That song on its own is a declaration of intent, it’s a proclamation of what we are here to do, but I saw some people standing stiff. If that’s the only thing are able to do today, I think we’ll close this service and the name of the Lord will be glorified.
Father in heaven, we just want to say thank You; from the bottom of our heart Lord Almighty God, we are giving You our praise, You have made us glad and we will rejoice in Your love, we’ll rejoice in Your grace, we’ll rejoice in Your mercy, we’ll rejoice in Your power.
Thank You for everything You have done for us, thank You Father Almighty God from day one up to this moment – thank You for January, thank You for February, thank You for the month of March, and thank You Father Almighty God for bringing us graciously to the fourth month; thank You because we are rest assured of one thing that You that have begun the good work, You are more than capable to see us through this year, accept our thanks in the name of Jesus Christ.
Lord, it is unto You we have come today and we have come to declare our praise, we have come to sing songs, we have come to make melody, Lord Almighty God, we pray this morning that the totality of what we have brought today shall come unto You oh Lord as a sweet smelling savor in Jesus name. Accept us and accept our worship in Jesus name.
And Lord Almighty God we pray You, with every sense of humility and great expectation that as we praise You Lord today oh God, You will give us victory over discouragement in Jesus name; as we praise You today oh God, from the depths of our hearts, You will give us victory over difficulties in the name of Jesus Christ; as we praise You oh God Almighty, from our hearts, from our minds, Lord Almighty God, You will cause us to walk in our high places in the name of Jesus Christ; and as we praise You oh God today, we pray that every wall of Jericho around us, every wall of Jericho around our children, every wall of Jericho around our loved ones, every wall of Jericho concerning our finances, every wall of Jericho manifesting in one area of our lives or another of our lives, You will put down in Jesus name. At the end of everything today You will take all the glory, blessed be Your name forever oh Lord.
I pray oh Lord for Your children who have been faithful in the payment of their tithes and the giving of their offering, Lord Almighty God You said we should try You if You will not open the windows of heaven and pour Your blessings upon us, thank You because You are not a man that You will lie nor the son of man that You will repent, Lord, according to Your word, so let it be in Jesus name.
Bless Your people like never before in the mighty name of Jesus; let the magnitude of Your people’s blessings confound their enemies in Jesus name and let Your name be glorified.
We pray oh God that the sick will leave here healed today in Jesus name; the oppressed will leave here delivered in Jesus name; the captives will leave here set free in Jesus name, and at the end of everything, everyone of us will leave here as conquerors and winners in Jesus name. Blessed be Your name oh Lord forever, take control of this service, glorify Your name, walk in our midst and do that which only You can do, in Jesus marvelous name we have prayed.
Good morning church and happy new month to you! Happy new month of April, the month of blessing, the month of grace, the month of irrevocable and irreversible victory in the name of Jesus, God bless you.
We bless the Almighty God for all that He has done for us and we thank Him for the gift of a brand new month, it’s our month of irrevocable victory. It is a declaration and whether you like it or not, so long as you belong to this assembly, your victory this month shall not be negotiated, your victory shall be irrevocable in the mighty name of Jesus; your victory shall be total and complete, and so shall it be in Jesus name.
It’s our month of victory and lead scripture is taken from the Book of 1st Corinthians 15: 57 that says thanks be to our God who has given us victory. Because the victory is from God, it shall be irrevocable, it shall be irreversible and none will be able to negotiate it in the mighty name of Jesus.
By the grace of God we’ll be having our first prayer chain of the month tomorrow and the theme is “Divine Providence”; our scripture is taken from the Book of Daniel 3: 12 – 28. When you talk about divine providence we talk about God’s factor and I pray in the name of Jesus that in all that you do, God factor will overrule every human or whatever error or challenges that will come your way in the name of Jesus Christ. And that divine providence will bring about your victory in the mighty name of Jesus. Praise the Lord!
What we want to do is just to serve you the appetizer, by the special grace of God, our esteemed General Overseer, Pastor E.A Adeboye will come in the course of time to serve us the main meal, the Lord will bless us all together today in Jesus name.
