POWER AGAINST MARRIAGE SCORPIONS | Prayer Strategies For Singles by Dr. D.K. Olukoya

POWER AGAINST MARRIAGE SCORPIONS

FORCES TO BATTLE

Man, has a lot of forces to contend with. These forces are more in number and more wicked when it comes to the area of marriage. These hostile forces come in various shapes and forms and attack every department of marriage and the family. The odds and the hurdles which have to be scaled are just too many. There is no denying the fact that, the devil is a specialist in stopping every good thing at the stage of infancy. That is why, he always arrange lots of hindrances and stumbling blocks against every genuine effort. You therefore, must be ready to deal with these forces.

You need to ensure, that you have enough power to combat the forces which the devil arranges against the success of your journey into marriage. You should never allow the devil, to intimidate you. You must get to a point in your spiritual life, when you no longer fear any form of attack from the devil. You must always live in consciousness of the fact that the one who lives in you is greater than the one who lives in the world. When you become conscious of the fact that you are more than conquerors through the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be conscious of victory whenever you face any battle.

SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS

The Bible says, “Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). This popular passage centers on the authority of the believer. Two words stand out from the verse: “serpents and scorpions.”

• What they represent

What do serpents and scorpions represent? They represent the powers of darkness in all their ramifications. It is common knowledge that, these two creatures are extremely dangerous. Nevertheless, we are commanded and mandated to tread upon them.

No doubt, God knows that they are loaded with terrible venoms and poisonous stings, yet He commanded us to tread upon them. Doesn’t that sound like achieving the impossible? Not at all. God has made a wonderful provision for us to be able to achieve what He has commanded us to do. That is why the Bible says, “Thy shoes shall be as iron” (Deut 33:25). You can step on anything if your shoes are made of iron. You will live without fear. You will be able to trample upon anything.

If a snake tries to bite an iron shoe, the snake is looking for trouble. A scorpion which tries to sting a shoe made of iron is just wasting its time. The moment God gives you iron shoes you become unbeatable.

The presence of snakes and scorpions in the world gives us an awareness of the fact that there are countless number of enemies in the world. Snakes and scorpions are dangerous creatures. If you have seen a snake in action, you would have noticed that it is difficult to predict its movement. You really cannot know what it is thinking about because it will be expressionless. Do you know that, that is exactly how some enemies behave? You cannot tell whether they are happy with you or not. They are always indifferent. Ask anybody who has ever been bitten by a snake and they would tell you that they did not know that the snake was aiming at them.

There is no one, who does not want to experience success and breakthrough in life. In fact, God has not designed anyone to fail. Problems and failures are satanic products. The devil is behind all kinds of hindrances, evil attacks, failures, sicknesses and everything that has ever constituted problems to men and women.

Something happened recently when I was invited to minister in a particular church which shows that the devil would do everything possible to make men and women lose good opportunities in life. The topic I handled in that service was “Soul Traders.” We had not started praying when somebody screamed from the back saying, “Oh they have come. They want to kill me.” The ushers managed to carry him out of the service before the service went on.

Five minutes later, another man screamed saying, “They have come here to kill me

because they know that I am going to become the president of Nigeria.” Those who were around the man quickly carried their Bibles and looked for other seats. I continued. The third person screamed again and he was also carried out of the meeting.

Do you know why those things were happening? The devil knew that his days were numbered, in the lives of those who attended that programme. He did not want to loose his hold over the three people who were carried out. That was why he attacked them right in the meeting. He knew that if those people had remained under my ministration, that day would have ended all their problems. That was why he created problems which hindered them from benefitting from a life-time opportunity, to get their problems solved once and for all. The devil knew that they were going to get out of his cage. That was why he engineered various problems which hindered them.

We are fighting against very intelligent enemies. That is why Jesus called them serpents and scorpions. Jesus commands us to be as wise as serpents.

WHAT THEN IS THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT?

The wisdom is the ability to bite someone and disappear. The serpent is so clever that it can hide under leaves and grasses without being detected by its victim. It can also move towards its victim without being noticed or detected.

The scorpion is equally crafty. It is also expressionless. A scorpion appears harmless on the surface. It hides its poison around its tail. It walks past its victim harmlessly, only to stretch forth its tail and sting wickedly.

