Before we go into this message, I want you to pray like this:
“Every enemy of my increase, scatter by fire, in the name of Jesus.”
Beloved, because the Lord is already touching you as you read this message, whatever says you will not improve, whatever says you will not go up, whatever says you will not have divine acceleration, whatever says you will not be enlarged, must die by fire, in the name of Jesus.
The Bible says,
“I will bring honey out of the rock. I will bring oil out of the stone.”
We know that a stone cannot produce oil, neither can honey come out of a rock. Those are impossible things. What the Bible is saying is that no matter how hash the economy is, no matter how terrible the situation is, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is able to squeeze out your breakthrough for you. This is why you should raise your voice and repeat that prayer: “Every enemy of my increase, what are you waiting for? Die, in the name of Jesus.”
I Samuel 2:9: “He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.”
Our message is entitled, “By strength shall no man prevail.” Let us also look at two supporting scriptures:
Ecclesiastes 9:11: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread yet to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understandings, nor yet favour to the men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
David said to Goliath in I Samuel 17:47: “And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you unto our hands.
What was David telling Goliath? He was telling him that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the strong and that by strength shall no man prevail.
The above scriptures tell us certain things.
Promotion does not necessarily go to those that are worthy. They tell us that a lot of people can reap what they did not sow. They tell us that advancement does not necessarily go to those that work the hardest. It is not that we should not work hard. They tell us that natural gifts by themselves are not enough to handle the battles of life. Natural abilities or talents are not enough for a successful life. They are telling us that skill and intelligence do not necessarily give progress; the swiftest and the strongest do not necessarily give progress. The battle is not for the strong and by strength shall no man prevail. There are wise people who are hungry. There are intelligent people who go unprepared. In many contests, the best candidates do not necessarily win. Being smart or talented is not the guarantee that you will succeed. People say heaven helps those who help themselves. Heaven helps those who agree with Jesus that they cannot help themselves and they want Jesus to help them.
Pharaoh had a very large army and was very comfortable. He had reasoned that with the kind of army he had, pursuing the people of Israel, who had no weapons, would be very easy for him. But he got to the Red Sea to find out that the battle was not for the strong and the race not for the swift and that by strength should no man prevail.
Goliath was a very strong foe. He cursed the people of God for 40 days. He was a formidable foe but there were certain things he did not understand until he landed in hell fire. Gideon’s army started with 32,000. Eventually God pruned them down to 300. Why? The battle is not for the strong, the race is not for the swift, and by strength shall no man prevail.
If they say, “Get on your mark and go,” and you jump forward and begin to run, it does not mean that you will win. Moses was 40 years old when he tried to help God by using physical strength to kill an Egyptian. He learnt the hard way that he could not do anything in his power. He had to go to a training school for 40 years. He learnt there that by strength should no man prevail. When the same Moses came back with the rod of God in his hand, there was nothing in that rod. God just wanted to use it to disgrace the enemy; he took over the whole land of Egypt from Pharaoh.
Close your eyes and say:
¨I hold the rod of God in my hands. I smash the head of every oppressor, in Jesus’ name.”
¨O God, arise and place the head of my Goliath in my hands, in the name of Jesus.”
¨Let my stone locate the unprotected forehead of my Goliath, in Jesus’ name.”
Psalm 118:10: “All nations compassed me about but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. They compassed me about, yea they compassed me about but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They compassed me about like bees, they are quenched like the fire of thorns: for in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them.”
It is only in the name of the Lord that you can operate, for by strength shall no man prevail.
