 wonderful testimonies that we have seen. I'm going to actually talk about this very topic that we have seen here, deliverance, and what actually happens, what does deliverance mean, and what happens before, during, and after, and how do we need to prepare ourselves for deliverance because there's a process of preparing yourself for deliverance. Hallelujah. The title of the message is Taking This Step. How many here have received deliverance? You should be proud. Hallelujah. Glory be to Jesus Christ. Congratulations to all of you. You are so blessed. Hallelujah. How many here think that probably maybe or you know or you want to receive deliverance? Raise your hand. How many here? Quite a few. How many here think that probably you don't? You're pretty good. You probably don't really need deliverance in that way, kind of, you know, sort of. How many? Glory be to Jesus. I'm going to go through exactly what deliverance means and how important it is to understand that every single one of us needs deliverance. Deliverance is a natural part of our Christian journey with God Almighty. So I'm going to go to the first scripture here. We love scripture. I love the word of God and I think nothing should be done without the word of God. It's the very foundation of our life and everything that has to do with Christianity. This is our roadmap right here. Without it, we are nothing. It's like we are looking for a treasure and that treasure is heaven at last and this is the roadmap to lead us there. Without the roadmap, we are pretty lost so make sure that you always have this close to your heart. It's all, this is everything, it's very important. Praise God. So Philippians 2 verse 12. How many have read this scripture and how many have heard about what they call the process of salvation, process of salvation. Now we know that at the point of receiving Jesus Christ into your heart, confessing your sins and repenting of your past life to live for eternity, Jesus Christ comes into our life. That is what we call the moment of salvation but it doesn't end there. Now you have started a wonderful journey with Jesus Christ. You have received your salvation but you have a journey to take. It's like you are on the bench in a football match and then they say, okay, it's your turn to come in and play the game and you enter the match and say, thank God I'm in the game now. Wow, this is awesome. No, the game is starting now. So at the moment of salvation, as you receive salvation, accept Jesus Christ into your heart. You have been saved. That is the significance. After that, there's a process of working on your salvation which means working on your relationship with Jesus Christ. And that is extremely important to understand that it doesn't end at the moment of salvation. It only starts. I'm going to read Philippians 2 verse 12. It says, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Glory be to Jesus Christ. This means, as I said, we don't end at receiving Jesus Christ. It's only the beginning. And just as many of us are yearning to move forward in our Christian life, we yearn to have the baptism of water and to repentance. We yearn to speak in tongues, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. We yearn to feel the presence of God working through us. We yearn to speak into people's life. We yearn to be used by God Almighty. So also deliverance is something that we should yearn for. Deliverance is something that is a natural part of our process of moving closer to Jesus Christ. You cannot go closer to Jesus Christ without going through the steps. Deliverance is a natural part of it. And today in the Church of God, unfortunately, deliverance is a topic of taboo. Many people, they don't really like to talk about it all that much. For example, we saw a wonderful testament of someone that received deliverance. And now you may be here sitting down thinking like, whoa, so is he saying that all of us need to... I mean, me? I'm pretty sure that I'm not a satan, you know. I'm pretty sure. I may be a little bit wicked, but not up there, you know. And the point is that it's not about that. It's not about you. You heard what they said there, the man of God said, it's a battle between spirit and spirit according to the book of Ephesians 6-12. So forget about whatever may happen or this or that. It's all about taking a step closer to Jesus Christ. So yeah, just as you receive salvation and after that you yearn to be baptized in water, you yearn to move closer to Jesus Christ, you yearn to yearn for a baptized in fire. Hallelujah. Let's go to the next... Glory be to Jesus Christ. Let's go to the next, Matthew chapter 3, verse 11. This is John the Baptist speaking to the people that come to him looking for answers to their questions. Matthew 3, 11, he said, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is miter than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan, and this is verse 12, says his winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chef with unquenchable fire. What is explained here is a separation progress where the wheat and the chef are separated by unquenchable fire. What I'm trying to get at here is that many people talk about, you know, receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit and that's an entire different service now and being baptized in fire and it simply means just to be baptized in fire is simply just to be on fire for God, the zealful things of God. You know, to be excited about things of God and that's part of it, but that's