Why are these serpents and scorpions, bent on stopping people by all means?

It is simply because they know that if these wicked creatures are exposed, the people will end up killing the scorpions and serpents. These scorpions and serpents are spirits, with unusual powers and intelligence. Their goal is to bite, sting, and destroy. These creatures have no respect for race, nation, person or status.

Serpents and scorpions abound everywhere. The evil powers, do not want the truth concerning them, exposed. And they are terrible liars. They vary in their power and Wickedness. However, I need to emphasize the fact that they are highly organized. They have been specifically established and instructed to fight against marriages.

I have seen lots of people in African nations, who got into trouble when they were babies. A man became a member of the church three years ago. He came with bundles of problems. He is now above 60 years old. His problem started on the very day he was born. It is customary for parents to consult soothsayers in order to receive divination concerning the future of their children. His parents were illiterates. .

When the local soothsayer was consulted, he gave the parents the result of his findings. “The baby you have brought to me today has a unique star. In fact, I have never seen anyone with

such a fantastic future. I saw him sitting on the throne surrounded by white men and women who were bowing down before him. He is going to be a king, a sort of great man among white men and women. So you must take care of him. This is the child who is going to put an end to all your problems.”

The parents were not at home with the strange divination. They asked the fetish priest, “Do you mean that he is going to travel abroad and leave us alone in the village. Who, then, would take care of us, we shall suffer, becoming a king among white men and women does not mean a thing to us.”

Then they went ahead to tell the soothsayer to do whatever he can to change the future of the child. The fetish priest accepted to do what they wanted. However, he told them that they must be ready to bring the baby’s umbilical cord to his shrine. The parents rushed back and brought it. Then the fetish priest tied a very heavy stone to it, entered a boat and went right to the middle of a big river and threw the umbilical cord there. He then assured the parents that as long as the umbilical cord was under the sea, the man will never travel anywhere beyond his country. That was how the parents and the fetish priest tampered with the destiny of the brother.

You need to have an encounter with the brother in question, to appreciate the level of his suffering in life. He is so intelligent, that if he found his way outside the shores of his country, he would have become a world class genius. The brother is so intelligent and gifted, that if you appoint him as secretary to any meeting and the meeting lasted for three hours, he can listen and reproduce every discussion without writing anything down. The report which he will give you, will make you think that he had a tape recorder hidden somewhere.

He is so intelligent, that one wonders why he was not able to achieve anything. The man was supposed to shine among whites but his destiny was turned upside down. Through his umbilical cord, he became chained to his country. The man spent more than fifty years without discovering himself. The Lord opened his eyes and revealed the secret of his life to him when he came in contact with me. It was then he discovered that he had been diverted to a wrong place when he was one day old. The unfortunate thing was that he had lost almost every opportunity before he came across this ministry.

The powers of the scorpion and serpent have only one duty: to hinder people, from getting to where God wants them to be. They would either give people a bad marriage or prevent them from getting married at all. The purpose of doing this, is to keep their victims preoccupied with problems so that they are never able to destroy the serpents and the scorpions.

The forces behind serpents and scorpions are against your salvation. The only other most important thing in life is marriage.

Do you even know that, the institution of marriage came up before the institution of the church? In other words, God started marriage before He started the church.

The devil knows that God is highly interested in marriage, that is why he is fighting tirelessly against it. Discouragement cannot solve any problem. Crying or shedding tears, cannot give solution to your problem in the area of marriage. The devil does not recognize tears.

Christians today should’ discard the anointing of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, and ask for the anointing of Jesus, the One who has authority and power over all circumstances. This becomes necessary because, the devil has increased the tempo of his battle against marriage. Those who are timid, weak-minded and fearful cannot defeat the devil. What you need therefore, is not discouragement or shedding of tears. The Bible says “The righteous shall be as bold as a lion.”

Discouragement is the most effective tool in the hand of the devil. No matter how many. hours, days, weeks and months you have spent in prayer, one day of depression and discouragement, can cancel everything you have laboured for. One day of depression can cancel all your previous faith, fasting, confession and prayer efforts. This is why, many people have not been able to achieve anything tangible in the area of marriage. They take one step forward and four steps backward, whenever discouragement comes.

A sister came to complain to me that she has prayed without getting any result.

