Spiritual Intelligence: Breaking Down Your Hard Questions

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

A life well lived

Yesterday I said she only met Elder in the last two years. So all these people, like Andrew said, he left his neighbour home crying. When I listen to those things, I just give God thanks and praise. Of a life well lived.

If we can have an army like her, even if they live to twenty-five years, we would be happy. We would celebrate. She lived to fifty years. So I don't want you guys to go away sulky. That's the last thing she would have wanted for you.

Many times she hid things from us. We would call her and say, "Don't nice it up. Just tell me the way it is." So before she came back from the US, when she came out of the doctor's office, she called us. She said, "They said there's nothing else they can do. I have less than six months to live." Some would want to know why we didn't say anything to you last Friday, the first day of the conference. How could we have done that to you?

So I just want you guys to cheer up. Celebrate God. Be thankful. Thank Him for the life, for the time you spent with her. As you reflect on her life, thank Him for raising up an army of workers and servants like her in Throne Room, in Jesus' name.

As I sat here and prayed, one of the first things that came to my mind: if the devil only knew. When we have this request answered, the devil is in trouble.

Abby, cheer up. These are people who have been with Elder Ayana longer than us. Patricia, from her school ministry. The church they came over from. When you look at Ashley, Elder Ayana knew her as a baby. The children, the parents who grew up in the same church in Charlestown, long before Throne Room. So sometimes you see people in the church grieving and they can't even come up and say anything. It's because of deep pain.

So in this season, don't offer to the Lord from your soul. This is when you dig down into your spirit and let praise come forth. It's a season of thanksgiving.

Lunch with Elder Ayana

I know we're humans. We're not robots. About three weeks ago we went to lunch with Elder Ayana. The woman who spoke yesterday, who came back from the US for the funeral, told us how good Elder was to her in the US. So we felt as pastors the least we could do was take our sister and her husband to lunch and spend some time.

That was a difficult process, watching Elder take ten, fifteen, twenty steps and have to stop to catch her breath. But you would still hear her at three in the morning praying. And we knew what it took to do that. The sacrifice.

So when I say to you there's so much to give God thanks and praise for, I mean it. When we sat here and the worshippers started songs like "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him," those are songs of thanksgiving, songs of praise. That's what we do in this season.

Minister Patrina called this morning and asked to be excused from church because she was feeling drained. I heard Pastor Sarah talking to her and saying okay. I understood, as a human, the toll it took on her. But I said, this is when she needs to be in the presence of the Lord. This is not the time to stay home and mourn. This is the time to be in the presence of the Lord. So cheer yourself up.

Elder, Minister V, who came over from the same church with her. I remember when the three of you came and sat and talked with us, saying you wanted to be part of Throne Room. I remember all of those things.

The ramp at the police station

I was telling Sarah yesterday, and we were laughing, and I gave Andrew the joke. When we purchased our first vehicle, I couldn't take time to go for the fitness. Sarah didn't have her licence yet, so we asked Elder Ayana, because she had her licence, to drive with Sarah to the police station.

When they reached the police station, the police told them to drive up on the ramp. She told Sarah to drive. So Elder is in the passenger seat and Sarah is in the driver's seat. They drive up on the ramp, Sarah sees the police and panics. The vehicle nearly came off part of the ramp and nearly pinned the policeman. And Elder jumps out of the car and abuses the policeman, telling him he is the one that made it happen. Sarah is saying, "No, no, no, it wasn't him." And the policeman is saying, "You see? It wasn't me."

That's the type of person she was. Those are the things I want you to remember. The fun, not the sickness.

Sometimes she would sit and talk and tell us stories of things happening at home. Or something would bother her and she'd come and say, "Pastor, I've come to apologise." "What are you apologising for?" "I was praying and this thing came to my mind, and I think I did you wrong." That's the type of person. Remember the fun part of her life.

When I shared that story with Andrew, it was the first time he heard it. He laughed and laughed, and then he told me another story. I won't tell you that one. Those who knew her knew she was a character. Very quiet, but once you got to know her she opened up, and you realised she was a character by herself. Quiet, but very passionate.

The last time I ministered, she came and said, "Pastor..." Sarah did a lot of driving for her in that final month. She said, "I've never seen the scripture that way." When we looked at the crippled man and his four friends (Mark 2:1-5), she said, "I've read that scripture before, but I never looked at it from the vantage point of how the man felt being taken up to the roof, knowing he cannot walk." She listened to the message. She applied it. It was excitement for her in the midst of all she was going through. Those are the things we need to cherish.

Encourage yourself in the Lord

So we move forward. Not forgetting her, but understanding the nature of the walk. You do like David: encourage yourself in the Lord (1 Samuel 30:6). You command your spirit to worship, because in your soul you'll still feel the loss. So you get past your soul, into your innermost being, and you worship the Lord.

It's okay to cry. There will be times you remember her and break into tears. But in that whole scenario, thank the Lord for the time spent with her. That's what I'm doing.

Life has a way of humbling you

She was a woman of tremendous repentance. It didn't happen overnight.

