Let somebody shout hallelujah! All those who know that they are going home today victorious, praise the Lord! And so Father God Almighty, we give You praise, glory, honor and majesty; thank You because You are God and thank You because it is from You all blessings flow, God, there is no variableness of shadow of turning, we thank You for what You have already done for us, thank You for what You are doing and thank You for what You will continue to do, blessed be Your holy name.
We thank You for where You are bringing us from, thank You for where we are this morning and thank You for the glorious place that You are taking us to, may Your name be forever magnified in the name of Jesus Christ. We are asking oh Lord that today in the name of Jesus, in a new dimension You will visit us and Your name will be glorified and each of our lives will bring You glory, thank You Almighty God in Jesus mighty name. Praise the Lord!
First of all church, I must apologize for coming late, it is not in my character but I mistook the time; I thought I normally get here for 8:45 and then they were calling me for 8:00 that I was to be here already and then you can even see how I am dressed, I had to get dressed in a hurry but blessed be the name of the Lord! I hope you will forgive me for keeping you some minutes late, blessed be the name of the Lord!
Last night, I was reading a new version of the national anthem; there was an old national anthem and then they said there’s a new one after 29th of May, and then the people’s national anthem, somebody posted it to me and I was reading it last night. I don’t want to go into that because this morning I’m here to encourage you, the Bible says we should call those things that be not as though they were, everybody that is here this morning, because you are here this morning, you are not going back the way you came.
You have come to a God with whom nothing is impossible, you have come to a God that is the Lord God of all flesh and nothing is too hard for Him, we will be deceiving ourselves if we say we are not fighting wars, we don’t necessarily have to carry gun before we know that we are fighting; sometimes it’s economic, sometimes it is social, insecurity of life and property, sometimes it is hunger, there’s no famine in the land as such but there is food all over the place and there’s no money to buy it, that is war. Sometimes it’s marital war, sometimes it’s war in the office, they are downloading and the first person they think of is you, if that door has shut, God is going to open a new door.
So this morning, if you don’t go away with anything, go away with the fact that you have come to a God that is a promise keeper; concerning His own people, He keeps His promises, He has said we are in the world but we are not of the world; what He meant is that all the things that are affecting them will not affect us and He’s well able to bring to pass that particular promise because if we belong to Him, He’s the best of Fathers, what no father can do, He’s able to do more – exceedingly more than any father can do.
So this morning, it does not matter the battle that you are fighting, it does not matter who is waging it against you, it does not matter how far they’ve gone. I like to tell testimonies, but like I keep telling you from the Bible and from the word of God, I can say that God is a faithful God, I don’t preach social gospels, I also told you that, it is not when they say ‘come to God, come to God’, (I think that is the preaching of evangelists), when you come your problems are over, it is true but it’s not the whole truth; sometimes when you come, your problems have just started, but the beauty of the God that we have come to is that He’s the Lord of hosts, the Man of war, the God of battles, the Commander of the hosts of the heavens and the earth and He has never ever lost a war, I know it from the Bible, I know it from my experience.
Talk of Daniel in the lion’s den, that was both a political and a social wahala, he didn’t do anybody anything, they were just jealous of his rapid promotion and they wanted to eliminate him, and because of that they threw him into the lion’s den. The long and short of the story is that he came out of that lion’s den to be promoted and his enemies were fed to their own lions, God is still doing that today.
Talk of the three Hebrews, because some people may be threatening you, you are in the office, your oga says how now? You say ah, oga, you don’t know that I’m a Christian? He says this Christianity; let them know you are a Christian and stand on the truth that you are a Christian, it does not matter what they do, they asked Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego to bow to an idol, they said oba, long may you live but we are not going to bow to your idol, the God that we serve is able to deliver us and if He doesn’t deliver us, we are ready to go and meet Him.