not all. Baptism is something that means that you are completely immersed into something and you do not remain the same in any way. Now we're talking about baptism in fire. The qualities of fire are very, very simple. If we have a bonfire here and we have a crowd of people that are looking at the fire and someone says that, I feel that my calling is to get closer to that fire. I need to feel that fire in my life. I want to be everything that that fire is for me and you start taking steps closer to that fire. People around you are going to tell you, you know, yeah, it's good, it's good. You're getting a bit close now. Stop. If you get any closer now, you're going to get hurt. It's not going to be comfortable. You're going to get burnt and the outer layer of your skin is probably going to disappear and then the lower and the lower and the lower until you're nothing left. And this is exactly what baptism in fire is. We need to be immersed into that power of deliverance. And when it comes to deliverance and being baptized in the fire of God, there are certain faces or certain stages that you go through. And I have just specified three stages of deliverance just for the sake of simplicity. And the first stage is called pre-deliverance. The second stage is called deliverance. And then the third stage is smartly called post-deliverance. And during the service, I'm going to go through these areas so that we understand that each and every one of these steps are necessary for us to receive that wonderful deliverance to take that step closer to Jesus Christ. To stop thinking that is a thing of shame to receive deliverance. It's not. It's a natural part of the process of moving closer to Jesus Christ. When someone is here receiving baptism in water are people going to say, whoa, he's getting baptized in water today. That means that probably before the baptism he was probably a sinner. Well, he must be a really bad sinner. Or someone that receives salvation and they say, well, he came out to receive salvation. That means before he was not saved. Whoa. You know? But when it comes to deliverance, it's slightly different because once someone is here and they're praying for you and you hear some growls or some sound, suddenly you say, whoa. That person must be, you know, before the deliverance this person must have been such a bad person. Forget about that. Who is reminding you of who you were before? Who reminds us of where we are going? Jesus doesn't care of where we are coming from. The Bible says that when Jesus healed someone that was blind and the Pharisees came to ask him, who was it that healed you? He said, I don't know. All I know I was blind, but now I see. I was in bondage, but now I am free. Today is the day of your freedom. You haven't come all the way here just for coincidence? Look around you, the antecedents concerning your visit here. Those of us that have come from near and far, you know something was stopping you, trying to hinder you from coming here. Why is that? I'm going to explain to you because the enemy knows the moment that you step your foot in the house of God, he has lost his power. This is why it's always difficult to come to church. There's always one, you know, the tire will get flat. The children can't stop crying. This one is this. This one is that. Parents need this. This one is that. Why today? Why? Because life is a warfare. And this takes us to the first part of the deliverance process, which is pre-deliverance. It's to identify your enemy. Pre-deliverance is all about identifying your enemy. Deliverance is all about confronting your enemy. And post-deliverance is all about resisting the enemy. Identifying your enemy means that you understand that we are going into war. I have said I want to be a soldier. Now I have been armed with weapons. I have no clue what I'm shooting at. I have no idea what they look like or what they're doing. I'm just going to go out there and do my best. But I promise you, you're going to have very difficult time because your enemy is not stupid. Your enemy has been around for a very long time. And has developed some of the world's best strategies to destroy people's lives. That's who our enemy is. It is irresponsible of us going into a battle not knowing who we're facing. So identifying your enemy is the first step so that you can understand I need deliverance. This depression that I'm feeling, that's not me. This fight with my husband, with my wife all day long. That's not us. It's not. This pain I'm feeling, that's not me. It's not just coincidence, bad luck. Getting fired, being jobless, facing difficult limitations, setbacks, this and that, and from one to the other, suicidal and this and that, those things, they are not by chance. Someone has developed a plan and are using those things to bring you and I down. Why? Because they know that currently we are on the winning team. If they can win you over to the losing team, that's a win for them. Hallelujah. Pre-deliverance. I'm going to go into Jeremiah 29 verse 11. It says, I know that plans I have for you declare as the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. These are the plans of God. This is God's plan for your and my life. He has a wonderful plan in store for us. Don't you forget that someone else has a very opposite plan for our life. It pains us to hear it. We want to hear it. It's all going to be well. It will if we stick to the plan. Someone is planning how, every day, every day, every night. The only thing they plan is how they