Yesterday I was talking with a colleague of her husband, and he brought up one of the former GMs of GTT, because Andrew told him I used to work there. He said, "This guy was a mellow guy, humble." I said yes, I knew him to be humble. But he said he wasn't always that way. All the people who worked with him knew he was an arrogant fellow. But one day he got sick and was in the hospital, and the nurse had to clean him because he was messing himself. And that situation changed his attitude to life. A pompous man at the height of one of the most prestigious companies of that time, with one of the most prestigious jobs, money and education, found himself on a hospital bed. With all his money, all his fame, all his education, and he was a bright fellow, he needed someone to clean him up. Life has a way of humbling you. So those who knew him in the latter part of his life knew him as a humble man.

A fighter

If you only understood why Elder Ayana was so repentant. Those who knew her know she was in the psych ward. You didn't know that? When I say she was a fighter, some of you think it's just the cancer. But she had lost her mind before.

She shared the experience with us. It was as though she was trapped in a glass box. She could see everybody coming. They were praying, they were talking, but she was screaming and nobody could hear her.

So when you hear me talk about her being a fighter, it's more than many of you know. Patricia and them could talk about her parents. It wasn't an easy life. When you saw her fighting cancer, she had fought other things before. When you saw her serving the Lord and screaming, as Patrina expressed, giving that shout every time she prayed, if you only knew the battles. Many persons would never have recovered from losing their mind. Some would not have recovered from what she went through in her early childhood with her parents, much less survive cancer for so many years. Some people last one year with cancer and they're gone. She battled nearly ten years.

So when I sat this morning and reflected, I thanked God for the time spent with her, because one thing she taught me: fight.

I won't say what she believed caused her to lose her mind. But out of that, she was always very careful what she said about people, because she believed something she said caused it. So if she felt she had done something to offend me, she'd come quickly, or call and ask, "Can I come over?" And I'd say, "No, Elder, that's okay. We weren't offended. We weren't even thinking about that." That's the type of person she was.

There's a lot to celebrate. If a woman who was in the psych ward, who some thought would never be well in her mind again, could serve the Lord like that, there's a lot I can do for the Lord. I'm in my right mind. Most times I think so. All the time I think so. Though I know from some arguments you had at home, people thought otherwise.

Roxy, you did an excellent job yesterday. Put your hands together for her. It was difficult, because we didn't know who to ask to lead the service. We couldn't ask many of you. We asked some and they declined outright, and we understood the reason. But it's a time to celebrate, a time to move on.

Why she lay outside

Somebody asked yesterday why we didn't bring her into the building. We looked at the door setup, and there was a discussion with the family and a few of the elders: Elder V was on the line,, Elder Esther, myself. After back and forth, the decision was made that it was better to rent a tent and have her remains outside. It was difficult for some of us, because some of us wanted her inside. But because of the building situation with the door, and because the family shared that this is a norm they see at certain funerals, with the remains outside under a tent and persons out there, that's what we did.

Typical men, right? We don't get hints very clearly. You need to say clearly what you're saying.

Now, quickly, to what I really intended to do this morning. I think what I just did was necessary for the believers, for the house.

Questions from the conference

What are your takeaways from the conference? I know some of you have to box back now, after the events of yesterday. Come forward.

*Question: Please explain more about the scripture Bishop Bloomer used: whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth is loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19).*

Binding means a contract

It's a powerful question, and we may need to set aside some time to go through more of the scriptures. It connects to 1 Corinthians 7 as well as the scripture he used in Matthew 16.

When you understand the concept of what binding means: Paul was communicating that if a woman is bound to a man, let her not seek to be loosed (1 Corinthians 7:27). I see you leaning forward there. It means you can be bound by a contract.

I went home myself and did some reading on it, because many times when we think of binding, we think of Agabus taking Paul's belt and binding his own hands and feet and saying, the owner of this belt will be bound when he goes to Jerusalem (Acts 21:11). We think of somebody being locked up. But when you look at the Greek word and where it's used, there are a lot of scenarios in the Bible where it has nothing to do with what we're thinking, handcuffs and shackles. It has to do with contracts.

It carries the same idea we use for generational curses. You've heard teachings on that. Your forefathers did something and now you're paying the consequences. What they actually did was bind you to that demon, that familiar spirit, whatever it is, through a contract. You are bound to the agreement.

Under arrest without handcuffs

When are you under arrest? You're under arrest before a handcuff is placed on you. You're under arrest when the instruction is given, not when the handcuff is placed on you.

Two years ago, when we were in the US, I was watching a police forum in Guyana stating how the state was losing money because people were taking the police force to court and winning $200,000, $400,000 per case. One of the simple things they said, that even the police didn't understand, is that when you pull somebody over and tell them to wait in the corner while you go and do your own thing, you've placed them under arrest.

So in the context of those things, ask yourself: what is holding you? When you use the word, what are you communicating? What is the intended purpose of the word?

Did Jesus ever bind a demon?

Then ask yourself another question. Have you ever read in your Bible where Jesus, dealing with people who were possessed, said, "You demon, I bind you"? Have you ever read Jesus saying, "I bind you and cast you into dark and dry places"? So why do we do it? Echo chamber.

Let me say this. We do it because somebody had a revelation, and this is how they did it, and it worked. But then somebody else will come up with a revelation. For example, in the discussion we had with the younger leaders: somebody comes with a revelation that you can teach people to pray in tongues by asking them to repeat certain angelic language. And we run away and shut it off, because we've never seen that in the Bible. But then we hold on to teachings like binding and loosing, in reverse. Because Jesus never bound demons, that I notice, in the way it's many times used in Christian circles.

