Poverty Must Die
Dr. D. K. Olukoya
This
week, we are considering a message entitled, “Poverty must die.” The Bible says that you can pursue and overtake
your enemies and recover what they have stolen from you. It is a standing order
in the word of God. The Bible being a very straightforward book gives you the
two sides of the coin. It also tells us that curses can pursue a person and
overtake the person. The same Bible also makes us to understand that blessings
can pursue a person and overtake the person. I must point out to you that the
spirit of poverty is a very stubborn spirit and it has to be dealt with, with
full force by the hammer of the Almighty. Deuteronomy 28:2 says, “And
all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken
unto the voice of the Lord thy God.” So, blessings can also pursue and
overtake a person. Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life...” When you combine Deuteronomy 28:2 and Psalm
23: 6, you get an amazing information. We have always
been taught that we should pursue blessings, pursue money, be very aggressive
and work ourselves to the bones. Then when we get the money, we hoard it. But
now the Bible is saying something completely different. It is saying that those
things that you are busy worrying your brain about can pursue and overtake you.
Remember that God knows no barrier or impossibility.
Most
of the wealth in the world is in the wrong hands. Why are they in the wrong
hands? We, Christians allowed it. Many of the things that are happening are so
because Christians allow them. When we stand as a
Men
love the supernatural and they like to see the miraculous. It is because of
that you always find people crowding around street magicians putting big snakes
round their necks. The Bible says that signs and wonders shall follow
believers. It did not say we should be following the signs. Miracles can pursue
and overtake you that is the truth. Beloved, I have a
word for you from the Lord as you are reading this message: God says that He
has just started His work in your life and He has not finished yet.
At
the end of the day, the only true fire and power is God. People may say all
kinds of things but the only person who has the final say is not the doctor, or
the banker, or the lawyer, or the judge. It is not the president, but the
Almighty God. And when God says to your enemy, “Let go,” they have no option
but to let go. God can overturn the tables any day. May be you are looking at
your situation now and every way seems to be blocked and you come to a
conclusion that there is no way. I have news for you. When you get to that
level, it is then that God has just started to warm up.
Another
truth you must know is that no one can cheat a Christian and go scot-free. If
they take your one kobo, the Almighty will use it to claim one million for you.
Haman was pursuing Mordecai but the wife of Haman told Haman the blunt truth.
Esther 6:13 says, “And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had
befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, if Mordecai
be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fail, thou shalt not
prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.” That is the
stance of the Bible concerning the children of God. It is a known fact today
that many believers are financially poor, and that is part of the reason the
gospel is sometimes very slow. God does not want the situation to be so. Meaning that Christians are not supposed to be poor. All
Christians must at least be comfortable. You may ask where that can be found in
the Bible. Psalm 34:10 says, “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger,
but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” Psalm 37:19
says, “They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine
they shall be satisfied.” That is what the Bible says and verse 25
says, “I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” This is why we are saying that
poverty must die.
WHY MUST
POVERTY DIE?
1.
Because the Bible says that poverty is not good. Proverbs 10:15 says, “The
rich
man’s wealth is his strong city, the destruction of
the poor is their poverty.” So, the poverty of the poor man can kill
him. Proverbs 20:13 says, “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty,
open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” These are
important scriptures.
2.
Poverty will make people run away from a believer. When a man of God has
visited somebody at home and he has prayed and he has said the grace, the next
thing for him to do is to carry his Bible and go. If after the grace, he still
sits down, it means that he is looking for something. And if he is going to be
begging for money everyday, he would make people to avoid him.
3.
Poverty will make people to look down on our God.
4.
Poverty is not one of the promises of God for His people. This must be clear to
us. Some people turn the Bible upside down. The Bible says that it is harder
for a rich man to enter into the
5.
Poverty will make doing the will of God difficult for many people. Any time
Jesus wanted food, He got it. If He was fasting, then He was fasting.
6.
Poverty, most times, delays the growth of a believer when the person cannot
even buy Christian books and materials to help himself.
7.
Poverty hinders evangelism. A lot of people cry day and night wishing they
could contribute to the work of God but they cannot because they do not have
the money. Beloved, I want you to take this message seriously because as you
read and meditate on it, wealth would be released to you even without you doing
anything or your money could become too hot for anybody sitting on it and the
person would have no choice but to release it, in the name of Jesus.
8.
