FEAR IS AN ENEMY!

DON’T ALLOW FEAR TO COME INTO YOUR HEART BECAUSE THE ECONOMY IS SO ‘WONDERFUL’. 

satan GLIDES INTO PEOPLE’S LIVES TO STEAL, TO KILL AND TO DESTROY. 

HE HAS ONE SEEMINGLY UNNOTICED WEAPON HE ENGAGES TO DO THAT, IT IS CALLED THE SPIRIT OF FEAR. 

BY SUBSCRIBING TO FEAR YOU STAND TO LOSE EVERYTHING INCLUDING ETERNITY.

SOME PEOPLE HAVE FLED THIS COUNTRY FROM FRYING PAN TO FIRE. FEAR DROVE THEM OUT OF THEIR INHERITANCE WITHOUT KNOWING.

WE ARE IN THE DAYS OF GREAT FEAR ACROSS THE NATIONS NOT JUST OUR NATION.

UNTIL FEAR LEAVES, VICTORY IS NOT IN VIEW. UNTIL FEAR GIVES WAY THE FUTURE IS DIM. 

EVERYBODY IS A VICTIM OF WHAT HE FEARS.  

THE FEAR OF TOMORROW IS THE LOSS OF TOMORROW. 

NO ONE’S POSITION CAN CHANGE WITH THE SPIRIT OF FEAR AT WORK.

NOTHING SILENCES THE SPIRIT OF FEAR LIKE FAITH ACTIVELY AT WORK IN A MAN’S LIFE. 

WHEN FAITH STEPS IN, FEAR STEPS OUT. 

THE CURE TO FEAR IS FAITH.

A DIME OF THIS CHURCH MONEY IS NOT IN MY POCKET. I’VE NOT PLAYED ONE GAME IN MY LIFE TO ACCESS FINANCIAL BLESSING.

THE STRESS OF NATIONS WILL KEEP MULTIPLYING AND THERE WILL BE NO NATION TO RUN INTO. 

SIT UP AND BUILD YOUR FAITH BECAUSE DAYS OF GREAT FEAR ARE HERE. 

SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING IS THE BIRTHPLACE OF FAITH.

SOME PEOPLE CLAIM TO HAVE FAITH YET THEY HAVEN’T READ ANY BOOK ON FAITH OR A CHAPTER OF THE BIBLE. 

IT’S NOT HEARING THE WORD THAT STIRS FAITH BUT SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU HEAR, READ AND STUDY IS WHAT STIRS FAITH.

IMPARTATION OF THE SPIRIT OF FAITH REQUIRES THE WORD TO STAY ALIVE. 

NOTHING GREAT HAPPENS BY CHANCE. NO ONE PREVAILS BY CHANCE.

THE EVIDENCE OF FAITH AT WORK IS REST.

–  Bishop David Oyedepo on OVERCOMING YOUR WORST UNNOTICED ENEMY at Apostolic Visitation to Winners Chapel Jahi, Abuja || 13th February 2024 || 

May the encounter of tonight spark off a new dawn in everyone’s life.

OVERCOMING YOUR WORST UNNOTICED ENEMY.

The Lord gave me this message for you because He wants to launch you into that realm of more than a conqueror. Overcoming your worst unnoticed enemy. You don’t hear the sound of a serpent on a rock. It glides. Church Gist. The serpent is the most subtle of all the beasts that God created. He glides into people’s lives to steal, to kill and to destroy. He has one seemingly unnoticed weapon he engages to do that, it is called the spirit of fear. I like you to please listen. It has grounded many lives and destroyed many great futures.

Fear is an enemy. We take for our text Job 3:24-26. As the Word is going forth, the spirit of fear is leaving you. Jesus was casting out evil spirits with his Word. Matthew 8:16. As the Word is going forth and you receive it with your heart, the spirit of fear is losing its grip off your life. Yet trouble came! There are no diagnostic centres that can help you identify that. Job 1:15-19, you see the kind of troubles that came upon Job. Catalogues of woes triggered by fear. Church Gist. “The things I greatly feared have come upon me.” He confessed it that fear brought all the woes. He was under the oppression of the spirit of fear and trouble after trouble. Devastation after devastation came upon him. Job 2:4. By subscribing to fear you stand to lose everything including eternity.

