breakdown and they ended up incurring more expenses to repair it.

After my personal prayer, the Lord told me that my president was not faithful to Him. He had asked God to give him a bus for the purpose of evangelism. When the vehicle came, he put it out as a commercial bus. The Lord sent another vehicle and he diverted it again as hospital ambulance. The Lord told me that, it was not witches that held the vehicle but He the giver had locked it up.

This response did not go down well with my president and one thing led to the other. I was young and crude with my approach to spiritual matters. I am sorry to say that, but I am among those that the anointing on them makes to appear arrogant. Once I am sure of my position with God, I cared little how others felt about my position. One day he told me that he will deal with me and I felt that was going too far. I immediately responded, “If you try it, my God will deal with you.”

He pointed to my face and said, “Look at the person calling God.”

I was mad. I said, “Did you point at my face and say that? How dare you?”

He was a witness when the dead came back to life when I prayed over them. He had profited from women whose womb the Lord unlocked when they could not deliver safely in his clinic. He was witness to the miracles that happened in his ministry through my ministration. How can he now say I was not qualified to mention God’s name. He could only say so if I betrayed a trust but I did not. I walked away. The next day, that ambulance had an accident and was damaged beyond repair and while he was talking about that, robbers went and stole his private vehicle that was parked in his garage. In the space of one week, my president saw his world going down. Someone heard him screaming, “Evangelist Emma Nwosu has finished me!”

If you are God’s anointed, do not let folks make you forget whom you are because of one circumstance or the other. I do not take that from anyone. They were calling Elisha bald-headed fellow; why must they? 

Under some unpleasant circumstances, my family was forced to move from where I lived at central Port Harcourt City that we call Main Town to an area called Rukpoku also within Port Harcourt metropolis. I had a church in both locations and had to preach first message at Rukpoku and then move over to the church in Town for the second message. They were about ten kilometres apart. It was not easy and I did not have a car and with very little available funds. The distance was such that I needed to take three to four different vehicles before I could walk to the location of our church in Town.

One of the Sundays, one of the taxis I took had a breakdown after I had paid him. He handed me over to another taxi since the distance was not much. When I alighted, the driver asked me for another payment and I tried to explain to him that I had paid the driver that handed me over to him. He insisted that I must at least give him extra money, to which I refused. This man took hold of my shirt in the view of many watchers. He grabbed me in the open there and time was running out on me. My church location was not far from that place and even my enemies bore witness to the great manifestation of the power of God in my ministry. I really pity preachers who are not carrying the anointing.

A man shouted at the driver, “Are you Ok? You are holding Pastor Emma’s cloth?” The man was adamant until someone gave him the money he requested. I hurried to my service. Three Sundays after a driver drove his car very fast, to where I was standing and asked me to enter. The same driver who molested me the other time. He was begging me to forgive him for the manner he behaved last time. He said he had suffered greatly since then and never made any extra money since then. He was out this Sunday morning pleading with God to make him to meet me. When he dropped me this time, he did not want money from me but just my prayers.

There could be some people reading this today who had corrupted their life because of the way they treated the Lord’s anointed. In some cases, the anointed could be wrong, just like Noah who got drunk and lay naked. You dare not treat him without respect. Learn a lesson from David,

Who can lay a hand on the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the Lord lives," he said, "the Lord himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord's anointed. 1 Sam 26:9-11NIV

Avoid the temptation of mocking his weaknesses and daring to prove that he is not holy enough to serve God. This is the root cause of many troubles some are suffering from today. 

Having read thus far, if you think you once drew a curse into your life because of the way you treated a servant of God, I suggest you contact me for special prayers.

TO BE CONTINUED

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com