THE WAY OF SPIRITUAL IMMUNITY
Dr. D. K. Olukoya
Immunity is a state whereby certain things cannot harm you. It is having an internal defense. Sometimes, people wonder why they are always attacked and the attacks prosper, while some other people do not even see any attack and it seems as if nothing touches them. Perhaps the later group has learnt the principles of spiritual immunity.
Ordinarily, believers are meant to be immune to certain things but lack of knowledge kills people prematurely. When you get born again, that is, you have given your life to the Lord; there are some important things you should know:
You need to know what you have as a result of your being born again.
You need to worship God. You need to spend time with God everyday, in prayer and in studying the Bible.
You have to attend church services. Church attendance is compulsory for those who are born again. The Bible says in Hebrews 10:25 that we should not neglect the assembly of one another.
You need to give to God your tithes and offering, so that He will open the windows of heaven and pour down blessings upon you.
You have to witness to others. Tell others about God’s salvation.
You have to live a clean and separated life. The Bible says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has light with darkness or what concord has the temple of God with Belial.” Immediately you get truly born again, your friends will change. If your best friends are unbelievers, then your new birth is questionable. If you say you are born again and your boyfriend or girlfriend is an unbeliever, you are playing at the edge of hell fire and the devil might push you in very soon.
You need to know who you are.
Talking about spiritual immunity, the first place to start is your identity. Who are you? If you do not know who you are you cannot know what to do about immunity. If we say there is an outbreak of disease in the streets and a person does not know whether he is a monkey or human being, he will not know what to do because the disease may not affect monkeys at all.
John1: 22-23 says, ‘Then said they unto him, Who art thou? That we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself ? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esais.” So, that man knew who he was. The question is, who are you? Ignorance about your identity can put you into trouble. The lesson on identity is an important one.
Somebody called Jacob in the Bible learnt that hard lesson. He saw that by his identity he was not in the place of blessing. A lot of people by what they are called, are not in places of blessing. In Genesis 27, Jacob got the blessings of his brother. He thought he was being clever, but did not know that all he did was a change in his identity. He got his brother’s identity card.
One of satan’s most effective devices is to get Christians to doubt their identity as God’s children. He used that trick on Jesus. He said to Him, “If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” What was he trying to do? He was trying to make Jesus to doubt His identity.
Elijah too, knew his identity. When some people came to him and said, “Man of God, come down.” He said, “If I be a man of God, let fire come down.”
Jesus answered the devil correctly and Elijah also answered his enemies correctly. The devil also said to Jesus, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down.” Again when Jesus was on the cross, some people said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, come down from that place.” They thought that Jesus would say, “Nonsense, I will come down so that they can see,” but He did not listen to them.
The same way the devil is speaking to many people today. He would say, “If you are a child of God, why are you suffering?” “Why do you have evil thoughts?" That is why I am asking you the important question, “who are you?” Some people call themselves names when they pray. They say, “O Father, I am a worm, I am unfit, I am bad, I am cruel, and I am naked.” That is your old identity card. Now that you are born again, calling yourself such names before God amounts to showing Him your old identity card and it shows that you don’t know who you are. The devil will whisper dirty things into the ears of believers and will blame them for it. Then they begin to cry, “Why am I thinking like this? Why is my heart like this? But I am born again.”
The prodigal son was unworthy and bad, but the Bible says that after some time, he came to himself. That is, he knew who he was. He realized he was a son and not a slave. The devil will push you forward and backward if you don’t know who you are. You have to realize who you are before you can be immune against spiritual poisons and arrows.
WHO ARE YOU?
Looking at the life of Jesus, we could see that He was always confessing who He is, what He is and His mission in life. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He says, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world.” The question is, who are you? I am not asking for your name but for what God says you are? What is your identity? The Bible says, “Jesus is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away; behold, all thing are become new.” It means that as a child of God you are new creature. In Ephesians 2:10, the Bible says, “You are His workmanship”. He works on you, and you are His product.
You are the righteousness of God in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.” This means that you are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:37 says, “Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” This means that you are more than conquerors. Colossians 3:3 says, “For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” This means that before somebody can get at you, the person will get at God, remove Jesus out of God, remove you out of Jesus and then remove the Holy Spirit out of you before he can get at you. But we know that is impossible. If you don’t know all these, you will be like Peter who was released from jail and did not know that he was free. It was when he got outside the town gate that he said, “I thought I was dreaming. I know that the angel of the Lord has set me free.”
The day you know who you are, that day you win a great battle for yourself. When you are asked to pray for a person who is possessed and you say, “Ah, not me. I have not reached that stage.” You are told to preach in the bus, you say, “Not people like me.” It is because you do not know who you are. The feeling of unworthiness has made many Christians a target for the devil. It is often said that you never know what you can do until you try. Some never believed they could be free from their problems until they started praying. When you know who you are, you will keep confessing it and saying it loud.
When you stand your ground like Elijah who said, “If I be the servant of the Most High God, let fire fall. I am from the third heaven. The Spirit of God is in me. The Lord is my defense. You cannot overcome me”, then you begin to notice some breakthroughs. Many do not know who they are and when the devil comes to them, they do not know what to declare. Until you know correctly who you are, certain things will not be clear to you.