She said:” I have come to tell you that I am fed up. I am no longer ready to wait for God’s direction. I am already thirty two years old. Those who were coming to me for marriage over the years are Alhajis and irresponsible men. I am fed up. I have served Jesus for six years and He has disappointed me. I cannot lay hold on anything as what I have received from God all these years. I have now decided to do it my own way. Don’t be surprised, if you suddenly find me pregnant any moment from now. I wouldn’t mind becoming a third or a fourth wife. I am sad, because people are laughing at me. All my younger sisters have got married, and they are all asking me to pack out of the family house. I am no longer ready to keep on hoping, that God will one day direct me. I have come to inform you that, I have finally made up my mind, that I will just go ahead and get pregnant for just any man.”

I looked at her and shook my head. I was extremely sad. Do you know what made me sad? As the lady was standing before me I saw an angel right beside her carrying her wedding gown. God had not forgotten her. The angel was only waiting for God to finish dealing with the sister’s enemies before handing the wedding gown to her. What she did not know was that if the wedding gown had been given to her when her enemies were very much around they would have snatched it from her.

God is never late. Delay is not denial. Perhaps the Little delay you are experiencing, is necessary for God to thoroughly deal with every serpent and scorpion who are likely to constitute problems to your marriage. That is why, those who avoid waiting and decide to rush into marriage often experience mysterious problems.

We have cases of people who got married and died either on their on the wedding day or during child birth. They would have escaped such calamities, if they had taken the time to deal with serpents and scorpions. They would also have enjoyed their marriages, if they have allowed God to deal all the necessary blows on all the enemies of their marriages.

Therefore, don’t be in a hurry, you must give God time, to sort out all the enemies.

You must be ready to strike a balance between faith and warfare. Nobody should be

deceived by simplistic statement made by modern-day fake preachers. You must not allow anyone to deceive you by telling you that the devil is dead. The devil is not dead. He is alive and active.

Some preachers give people the impression that the devil has no power. Where then did the magicians who challenged Moses got the power to turn their rods to serpents? Certainly, they did not use the power of the Holy Spirit.

When you tell some people, to face the battles of their lives, they would tell you that Jesus has won the battle and that they do not need to fight any battle again. Others would tell you, “I don’t care about any battle because the devil is under my feet.” Such statements are half-truths. Nobody contests the finished work of Christ, but you have to enforce what Jesus had finished or settled. You must fight to possess your possession.

You can call the devil any name. But never call him a fool, because he is very intelligent. He has dealt with men and women for more than six thousand years. He is much more intelligent than human beings. He was in heaven before and he was able to acquire a lot of wisdom through his staying in the presence of God before he fell. He knew how God organizes the various departments in heaven. He had therefore stolen from the wisdom behind the spiritual and physical structures in heaven. He now uses that wisdom in his own kingdom.

Therefore, the devil knows what to fight against. He has continued to focus his warfare, on hindering the right matches or preventing the right people from discovering and accepting themselves.

Secondly, he hinders many people from getting married at all.

Thirdly, he causes late marriages.

Fourthly, he causes problems, between those who are planning to get married.

The devil is sufficiently aware of the fact that, there is no force on earth, that can hinder a couple that is completely united with each other.

More than anything else, the devil dreads the prayer of a husband and wife whose hearts agree as touching anyone thing in prayer. That is why, the devil’s priority, is to attack the foundation of any marriage. The devil knows that you are going to become dangerous to his kingdom if he should allow you to get married without any problem. That is why the Bible has said, “If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” You must not allow the devil to tamper with your foundation.

I remember the interesting story of a brother, who came up with a very long list of the characteristic features of the kind of lady he would like to marry. His list was indeed very funny.

1. The lady must have a minimum qualification of B.A. or B.Sc. degree.

2.

3.

4.

The lady must not be fat.

She must be very tall, with straight legs.

She must have an excellent singing voice.

That was a clear description of what he wanted. It is interesting to know that, he actually got someone whom he felt met all the four conditions. He brought the lady to the pastor. His pastor had a lot of doubt about the lady. So ,he asked the brother, “Can you tell me what the Lord told you about this lady?” He tried to answer but he was not loud enough. His pastor asked him to go back and pray again to be sure of what God actually want him “to do. When a pastor tells a member, to go and pray again, he is simply saying that the member must have made a mistake.