Jesus bound demons by chasing them out, and prohibiting their activities in a certain domain. Now that's confusing.

Jesus said to the woman, "You are loosed. You're free" (Luke 13:12). The Pharisees had an issue: you can perform miracles any day except the Sabbath. Jesus said, if your donkey falls in a ditch on the Sabbath, don't you take it out? And this woman who has been bound for eighteen years, isn't she a daughter of Abraham? So what's the issue with Me releasing her from this bondage? (Luke 13:15-16).

The maniac of Gadara, Legion. How did He free him? "Satan, you demons, I bind you in Jesus' name"? That's what He said, right? What did He say? "Come out" (Mark 5:8). He released him from his bondage. He loosed him. In all of these cases of deliverance, it wasn't binding. It was loosing.

When we talk about binding, you can prohibit things. That's how it's many times used: you disallow something or you allow it. When we're talking about demons, we're talking about a restriction of their activities in a particular area or in a person's life. But that restriction doesn't come by legally or jurisdictionally binding them to an entity. It comes by releasing or freeing the person from this demonic influence or activity, in their life or in a certain area or domain.

I hope I'm not confusing you further. I'm trying to bring a balance. The issue is never to condemn those who are doing it. What we're trying to do is help you know how to pray.

It's who possesses you

And that comes back to the word possession. Nobody wants to be possessed. It sounds strange, but I want to be under the influence and control, the possession, of the Holy Ghost. So when some people hear "I'm possessed," we all start running like chickens without heads. But it's what or who possesses you. It's not the action. It's the power behind it.

So nothing is wrong when you understand the context, and Bishop Bloomer says, "I bind myself to prosperity." You're saying, "I loose myself from poverty, and I bring myself into agreement with prosperity."

Bound to the wrong friend

Now the Holy Ghost is bringing it this way. Have you ever been in a situation where you had friends, people you really liked, and you always found yourself in their company, even though they were a bad influence? There's something about them that just draws you. You know it's wrong, and you know you can find yourself in trouble, but you tell yourself nothing bad will happen. Your parents said, "I don't want to see you with that person." Then you leave, and mummy or daddy asks, "Where are you going?" "I'm going out." And you walk up the road in a different direction and go by them anyway.

What are you? You're bound to that person. There's some form of agreement between you and that person. Sometimes you can't describe it. You sit and ask yourself, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I shake myself from this person?" You know it's wrong today, and tomorrow you're right back there. They give you some fancy excuse and you ask yourself, "Am I really stupid?" But you're still back there. You're bound. You need to be released.

The Holy Ghost wanted it expressed that way to help you understand. Many times we think it's some big fancy thing, but there's an invisible power behind it. This isn't natural. No matter how your parents beat you, punish you, what they tell you, what people tell you.

Domestic abuse is a bad example of it. Pastor can sit and talk to you, pray for you, prophesy over you. You come to church, you finish crying, and you go right back. That is somebody who doesn't need to be bound. They are already bound. They need to be released from the spirit that has them bound to that person, situation or behaviour.

*Question: When we are at a concert or prayer conference and someone is praying "bind, bind" over a person, and we know now they should be loosing, what do we do?*

Very good question. You're not leading the prayer meeting. You could just pray, "Lord, in their ignorance, answer them based upon Your wisdom." That's all. He understands the intention of the prayer even though they're praying wrong. Mercy, because we all did it. As a Christian, until light comes, you'll be doing things that aren't quite right. So we don't criticise them or judge them. We pray, "Lord, there will be days when I'll be in similar darkness. I pray now in advance: bring me into the light so I don't walk in darkness in this area."

*Question: So what would you tell Throne Room members: to bind or not to bind when doing deliverance?*

Tell them to continue binding and loosing, but in reverse, with knowledge. Loose or release people. Exorcise. That's what the word means: to cast out, send away the demon.

Beating a child until he's quiet

Here's a perfect example of it in deliverance ministry. Your parents ever beat you until you were quiet? They whip you until you don't cry. That's what we do to demons sometimes. "Get out!" And "I bind you!" They don't know whether to go or to stay. What is really happening here? This Christian lost their mind.

The demon is thinking, "You said I bind you, and then you said go into dark and dry places. What do you really want? If you bind me, how do I move?" And then the demon fights and rolls and rolls and rolls. You know why they're rolling? You bound them. They can't move.

*A member shares that her husband said you bind them and then cast them out to die in dark and dry places.*

Spirits don't die like we think

Thank you. That's another good point. When you read the scripture, do you see these things dying? Have you ever seen mention of one of them dying? This is why it's necessary for us to have sound teaching, because I was right there too.

Ask yourself, what is the purpose of hell? What is the purpose of the lake of fire? It's an eternal jail. Why do you think people will spend time in hell? Because spirits don't die like we think. In Jude, God kept them in chains (Jude 1:6). Remind me of Jude and the chains; I want to come back to that.

