 And so today the prayer is going to be offered. You already heard testimonies of people who have, we must understand one thing, devil is real, demons are real. They hurt people. They torment people. Many times they operate through generational curses. Means in the family everyone is getting a divorce. Everyone in the family is sick. Or everyone in the family is dying at certain age. Or everyone in the family has certain types of accidents. Or everyone in the family has miscarriage. Or everyone in the family has mental problems or problems with depression. These things are not just coincidences. These are not chances. These things have a person behind it and that person is a demon. And as long as you go into a therapy, only taking medicine, but you're not dealing with a spiritual problem, you will not fix it and they will keep reappearing in other people's lives and in your children's lives. That's why these prayer lines exist. I know that maybe today you're visiting for the first time and you're like, I heard word demon more in one hour than I've heard in my ten years. Welcome to Christianity. Age-D Christianity. Not black and white, Age-D Christianity. Full-color Christianity. One-third of Jesus' ministry is casting out demons. Amen. And I ask you for deep apology for all the churches you went to and never heard about the devil. Because he is our enemy. We're not ashamed of the Holy Spirit and we're not afraid of the devil. Amen. We're not afraid of his work and we are here and he hates our church because in our church his activities get exposed. In our church you come out, you hear the testimony and you're like, oh my goodness, what she's going through, I've been going through. Maybe I have a demon. And then next prayer line you're coming, you're like, I might sign up to get checked. Or sometimes people come and they sign up their husband. They're like, it's not me for sure, but my husband, he has one. And then you bring your husband for a prayer line. He's praying, he's being prayed for, nothing happens to him. And they're praying for you and you're screaming, you're a crocodile. You're like, hmm, that's interesting. I thought he was the crocodile. And that's exactly what happened. We've seen it happen so many times. One gentleman from California came three years ago to the Wiseman Harry revival and he was convinced this all demon thing was a joke. He thought we paid people. So he actually came and told us, he said, I wonder how much do you guys pay those actors? And how much can we pay you to act that? He said, nothing, I will never do that. I'm like, you're an idiot. You really think this is an act? He said, well, it seems like an act because you could see that it's not like they're not completely out of control. So he said to the service and the Wiseman is praying, and there this guy screaming and yelling, they brought him to the front. He's screaming, he's a snake screaming, he's anger. And then after he got delivered from demons, I came up to him and I was like, who paid you? And he was Russian. He said, Vlad, it's a power of God. I was like, we told you it's a power of God. But today we also must understand that deliverance begins the process. It doesn't change everything. There's things you have, you have to do. A role you have to play in seeing your life completely change. Having the privilege of seeing the prayer lines every month, dealing with people regularly. And in our own lives experiencing freedom, we've come to the conclusion that deliverance fixes everything and at the same time can fix nothing. Deliverance is an event. Freedom is a journey. Deliverance gets the demons out. Freedom keeps them out. And you may say it's the same thing. Freedom is not the same thing because freedom is renewing your mind. Changing your habits and changing your lifestyle. Changing your speech, changing your thought pattern, aligning certain things in your life. And today for a brief moment, I want to speak about this topic of freedom. I want to speak about the process of possessing. If you have your Bible, let's go together with me to Exodus chapter 23 and verse 29. Exodus chapter 23 and verse 29. And I will send hornets before you, actually verse 29, not 28. I will not drive them out before you in one year. So this is God telling Israelites he's not going to get all of their enemies out in one year. I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little, I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land. God wants you to increase into your full inheritance and calling of God. When you are born into this world, you are not born an adult. You are born as an infant and slowly as you grow in that, you get more responsibilities and more privileges and so is with spiritual life. God says, I won't get all of the enemies out at once. I will get enough to let you settled in and let you grow. And as you grow, you will possess more and more of what God has for you. Can somebody say amen? My encouragement before the prayer line today is this. God wants you to grow through life, not just go through life. The Bible clearly states to us when Jesus was telling us, if you come to me, I will give you rest. Two verses later he says, if you abide in me, take my yoke upon yourself, you will find that rest. There are things you get from coming to Jesus. But there are things you will only get by growing, staying and serving Jesus. And many people miss that second component. They come to the Lord and they receive certain blessings. They receive certain healing. They receive a certain peace. They receive even a small financial breakthrough. And after that, they think if I just keep coming to the prayer line, that is when I receive more. When sometimes it's not by coming again to Jesus that you receive more. It's by growing in Jesus that Jesus says, now I won't give you peace. You will get your own peace. You will find that peace. Amen? We see that from nature. When I was in Florida, I had the chance to see palm