One gentle and obedient sister got married in a Pentecostal church. This was a holiness-preaching church. All of a sudden, she found that her husband began to backslide. During prayer meetings, he would not pray and the woman was worried. She said, “But brother, you should pray now.” He said, “If you keep insisting that I should pray, I will not pray together with you again.” Then the sister kept quiet. One day, he told her that he would be having a visitor that night and she should prepare food for the visitor. The sister didn’t think much about it. She prepared food. By 1 a.m., the visitor came in. It was a woman dressed like Jezebel. He said, “Darling give your visitor food.” The sister said, “Well, although I feel like breaking the head of this woman with a bottle, I will not do it. If I did that, they would say that I am not broken.” So she served the food. The woman ate and went into the bedroom with her husband. The sister tried to pray, but the prayer did not flow. Her legs were shaking. In the morning she accused her husband: “What is the meaning of this?” The man said, “Listen, as from now on, this is just a question of style. If you are not happy with that style, there is only one solution, pack your things and go.” Two nights later, he brought another woman and asked his wife to prepare food for her and she did. After some time, the man said, “All right, I am even fed up with you. Get out!” The woman said, “I can’t leave, we built this place together.” The man then brought in a herbalist to chase her out and also brought in a strange woman. So, there was a herbalist and a strange woman in her home. A very strange combination. It was going on like this and the woman was losing weight. She told her parents and they said, “Did we not tell you not to marry him and you said he was born again, sanctified and spirit-filled?” She came to one of our Anointing Services and when she got home, she waited for all of them to vacate from the bedroom and anointed the bed and went to sleep that night. When her husband came back from roaming around the streets the strange woman was not in the room. He went into the herbalist’s room and found out that the herbalist and the strange woman were committing fornication. He was very angry. He gave the strange woman a terrible slap. She slapped him back and a fight started. The strange woman and the herbalist joined hands and started beating him. When the beating became too much for him he started calling on his wife, whom he had not spoken to for two years, to come and help him. And she came to rescue him from the hands of those who wanted to kill him in his own house. Of course, that was the end of the problem. The man started staying at home and going to church, and the marital problem came to an end.
By strength shall no man prevail. Arguments by the couple did not solve the problem. Their meetings failed to resolve it. Threats of “I will divorce you, I will carry away all the children,” could not solve the problem. But one drop of anointing oil on the bed broke the backbone of the enemy. I pray that the backbone of your enemy shall break as you read this message, in Jesus’ name.
Let me tell you a parable: One day, a goat was stuck in the bush between two trees and it cried, “Let somebody help me!” And someone came and said, “I will help you, I will set you free.” The goat now said, “Before you set me free, please tell me: will it hurt me? How long will it take? How hard are you going to pull my neck? How much will I pay? Have you pulled out somebody like this before? Do you know the right tools to use? Have you graduated from the school of animal release? When you free me, will I owe you a favour? What will the favour be? Okay, would you promise not to damage the tree but just to remove my neck? Should I close my eyes or should I open it? Should I sit down or should I stand? Have you washed your hands? After freeing me can you guarantee that my neck will not get into this situation again? Tell me why you even want to free me. How are you going to do it? Tell me, when will you do it?” The goat was bombarding the man with lots of questions and the man was watching in amazement. It said, “Well, let me sit down here and continue to cry.”
That is the position of many people. They want to harass God with many questions. Somebody says, “I am the Almighty.” And they stand before Him and are preparing thesis on their problems. They are describing a mountain to God who can speak to the mountain and it will flee. They are crying when they should address the issue.
The Bible says, that at the pool of Bethesida there was a multitude of the lame, the blind, the deaf, etc. Jesus, who sent the angel to trouble the water personally, went there but the people around did not recognize Him. He went to one person and asked him a simple and direct question: “Will thou be made whole?” The answer to that question would have been Yes or No. But the man said, “I have nobody to put me inside the water. I have been here for 38 years.” He had been trying in his own power to receive healing. He did not know that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and that by strength shall no man prevail.
When you carefully study the word of God, you will begin to understand certain things. The Bible says, “Ye shall be the head and not the tail.” The fact that the Bible says that there is a department called the head and there is a department called the tail means that people are already in either of these two departments. To move from the tail to the head, the race is not for the swift, the battle is not for the strong and by strength shall no man prevail. Those who are struggling with their power had better drop it and go to the One who is able to defend them.