I had a thought long before this conference. If I bind the demon and then cast it out, who is doing the heavy lifting? Put it this way. If somebody ties your hands and your feet and you can't walk, how do they get you from one place to another? They have to move you. I've long thought about that. Who's moving them? And I said to myself, maybe it's angels. And I believe there's some level to that. That's why I'm saying you need to understand how you're using the word. When you're talking about binding, you're talking about prohibiting.

Daniel's angel was bound

It's like what we see in Daniel. Daniel started fasting and praying, and from the time he started, his prayer was answered. The Lord sent an angel with the answer. What happened to the angel? The angel was bound (Daniel 10:12-13). So scripture tells us that not only demonic angels can be bound. Whether he was captured and put in a prison, whatever it was, we know he was prohibited from coming into the earthly domain with the answer.

A prince demon, a ruling principality, challenged him. This angel was met with a greater power in the second heaven, powerful enough to stop an angel of God. He had to call for help, and Michael, a higher-ranking angel, came and defeated him. So there's war going on all the time.

So when we talk about binding and loosing, we need to think in that broad context. When I speak to a demon and say, "I bind you," what do I mean?

Back to the policeman. He tells you to pull into the corner, and as the police forum was saying, even the police didn't know they were arresting people, and people challenged it in the courts and won. Once I tell you pull into the corner and I go about my business, I've placed you under arrest. I've bound you. There's no handcuff and no clamp on the vehicle, but you stay put half an hour while he's talking to somebody else and vehicles are passing, and you can't drive away. They denied you free movement. You don't go ten feet up or a hundred feet up. You know to stay in the corner and wait.

There are spiritual laws at work there, and all of these physical laws operate on those spiritual laws. When you give instructions to an unclean spirit, you're giving instructions to a being with a personality. They have intellect. They have emotions. They have understanding. When you talk to them, they fear you. But if they realise you don't know what you're doing, it's like some policemen. They pull you over, and there's no power behind it, and you just watch them and drive off. That's how some demons operate with some Christians. "I'm going to remain right here, because they don't know what in heaven they're doing. They tell me come out, and then they bind me. I'm going to take the last command and stay here."

So it's not based on the action only. It's based on the intention. You understand what you're trying to accomplish.

What's permitted there is permitted here

Going back to Jude: it says spirits can be bound with chains. And if spirits can be bound with chains, we have to conclude that angels can be bound. When you read of Lucifer and how he ended up out of heaven, they arrested him, bound him and threw him out, and he fell like lightning (Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:9). So those principles operate in heaven too.

What we need to know is how this principle operates in the heavens, in the spiritual realm, to work it here. You must know what's permitted there to permit it here. What's not permitted there, you do not permit here. Whatever is bound in heaven is bound on earth. Whatever is permitted there is permitted here. That's how we rule and reign.

So especially in deliverance ministry, where we're always binding and binding: what are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to get the demon out? Are you trying to stop the activities of the demon? These are important. Sometimes I'm not trying to cast out a spirit from a person. They may be out of the person but still influencing the person. So instead of "bind," I say, "I destroy, I cancel your works. I unwrap this person." Sometimes the spirit has moved on but has the person wrapped. I unwrap them.

Delivered but still behaving like it

Dr. Roberts said, and many psychologists teach this: when people look at you, they'll see you taking on the traits and personality of your closest friends. You start to act like them. Those persons can migrate to another country and you never see them again, but when people see you act and talk they say, "I remember your friend so-and-so." Why? Because they shaped and influenced you. They imprinted their personalities on you, and even though they're gone, you still behave like them.

That's what happens many times to people who were possessed or influenced by unclean spirits. The spirits can be cast out, but because they are personalities, you still exhibit the same traits and behaviour even though you were delivered. Sometimes you're not dealing with demons any more, because they've gone already. But there are still things in your life we need to put an end to.

When we understand these things, deliverance ministry takes on a different trajectory. One of the greatest things in deliverance ministry is teaching. You're rewriting, undoing, by teaching, those behaviours and characteristics the demons left there. You're washing the person with the word (Ephesians 5:26). Many times the demon is gone but people still behave as though it's there, because they've been moulded in that spirit's personality.

Just like the Pharisees took notice that these men had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). Why? Because they started to operate like Jesus, talk like Jesus. Some people, when you hear them talk and operate, it's like demons. Jesus left and went to heaven; the demons got cast out; but you still see demonic operations, because they were moulded over time by that spirit's identity. That's why discernment is needed, teaching is needed, discipleship is needed, to mould them now in the image of Jesus Christ.

*Question: Bishop Bloomer taught on praise and worship at the round table and said the worship leaders were actually praising. Please give some clarity.*

Why I stopped this morning's worship

Praise and worship is broad. Why did I stop this morning's worship? None of you know. Because of what happened with the death of Elder Ayana, they weren't worshipping God in terms of giving Him what He requires. They were giving out of their soul. That's why I stopped it. Not to judge them. I know they're in pain. And that's what I'm trying to communicate in many of these teachings: we don't judge people. We love people, understanding that one time we were there, and that Jesus is touched with the feelings of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). That's why I started by saying we're not robots. It's difficult. The song is good. But what is being offered to Him is not what He wants. And I'm talking to myself as well. That can be a danger in worship.