How devastating is the spirit of fear?

1.     The spirit of fear is the spirit of bondage.

 Romans 8:15. Bondage connotes captivity, it connotes imprisonment, being held on the same spot, gasping for breath and struggling for survival. Church Gist. It is the spirit of the devil. 2 Timothy 1:7.

2.     The spirit of fear is the spirit of torment.

Torment includes depression. 1 John 4:18. Fear has torments, fear torments its victims. That is how much an enemy fear is. It comes in unnoticed, you know the country is so wonderful. Church Gist. The economy is so wonderful. It keeps injecting those things into you to rob you of God’s best for your life. He has lost out tonight.

3.  The spirit of fear is the spirit of sickness. 

Job 2:18. satan was behind all the plagues on the health of Job. And he is still tormenting many today with sickness. Church Gist. Jesus came and went about doing good, healing all those that were oppressed of the devil, afflicted with sickness by the devil. 

-Every affliction of sickness that came through the spirit of fear tonight and whatever way it came, must lose its grip off your life.

I saw an array of men weeping, groaning, agonizing, wailing in that vision and the Lord said to me. ‘But from the beginning, it was not so’. Church Gist. I said: ‘But why Lord’? He said: ‘And now the hour has come to liberate the World of the oppression of the devil through the preaching of the Word of Faith and I’m sending you to undertake this task’.

-Everything that makes you weep behind closed doors is sorted here tonight. Church Gist. Everything you are going through (that) you can’t tell anybody else, tonight God is sorting you out. 

4.  The spirit of fear is the spirit of destruction and death.

And we saw that catalog in Job 1:15-29. It is the spirit of destruction and death. Most accidents claim lives through fear: ‘Eh! O ti to! I’m gone. Church Gist. Ah! This is how it went’! He leaves his hand off the steering. ‘I’m finished’. That’s how devastating the spirit of fear can be.

-But tonight is your night of liberty. 

No one’s position can change with the spirit of fear at work. How dare you approach the Red Sea with fear? But through faith, the Sea saw them, it fled. That’s the only passage to their promised land but fear would have stopped them from getting there. But through faith, they went through the Sea, the Red Sea as on dry land. Church Gist. Now, they would have asked: ‘How are we going to eat’? But God said: ‘Go’! We are going! And He gave them food, supplied them food, twice a day for forty years. How are we going to get water to drink? He made a rock to be following them, issuing forth water for them – three million people, no short supply. Forty years! Those are the things the spirit of fear would have robbed them of. 

Deuteronomy 32:13. Many great destinies have been sold off to fear, many!! A lot of rash decisions because of fear. Some have fled this country from frying pan to fire, they didn’t even know where they were going but they left; fear drove them out of their inheritance without knowing. Some sold their businesses and became cheap labour for fear. There are many things you have heard from God, you would have gotten from God; you can’t move, fear won’t let you. Until fear leaves, victory is not in view, until fear gives way the future is dim. We are in the days of great fear across the nations, not just our nation. Luke 21:25-28. It will precede the coming of the Lord, the hearts of men failing them for fear. Church Gist. So we are in the days of great fears upon the earth, you better get your understanding clear so that you can be free. Luke 21:11. It’s so important to know the times we are in and to get ready to overcome this unnoticed devastating enemy called the spirit of fear. Luke 18:8. Matthew 8:26. The cure to fear is faith. These most fearful days will require great faith to ride the storms. Little faith can’t ride the storms when the waves go wrong. People perish by the torture of fear. Now we can liken faith to light and fear to darkness. When faith steps in, fear steps out. Faith is the covenant cure for the torments, the torture, the afflictions of fear. Everybody is a victim of what he fears.  

