1Kings18: 41: “And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is sound of abundance of rain.”
Notice that there was no cloud and no noise, but by faith Elijah said there was abundance of rain. Verse 42:
“So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Camel, and he cast himself down upon the earth, and
put his face between his knees.” I don’t think many of us today can do that for five minutes. It would be like corporal punishment. Verse 43: “And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, there is nothing. And he said, go again seven times.” This means that there are some prayers that cannot work once. We have to say them seven times. Verses 44-45: “And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariots and get thee down that the rain stop thee not, and it came to pass in the meanwhile the heaven was black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PROVOKE YOUR RAINFALL
To provoke means to deliberately annoy. It means to incite something to do something. It means to incite by arousing anger. It means to stimulate into action. So, whenever you say ‘provoke,’ anger is involved.
When we were very little boys we used to go to play and pluck fruits at a nearby railway compound. One day, somebody took me to the compound and we saw a lot of ripe mangoes and we were throwing stones at them, all of a sudden, we heard the barking of a large dog which was rushing towards us with madness. Prior to that time I had never climbed a tree, but when I saw the anger and the violence with which the dog was coming, I found myself on a tree. How I got there I did not know. So, something provoked me and I got on top of that tree. You never knew what you could do sometimes until you try.
I was a teacher for many years in a secondary school. One day, I was the master on duty and as master on duty you would go round and see that all the students were in the classrooms. One would also go round the toilets and everywhere. As I was going round that day, I noticed the head of a student inside the toilet. When I looked down I did not see the person’s legs. I then looked from the top and saw a boy kneeling right on top of the water closet and busy reading a letter. He did not see me for about three minutes. By the time he looked up and saw me, he screamed. I said, “Bring that letter.” He said, “No sir, no sir, no sir. Don’t read this letter.” Any way he gave me the letter with shaking hands. I saw in the first paragraph: “The garden of love, dearest apple of my eye, the sugar in my tea.” I said, “What class are you?” He said, “Form 3,” that is, what we now call JSS III. “Who wrote this letter?” He said, “One girl in form II.” I said, “Go and bring the girl.” He said, “Ah master, beat me and let me go.” I said, “No beating, go and bring the girl.” Later he dragged the little girl to me and I said, “You wrote this letter?” She said, “Yes,” I said, “Okay, go and bring me your class teacher.” She did and the teacher and I looked at the school results to see how well that boy and the girl were doing. I found out that in the last exam, the boy was number three to the last person and the girl was number two to the last. I now said, “Well, if I take you to the Principal you know what will happen.” They said, “Yes, he will send us out of this school.” I said, “I will not do that. Now, you have three weeks to the exams. If your position does not come between number one and number ten, this letter will get to the school authority and both of you will go.” They said, “Thank you, sir,” and went away. Do you know what? What I did to them provoked them into action. They read very hard and they made it.
A sister, who was attending my house fellowship, had a dream where some short demons came to confront her. She said, “I bind all of you, in the name of Jesus.” The demons started to laugh and at the end said, “Everybody is binding and you too, you are binding.” When she woke up she was mad with anger and went on dry fast and by the time these demons came again she was able to deal with them. That was holy provocation.
The Lord showed me a vision of a cloud of abundance of good rain upon many God’s people. Although the clouds were very dark and was supposed to bring rain, no rain was falling. The enemy has removed water from the cloud of many people. They saw the cloud and when they expected the rain to fall, all of a sudden it cleared away.
Beloved, there is a restlessness in God’s people all over the world now. It appears as if all the children of God all over the world are experiencing one form of frustration or the other. The big truth is that before God can give us more than what we have now we have to show that we are dissatisfied with the state we are in.
I went to greet someone who wanted to beat his son almost to death because the boy came home with a poor result. The daddy said, “This is a poor result. Look at so, so and so son. Look at this person’s son. They did better. You did very poorly. The boy said, “That is them. We are not the same. That is them. So, the boy was satisfied with his position. God’s people should not get used to bondage. Confess this statement: “I shall not get used to any bondage, in the name of Jesus.” Children of God should not get comfortable in the tail condition. They should never feel at home in bondage.
