This is the first of a two-part teaching on what I call the "Sword of Deliverance," and our working scripture will be taken from Judges 7:16-23. This is the story of Gideon.
“And he divided the three hundred men into three companies and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. And he said unto them Look on me and do likewise and behold when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and say, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So, Gideon and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had but newly set the watch and they blew the trumpets and brake the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blow the trumpets and brake the pitchers and held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal; and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran and cried and fled. And the three hundred blew the trumpets and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Bethshittah in Zererath and to the border of Abemeholah unto Tabboth. And the men of Israel gathered themselves together out of Naphtali and out of Asher and out of all Manasseh and pursued after the Midianites.”
The book of Judges is a fantastic book to read. You will notice that in this book, God was put at the last position while human beings put themselves at the first position and generally when things are organized that way, problems inevitably come. Because of this ungodly arrangement, problems started and the children of Israel were suffering. The suffering was so much that after they have planted and they were about to reap the harvest their enemies, the Midianites would come and spoil everything. It got so bad that they could not find them preparing food if they should they would be harassed. At a time, Gideon was somewhere, trying to prepare some level of food and he was hiding to do it for the fear of the enemy.
While he was busy doing this, the angel of God stood by and said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour”. Gideon said, ‘Angel, come. Don’t deceive me. Which peace are you talking about? Don’t you see what I am doing here? I am hiding here because if they find me, I will be in trouble. Where are all the miracles our fathers recorded? The angel said, Okay, so you are wise. Go in this your might and deliver Israel. That was how Gideon took over the mantle of delivering his people from the oppression of the Midianites. Here, you see him in one of his favorite battles where the sword was used. They called out two swords: the sword of the Lord and that of Gideon and when the sword of the Lord came out, the enemies cried, ran, and started to fight themselves with their own sword. So shall it be for your enemies in the name of Jesus. The sword as a weapon of warfare has won so many battles. Through the sword of men, men have created and destroyed empires. The sword has also been used for aggressive warfare and also for protection. Let us begin a small bible study on the sword of the bible then you will understand what I am saying better. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and eve misbehaved. They disobeyed God and God drove them out of the garden.
So God did something in Gen. 3:24. “So He drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life”.
Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden. And an angel protected it with an interesting sword which the Bible called an interesting sword this particular, sword. The Bible says it is called a “flaming sword that turned every way”.
A brother was living in a very demonized house. When he moved into that house, there were two herbalists living there. The first thing he noticed was that the two herbalists were two quarreling over customers . One would be accusing the other for taking his customers. So they fought and eventually, the more powerful won, and the other ran out of the house, leaving the stronger one and the brother. So the herbalist switched his fighting gear to this brother by complaining about his right vigils and his mode of prayers. Because the brother refused to stop praying, war started. One night, this herbalist decided to change into something else and went into the brother’s room. When he got there, he saw the greatest film show of his life! Surrounding the brother was a sword of fire turning in every direction; every direction; and this herbalist was so amazed that he stood there and watched the brother till day break:. And here was our brother snoring away; not knowing there was somebody there wanting to destroy him. The herbalist had no choice than to bow to the brother’s source of superior power for he was forced to narrate to the brother what he saw in his room the previous night.
Close your eyes now and pray this prayer; “Let the sword of fire pursue my oppressors into the Red sea.” Let us proceed a little with our small bible study.
Deuteronomy 32:39-42: ‘See now that I, even I am he and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven and say, I live forever. If I whet my glittering sword and mine hand take hold on judgement; I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drink with blood and my sword shall devour flesh and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.”
What is it that this passage is telling us? God has His own sword. Whose functions are:-.
1. To render vengeance to His enemies,
2. To reward those that hate him and
3. To devour the flesh of the enemy.
Take notice that we have seen two types of sword now - the flaming sword, in the garden of Eden and the glittering sword mentioned in the passage above. Keep this in your spirit as you pray this prayer point very aggressively - Let the sword of Jehovah render vengeance to my enemies in the name of Jesus. Don’t forget, our topic is The sword of deliverance.
In Joshua 5, we read another interesting passage from vs 13 “And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto him and said unto him, art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he say, Nay; but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, what saith my Lord unto his servant?" So we have the sword of the Captain of the host of the Lord drawn out; it’s the sword of victory. Are you ready to use this sword? Then pray again like this. “The Lord of Host, draw your sword against my adversaries in the name of Jesus.’