-I command the hold of the spirit of fear broken from off every life in the name of Jesus.

In these glorious times, it shall be to each one according to his faith. What am I talking about? Commit to building your faith against the stormy days. Matthew 9:29. Church Gist. When faith comes alive, believers enter into their rest and they cease from their troubles. Nothing silences the spirit of fear like faith actively at work in a man’s life. The fear of tomorrow is the loss of tomorrow, the tomorrow you fear you have lost it.

Hebrews 11:1, Romans 4:17-20. But faith does not drop on people’s laps, faith comes by hearing and understanding the Word. Church Gist. “Understandest what thou readest, he said, how can I?” And when understanding came, faith came alive. 

So spiritual understanding is the birthplace of faith. That’s the production factory of faith. Church Gist. Spiritual understanding of the truth is what triggers faith in a believer’s life. Spiritual understanding!

When understanding of God’s plan for prosperity came to me, I’ve not played one game in my life to access financial blessing. Church Gist. A dime of your Church money is not in my pocket. I was living the reality of a highly prosperous future having discovered it…and commit to what He says makes it happen. 

Never sit down expecting a change. Engage the terms of the covenant of life as contained in Scriptures and then your change will keep coming.

– The good news is ‘it’s your turn!’

Please understand, it’s not hearing the Word that stirs faith but spiritual understanding of what you hear, what you read, what you study is what stirs faith. While asking God to show me the secret of Kingdom prosperity, I took Kenneth Copeland’s book and Gloria’s book (his wife). Church Gist. Now I have read those books 4 times but I have not found what I’m looking for. Any student you see that relies only on the lectures from the lecture room, he is going to be a poor student. It’s your commitment to searching based on what you have heard to boost your understanding of the subject, you can have a wonderful grade. People come to Church and just take notes and close it and walk away. It’s time to work out the change you desire. 

Your faith won’t grow because Papa prayed for you. No! Even the impartation of the Spirit of faith requires the Word to stay alive. Faith feeds on the Word. So all these psychedelic faith, people just running around “I believe God, I believe God” – he has not read one book on faith in his life. One book! Church Gist. Some have never read one chapter of the Bible in their lives. One chapter at a go! ‘I just believe God.’ For what? On what basis? 

Sir, I can tell how we got to where we are step by step, which Word triggered it. We are where we are by grace but grace multiplies by knowledge. It’s time to sit up and build your faith because days of great fear are here. The stress of nations will keep multiplying. Very shortly, there will be no nation to run into. They will be checking people out of their various nations. “We have enough trouble here, we don’t need any more people here, go back to your place.” There will be nowhere to return to but God and it takes faith to get at God. 

The evidence of faith at work is rest. What do I call it? Rest! Hebrews 4:3. The evidence of real faith is rest. In areas that pose unrest to many, you are at rest. Awesome God! Now He said, this is how to get there “let us therefore labour.” Hebrews 4:11-12. Church Gist. Let’s labour in the Word to build our faith so we can enter into rest. You labour in the Word to build your faith so you can enter into rest. 1 Timothy 5:17…they are not labouring to preach, they are labouring to build. So they share out of their treasures with others.

We came out with 2 volumes recently – treasures from my archives. They are notes from dairies over the years. That’s what I call the lion’s feed. Nothing great happens by chance. No one prevails by chance. Church Gist. You need to be equipped for the battle and the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit. He begets faith which is the shield that wards off all satanic attacks. Ephesians 6:16. 

Your faith has unlimited capacity for growth. So keep building it. 2 Thessalonians 1:3. Where is it growing to? To the fullness of the stature of Christ. What does that mean? “Whosoever that believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do.” Church Gist. So it shall be said of men and women of faith this end time “what manner of men are these? What manner of woman is this? What manner of man is this?” They shall be days of strange works and strange acts. The strange works and strange acts, not abracadabra. They are scripturally explainable. Amen!

