There was a brother called Lucky. He knew the Bible but not very fervent. One day, he was about to go to work and he prayed the usual three- minute prayer. The Holy Spirit asked him to continue and he did. After a few minutes, he decided to stop and goes to work. At the bus stop, he boarded a bus and he did not know what happened until he found himself in a bush, naked, in the evening. There were other people with him and some were dead and he saw human parts all over the ground.
An old man came out of a hut and was pointing at him, telling the other people that he (Brother Lucky) was useless and they should take him out of the place. That was when Brother Lucky became conscious of what he had been through and what was going on. He had been kidnapped but was unusable to them. They dropped him by the road side and he found his way back to Lagos State.
Daniel 5:12: Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.
In a Police barracks, there used to be a morning parade. A particular policeman came late and he was punished. One of the other officers was asked to drill him and he really sweated on that day. The following morning, he was the first to arrive at the parade ground. This means that the drilling had an effect on him and he changed for the best.
Many people come to the church with different ideas and don’t know what it means to come to the house of God. Some take it as a place where problems are solved while some take it as a place where their necks are removed from the net of the devil. God will have mercy on us for all the wrong ideas that we have of the church.
If you look carefully through the Scriptures, you will find out that the church is supposed to be a military barracks where soldiers are supposed to get ready to fight. Even the aspects of healing and deliverance that we talk about are part of the military tactics. Many people, who go about looking for healing and deliverance, actually need drilling and discipline. If many would start to see themselves as soldiers, rather than patients, they would cure many things that they think are difficult. Unfortunately, many people are seeking to be pampered but the Lord is telling them to wake up and become soldiers.
A man once said: “Give a man a fish, then you have given him a meal, but if you teach him how to fish, you have fed him for life.” The aim of MFM is to teach people to fish but many are looking for fish without learning how to get it by themselves. Learning to fish would take time and efforts. Sometimes, the fish will eat up the worms on the hook and still escape because the fisherman did not pull it up in good time. When you eventually know how to fish, no fisherman or fish seller will be able to hold you to ransom.
Many people are looking for prophets who will see visions for them. Why don’t you seek to hear and see from God by yourself? The greatest problem in a church is that people don’t know how to hear from God. There are some things that people worry about but cannot say specifically what God is saying about the issue.
Some businesses are not moving because those involved have not sought the face of God to know the will of God concerning it. The best way out is to seek by yourself what God is saying about anything that concerns you. Those who prophesy or see visions are not spirits; they are human beings born the same way you were born. What happens if your visioner or prophet travels or dies? Do you look for another one?
My prayer for you today, is that the Lord will open the eyes of your understanding, so that you will grasp what I am trying to portray to you in this message. Seeing a vision is different from solving a problem.
One day, a sister went to a white garment prophet whose face she did not see. She just saw his hand as he stretched it out to collect the consultation fee and he heard his voice when he gave her a demonic verdict on her case. He said the angel had cancelled her name three times and was driven away. She came to MFM and wanted to know what to do. She was told that she had gone to look for trouble by herself; she was the one who went to look for the evil prophesy she was given.
There are many people like that today who have gone to collect demonic prophecies. Many have gone into the camp of the enemy to look for help and the so- called prophet would get in touch with the demonic world to report back on the success of their plans.
Many people are going about seeking healing, instead of learning how to remain in good health. It is possible to remain in divine health. Find out from God, the root of your problem and cut it down with your axe of fire.
Why do you want to be enslaved? Why enrich the pockets of false prophets? You have all the facilities. Some people continuously seek to go for deliverance, whereas they can obtain the facilities and learn the principles of resisting the devil by themselves. You can expel him and his demons your self. That is why we have the book “How to obtain Personal Deliverance”.
ENEMIES OF THE EXCELLENT SPIRIT
A lot of things that people queue up for, seeking deliverance ministers, are things they can actually do by themselves in their sitting rooms. They are giving room to hungry deliverance ministers to exploit them. If you could learn some basic things and discipline yourself, both outwardly and inwardly, these demons will flee. That is why the church is a military barracks.
Some people only need to watch their tongues and be consecrated unto the Lord. Some are looking for people who will fast and pray for them; whereas, they could take up the challenge by themselves and things will happen. Sometimes, God allows some things, so that people will get serious with Him. Some beautiful sisters, who are in the church today, would not have been if their husbands were caring and loving. They found their way to church because of their husbands’ brutality and unfaithfulness. Many people need to be poured from cup to cup as the Scriptures say in Jeremiah 48:11.
