Jeremiah 51:20-23:
”Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms; And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider; With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid; I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers”.
Matthew 3:10:
“And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire”.
There are many and all sorts of problems in the world. Out of these problems, the spiritual ones are the greatest. Basically, some physical problems could have solutions here and there, but it is not so for spiritual problems; they have to be addressed in the spirit. It is also unfortunate to note that the world of the spirit is not too clear to some people. The truth of the matter however, is that there are many thick trees in many lives, that need to be cut down and God wants you to become His battle axe, to cut down such trees. So, I pray that as you read on, you will experience the cutting down of the thick trees constituting problems in your life, in the name of Jesus.
The truth also beloved, is that, a thick tree requires more effort than a tender plant in cutting it down.
There was a family in England that became very rich through the family brewery. It enriched the family members from generation to generation. Many people drank beer even if they had no money to eat. One day, a man who inherited this brewery went to a crusade, and heard about the forgiving power of God. He wondered if his sins were included in the sins that would be forgiven, so he went to the preacher to ask some pertinent questions. He wanted to know if God would forgive him, even when he had destroyed many lives and families, through the sale of alcohol. The preacher assured him that he would be forgiven if he confessed. He enumerated some of the atrocities he committed and asked if God would forgive and the preacher answered in the affirmative. That night, he destroyed all the alcohol in his cellar and closed down the brewery. People saw him as being mad and some journalists wrote on his madness. He accepted the madness, saying that he preferred to go to heaven poor than to be rich through the destruction of people’s lives. Beloved, after closing down this brewery and turning to the Lord and serving Him, this man did not become poor; rather, God gave him divine ideas to start another flourishing business.
A woman got married twice and both men died after one week of the wedding. She went to see a herbalist who told her that she would still get married to a third one that would also die, but that the fourth one would stay; meaning that she was originally supposed to marry her real husband after experiencing the deaths of three different husbands. In order to avert a third death, the herbalist told her to get wedded to a goat, so that it would die and she would of course get married to the fourth man that would remain alive. She did it; she wore a wedding dress and a service was conducted. That goat was not a solution to her problem. It was only a thick tree in her life, which needed to be cut down.
In Yoruba land, people have a charm called “Magun which they put on women, to avoid them from being unfaithful to their husbands.
A man used it on his wife but she was faithful, so the thing did not work on her. Suddenly, the man died and the woman, being young, made several attempts to get married but the men died. After much research, she found out that her late husband had put “magun” on her. She was a carrier of a thick tree, which had to be cut down.
There is a thick tree in our environment, which is very common to all, but people do not know that it is a serous matter; they take the issue lightly. It is the poisoned or cursed head. Beloved, the most horrible thing in the spiritual world, are those things that look innocent and easy. For example, when you mention deliverance, people get scared and their thoughts go to witches and wizards, whereas a person who is pumping himself with cocaine, has a demon in him, which is worse than witchcraft. In fact, it could be easier to get a witch delivered, than to get a drug addict delivered because the drug addict has a poisoned or cursed head.
The head is still the most important part of a body. People can be without legs or hands and stay alive. Some people have had their intestines or kidney cut off and they are still alive. A person whose head is cut off is automatically dead.
A brother was asked to kill a duck and he cut off it head . The duck jumped in agony and landed on a roof and wriggled and struggled till it finally died and it rolled down. If it was possible to stay alive, as the duck jumped out of his hands it would have escaped, but it died because it was not possible to be headless and stay alive.
Genesis 315:
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
This is the curse that God places on satan; that his head would be bruised but he too would bruise the heel of Man. These bruises are the two different things entirely.
2 Samuel 116:
“And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord’s anointed.”
The blood of that man was on his head, it was on the symbol of his destiny.
Psalm 716:
“His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.”
Psalm 235:
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Leviticus 1928 :
“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”
Matthew 536:
“Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.”
Why is the head so important? Why is it the head that is anointed for good, or cursed for bad? Why are hands laid on the head for healing, anointing dedication of priests or prophets? Why is a crown laid on the head of a king? Why is it that in the text we read in Genesis 3, the head of satan is bruised? Why does the spirit of death hide in the head? Why is it that during deliverance, we have to deliver the brain, which is responsible for intelligence, memory power, comportment, hearing, speech, taste, sight etc? When something goes wrong with the head, it affects many things. Why does the Bible forbid us from swearing by the head? It is because anything that affects the head, affects the totality of a being. One of the thick trees in this environment is this issue o”cursed head.” It is very rampant and has entered into the day -to- day life of people and their languages. They address people as being crazy, mad, good for nothing, idiot, etc. but the truth is that some of the people saying these things have strange powers; they are not ordinary people so, when they utter these curses, they stick on people.