They asked John the Baptist if he was Elijah or that prophet or the Messiah and he answered, “No.” Then they asked, “Who are you then?” And he said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, follow the way of the Lord, make His path straight.” When you know who you are, your confidence in God would be settled in your spirit.
The will of God is for the totality of our being to be in perfect health. God would rather give you perfect health than have you coming to Him all the time to say, “Heal me, heal me.” When you are immune from a disease, it means that you are protected from being affected by that disease. Normally, when a person is immune to infection, three things can happen: The disease will either avoid the body or lands on it and cannot penetrate or penetrates and the body kills it. In that case, the body can be said to have immunity.
The Word of God makes us to understand that it is better to have immunity than to evacuate the enemy after it has gained entrance. Most of the time it is after the enemy has gained entrance that we begin to shout, “go out, go out, depart,” instead of preventing it from coming in.
IMMUNITY SCRIPTURES
You will do well to memorize these scriptures. It will save you a lot of medical bills.
1. Exodus 15:26 says, “And said, If thou will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
2. Deuteronomy 7:15 says, “And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.”
3. 3 John 2 says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
4. Malachi 4:2 says, “But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.”
5. In Psalm 91, we identify the powers of darkness in all its ramifications - terror by night, arrow that flies by day, pestilence that walketh in the darkness, destruction that walketh at noonday, forces of defeat, plagues, lion, adder, the young lion and the dragon. But the Lord says He will deliver His people from them all.
6. Psalm 105:14-15 says, “He suffered no man to do them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” “Touch not” means do not even get near.
7. Zechariah 2:5 says, “For I, saith the Lord will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” God will be a wall of fire around His people.
8. Zechariah 2:8 says “For thus saith the Lord of hosts. After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoil you. For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” Say to yourself “I am the apple of God’s eye."
9. Mark 16:18 says, “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
10. Psalm 103:3 says, “… who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.”
11. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
12. Matthew 8:17 says, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esais the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”
A believer that confesses these scriptures daily would not be harmed even if somebody poisons his food. A certain evangelist went to preach somewhere and the people did not like him. So, they employed a cook who was poisoning his food everyday. The cook would put sufficient poison in his food and he would sit down and pray over the food and even for the cook before eating it and nothing happened to him. The cook was so amazed that he confessed to the evangelist and surrendered his life to Christ.
WAYS OF BREAKING DOWN ONE’S IMMUNITY
1. Repaying evil with evil: Believers are not to harbour resentment. Romans 12: 21 says, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” And verse 20 says, “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” Do you want to heap coals of fire on your enemy’s head? When he is hungry give him food and when he is thirsty, give him drink.
Do not allow wrong attitudes and actions to stir up the same attitudes and actions in you. If somebody hurts you, don’t harbour resentment. If somebody lets you down, do not broadcast it to the whole world. If you do, you are breaking down your immunity. Believers never repay evil for evil. For example, if you greeted somebody respectfully and the person replied in a careless tone. You then decide that the next time you see him coming, you will carry your face to the other side, you are repaying evil for evil. Don’t take revenge, if you do, you break your immunity. Even if you confess all the Bible passages in the whole planet and you take revenge, you break open a space through which the enemy can enter. We are overcome by evil any time we decide to pay back those who offend us in their own coin.
About ten years ago, a woman came for prayers, after she has tried many things and all roads were blocked. I prayed for her everyday and after five days, the Lord said, “Tell her to forgive one person she has promised never to forgive.” Then I called her and said, “The Lord said you will have a breakthrough provided you can forgive this person you have refused to forgive.” She looked at me for one minute and said, “I know who you are talking about, it is my husband and let me tell you I cannot forgive.” I asked her why and she said, “Before we got married we did not have anything and I was suffering with him. After some time, God began to bless us. We bought three cars and moved into a big house. Do you know what my husband did? He picked a girl, the age of our first daughter and brought her into the house and said all of us should move to the boy’s quarters. Can you forgive that?” She asked me. Then I said, “Madam if you will not forgive, this is where our prayer programme will end. Then she said, “Give me five minutes.” She went to the back of the church, sat down and cried. She then came back and said she was ready to forgive and we prayed. The following day, her ways began to open and everything went through. The Bible says that when you pray, forgive. It also says, “Forgive us our trespasses just as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If you do not forgive those who trespass against you, God too, will not forgive you your trespasses.
Anytime you pay people back in their own coin you take the position of God. You set yourself up as a lawyer, a judge and the executioner. God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” He also says, “You shall keep your peace and I will fight for you.” But people would always say, “They got me annoyed.”
Why do people get annoyed?
People get annoyed when other people don’t measure up to their personal expectations. They would say, “My advice was ignored.” “They don’t love me the way I want.” “My food was not served the way I want it served.” “They were too slow for my liking.”
People get angry when they feel they have not received a fair share. “They gave my job to another person.” “Why does it always happen to me?” “Is she prettier or more intelligent than myself?” “Why did they get the larger share?”
People get angry when they feel that their rights have been violated.