Sometime ago, I was trying to settle a quarrel between a couple. They both said
their own sides of the case and at the end of the day, I came to a conclusion
that the problem was poverty. How could Madam tell her husband not to touch her
sugar. She used to count the cubes of sugar left in the box and one-day she got
there, and found out that three cubes were missing, and her husband was
drinking tea. She rushed at the tea to fish out the cubes of sugar. How can
that kind of family have a family altar?
9.
Poverty opens room for sicknesses and diseases. A lot of sicknesses and
diseases would have been prevented if poverty was not in place. When God
blesses you and you build your own house or have your own apartment and have
your toilet the way you want it, then you don’t have to share toilet seats with
twenty- five tenants that could give you all kinds of infection.
10.
Poverty can be a source of serious temptation. There was a certain girl who
came from a very poor family where she was given ten naira to take to school.
One day, she found a man in a big Mercedes Benz car who gave her five thousand
naira. She was shocked and could not believe it. But the man thinking that the
money was not enough offered to give her more (temptation). Beloved, by now, I
am sure you must agree with me that poverty must die.
To
every blessing of God, there are conditions:
a.
For healing you need faith.
b.
For salvation you need to repent.
c.
For protection you need obedience
d.
For good and long days, you need a good tongue.
e.
To be anointed, you need a clean vessel.
Until
you fulfill the conditions for prosperity, you would continually be plagued
with poverty. Poverty has many agents, which are as follows: devourers, little
foxes, cankerworms, sicknesses,
death, etc.
The
Bible indeed, says we should be rich but at the same time, the Bible is against
flamboyant living. In fact, that kind of life has destroyed so many Christians.
Sometime ago, a certain woman died and by the time she died, she had three
thousand two hundred dresses in her wardrobe and three hundred pairs of shoes.
Normally, I don’t attend burial ceremonies, but I wanted to know the number of
dresses would be worn on her corpse. I found out that only one was used and it
was not even the best one they used because some people already had their eyes
on them. The Bible is against fashion parades. Many sisters have written me to
say, “We thank God for what God is doing in this fellowship. For the first time
in my life, I wear what I have to church. In my former church, I used to have headache
before I can come up with what to wear to church on Sundays because it was
always a fashion parade. The Bible is against us competing with money. The
Bible is against a do or die attitude towards money. It is also against public
display of wealth or showing off of money. But the Bible says that you must be
comfortable as a believer. If the reason you are doing your fasting is because
there is no food in the house, then you are on hunger strike.
FIVE REASONS
MANY CHRISTIANS ARE POOR:
1.
God will not give you what will kill you. It is like a small boy watching his
daddy shaving and he says, “Daddy, give me the blade, give me the blade.” No
matter how he loves the child, he will not give him the blade. So your
spiritual level and your level of brokenness may be too low for God to entrust
wealth to you. That is why the Bible says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and its righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you.” They are
automatic addition. Here comes the first question to you in this message. “Can
you confirm in your spirit that the kingdom is in you? Are you a broken
Christian? That is the first poverty-destroying weapon
God
may be looking at you and He is saying, “If I give this my child fifty million
naira, will he not backslide?” If God sees that anger, greed, dishonesty,
lying, are still in your life, He will not give you His prosperity. Get the
kingdom first; submit the whole of your life to God and then you will never be
forsaken. The Bible says that God never forsakes the righteous but you have to
be righteous to have that privilege. There are many people now who are very
serious with the Lord because they are poor. But when money comes, they would
become irregular. God can see. Many are praying, “O Lord, promote my husband,” and
God is saying, “When I have not promoted the man, he is running after strange
women, when he is promoted, he will now build castles for them and abandon you
completely. Why don’t you let us get him saved first?”
There
are people who were working and praying hard when they did not have a fan in
their house and at night mosquitoes came and by the time they slapped
themselves thrice, they would stand up to pray. But now they got the fan and
split air conditioner, they over sleep. God does not want that. Many forget the
household of God immediately they obtain contracts. They would not be seen
again in the church until the money is gone. Before then when you call a prayer
point like: “Let every contract be released now, in the name of Jesus, they
would pray and shake their heads. But when they get it, the next place you
would see them is the VIP lounge at the airport with very starched clothes,
sitting down and eating meat pie and drinking tea as early as 6.30 am. But when
they were looking for it, it was dry fast everyday.
Many
who used to come early to church when they had no cars now come late to church
in spite of the fact that God has blessed them with cars and drivers. And when
you ask them why they come late to church, they would say, “That foolish driver
did not wake up on time to bring me to church.” But when there was no car and
driver, they got to church before everybody, swept the floor, joined the prayer
warriors, and then settled down before service. God sees all these.