There was a man who was dealing with some partners. Most of them were whites and he found out that whenever there was a business transaction to be carried out, they would have left before he got there at the designated time. He became curious and worried; he wanted to find out what was going on. He also came to their meeting place at 7am but found that they had left. One day, he decided to get there at 6 am and found them about to leave. He asked them why they had been dribbling him like a footballer and they told him that each time he went with them, they never got any contract and but for these few times he was absent, they had been succeeding. They actually said he had bad luck.
How does a head become poisoned or cursed?
1. Curses: People issue curses using the head; they either curse themselves, or are cursed by other people. For example, they could hit the ground with their feet, hold a metal with the tip of their teeth, raise a finger and protrude the tongue etc. Some say their head will judge others; they are in the true sense apportioning a function which God did not give to the head.
All these direct or indirect curses introduce poison to the head and this really calls for deliverance. If you are getting worried by these truths that you are reading, it means you would need to pray hard.
2. Demonic laying on of hand:
When a demonic person lays his or her hand on one’s head, it is trouble, and since the head harbours the brain which controls many things in the body, a lot of things go wrong.
3. Hair cut:
Sometimes, evil people manipulate or steal the glory of others by using their hair. They could use it physically or spiritually. That is why any dream that has to do with a person wanting to cut your hair or even merely touching it, should be taken seriously. Some people also cut off strands of their hair by themselves and put it in their mouth. It is not a good thing. Some people shave their hair when their parents or relatives die. The Bible says we should not do it. It poisons the head.
4. Consulting evil hair- dressers and barbers: These hair-dressers would require the water from shampooing a person’s hair, to make charms. They could use strands of hair that fall off the person’s head or even cut it deliberately for some evil purpose.
5. Exchange of head gears, scarves, caps: These materials could be polluted. In our environment, it is really possible to summon the spirit of a person with commands, to poison the head of such a person.
6. Demonic pomades, creams, gels, relaxers and the like: Some people apply Indian hemp on their head, while some manufacturers use grinded body parts in the fabrication of their cosmetics.
7. Incisions: God says we should not make any cut in our heads, or on our body.
8. Carrying evil load: Some people got themselves into trouble because they helped one person or the other to carry a load; through this, they transferred evil into their lives. Some people had dreams where they were ordered to carry one thing or the other and trouble started in the physical realm. In other cases, some people carry sacrifices on their heads to the cross roads, in order to get one problem or the other solved but rather than getting those problems solved, they are compounded.
Some parents have gone to herbalists to get the heads of their children ‘washed’ because the children are dull. They do not know that they have further poisoned their heads. Some do it in order for their children to have husbands or wives. Some use demonic charms to do the so-called ‘washing’
9. Abortion: This act poison heads; the blood of those foetus inevitably cry for revenge.
Exchange the brains:
A girl confessed to witchcraft in one of our services and he said she had exchanged the brain of her brother with that of a goat. He became so dull, that he could not even read the simplest part of the multiplication table from a book; whereas, he was far above that level.
When you advise some people from swearing, they get angry and do not take to good advice. These people have unteachable spirit, because their heads are already polluted. They argue in ignorance, they are also candidates of confused dreams, unexplainable loss of memory, crooked thoughts etc. These set of people observe that good things elude them.
When the head pounds during prayer sessions; and there is a terrible headache, there is an indication that there is a curse on that head.
When I was in the Primary School, I had a classmate who was very destructive and troublesome. He was made to pay for one thing or the other, as he was very destructive, and whenever we were given strokes of the cane, he would not cry, so he would end up getting more strokes than everybody. One day, during break at 11 am, I saw him crying in the toilet. He had feigned a bravado which made him get unnecessarily beaten and he went to the toilet to cry in secret. Unknown to us that had been his custom. Something was obviously wrong somewhere.
Such people get into unexplainable debts, have amputated blessings, sometimes things go on smoothly for them, sometimes they are very bad. It is such people that are unable to retain their spouses etc. In some cases,, children of the same mother could be unprogressive and poor, and their mother could be the one still feeding them at their old age.
Constant repetition of the same mistake, failure in examination that one could have passed easily, money getting struck, profitless hardwork are all thick trees of curses.
If a head is cursed, every other thing will be cursed. The same thing applies to any other part of the body when cursed but the head is most significant. However, there is a good news for us all. In the substitution death of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Blood was shed seven times:
1. As He was interceding in the Garden of Gethsemane.
2. His disfigured face; the High Priest struck His face with a rod and His beards were plucked.
3. His back was whipped. The whip had bones and metals attached to it and as it was drawn on his body, it tore it. He was given 39 stripes of the whip and by that, we derived our healing from infirmity.
4. A crown of thorns was placed on His head. That represents the breaking of curses for us and the bringing of blessings to us.