However, the brother came back and maintained that it was the same lady. The pastor could not persuade him to change his mind. The brother went ahead and married the lady. The wedding ceremony was highly successful by human standards.

When they got home, the brother asked the wife to kneel down with him so that they can pray together. Both of them knelt down in their wedding dresses and the brother led the prayer, but the wife refused to say Amen. The brother stopped to ask her why she was not saying Amen. Her answer was shocking, “I don’t want to say Amen. I don’t want to have anything to do with the name of Jesus.”

There was no going back for the brother. He had married a wife who was highly demonic. That brother’s example, shows us that, all those who decide to claim whatever they like through blind faith must be prepared to face the consequence.

It is quite simple to say “I am not afraid of anything. The Bible has told me that wherever the sole of my feet shall tread, I shall possess.” Well, that is true. But you can graduate from that level and become a believer who can say “O Lord, not my will but thy will be done.” The brother met somebody who met all his conditions. He had his way. He failed, because he did not depend on the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Do not depend on your own understanding, when it comes to the issue of the choice of a partner. If God decides, to give you the lady who does not appear to meet your requirements, it is better to accept God’s will, than to go for somebody who will drink your blood. The devil knows that once he succeeds in making you take a wrong step, he has destroyed the foundation of your life. That is why he concentrates his energy on the initial approach.

He generally influences men and women to base their choices on lust or physical attraction.

Most people have built their homes on the foundation of wild and foolish love.

Whenever a marriage is based on lust, age, or beauty, couples end up having problems when these things fade away. The forces of darkness employ the weapon of lust, infatuation, and demonic attraction. When such marriages are contracted, they end up becoming marriages of

convenience.

Somebody phoned me from overseas saying, “Doctor Olukoya, I would like to inform you that there is someone who wants to marry me. But the problem with that man is that he is not worthy to be my husband. Do you think I should marry him?” I told her to think properly about the step she was about to take. I asked her, “What makes you think that you are the only one who wants to manage the man. What if the man is just trying to manage you also, both of you might end up managing each other.” That kind of marriage cannot work.

Some people take blind steps into marriage. They come across a man, they don’t even know where he lives, and they agree to follow the man to the marriage registry. People who pick themselves on the road in that manner, cannot experience a happy home. Also, all those who go into sex before marriage are building their homes on the foundation on failure. When any marriage is based on the principle of the forces of darkness, such a marriage will not last.

A secondary school student suddenly becomes pregnant and the parents force her to get married. That kind of marriage will surely not work. Very soon, they will part the way they met. If you are not led by the Spirit of God, your marriage can never be established on a solid foundation.

The issue of marriage has become the most difficult area of life in the African continent. Forces of darkness are attacking young people, by hindering them from getting married. We all know that powers of darkness are very active in the African society.

One of their major tasks is to ensure that no home is successful or peaceful. These forces begin their work right from the home. They attack bachelors and spinsters who want to get married. The moment they discover that someone has known the will of God in marriage, they try to frustrate and confuse such a person.

They also attack those who are yet to discover God’s choice for them in marriage, by trying to influence such people to pick just anybody.

Those who have been settled in the area of choosing the right partner are not spared by satanic forces. They also make sure that they place stumbling blocks before them. That is why we often come across brothers and sisters who have made up their minds to marry each other, but cannot make any progress for two or three years.

Why is the devil doing all these? It is simply because he knows that the moment you succeed in the area of marriage, he would have lost a great battle. This matter is so weighty that I would like you to close your eyes right now and take these prayer points. This is not a prayer to be handled with levity. Psychedelic or academic prayers will not work in this area. You must pray fervently and with holy aggression. The only prayer that can destroy all the works of satan set up against your marriage is violent aggressive prayers done in violent faith.

Any evil power, that does not want to leave me alone, fall down and die, in the name

of Jesus.

Any household wickedness, that does not want to leave me alone, fall down and die, in Jesus’ name.

If you take these prayer points aggressively, a lot of things will be destroyed in the spiritual realm.

That the enemy is fighting against your own marriage needs no argument. You must therefore, seek to understand and identify the type of forces which he is using against you. If you are an African, you would have noticed that there are myriads of local forces which the devil uses to hinder people from getting married and to work against marriages that have already been established.