Ephesians 5: 15 – 20, I will try to rush but I pray that the little we are able to share, the Lord will water it in your heart and He will grant us the understanding of His words in Jesus name. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. 18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
Before I go into the word, let me quickly appreciate (once again) all our partners, all the people that supported us in our empowerment program last week Sunday. By the grace of God, I think we were able to take care of close to 1,500 people; at some point, I must confess I was a bit scared seeing the mammoth crowd because we only planned for 1,000 people, but Mummy Adetola prayed one prayer, she said the good Lord that multiplied the five loaves and two fishes will come upon your provision, (she said) there is no cause for alarm and at the end of the day, we were able to take care of close to 1,500 without any stress and without any problem.
So I want to seize this opportunity to thank all our partners, all those who supported us and I want to thank all our people who stressed themselves so hard to ensure that we had a very smooth exercise. In fact I was jokingly talking to one of our very good friend, I said for the first time I saw grey hair on the head that day, I’ve never seen grey hair but that day I saw it because you could see her sweating very profusely.
So we want to appreciate all the people – Sister Mercy who actually coordinated the purchase and the re-bagging of the whole thing, we appreciate everyone of you and all of you that gave us the logistics support, the Lord will bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.
What we saw last week confirmed the fact that there is so much hunger in the land and by the grace of God as God enables us, we will try to do it again maybe by June this year, so if you are interested, I want to beg you, don’t feel compelled but if you are interested you want to be part of taking care of the needy, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, the Lord will bless you in Jesus name.
This morning before our daddy comes, I’ll be talking to us on “Overcoming a Troubled Heart”. Brethren, we all face disappointments, no one can live (and that is the truth) with that expectation, suffice to say that every one of us have our expectations, but often time, we fall short of these expectations, and what this simply means to us is that we will need to learn how to overcome disillusionment, discouragement and of course the difficulties that comes with failed expectation.
A man once said that you cannot always have a good day but (he said) you can always face a bad day with a positive attitude and that is just the truth. Nobody will always have a good day all the time; yes, you may pray for it, you may wish or hope for it but unfortunately often time, you’ll discover that it’s not every day that you pray that everything should be good and fine that turns out that way, but if it happens, that should not spell a dead camel, all that required of us as children of God is to face a bad day with the right attitude, believing that weeping may endure till the night but joy comes the following morning.
If you read the Book of John 16: 33, it gives us an equivalence of what I’ve just said, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”. Our God is the Alpha and the Omega, and what that simply means is that He’s the beginning and the end, so there is nothing that happened, there is nothing that is happening or there is nothing that will happen to you that God is not aware of even before it occurs.
So in these scriptures we have a great consolation because God Himself has assured us that difficult times will not be forever. In our scripture (that we read), God points to a reality which we rarely admit but we know it is true and this is a fact that the days are evil; He said redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
The brokenness and the vainness in this world mean that we must make the best use of our time. Paul tells us this for two reasons, number one, he says the days are evil because they induce us into thinking that we have more time and opportunity than we really do. The days are evil because number one, the day makes us to believe or the day deceives us to believe that there is so much time ahead of us and that there are so many opportunities ahead of us which is not really the case.
Secondly, the days we live in bring evil to our lives. And that’s why Apostle Paul captured it, he said these things I’ve told you, in this world there will be tribulation; the day that we live brings evil to us. The Yorubas have a saying that t’ibi t’ire lo ba ojo rin, but my prayer under the influence of my voice today is that no evil will come near you in Jesus name, none of you will partake in the evil of today in Jesus name.
T’ibi t’ire lo ba ojo rin means that every day has its own measure of evil and good – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even a Sunday has its own measure of evil and good, but by the authority of the Most High, I declare once again that evil of today will not be your portion, the evil of today will not locate you in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
So the days in which we live in bring evil to us, therefore we must be careful to make sure that this expression of evil won’t wobble us and prevent us from achieving our Godly destiny. A lot of things are happening in our time, you know, there is austerity, there is association difficulties, inflation is high, everything is high and in addition to that, a lot of moral issues such that we’ve never had before.
Today you hear of LGBT, you’ll hear about cross-gender, you’ll hear about this, you’ll hear about that that never happened before. We celebrate modernization but modernization has brought evil to that; today, little girls and little boys know so much more than their parents when it comes to perpetuating immoralities. Technology, modernization, growth in our modern history has brought a lot of evil and that’s why as believers, we must be very careful, we must be sensitive and we must be at alert.
