How To Guard Your Faith Against Deception by Apostle Arome Osayi: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Apostasy: a step by step formula

Hebrews 6:4 to Hebrews 6:6

Hebrews 6 outlines step by step how a believer becomes apostasized

Whenever we deal with apostasy you see statements like falling away, departing, defecting

There is a golden word in verse 4: impossible

When doctrine carries definite words like impossible, or you must be born again, it does not allow for manipulation.

Be careful to apply those warnings to our lives, because the weight of God's government is hanging on those scriptures

If the King James sounds too harsh, the Amplified, the ERV and the GNB all say the same: impossible. Even the softer versions could not find a replacement

The man described in Hebrews 6

He was enlightened

He was convicted of sin at some point. Someone in a state of departure from God has no means to diagnose his condition except the Holy Ghost enlightens him

Left alone, he considers himself a living perfect master, flawless, wise. He goes from one degree of sin to another and thinks himself smart.

He has no reference point to discover his basic need, and man's basic need is salvation

He tasted the heavenly gift

He became saved. In our theology class on salvation, one scholar said to be saved is to be born from heaven, born from above John 1:13

These are bona fide believers: enlightened, convicted, saved

He shared in the Holy Spirit

He was baptized in the Holy Ghost with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues. Convicted, saved, baptized in the Holy Ghost

He tasted the good word of God

He is not a novice. He sat under the teaching of the kingdom and understood that we were created to be part of the administrative system of God's kingdom Genesis 1:26

Your English Bible says let them have dominion. Read from the Hebrew, it is kingdom: let them have kingdom. God wanted to rule the earth through man. Man is a custodian of delegated authority

Nicodemus asked an immigration question John 3:3. Entry is by one way only

If you want to go to the UK, there is a boat. Boat entry is still valid, but as you are coming you will be going to jail. In the kingdom there is no boat entry

Every man that is not under God's authority is like an explosive device waiting to self-destruct.

A witch practicing witchcraft is already in custody of something that can destroy itself, even without your prayer. There is no happy ever after for someone carrying the utensils of wickedness

The proof that you have experienced the good word of God is that you accept that the Holy Spirit is worthy to be obeyed Acts 5:32

The Bible is not good for motivation. It is a kingdom manual. It shows us the government of God and how God influences men.

There are patterns in scripture that are prophecies in themselves: if you start here, you will end here

Every man that ended well discovered he was supposed to operate under God's government. What God expects from someone exposed to his counsel is higher than what he expects from someone who does not know it

The goal is government. We must consciously submit ourselves to the governing power of the Spirit of God

He tasted the powers of the age to come

He walked with the Holy Spirit to a point where he manifested gifts

If such a person, with this spiritual credential, defects, it is impossible to restore him. He has crucified the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame

Do not defect

As you grow in God, maintain your ground. Apostasy means changing your stand, defecting from truth

You can be the greatest setback to the cause of Christ in your generation. The more stature you gain, if you defect, it will crack the body of Christ.

Innocent people become victims. A wound is created that may not be healed in one generation

God's investment, his anointing, his grace on your life, his affirmation and validation, come with obligations Matthew 3:17. One of them is that you do not defect

A great man went to Israel and came back saying he found a name greater than the name of Jesus. I will not mention that name. May you not go deep. He defected

I have seen men labour with God for 30 years and then say, everything I believed before was wrong, I discovered. That is the act of defecting

Statements like that are becoming popular because the spirit of apostasy has visited the land.

In such a season God raises apostles to bring the mind of God in clarity, in simple plain language, so we can diagnose the condition

Revelation is progressive

For two millennia the way to salvation has not changed. We can understand salvation more, but it does not change the way to salvation.

God's principles don't change. God's ways don't change. That is why there is a teaching ministry

Mark people who loosely say revelation is progressive. It is pregnant. It creates ground for adventure. It puts us in limbo without reference, and defecting becomes your rail tracks

The Bible is a fixed star. There is a limited way you can be creative with it. It points to the northern star.

It is like a graph that points to Jesus from every angle, so you don't miss Christ at any point

Whenever there is defecting, the ground changes, the domain changes. It is no longer Christianity

The cross deals with who we are

There are seven things which, if removed from Christianity, it becomes a cult. One of them is the cross

The blood of Jesus deals with what we have done. The cross deals with who we are

Your commitment to self is actually the search for another god, the alternative god

Romans 6:6

Self plus flesh equals the old man

Self

Isaiah 14:12 to Isaiah 14:14

Lucifer fell because of I will, I will. That is how the fallen man is. He is only interested if the matter will adorn I.