ZERO HOUR
Perhaps, even as you are reading this message, you have arrived at the position which in deliverance we call zero hour. Zero hour is the lowest hour. It is when somebody is totally in a mess, when you are totally down and really need help. It is when somebody is filled with confusion and frustration is reigning. It is when you are at a standstill in life. It is a situation where nothing has been able to help you, a situation which your knowledge and your brain have become useless. It is a situation where you simply do not know what to do again. It is a situation where your helpers flee and you are on your own, even those you helped in the past are looking at you and not lifting one finger to assist you. It is an hour where everything seems to have failed and your friends are becoming your enemies. A situation where all incomes dry up, the business refuses to move and the person is at his wits’ end. Human intelligence has terminated and thoughts of a way out have been exhausted. You have done everything you know how to do but there is no solution. Perhaps you have arrived at that situation. But now I tell you that there is a way out. You need to provoke your rainfall. Elijah needed that rain and it would have been a disaster if he had not provoked it. If the rain refuses to fall, you have to take some actions to provoke it.
WHEN DO YOU NEED TO PROVOKE YOUR RAINFALL?
1. When your victory is not complete.
2. When those who are to mock you have gathered.
3. When unbelievers are asking you where your God is.
4. When a satanic audience is waiting for your downfall.
5. When evil powers are challenging God in your life.
6. When you have looked at the whole of your family line and you don’t want to follow its evil pattern.
7. When the viper of disgrace that has attached itself to your hand is trying to bite you.
8. When the enemy has sucked you dry.
9. When your debt is mounting and your income is low.
10. When the Lazarus of your destiny has been embalmed and buried.
11. When yokes begin to multiply and chain problems continue to come.
12. When lodge members, occult people and evil assemblies are saying, “You better join us.”
13. When you are being encouraged to be disobedient to God because you have a problem.
14. When shedding tears have become your regular affair.
15. When the road you are traveling is becoming rougher and rougher.
16. When you notice what we call ‘finishing fever’ in your life. When spiritual fever starts as you are about to finish something.
17. When you are becoming an expert at finishing what you should not have started.
18. When you try to smile and the smile is not coming at all.
19. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black in the boxing ring of life.
HOW DO YOU PROVOKE YOUR RAINFALL?
There is nobody that God does not have a good destiny for. The Bible says, “I know the thoughts that I have towards you, they are the thoughts of good and not of evil." That is what the Bible says, meaning that God does not have terrible or bad destiny for anybody. But the rain of destiny may refuse to fall. How do you speak to the clouds today that they must rain abundance on you? How should you declare that what you have been having are showers of blessing, but now you want the rain to fall? How do you provoke your rainfall?
1. Disband worry from your life: John 14:1 says, “Let not your heart be troubled” It does not say, “Pray for God not to allow your heart to be troubled.” Worry will give you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere. It is not your friend at all. It is your enemy. It cannot be found in God’s vocabulary. If you read the Bible very well you will find that Jesus was never in a hurry. He knew what He wanted to do and He did it. Anything they said to scare Him did not work. Worry and faith are incompatible, because immediately worry runs in faith jumps out. The beginning of worry is the end of faith. We could see that Elijah was not worried at all. He was confident that that rain would fall.
I remember the story of one little girl. There was no rain in their city and the Christians decided to gather to pray that rain would fall. As they were going for the meeting, the girl said, “Daddy, let me follow you.” The daddy said she could come along. Later the girl said, “Daddy, wait I have taken my Bible but there is something I have forgotten.” And she ran inside and took an umbrella. The daddy asked her: “What are you doing with the umbrella?” She said, “Daddy, but we are going to pray that God should send rain.” The man laughed and said, “Well, it has not rained for many years." They went and before the prayer meeting got half way rain started. It was only the little girl who had an umbrella.