Some
people were praying very well when they had no job. But now that they have a
job, they forget their spiritual duties because of over- time. Some prayed and
fasted to get a job and by 5.00 am., they have arrived at the office. But when
it is service days, you see them strolling in one hour late. God normally
allows that which keeps a man from Him to be withdrawn so that He can get his
attention. God has had to withdraw cars, houses and comfort from people in
order to save their souls. So, check your life today. Are you broken to the
level where God can commit the riches of the Gentiles into your hands? Do you
have clean hands, a kind of hand that God will place this sort of riches on?
This is the first headache of the Almighty when it comes to prosperity.
2.
Proverbs 11: 24 says, “There is that scattereth, and yet
increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to
poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat. And he that watereth shall be
watered also himself.” And Luke 6: 38 says, “Give, and it shall be given unto
you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over, shall
men give into your bosom.” This is an area where the devil has blinded
the eyes of many believers. Many pray that they want prosperity, but how is the
prosperity going to come when they have sown no seed. It is like a student
praying to pass his examination when he has read nothing. It is like a woman
praying to get pregnant without a husband or without a man. You must sow a
seed. It is that seed that the Lord will multiply for you. Someone who wants
prosperity should do more than tithing. Some people have been writing me
letters asking: “What should we tithe? Is it the gross pay or the net pay?” It
is better for you to over pay than to under pay. If God is asking you for a
tithe and you say, “O God, take 20 per cent or 15 per cent, it is better for
you to owe me than for me to owe you.” You must not treat God as a beggar. You
treat God as a beggar when you give Him the extra that you don’t need. If you
cannot be generous with the Almighty when things are hard for you, you would
not be able to give when there is abundance. Sowing in the time of famine
attracts abundant blessings and prosperity. Remember the story of the woman in
Mark chapter 12, who just threw in some coins and God said, “This one has
contributed more money than every other person.” So, if you find it hard to
give a tenth unto God, of the money that belongs to you, you are inviting
poverty. If you completely forget to pay your tithe and your offerings, you are
inviting poverty. If you feel or believe that the tithe and offerings you give
are too much, you are inviting poverty. If God gives you 20,000 naira and you
find it difficult to pay 2,000 as tithe, you are writing to poverty. Wise
believers double the tithe. Also, they sow a big seed and challenge the Lord.
Giving to God is sacrifice. You have not started giving to God until you feel
the pinch. Many are so tight-fisted when it comes to financing God’s work.
Tithe borrowers are looking for trouble too. It is foolish to borrow your tithe
because the repercussion can be grievous and it is also an insult to God. God
can allow an ordinary boil to swallow N20,000.00. He can allow a single problem
to take away the money you refuse to give to Him. The principle of giving will
enable you to experience many financial miracles. Fear and unbelief will keep a lot of people in poverty. Many give
sparingly but the Bible wants you to give and it tells you how to give. We must
know that the money that the Lord needs to finish His work has been in the
world before you were born. God will not force you to part with your money. But
when you do it willingly, He will open the door of your life to blessings and
many other good things will begin to happen. You must give sacrificially, that
is, you give as much as you can until it pinches because your offering is
measured by what you have left and not what you give. You should give according
to your income. Not that you get a big income and you give a small offering.
You should give cheerfully. You should give systematically. You should give at
any opportunity you have to give without grumbling or complaining. You don’t
give under compulsion. The Bible says, “Do not let your right hand know what
your left hand is doing.” You should not be the kind of Christian who wants a
gift from God but you don’t want to give to Him. You should give regularly. And
the Bible says that you should give without display or open show. So, if you
have not been giving that way or you have been giving only when the man of God
says, “I want twenty people to give one million naira each,” then you march
forward and people clap for you. That has no blessing. Wrong giving is the
second reason. That is why we say, ‘change your offering and change your
destiny.’
3. Psalm
78:41 says, “Yea they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy one of
Israel.” The third reason is that many of us limit God. Many limit God
by the way they talk and act. Many do not believe that God can do something
outside their normal salary or income. So, anytime they pray, they focus their
attention on what appears to be obvious. They are not on the look out for the
miraculous or supernatural. They limit God completely. That is why sometimes
when you ask some people, “How are you?” They would answer “rough.” Negative
and inferior thinking invites poverty. You should not limit God. The Bible says
that with God, nothing shall be impossible. It is only in our dictionary we
find the word impossible or difficult.
4.