THE LOCAL FORCES

What then are these local forces?

• Collective captivity

This is a very powerful demonic force. How do you identify collective captivities? Whenever you see a family where every member is suffering from the same problem, such people are suffering from collective captivity.

I have come across cases, where each of the ladies from a particular family failed to get a husband. I have also seen cases where members of the same family who are men and are aged 35 years and above failed to find any woman who will accept marrying them. I have also seen families, where everyone who ever married ended up with divorce.

Again, I have seen families where all married couples were childless. That is an example of collective captivity.

If you know a particular family where there are three or four ladies who are mature and none of them is able to get anyone who has proposed marriage to her, then you must understand that they are suffering from collective captivity.

When you see sisters from the same parents who are 35, 40 and 42, and cannot get anyone to marry them, then you are sure that there is a stubborn yoke, in that family. The problem is not limited to one member of the family, it is a general problem.

Let us look at a typical family. Sister Mary is the first born of the family, she is 42, and she is not married. Sister Joy is the second child, she got married, and was later divorced by the husband. Brother Keneth is the third child, he is 38 and has vowed not to marry until he comes across a Chinese sister who is born again. Incidentally, the brother who wants to marry a Chinese sister does not even have an international passport. The fourth member of the family is a lady, working on her Masters’ degree. At 36, she has vowed never to marry until she has her Ph.D. degree. The last child of the family is 34 years old, he is a businessman. He has told everyone that he would never think of getting married until he has made his millions. That was how everyone of them failed to get married as a result of flimsy excuses, and un-natural reasons.

Such people may never marry, except they went through deliverance, and secure divine intervention in their situations. Are you suffering from collective captivity?

A very wealthy woman once came to me with a very strange problem. She was married to a man who refused to do any work. The woman provides all the money needed to run the family. The man wakes up in the morning, takes his bath, and applies expensive perfume on his body. He dresses up, brushes his teeth and takes his breakfast. Then, he seats down throughout the whole day watching Television. He goes to sleep whenever he is tired. He doesn’t do any

business.

Funny enough, he calls his wife whenever it is Christmas time saying “Madam, do you want your husband to stay in the house without any money in his pocket. Give me some pocket money. Twenty or fifty thousand Naira will be O.K.” The woman would write him a cheque because she was very rich. That was how the man became woman in his house and the woman the head of the family.

The woman became disturbed by the situation and decided to come to me for counselling and prayer. As I closed my eyes to pray for her, the Lord told me to stop praying and ask her some questions. Then I told her to sit down and answer some questions. The first question I asked her was:

“How many ladies are there in your family?”

“My mother had 8 daughters.”

“Did your parents give birth to any male child?”

I probed further, “How many of your sisters are married?” “None”, she answered, “I am the only one who is married.”

Then I sat her down and made her to understand that she was suffering from collective captivity. I also told her that all the children of her parents were not supposed to get married at all. She had broken the rule, that was why her marriage was not working. I told her to go through deliverance, in order to break loose from her family’s captivity. It was only at that point that it dawned on her that her husband’s strange behavior was an off-shoot of the problem of her family.

If you are passing through this kind of situation, you cannot experience success in your marriage plans unless you identify and break the yoke that is responsible for the problems.

Something has continued to baffle me. There are cases of people who come to me for help, without being conscious of the depth of the problem which they were going through. I remember a particular case of a lady who came from a family of five. Everyone of them was suffering from collective captivity, except the only one who was born again. She was given some prayer points and told to pray in order to move herself away from underneath the evil umbrella.

Instead of going to pray, she said, “Excuse me pastor, I did not come to see you because of myself, I am concerned about the situation of the other members of the family. After all, my own problem is very small, when compared with that of other members of the family. The first born of the family is 50 years old, and he is not yet married. The second child is 45. She did not get married, she only managed to have a child for a married man. Why should I be so worried about myself. After all, I am only 33 years old. Why don’t you talk about my other brothers and sister.”

That was a very foolish approach. Even if we talk about the condition of members of the family who were not born again, they were not yet qualified to experience deliverance from

collective captivity.