Praise and worship in marriage

Bring up Psalm 150. Bishop was talking about praise in this context. Any man knows if you want a nice time before you go home, you might call ahead and talk a few nice words. Compliment the woman. "Baby, don't cook today. I'll bring something home." You don't want her to get too tired. When you go home you do something, talk something. You're trying to keep her excited. Let me put it that way.

Praise is more expressive. It's bigging up the person.

Worship, I don't want to use Bishop's word here; that was for the round table. Those who are married know there isn't much activity at that time afterward. You're relaxed, reminiscing on what happened. There's a quiet expression of contentment, appreciation, love. So when you worship the Lord, it's that quieter expression. You're appreciative. Worship can be contemplative, reflective. You meditate, you go over things, you talk. It's quiet and you enjoy it. But praise involves a lot of action, a lot of planning.

I'm still working at it. Next year I'll be married nearly twenty-five years, and I still get licks many times. Because when I finally tell her the dress really looks nice, she doesn't want to hear it any more. "You wait till everybody tells me, and then you tell me." And you just smile, but you've got to understand your part. So you say, "I'm going to tell her before everybody else." It's like for the married persons: you tell them you love them after they do something. "Why do you love me? Is it the action that makes you say you love me, or do you really love me?"

Praise is like going home and saying, "Wow, this house is lovely. I'm happy to be home. It was a tiring day, but when I get in here you bring peace to my life. I love to come home." Did you ever tell a woman, "I don't like coming home. Every time I come home, stress"? That alone made all the women in here cringe. It's one of the worst things you could say to a woman. But if you come home and say, "Babes, it's so nice to be home," and give her a hug. "You cooked today?" "No." "Okay, what do you want to eat? Let's order something." It makes her happy.

Sometimes we go to God the opposite way. "Lord, I asked You for this and You didn't do it. I've been praying and praying." No. Praise is thanking Him. When a little child comes home and says, "Mummy, you look so beautiful," or "Daddy, you look handsome today," what's the first thought that comes to your mind? What are they up to? They want something. They're buttering you up. Praise is not buttering God up. Praise is looking at the qualities of God and getting excited over them, and telling Him about it.

Like this morning, sitting on the verandah waiting to come out, I remembered Elder Ayana. I said, "Lord, thank You for the years I've had with her. I'm grateful for those years. Raise up an army of them in the church." I didn't say, "Why this, and we've been praying." No. Gratitude. That's what praise is.

"Praise the Lord. Praise Him in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens" (Psalm 150:1). This is from one of Bishop Bloomer's books. If you don't have it, you should be able to get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Every time the Bible talks about the heavens, it's never singular. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Never singular.

Praise involves all of you

Praise involves all of you. Tell your neighbour. If you're married, look at your husband or wife and say, "Praise involves all of you."

Those who are married know: you flung the tea this morning, and you know you must wait how many days before you approach certain things, because the tea story this morning has big implications later. So you know you've got to do something today. Buy some gift, come home and cook, make porridge. You know they like chocolate, so you buy chocolate. You call, and you get a sour tone, but you've got to call still, because you've got to break the tension. It will take three or four conversations before you diffuse the situation.

I'm sharing it like this because sometimes we think prayer starts when we go into the prayer closet. But prayer starts with your attitude during the day. When somebody says something you don't like, you forgive them and bless the Lord nevertheless. Praise starts with your whole body. What you put your eyes to look at. What you let your ears hear.

Imagine you come home in the afternoon and say to your wife or husband, "I was walking today and saw this woman, or this man, and they looked really nice," and you describe the skirt, the pants, the shoes, how everything fit, and for a month you've never complimented them on their dress. How do you think they'll feel? They listen, they nod, they ask questions. But then there's no dinner. "Can you take care of dinner tonight?" You ask what's wrong. "Nothing is wrong." And you know something is wrong. The more you ask, the more problems you create. Right, Tracy?

Praise involves all of you. That's what Psalm 150 is showing us. There's no set time for praise. Not only when you come to church, and the service goes like this: "Let us start off praising the Lord," with a set of fancy hype songs.

How do you feel when you've been working the whole day, kitchen, bathroom, washing, weeding, and you're sweaty with grass all over you, and your spouse comes home and says, "You're looking fresh. I love how clean you look"? You'll feel they're lying to you. But if they say, "Look at that perspiration. You look like a hard worker. You look packed with energy," that's a different thing.

What I'm trying to say is we need to be careful when we're worshipping God or giving praise that our heart is not far from our lips. The Bible says they worship Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me (Matthew 15:8). So when you start singing "Let us rejoice and be glad," it needs to come from inside. It's an expression. Don't tell me you're singing "Let us bow down and worship Him," and you're like a statue. You can't move. That's hypocrisy.

I know some people say, "Fake it until you really feel it." It needs to be deliberate.

One of the problems with many Christians who go through a lot of things: they don't know how to dance. They don't know how to praise God in the dance. They don't understand why the Bible says put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3). You don't understand why David had so many victories. He knew how to dance. He was a man of warfare. And he wrote how you enter the house of God: enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). Praise is loud. Praise is expressive.

Imagine if I walked up to the gate and said, "Oh beautiful woman, wife of my youth, you have me captivated. Every time I leave home, for twenty-five years, you drive me back here!" and the whole neighbourhood hears. I think that's better than hearing the blues from the gate. Some of us need to practise that. Don't look for it. I'll do it when you least expect.