Worry has nowhere to go and it gets nowhere. Many years ago, when I was in England, one doctor told me a story. He said there was one patient crying every night, “Doctor, give me medicine or I will die. Give me medicine or I will die.” The patient was screaming and screaming but they had given him all the medicine that he was to take. When he continued to cry, the doctor went and got water, put it inside the injection and put it on his body then he said thank you and slept. So, it was not the sickness that wanted to kill the man, it was worry. Many die before their time because of worry. I remember the day that all the guests in one hotel have deserted the hotel. Somebody was crying in one of the rooms: “It is inside my bag." They knocked at the door of that room but the fellow did not open the door. The other guests started running out thinking that the man wanted to bring out a gun from his bag. But the man was just having a dream. He later explained that he found himself inside a house in the dream, the door was locked, he wanted to go out and was looking for his keys and was saying, “It is inside my bag.” Worry gets nobody anywhere. That is why Jesus said, “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6). When you make your request known unto God, His peace will come.
2. Violent faith: Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink for there is the sign of abundance of rain.” There was no physical sign of rain but Elijah had evidence of it inside him. I want you by your ears of faith to hear the sound of your breakthroughs today.
3.Pray until something happens: Pray until you feel the drops of rain falling on your body. Don’t get up until God answers.
3. Never accept your present position as final: The enemy might have been playing games with you. Don’t agree with his game. Don’t negotiate with him at any level. Don’t go to his camp to warm yourself in its fire. Because if you warm yourself in his fire you will pay for every heat that you enjoyed there. The devil operates a primitive trade by barter. Everything anybody gets from him, the person will vomit it. So, don’t go to him for help. Also, somebody has said that the greatest enemy of success is present achievement: Well, I am doing well; I thank God. So, I don’t need to do anything more. Don’t accept where you are as your final bus-stop. Don’t take your financial position now as your final financial bus-stop. Don’t take your spiritual life now as your final spiritual bus-stop.
4. Keep going until you see result: Elijah said, “Go again, go again, go again.” Keep going until you see perfection. Don’t allow the enemy to make you depressed. All those periods you spend in just sitting down to mourn and in self-sympathy, you allow the enemy to gain on you. If God would open the eyes of some people instead of sitting down to be crying, they will be jumping up and be doing praise worship, because they will see how close they are to what God wants to give them. A lot of us don’t understand the principles of God. When you get born again you say, “I want chin-chin and doughnut. He says, ‘Take.” You say, “That is good. Now, I want goody goody.” He says, “Take.” Then as you grow in faith you find that sometimes when you ask for something it will be slow in coming. God is training you to see how firm you can stand. Keep going, don’t give up. Keep going, keep going. If you pray and after the prayer doubt comes into your mind again, forget that you have prayed, go back again and pray. All the faith preachers who say, “once you pray once it is okay” are now seeing their mistake. Elijah said, “Go again, go again, go again, go seven times.” It was not until the seventh time that some clouds like a little hand came up and then things began to happen.
5. Draw near to God: That is, put away anything offensive to Him in your life. Every apple of the devil has worms in it. If the devil gives you scotch egg to eat, you can be sure that only the flour outside it is good, the egg is bad. If you draw near to God, He too will draw near to you. If you move away from Him, He too will move farther away from you. And since His legs are longer than your own, if He moves back one step He might have moved 500 miles when you have moved only one foot. Draw near to God.
7. Pray to provoke a big rain: Elijah used the weapon of prayer to provoke a big rain. Many people are supposed to be employers of labour but they are now being employed. Some don’t even have a job. They have to provoke rain and by this very tomorrow begin to see it falling upon them.
PRAYER POINTS
1. I provoke my heavens to open, in the name of Jesus. (Pray this seven times and shout seven Hallelujah).
2. Every power that has locked me up, die, in the name of Jesus.
3. My rain of marital, business and career or breakthroughs, I provoke you by the blood of Jesus. Fall, in the name of Jesus (Please, be specific).
