Fire For The Journey by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

A Contest Over the Head

Genesis 48

When Joseph brought Manasseh and Ephraim to their father for a prophetic covering, Jacob crossed his hands to bless them, and Joseph tried to correct him, guiding his hand back to what looked right. Ephraim and Manasseh sat there laboring, not knowing there was a contest over their heads.

• New creation reality means the spirit is renewed and the soul is saved, but the body is not born again, and it remains addicted to culture and tied to tradition. In enforcing dominion, authority alone is not enough, power is also required.
• Power is like a policeman being given a uniform, authority is the uniform itself. When the policeman says stop, it is the government speaking through him. But if the policeman has a uniform with no gun, that uniform is a costume.

A man sits down not knowing there is a contest over his head. He is laboring genuinely, educated, struggling, fasting, trying his best, but there is a contest over his head.

Genesis 40:16-17

After the butler's dream was interpreted favorably, the baker asked for his own interpretation. He said he saw himself carrying three white baskets on his head, and while he carried them, birds ate out of the top basket, a battle perched over his head.

When They Were Escaped

Acts 28:1

The definite article matters: when they were escaped, not if. If God is a person's backing, that escape is certain, whether from trouble or from trial.

• Psalm 124:7 — As a bird is escaped out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and the soul is escaped.
• God has not promised safe sailing, He has promised safe landing. A back on the floor is so that the eyes can be on the Lord, "I will look up to the hill."

It does not matter what has gone ahead. Others may have wine, but make sure there is water, because water can become wine, but wine cannot become water.

John 1-7

Water runs through the gospel of John: Jesus baptized in water in chapter one, water turned to wine to save a wedding from embarrassment in chapter two, born of water and of the Spirit in chapter three, the woman at the well offered living water in chapter four, the man by the pool of Bethesda in chapter five, Peter walking on water to Jesus in chapter six, and out of the belly of the believer flowing rivers of living water in chapter seven.

Territorial Operations

Ministering once in a European nation, before landing, the Lord said to look from the window, and spirit beings could be seen hopping over the region, the same kind seen before in Moscow. That prompted intense prayer, because spirits are territorial, and while nothing about the devil is fabulous, he is systematic and strategic, never stupid. The Bible speaks of the subtlety of the serpent, and the way of a serpent on a rock cannot be traced.

• A poorly prepared welcome team once listed off names of respected ministers who had preached in that region before without seeing results, not even a headache healed, warning that nothing would happen there. That kind of talk exposed a minimal understanding of territorial operations among otherwise powerful ministers.
• There is a prince over every territory, and regardless of a person's confession of faith, a region is not handed over until that prince is dealt with. Where someone understands how to take over a territory, what follows outpaces anything imagined before.

Acts 28:3-6

The viper that came out of the fire and fastened on Paul's hand was a territorial power speaking justice, not chance. The islanders concluded a murderer had escaped the sea only to be caught by vengeance.

Acts 9:1, Galatians 1:13

Paul had breathed out murderous threats, persecuted and wasted the church, and collected legal documents to prosecute believers, including supervising the stoning of Stephen. The viper of Melita was a viper of justice, and it was correct about the legal ground it stood on, even though Paul had since been forgiven.

The Condition Behind the Promise

Every prophecy, every promise of God, is tied to a condition, and awareness of that condition is what opens a person up to becoming a beneficiary.

Matthew 7:6-7

Verse six carries the condition that powers verse seven. Do not give what is holy to dogs or cast pearls before swine, and then comes the general instruction: ask and it shall be given, seek and find, knock and it shall be opened. Two audiences are being addressed. Where the element of a dog or a swine is present in someone asking, no matter how long they persist, there is no entitlement, because entitlement was decided before the asking began.

There is a difference between oratory and utterance, between eloquence and enforcement. The first entity to quote scripture correctly and relevantly in the New Testament was Satan. Many believers are sound in what they know, yet see minimal manifestation because they lack enforcement.

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Apostle Johnson Suleman

Omega Fire Ministries International

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There are snakes pretending to be sticks, appearing mild and harmless, waiting only to be picked up. A minister once counseled a man before a court case, and through prayer it was discerned that the man's own wife, though she said nothing openly, was carrying something that would surface, and she was later called as a witness against him. People can say and do things without realizing what possessed them until it plays out.

Stirring Up the Fire

This generation has grown cold, resting at the smallest achievement, calling premature arrival a finish line, while others still laboring decades in are still pressing forward with visible humility.