In that brief passage, Paul told the Ephesians what they need to do in order to walk wisely, he said, don’t get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. And ever since human history when the knowledge of brewery has come, you put fruits together, you ferment it then you get alcohol from it, people have been drinking and there is this saying, ma a jo, ma a mu, ma a fi pa’ronu re but the truth of the matter is that there is no way alcohol will take away your pain; there is no way that alcohol will take away your discouragement perpetually, if it does, it’s a temporary thing, by the time your eyes are clear, you will come back to your pains.
Young people take drugs, sometimes go into occultism, the truth of the matter is that you do all those things to suppress discouragement albeit temporarily, when your eyes are clear, you will come back to meet yourself. Applying those things is like a man that is dreaming, you know some dreams can be very interesting – you dream, you find yourself in a palatial mansion, everything is at your beck and call and everything is going on around you.
How many of you have dreamt such dreams before? And when you just wake up and see yourself in the corner of your room, you’ll just say oh God, who did this to me? Sometimes if somebody has woken you you’ll say why did you wake me up? You should have allowed me to enjoy myself for a while but the truth of the matter is that a dream is a dream, a dream will never be a reality, and the Bible tells us that one of the sources of dream is out of multitude of business, if you carry something in your mind, oh it is business you are looking for, you’ll find out that you’ll be getting briefs in the dream; oh it is husband that you want, you’ll just find out you’ll be getting advances in the dream, you’ll see the one that will come with G-Wagon, you’ll see the one that will come with LS, you’ll see the one that will come with BMX 7, but by the time you wake up, you’ll still find yourself in the corner of your room, you’ll now say who did this to me?
It’s a dream, whatever you abhor is what comes (most times) by way of dreams and that is why I’m always very careful when people come and say I dream this dream, dream can come from God but I’ll tell you to watch it and I’ll look at it very well because contrary to what people believe, it’s not all dreams that come from God, sometimes if you have so much attachments and anxiety to something, you’ll find out that before you close your eyes, the thing has come.
So Paul is not just telling us to avoid drunkenness, but he’s telling us that we must be filled with the Spirit, and you can substitute so many things with wine like I said, it could be drug, it could be mindless internet surfing. There are people now as I am talking they are surfing internet, check your neighbor, anyone that is holding his phone and is not the Bible, check what he’s doing.
To some people it has become a problem, they cannot regulate it, everything you say from day one to finish, they won’t hear, garbage in garbage out, after the service, how was the service? It was a great service. What was the theme for the exhortation? Oh, I can’t remember, they can never remember because as the message was going on, they are surfing internet. So check your neighbor, anybody that is surfing now, tell him don’t surf.
It’s part of the challenges, it’s part of our problems; you’ll see three people at home, everybody is sitting alone, isolated, three family members, everybody is on his phone, no relationship, no conversation, where there is no conversation there can never be relationship because conversation is the bedrock of every relationship.
So whatever you may want to substitute for wine is allowed, and I want to encourage us this morning, don’t attempt to ignore the difficulties of life by giving yourself to occultism, in fact you can only complicate your situation. Some people join all kinds of things and when they are caught they would say I just needed protection, nothing is going well for me, how can things go well with you when you are shedding innocent blood? How can things go well with you when you have been input with the wrong spirit? How can you think right? Whatever it is that you go into just to suppress your discouragement, to suppress distress and disillusionment, if it is not of God, it can never stand; you may think that you are avoiding pain but you are just postponing the evil days.
Like I said, if you think taking drugs, taking this, going after this going after that, prostitution and all the rest, people are getting killed for ritual these days, so you need to be very careful. Sometimes when we warn you, it’s not because of anything, it’s not because they hate you, we love you that’s why we talk to you so that you can be filled with the Spirit and when you are filled with the Spirit, you’ll be equipped and empowered to deal with life difficulties instead if avoiding them.
We find out that avoidance measure in dealing with problems have proven to be a temporary solution. When you try to avoid problem instead of dealing with it, it’s a matter of time you will still come back to it and I’ve told you before that trouble do run from trouble, if trouble follows you and you give it a chase, you’ll find out that it won’t come back to you next time, but if you are avoiding trouble, it will start following you. So from today, instead of avoiding trouble, deal with your trouble.
