Our message this week is entitled, “Deliverance from the rod of the wicked.” Psalm 125: 1-3 says, “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion. Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever. For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous.” This is the living God declaring that the rod of the wicked that has been resting upon the lot of the righteous for some time now will no longer rest upon them, “lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.” That is a very loaded verse. It explains why some people do what is unexpected of them. When you see people behaving in a way that is not expected of respectable people, you should know that the rod of the wicked has rested on them and their own righteousness has been taken into iniquity. I pray that anybody under the rod of the wicked will receive deliverance by fire, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Isaiah 14:1-5 says, “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land, and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives whose captives they were and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.”
The Lord will break the staff of the wicked upon your life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The rods of the wicked come in various shapes, colours and sizes. When the enemies desire to terminate the good things in a life, they may plant their rod in such a life or in his or her home. Sometimes, they carry the wicked rod on their head and stay with the person.
There was a certain man who dealt in cars. He travelled to bring new cars to his base. But anytime he went for the new vehicles, the ones that were supposed to be his profit would have accident. He did everything to stop the misfortune but it did not stop. He began to lose his profit and his capital was affected. The number of vehicles he bought reduced to 15 from 24. When the situation became very bad, he decided to go to the mountain to pray. His only prayer point was “Oh Lord, give every enemy of my life a knock, in the name of Jesus.” He prayed with all his might and came back home. On getting back home, they set food for him to eat and he asked for his mother. The mother came and as they were eating, the mother said, “Do you know that one of your naughty children came to give me a knock?” The man then said, “Excuse me, mummy, I went out since morning. Please, allow me to eat my food.” As the man was eating, his mother received the second and the third knock. After she received the third knock she could no longer sit. The man carried her to the bedroom and he asked her what happened and she asked back what happened. The man, being a prayer warrior, started praying again and as he said “in Jesus name,” God asked him, “Who asked you to pray now?" He said, “My mother is sick.” God said, “Were you not the one who said I should give her a knock?” Then the man understood and said, “We would use the price of one car to do her burial,” because the mother died in the process. That was how the rod of the wicked stopped operating in his life.
When you want to do anything open your heart to the Holy Spirit and He will open your understanding. The rod of the wicked symbolizes the authority of the enemy in your life. The rod that we are talking about, the enemy operates with it to punish people. It comes at different stages of a person’s life. For some people, this rod manifests in their life right from the womb when some people have a quarrel with their parents.
A minister of God got married and was expecting that a baby would come in the first year. He and his wife prayed and fasted but up to the sixth year no baby came. They did not understand what was going on. They continued to pray. In the eighth year of their marriage they had a baby. The baby started growing and one day, they decided to visit their people in their village. As they got to the village their parents were so happy and thanked God that they had the baby. The baby started running about. As he was doing so, its grand-parents said to its parents: “Come, you don’t know this village, don’t allow your son to run about too much.” But the minister and his wife laughed and said, “Don’t bother about that. We prayed for him, no evil would befell him.” As the boy was running about, an old man came to the minister and said, “Come, I want to see you.” They told him that the man was the head of the wicked people in the village that he should not go near him. But he said, “no problem” and went to see him. As he entered the old man’s house, the man said, “My son, welcome. I have something to show you.” And the man removed his cap and on his head were nails all over. The minister wondered how the man could get nails all over his head. Then the old man now said to the minister: “I will tell you the story. When you were getting married, we were three in number and we said that nothing good would come from the marriage and we started to fight you. Any time your wife got pregnant we removed it. But something started to happen. We would all sit in our homes and a man would come with a nail and a hammer, put the nail on our heads, hammer it and walk out. The other two are dead and the man told me the last time that there was no more space on my head to put the nail, that he was going to put it in my chest. That was why I said, okay it is because I am holding your wife from having a child and I removed my hand so that the man would no longer give me nail. That is why you are able to have that baby. He asked for the name of the boy and the minister told him and he said, “My son, can you forgive me?” The minister answered that he should ask God to forgive him. He said, “Good day, sir” and the man left.
The Lord that could locate the enemy of this family will locate your own, in Jesus name. Amen.
The living God made a declaration: He said He was always angry with the wicked.
WHAT AREAS DO THESE WICKED RODS ATTACK MOSTLY
1. They attack the whole life of a person, the one called destiny. When they lay their rod of wickedness upon the destiny of a person the person will find it difficult to excel in simple things.
2. They attack marriages.
3. They attack the vision of a person.
4. They lay the rod on the business of some people. When this happens, the people would just be there. They will not have anything to show that they are doing business.
5. They attack parts of a person’s body, for example, the womb, the reproductive organ, the hand, the legs, the heart, etc.
What do they usually achieve or what do they want to promote when they lay this rod of wickedness on a person?
1. They want to promote scarcity of blessing. If there is a regular flow of good things into that life, they will terminate it.