trees. And palm trees are one of the amazing trees in the world. And palm trees have a lot of characteristics to a Christian life. One of the characteristics, a pastor from Florida told me about palm trees, is he says if you put a rope around the palm tree or a chain around the palm tree, when a palm tree is young, to keep the palm tree growing straight, he said what's going to happen is other trees allow the rope to grow inside of the tree when the tree gets bigger. Sometimes you will even see that when a rope is within a tree and it made a dent and the rope is still there as never broken. A palm tree is a very unique tree in the sense that when you put a rope around a palm tree when it's young, when it grows, it will never let the rope or the chain, no matter how strong the chain is to grow inside of it, it will break it. It won't break it when it's young, but it will break it when it's grown. Sometimes in our infancy, when we just begin our walk with God, Satan puts certain things in our life, certain chains. And they do not always get broken by the anointing. At times they get broken by your growth. Not everything gets solved by even counseling, but many things get solved by serving Christ. When people begin to instead of focusing on solving and fixing their life they begin to focus on serving and begin to focus on glorifying the name of God. Can somebody say amen? God wants you to grow. God wants your life to mature. Now this morning I want to mention five steps of growth. Now these will not be typical steps you've heard in church before. Well read the Bible, pray, don't cuss, tithe and don't sleep with your growth. I'm going to mention something that involves you personally. First few steps you already on them or you pass through them and the rest of them will just briefly touch on how we can grow. Step number one is five steps of our personal growth. The first step you all begin as a male. If you're a guy and a female, if you're a girl. It's identified by your gender. This stage is the stage you received on the moment you got into this earth. Now we live in a world today where a lot of people actually no longer know whether they are male or female. And we're told in schools you are what you want to be. Listen honey, you are what you want to be. In the area of your gender you are not what you want to be. Even if you can afford a surgery you're still not what you want to be. You are what God said for you to be and how do you know what he said for you to be? Go in the restroom and check. Amen? In the age of confusion it's very simple. If you're a male, maybe you are feeling like a female. It's perhaps due to the fact your mother loved you too much. Or you didn't have sisters or maybe some other things or you like pink collar and clip your eyebrows and do little things on your toes and other things. God forgive you for all of your iniquities and your weaknesses but you're still a male. Or maybe you're a female and you act more like a man because you've never had a father and you had to take on the responsibilities and maybe you're like man, why was I... It's a man trapped in a female body. No, no, no, you're not a man trapped in a female body. You're a female. Happen to face certain challenges in life which may do take on men's responsibilities. You have to be very clear about who you are in the area of gender. I know this may sound very absurd what I'm saying to some of you. We're facing a crisis in our school. Where girls go into guys' bathrooms. Guys go into girls' bathrooms. Now it's becoming common in other states. Now they're creating and making it into a law where you have to have another gender for people who don't know who they are. We become so sophisticated and so educated that we cannot look at somebody's biology and determine their gender. And that has to change with us. The first stage is you're a male. For a young lady, you are a female. The stage number two is you become a boy. And for those who are females, they become girls. This stage usually lasts a few years. For some people, it lasts a few decades. Boyhood or girlhood is defined by the toys you like to play with. It's completely normal when a 10-year-old or a 5-year-old plays with toys. But then you see that person becomes 25. The only difference change is toys became bigger. And they're still with toys. You see the same thing with girls. They didn't mature, but they become toys. Nothing is worse than when a boy becomes a husband. When a boy becomes a father. And you see him playing video games with kids and you're not sure who's enjoying those video games more. The father or the child? You're seeing her walk with a child and you're not sure who is younger. The daughter or the mother? Because of their behavior. Boyhood is the stage. Girlhood is the stage every single person needs to pass. But we must understand this is the stage most people will spend their whole life. Insecure, immature, led by their feelings. Defined by their toys. Only obsessed with the things that matter For those who are 13 and 12 years old instead of maturing to the stage that God wants us to be. Stage number three is when you become a man. And when a female becomes a woman. You're male by birth. You're a man by choice. You're a female by birth. You're a woman by choice. You're not a man because you have a truck. And you're not a man because you got a bulldog. You're not a man because you have a job. You're a man. What defines manhood is maturity. What defines maturity is ability to take responsibility. Man is not just someone who can read the Bible. Because nothing is worse than seeing people who read the Bible. Or who claim spiritual connection to Christ. But you see in their life lack this component of maturity. And because there is no maturity in their life. Their life and their inheritance crumbles. And they get delivered. And I've seen, I've had people in my house stay and live with me. Who got delivered. Who got prophesied by prof. T.B. Joshua. Who