The Tragedy Of Ingratitude By Dr. D.K Olukoya

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THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLE MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
SUNDAY WORSHIP SERVICE
DATE: JULY 25TH, 2021
TOPIC: THE TRAGEDY OF INGRATITUDE
ANCHORED SCRIPTURES: 2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5, LUKE 17:12-19
MINISTER: DR. DANIEL OLUKOYA (G.O MFM WORLDWIDE)

MESSAGE:

Any man who wages war against praises would be destroyed by praises. Anyone who wages war against gratitude will get into serious trouble, so listen to me very carefully.

Sometimes what we think is a big problem is actually a small thing. One of the major signs of the last days is ingratitude.

The King James Version of the Bible calls it “unthankful”, “ingratitude”. Many of us need to make restitution. Many of us need to do some very deep thinking.

The thankful Samaritan got a permanent blessing. Ingratitude is one of the signs of the last days and it has become so rampant these days, but what people do not know is this: those who show appreciation do not suffer from depreciation.

Once you appreciate, you do not depreciate. The company of the ingrate is the company of the inglorious. That is the blunt truth. That is why the book of Revelation says “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony”.

Ingratitude is an insult to the Saviour. It is a huge spiritual disease. Children fail to be thankful for their parents.

Many children are complete ingrates, but they could sit down to think: there was a time you were a defenceless baby in the hands of your parents.

If a baby was born in the hospital and the mother just left the baby like that: no bathing, food or milk, the baby would die there.

But somebody took a baby who is essentially helpless: you cannot walk, they are backing you, you cannot feed, they are feeding you and you are getting stronger.

You started walking; you smashed their television, spoilt many things in the house. Then you became wise. Then they began to struggle, got school fees for you, sent you to school.

And then one day, you now look at that father in the face and say “you are a mad man”. The Bible says ‘honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long’.

The reverse is also true: ‘dishonour your father and mother so that your days may be short’. Parents also fail to show gratitude to their children and for the great things they accomplish.

It is a strange world of ingrates. Many couples do not appreciate each other. The husband does not know the value of the wife, the wife does not know the value of the husband.

The husband was going all over the place, writing love letters and kissing the woman up and down and now the woman has become a toy or the fridge or television in the house.

Employers and employees sometimes do not appreciate each other. Christians too are not sometimes thankful for each other. Christians and humans in general do not appreciate God’s provision of grace and goodness for their lives.

They do not appreciate it at all. The Psalmist says “bless the Lord o my soul and forget not all His benefits.”

The spirit of ingratitude is a spirit that is dry, not moved by kindness, unwilling to be kind in return. Somebody has been kind or good to you but you repaid with unkindness or with lack of appreciation.

Gratitude will turn scarcity to surplus. Gratitude brings the power of God down. This is a very serious matter.

But ingratitude is a greater sin than revenge. Revenge is payment of evil with evil. But ingratitude is repayment of good with evil. It is a greater sin.

That is, you are not showing appreciation for the favour shown to you. There is divine anger and curses attached to ingratitude (Proverbs 17:13).

It is a dangerous thing to be throwing stones into a well from where you drank water before. You might find yourself back at that well one day.

Also Read: WHEN THE GLORY DEPARTS BY DR. D.K OLUKOYA

What am I saying to you here this morning? Ingratitude might be the reason you are passing through some difficult times now. There are plenty of ministers who rebel against their GOs, their bishops or against the authority of the church they belong to.

And so when they begin to go through troubles, people will say their boss laid a curse on them. No, nobody needs to lay any curse: there are curses already attached to ingratitude.

It is a very serious matter. Wherever you are today, someone helped you. When you got born again, it is either somebody invited you or ministered to you. So somebody helped you.

You must never forget gratitude and you must never be disloyal to those who helped you because it will backfire. It will certainly backfire.

In the school of gratitude, there are different categories of people:

1. Divine Ingrates: Ungrateful to God. The Bible says “if it was not God that had been with us, what would our Israel now say?”

If you are in this meeting this morning and you are above 40 or 45 years of age, the fact that you are alive here today, is a miracle.

You were probably born without any medical assistance in a polluted environment, yet you survived. They laid you on your side as a baby and they made you to eat, lying down and you did not choke to death, yet you survived.

If you did not eat the way you should eat, they would block your nose and put the food by force into your mouth. They would compel you to eat by force, yet you did not choke to death.

