Transcription
I'm a beautiful woman, but nobody is coming to marry me. I'm a wonderful woman. I, I've done all I know to do, and yet I'm not able to have a child. I, I graduated, and 10 years, 12 years, nobody has come to give me a job.
"Be patient. There is an evidence that is being built. Don't corrupt the power of the testimony that is waiting for you through impatience." Yummy, behind every glory, there is a story. The story is what makes the glory desirable. If the Bible just said Jesus came, He walked, He died, He resurrected, even me, I will not give my life to Him. I won't give my life to that kind of story. But then, when I see His passion, "He went through this for me," there must be something special about me. That's how those you are called to serve will thank you when they hear what you had to go through to be a savior. They say, "You had to go through this to be a prophet?" "Is this the price of being an apostle?" "Is this the price of being the kingdom millionaire?" Now, they will not just clap for you because you're a billionaire. They will clap for you because you're a testament of endurance. "You went through this so that my children will eat." "You went through this so that nations will be built."
I once prayed for a politician who was so frustrated, and he told me, said, "Apostle, every time I want to stop, I have spent money, I campaign, I do my best, but then things don't seem to work out. Sometimes, even when I know that, you know, everything turned in my favor, I'm tired of all these. I've been offered all kinds of options, but I've made up my mind to stand for Christ." And I told him, I said, "Do you think God is wasting your time? Joseph, what would your story be if you were not in the prison? Would we really believe that God delivers?"
The prison is where both good and bad people meet. Be careful who you point in the prison, because the prison is the meeting place for both good and bad people. Joseph is in the prison. The wine pressers are in the prison. Jesus is on the cross. The thieves are on the cross. There is a place where both good and bad meet. That's why when you don't understand what is happening with the lives of people, keep quiet and pray, because they may be in the prison there to help those who are in the prison.
Are you getting what I'm saying now? "Why are bad things happening to this person? His brother just died. His sister just died. He's broke. He's a failure. Shame on him. You are an embarrassment to redemption." Children in the faith can talk that. But those who have truly passed through the school of the spirit to understand, they can just pray and say, "Look, relative to your service, the results you are getting is not matching. God is doing something. Just be patient."
There are times that you see the actor in the movie beating you, you even think he's dead. Just when you are about to sympathize with him, you see his hands moving, and it gives you a ray of hope. But in the end of it, you'll see victory. Believers, some of you may not like what I'm teaching you, but the making of a witness is not on the dining table with tea and bread. The fullness of affliction is how witnesses are made. I repeat, the fullness of affliction. There are prayers you can never pray away. You only pray for grace to pass through it. It is a baptism you must drink of, and it is a cup that you must drink of and be baptized with. That baptism.
"Apostle, I want power." There is only a limiting partition. "Can do." You must dig your own well. There are times when people are sleeping, you are awake, and God is saying, "The anointing I'm giving you is not for a local assembly. I'm sending you to the nations." You study your Bible, you finish it. God says, "Start again." Now you say, "God, you are not fair. I've finished my Bible five times. I've not preached one sermon." That preaching that is eating you, you will preach and be tired and thank God for the recipe of what you have. Now, He says, "Eat, for the journey is far."
There was a time in my life, I would not spend up to two weeks except during election. I didn't spend up to two weeks at home because of demand. Traveling, traveling. Don't rush seasons in your life. You will miss the season you are trying to rush out of right now. Don't rush. Man of God, stop carrying complimentary cards around. "Invite me." God called me. The fact that you have to beg people to believe you is a sign that your evidence is little or zero. The key to publicizing yourself is to remain in the secret place. Jacob, but a studying script, you are learning. The day they give you a mic to preach in one conference, you will so represent the purposes of God in a way that you will never go back.
While Joseph was in that prison, I remember him just saying, "God, found these flames. You have called me to be a great man. I had a dream, and in that dream, I saw the sun, the moon, and the 11 stars. But how would it happen?" And then God said, "Son, we have worked on this gift. It's time to use it." Two people have dreams, and he interprets the dream, and even when one tried to forget him.
God now gave the king a dream and shut the heavens over the wise men, the sorcerers, and the wine presser. Said, "I remember my wrong. There is a young man." Can I tell you this free thing to think today? That God is using as a weapon and teaching you how to fight with, I promise you, He will use it tomorrow. Your intelligence, your beauty, your grace, your voice, your fasting, none of it is a waste.
You listen. I, I don't, I don't watch so much of of television, but sometimes I watch a channel called Food Network. Are we together? And then there's this competition that they do. Sometimes you almost can guess what they will ask you to cook with the kind of ingredients that you see there. So I want you to look at your life and look at the kind of weapons God is giving you. It should suggest where you are going to. The weapon of patience, the weapon of endurance. Come on now. You are smart enough to suspect, and it's safe to suspect. "Lord, why are you giving me the weapon of patience? Why are you giving me endurance? Why are you training me to war? Why are you training me to pray?" Why will I pray seven days dry and God says, "You just do what I'm telling you"?