This is a God you can beat your chest about, it does not matter who is pursuing you, He’s going to deliver you this very morning in the name of Jesus Christ. They threw them into the burning fiery furnace, the king who threw them there said we threw three people, I can see four, you are coming out of the fire without a smell of smoke in the name of Jesus Christ, and the heat of the enemies’ fire will kill them.
Begin to think about all the wars that you are fighting at work, over your children – Yoruba has a saying that ti owo ko ba ka baba ti ko ba ka iya, won ma shift si ori awon omo, anybody that is pursuing your children for evil, God has promised that the children of the righteous shall be delivered. If you are here this morning and you are genuinely born again, you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
You may be looking at yourself, I’m not qualified for miracles and yesterday I did something, I’m not saying you should wallow in sin, but I also want to assure you this morning that God is doing what He’s doing for you not because of what you are doing, He’s doing it for you because of His name and because of the blood of the cross. Jesus already paid your debt, that does not mean you should become irresponsible and behave anyhow; we cannot live in sin and expect grace to abound.
But another thing I want you to know is that even the good that you do, God is behind it; the Bible says He gives you power to will and to do; you do the good that you do in appreciation for what God has done for you through Christ, not to gain God’s favor, you can never be good enough. No way you can be good enough; even the Bible promises us that until we see Jesus face to face, we can never be like Him and God’s purpose concerning us is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, so from day to day if we are genuinely born again, He’s going to deal with us like chef’s peeled onions – they peel it layer by layer, all the things that are wrong with you, God is going to peel it layer by layer, and by the time you see Jesus in glory, you will be already entitled to be like Him, but don’t think that it is the good that you do that is why God is doing you good, He’s doing you good because of the price that Jesus paid, and it does not matter what war is assailing you, this morning, God is going to deliver you.
My topic this morning is “The Battle is the Lord’s”, it’s not your battle; I don’t like to talk negative, I should have read the new national anthem of the people to you this morning but that’s not your portion, your portion is deliverance in the name of Jesus through the blood of Jesus.
The battle is the Lord’s and the text is 2nd Chronicles 20: 1 – 16, write it down, when you get home you’ll read it, it will show you the God that you are serving, the God above all other gods, the God that with whom nothing is impossible, the God who is able to fight for you and make yeye of your enemies, blessed be the name of the Lord!
In a nutshell, this story is about a king called Jehoshaphat; he was sleeping in his palace one beautiful day and messengers came to say king, are you sleeping? Three nations are coming to attack you and they are going to be here in two days, what time has the man to get ready for war? And normally like every other ordinary person, he must have been very afraid but he did what I want to counsel you to do today.
Before you start making plans of how you will get out of trouble, because you cannot be clever enough, you cannot be wise enough, take all your problems to Jesus, put it at the foot of the cross and say God, you can see all the wars that is assailing me, the people who are pursuing me are too big for me, too powerful for me, too difficult for me, I’ve come for You to deliver me. If you can cast your burdens upon Him, the Bible says He’s your burden bearer; if you cast your cares upon Him, He can take over your cares and fight for you more than anybody else can fight for you and this morning, He’s going to fight for you.
So if you are genuinely, I keep saying genuinely because when God promises, He stands by His promise and He’s a God of principles, He does not infringe His own law. He says we cannot give children’s food to dogs, it is in Matthew 15 when the Canaanite woman came, asking that Jesus should help her concerning the daughter; Jesus said we don’t give children’s food to dogs; dogs are the people that are still running their own business, still managing their own life.
They have been preaching to you for 10, 20, 15 years, you keep saying this born again thing is too difficult; it may look difficult to you but there’s nothing as easy as being born again. When you cast your cares upon Jesus, there’s no way He can fail you, I’ve been giving you examples of the people He fought for.
By the time the children of Israel were ready to enter their inheritance, because there’s an inheritance for you; the Bible says the thoughts of God towards you are thoughts of peace, not of calamity, to give you a hope and an expected end, your expectation in God should be excess because God that has given you Jesus says in His word that with Jesus, He will freely give you all things, there is nothing that you need if you are born again that God will not give to you.