When you find yourself in a state of captivity and you successfully escape, it means you have learnt the principles of escape. Nothing can beat the school of experience. If God were to put a cushion to protect us from all the blows of the enemy, we would never learn to fight back. When you escape from captivity, you are better than someone who has never been there. The Bible says, “Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion.” Similarly, that ancient song writer says: “Christian seek not yet repose.” Cast your dream of ease away, there is no time for it now.
As a student in England, I shared a room with three other students. We had to divide the household chores. One went to the market to buy food- stuff, another prepared the meal and one dished it out and set the table. One day, things were bought, I was to prepare the stew and I did it very well. The second person was to prepare the “Eba” and I noticed that he did not know how to prepare it. He poured garri. in a bowl and was pouring hot water on it when I came to the rescue. This was a learned medical doctor but was pampered at home and did not know how to do anything.
Many believers are like that; they want people to do everything for them. Some marriages have problems because the husband expects the wife to do everything like a slave and the wife who is lazy and pampered, leaves everything to the house help to do. They are both lazy to the extent of not being able to wash their underwears themselves and it is the house help who does it. That is why demonic house helps have the opportunity of taking the panties of their masters and mistresses to witchcraft meetings and trouble starts. The husband starts having strange women outside and sometimes descends on the house help. There have been cases of house helps taking over homes like that.
There was a woman who had a car but could not drive. She hired a driver and one day, he was chewing stick as he was driving. The woman complained and told him that it was not decent to do so. He insisted that it had nothing to do with the moving of the vehicle. She insisted he removed it and suddenly, he parked on a deserted road and threw the car key at her. She was stranded and that made her decide to learn how to drive.
Later, she had another driver who was using her car for commerce. One day, she caught him red handed and when she approached him, he fled for shame and she simply got into the car and drove home. Thanks to the first driver who abandoned her in the bush; she would not have learnt how to drive. A person who is not trained in warfare will be in trouble when confronted with one.
It is good to be holy but when you are practicing holiness and demons are inside of you, you cannot excel. With demons in you, you cannot put the word of God into practice because you have been held captive by these powers and they will not let go until you chase them. These are the last days and the devil is really raging in great wrath because he knows that he has a short time. So, every believer must learn spiritual warfare. Ignorance about spiritual warfare is a disaster and when things go wrong, people are caught in the enemy’s web. Things will sometimes go wrong; men and women will always have dark hours, at one point in time in their lives.
I read the story of a farmer on his way home. He had a basket of yam and he saw something that looked like a white man’s toy, he picked it and put it in his basket. The war had just ended and he did not know that it was a granite that he picked. The thing blew his head off. A soldier would have known and would not have picked it.
Ignorance in spiritual warfare is as dangerous as what happened to this man. A lot of people have killed themselves out of ignorance of spiritual warfare. There could be a demonic person bragging and boasting of the fetish powers he or she has. As a child of God, you should not be afraid of such threats if you know your God and know the appropriate Scriptures to quote to counter whatever is uttered against you.
Beloved, as enlightened as university dons are, some of them consult herbalists and carry sacrifices at night. Sometimes they drop such things in front of the offices of their colleagues. These are learned people, not market women who are usually illiterates from whom we should expect it . This means that a person could fill his head with books and fill the brain with exciting Bible study while the faith is very light and falls at any slight push. Education is not our weapon of warfare. The Bible says, “The weapon of our warfare are not carnal but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of the devil.”
It is through ignorance that a person could hear his name called in his sleep and wakes up with a start, answering not knowing the action to take immediately he wakes up. Also, a person wakes up with scratches on his or her body and does not know what to do or that something could be done about it. It is time to retire from the school of the valley and enroll at the school of the mountain.
Many people who are supposed to be enlisting in God’s army are queuing up as patients awaiting treatment from Him. Why? It is because they are making friends with God’s enemy and that way, they cannot hear God’s cry to them to be serious. When God sees that the person is not yielding to His call, He will stop calling out to the person. Even if you are a prophet and God speaks through you, if you become stubborn and do not do what He asks you to do, He will stop talking to you.
Romans 1:24: Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Romans 1:26: For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
Romans 1:28: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient,
So, when people refuse and reject the Lord, He gives them up and they eventually go to hell. In hell, it is finished; God is not there and cannot talk there.