David, "I'm training you with a lion and a bear, but that's not what will give you honor." There are only schoolmasters. The person you are going to fight is not a lion. The person you are going to fight is not a bear. I can't use Goliath to train you, so I will use what looks like Goliath. So you kill the lion, nobody says thank you. I'm teaching you self-control. You kill the bear, nobody says thank you. You are then the wilderness. Then one day, can I tell you this? When your season of appearing comes, huh, it does not look like it. You will get home in the morning and walk out like a normal day, not knowing that that is the day having a sign to honor and announce you.
The young boy went to go and give his brothers food, and when he went, he saw a a beast with six fingers and six toes roaring at veterans of war, and yet none of them had the courage to fight. And immediately he saw them, he remembered, "I have an evidence." So, "I have an evidence." He went to meet the brothers, and they say, "If you don't turn back, I will slap you." Now, you think he will think, "We are feeding sheep here"? He said, "Is God disguised me using?" But it's not that. I've been tending to the same way God used you. He used a job to bring you to Abuja. It's not the job. The job gave you a platform to come here and hear this truth. Can't bless you anywhere.
Listen, God is a master of using situations to move you to prophecy. He can use a discussion at the back of your car to connect you to a destiny helper. Listen, always see the mystery behind the activities you are involved with. God can use a sick patient in the hospital and force you to get to that hospital because someone in that hospital is connected to your next level. It's not about the hospital. If Joseph was not in the prison, how would he meet the wine presser? That's why the Bible says, "In everything, give thanks." Complaining is an indictment on God's integrity. You are, you are only seeing part of the acting. Give thanks because there is something He's doing.
God is raising mighty men in this place. God is raising people of power in this place. God is raising signs and wonders in this place, and He won't stop. He won't stop till you look just like Him. He won't stop. Now, He will stop till your life goes like Him. He won't stop. He won't stop till you look just like Him. You may cry, but He won't stop till you look just like Him. You may be weak, but He won't stop till you lose. Don't stop, please don't stop till my life looks like You. Please don't stop. Please don't stop till my life.
God is teaching us how to interpret the writings on the wall. It was persecution that came as a disguise and spread the apostles to different regions. When you truly become secured in the love of God, you interpret everything in your life with respect to His love and with respect to your assignment. There must be something you are doing. "Oh God, no, for my brother to just die, for my son to just die. There is something You are doing. I may not understand, but praise the Lord. Thine is the glory. Dying is the kingdom. Time is the power."
Hear me, believers. We must raise people who have a spiritual understanding and how to interpret things. "Lord, why am I in this nation? Why was I not born in the U.S. or in the UK?" Now you know the answer. There is an evidence. He wants to use you as a specimen of His power that nations can be transformed to men who love Jesus. Let me bring you a word of encouragement. I sense in my spirit that many believers are currently in the cave of Adullam. There are families who are wondering, "Lord, why will I be fasting and praying, husband and wife, and yet we don't seem to afford a meal? We are not lazy. We've gone to men of God for prayer. We've sown seeds." Every time you've done right and things don't seem to happen, something is going on behind the scenes. I assure you, every time you know you are walking in obedience and truth, and yet things don't change, God is preparing something. Sometimes it may be a table He's preparing before you. Witness, I wonder what happened to Potiphar when they anointed Pharaoh, when they anointed Joseph to become Prime Minister. I'm sure Joseph would look at Potiphar and say, "Hello, whatever. How are you?" And Potiphar says, "Oh, dear." And he said, "No, no, don't worry."
Please hear me, brothers and sisters. God brought us tonight to teach us the ways of the kingdom. That more than believers, more than pastors, more than business people, more than mothers, modern fathers, He's called us to be witnesses. Do you know Mary's whole assignment was to give birth? Her assignment was not to be a preacher. Her assignment was not. Your assignment on Earth can be done in one day. Do you know that? Yes, sir. Your assignment can be to give birth to that prophet who will spearhead the revival. No wonder demons saw it, and they are attacking you, attacking you, and attacking you. And when that is happening, God says, "Don't worry, I'm writing something." Could it be, oh dear politician, that God reserved you for such a time as this? Because He reserves His best for the last.
There are men of God here who are saying, "God, it seems like you are not utilizing the grace you have put upon my life." When a football club is playing a serious tournament, are we together now? And when they find out that the team they are about to face, maybe semi-finals or finals, is a serious team, they will do well to keep their best players behind because it can be a strategy with the opposing team to enjoy and incapacitate the key players. And so, for the purpose of that final match, God will retreat certain people, and you will see such a professional player itching, but on the reserve. That's what is happening to some of you. "God, it looks like you are disgracing me. You are falling my hand." And God says, "Don't." No wonder you are not God. You are my child because you don't understand. You are not thinking my thoughts. I'm waiting until someone makes a statement that over his dead body for anybody to rise in this family. God says, "Now you are ready to come out. I want to unleash my finest. I want to unleash my brightest."
And the day you step your feet in that place and you say, "I hear there is someone who mocks the name of the Lord here." And the man says, "Be careful. Do you know how your father died?" "Of course, I know how my father died on the cross. I don't know which one you are talking about." Then the man knows that you are not just speaking by the flesh again.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is by this mystery that God, by His mercy, has brought us thus far. We did not come here by luck. We came here by death. The prize for life, death. The price for life.