If you are praying and you haven’t seen the answer, let me also put your mind at rest that it is because God has not heard, there are so many things, (that’s another sermon on its own) that can prevent delayed answers to prayer; maybe what you are asking for is not good for you, God is a good Father, He’s not going to give you what will cause you more problem; maybe what you are asking for is good for you, but concerning the people that surround you, it may not be good for them, He’s going to take into consideration the totality of the people that surround you.
The things that you are asking for, you may not be ready but God in His infinite mercy knows the right time, when exactly to put your miracle in your hand, and I’m saying (according to the word) today is your day of favor, God is going to fast-forward your miracle, He’s going to accelerate the answers to your prayers in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
So when these people came against Jehoshaphat, there was nothing he could do but go to God and say I put my hands up, only You can help me and God helped him. God sent him a prophet that gave him a strategy for battle that is unheard of, he said you will not have to lift a finger in this battle, all you will do is just get singers, gather together a mass choir so that they can begin to praise the Lord.
It is not easy to praise the Lord when you are confronted with trouble, but from my experience, I can tell you that praising the Lord removes your focus from your problem unto your God; the more you praise God in your problem, maybe that is what they call sacrifice of praise because when you first start, it’s like something is holding you back, but the moment you can break through, you will know that God is already there to answer you, this morning He will answer you.
So they got singers they started to praise the Lord, they must have been praising the Lord like never before because they knew in their heart of hearts that only God can deliver them, and by the time they got to the warfront, the enemies have been turned against each other. When you get home, read this portion, sit there and read it and do a Bible study on it; the Bible says they turned their weapons against themselves and they killed themselves to a man, that is what is going to happen in the camp of your enemies; if they will not turn back, the weapon that they have brought to cause your destruction will cause their own destruction in the name of Jesus Christ. God did it before, He will do it again; the battle is the Lord’s.
Pharaoh, at the end of ten serious catastrophic plagues decided to let the children of Israel go, then he woke up suddenly and said haha, all these slave labor is going like that, I must pursue them. He did, he pursued them, there was no one left to tell the story – him, his squads, his allies, his agents and their weapons of war drowned in the Red Sea. God is going to make sure that your enemies become food for fish as He drowns them in Jesus name.
There is war going on in this country and it’s not only in this country, it is from here to the uttermost part of the earth. I can’t stand here this morning and begin to tell you the wars that the enemy is waging against individuals, against families, against congregations, against ministries, against nations. You people know, you read the papers, you watch television, social media, it’s all over the place, there is war, Yoruba would say ‘ogun n’ile ogun l’oko, ogun niwaju, ogun leyin’, but you are free from war in the name of Jesus Christ, because Jesus died that you may be set free and He will fulfill His promise anytime anyhow.
He’s here this morning to fulfill His promises, but in everything that God does, God has His own part to play, you have your own part to play, that’s why as I’m telling you that God is ready to fight your battle, I’m not telling you that you can wallow in sin and then God’s grace will abound. As a child of God, you are not yet perfect maybe in your words, maybe in your thoughts, maybe in your acts, but there is a perfection that God honors, a perfect heart.
If you are here this morning, you know that it does not matter what happens, as a child of God, you will not join anybody to do evil; as a child of God, you will not think evil about anybody; as a child of God, if they say this is the way they are going and the Bible says that is not the way, you’ll be bold enough to stand up and say I am not going there.
I was telling somebody yesterday, I’m not bluffing but I realize in my retreat (because I’ve been through a lot of retreats lately) that it is because of the grace of God upon my life that I’m still standing on my feet, because the things that I get involved in have tried in more ways than one to find something against me that will cause them to say ha, she’s standing now over people’s case, she’s doing this, she’s saying that, what about this? By the grace of God, they have not been able to find one, it is not because I’m better than you, it is because imperfect like I may be, I have made up my mind that I will not knowingly do anything contrary to this word and when you come to that stage, God will defend you all the way.