That's what praising God is about. The whole church hears. The worship leaders have to say, "Okay, it's time for the word, be quiet a little," and give you time to calm down, because you're excited.

How many of us, when we praise the Lord, somebody wants to cover our mouth? Some women feel embarrassed when you're too loud saying something nice, and they run to hush you. How many of us would want somebody to do that for us in a church service because we're so excited about God? Who He is, what He did, what He promised us, we can't stop expressing what's happening inside of us.

I can only imagine

"I Can Only Imagine" was always one of my favourite songs. What will heaven be like? When you get there, what will you do? Come, worship team, sing that part for us.

When a man gets excited about a woman, he starts to tell her how many mountains he'll climb, how many oceans he'll cross, he'll go to the stars and come back for her. He'll do impossible things. I remember reading a court story: a man before the court for stealing a television. Why did he do it? Because of his wife. I'm not saying his wife was bad. I'm saying when a man is excited with a woman, he does foolish things. And when we're excited about God, we do like David. We dance. And his wife asked him, "What kind of foolishness is this?" (2 Samuel 6:16, 20). He was so excited his outer robes were falling off. In our own private place we do all kinds of things we would never do in public. But in your private setting with the one you love, you go beyond. Leave that for the round table.

*The worship team sings part of "I Can Only Imagine."*

The author of this song was expressing on paper something in his heart. He doesn't know if he'll skip or dance. He's saying, "I'm bursting with excitement. I don't know how it will manifest. But something will happen." That's what praise is about. Bursting with excitement.

How many of you have had a juicy story to tell somebody, but they weren't around and you had to wait for them? You notice you don't even start the story, but you're laughing. It's oozing out of you. They're waiting and sometimes they have to say, "Calm down, tell me the story." That's how praise should be with God.

About two nights ago, in the middle of my dream, I was praising Him. I forget what song I was singing, and then I started adding my own words, praising Him in my dream, and I woke up and continued. Something was happening inside of me in the midst of all we were going through. My spirit was alive. It was buzzing with praise. Outside, in your mind and circumstances, one thing is going on, but inside something else. You're overflowing with praise toward the Lord.

Built into male and female

When we read the Bible, understand something. Before sin entered the world, God said, "I created man in My image and likeness, male and female" (Genesis 1:27). If we understand that nature of God, that's what Bishop Bloomer was trying to bring out. Women constantly need praise. Some of you are looking at me like it's strange. It makes her feel good. And men were created in a way that it's in them to praise women. They always know how to tell you the nice things and catch you off guard with what they say. Isn't that so?

Men are created in such a way that they require honour, respect. If you never tell a man you love him, but you respect him and honour him, he will love you all your days. But from the time you start to tell a man certain things and break him down, love slips away. That's why women say men have egos.

So in man and woman is built the idea of praise and worship. With a woman it's expressive. She's cutting boulanger, and if you go and cut it with her and sprinkle a little salt in the stew, and she says no, she still feels happy, and you tell her something nice while you're around there.

A man is different. He comes home and you say, "Babes, you look like you had a hard day. Give me your jacket. Let me put it up. Go and sit at the table. Let me get your food." You dish out his food and serve him. He feels like a king. You didn't say anything. It's quiet, gentle love.

Look and see. No matter how a man behaves out there, he almost never marries somebody who's brawling. He may sleep with them, but he goes home to the wife. He marries the one he can live with, the one who respects him. When he enters the home, there's peace. He wants to be honoured in his own home.

*A member reflects on Esther preparing a feast for the king and Haman: she honoured the king.*

Esther's banquet

Awesome. She did the opposite of Vashti, who was deposed and removed as queen (Esther 1:12, 19). Esther honoured him and held a feast for him. She didn't ask for anything. But in the whole feast he said, "What is it you want?" (Esther 5:6; 7:2). And when Haman turned up to that feast, Haman knew he was dead. What Esther did, the environment she created for the king, Haman knew he was finished. From the time she opened her mouth, he threw himself on her couch begging, and the king said, "Will you even assault the queen in my house?" (Esther 7:8). He tried desperately to save his life.

That's why when you create certain environments of worship, people start getting healed, delivered. Miracles start to happen. No prayer. God just gets generous. He's always generous, but the generosity overflows into the service. People like Benny Hinn, you want to know why he worships a lot? He knows this. You create that environment and He just shows up. You start receiving phone calls about things you've been praying for. Nobody prayed for you in the service, but people go home and realise they're not sick any more. They don't know when it happened. It's the environment.

When you do it like Esther did, the Lover of our soul looks around and says, "Oh, she needs this. He needs this. Let Me do this."

When God showed up to Solomon in the dream and asked what he wanted, and he asked for wisdom to rule the people properly, God was so excited He threw in some things. "Because you have not asked for riches and wealth and fame, I'll give you riches and honour like no king before you" (1 Kings 3:11-13). God throws in those things when we choose the greater thing, when we choose Him and choose to honour Him. That's what worship and praise are about.

Worship is in the quiet moments, the quieter side. As Bishop Bloomer said, the afterglow. Mature people know a woman looks for that time to ask a man for what she wants. I'm leaving that for the married people. If she wants to ask a difficult thing, she bides her time and waits for that moment, because she knows it will be easier to get what she asks for. You see the whole concept of praise and worship playing out in how God created us.