People get angry when they are not prepared to put up with a little bit of inconvenience. If you are still in the category of those who say, “They are getting on my nerves,” then your nerves need deliverance.
People get angry when they feel that others have hurt them. The devil who is a clever fighter will always allow you to see the fault in others but not the ones in yourself. And if you are ignorant you will not know that he is trickishly trying to remove your immunity. If you don’t stop at this stage, he will lead you to the next stage. Then you begin to use the carnal method of fighting. You face your spouse or wife to say, “You need your head examined,” or “You are absolutely stupid.” The use of insultive names like idiot, old monkey, or threatening people, criticizing and gossiping must be avoided. Never repay evil with evil or you will lose your immunity. But if you repay evil with good, you will put coals of fire on the heads of the enemy and there is nobody who will carry fire and be comfortable.
2. Your immunity will break down when you refuse to accept responsibility for your faults. Don’t go about saying that it was somebody that made you to do it.
3. Your immunity will break down when you fail to forgive those who have hurt you. This we can find in Mark 11:25.
4. When you fail to make God the priority of your life, your immunity will break down. You wake up without prayer, go to work without prayer and start work without prayer, your immunity will break down.
5. Your immunity will break down when you refuse to keep your peace and let God fight for you.
6. Your immunity will break down when you are selfish. You only serve yourself and not others.
7. Your immunity will break down when you practise any known or willful sin.
STRATEGIES TO MAINTAIN SPIRITUAL IMMUNITY
1. Your blood must be immunized: The Bible says in Leviticus 17:11 that life is in the blood. Any disease that destroys blood kills very quickly. Many killer diseases actually eat up people’s blood. Malaria is one of them. More than one million Africans die every year because of malaria. It affects the blood and the liver. Men have been looking for ways of getting rid of malaria from time immemorial. As they do that, it looks for ways of dodging them. You discover that sometimes, it is resistant to drugs. We are told that mosquitoes carry malaria. There are mosquitoes around now that even your insecticide will not harm. There is another disease called sleeping sickness. These two sicknesses have boxed men and scientists to a corner. They are serious because they affect the blood.
We should ask some spiritual questions. Surely sicknesses come as a result of the fall of Adam. Is it possible that there is a spirit of malaria? If not, what teaches the malaria disease what to do? All mosquitoes are not normal. Or haven’t witches confessed in our revivals that they sometimes use mosquitoes to drink blood. Could there be a curse of malaria on black men, because it seems to be killing black men in millions?
Let us look at Jesus. Luke 4:38-39 says, “And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose and ministered unto them.” It means that you can talk to fever the way you can talk to any other thing. You can rebuke the fever. You can talk to your blood not to accept malaria.
I know a brother who before he got married, did not use to buy insecticides. He prayed every night, bound the mosquitoes and went to sleep. But when his wife came, the first thing she asked was, “where is your insecticide?” The brother said, “No, we don’t use insecticide here. I bind them.” She said, “This is madness. Don’t allow mosquitoes to bite me, I am going to buy one.” Although she did not buy it, that night mosquitoes bombarded the two of them because there was no agreement. The Bible says, “All things are possible to him that believeth.”
If you pray regular prayer points like: "Let the blood of Jesus be transfused into my blood," or "Malaria parasite will not get inside my body," or "I render my blood untouchable to any disease agent," or "Lord Jesus, lay your hands on my blood" or "I apply the blood of Jesus to my blood, my brain, my hairs, my eyes, etc." they would be immunized.
2. The bone: There are also spiritual attacks on the bone. The Bible tells us in Psalms 34:19-20 that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.” God is a keeper of bones. You too can talk to your bone not to accept any evil parcel. You can talk to your bones not to give a forwarding address to your enemy.
3. The skin: The devil may want to attack your skin. What a glorious thing it would be for our skin to shine like that of Moses after he had seen God’s glory. No evil agent can attack such skin. You can pray prayer points like: “O Lord, let your glory overshadow my skin. Or, “Nothing evil can attack my skin,” or “I apply the blood of Jesus to my skin” or you can pray against the worms that destroy the skin and you will find that your skin too will be protected. If you form the habit of praying over your water before bathing, it will give you a lot of protection.
4. Mouth gate: More than one million black people die annually from problems introduced into their lives through the mouth gate. Therefore, we must always pray on our food and our water. We must be careful about the kinds of food we eat and follow the Bible’s recommendation.
5. The head: A Christian involved in spiritual warfare must form the habit of laying hands on his head and praying. It keeps your brain healthy. You must also form the habit of anointing your head.
6. The home: Deuteronomy 7:26 says, “Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it; but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing.” For example, bewitched decoration materials, jewelry, carved images, etc can put you in bondage. Occult materials will compromise your immunity. Your house could become a traffic of demons because you have their property.
PRAYER POINTS
1. O Lord, immunize me against satanic poison, serpentine spirits and demonic arrows, in Jesus’ Name.
2. Any area where I have compromised my immunity, O Lord, forgive me, in Jesus’ name.
3. Tell your blood, brain and bone to receive the fire of God, in Jesus’ name.
4. I refuse to be a candidate of any sickness, in Jesus’ name.