In Jer.47:6 we see this empty appeal to the sword of the Lord. “O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest and be still”. “And what was the answer? Verse 7 says “How can it be quiet, seeing that the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon and against the seashore? there hath he appointed it.” God had given the sword an instruction. When the Lord appoints His sword, none can stop it and the sword of the Lord will not keep quiet until it has destroyed the adversary. It doesn’t matter what kind of appeal is made to it like the empty appeal seen in verse 6 above. . “The sword of the Lord will not keep quiet until it has destroyed my adversaries.’ in the name of Jesus. Please do not be surprised about the tone of these prayers the enemy, satan, is far from being gentle and it is a time wasting exercise being gentle with him the only language he understands is force. If roasting the devil is not sufficient to make him release his captives, then bomb him - the important thing is to be free.
Rev. 1:16 reads “And he had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth. In his strength” Rev. 2:16 also reads ‘Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth”. See also Rev. 19:15: "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” This is the sword of the Lord Jesus Christ, coming out of His mouth and so shall He vomit sword against your enemies in the name of Jesus. What I have done thus far is to let you see that the sword is an important spiritual equipment.
The sword of deliverance, beloved, must be used in aggression, both to protect you and to fight the enemy. The sword must be used against:
1. The devil, whom the Bible calls a restless destroyer. We do not preach in MFM that the devil does not have power He has, but the power is limited. The only person with limitless power is the Lord Jesus Christ because He says, all authority, all power, in heaven and on earth have been given unto me. The devil has never said that one before. If he had all power in heaven, it would not have been possible to drive him down. He’s a restless destroyer. You sleep, may be 8 hrs a day, they don’t sleep - demons don’t go to bed. They are busy prowling around seeking whom to destroy.
If you read the book of Job, you will find that the devil was said to be moving to and fro and up and down. Through this movement, to and fro , up and down. he walks about according to I Pet. 5:8, like a roaring lion. He’s a restless destroyer.
Somebody said, by talking about deliverance, one is glorifying the devil. This is not true for if we ask the demon of the river to get out of a person’s life and the thing goes out, who is that glorifying? Is it the devil or God? Or did n’t Jesus say, If I, by the spirit of God can cast out devil, then how that the kingdom of God has come among you. So deliverance is part of what is in the kingdom of God.
Form Our findings we discovered that many pastors are scared of talking about evil spirits, with the fear that after they have finished, the evil spirits will descend on them back at home. This is not true unless there is no fire in the minister.
Satan is a restless destroyer and by so doing you are treating him with kid gloves. Pharaoh was sitting down, Moses was standing. Moses the bible says, spoke to God face to face. Yet those magicians were so bold, they wanted to compete with somebody who has spoken to God face to face. Who was giving them that confidence? Devil. So they stood there he threw his rod down. Oh they said, that’s easy; we can do that as well. So they threw their own rods down. It was a snake finish. 1-1 Moses said okay, if this is how you people are going to play the game, I command your river to become blood and it did. So the magicians said, no problem, we also can do that. So the rest of the water that people should have been drinking they turned it to blood. Moses said okay, I will bring out frogs and Moses did and frogs were jumping everywhere and the people said, no problem, we can do that as well - they brought out frogs. Then Moses said, okay, let there be lices on man, animals, trees, everywhere. Lice started. Then simple things like lice, they tried, they could not then one of them said, This is the finger of God. Let us leave them alone and let them go . Which power did they use to do numbers 1,2,3,? So they have some power but it’s limited.
2. The flesh: The second thing you should use your sword against is the flesh. It has killed so many people. The flesh has destroyed more than all the witches and wizards put together. And it is this flesh that is responsible for statements like, they are annoying my spirit, they are calling me names, they are gossiping about me, etc. One day, I was going out with a brother and some people about a 100 m away were chatting. This brother then said to me, “Dr. Olukoya, those people are gossiping about me.” I did not believe he could hear what the two gentlemen were discussing so I ran to ask from them what they were saying. You what? Those people were talking about football match. The flesh.
Terrible habits like bleaching, wearing of false nails, piercing of noses all with a view of making you “look beautiful” is all as a result of uncrucified flesh.one major syndrome that has killed many in this is “This is how they do it.” And because many are still with uncrucified flesh, they too do it and run into trouble. I have had cause to challenge many to show me where it is written in the Bible that people should choose bride’s maid and best man or it is written that people should wear wedding gown. I challenge you to tell me where it is written that you must borrow money to rent a video man to cover your wedding. It is really amazing to see some men exhibiting their chests with big chains. It is nothing but the work of the flesh and you have to use your sword to kill this flesh.
3. The world: You are to use your sword against the world. This world system in which we find ourselves is a place we do not belong to for our citizenship, the Bible says, is in heaven. We operate under a different law from that which they operate.
4. Principalities: You use your sword of deliverance against principalities that is strange spirits walking about. You use your sword of deliverance against evil authorities, evil dominion and against the rulers of darkness. As soldiers of Christ, we are meant to be terrorising and harassing them, and not the other way round. They worry Christians instead of the Christians giving them sleepless nights it is rather unfortunate..