*Question: Bishop Bloomer said he has read the Bible seventeen times and knows about two percent. What about those who have read it once or never?*

The fish in the aquarium

Simply put, if you've heard me over the last year or two, I've been repeating something: I've come to the place where I realise I don't know much.

When you surround yourself with people on your level, you can talk and impress them. Say you're in Standard Two and you know Standard Three work. How you can impress them with how bright you are! But put you with somebody in a master's or PhD program, and when they start to talk, you'll hear terms you never heard in your life. Same topic, same field, and you're lost.

Ever miss a week of school, not get the notes, show up, and the teacher continues and starts asking questions? You're sailing. Same class, same topic you left a week ago, but suddenly you're in no man's land. When we associate with people who know as much as us, we're a bright boy or girl. But when you find yourself in certain rooms...

It's like a piranha or a shark in your four-by-two aquarium. It dominates the water, eats all the other fish in the tank, and thinks it's a big thing. Take it out, go to the sea wall and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean. He thought he was big. He was ruling his world. He knew every corner of those waters. Suddenly he's trying to figure out if he still knows how to swim. "Before, I could quickly touch the bottom and go from one side to the other. Now I can't see. This place is vast. I don't know where to go." And then he sees a blue whale, an orca, and he gets confused. "How was I the biggest fish in my world, and now I'm seeing things I can't imagine or explain?"

That's how some Christians operate when they can quote a few verses. I was there. If I had to preach here, I would have put in some voices and started to rattle off and quote. And then you meet somebody who doesn't rattle off a lot of verses, but when they start to speak, the presence and glory of God hits the room. You realise it's not about quoting a lot of scriptures. It's about knowing the God of the scriptures.

Reading the Bible like a novel

You've heard me say that before I got saved, I used to read the Bible like a novel. When I got saved, Elder opened his Bible: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God" (John 1:1). I said, "Wait, wait, wait. That's in the Bible? Show me." And he showed me. All my life I was reading the scriptures, but for the first time somebody brought me into a room with proper light, and I could see this Word is alive. I had to start all over again.

I was like the Ethiopian eunuch with Philip. Reading the Bible and understanding nothing (Acts 8:30-31). And we have a lot of Christians like that. Devoted, reading, but until the Holy Ghost comes and brings light... Nobody had to ask him to be baptised. He said, "What prevents me from being baptised?" (Acts 8:36). When the word comes alive, that's what happens. So I want to encourage you: read the Bible. Listen to the Bible.

The Ethiopian eunuch was in his SUV going back home, and while he was journeying he started to read, and suddenly something downloaded in his vehicle and he heard an audio version of the Bible so clear it brought revelation. You're wondering what I'm talking about. The revelation of the word was stored somewhere, on a particular hard drive. God sent it through the cloud, into the vehicle, into his audio system. That's what the word does for us.

The more I read, the more I know I don't know

I love how Bishop Bloomer put it, because as ministers we can get arrogant. I was one boy who thought I knew the Bible and a lot of stuff. In the last couple of years, the more I read, the more I know I don't know. And I'm so happy I'm in this state, because there's a lot more I don't know that I need to know.

When we understand that, it helps us to cherish other people and respect other people, because we're all in a place where we don't know what we need to know. When you live your life like this, you live it with humility. You give other people a chance. There's something they can bring to the table. When you hear ministers criticising other ministers from the pulpit, you realise they haven't come to that place yet. They don't know what they don't know.

None of us can exhaust the Bible. That's why servants of God keep going back and rereading. I think it was Prophetess Nancy who said there are seventy-seven revelations within revelations in each verse. That's why you can preach a scripture today, preach the same scripture next week and bring out something else, and next year something else again. I've listened to different ministers preach the same scripture and bring out something different, and they're all correct.

Walking out of the bank

So be very careful. If somebody says they went to heaven and saw something, and another person saw something else, you don't sit and ridicule them. If two of us walk into the bank and come out, and I ask what you saw, you won't tell me the same thing. One person says the teller took a long time. Another says, "Look how she's wearing nice jewellery." Another says, "Did you see the painting on the ceiling?" Another says, "They have good cleaners; this place is spotless." Another is looking at the colours and would have matched them differently. All of them went into the same bank, stood in the same line, went to the same tellers, and came out with something different.

That's when you read the Gospels. Matthew tells the story one way, Luke another, John differently. That's how the scriptures are, from different people's vantage points.

*A member adds: after deliverance the habits remain, which is why the Bible says renew your mind. He points to Matthew 12:29, binding the strong man, and to the woman Satan bound for eighteen years, as different uses of binding from Paul's marriage language.*

How Jesus bound the strong man

Powerful. Put your hands together for him. Jesus talked about it in Matthew: how can you enter the strong man's house and plunder his goods unless you first bind the strong man? (Matthew 12:29).

And this is what I'm coming back to. Let's look at a strong man Jesus dealt with. Legion. How many thousands of demons were inside that man? How did Jesus bind Legion? It's not a tricky question.

Jesus dealt with that type of binding by removing him from his territory, dislodging him. We read the story as Jesus casting demons out of a man. But we don't take into consideration what caused the storm when they were going over (Mark 4:37; 5:1).

