MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLES MINISTRIES, INTERNATIONAL, ONIKE, YABA, LAGOS, NIGERIA
Sunday Worship Service
21st November, 2021
Topic : THE SPIRITS OF MENTAL HARASSMENT
Text: Philippians 4:4-8
Ministering: Dr. Daniel, Kolawole Olukoya (G.O MFM Worldwide)
Message
You will do well to pay attention to this. Philippians 4 gives us a recipe for not running mad in this generation. It gives you an antidote to insanity, in the insane world in which we find ourselves. And the Bible did not leave us in darkness.
It says “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come”. The word “perilous times” in ancient Greek means mad, difficult to explain. So the world is a madhouse. This passage tells you what to do so that the spirits that harass the soul, the spirits of mental harassment that lead people to the brink of despair do not capture a believer.
Unless you bury your head into the word of God, there are plenty of things around to make people run mad. Plenty of things around to make people to lose their minds. Plenty of things that will make a man to talk and you think he is normal, but underneath he is a mad man in three piece suit.
When you see a woman who will dye her front hair grey, dye the middle red and the back to black, it shows that she is already mad, that there is something wrong somewhere. Phil 4:4 is the first key to not running mad. It says “Rejoice alway, and again I say rejoice.”
It did not talk about circumstances because the man who was writing this was inside the Philippian jail that time. This was written by a man who was in jail, yet in that jail he could say that the key is “rejoice in the Lord, rejoice alway.” The joy of the Lord is permanent, the happiness of the world is temporary.
In verse 5, key number 2 not to run mad is, get the presence of the Lord around you, know that the Lord is around you. Wherever you are, He is there with you. He is not just a faraway old man sitting somewhere, the Lord is at hand (He is there.) “When thou passest through the fire, when thou passest through the waters, I will be with you….” means He is there.
Key number 3 in verse 6 means in your life let worry die. Worry will not get you anything. Worry will not get you anywhere. It is like a rocking chair you are sitting on that is moving but is not making progress. By the time you finish allowing the spirits of worry and anxiety to harass your mind, you find out that you have wasted time.
That is why the Bible says “whatever you commit into the hands of God, He can keep it “. So keep your life in His hands. Verse 6 says ‘be careful for nothing…’ Another version says “do not let anything worry your mind”. Key number 4 still in that verse 6 is, by prayer and thanksgiving and supplication, let your request be made known unto God. Verse 7.
In verse 8, it now says “finally”. Meaning, in conclusion. It is like when somebody has been talking and then says ‘now, to conclude’, it means he wants to now summarise everything. So in verse 8, the final key is to take charge of your heart. Take charge of your thinking. Do not allow your thoughts to be harassed by spirits that harass people’s hearts.
*I pray that the Lord will touch somebody here this morning and that arrow of frustration, arrows enticing you to give up, arrows that want to cage you where they caged your parents, will die here, in the name of Jesus*
There are spirits that harass people mentally but the agenda of that spirit is to finally imprison the soul, and imprison the person’s heart. A prison is a terrible thing. It removes or limits your freedom. It is a place of confinement. But as we have physical prisons, there are spiritual prisons as well. The greatest battle ground is not at the witchcraft coven, it is not in the camp of household wickedness, it is not in your office or the place of work.
The greatest battle ground is the heart. Most battle grounds have 2 enemies. They have 2 contestants. But the heart has 3 contestants. God is interested in the heart, the devil is interested in the heart, and man is interested in that heart. Man sometimes does not wish to do as much evil as the devil suggests. That is why the psalmist says “let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O God”. Meaning that those unacceptable thoughts put man into trouble and untold hardships.
The heart is where all our trouble begins. The heart is also the place where God begins to work. We are here this morning, dressed beautifully, we thank God for that. But if some hearts can be opened, many of us will run away. The scripture takes it very seriously. The first time God decided to destroy people, it was because the imagination of their heart was continually evil everyday.
In Genesis 6:5 God repented that he made man because He saw that the wickedness of man was great and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That was why he destroyed them
There was only one accusation to the generation of Noah before water destroyed all of them. It was a problem of the heart. Very soon the men began to build the tower of Babel and God came again and said “these people have started again o. Everything they are imagining in their hearts, they will do it now oh.”
This is where the scripture says “above all things, guard your heart with all diligence”. Therefore beloveth, the strongest prison is the prison of the mind. The prison of the heart. That is why the Bible says “though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”.
If you are not able to bring your thoughts under subjection and those thoughts are running helter-skelter, today you are crying, tomorrow you are murmuring, next day you are melancholic, another day you are grumbling, this constant harassment is called mental torment and the result is normally very bad.
When you are under the attack of these mental spirits:
– When you are thinking of killing yourself, you are under attack by these mental spirits.
– You are thinking of killing other people, something is wrong somewhere, your mental life is under attack.
– You are the kind of person who is doing something and before you are even done, you begin to say “supposing this thing does not work?” Mental attack.
– When you begin to imagine yourself with grey hair, no wife, no husband, arrows are fired into your heart.
– When sexual thoughts fill your mind day and night, thoughts of retrenchment, thoughts of business attack, thoughts of uncertainty, failure, fear, hindrance, confusion, wickedness, deceit.
– You are pregnant and already considering a thought of miscarriage.
