GOD’S POWER WORKING THROUGH HIS SPIRIT AND THE WORD

It was Christmas Day and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations was teaming with people ready to see the miracle working power of our Saviour in action. The service began with beautiful songs of worship and carols. The atmosphere was charged as Prophet T.B. Joshua gave a message titled ‘Authority And Power.’ The prophet made the distinction between authority and power in both the secular world and the spiritual realm. Our reward for relating with Jesus, he maintained, is power. To know God is to know His power. Knowing facts about Jesus does not change our relationship with Him. An effective witness does not only know his faith but shows his faith. The prophet prayed at this point for the Lord to help him and the congregation to witness in Word and life. He asserted that it is God’s power working through Spirit and the Word that brings about deliverance, healing and blessing. Not only must we have God’s Word to be pastor, evangelist or bishop, we must also have God’s Spirit. When the Holy Spirit took residence within us, He did so with the thought of aiding our character. If you catch anybody in sin, you must restore him gently so that you will not fall into sin yourself, he advised. No one can say no to sin unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit. The prophet paused to pray for the Holy Spirit to impress the law into our heart; to pour into us His divine inspiration and to grant in us the practice of all virtues among other blessings. The prophet asserted that authority and power must go hand in hand as authority without power is worthless. Drawing the attention of his listeners to Luke 4:14-39, the prophet maintained that Jesus had authority over unclean spirits and also the power to force them out. In the same vein, he prayed that we have authority over diseases and the power of God to control them and tell them where to go. Jesus did not give us a powerless authority. We need to realise and speak in keeping with this power or else our ministry will be filled with empty talk and make our prayer superficial. Our prayer will be meaningless and often times destructive if not in line with the truth of God’s Word. It is nonsense to confess that Jesus is Lord but behave in a contrary manner. Not everyone who speaks in a spirit is a pastor. Everyone who claims to be a pastor must be tested by Biblical standard. Describing the Bible as the Book of books, the prophet encouraged his listeners to read it slowly, attentively and repeatedly. The more you read it the more you understand yourself and the God who created you. No spiritual passage exists in a vacuum. You must respond to it in a dialogue. This is as much about listening as speaking.

LOVE IS ALWAYS THERE TO ACT
In his message during the second Sunday service, Wise Man Racine reminded his listeners that Christianity is all about relationship with God, advising them to look into their love walk with God. He also enjoined them to act love, do love and let love lead. Giving his sermon the title: Love Is Always There To Act and citing Luke 2:10-11 as his proof text, the wise man reminded the congregation that Jesus came to restore the relationship and fellowship between God and man. Jesus cares for all; whether rich or poor. Jesus feels what others feel. Jesus is love and love looks around to see who is in need of help. He reminded the congregation that somebody somewhere was in need of what they had. He enjoined the congregation to love their neighbours. Your neighbour, he explained, could be anybody: friend, enemy or even those who do not share the same faith with you. When you see life as Jesus did, you will help all. Spending more on others and less on ourselves is the only way to show love, the wise man concluded his message.

WOMAN DELIVERED FROM ADDICTION TO EATING SOIL
Miss Agnes Nyanga from Zambia told her listeners that she had been addicted to eating sandstones and soil for the past 25 years and pleaded with the prophet to deliver her in the mighty name of Jesus. She revealed that the habit took form one day when she swept her premises and sniffed the scent of the soil. It was at that point that a voice told her to eat the soil. The habit, she revealed, had attracted haemorrhoids to her system. All her efforts to stamp the habit out of her life had met with failure, she added. She repeatedly appealed to the prophet for her deliverance, saying that she had watched cases like hers being delivered on Emmanuel TV. As Prophet T.B. Joshua prayed for her in Jesus’ name, immediately, the evil spirit inside started manifesting wildly as she contorted her hands and began growling like an animal. Finally, she slumped after the contrary spirit had left her. The prophet educated the congregation that the animal in her that ate sandstones and soil had gone. Asked to eat the sandstone offered her after her deliverance, Agnes stared at the sandstone with disgust, reluctantly tasted it and promptly spat it out, saying that the old appeal had vanished. She thanked Jesus for her miraculous deliverance which had defied her efforts over the years.

MAN DELIVERED FROM THE SPIRIT OF RAPING ANIMALS
A video clip unfolded the deliverance of a young man by Wise Man Christopher. The young man, by name Kaniyimi Labista Kuni introduced himself as he underwent deliverance as a spirit of dragon having five powers. One of the powers located in his private parts was used to destroy women. He said any woman whom he made love to would not be pregnant. The power in his chest, according to the evil spirit speaking in him, was being used to destroy the young man himself so that he would not do well as a footballer. He revealed that he became possessed by the spirit of tiger and dragon at the age of 15 years. He said the tiger came to him and made love with him in a dream after which he became afflicted with the spirit of raping animals. He said that he had raped fowls, cows and goats in the past six years during which time the tiger came to him daily for love making. He however, confirmed in his testimony that after the deliverance, the urge to rape animals disappeared.

WOMAN DELIVERED FROM THE SPIRIT OF SUICIDE
Mr and Mrs Bennett Ofokans from South Africa told the congregation about the spirit of anger and suicide that had afflicted his wife, Love for years. Love explained that a spirit would come and ask her to leave this world and her husband by taking her own life. Since then, she became given to unnecessary anger and a desperate wish to commit suicide. She added that they came to The SCOAN in 2009 to seek the face of the Lord where she received a prophecy about the evil spirit in her life. The spirit always told her to leave this world. She was delivered after the prophecy and her life changed, making her enjoy her marriage from then. The deliverance which took place in 2009 was the reason for their visit from London to give the testimony. The couple thanked the prophet and God for her deliverance in the name of Jesus.

ANOINTING WATER REVIVED RUPTURED INTESTINE
Mr Tunde Sowemimo from Ondo State told his listeners that he had pain in his stomach, which caused him to fall down and he was rushed to a hospital where the diagnosis showed that his intestine had ruptured. He was also told that he would undergo a procedure the result of which could not be guaranteed. He consequently sent for the Anointing Water and as soon as he ministered it to himself, he regained energy immediately and got up from his sickbed hale and hearty without any operation on him. A test conducted on him thereafter never showed any rupture of the intestine, thanks to God restoring his health through the Anointing Water. A sickness of ten years ended miraculously and he began to eat solid food.

PRAYER RESTORES MAN’S LUMBER SPINE
After attending The SCOAN prayer line about two hours earlier, Mr Obiora Okeke accompanied by his wife, told the congregation about the goodness of the Lord in his life. He explained that he had been suffering from the problem of straightening of the lumber spine due to muscle spasm. He could not walk because of that and he got crutches from a hospital to aid his movement. To the glory of God however, after being prayed for by Wise Man Racine, his ailment was over. He advised his listeners to believe in God.

CONGREGATION DECLARED FREE AFTER MASS PRAYER
Prophet T. B. Joshua took time to pray for the congregation and Emmanuel TV viewers worldwide for total deliverance as they were about entering the New Year. In course of the mass prayer, many members afflicted by evil spirits manifested such spirits and were delivered. Many others vomited poisonous substances from their systems in reaction to the mass prayer. Asking both the congregation and Emmanuel TV viewers to join him in the mass prayer, the prophet moved from one prayer point to another. In the name of Jesus, the prophet prayed, whatever demonic activity in your life, I force it to come out in the name of Jesus. He explained that the demonic activity could be any disease, sickness, poverty, failure or disappointment. At the end of the mass prayer, the prophet asked all participants to thank the Lord for rewriting their history. He said the grace after declaring the congregation free.