Read the story. This man was terrorising the area. They would bind him and chain him and he would burst the chains. He cut himself (Mark 5:3-5). They had influence over a region, not just a man. When Jesus showed up, they said, "Have You come to torment us before the time? We know who You are" (Matthew 8:29). And they begged Him, if You send us out of the man, don't send us out of the region (Mark 5:10). This was not just about the possession of a man. It was about control of a territory.

These are the things I'm trying to bring out. When we deal with demons, what are we trying to accomplish? The man was freed. But what else? The people chased Jesus out of the region because it affected their sales, their pigs (Mark 5:17). Pigs were unclean to a Jew. Let me leave it there. But that's the type of business they had.

How did Jesus bind those demons? How did He set that man free? He took care of the stronghold by dislodging them.

How do you set your neighbourhood free from certain things? Say you're dealing with substance abuse, sellers and dealers. How do you deal with them? Let me hear the binding and loosing people.

*A member answers that prayer can bring a famine on the drug trade, and points to Matthew 12:43-45: an unclean spirit that leaves goes roaming and comes back, so a person must be filled with the Holy Spirit.*

Powerful. And you never asked yourself: how come Christians have been binding demons and sending them into dark and dry places for centuries, but there seem to be more today? Let me leave that there.

*A member shares a testimony: early in her walk she had what looked like a stroke and then neck spasms that doctors could not explain. The church prayed for her. Later, alone at home, she felt a strong man over her trying to twist and break her neck, until she shouted "Jesus" and it let go. She asks why the demon followed her after it was cast out.*

When the Holy Ghost says bind

Because the Bible is clear: when you cast them out, they go roaming, and when they don't find a suitable host, they go back to check (Matthew 12:43-44). When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, it says he left Him for a season (Luke 4:13). The Greek carries the idea that he left to return at a more opportune time.

So does Jesus then bind? Listen very carefully. There may be times when you're praying and the Holy Ghost tells you to do exactly that. You're not binding the demon to a person. You could be binding him to a geographic place. Remember Legion asked not to be sent out of the region. Sometimes the Holy Ghost may say to you, "Send them out of the region." What you've done there is bound them from operating in a particular region.

It's like you come to my house to stay. You want to stay one month; I say you can stay three weeks. You can go to this room, the kitchen, the bathroom, but these two bedrooms are off limits. You're bound within a certain area of the house. I've restricted your movement in certain areas, and at the same time I've released you to operate in the kitchen, the bathroom and two other rooms.

Let us stand.

*A member encourages people to come to Bible study for more teaching on this.*

The entity on the roof

This is important for us to know. I remember right here, when the man fell off the roof. You've heard this more than once. I was walking up there in the morning inspecting the work, and something said, "You could jump off this roof." I looked and said to myself, "Hmm, that's how people commit suicide. People don't know how they get these thoughts and then kill themselves."

When he fell off during the day, the workers couldn't figure out how he fell. I remember coming at that time, and I called the leaders and said, "We need to pray and address an entity in this place." That Friday night, Sarah told me she saw the entity there, and you said you saw it too but didn't say anything because you didn't want people to think you were seeing things. When I started to address it, she got sick, a physical attack, and my ear started to ring. The demon was not willing to go easily. He decided to fight back. All the time we were in here having service and everything was going okay, nobody knew it was there, until that morning and that incident. I knew somebody had sent an entity to the work, and we addressed it.

I remember we were having a meeting. Permit me to tell this story, my brother Rondelle. When the meeting was about to close, Rondelle said, "Pastor, let me tell you something. Something just came into this meeting and left." Poor Rondelle couldn't go home. He went and sat in the car and came back and said, "Pastor, pray for me." We dealt with that. This is a serious matter.

Deliverance that becomes a cycle

When we don't understand how these things operate, witches, wizards and warlocks walk into deliverance services and become deliverance workers. They're helping you. Not to send away spirits, but to work with them, to come into league with them. I'm not saying all deliverance services. That's why we need to be discerning. Then a deliverance service becomes a cycle of possession upon deliverance upon possession. People come year after year. Two demons jump out, ten jump in. Three jump out, four jump in. The demons have you working year after year, and then you die early from exhaustion, and people say he or she was a great servant of the Lord. And the devil wore you out doing deliverance ministry.

We've got to go home. Just lift your hands and say, "Lord, we thank You for Your wisdom." We chase them out. But we're not Ghostbusters walking around everywhere looking for every demon. Then you hear "Who you gonna call?" and you're lying down to sleep at two o'clock and somebody calls: "Pastor, I need help. Demons are tormenting me." Garlic from the gate, garlic up the steps, garlic upstairs, lime. Some people you simply have to say, "Call me back in the morning." Or, "Put them on the phone," and speak to the demon.

If you think you're a Ghostbuster, there are billions of unclean spirits, fallen angels and demons. You think you can cast out all of them? They'll give you work, and then you'll realise you're not following the leading of the Holy Ghost and the direction of Jesus Christ. You're following the dictates of hell. He gives you demons to cast out all the time.

Lord, we thank You for wisdom this morning. We're not saying we know everything, Lord. But we're following Your example, in Jesus' name. We cast them out in Jesus' name. Amen.