A lot of families are under evil dominations. A single witch in a family could become a source of problem to every member of that family. You are to use your sword of deliverance against such a witch. This sword should be used against evil thrones. There are many things that are reigning as kings around. You may have a boss in the office who bows down to an idol every morning before coming to work. That managing director is no longer the man you are seeing but that idol and it should be dethroned. These days, herbalists are fully employed by people who want protection. A very important man in this country hired his own herbalist to ensure that he retained his job. The herbalist however, busied himself with good meals daily. Eventually, the man lost his position all the same.
5. Diseases, demons and evil names: You are to use the sword of deliverance against all diseases, demons, and every evil name; whether it is in this world or the world to come. When they finish mentioning the name of whatever they call, then you’ll say, I nullify it by the name which is above all names which is the name of JESUS and the evil name will frizzle away. When the enemies start their incantations, do not worry. Once they finish, just say, “Everything you just said now, I dissolve it, in the name of Jesus and of a surety, it gets dissolved.
6. The spirit of death: You are to use your sword of deliverance against the spirit of death and against all antagonistic spiritual beings.
7. Possessed objects: You use your sword of deliverance against all possessed objects.
8. The host of hell: You use your swords of deliverance against the host of hell because the enemy is restless, untiring and desperately wicked. If the enemy is not desperately wicked, how can somebody’s head be removed and be replaced with another head and the person goes about with that wrong identity? The person continues to fall out of favour because he or she is carrying about the wrong head.
The enemy fights with determination and firmness. The satanic world is much more disciplined than most churches. If you come late into satanic meetings, you could end up losing your first born as a penalty. This is at variance with what happens when somebody comes late to church and shows no remorse. The enemy will not give up anything unless he has to. He will not leave his victim unless he is forced out. They are ready to kill or do anything that will advance their own cause. They will use anything they can, they will take the form of anything available e.g crab, snake, lion, or anything just to perpetrate their devilish acts. They can decide to appear as an angel of light. And their tactics are legion. For instance, if you go to a prophet and he says, “Now, I want to prophesy. I want to go into the spirit.” As he is saying that to you, you find that in his hand, he is carrying the skull of human head, you may not be able to wait. Not many people will wait; they’ll run away. But they won’t carry skulls, they will carry the Bible to deceive more people. Even if the fire on the Bible is burning their hands, they will try and endure because they want to destroy somebody. They are working for a master who is ready to promote them when they destroy good people. I think you should close your eyes and pray with holy madness. “No demon will use my life for promotion, in the name of Jesus.” They will pretend to be building but they are destroying. They don’t mind giving people money if they can hand over their souls.
We prayed for a girl to be delivered from powerful water spirits and she got delivered. After sometime, we found out she was sluggish in coming to the house of God. When we asked her what the problem was, she said those spirits kept coming back to ask her what she has got since she accepted Jesus, that when she was with them, she had never had to ride in a commercial bus. Immediately she came out of her house, a Mercedes Benz car would be waiting to take her to wherever she was going but now; she treks, rides in buses and sometimes do not even have money. “What’s the use in serving God?” They asked her. She too was getting carried away not knowing it is better to die a pauper and enter into life than for her to be very rich and go to hell.
It is better for you to watch black and white television than for you to watch super-colour ill-gotten television and then enter into hell fire.
Our enemies are very good traders. They specialize in spiritual bargains. They are ready to allow one or two demons to leave a person to convince him that the minister is powerful. A little bit of relief is permitted to allow the demons to gain more ground in the person’s life. They can heal a person in order to win more people to hell fire. Somebody who has been blinded will say, “Well, I cannot leave the place because when I was poisoned and I was sick, they looked after me, they camped me because of that, I must show my allegiance, one should not be disloyal and ungrateful, whereas what they are doing is pampering the person to hell fire. Immediately you say you are going, they will say, “Remember, we are the ones that cured you.” They know people that are totally powerless. It is a pity that among the most powerless are people who claim to come to church.
The first time the Lord showed me the meeting of witches and wizards, I noticed that three quarters of them were women, while the remaining were men. They were rejoicing over people they have destroyed, things they’ve done, the confusion they’ve caused and they had somebody in the middle who did not know where he was, he was like a zombie. They had finished him. Only the carcass was walking about the streets. They know those who are totally powerless. They know those who can only read the psalms. They know those who only pray in the church and never pray at home. They know those who fight and are very abusive. They know those whose tongues are their abode. You know there are some demons living in the tongue just as there are some living in the head. Some people really need to pray very hard to deliver their tongues. They know who they can attack anytime, anywhere, anyhow and they know those they really have to sit down and plan before attacking for they know that failure to do that might make serious casualties.