The enemy of God that most people are befriending is sin. Sin took the life that has the best love and smashed it to the cross. The Christian who sins is not wise because sin is a completely wretched and terrible thing. It leads to slavery. That is why the Bible says, “Sin shall no longer have dominion over you.”
Alcohol has the power to issue commands and the person who drinks it has no choice but to obey. Anger also dictates to the person and he has to comply. So also does fornication, malice, gossip, pride, etc. Sin leads to shame.
There was a man of God. He fell into the sin of fornication and nobody knew about it. One day, he went for a convention and in the midst of thousands of people from all over the country, a word of prophecy came forth. His name was mentioned with the lady’s and the Lord said he should come out and remain on the convention ground for three days with dry fasting and prayers. The Lord said he would be bitten by terrible mosquitoes and anyone who helped him kill them would suffer with him. This was a shameful incidence. Sin is organized by self- destruction.
Sometimes when a person is being disobedient to the Lord, he could see the sermon, which touches his sin as prearranged to spite him or her. The person would say that the preacher is referring to him or her. Whereas, it is God locating the person and the best thing to do is to repent and turn away from anything that the Lord is pointing at.
One day, at a teacher’s meeting arranged to discuss matters concerning a student who was impregnated by a married man. I told them that it was sin and I seized that opportunity to chip in the word of God. The principal interrupted me. He asked me to take a seat and abused me, adding that I was shameless, wearing cheap things. I looked at myself and found out that everything I was putting on was worth about N12. I then said it was true.
A few weeks later, the girl in question went to the married man’s house and was beaten mercilessly by the man’s wife. She died with the pregnancy.
Beloved, we are wasting time, by telling a sinner to come to the clinic for treatment, instead of asking him or her to repent. Many people have been playing around on the parade ground and yielding their bodies to the devil as instrument of wickedness. The taste of your life must alter for good. God is going to uproot all the unfruitful trees that are just occupying space in His garden.
If you are claiming that you were born into Christianity, I want you to check your records. What exploits have you done for the Lord? It is true you were baptized as a baby and the Reverend said that as from then, you became a part of the church but have you had a personal relationship with the Lord Himself?
Are you one of those who make other people to stumble? Are you winning souls for the Lord? In which department are you serving the Lord? Are you the rolling - stone Christian? Are you an umbrella- kind of Christian on whom the word of God drops and does not penetrate? Do you worship in all and different churches, moving from one to the other? You must get delivered from the spirit of the vagabond. Can you honestly say that you have made any progress in your prayer life?
THE EXCELLENT SPIRIT: A PRE-CONDITION FOR DIVINE FULFILMENT
To become what God wants you to be, you must have the kind of spirit that was in Daniel - excellent Spirit. God is looking for people like that today.
Daniel 5:12: Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.
WHAT THE EXCELLENT SPIRIT ENTAILS
It involves the following:
1. Knowledge
2. Understanding
3. Interpretation of dreams
4. Knowing the meanings of hard word.
5. Dissolving of doubt
Daniel had all these qualities and such people don’t need to be told to listen to God. They are already at the source and they tap directly from Him.
HOW YOU CAN HAVE THE EXCELLENT SPIRIT
Meaningful devotion: You must have a time set aside every day to meet and speak with the Lord, otherwise, you are still joking as far as climbing the spiritual mountain is concerned. If you hurry in and out of the presence of God daily, you are joking. A normal Christian must spend at least 30 minutes before the presence of the Lord, day and night. You may say there is no time but I tell you that if there is a problem, you will have time to devote to it.
There was a woman who had lost 13 pregnancies. The babies either died or the pregnancy got aborted. When she came to MFM, she got pregnant again and was asked to go for deliverance which involved her going on seven days dry fast. She agreed and her pregnancy came to term and the baby survived.
The devil is an early riser and can spoil the day for anyone who allows him. The defeat of the Christian happens in the morning when the person does not have a meaningful quiet time before the Lord
Martin Luther said he was useless if he did not pray for one hour a day. If you have meaningful devotion every morning, you will make progress in everything - at work, school, etc. Your absence anywhere will be felt. The Bible says you shall be head and not the tail. It is possible to cut off the tail of a cow and it will not die, but if you cut off its head, it will die and cannot be sold as a cow. It has become meat and cannot last long.