can take your life and make it worse. That's all. If they can use those things to separate you from God, that's it. Our responsibility is to identify this. How can we know? How can we identify? The Bible says 1 Peter 5.8. He moves around like a roaring lion looking for whom to devour. That's the only thing he does. I'm going to read, because of time, I'm going to read Matthew 9 verse 32. I'm just giving reference to some of these scriptures. You can read it at your own convenience. Matthew 9 verse 32. And this is a man who was mute and received his healing after an encounter with Jesus Christ. It says, as he went out, behold, they brought to him a man, mute and demon possessed. And when the demon was cast out, the mute spoke. This means that that mute wasn't as it should be. They were born like that. They had trauma. Something happened. That's how it is. No, there was a cause of that. This scripture, you can put your own name right here to identify your enemy. They brought to Jesus on Sunday, the 30th of April. A man who was jobless and afflicted by dark forces. A man who was depressed. A man who had these emotional imbalances. A man who was having pain. A woman that was fighting for this. A man or a woman that was having set back and controlled by evil forces. It's not something to be ashamed of. Listen to me. Don't be ashamed that you need deliverance. Be happy that there is a solution to your problem. I know I've seen several deliverances and I know the talk about it. Someone goes out and receives deliverance and afterwards, you know, after someone receives deliverance. In heaven, they are celebrating. They are throwing a big party that yet another one bites the dust. But here on earth, we'll be like, oh yeah, congratulations. Never knew you were a Satan man. It's terrible. It's terrible. Listen to me. Focus on the real issue. Don't allow the outward things to distract you from what is happening in the spirit. Deliverance is the best thing ever. So the evil spirits, they work in our life. They are attacking the body of Christ constantly, constantly influencing our decision, weakening our determinations, fogging our visions, enticing our flesh, weakening our will, breaking good habits, developing bad habits, all these things. It doesn't just happen. Oh, it's life. You know, it's life. You divorce, you know, it's life. No, it's not life. There's a spirit behind that divorce. It's not as it should be by divine will. You can win that battle. And that is identifying your enemy, realizing that I need to take a step. Step two, deliverance. Now this is the sweet part. This is where the separation is made. The wheat from the shaft, the light from the darkness, where the clutches of the enemy are released. Where heaven begins to celebrate, and on earth we celebrate with them. Now I'm going to quickly share my personal deliverance experience. I received deliverance some years back. It's not 30 years back. Just so you know, it's some years back. Five, six years, just so you know. So you don't think that, you know, to preach, you know, you have to be delivered for. It's not like that. Deliverance is part of the process. It's a step. You take a step closer to Jesus. When you make a decision, you say, I can't stand where I am anymore. I need to get closer to that fire. That fire has all the solutions for me. It's hurting. It's burning me. But I'm going to press in. I'm going to make a decision. And then that fire will consume you. And you will no longer be like yourself. And after that, everything gets a lot, lot better. So my own deliverance is, I never knew that I needed deliverance. In fact, I had seen so many deliverances. People that were delivered from different kinds of demons. And I said, not me. Not me. Oh, this one. Gentle one. Maybe me. That one is a gentle one. This one. But it's not about big or small before. Jesus doesn't care if you are a big sinner or a small sinner before you receive salvation. He doesn't care if you were a lot sick or a little sick before you receive healing. He doesn't care about if you were afflicted a little bit or a lot from dark forces before your deliverance. What he cares about is that you are taken out of the kingdom of darkness, put in the kingdom of light and your life turns around. That's what he is all about. And that's why we are here today. Because as his will is done in heaven, it shall be done on earth in Jesus' name. I'm telling you as you are sitting down, prepare yourself. Today is your day to receive America from God Almighty. I'm going to share my own experience when the man of God prayed for me. I, I, because I had done stage one. That man of God had prayed for me 15 times before. I'm just telling you. So it's not all about, that's why I'm saying it's not about the person here praying. It's about you. It's if you are ready. If you are ready, he will meet you at the point of your need. It's not about if pastor is ready. Pastor is always ready. He woke up ready. God made him ready. That's why he's here today. Are you ready to receive? That's the question. Man of God had prayed for me 15 times. He had even laughed with me and said, That's wonderful. God bless you brother. Go and sit down. But the more, but the moment that I realized that these things. It's not coincidence. There is an enemy. There's a plan. I'm not going to be part of that plan anymore. God, whatever happens. If I shake, if I scream, if I growl, if I cry, if I run, if I speak. I need freedom. Total one. And that very day when I did that, just telling