The way out of captivity is for members of the family who are already born again, to first get out of the bondage, before thinking of helping other people. If you decide to concentrate on the condition of unsaved members of your family you will end up prolonging your captivity. However, if all the members of the family are born again, the job becomes easier. All of you can get yourselves together, and declare war on the powers that are holding you captive.

• Anti-marriage forces

If you discover that your marriage is following the evil pattern of your parents in any way, then you need to fight against anti-marriage forces. If it happens that your father or mother could not really settle down in the family, and you are also finding it hard to sort out yourself in the area of marriage then you need to realize that something has been passed down to you. It is unlikely that the same anti-marriage forces which fought against your parents’ home, are also at work in your own marriage.

You have probably inherited anti-marriage forces from your parents. You must pray against anti-marriage forces. Even if the anti-marriage forces are working against your life without your having inherited them, you must still fight against those wicked forces.

• The travails of the first born

In the African society, the first born is generally besieged on all fronts. This happens for a number of reasons.

One, the first born is often a target of attack. Enemies generally believe that the first born is the glory of the home. They believe that if they succeed in destroying the first born of the family, they have gotten the glory of that family. In some places, the first born of a family is dedicated or covenanted to family idols. Such an evil dedication, generally puts the first born into all kinds of troubles.

Besides, whenever parents have their first child, they normally take such babies to fetish priests for protection. Their purpose is to preserve the life of the first born. They also end up introducing problems into the life of such a baby.

Three, the first born in a large or polygamous families are often attacked by other children in the family. They do so in order to prevent the first born from claiming the father’s inheritance. In some families, the father has many houses, lands, farms and other valuable properties. The other children, often gang up or fight individually against the first born. Whichever way you look at it, the first born of the family is generally under attack. That is why, it is often difficult for the first born to succeed in life. He receives most of the attacks that come into the family. This is the travail of the first born.

Unfortunately many first born have been used as human torches to clear the road for other members of the family. They carry the load of other children in the family. Other children in the family generally end up doing very well, while the first born remains useless to himself and to the

family. You must break the yoke if you happen to be the first born of your parents.

• Spirit husband or spirit wife

The problems of spirit wives or spirit husbands are universal. It is not limited to the African society. The spirit wives/husbands phenomenon is spiritual in nature. Hence, it knows no geographical boundary. It has become so popularised that the whites have given special names to it. They call them Incubus and Succubus. Spirit wives and spirit husbands operate in two ways.

The first method of operation involves the activity of real demons who come to people in the dream to excite and abuse them sexually. These powers forcefully marry their victims in the dream. The demons are so powerful that once they have taken somebody as their wives, they become very jealous. That is why some women die during childbirth. Their spirit husbands are jealous and will never allow them to give birth to children in real life.

A woman who has a spirit husband would find it very difficult to get married. In fact, the spirit husband will be so angry that he will attempt to deal with anyone who tries to share his wife with him.

The second category consists of wicked human spirits, who decide to use their power against you. The wicked satanic agents could be a man or a woman. Such a spirit wife or spirit husband comes across someone whom they admire. But, because they did not know what to do in real life they decide to use their evil powers to get what they want when their victims are unconscious. They simply transfer their spirits out of their bodies, take up the appearance of someone who is familiar with their victims and then go ahead to have sex with them.

They could put on the face of their fiance or fiancee, a respected friend, a relative or even a pastor in order not to attract suspicion or resistance. If the spirit husband or wife comes to you as a total stranger you are likely to resist the move. But you will probably give in if the appearance happens to be that of someone you have already accepted to get married to. By the time such wicked human beings have succeeded in having sex with you, they would have also transferred some evil poisons into your life.

You must therefore, destroy and paralyze every spirit husband or wife who attempts to destroy your chances of achieving a stable marriage.

I pity those who have sex in dreams and decide to ignore it. Such people discover that every plan they make towards getting married, ends up in failure and confusion. This is simply because the one to whom they are married in the spiritual realm has placed some embargo on their lives.

Don’t tolerate any attack from spirit husbands or spirit wives. If you accommodate them by allowing them to constantly have sex with you in your dreams, you are allowing problems into your life in the area of marriage.