WHAT IS THE TAIL?
It is the backside. It is the last and the lowest part of anything. It is that side of the coin which does not bear the head of a ruler. Some people are already candidates of the tail region. When something is about to get to your turn and they say it has finished, you are a victim of the spirit of the tail. If it is only in your room or hall that some candidates would cheat and the examination would be cancelled, or if you are always in the wrong setting or in the wrong class, the spirit of the tail is at work. When stubborn household wickedness is openly pursuing you, the spirit of the tail is at work.
I want you to know, beloved, that when a person has been confined to the tail, spiritually, he is Mr. Tail. Therefore, it does not matter which exams he takes or which connections he has at the top. With his connections he will still remain at the tail. Give him N100 million; he will not know what he does with it because he is still in the cage of the tail. The Bible says,
Deut 28:13:“Ye shall be the head and not the tail; ye shall be above and not beneath.”
Those two departments are crystal clear in life. This promise can be seen in the lives of the Israelites today. Although Israel is surrounded by about 110 million people and its population is 3 to 4 million the enemies could not destroy it.
The fact that the Bible says there is the head or tail, above or beneath, shows that somebody must occupy these positions. Somebody like me decided a long time ago that I don’t want to belong to the tail, that my lot is not in the tail region, in the name of Jesus. What are we saying? That as a child of God, that is if you are a child of God, God has planted something in you to make you great. God has planted something in you that will take you to the head department. Some never discovered this at all. That is why the worst place to go is the burial ground. There, you see a lot of unfulfilled dreams and dead visions. There, you will see men who had dreams of what they wanted to do, but they were buried with that dreams. Our generation did not benefit from what they wanted to do because they had been buried with them. That is why one of the most solemn places on earth where you don’t have to tell people to stop making a noise is the cemetery. It is also one of the best preaching pulpits. Some people never discovered the Moses that God had planted in their lives. Some have been blinded completely to it. Some have been sent on a diversion. They are pursuing A when they should be in Z. Others have killed the Moses that God gave to them. Some have sold their Moses off. Some lost their Moses in the university while they were busy sampling girls who were marine agents.
There were many prophets when Jeremiah was prophesying. The message of Jeremiah was the only one that was different. He was saying, “There was no peace, there were problems here.” But all other prophets were saying, “There is peace.” They even threw Jeremiah into a dungeon. Today, we don’t even know the names of those prophets in our Bible, but we are reading about Jeremiah. “The race is not to the swift, the battle is not to the strong and by strength shall no man prevail.”
Some people’s potentials are in their hands. Some in their feet; some in their memory. Wherein lies the Moses that God gave to you? If you don’t know, it means that you don’t know what God has planted into your life to make you the head. If you are in the tail department now, you must move away from there. You shall be the head and not the tail, you shall be above and never beneath. The authority of Scriptures means all believers meant to be at the top wherever they are. They are supposed to be the most influential wherever they are. If we just sit down and say, “Well, one day, I will get there,” and you refuse to remove yourself and get delivered from the tail, or you are struggling, using your own power, you will remain where you are. You will be like the drunken man that took a boat after getting drunk and began to row the boat. He rowed for 12 hours and said, “When am I going to get home?” When it was daylight, somebody said, “Oga, you have not removed the rope you used to tie the boat on the bank and you say you want to move, remove the rope.” He was drunk. A lot of people are rowing the boat of their life when it is being tied by household wickedness and they have not cut it off from their hands. “You shall be the head and not the tail.”
I have seen many things in my life. I have seen somebody without two legs and he is alive. I found someone without two hands, without both legs and he is alive. But I am yet to see somebody without a head who is alive. Therefore, God said, “You shall be the head and not the tail.” It is in the head that you find the teeth, a defensive weapon. But the tail is closer to the anus, closer to feaces. It has no defense, no teeth. The tail can be cut off without any serious consequence. This is why some people have been removed from their jobs and no one regretted it. It is high time for you to rise up from your sleep and take your rightful position.