you it was a service just like this. I was sitting down just like you and I was feeling it. I was nervous. I knew that they are talking to me today. So that that day when the man of God prayed for me, the moment he touched me, something I became first of all really angry. I know him. I knew the man. Why would I be angry with him just for a touch? And then just like that. And he saw it and he came back, he prayed for me again. At that point, I could decide to swallow that thing. I've heard many different experiences from deliverance. Some people say that they lose control completely and they don't remember anything afterwards. That's one side of deliverance. Mine wasn't like that. I remembered everything that happened. I wasn't blacked out. I remembered. I heard my own mouth speaking. I could even stop it, but I had made a decision that whatever happens, it's not me getting disgraced. It's the enemy. I'm not going to be disgraced today. I'm going to celebrate. So he prayed for me and I fell down. In fact, the evil spirit spoke out a whole bunch of things and I received my deliverance. And after that, the moment I stood up, the biggest difference, and hear me out now, before deliverance and after deliverance, the biggest decision is not that everything is not going to be a bed of roses for the rest of your life and we live happily ever after. Yeah, that's the plan. But it doesn't defeat the fact that the enemy still exists. Now imagine that there are burglars breaking into your house through the back door. Every single night when you go to sleep, keep stealing, killing and destroying. If they have such an opening, they would make sure that they don't leave traces to make it obvious that they are stealing from you. You just bring out the drawer and say, honey, have you seen my necklace? Where's my charger? Where's this? Because every night they sneak in and steal from your life. The moment that you identify that there is a foreign person entering my house every night, you set their alarm. You know what they're going to do? They won't give up. That's when they will start fighting for survival. They will make noise like never before. If you think that you had difficult time coming to church before you identified your enemy, after you identify your enemy, it will become hundred times harder to come to church. Why? Because they don't want you free. So once you go from stage one until stage two, it's going to be hectic. Prepare yourself. Identifying your enemy, realizing that there's something here. There will be a lot of attacks. Someone in your life, someone that has been entering your back door, fighting for survival. So I'm going to take, and this is Deliverance. In the book of Malachi, chapter three, verse two says, But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like laundry soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord and offering in righteousness. This is the refiner's fire. The Bible makes reference of our encounters with God, the way a goldsmith handles gold. The Bible also says in 2 Corinthians 6 verse two, today is the day of salvation. That means that we are no longer waiting for the day of the Lord to come with fire. That fire was lit 2018 years ago. That fire is lit and we need to step into that fire. The fire, we are not waiting for fire to come. Fire is waiting for us. So when a goldsmith receives gold from the mine, a piece of gold, before it's refined, the goldsmith immediately identifies without much time that this is gold. I know this is a gold bar, this is a piece of gold, but this gold is not refined, it's not purified. This gold can never achieve its fullest value unless it goes through a process of refining. So what does the goldsmith do? He takes that gold, he puts it on what? On fire. That fire is a hot fire. It melts the gold into liquid. At that point, if you ask this gold and ask the gold and say, how are you feeling right now gold? The gold is gonna tell you, not very fine. In fact, I used to be solid. Now I'm liquid, I'm confused. It's hurting. I don't feel like being here, but it's in his hand now. The gold is put to such a temperature that all the impurities within the gold that you couldn't see before rises to the surface. It becomes visible. It's been there, but you didn't see it. What he does is that he just cleans it off the surface. And do you know how the goldsmith knows that this gold has now been refined? This gold is no longer like before. This gold is now valuable and it can be used as gold should be used. He bends over. He looks into the liquid surface of the gold and he sees his own perfect reflection in that surface. That is deliverance. He sees his own perfect reflection. That is the purpose of you and I going through deliverance so that the reflection of Jesus Christ can be obvious in our lives so that it can be totally obvious. And you know what happens afterwards? After you, the goldsmith has purified the gold. He takes that gold and pours it into molds. And then he decides what that gold should be. You say, you will be a ring. You will be a necklace. You will be used for this. And not until the gold is purified can it be put into a mold. You want to be for God. You need to be purified and remolded so that he can use you where he sees you fit. And this is deliverance. This is what deliverance is. Now I'm going to go into the third part of it. The third part of it is the post-deliverance. After your deliverance. Let me tell you my experience. I woke up from my deliverance, right? I went to bed