Whatsoever, happens to the head of a person, Jesus, through His substitutional death, sorted it out. The curses were broken when He made Himself a curse by hanging on the tree and His Blood that was shed, cleanses all curses that could be hanging over the head of anyone. Therefore, any believer who goes about with a cursed head, is doing so by personal decision because Jesus solved that problem more than 2,000years ago.
A boy impregnated a girl and the father of the girl, being a wizard, took the boy’s case to their meeting and they decided that they would make him run mad. They summoned his spirit at night and he responded, being an unbeliever. He was given a knock on the head and he cried out from his sleep and became mad. If he had been a spirit - filled child of God even if his spirit was summoned, there would have been no response. He had no fire of God in him. The Bible says: “Curse causeless shall not come.” This boy’s curse had a cause, so it came. It was a thick tree.
A lot of people have also been summoned spiritually like that and many have received slaps and knocks in their dreams, which have resulted into serious physical ailments.
Believers have been praying for Nigeria for as long as I know. But is the country improving in quality, honesty and integrity? Is there less fraud? less selfishness? corruption etc? Why are there so many unevangelised areas in Nigeria? The country is 44 years old, yet the country still has thick trees to be axed down despite the entrance of the Gospel in this country for more than 40 years. This thick tree that is disturbing the country is also the bondage of tradition and culture; what most people are today, is a pointer to where they were born or lived. For example, both the Jews and Arabs are descendants of Abraham. Sarah gave birth to Isaac, from whom the Jews descended and Haggai the maid, gave birth to Ishmael, from whom the Arabs descended. Ishmael is the cause of most problems of today; his beliefs are contrary.
Genesis 16 11-12:
“And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
That simple text is the description of the whole Arab race till now. The Arabs have remained unchanged since the time of Ishmael. The enmity between them is still there. If an Arab now surrendered his life to the Lord Jesus Christ, he still has this ethnic bondage to break from his life. All Arabs have these characteristics and they have to be broken. These features include: rejection by others, fighting spirit, nomadic spirit, argumentative spirit, enmity, isolation, aggression, hostility, pride, polygamy, all these things are still manifesting in their lives today.
All ethnic groups have their own traditions and cultures, which are most of the time, anti-Gospel. This is why the Bible stands in the middle, stating the bad parts of each tradition. No one is completely free from these cultural bondage and domination, unless he or she has completely broken their holds. This is why some people refuse to take counsel; the simple reason, being that they are bound. Some people even give the traditionalists, the demonic and ungodly materials they demand during engagement ceremonies. They say: “Give unto Ceaser, what is Ceasar’s”, thus compromising their faith. Others cannot do without going to their home town every weekend or every year, they are bound to these powers. It is then true that every country, tribe and family, is subject to the influence of a ruling demon.
A white missionary shared his testimony with us. He said he went to a place, where there were two countries on both sides of a major road. If you stood at the major road, you could preach to both countries. He said whenever he gave tracts to those on one side, they would gladly accept them but those on the other side would refuse to take them. He also noticed that if anyone from the refusing side crossed over to the other side, such would gladly accept the tract. It only means that there is a ruling force which is opposing the Gospel in that area; the force is making the acceptance of the gospel difficult.
In Nigeria, there are various tribes and accruing manners; these manners also have spiritual undertones, which manifest physically. There is a group that is proud, flamboyant, insensitive to other people’s sufferings, wasteful, deeply rooted in idol worship, polygamist in nature and full of concubinage; boasting in the number of concubines that they have. These same people are smooth liars. There is another tribe that is very deceptive; they will smile before you and mock you behind. They could purposely destroy things and then prostrate to apologise. One would be forced to forgive but they will still do something similar and still ask for forgiveness. There is also another tribe that is very evasive and slippery. They always want to be at the top and keep others below. There is a tribe too, that has no defined purpose, they just try things to see which one would work; these though have the spirit of deception and compromise. There is also a tribe where people have no respect for elders. They do not mind voting for just anyone, so long as the person is from their tribe. When a believer comes out of these various tradition, he has many bondages to break..
A fast analogy is the fact that if something happens in the U.K, one is likely to get first hand eye-witness reports but that could be difficult here; people could be biased, when it comes to ethnic group. This is one of the reasons why prayers are being hindered in this country, whereas a Christian should not be ethnically biased. We all come from Calvary; our citizenship is not here, but in heaven. The Apostles, before they got holy fire, were talking about positions at God’s right hand. When Jesus asked if they could drink the cup that He was going to drink, James said; “Yes” and he did; he was the first to be martyred in the Acts of the Apostles. The truth is that when they received the Holy Spirit, they saw all men as being the same, they had no time for distinctions.