2. They use this rod to direct a person into a contrary path and the person will think he is still on the right path.
3. They promote frustration. A young man came to us about two years ago. He had a good job with a Federal Government establishment and was doing fine. But he suddenly packed his load and ran to a place he had no job. People asked him why he came there and he said that the people at the place from where he ran wanted to kill him. They asked him to explain how they wanted to kill him, he said that any time he entered his office, his head would be turning and he was frustrated. They frustrated him so that he did not see anything good in that job and he had to leave the place.
4. They promote hardship. The thing that should not take more than six weeks will take nine to ten months. When you don’t challenge this rod, it leads to death. When it is laid upon a person it demotes the person spiritually. But the enemy should not rejoice over our lives.
5. It promotes emotional turbulence. It brings problems that will make you say: “I had not been having this kind of problem. Why now? I pray, I fast and I am closer to the Lord. Why now? It is because the rod is laid on you.
6. They promote sloughtfulness. Sometimes some people would say, “I cannot do more than I am doing now. If anybody wants to die let him die.” Where they ought to run they will be crawling.
WHEN DO THESE ENEMIES LAY THEIR RODS
¨ When your star is shining.
¨ When you are doing better things.
¨ When your hopelessness is disappearing.
¨ When the joy of your accomplishment is increasing.
¨ When you come forward and say, “Praise the Lord. When I came to this place I was trekking but now I have bought a car.
¨ When your breakthrough is visible.
¨ When you say, “I want to rest from all my labour. Let me relax with what I have now and serve the Lord."
A man and his wife retired and were doing fine with their children. They lived in their own house. All of a sudden some people came to the man and told him that they would help him to do fast moving business whose turnover would be great. Without telling his wife, the man went to the bank and collected all their savings. And they told him that the money would not be enough that he should bring the papers of their house. Without telling his wife he also gave them the papers. Weeks later, some people came and said, “We give you four days to leave this place.” The wife asked what they were talking about, and told them that the house belonged to her and her family. They told her that she was joking and showed her the papers. The woman ran to her husband and asked him to come and hear what she was hearing. And the man said, "It is true. I did not know how to tell you. Some people did business with me and I gave them the papers." The woman nearly tore the man to pieces. The man said they would look for a house to rent.
They come when you think noyhing can harm you.
They come when you are experiencing the power of the world.
They come when you start to experience the Holy Spirit.
They come when you are standing for God’s honour and righteousness more than you have ever done in your life before.
A minister of God arranged a crusade at which God told him that the devil would be disgraced. He gathered his team together, prayed and fasted for the meeting. As the crusade started, he discovered that all the ministers sitting behind him started leaving one by one. He wondered what was happening but continued his preaching until he was the only one left there. Later somebody in the congregation came forward and said that he wanted to give his life to Jesus. The minister said it was not yet time for that. Later the man said the minister had the spirit that could not be killed. He said he came to the altar with a cane to beat all the ministers, that is, he laid a rod upon all of them and that made them to leave. But as he was beating the minister, the minister became stronger, that was why he said, “This one has the power that I should not play with,” and decided to give his life to that power.
WHAT MUST WE DO NOW?
Beloved, you need to understand that when the rod is operating in a person’s life or in a family, bitterness comes in just like that. You would see that you are just bitter but cannot explain the cause of the bitterness. When you begin to have worldly wisdom instead of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and you say, “If I do this thing, there will be nothing bad with it," then the rod is around the corner. When you avoid your night vigils and say, “Body no be stone,” the rod is around the corner looking for you. However, God has a declaration for us in Isaiah 60: 18. It says, “... But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise.”
There are five steps to take before you pray:
1. Understand that it is only the living God that can deliver you from the rod of the wicked.
2. Do a thorough self-examination. If you are not born again yet, get born again.
3. Start to walk in the perfect way of God.
4. Refuse to habour pride in your heart.
5. Call upon the Lord for deliverance from this wicked rod.
If you pray the following prayer points very well, the God that answereth by fire will answer you by fire, in Jesus' name.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Oh Lord, give the enemy of my progress the knock of death, in the name of Jesus.
2. Oh Lord, visit my enemies in a wonderful way that they will never forget your anger, in the name of Jesus.
3. Every wicked rod in my family, receive the fire of God and burn to ashes, in Jesus’ name.
4. You wicked authority dragging my life behind, be paralysed by fire, in Jesus’ name.
5. (Hold your head). My head, reject the influence of the rod of the wicked, in the name of Jesus.
6. Blood of Jesus, deliver my head from the authority of the wicked, in Jesus’ name.
7. You rod of the wicked, I terminate your affairs in my marriage, in Jesus’ name.
8. You wicked rod that is opposing my open heaven; roast, in the name of Jesus.
9. I release my reproductive system from the authority of the wicked by fire, in the name of Jesus.
10.(Put your two hands together and pray:) Oh Lord, accelerate your glory in my life by fire, in the name of Jesus.