You are alive, you survived. Those days when people had fever, when they were supposed to take away clothes from their body, they would wrap them with more clothes, then convulsion would start.

Then they would quickly push a spoon or finger between the teeth, yet you survived. Many of us grew up with witches and wizards inside terrible polygamous homes and they all saw your star, yet you survived.

Many were sucking from the breasts of witchcraft grandmothers and yet you survived. Many of you woke up here this morning, you stood, bathed yourself, dressed, yet you take God for granted.

How many of you know that if it is not for the mercies of God, you will not be here now? If you know, shout a loud Alleluia!

Sometimes, we complain unnecessarily. So, the first group is divine ingrates. If you belong to that group, beginning from today, repent.

That songwriter says “when upon life’s billows you are tempted tossed, count your blessings, name them one by one.”

2. Sinks: these ones are just to swallow. When you keep bringing, they keep swallowing. They pay nothing back. But the day you say “sorry, it is not available today”, every good you have ever done is forgotten. We call them sinks.
3. Parasites: they are permanent demanders: I demand, I want this, and they never say a word of thank you.
4. The Blank Group: they do not ever remember that anybody ever helped them at all.
5. Biters: they bite who had fed them. Anyone who bites the fingers that have fed him, the Bible says evil will not depart out of his house (Proverbs 17:13).

You are an apprentice, learning under somebody and you are stealing his things; you are biting the fingers that fed you.

When you now become your own master, know for sure that the apprentice you will get is the kind of apprentice you were. It is a law.

6. Returners: whatever you do, they will return it with evil.
7. Strategic Forgetters: they will just decide to forget what somebody has done for them completely.
8. Hide-and-seek Group: There was a time they were in trouble, somebody helped them. Now the man who helped them before is now in trouble and runs to them for help. They will now be dodging from those helpers.
9. Generational Offenders: a Pharaoh that does not know Joseph again. Joseph that helped his father, he does not know him again.
10. Sugar Ingrates: they are only friendly with you when things are smooth and when they can get from you. When they cannot get from you any longer, they leave you very quickly and go to somebody else.
11. Envious Ingrates.
12. Covetous Ingrates.
13. Complainers and Murmurers: they begin to murmur and murmur. Murmuring may attract the sympathy of people but it attracts judgment from God.

Murmuring will keep you on the same spot, if it does not even destroy you.

14. The Proud Ingrates: they always believe that whatever they have, they worked for it. Nobody has helped them, and they owe nobody anything.

TRAGEDIES OF BEING AN INGRATE.
If you are an ingrate,

1. You shut off your own destiny helpers. This is where we need prayers.
2. You short circuit your own progress.
3. You invite divine and human curses.
4. You magnetise evil to yourself.
5. You mobilise evil angels against your life.
6. You shut down the door of mercy against yourself.
7. You will certainly miss the rapture and heaven because it is part of the signs of the last days.
8. Your children suffer from lack of helpers.
9. You will be paid back in your own coin.
10. You will produce vain imagination and your heart will be foolish.
11. You weaken your own spiritual life.
12. You can cut off your healing, or physical health or wholeness process.
13. You handover yourself to the enemy.
14. You turn your own glory to shame.
15. You invite God’s curses.
16. You provoke the anger of God upon you and it could lead to destruction.

WHAT TO DO.

1. Repent!
2. Repent!!
3. Repent!!!

PRAYER POINTS.
[Before Message]

1. Every storm in my life, hear the word of the Lord, shut up in the name of Jesus.
2. Every hand raised to strike me, wither in the name of Jesus.

[After Message]

1. I fire back every dream bullet in the name of Jesus.
2. Hidden darkness, jump out of my life in the name of Jesus.
3. Powers of going round in circles, die in the name of Jesus.
4. Dark covenants covering my glory, expire in the name of Jesus.
5. My Red Sea, dry up; my Jericho wall, fall down; my Goliath, die in the name of Jesus.
6. Document of darkness carrying my name, catch fire in the name of Jesus.
7. Tormentors, I am not your candidate, die in the name of Jesus.
8. Any problem in my life caused by placental manipulation, you are a liar, die in the name of Jesus.
9. By fire, by force, I release my blessings from the jaw of the enemy in the name of Jesus.
10. Anger of God, judgment of God, visit every coven assigned to trouble my Israel in the name of Jesus.
11. Every power saying “not so” to my breakthroughs, die in the name of Jesus.