If you are here this morning, you are genuinely born again, it does not matter what your flaws are, God is still at work in your situation, you are a work in progress, God has not finished with you yet, while He’s taking care of those things that are not of Him in your life, while He’s peeling them off layer by layer like onions, He’s still going to continue to do you good in the name of Jesus Christ.
Ensure that your heart belongs to God, who can ascend unto the hill of the Lord? He says people with clean hands and a pure heart; people with clean hands and a pure heart are people who do not use their hands to shed innocent blood. It is not until you dagger a man and kill him that you shed blood, if you assassinate his character, you have killed him; if you stand where they are judging him and you are not sure of what they are talking about and you help them to confirm the case, you have killed him; let your hands be clean and let your hearts be pure.
If that is who you are this morning as a born again child of God, I want you to begin to think about whatever problem you have this morning, is it a problem that concerns you? Is it a problem that concerns your children? A problem that concerns your work? Your marriage? Whatever it is, it does not matter what it is, let me tell you this morning (maybe I will have time to share some testimonies in the second service), I’ve been through some difficult problems, but in all of that, God remains faithful and this morning, anew and afresh, He will prove His faithfulness because what we are in now, only God can deliver us.
They went to buy tubers of yams where I’m lodging now and I said I hope this yam is good? Because we discovered lately that the people who are selling yams that are not good don’t throw it away and you don’t blame them, if they keep throwing it away, their capital will fizzle out and their business will close down. So they put knife through this yam and it was already cooked inside, and one tuber of yam, I think they said it was ₦3,000 or ₦2,500; so if it was a family that has only that money to buy only one tuber of yam, they will have to fast that day because there’s no other money to buy any other thing.
So this morning, stand on your feet, if you are here, you are already born again, if you are here and your hands are clean in the sense that you will not knowingly do evil, if you are here and your heart is pure that even when you step out of line, you are able to look up to God and say God, I am guilty like David did, I have missed it, I’m asking You to forgive me and to cleanse me from every unrighteousness, once God does that, your line of communication with God is open again and the Bible says come boldly to the throne of grace and mercy, to obtain mercy, grace and help for every need.
This morning, you are going to obtain mercy; the Bible says God’s mercy endureth forever, this morning, grace is going to be multiplied unto you in the name of Jesus Christ; this morning, God is going to help you like ever before in the name of Jesus Christ.
So if you belong to God, just think of your problem, if it is a small problem that you can worry about, it is enough to take to God; if it is too big and you are worrying about it, it is also big enough to take to God; you know your areas of need, I know my areas of need, so just put your right hand up where you are if you are a child of God and begin to tell God your woes, and begin to say to God, this battle is Yours, You fought for Jehoshaphat, fight my battles for me; You fought for Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, fight my battles for me; You fought for Daniel in the lion’s den, fight my battles for me; You fell the wall of Jericho and You allowed the children of Israel to move into their inheritance, everyone who has built walls around my inheritance, I want to move into my inheritance this morning, Almighty God, arise and fight my battles for me.
My Father and my God, You fought for Joseph, fight my battles for me; You fought for Esther, the battle is the Lord’s, fight my battles for me.
[Altar call]
Almighty and everlasting Father, we give You praise this morning, we give You glory, we give You honor, adoration and majesty; we thank You Lord of hosts, Man of war, God of battles, the Commander of the hosts of the heavens and the earth, thank You that today is a new dawn, a new beginning in the name of Jesus; new beginning of the restoration of glory, new beginning Lord God Almighty of a closer walk with God, new beginning of jettisoning sin and beginning to walk in righteousness, blessed be the name of the Lord, glory be to God.
We give You praise, we give You glory, we thank You faithful God that the battle is Yours, it does not matter what battle we are facing, You are able to fight for us; thank You, thank You that You are here this morning to fight for us, in every area and in every facet of our lives, Almighty God, thank You because You are here, thank You burden bearer. As we begin to roll our burdens unto You, blessed be Your holy name as You take them over, thank You Almighty God, blessed be Your holy name in Jesus mighty name.