Big dreams stretch a person, small dreams shrink a person. There are things that will not be found out until the fire is stirred up. When fire is stirred, hidden things are exposed and things that appear complacent are revealed for what they are.

A case involving a kidnapped daughter, where the ransom demanded matched the exact figure held in the church's account, was eventually traced through prayer to the one person closest to the family who had been crying the loudest, the resident pastor, whose phone told the story once it was checked.

Battles Won Before They Are Fought

2 Kings 13:14-19

When Elisha was dying, the king wept and cried, "My father, my father," because Elisha had been his source of strength, direction, and confidence. Elisha told him not to bother about his exit, to hold his hand and finish the battle now, guiding the arrow to hit the target as it was shot. When the king struck the ground with the remaining arrows and stopped after only a few strikes, he was rebuked, because had he continued striking, greater advancement would have followed.

Battles are won before they are fought.

Judges 1:6-7

Adonibezek, who had ruled over seventy territories, confessed before he died that he had cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings under his table. Cutting off the thumbs removed the ability to hold anything firmly, and cutting off the toes slowed their pace, leaving them incomplete. The target of the serpent is the hand, the craft, the vocation, what a person's hands are given to do.

• Whatever a person's calling, there is also room to do something with the hands. There is nothing called full-time that excuses idleness of the hands. Get something doing, have something trading, even alongside ministry.

The Psychology of Giving

People do not naturally give to the poor, they give to those who already have, and that is the psychology of life rather than the ideal of scripture. A poor man's son gets married and receives plastic tables and plastic cups; a politician's daughter gets married and receives cars she does not even need. That same psychology explains funding patterns across the world, and it is why fidelity and honesty are taught while congregations remain stranded, holy but stunted, pious but poor, because fundamental keys of giving are not being triggered.

Isaiah 54:4

There is a difference between being ashamed and being put to shame. A car breaking down at home is shame kept private; a car breaking down publicly is shame put on display.

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In this kingdom, no stingy person has a future. Giving is not a transaction to force God's hand, it is an expression of love for Him.

How Long the Wait

Genesis 15:13, Exodus 12:40

God told Abraham his seed would be afflicted in bondage for four hundred years; the fulfillment came four hundred and thirty years later.

Joshua 6:26, 1 Kings 16:34

Joshua prophesied that whoever rebuilt Jericho would lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn and its gates at the cost of his last son; that word came to pass seventy years later through Hiel.

• 2 Kings 4:16 — Elisha told the Shunammite woman that by that time next year she would embrace a son; the fulfillment came one year later.
• 2 Kings 7:1 — Elisha declared that by the following day there would be abundance in the gate of Samaria; the fulfillment came within twenty-four hours.
• Matthew 26:34 — Jesus told Peter that before the cock crowed he would deny Him three times; that came to pass within six hours.
• Isaiah 38:1-5 — Isaiah had barely turned to leave Hezekiah when the Lord sent him back with fifteen more years added to the king's life, a fulfillment within minutes.

Whatever the length of the wait, four hundred years, seventy years, one year, a day, hours, or minutes, the fire must still be stirred up.

The Spirituality of Life

It was not poverty that killed Lazarus at the rich man's gate, it was the dogs that licked his sores while he waited, a picture of a challenge that keeps being aggravated the more it is prayed over without discernment of what is truly at work.

Every great man in scripture had his greatness emerge from an encounter, Abraham became Abraham only after the encounter that asked for Isaac.

Deaden Your Ears to the Opinions of Men

Prayer and giving can be pursued, but the third way to stir up the fire is to ignore the opinions of men, because nothing punctures intimacy with God like listening too closely to what people say.

Matthew 4:4

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that word alone should guide a life, not the analysis of onlookers.

• Only friends can betray; enemies cannot betray. Men's opinion is not God's conclusion.
• Zacchaeus was ridiculed for his height and his reputation, yet he was the one man Jesus looked up to, while taller men were passed over.

Every attack on a person walking with God is ultimately an attack on God, and heaven responds accordingly. Pain is a mentor, challenge is a teacher, so the question is never "why am I going through this" but "what should I learn from this," because the phase will pass.

Discernment to separate sticks from snakes applies to relationships as much as anything else. Trusted counsel warns against living too near the church and against keeping too many people constantly in the house, and depth matters more than mere access.

Three Seasons

Life often begins with a frankincense season, the fragrance that attracts people and opportunity, before moving into a myrrh season, a bitter season where God sifts and separates the right company in preparation for the gold season ahead. Not everyone is meant to follow into that gold season.

Declarations