All traditions and cultures must be judged by the Scriptures. The one that does not fall in line with the word of God must be put aside. There are some cultures that are good and should be preserved but the one that flouts Gods’ rules must be discarded. There are some ways of life in the European culture for example, which are contrary to the word of God. They have what is called “trail marriage”, where a man and woman live together without being married. Though, there are some cultures in Africa which show respect for elders, there are still some in so many places which do not and today, we have to break all these.
Many years ago, a woman who gave birth to a baby and she was looking pale. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that the tradition in her husband’s family demands that she does not eat any oily food for forty days after giving birth to the baby. We worked out a plan that allowed her to eat hot, nutritious food before going back home everyday especially after service and when she got home, she would take their oil-less food. At the end, nothing bad happened to her; she did not die.
Anyone who has been to Calvary cannot die because of traditional rules. All believers really need to be set free from such things but many believers are scared; they are afraid to stand for their faith. A man called all his children and asked them to eat a herbal preparation which he did with charms, saying anyone who refused to eat stands a chance of being disowned. They all ate from it even the Christian sister in their midst. She could not stand for her faith, for fear of being disowned. There was a thick tree!
Another thick tree that should be axed down is the spirit of defeat. This is when a person starts a thing and the spirit from within, says: “it will not work, it will not succeed” etc. It is a thick tree that the devil uses against the great destinies of people and it should must be cut down. Other foul spirits in this category are diseases, discouragement, disappointment, debt, doubt with the most used being discouragement.
One of the greatest prayer warrior is the Bible is David. He had prayers that sound strange. One would wonder why he hated his enemies like that but his real enemies were spiritual and we also, can use his method against our stubborn enemies, because these things are spiritual. It is clear that we are not wresting against flesh and blood , but against the spiritual entities. And please know that it is a sin not to hate the devil; it is a sin not to hate demons. The Psalmist says: “I hate them with perfect hatred.” At the same time, it a sin to hate fellow human beings. A human being who is wicked, is not actually the one that is wicked; it is the spirit behind the person that is wicked and that should be addressed. The human being is just a mere instrument.
Today beloved, I would like you to pray the prayer points that I am suggesting below, with aggression in your spirit and with determination in your heart; like the Psalmist. If you find out that you have been involved directly in any of the things that I have mentioned above, you have to lay your two hands on head as you pray these three prayer points:
- Poisons of the enemy depart from my head, in the mighty Name of Jesus.
- Poisons of evil spirits , depart from my head, in the Name of Jesus.
- Every demonic cultural bond age in my life, break in the Name of Jesus
Beloved, if hitherto, you have not surrendered your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I would advise that you do so right now and right there where you are. If you are not born again, you do not belong to the camp of God and you cannot axe down any tree, no matter how thin it is. All you need do is, acknowledge the fact that you are a sinner and that you can not approach God with your sins. Confess them to Him; name them one after the other and ask Him to forgive you and let Him know that you will never go back to them any more. Renounce the devil and the world of sin; say good-bye to them and cleave to the cross on which the Lord Jesus died, to set you free. Claim the redemptive power in the Blood of Jesus that was shed on the cross at Calvary.
Invite the Lord Jesus Christ into your life; ask Him to become your personal Lord and Saviour. Enthrone Him over your life and ask Him to take control of your totality and from henceforth begin to live a life that is worthy of Him.
I congratulate you for this decision that you have just taken. I pray that it shall be permanent in the name of Lord will uphold you with His right hand of righteousness and keep your feet from falling. I pray that you will remain worthy of Him till the end in the Name of Jesus.
Now, take these prayers aggressively like the Psalmist:
1. Let the Lord laugh to scorn, every evil counselor assigned against me
in the name of Jesus.
2.Let every enemy of my soul, fall by their own device, in the name of Jesus.
3. Let my enemies fall into the pit they have dug for me, in the name of Jesus.
4. Let the thunder, lightning and fire of Lord, scatter all the forces of the enemy, in the mighty name of Jesus
5. O Lord, send Your angels to sow terror and panic into the hearts of all evil doers gathered for my sake, in the name of Jesus.
6. Let all eaters of flesh and drinkers of blood on errand against my life, stumble and fall, in the name of Jesus.
7. O Lord, divide the tongues of the enemy, in the name of Jesus.
8. Mountains before me, I dash you into pieces, in the name of Jesus
9. Every unprofitable tree growing in any department of my life, be uprooted, in the name of Jesus
10. Every enemy of my true freedom, depart from my life, in the name of Jesus
11. Every spiritual animal walking about in the garden of my body, die, in the name of Jesus
12. Every foreign hair on my head, be plucked out, in the name of Jesus
13. Every arrow of the enemy fired at my life, back-fire now, in the name of Jesus
14. Every evil hand upon my head, be removed and wither, in the name of Jesus
15. My head, receive deliverance from every bondage, in the name of Jesus
16. I receive the touch of fire from God, in the name of Jesus