Staying in the wrong business and wrong profession. In Luke chapter 5, we see
the example of Peter. Peter was trying to catch fish when he was destined to
fish for men. God will not bless the wrong thing you are doing. Check
prayerfully whether you are in the right business. That is the reason I said
that if you are a bit confused about what to do, you must pray to God to make
His way plain before your face. If you have no business or job, pray and get
direction from the Lord on what to do. Forget
how prosperous you were before, face realities now and ask the Lord to show you
the way.
The
fact that God is your Father is enough to make you find out what He wants you
to be doing. If you are doing what God wants you to be doing, you can refer
back to Him when there is a problem. You don’t just enter into the university
and study anything just for the sake of having a degree. Ask the Lord what to
do for God will not prosper what He does not support. Some are spiritually lazy
and will not stay before the Lord for a long time to receive from the Lord.
When you ask such people to go and pray, they come back the following day to
say that they did not receive anything. The fact that God is refusing to talk
to you about your own life shows that you need some spiritual adjustment quick,
and you must make this adjustment. Once you are in the right thing, you must
surely prosper even if it is a very small thing.
Sometime
ago, I was almost shedding tears at Ojuelegba bus stop, Lagos. I parked my
Volkswagen bus because I wanted to buy something. As I jumped down, one small
boy of about seven came to me and said, “Oga which passengers should I call.” I
said, “But I am not running transport.” I asked him what he was doing there and
he said, “This is how I feed my daddy and mummy. A boy of seven running bus
conductorship for some hours everyday and whatever he gets, he takes it home
for all the members of his family to feed on.
5.
Giving place to the enemy. Ephesians 4:27 says, “Neither give place to the
devil.” If a person gives room to the enemy, he would allow poverty to operate.
There are spirits of poverty and there are also what we call poverty dreams.
Regular dreams of being naked, roaming about the market place, being broke,
selling and not getting result, are signs that the spirit of poverty is in operation.
You should bind the spirit of poverty. This spirit looks ugly and tattered in
the spirit. Sometimes, it appears like an old ragged man with one leg.
What
I am saying is that, some people have already given place to the spirit of
poverty in their lives and it does not matter whether you give them ten million
naira to run a business, they will soon finish every kobo and nothing will come
in. When the spirit of poverty is in operation, the person will be experiencing
unexplainable loss of money. He would not know exactly what he does with his
money. The person may be bombarded by hungry and unrepentant relatives. Before
he wakes up in the mornings, they are already knocking at his door. He may be
facing wastage of materials. For example, his food may be getting spoilt
without explanation. Cups and plates would break, the children would lose their
bags in the school. Their money would be stolen, etc. It is the work of the
spirit of poverty.
When
a person is always being duped by fraudulent people, constant attack by
robbers, attack by fire, uncontrollable birth of children, dismissal from
various places of work, loss of materials including clothes are all signs of
the operation of the spirit of poverty. Sometime ago, I was shocked when a man
told me that his clothes were stolen while he tried to dry them outside his
house. He said it was not few minutes he put the clothes on the line, and went
inside. By the time he came out, the wet clothes were gone. Spirit of poverty.
The spirit of poverty has turned managers to servants. It has turned teachers
to pupils.
WAY OUT
When
you check your life and you find out that the spirit of poverty is in control,
then you need to resist it. Think now about your finances. If you have cheated
God, ask for forgiveness. Take a positive stand on what you will do in God’s
house. If you have things that you have
stored up somewhere and you know that you don’t really need them. Sell them off
and put the money into God’s work. The last step to take is an aggressive
one. It is to pray poverty destroying prayers. You must pray against the spirit
of poverty with holy aggression. Some sicknesses are not ordinary. They are
just ladders of poverty and you need to break them to pieces.
PRAYER POINTS
1.
You heaven that has become brass, break open and bring rain, in the name of
Jesus.
2.
Every spirit of poverty, I break your control, in the name of Jesus.
3.
Lay your hands on your eyes and pray like this: O Lord, anoint my eyes to see
the hidden riches of the world, in the name of Jesus.
4.
Lay hand on your head and pray this: O Lord, advertise your prosperity in my
life, in Jesus’ name.
5.
Lay one hand upon the other hand and pray like this: Let the riches of the
ungodly be transferred into my hands, in the name of Jesus.
6.
O Lord, let divine blessings bombard my life, in the name of Jesus.
7.
O Lord, give me dumbfounding breakthroughs, in the name of Jesus.
8.
Every curse working against my destiny be broken, in the name of Jesus.