This Commission has subdued, despised and overthrew the siege of fear at every point to get to where we are by His grace. Church Gist. Build your faith, it’s the only way to subdue fear. Build your faith, it’s the only way to clear the hold of fear off your life.

– Your tomorrow is great!

For anyone under any form of sickness or disease, stop thinking death. Start thinking life. Proverbs 23:7. You can’t think death and live and you can’t think life and die.

– So, that terminal disease is cursed from the root!

Would you like to say with me? ‘I shall not die but live and declare the works of God’.

– That individual carrying stage four cancer, I’m saying to you by the Word of the Lord that the root of that plague is cursed!

– That liver challenge is restored.

Psalm 118:17. Now, Jesus lives in you by the mystery of redemption and He said ‘Because I live, you shall live also’. Church Gist. How many people have Jesus in them here? He is saying from your inside. John 14:19.

Can I have you say with me? ‘Jesus, because you live, I shall live also’.

Somebody says ‘Do you understand what you’re talking about?’ I think I do. There was this individual they brought the picture to me in Calabar one of those days, that could not be moved from the hospital. Church Gist. Her case was at the tail end of it. (I) laid hands on that picture, breathed on it. Tuesday came, that was a Sunday night (when the picture was brought), they couldn’t find the cancer anymore. 

– You are here live today. Every evil seed, planted inside anyone that is threatening your life, is cursed tonight. 

Lazarus was dead and stinking. That was why Jesus said ‘If you would believe, you’ll see the glory of God’. That is to tell you how powerful faith is. It can recover a four day old dead back to life that was already stinking. You are the one they told that you are going to die. Church Gist. You heard it, not that somebody told you that you are in a coma and you are the one living like this. Amen? John 11:39,40. Somebody was dead, Jesus said ‘Faith is the answer. If you believe you’ll see the glory of God. Faith is the answer’. 

– No matter how deteriorating that situation is, tonight, as you put out your faith in God and the integrity of His Word and His servant that He sent to minister to you, your case is settled.

– Every plague of stroke is restored right now.

– Paralysis is healed right now.

– Deaf ears hear right now! 

– Blind eyes see right now!

Now listen, just like fear torments life, faith torments fear. I remember the sage of blessed memory, T. L. Osborne, he came to Canaanland before we moved in August of 1999 and he said to me, ‘David, how will people get here?’ I said ‘They are already here’. Church Gist. We have not moved, I said ‘They are already here’. He said ‘Praise God! They are already here!’. Faith works in the reality of the unseen. Faith operates in the reality of the unseen. Faith calleth those things which be not as though they were. Romans 4:17.

– The good news for anyone who came here sick is that you are now well. 

2 Chronicles 20:20.

– It’s your night!

– I curse the fear of survival. 

– You are not redeemed to survive. Church Gist. You are redeemed to be a blessing.

– and I decree supernatural turnaround within this harvest season. 

– Some job seekers here will turn to employers of labour in the course of this year.

– It’s your turn!

Now listen to this. Those 3 Hebrew boys trusted in their God. The fiery furnace had no power on them. They came out of fire without a smell of fire on them. Their hats were there, their garments were there, their sandals were there, (they) came out of the fiery furnace because they trusted (in their God). Church Gist. That’s how faith torments fear. Daniel 3:17. When you’re walking on the basis of scriptures, you have committed God.

– Can I hear your Amen?

Now, here is the caution before we close. 1 Timothy 1:19. Faith requires good conscience for delivery. Psalm 16:4. Don’t say you believe God when you are running around with another god. It’s fake, it will never work, it will never deliver. That is the undoing of many people in this part of the World. Church Gist. They believe (in) God in the morning, another person in the night. February 19th this year will make it 55 years that I met Jesus. I have never checked on another god once. It has never crossed my mind once. Jesus has been more than enough all these years for me! Satan has no part in me, no, we have no relationship. We are in different worlds all together!

You better check it. Faith will be truncated without a good conscience. Church Gist. You cannot serve two masters, you have to choose one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24.