– You are sick and already imagining yourself on the operating theatre. This is a very serious thing that is affecting many lives.
– Any small pain that some women feel in their breasts now, the first thought is that it is cancer. When she forgot to put her pillow on her head and slept on her breast and the breast is now paining her, her first thought is that it is cancer. And if they find anything in the breast, they already declare it to be cancer, forgetting that anything can grow in the breast, it does not have to be cancer.
I have seen people calling me saying “G.O I cannot feel any strength in my hand and my legs, heei, stroke ooo” whereas there is no problem. Unless you get out of the prison yard which mental harassment spirits have put you in, by renewing your mind daily, you might be in trouble. You will be digging your spiritual grave if you do not launch spiritual warfare against these spirits attacking your soul.
Listen very carefully. You see, the mechanism is this:
1. God’s thought towards you is of good and not of evil towards you. That is the standard of heaven;
&
2. God is the only creator. The devil has no power to create anything. So, here you are: God says “my thought towards you is good”, and the devil cannot create anything. But you are now the one appropriating evil things to yourself to which the devil will now apply stamp which he has power to do.
So your thought is the energy which attracts things to you. It is the law of attraction that brings things to you. Many people who die in accidents or in emergency situations in hospitals die, not because of their sicknesses or accidents but because they see death around. For example, there are 36 beds in a ward. All of a sudden in the morning, you hear the relatives of the first bed crying. Then somebody is crying behind. Then he asks, “what killed that person?” And the reply is “it is pile”. Then he begins to panic and that is all. He is gone.
You see, the power of our thoughts have energy to create either evil or good for us. The Bible is a perfect book. It says “for as man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. You say “I know why the men are not coming, I am ugly”. Who told you that you are ugly? “It is because I am fat”. Who told you that you are fat? It is a thing of the heart. There are some men who are looking for those fat women. You call yourself ugly but that thing you call ugly is what someone else is looking for.
Therefore beloveth, the source of all power and weakness is within. The reason for success as well as failure is from inside. It is wrong to look for power and strength outside. The source of wealth, health, power, success, prosperity is within. All growth is enfoldment from within. Then the source of sickness, poverty, lawlessness, sorrow, grave, laziness, immorality is from within.
Therefore the key to convert trials to triumph, foes to friends, fear to courage, despair to joy, temptation to testimony is within. The most powerful forces are those invisible forces from within. The enemy understands this and so he has created a department called “Mental harassment department” with different kinds of spirits to harass the minds of men. That is the warfare we need to wage here today.
There is a spirit of:
– Inferiority complex.
– Inadequacy
– Condemnation
– Saying “I am not meeting expectations”
– Worry
– Anxiety
– Stress
– Tension
– Nervousness
– Agony
– Heaviness
– Discouragement
– Hopelessness
– Incompetence
– The victim mentality (it is always me).
– Indifference
– Emotional imbalance
– Mental instability
– Emptiness
– Living in the past
– The ‘why me’ syndrome. All these are mentally harassing spirits.
– Enticement (it is strongly prompting you to do things that are wrong)
– Numbness : without feeling at all
– Memory failure: the enemy just removes the memory.
I want you to understand that these are horrible spirits troubling men. Perhaps you are here this morning, somewhere back in your life, you have given your life over to the enemy so that they can do whatever they want, I want you to understand that the whole creation is the product of thought. The idea of fashioning the earth was conceived in the mind of God and planned out in His imagination.
Your thoughts have the power of creating for you the things you think. The power of thoughts are released from within you to create your desire. Your thoughts are the forces you send out to work on your behalf. Your thoughts have the power to bring towards you their realities. If you make up your mind here this morning that you will be sending out the thoughts of victory and success, that is what you will get. If you continue to think failure, you will get failure.
Imagination that has put many people down is what some people are doing day and night. We have work to do. All those thoughts that are in your heart that are not of God, show that there is a problem.
Some practical things you can do are:
– list all the thoughts and imagination that give you the greatest anxiety.
– then take them one by one, smash and demolish them with prayers of fire. If any of them tries to persist,
– plead the blood of Jesus on your heart.
– Take up one or two or more verses, tie up the thought and smash it again with prayers.
– command the arrows of evil thoughts to go and
– begin to soak yourself in the word of God. That way, you will be able to defeat all this rage of mentally harassing spirits.
Many of us are in the wrong place now because of what our hearts have programmed us to become. This morning, you and I need to pray very serious prayers. The hottest battle ground is the heart. God needs it, devil is looking for it, man wants to control it. So once that battle of the heart is lost, you lose all battles.
PRAYER POINTS
[Before Message]
1. Any spell placed upon my life, scatter in the name of Jesus; &
2. Angels ordained for my blessings, appear in the name of Jesus.
[After Message]
1. Stronghold in my heart, die in the name of Jesus;
2. Heaviness in my heart, carry your load in the name of Jesus;
3. Every enemy of my peace of mind, you are a liar, die in the name of Jesus;
4. Poison of darkness in my body, die in the name of Jesus;
5. Every power that wants me to die before my testimonies, you are a liar, die in the name of Jesus;
6. Strongman that does not want to let me go, die in the name of Jesus; &
7. (Put forward your two hands) Every blessing these hands have lost, my hands arise, possess your possession in the name of Jesus.
Shalom