As a Christian, you are supposed to have recognition in heaven and also in hell fire. That demons said to the sons of Sceva, “Paul, we know, Jesus, we know, but who are you? Your names are not in our register of dangerous men. As far as we are concerned, you are our meat. How come you are insulting us, asking us to go out?” So they dealt with them. Do you have recognition in hell fire? That is the question.
They are prepared to make investment on a long term basis once their goal can be accomplished. They don’t mind, they wait just as the devil waited for 80 years to get at Moses, and thereby prevented him from getting to the promised land.
They can pursue a person for years. You have to be very careful because they have their agents scattered all over the place. I counsel women contractors to ensure that they do not first contract their bodies before they obtain contracts else the money now becomes the reward of iniquity and it won’t favour them in any way.
I know of a woman who used to take her young beautiful daughter any where she went for contracts. So one day, I asked her why she always took the girl along. She said, “That is the bait. When I get there and once they see Funke, they’re finished.” Then I said, “Funke, let us pray.” She said, “Excuse me sir, what kind of prayer?” I said, “We just want to pray.” She then pleaded, “Sir, whatever you pray please don’t mention fire.”
Like I always said, it is a misnomer to call prostitutes bush-meat. It is the men who patronize them that should be called bush-meat. The enemies of our souls know who is powerless. They ignore the command of powerless men. To even worsen it, they have sent so many people to sleep and they are busy sleeping.
They like to work without being exposed, noticed or identified. Once you are able to see into their disguise, they will scream at you like they screamed at Jesus. How did they scream at Jesus? Luke 4:33-35 says, “And in the Synagogue, there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil and he cried with a loud voice, let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. Thy holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him saying, hold thy peace, come out of him.” Many people think that Jesus is a gentleman, we can see how wrong they are.
WHY WE MUST NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE
1. They want believers to stop praying against them and this is why people are attacking ministries where they do spiritual warfare. All they are saying is, “These people, leave us alone.” But if you leave them alone, they will operate unmolested and unhindered in many lives. Do you want to leave them alone?
2. We must not leave them alone because we can never lose. The Bible says, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” We are more than conquerors that is why we must not leave them alone.
3. We must not leave them alone because we have received a commandment that we should fight and we must fight. It is not a suggestion. It is a commandment, a marching order which we must carry out.
4. We must not leave them alone because without resistance, the enemy will not flee. The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee.” If you don’t resist him, he will not flee.
5. We must not leave them alone because if we run away from the battle, we’re finished. If you say, “I want to backslide,” you are finished because they will shoot you at the back so that you cannot run away. Even if you insist on running, where are you running to? Back to occultists, or to somebody who scatters cowries and gathers them together. If you run away, you shall be treated as rebel.
There was a war somewhere and the soldiers who were tired of the war and wanted to go had a trick of discharging themselves. They would shoot themselves at the legs and the authorities would dismiss them as “wounded’ and they would go back home. They were doing that quite successfully until they brought a tough commander. For the first person who did it, the commander moved close to his leg and said, “This is not an enemy’s shot, otherwise the area will not be so dark. You shot yourself because you do not want to fight again therefore, let me finish the job for you.” He shot him dead and said, “Anyone who wants to shoot himself is free to do so,” and the trick promptly stopped. They stayed and fought and won so we can not run.
6. We must not leave them alone because winners do not quit.
7. We must not leave them alone because that will mean that we have refused to acknowledge the kingdom of God.
I would like you to close your eyes and pray like this: “Let the hidden places of the enemy in my life be exposed, in the name of Jesus.” “Let all evil groupings against me scatter now, in the name of Jesus.”
One day, a little child was fascinated by his own shadow. He looked at the shadow on the wall and got excited. He found that as he moved, the shadow moved, when he bowed down the shadow too bowed down. He found that sometimes the shadow will get bigger and then it gets smaller. The boy spent about thirty minutes playing with this shadow. He said to himself, “This thing must be a friend because anything I do, he does.” He then decided to hold his hand but found that he could not hold it. He was shocked. He tried holding the leg, the feet, etc, but failed. So, he started running away from the shadow. Then he was amazed to see the shadow following him then he started screaming. There are some shadow problems, anywhere you go, they follow you. When you bow, they bow. When you rise they rise. When you sit down, they sit down. I want you to pray with holy madness like this: “All shadow problems, I cut you off now, in the name of Jesus.
Beloved, you can see that this message is for those who love Jesus and hate the devil. It is for those who hate bondage but love freedom. I am sure you would like to handle the sword of deliverance and put it into effective usage.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Every power of affliction working against me, be paralysed, in the name of Jesus.
2. I stand against every operation of the spirit of death and hell, in the name of Jesus.
3. Every force of oppression working against me, be paralysed, in the name of Jesus.
4. Every evil effect of ritual killing by my ancestors, be cancelled by the blood of Jesus.