We have the following kinds of gods in scripture: idols, you can call them the gods of Egypt. Then, the god of gold, “Anything, by any means. I must have money.” You are running a most dangerous risk. The love of money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6:10&11. You have been in this Church, many of us for several years and when did you see us pray “Oh God, send us money.” We are running the greatest project of our lives as a ministry now in Lagos and some people in the Church don’t even know the project is going on. Once we finish service, everybody is driving home. It is the cheapest, without any private consultation with anybody. Church Gist. It is foolishness to be chasing after a bird that is flying. Riches have wings. I have seen money and I have never sat down looking for it once. I have never knocked on anybody’s door in life asking for help and our ministry is 43 years today. Wake up! Walk in the covenant with a pure conscience. 

The third one is self worship. I call it pride. “By virtue of my skill, my expertise. In the whole of Africa, I don’t have a second. I have certifications in 350 areas in my field. The next one I knew had only 100. I am the top. Clap for me.” Nebuchadnezzar killed himself. Nobody was there. “This great kingdom which I have built. Worship me.” Church Gist. God said today you will become an animal. Self worship. Herod made an oration and they shouted, “the voice of the god and not a man”. An angel went and smote him and worms ate him up on his seat. Thou shall not have any other gods beside me or your generations will pay for it. The third to the fourth generation. 

Let go of the conscience of idols and come back to God in full force. If your eyes be single, your whole body will be full of light. 

-It is your turn!

Those are the enemies of faith, those are the enemies that render your faith helpless, ineffective. Beware! Beware of idols, beware of the god of gold, beware of pride, beware of self-worship. Pride! I’ve seen people go up and crash. Church Gist.  It takes God to go up but it takes meekness to stay up. All the giants I’m privileged and connected to by God, they finished strong. There was no setback in their journey, they were ascending from glory to glory till they went to Heaven. My God!

-So in the name of Jesus, your following after God will not become history. You will follow Him till the end, He will decorate you beyond measure in the name of Jesus Christ. So, tonight is your night!

-By this visitation, God has come to change your position. Church Gist. God has come to bring you out of the dungeon of darkness into His Kingdom of light. He has come to destroy the fears in your life and connect you to the faith that works. And so shall it be. 

-Anyone called barren here. In the name of the Lord Jesus, in this Year of Fortune, your awaited children are here. 

That my daughter said it was half of the month already. I said: ‘You will be confirmed pregnant this month’. Church Gist. And within the two weeks, she was confirmed pregnant. 

-Your faith tonight will provoke testimony tomorrow. 

—–PRAYERS—–

Thank You, Jesus! In Jesus’ precious name, we have prayed. Thank You, Jesus! Whatever you cannot declare boldly, you have not believed truly. Everything you believe truly you will declare boldly. Whatever you can’t declare boldly, God can’t confirm openly. So evidence of faith? Rest and bold declaration that does not jitter in the face of people, their look does not bother you; you are just there. Church Gist. And as you begin to make bold declarations, God begins to confirm with signs, wonders and diverse miracles. Acts 14:3. Bold declarations! Open confirmations! If anybody asks you tonight after this Service or tomorrow, or this week or next week. ‘How far’? God has done it! What do you say? (God has done it). ‘How far with your job’? (God has done it).

…How far with the children you are expecting? ‘God has done it.’ How far with your marital settlement? ‘God has done it.’ How far with the situation with your business? ‘God has done it.’ How far with your family situation? God has done it. Church Gist. How far with your children? ‘God has done it.’ Give the Lord a big hand of praise. Thank you Jesus! Amen!

Whatever you don’t despise, you cannot dominate. David had to despise Goliath to subdue him. He said “you empty barrel, God who gave me the lion and the bear will give you to me tonight and I will bring down your head for the fowls of the air.” Church Gist. He said “I tell you the truth.” Amen! He despised Goliath to bring him down. You have to despise your fear to subdue it. Amen! You have to!

Can I ask you to do something? Now look at your Church. Church Gist. If this Church kept on triumphing in spite of all economic hazards that have visited this Nation till now and has never known a backward trend, you have a future. 