Put an anointing on him, he squanders it on I. Put dollars on his life, he squanders it on I. Give him a little influence, he squanders it on I

A man under the rule of self cannot profit God, no matter how educated he becomes

The cross is a judicial object that speaks one language: death. Anytime the cross is applied, it speaks death.

God knows a believer still ruled by self is not profitable to his kingdom, so he allows the authority of the cross to haunt him

Part of what the cross is designed to do is to defeat the nerve upon which self is hanging

The nerve of self: emotions

For some people the nerve of self is on their emotions. They love, and God allows them. Then he allows a heartbreak. It takes two years to heal because you loved to the uttermost without God's permission

Love can take you on a journey even if God is not in it. Then you blame God. You discover your love is blind. Submit that emotion to God so he prescribes what you can love

The nerve of self: intelligence

Some are cerebral. Anytime you stay in class with others, you beat them. God will ensure you fail, because the nerve of your strength rests on your intelligence

It is an act of love, but it manifests like cruelty, because there is no part of self that is good

Testimony: the cross in the classroom

I crammed whole books. I put the book in my head, went for the exam, and then forgot everything. I told the class your heads are like baskets, leaking

When the cross began to deal with me, I became silent. The class noticed somebody was not talking anymore. I was in the dungeon

I failed five exams. I had to attend carryover. I bought dark spectacles to attend carryover because I was dying every moment.

The cross is brutal. It does not care whether you were exposed. It judges. It says die

God was killing it because he knew I would never be useful to his kingdom carrying that god

After many years he released my mental capacity again for one purpose only: that I will teach the Bible.

I once wanted to be a professor before 30 so I could cram the textbook and give notes from my head, and people would conclude I was brilliant.

See the futile thing I wanted to live for? If it is self, there is no way anyone else can profit

The flesh

The flesh is the fallen nature, manifested in the works of the flesh Galatians 5:19

The opposite is the fruit of the Spirit, fruit in the singular Galatians 5:22.

The evidence that you are born anew is that you produce fruit of the Spirit. In place of every work of the flesh there is a fruit of the Spirit

If the cross is working, it cancels out works and replaces them with fruit. This is a process. That is what it means to be a new creation 2 Corinthians 5:17

People who knew you before will not be able to come to terms with who you have become. That new man can bring profit to the kingdom anywhere he is domiciled

Put him in governance and, because self has died, he has no appetite to steal. Put a conquered man in an office and he will insist the office carries the image of his conviction

You ask how the nation will experience renewal. It will, when we become right with our Christianity. Only Christians can change the world

The corruption we are known for globally will die when a generation that has gone to the cross awakes and is redeployed to every phase of human endeavour

You will hear on the news that the corporate psychology of the nation has begun to shift because some individuals have entered

The technocrats went into government and the economy did not change. They can explain the statistics but not the demons behind the numbers.

Only a prophet can help us: someone who knows God and is not afraid of death. Not a man of compromise. Our travail will continue until we get serious

Until people see how sinful sin is and how demonic self is, our eyes won't be open to seek grace.

Then God begins to make out of us a new man, and the image of Christ in us begins to beam

Even the people on the dark side will know that the horizon is changing. The tender plant is rising and the season is about to change.

Righteousness will yet grow from our land, because the cross will be allowed to judge what we have been protecting for years

Recap of the first scripture

The man was born again, convicted, a partaker of the Holy Spirit. He received the ministry of the good word and exercised the powers of the age to come.

If he defects, it is impossible to bring him back to repentance. This is the first scripture on apostasy

A lot of people have accepted new positions contrary to what they initially believed, and they are not aware a spirit facilitated it

One of the golden themes of the end time is defection from truth 1 Timothy 4:1

The most noble thing you can do is be a preacher of truth right now. That is how the soul of a nation is recovered

The second scripture: wilful sin

Hebrews 10:26 to Hebrews 10:29

This man's situation is more terrible than the first

Our salvation is like a marriage. Whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him 1 Corinthians 6:17. With my wife I am one flesh. In Christ we are one spirit

That is why we will not allow a believer to marry an unbeliever. There is no possibility for the two of you to become one. You operate from two different domains.

Even if your height is right, your complexion is right, your frame is right, it will end in confusion and the counsellors will not be able to help

This man decides to major in infidelity to Christ. That you want to stay in sin is a sign you want to stay perpetually in infidelity to the one you are united with in spirit

Can a man sin away his salvation?