And another one, he (Apostle Paul) says address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and this is the reason we are here today, it is the icing on the cake for true believers and I want to beg us today that we all need to understand the power of the scripture.
I was telling the workers ministers this morning, you need to understand the scripture. Paul was talking to Timothy, he said from infant thou has known the holy scriptures which made you wise unto salvation; what determines your level of wisdom or foolishness in Christianity is the amount of the word, the amount of knowledge, if you don’t want people to toss you, they will manipulate you, they will use you to exchange for anything if you don’t read these scriptures.
He said from the infant thou has known the holy scriptures that made you wise unto salvation but my focus today is on praise and worship, and the key portion of this verse is a reminder to us to address one another. He said Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Paul was not just telling us something that was for our own good, but he was addressing the church and he wants us to accept responsibility for one another, he tells them to remind each other of God’s goodness through psalms, scriptures of praise, hymns, songs of praise and of course songs, that is our impromptu responses of praise, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
God wants us to both engage one another with praise and worship as a regular part of our own life. And brethren I want to say this, music as we all know inspires and changes us; music is said to be the food of love and guess what? God is love and if food indeed is the food of love, then let’s it regularly to the One who made us. After all 1st Peter 2: 9 says But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, that is where we are.
And yesterday I was just reading through Guardian newspaper, I saw what they call the therapeutic power of music, I have it here, what music can do;
Number one, music can lead to a better learning, because when you listen to good music, it stimulates your brain.
Number two, good music can improve memory because music has the positive effect on the ability to memorize.
Number three, music can help treat mental illness, music changes the brain. You know the story in 1st Samuel 16 where whenever the evil spirit came upon Saul, David would play his music and the spirit will leave him. So as we praise God this morning, every spirit that is contrary to the spirit of God in your life will give way in Jesus name.
Number four, music has a great effect on your mood, good music will affect your mood. I’m not talking about ‘agba baller’, praise the Lord!
Number five, good music can lower anxiety. When you sing some of these good songs, it doesn’t matter the state where you are in, the thing will be sending strong signal into your brain and it makes you feel that yes, it’s not over until it is over, even though I have challenges in this world, there is a place better waiting for me in heaven.
Number six, it helps in the management of depression.
Number seven, it can help your heart health. We heard about vaso-vascular issues, sometimes when you allow too much toxic in your system, you allow disappointment to take over your heart, you allow frustration to take over your mind, before you know it, it affects your heart, your blood pressure starts pumping and sometimes it can lead to stroke or sudden death, but I pray today that as God enables us, if we cannot do it here holy, I want to give you this nugget that you should go back home and learn to praise God more, sing good music.
And lastly, it decreases fatigue. There are people that when they want to relax, what they use is music; they look for a very nice music, not too loud, sit down, sip their tea or whatever and they listen, when somebody begins to tell you tomorrow will be alright, and you’ll begin to feel it.
Even I have told you a story before; I was in Ondo town to attend a party and Sunny Ade was the guest artiste, where I sat. the man was hailing everybody, he didn’t mention my name, I was just enjoying myself, only God knows who just decided to go and tell him my name, then he started hailing me – the finance director of so so and so place, he’s a pastor, I didn’t mind him, but it got to a point he now said, won a s’agolo de Borno, won a s’agolo de Port- Harcourt, Tunde, eni n ro’bi ro e, won a s’agolo de Borno and I liked that one, before you knew what happened, I jumped up, that was when ₦1,000 was just introduced and all the ones in my pocket, I gave to the man because he was saying that my enemies would pick cans to Port-Harcourt. They would pick cans to Borno and I like it, don’t you want your enemies to pick cans?
We are talking about the effect of good music, music is the food of love and if music is the food of love, then we must play on.
Brethren, it is very important for me to let you know that the sacrifice of a sinner is an abomination to God; as believers, when you offer your thanksgiving from a clean heart, a sanctified heart, it gives you that grace to overcome difficulties, it gives you that consolation over and above the difficulties and before you know it, that heart that is rejoicing will suppress every anxiety and you will become whole.
But if your heart is not of the Lord, it’s a waste of time. That’s why as we close our eyes just for few seconds…
[Altar call]