– I say, you have a future!

If this Church is not begging, if this Church is not borrowing, the economy cannot determine your destiny. By redemption, you have access to His riches in glory where the economy never fails. Just package yourself in the covenant and watch God decorate your life. Church Gist. Package yourself in the covenant! “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, He keeps adding to you all these things that others are dying to get.” Package yourself well!

Can I tell you this? This will also help you. There is no man living or dead that this Commission will say if not for this man, we will not be here. There is no one sir, including myself. Church Gist. If I go to Heaven today, He won’t stop doing what He is doing. He is the One doing it before I came. You better wake up and stop seeking shortcut and connect to God.

No matter where any man runs to without God, all is vanity. “Without me you can do nothing.” Church Gist. So connect with Jesus. Let Him lead your path, let Him direct your steps. You will keep smiling at the storm. 

– It’s your year!

– The fear that makes people make terrible decisions that lure them to realms of regrets, you will not make it!

– Stay off unclean business! Stay off!

We had a testimony in Church recently. There was this young man. He was into this fraudulent business and Jesus touched him. He got saved and He told him some wonderful things. He said “all the people that borrow money from you, don’t take it from them because it is dangerous money. It’s not your money, let them go with it.” He said “the house you built with the fraudulent business is not your house.” Church Gist. He said “but my heart for God won’t let me hold it” and after that, God gave him a clean business idea where he earns in dollars. The same fraudster, God changed his story when he obeyed Him. You can not be on two sides at the same time. “If God be God, serve Him. How long will you hold between two opinions? It’s the blessing of God that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow.”

There is no fraudster who is at rest. If a lizard moves (demonstrating) maybe EFCC (Economic Financial Crimes Commission) have come for him. Church Gist. But when God blesses, He adds no sorrow to it. 

– The days of pressures and struggles are over in your life.

– As you let go of whatever God hates, He keeps moving you forward in life.

Don’t hang around what God detests so, He will not reject you. 1 Samuel 15:23. Church Gist. Allow God’s Word to rule your life and you will be at peace all your life.

– The good news is, between now and the end of the first half of this year, God will make you to laugh in the name of Jesus.

— Altar Call —

Now, it’s time to receive the priestly blessing. Numbers 6:23,24.

Lift up your two hands.

– Whatever you came with as a desire, now mention it to Jesus in a moment because you are returning with it as a testimony.

– Whatever you came in with as a desire tonight, whether already mentioned or not mentioned, you are returning with them as testimonies.

– You’ll never forget this night in a hurry because it is your night of visitation ordained to change your position. 

– Your position has just changed. 

– Whatever they found in you earlier, by the time you get back to the hospital, they’ll tell you it’s no longer there.

– Nightmares end tonight. 

– The plague of spirit husband and spirit wife ends tonight. 

– The plague of things pursuing after you in the night ends tonight. 

– And I pray like Jesus said, that your faith shall not fail. 

– Grace to take responsibility to keep your faith alive, receive it now. 

– Grace to settle with the Word to build your faith, receive it now. 

– I release upon everyone here the Spirit of wisdom and understanding in the revelation of the Word. 

– Receive it now in the name of Jesus. Church Gist. So shall it be!

– You shall testify.

– Many shall testify tomorrow. 

– Multitude shall testify this coming Sunday.

– Before the Month of February is over, something must have taken place in your life.

– And so shall it be in the name of Jesus. 

Let me congratulate all members of this Church, all our officials and the Pastorate for a job well done. Church Gist. I drove in and I saw a very neat compound and I came in, I found the Spirit of life in the Assembly.

– May you live to enjoy Christ till the end.

– No one among us, the Pastorate, the Statutory Bodies, the Service Group leaders, the membership, shall miss God.

– The ultimate is Heaven. Church Gist. We shall all be there together.  

– The power of sin is broken from any life.

– May your partnership and my partnership with Christ remain intact till He appears in Jesus name. 

Congratulations!

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