that night. And before my deliverance, I used to have some nightmares that I realized that these nightmares are not from God. They are from the enemy. I need deliverance. You know what happened? After my deliverance, I still had a nightmare. I thought at first I will never have nightmares again. I had a nightmare. You know the difference. That nightmare, it had no power over my life. Before those nightmares had influenced me. Influenced my decisions. Caused fear, anxiety in my life. But after my deliverance, I could see there was empty bullets. It was noise making. The burglars were no longer inside the house. They were standing outside. And you know what they did? They were throwing stones through the window. We had a message on it. And the message wrapped to the stone said, we are still inside your house, stealing. This is what happens. Many people take that stone and they say, oh no. I went through deliverance. I came all the way from this state, or this state and this country. But it didn't work. And then you go down to the main door and you say, well, you're already inside. Just, you're inside already. It's lies. He lies to us. In fact, after your deliverance, and you hear a whispering notion telling you that you are not free. You know what you are? Very free. You know why? Everything the enemy says are lies. He doesn't speak truth. He speaks only lies. So when he tells you that you are so not free, you can just say, oh well, thank God, you just confirm my freedom. Now get out. So resisting the enemy, the Bible says in the book of Matthew 12.43, that when an evil spirit is cast out, he goes around looking in desert places and after he has not found somewhere to stay, he comes back and finds the house in order and cleaned. What does he do? He comes back inside with seven worse ones. This means that anyone can receive deliverance. Anyone can. Fire is there. After that, you have the bigger role. God is going to be there to support you, but you have a role to maintain it. The Bible said, not the Bible, but it is said that the hardest target to hit is a moving target. After your deliverance, you're a bullseye for the enemy. You need to keep moving. Keep your feet going. You know that someone is holding your hand, walking with you. All you need to do is not to do like this. No, no, no. You just say, I'm going with you. Taking a step by a time. One step closer. One step closer. As long as you keep moving, they can't hit you. Keep moving. You need to keep moving. And the most important thing, and now we are coming to the end of this before we are going into the prayer section. When it comes to resisting the enemy, you need to fill yourself up with the Word of God. There is no way around it. It's not enough only to fill yourself up with part of this or part. The Word of God, the spoken Word of God, you need it in your life. You need to fill it up. You need to participate. Be an active Christian. Do things that help your faith. When a farmer plants a seed and he sees that it's just barely coming up on the ground, he won't begin to expose it to all kinds of so he would take care of it. Make sure it has enough fertilization, fertilizer, have enough of everything so that he can grow in the best conducive environment. God has given you the job of watering that deliverance. Connect yourself. Make sure that you're informed with people that you can speak about your faith with. You can't go all day without speaking about your Christian life. People that you testify to and people that you can just talk to. Christian people that can help you. People that have gone further than you. It's so important. And finally, resisting the enemy and maintaining a deliverance. There's one thing that we don't realize as Christian. And that is that when we are walking in the journey at times you will be like this. At times it will be like this. The enemy will be saying, yes, yes, I got him. You need to realize that this is where I'm strong. This is where I'm strong. There is no other place that I'm stronger as a Christian than on my knees. Jesus has by His blood given us the grace to get back on our knees. Get back on our knees. Whatever happens, whatever comes, whatever you may have done back on your knees. This is where we're strong. This is where the enemy can't get you. This is where His plan can't work no matter what happens in your life. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what mistake you do. Get back on your knees. This is where we are strong. You know in a plane they say the brace position for a crash you bend over. This is our Christian brace position. This is where we prepare for whatever is coming and make sure that everything that we have gone through is okay. Get back on your knees. No matter what after your deliverance whatever is going to happen today you are going to experience something just like I did and many other have done. The time is today. It's ready for you. He's waiting for you to say God I know these things are not all right. I'm not perfect. I'm not a clean person. I'm not this. Your blood is clean. Your blood is purifying. It's sanctifying. Today is my day. I cannot go back the same. I cannot go back the same. I need a change in my life. Prepare your heart right now receive that deliverance Thank you for watching this content. I hope this was a blessing to you. If you're like me and you like to click on things click on this subscribe to our channel and the content will come to you every time we post it. And remember the best is yet to come.