The wealth of the Gentiles cannot come to us when most believers are at the tail position. We must cry to the Lord today to get ourselves delivered from every spiritual cage of the tail. If you look at your life as you are reading this message and you find out that you are under serious bombardment of household wickedness, it will put you in the tail region unless you do something. If you look at your life today and it appears as if you are in the wrong location, because a fish cannot receive blessings outside the water, a tomato fruit cannot prosper on top of a mango tree, then you have to rise up. There will be no prosperity when you are doing something the Lord does not want you to do. You may hold a degree but the Lord would ask you to go and start selling fish. You may hold a Ph.D. and the Lord would say, “Go into poultry.” I know many medical doctors who are not practicing their Professions today. You must ask yourself these questions, Am I doing what God wants me to be doing? “Am I a medical doctor because my parents wanted me to become a doctor?” Are you what God wants you to be?
Your parents insisted that you must be an engineer but in school you cannot cope with mathematical calculations. Then you begin to devise methods of how to cheat in examinations. Or you cannot cheat and you will say lecturer, “I will come and greet you at night.” Or you sell your bodies to pass your exams. By this you go deeper and deeper into the tail region. Perhaps you look at yourself and find that all your friends are not serious, they are people who want to pull you down. You better leave them. Or perhaps you notice that there are emptier working against you, they don’t disturb you from working, they just empty what you have. A lot of young girls have their virtues already transferred to sugar daddies. Many poor men become rich by committing immorality with women who have good virtues. Perhaps you have noticed that people have issued curses on you and you are looking at yourself and those curses are happening. The curses are causing problems for you; you have to do something about it. Perhaps you look at yourself and find that you are always in the midst of criticisms in anything you do. You should pray yourself out of that cage today. Perhaps, you notice that when you have good things to do something will just go wrong. There is a system that wants to keep you permanently where you are. If some people tell you how much money they have handled in their lives and how they have nothing now, you will be amazed. It is the spirit of the tail. The race is not for the swift; the battle is not for the strong and by strength shall no man prevail.
Enrich a man who is at the tail, as long as he is still in that place he will surely return to poverty. Elevate him; he will be disgraced out of office. Push her to a place she can find a good husband, she will bite the man and fight her way out, because of that thing working against her.
I want you to look at yourself very well, how has life been treating you, the opportunities the enemy has stolen from you, the positions you ought to have attained and for some reasons you are not there. Look at your family, those members that are your senior; their achievements and what they have done. Look at the siren being blown against you everyday. You know that within you there is a power to be a winner, an over comer, but somehow with all the talents, it appears as if you are not moving forward. Whenever you want to move, something goes wrong and takes away your time, money, etc.
The prayer points you are going to pray need what I call holy desperation. When you go into holy desperation, progress starts. It was when Jacob got desperate that progress started. It was when blind Bartimeaus got desperate that progress started. This message is for champions and not for those who want to remain in their tail department. It is for those who want to receive expected and unexpected breakthroughs.
Please, I want you to pray these prayer points so that by the time you finish there will be divine re-arrangement and if you are supposed to be in a particular position and the children of darkness gathered together because they have connection and pushed somebody above you, you will pull them back.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Every spirit of the tail, what are you doing in my life? I bind you, in Jesus’ name.
2. My destiny, come alive by fire, in Jesus’ name.
3. Every cage of the tail, break, in Jesus’ name.
4. Every witchcraft cauldron, break, in Jesus’ name.
5. My father, if I am in the wrong position, change me now, in Jesus’ name.
6. I claim divine re-arrangement by fire, in Jesus’ name.
7. The power that moved Moses forward in the Red Sea, move me forward by fire, in Jesus’ name.
8. Sing these songs to thank the Lord: “There is no mountain that we cannot climb. There is no problem that we cannot solve. When I say we, I mean Jesus and I. There is no mountain that we cannot climb.”
“Our God can do all things, amen, He can do all things, amen.
