“The Root of All Evil” is a message by Senior Pastor of House on The Rock Church, Pastor Paul Adefarasin in his “Something is about to happen” series.

The main scripture is from Jeremiah 2:11 “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.”


God is above all

Until you see and hate the root of evil, you will consequently diminish the glory and majesty of God. The root of all evil is to lose the saviour of the taste of God. It is to desire or want anything more than you desire God. God wants you to have the good stuff that you desire, but the enemy is selling you the bad stuff and telling you that it is good.

God is our one desire

Evil is not a pitchfork and a red-headed demon with two horns, evil is to desire something else above your desire for God. Eve was deceived in the garden of Eden, and she began to crave the fruit in the garden over God. The root of all evil might be the fruit, but the root is that Adam and Eve desired the fruit more than they desired God.

The problem was in the desire because they perceived it to be delicious and delightful and therefore they wanted it. God wants to be our one desire. King David said in his psalms, that one thing has he desired, to seek him daily in his temple and to know his glory. When we delight ourselves in God, he will give us the desire of our heart, and he will also provide us what to desire. All of a sudden, because you delight yourself continuously in him, he will start placing the desire for everything he has already prepared for you in your heart.

Spiritual senses are important

Our chief desire is meant to be God and God alone above all else. And you must allow him to regulate what you desire. It is a challenge today to not desire anything else more than you desire God because you are in a world that is is a bombardment of your five physical senses. You must have a spiritual sense to recognise that in the physical and in the spiritual, God has blessings and interventions that affect all ramifications of your life and without him you are nothing.

Desire will fix it all

If we reduce godliness to deeds as opposed to desire or if we pay tithe, serve in a department, keep the Ten Commandments, does it translate to us fulfilling godliness? The answer is no because deeds of righteousness justify no man. What God is looking for is the desire of your heart. Like it is with marriage, the wife desires her husband, and she wants him to wish her back, so it is with the matrimony between Christ and the church God. God doesn't want anything else from you other than desire. God wants you to have a taste for him. He can’t be compared with all these other things.

The desire for the glory of God

People who sustainably invoke the blessing of God not only into their lives but through their lives to others are people who have a sustainable desire for the glory of God. Romans 3 verse 23, Paul tells us all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, what this means here is that we have all come short of cherishing above all else the glory of God's presence. Romans 1:21-23 says “When they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were they thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and now they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, four-footed beasts and creeping things.

Will you turn your focus and your desire to what God has given you or to the God who gives it to you? Will you worship the creature or will you continue to worship the creator? Watch the full sermon by Pastor Paul Adefarasin on the root of all evil.


About Pastor Paul Adefarasin:

From his mother’s living room in Lagos, Paul Adefarasin established House On The Rock Church in 1994 with just a few attendees. Proof of his calling is that the living room church has blossomed into a Ministry that has over 50 daughter churches in Africa and Europe. A well-known mentee of Bishop T.D. Jakes, Pastor Paul has been fervent in his message of hope to the world and especially the African continent where he resides. He is also the Founder and President of the Rock Foundation; a charity based Organization committed to social reformation, education, provision of healthcare and relief work for ex-convicts, drug addicts, and the downtrodden and disadvantaged in Nigeria and West Africa.

Pastor Paul Adefarasin’s capacity to teach, speak and preach from a personal and theological platform has strengthened and encouraged people all over the world. The Ministry promotes reconciliation, redemption and reformation cutting across denominational and social divides. He has a burning passion for seeing the rehabilitation of his generation, his nation and his continent.

Pastor Paul has been happily married to pastor Ifeanyi since 1995.