You have heard in some teachings that a man cannot sin away salvation. I am here to prove you wrong. You can

The only question I cannot answer is how much sin will make you lose your salvation. It is not captured by doctrine. It is an experience matter, unique to each person.

I am not willing to offer myself as a guinea pig. That is why I will not continue in sin expecting grace to abound

The answer is in Romans 6

The book of Romans is a map. By chapter 6 you have crossed the judicial arguments and entered the organic crucible, where things that pertain to spiritual progress come to the surface

The first question there is about continuing in sin Romans 6:1 to Romans 6:2

Paul anticipated a generation like ours, so he smuggled the answer in so it would not be up for debate. Even so, people have defected from that answer. That is what the spirit of apostasy does

Presumption

Satan did the same in the temptation of Jesus, quoting from Psalm 91 Matthew 4:6

Psalm 91 is a conditional promise, not an unconditional one. It starts with the condition Psalm 91:1. Where were they standing? On the pinnacle of a temple, not the secret place

Presumption is acting and expecting that God will not allow this to happen, even though the premise was not satisfied

Some said Jesus walked on water, so they would walk on water and God would not allow them to drown. They drowned. God is not emotional. He responds only if he has committed his integrity by his word

Matthew 4:4

Mankind was designed to operate by rhema. If there is no rhema and you say, the way God loves me he will show up, you are on presumption

Those who have fallen in love with sin are deluded by presumption: we can continue in sin and grace will abound. That is defection from truth

The useless arguments you people have on Facebook are defection. I was sent to clarify this matter. The download came in my prayer room

You have entered the free zone. You have wandered out of the regions of grace. You are getting comfortable because it follows a logic, the elasticity of grace

The man who taught us grace gave the answer Romans 6:2.

The same grace was made available so we have the capacity to live over and above sin, a new species of men after the image of Christ

Check if your pastor has defected. Check if the evangelist you are following defected last night. Check how he continues

You cannot strip the word continue from the book of Acts Acts 2:42. What did they continue in? These ones want to continue in sin, to continue with women. That is an apostate

A spirit of error causes us to migrate from the domain of safety to a ground of presumption

There are six steps to perdition in Hebrews 3. It is better for you not to know them, so I will not teach them

Back to Hebrews 10

When you continue in sin wilfully, you are awake, you are aware, you have defected. You are doing despite to the Spirit of grace

This apostate is more terrible than the other. He has entered into the practice of infidelity to the one he is married to. That is a sure way to be given a bill of divorce

Symptoms of the apostate

Jude 4

1. He is ungodly

   Check his life and you will see a trail of wilful sin

   He is no longer qualified to be a pastor. He is a plague. He should be quarantined

2. He turns the grace of God into lasciviousness

   He makes very practical efforts, through preaching and teaching, to turn grace into licence, as the house of prayer was turned into a den of thieves Mark 11:17

   Anyone who says you cannot sin away your salvation is an apostate. Just mark him

   Check his life and beam the satellite, and you will see a trail of ladies that suffered at his hands

   They have stayed so long in ungodliness that they look for ways to put pieces of scripture together outside context, to trivialize the need to walk in holiness and to look like our God in character

3. He denies the lordship of Christ

   He does not suggest at any point that there is a governor supposed to rule over our soul, whose authority we must yield to in order to carry his presence

   The anointing can create changes in the environment, but the presence you carry is your protection Acts 10:38

   A man can still be anointed while the presence of God is removed from his life. If he continues that way he will be cut short before his time.

   Many will be cut short in the days to come as an act of mercy, so that the name of the Lord will not be disgraced

Illustration: Tanzania and Uganda

In some quarters, when you show up as a pastor from Nigeria, people look at you with suspicion, because an apostate went there before you and messed up the ground

In Tanzania, the moment I was announced as a Nigerian the morale dropped. One of our brothers had come before me. He used people's Facebook accounts and presented what he found as a word of knowledge, as prophecy

Someone had died, and he was not at the burial. His name was mentioned at the crusade. When he came, the protocol drove him away.

In his hotel room bin we recovered the names and phone numbers of all the people he had called. He jokes with God

I had to go back to God and say, if there is any calling left in my life, convince these people we are not the same

Leaving Uganda after ministering for many days, they told me, you have redeemed the name of Nigeria.