had things happen to them. And then I had to walk into the house and take a pipe from their hands because they almost set my duplex on fire. Because there was smoking drugs. And they had the passion. And they had the zeal. But their life is still on the level of an 11 year old boy because they never matured. And they've never developed that within them to be a man. God wants, if you're a guy today. God wants you to be a man. A person that is responsible. The person that has a maturity. One of the marks of a man is that he is able to control his feelings instead of being ruled by his feelings. One of the marks of a boy is the boy is like a wave tossed by the winds. He is tossed by people's opinions. One of the marks of a girl is the fact that her feelings rule her life. She's not ruling her feelings. Jesus came to one man. And one man was laying on a stretcher. And this stretcher was his life. This stretcher carried him everywhere. This stretcher was his comfort zone. This stretcher was carrying him everywhere. And Jesus came and he touched that man. And he said, I want you to pick up this stretcher and carry it. Jesus Christ did not came to make boys into boys in big bodies. He came to touch a person's life and to make you into a man who picks up the very things used to pick you up and carry that. Pick up responsibilities. Pick up certain things in your life and carry them. We are men today who get touched by Jesus and they walk around and they drop everything in their hands. Anything they take get dropped. And they cannot maintain their blessing. They cannot maintain their freedom. And they cannot maintain their marriage, their finances, their health and their emotions every area. Because their idea of freedom is Jesus will touch me and remove and take all responsibility for himself. That is not scriptural. Freedom is not Jesus removing your mat. It's giving you the power to carry your mat. It's not Jesus going and fixing 20 years of problems you caused and removing that. It's giving you the power to be free from those demons and fastly and quickly come out of those problems, fix those problems and put your life back in order for the glory of God. Deliverance gets you out of your mat. But Jesus wants to develop maturity in us which helps us to pick up our mat. Can somebody say amen? You become a man or you become a woman. It's very important. We challenge young people. Sometimes young people come to us and they said, you know, am I ready to get married? And after I ask them how old they are, the second question is usually they always already know. But I don't think I have enough money. Money is not a determining factor for marriage. There are a lot of couples who get married without money. And there is couples who get married with money. What will determine the success of your future is not money. It is your maturity. Because if you're mature, you can go through hell with your wife living on cheese and crackers and fall in love more with one another, appreciate life, appreciate God. And you can be immature and float in money and kill one another. What determines the success of your life is not your even education. Maturity is not, it's not four things. Maturity is not age. It takes time to become mature but time does not make you mature. Maturity, secondly, it's not appearance. Yes, mature people look mature but not all people who look mature are mature. Because a guy, you can be 21, grow facial hair and you walk around like you're a macho man. But it takes one small compliment and you're gonna cry, cry and weep, drop the ball, walk away from the church, leave the relationship and your license steps are not changed, your credit card payments are not paid off, your emotional roller coaster. But you look mature because you grow facial hair. It's not appearance, it's not achievement. It's possible to achieve certain things in the gym by developing big muscles. It's possible to even fix cars, build houses. It's possible to learn certain techniques with voices and to communicate really well and certain achievements. Yes, mature people, they achieve things but not all achievers are mature and it's not academics. You can go to college and get a degree. You can have a bachelor's degree and be immature. You can have a master's degree and not have no sense of what it's like to master your own feelings. You can have a PhD and when it comes to life, when it comes to emotions, when it comes to going through the hard things and maintaining positive attitude to be on the same level as a person who goes to kindergarten because maturity, it is our ability to take responsibility in life. Please understand, God is far more interested in just getting demons out of our life and just providing us healing. Your life is going to blossom not only when you remove these things, it's when you focus and you choose to live a life that is mature and sometimes certain situations come into our life to provoke that maturity. We start with a male, we become a boy, become a man and after we become a man, we become a husband. A husband is when you are defined by your wife. For a lady, she becomes a wife. Now unfortunately today this stage is blurred because people go straight from a boy and they don't become husbands. Why they don't become husbands? Because it takes a man to become a husband. Anybody can be a boyfriend but it takes a man to become a husband. We live in a dilemma today in our generation where because we are not taught properly we quickly boys become boyfriends, people live together and they don't mature to another stage of marriage. Yesterday I had the opportunity to marry Alex and Edith who Edith got and saved in our church a few months ago, got baptized. They live together and it's a common thing in our generation today. When people come to church, they come to prayer lines and then you begin to talk to them and you find out that they live together. They're asking God for a blessing but they live together and they're