If you have come for the first time to give your life to Jesus, just say Father, I’ve come to surrender to You as my Maker, my Creator, today, I want You to become my Father, wash me with the blood of Jesus, cleanse me from every sin. Almighty and everlasting Father, write my name in the Book of life and Lord, fill me with Your power to go and sin no more, thank You Almighty God for doing that for me in Jesus mighty name.
If you are a backslider, you have gone back, the Bible says God is constantly looking for backsliders to come back home. Like the father of the prodigal son was out there looking for him every day, say Father, I’ve come back this morning, I commit myself into Your hands once again, I know now that there’s no way that I can stand on my own, empower me to stand in the name of Jesus; let me not go back into the world in the name of Jesus, and I covenant to serve You all the days of my life with abundant grace from You in Jesus mighty name.
You will say Father, my Father and my God, help me to remember that You are powerful, You are the God above every other gods and You have never lost a battle, help me to always remember that my battle is Yours and that every moment of every day, asleep or awake, you are fighting for me.
Almighty and everlasting Father, our Father and our God, we come to You again this morning, we are declaring that the battle is the Lord’s, thank You for fighting our battles for us, thank You almighty God that You never leave us in our troubles, blessed be Your holy name oh Lord in the name of Jesus. Thank You that in every area and in every facet of our lives, whether we are asleep or we are awake You are fighting our battles for us.
Almighty and everlasting Father, Lord of hosts, Man of war, God of battles, we come this morning there’s nowhere else to go, we cast our burdens upon You, we cast our cares upon You, fight our battles oh Lord in the name of Jesus. Blessed be the name of the Lord, thank You Almighty God, in Jesus mighty name.
Number two prayer: say Lord, turn my battles into blessings for the glory of Your holy name in the name of Jesus. Turn my battles into blessings for the praise and glory of Your name in the name of Jesus. Every battle that I’m fighting, t’idile baba, t’idile iya, t’idile oka, t’idile iyawo, t’inu ijo, turn my battles into blessings in the name of Jesus. blessed be Your holy name, glory, hallelujah, we give You praise, we give You glory, we give You honor, we give You adoration, thank You Lord for taking over our battles, thank You for fighting our battles for us, thank You because none of us will go back from here the way we came, we give You praise, we give You glory God of the nations, in Jesus mighty name.
We have prayed for ourselves, we will also pray for Nigeria Lord; like I said, all you people who are top ranking that know what is going on, nobody can begin to tell you about that again, there are offices where people have not gotten salary for six months; there are people who are working, their salary is not enough to take transport to go to their places of work let alone do any other thing; some people have had first degree, second degree, PhD, they are still walking around like vagabonds, no work to do and from all of that, so many things that are so irritating are happening all over the place.
We are going to lift Nigeria up to God today; say our Father and our God, God of the universe, God of heaven and earth, God of the nations, God of Nigeria, we come again this day on behalf of our nation, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, in Your righteousness and faithfulness, hear us and have mercy on us. Pray for mercy for Nigeria; fight our wars for us oh Lord because of Your name, because of the blood of the cross in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You Almighty God, blessed be Your holy name, in Jesus mighty name.
We will also pray for the church – the church universal, the Nigerian church and especially, the Redeemed Christian Church of God; you will say Father, for the glory of Your name, restore righteousness and holiness to Your church, restore the fear of the Lord to Your church, fight our battles for us.
Almighty and everlasting Father, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, husband of the church, head of the church, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, we lift up Your church to You, Almighty God, restore righteousness, restore holiness, restore the fear of the Lord to Your church, glorify Your name in Your church and let Your church bring You glory, thank You Almighty God, blessed be Your holy name oh Lord, in Jesus mighty name. Praise the Lord!