A boy came with a stick, his leg twisted. His leg stretched out and he walked. They saw it was a genuine miracle

The Ugandans said, our name has been spoiled all over the world. We are a missionary nation. If our name is spoiled, it will be difficult to fulfil our mandate

Apostates play with God

Grace

Grace is what we received so we can have the capacity to live supernaturally naturally and to live naturally supernaturally

Isaiah 40:28 to Isaiah 40:31

Mounting up is supernatural, yet an eagle mounts up so naturally. You do the supernatural naturally and the natural supernaturally

It is not natural to live above sin, but where there is grace you can mount up with wings

It is not natural to pray. Anyone can talk naturally, but to communicate with a spirit being you need spiritual power.

When you find someone talking to God for two days, you know the power by which he does it was not given by man

In your office, when there is no wisdom to navigate, you switch into the supernatural and do natural things with supernatural advantage. You advance where it doesn't make sense. That is the proof that you have received grace

Stand on grace

Now that you have received grace, stand on it. When you notice a grace on an intercessor, don't stop praying. Use it so it keeps flowing

I have a grace in revelation. I have been standing there for more than 30 years. It becomes brighter, sharper, better. A man that has been standing on a certain grace becomes exceptional

There is a type of grace another man has that is unique to him.

If I try to behave like him, I will run out of gas, because there is no commitment from God to make me operate like that. It is your calling that determines God's commitment

As long as I stand, I cannot be exhausted. A man that stands cannot be exhausted. You are not a failure, but you may be standing in the wrong place.

There is a place you were supposed to stand. There is a covenant that secures it and protects it

Don't try to be like someone else. No one else can preach your sermon. No one else can sing your song. Stand your ground

There is more capacity in the grace of God than in your fears, your anxiety, your worry

Grace is the energy by which we drive. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. I stand in grace. I am what I am by the grace of God.

There is no man that holds fast to the grace of God that turns out to be a failure.

There is capacity beyond your human ability that has been deployed, a currency Satan cannot measure.

Who told you that the story is about to end? God will cause you to outlast the devil. You will still be standing when everything else is cut off.

The witches will be surprised. They look at your frail vessel and measure you up, but there is an investment in the Spirit of Christ galvanizing you.

Keep standing. This is not the best God can do in your life. The land will crack. The door will open.

The window will open up. A little one shall become a thousand. A small one shall become a strong nation.

Your weakness is being exchanged for his strength. Grace is being pumped into your spirit.

Isaiah 54:17, 1 Corinthians 15:10, Isaiah 60:22

Testimony: standing against witchcraft

We stood hand and foot. We fought against the resistance, the darkness, the witchcraft. We decided there would be no retreat, no surrender.

The witches thought they would weary us out, but we were renewed in our vessel. The grace of God cannot be conquered

Prayer for deliverance

Any yoke whatsoever will give way. Anyone carrying a yoke will be released from that yoke. No curse, no stronghold of darkness will be left.

The sons of God are about to be made manifest. The foundation of things will be touched

• Father, we cry out for everyone entangled, everyone bound, everyone caught up, everyone who is a victim of a liability of inheritance, everyone that Satan accuses, everyone that comes from a bloodline stained with iniquity
• Stretch forth your hand, O God
• The bondage that has lasted generations: this is the end of that affliction
• That power that has worked against your progress, against the works of your hands, against your rising, against your promotion, I release a decree and I cut it off
• You were dedicated to an altar, to a deity, to an idol, committed to it for safekeeping. I come in the name of the Lord and I demand your release

You who are tied to the water: the spirits of the water are agitated because you came for this meeting. The hand of Jesus will be upon you. You are disconnected.

That voice that calls you from the depth of the river, that has tied you down, I separate you from that voice in the name of Jesus Christ.

That which was taken from you shall be restored. Be bold. Be more bold than you have been. God will use your boldness to recover much.

Were you carrying an anointing before this time and you lost it? What will come upon you will be much more than what you carried before.

If your spiritual condition is caused by deposits, you will vomit it completely. It will come out through the mouth.

You are bound by a deity your family worshiped. It is God's will for you to be delivered. The fetters, the chains will begin to fall off.

There is a wind God wants to release to the east. Make incense until deities lose their grip on the territory. God is coming to the east.

Your release was decreed by the Lord. I loose you in the name of Jesus.

Restoration, restoration, restoration in the name of Jesus.

• Let your hand of power visit our territories that your name might be exalted
• There is a dimension of the Holy Spirit and I give you that dimension, that your name might be great
• A new season comes upon us. Nothing will be left out. There will be total recovery
• The name of the Lord Jesus will arise from that land. Your labours will not be empty, will not be wasted
• Darkness will give way for the light to sit on the land
• The witness that you carry will be so loud

Acts 4:33

It is a time for shift because you are here