not married. In our church we don't judge people, we don't condemn people but we also want to help people to mature to this stage. I would meet with her at the time her boyfriend or fiance and she would bring you guys back from getting married and he said, I don't know. We would talk to her and she said, you know what? After she gets baptized she says, I know now that this is what I need to take. There's certain maturity develops in your life when you not just take the girl out on a date but you bring the girl out to the altar. A lot of guys have the have the playfulness to tell you I love you and everything but they don't have the maturity to be committed because once it comes to commitment their feet gets cold and they're not sure whether they want to spend a life with you. You're like, am I dating a 12 year old or am I dating a 25 year old? And that's where you really know whether he is mature or not. You must understand as a man, as a young man if you are in a relationship part of your maturity is having the audacity and the guts to say you know what? I'm going to marry you and we're going to live forever. Okay, the forever part is an exaggeration but we will live as long I'm using that word now because my wife always asks me make sure I tell her that I love her forever. I always used to say I love her till death she said no till forever so we're going to have to borrow a Mormon theory Mormon doctrine on this aspect but the issue is that you have to be a man to be that for those of us who are married here you must understand one thing your success as a man is determined by the happiness of your wife every wife your success as a wife is determined by the happiness of your husband remember that put it under the refrigerator put it in front of you if your wife is not happy and you're praying three hours a day stop praying go and obey God why is there a reason to pray to a God who says love your wife as Christ loved the church when you don't do what God says and you prayer sometimes can be an excuse for disobedience where we go ask God to do that which we should do to another person I know that personally because sometimes I would come to church to pray and I know I have a beef with my wife or I have something very challenging and I'm praying and I'm like God you know it's her fault let's move on why is she even and I feel this between me and God is she's standing right there one thing that she ruined my morning it's another thing she's ruining my prayer and I rebuke the devil and I rebuke her and I just remove it in the name of Jesus and I move on and I say God let's put her in the back seat we'll deal with her later let's just me and you have a fellowship and literally it seems like God would keep it out there until I would repent until I would say God after we're done I'm gonna go back home and I'm gonna talk to her I'm gonna give her a hug I'm gonna say I'm sorry and all of this stuff begins to come I understand and I know some of you maybe you're saying this is not spiritual this is life if you disconnect life from spirituality it's when you start getting into weird things if you are praying 24-7 but you're not loving your husband but you are not taking care of your spouse you're not valuing them and they're walking on eggshells in front of you listen your success is determined by how happy they are not how do rich they are not what kind of clothes you buy them not what kind of gifts they get not what kind of house they live in not the kind of car you gave them it's the kind of happiness you have made by your actions every marriage has three main components first one is commitment it's when you make a decision to be committed for the rest of your life if you make your marriage permanent all of your problems will be temporary the second component of every marriage is communication it's when you learn to communicate with the person that you are married to communication comes so naturally when you're dating and it comes as a miracle when you're married because guys quickly forget their vocabulary how to describe things we just throw in the headlines and we don't want to share the deepest hearts and God wants us to learn to communicate and there's a lot about communication that I'm not going to go into and thirdly is confrontation every marriage has to have confrontation conflict means disagreement we call it a fight people who believe that or people who say in our marriage we don't fight it's either one person is a slave and the other person is a Hitler or both of you have reached such a height that you are completely completely in the other world or both of you are completely oblivious to the fact you're only fighting it's not possible to have a good marriage without disagreement disagreement is needed disagreement is a sign both of you are alive both of you are different both of you have brain cells and you're thinking different God created you uniquely the only problem in the conflict in the marriage and this is where maturity and spiritual growth is revealed is when people in marriage see fight as a sign that our marriage is bad and the second problem is when in the marriage in our fighting it's a street fight you know how you fight in the streets the goal is no rules there is no referee there you punch them whatever it will hurt the most you use the rock if it's close to you a bucket if it's in your hands a stick if it's in your disposal a knife, a wallet a key with your hands in their eyes whatever you can to cause the most harm in the fastest way and run a street fight apply that to marriage and you will either be dead or divorced and many people that's exactly how they fight they threaten with divorce the moment they cannot get a point across well guess what happens I will leave you you won't find no one else they use words like never and always when they begin to conflict they begin to get physical shut the doors scream and yell punch through the walls and then begins to disconnect and