To have meaningful devotion, you need:
1. The right time (quality and not quantity)
2. The right place (conducive environment)
3. The Holy Spirit.
4. Love for the Lord.
5. Openness and sincerity
6. Consecration
7. Relaxed mind
8. Enough time - don’t hurry away.
9. Good listening capacity.
10. Mental and physical alertness
11. Read the Bible.
Many people bite more than they can chew. They want to spend many hours but end up dozing off whilst praying. You must be awake and be sure that the time you spend before the Lord is of good quality and you must love Him to want to talk to Him and hear from Him. Do not postpone any confession that you have to make. Keep short accounts with God and repent as soon as you discover anything unpleasant. Don’t generalise when confessing, call each sin by its name, mention what you did to Him. When there is no meaningful devotion, there will be no excellent Spirit and there will be short comings and failure and no spiritual strength.
The person who has an excellent Spirit draws strength from God regularly and will be spiritually radiant and have dynamic faith. He will be fruitful in the Lord and things will work the normal way. When the excellent spirit is in a fellowship, there will be submission, one to another, praying together, dwelling in love and no unhealthy competition, but there will be fellowship.
Some people have the spirit of fear and cannot speak out when necessary and when God is depending on them. Some harbour unholy thoughts. Some exhibit unrighteousness in giving. Some toy with sin- they would say they just kissed but did not commit fornication. Some have lustful eyes and adulterous thoughts. Some are addicted to jewellery - it has become an idol.
We need to cry to the Lord. It is time to stop running about, looking for help when you already have the solution by your side. If you will whole -heartedly cry unto the Lord today, He will have mercy on you. Many have sinned against God by not doing what they know is right. Peter cried to God for mercy as he was about to drown in the sea and the Lord rescued him.
ONE THING YOU MUST DO
Beloved, if you have not yet given your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I would advise that you do so now. Confess your sins to Him and ask for forgiveness. Ask the Father to cleanse you with the Blood of Jesus and ask the Lord to come into your life and become your personal Lord and Saviour.
My prayer for you is that the Lord will take control of your life and anoint you with His power and uphold you. Now, we are going to ask the Lord to open the windows of heaven and pour down His power and mountains of difficulties will begin to crumble.
How can you call yourself a child of God and witches have their meetings on the roof of your house? Your secretary is a witch and you don’t know? She makes tea for you and you drink it . You don’t know the spiritual standing of your friends. It is an insult to God. Pray the following prayer points with all aggression.
PRAYER POINTS
1. O Lord, have mercy upon me, in Jesus’ name.
2. The Lord that answers by fire, answer me by fire, today in the name of Jesus.
3. Holy Ghost fire, incubate my life, in the name of Jesus.
4. O Lord, give me the ears of Samuel, the eyes of Elisha and the mouth of Elijah, in Jesus’ name.
5. My Father, prosper Your cause in my life today, in the name of Jesus.
6. Any power saying I will not be what God wants me to be, die, in the name of Jesus.
7. Thou God of Elijah, arise and trouble every troubler of my Israel, in the name of Jesus.
8. My Father, deliver my life and destiny from dream pollution, in the name of Jesus.
9. Every evil deposit that entered my life through the mouth gate, come out and die, in the name of Jesus.
10. Every evil deposit that entered my life through sex, come out and die, in the name of Jesus.
11. I destroy the weapons of the enemy, by the power that demolished the wall of Jericho, in the name of Jesus.
12. I cast out every evil spirit in my life and close the door of my life to them, by the blood of Jesus, in the name of Jesus.
13. I destroy every evil cycle and trend in my life and family, in the name of the name of Jesus.
14. I walk out of every evil circle, in Jesus’ name.
15. I pull down and destroy the stronghold of my enemies, in the name of Jesus.
16. Holy Ghost, sap the enemies of my life of all power and strength, in the name of Jesus.
17. Every identification mark of the enemy upon my life, be erased by the blood of Jesus, in the name of Jesus.
18. Any evil monitor that has been following me from birth till date, die, in he name of Jesus.
19. O Lord, frustrate the desire of the enemy for my life, in the name of Jesus.
20. Thou power of creation, visit my past, present and future and perfect all that concerns me, in the name of Jesus.
21. By the purchasing power in the blood of Jesus, I recover all that have been sold out in
(Pick from the list), in the name of Jesus.
- body/ soul/ spirit
- career/ministry
- marriage
- finance.
22. My Father, supply all my needs according to Your riches in glory by Christ Jesus, in the name of Jesus.
23. Spirit of excellence, breakthrough and promotion, fall upon me now, in the name of Jesus.
24. In this month and throughout this year, tragedy will be far from me, in the name of Jesus.
25. The peace of God that passes all understanding, fill every area of my life now, in the name of Jesus.