just goes to watch other movies because shut up just leave me alone I'm busy or I'm tired and that kind of a fighting what it does is it destroys your character and it destroys your marriage and it creates a generational curse because your kids are like sponges they watch how daddy is treating mommy and guess what you realize this is not spiritual this is creating a curse that is leading up to them and subconsciously they're like wet cement it's imprinted on them this is how you talk to a woman this is how you talk to a man and when they get married you tell them oh honey don't do that well the problem is that you already placed a print on their back on how to do that it's the most spiritual thing when a man loves his woman it's the most spiritual thing when a woman honors her man it's the most spiritual thing when in the family it's a place of paradise even if you don't pray two hours a day but there is a communion there is a handling of a conflict in a proper way this is where maturity and spirituality is not just when you lift your hands and say thank you Jesus and then lift your hands and curse your spouse amen a husband and a wife level and the last one is when you're a father or a mother after you become a husband and a wife then you become a father or a mother unfortunately we live in a day today they become fathers before they become wives or husbands they become fathers before they become men they become mothers before they develop maturity and it becomes a very painful process becomes very difficult we have a lot of single moms in the church and a lot of them have went through very painful times and we congratulate them we love them we respect them for the journey they've endured but they're also sending each young person a lesson don't become a father until you first become a man don't become a father until you first become a husband in this way your life becomes easier as a father you must understand this is where you mature more and more when you have children your life goes to a level of selflessness that you never knew it's even possible your life goes to the level of sacrifice that you never knew it's possible if you are parents I want you to write down few of these points one comes to raising your children you may say what are you telling us about raising our children you don't have children your own I have home groups and I have home group leaders and most of them are your children and a lot of you come to me when you cannot talk to them so take notes go ahead place number one we have to love them if we give kids more hugs they won't need drugs I'm gonna tell you one thing if you give kids more love you will satisfy a vacuum for what society offers to them a lot of kids what they are really looking for is love not a lecture not to be their teacher but to be a person first of all who loves them the bible says do not provoke your kids a lot of kids parents hammer at kids obey me the bible says submit to me well the same bible says not to provoke them to anger we see that the fact that I always provoke them to anger that doesn't matter but they need to obey me well you're older do not provoke them to anger number two is lift your kids lifting means encourage them praising your kids is good it builds their ego but when you lift them it builds their self esteem when you encourage them you're not just talking about you did something great no it's great you did something it encourages them it encourages their self esteem and it strengthens them number three will limit them one of the worst things you can do to a kid is make him into a king in your house be afraid of him and because he throws a fit you throw all the rules out because he's upset it's okay limit him there has to be limitations you don't need to beat kids this day turn off the wifi let me give you a new version for do not spare the rod use your phone charger and watch as the phone is dying and they are dying watch as the phone gets to 1% and they begin to panic that will create more pain than any belt wire or whatever people use now to discipline their kids with you know spanking just to remove those things that are technology put consequences that will hurt them more than even physical spanking amen oh children I feel sorry for some of you right now the next one lead them kids need you to understand you have to understand one thing about children is they are going to do not what you say what you do I learned about marriage not because my dad and mom ever talked to me about marriage I've never heard my mom and dad talk to us about marriage I know more about marriage because I watched them the way they treat one another never seen my dad raise my voice against my mom unfortunately I cannot say that about my mom that's a half joke but I've never seen them fight in a way that will cause my mom or dad leave never seen them raise their hand against one another I've never seen them you know skip church on Sunday because they had a picnic there was no such a thing I've saw that, that was demonstrated how you treasure people, how you treasure family how you treasure God's kingdom and that's imprinted though I've never had a lesson a lot of parents talk to their kids a lot remember they're going to learn more from how you do it than what you tell them can somebody say man and the last one is laugh with them I believe that the holy home is a happy home holiness is not defined if you can make your kids cry and holiness is not defined by just making your kids watching tbj videos that's completely awesome but if your home is depression if your homes has no happiness if you don't have a smile and your kids are walking like a little prisoners of war in your castle and you're the king that is not a happy home and that is not a holy home God wants you to raise to be a father your kids determine the success of what it is to be a father and what it is to be a mother can somebody say amen with that said I want us to rise through our feet right now