• Financial curse

A lot of people today are under the curse of poverty and financial embarrassment. They

work like elephants and eat like ants. They patch everything ranging from shoes to their dresses. Some people get to the point where the shoemaker becomes tired of mending their shoes, advising them to throw the shoes away and buy another one. Others have to beg before they can eat a meal. Some men who are praying about getting married have no accommodation of their own. Some of them sleep on a mat near their uncle’s bed. If such a man finds a wife where will he make his home?

Financial curse can hinder a man from getting married. Whenever an evil power, wants to hinder a man from getting married, they will attack him with the curse of poverty, knowing that someone who is extremely poor will find it difficult to get married. This is one of the satanic weapons which have been used to make a lot of people to decide not to get married.

• Bad family names

Many people have tried very hard to get married, and have failed woefully. Their moves to get married have been checkmated by their evil family names. Some of these have demonic origin. Others are attached to a very powerful idol. If you have tried to get married without succeeding you should settle down to examine your family name. Have you thought about your family name? It could be the source of all the disappointments which you have had.

Many believers have experienced great things in their lives, immediately they decide to change their names. They discover that problems disappear as soon as they effect a change of name.

A woman once came to me because she had a strange dream. While she was sleeping, someone came to her with a double barrel gun. The strange personality looked at her and announced “Madam you are dying today.” She was so fearful that she shouted “Jesus help me.” Immediately, she found two sticks of broom beside her. She took up the two brooms and attempted to fight a man who was holding a gun. She woke up and shouted for help from the neighbour who helped her to my office for prayer. I had to interview her before praying about her problem. “Madam what is your name”, I asked her? She answered “Sir, my name is Sobote.”

If you understand Yoruba language you will understand that her name is pregnant with meaning. It simply means ‘wizard gave birth to rebellion.’ That was the meaning of her name. Tell me how won’t such a name work against her. She was living under the heavy load of the consequences of rebellion and witchcraft.

If your name is Sangobiyi, which means Sango (the idol of thunder) gave birth to you or Esubiyi, which means Esu (the most wicked demonic deity in Yoruba mythology) gave birth toyou, then you can be sure that something is wrong somewhere.

An Ibo man came to me, sometime ago, for prayer and deliverance. When I asked to know his name I became shocked when he told me that his name means darkness in Igbo language. Such a man will experience a lot of darkness in his life. Should he continue to bear such a name? You must get rid of evil names. You should settle down to examine your family name. You must cancel every unprofitable name if you want to make progress in your marriage.

• Satanic marks

Here, I refer to invisible marks. I know people who are followed by evil marks everywhere they go. Whenever they lay their hands on anything, they meet with failure. Bachelors and spinsters who have evil marks in their lives often experience marital failure.

Ladies have become helpless victims of satanic marks. When such ladies come across a man who promises to get married to them, they go ahead to make wonderful plans, only to be surprised to discover a sudden or drastic change in the attitude of the man, who was once loving and sweet.

Something happened in France recently. A lady was brought to the court and charged for indecent assault. What actually happened was that, she had been engaged to a man who suddenly decided that he was not going to have anything to do with the lady again. She made two thousand telephone calls to the house of the man who jilted her within 24 hours. The man became tired of being inundated with embarrassing telephone calls and dragged her to court. That was how the lady was sentenced to imprisonment.

Unknown to the lady, there was an evil mark in her life. That was why the man was no longer interested in her. If you have discovered that, everyone who has promised to get married to you ends up changing their minds, you must realize that there is an evil mark upon your life. You must get this evil mark erased through the blood of Jesus.

When men, who are having evil marks upon their lives come across women who will profit them, they would avoid such women and go for those who will give them problems. That is an evidence of having an evil mark.

• The Spirit Of Rejection

The problems of many people, who have had difficulties in the area of identifying, choosing and getting married to the right partner, stem from the fact that they are attacked by the spirit of rejection. Whenever you see a bachelor or a spinster who is afraid of getting married as a result of the fear of having a bad marriage, then you can be sure that such a person has decided to carry the rejection which he or she suffered in the past into the future.

Some people, do not have any good memory concerning their past lives.

Those who were hated, abused and maltreated by their parents or guardians generally find it difficult to believe that they can ever have a stable home.

Those whose fathers or mothers were very wicked to them, generally find it difficult to trust anyone.

If you examine the lives of those who have negative attitudes to life, you would have discovered that such people never experienced any form of parental love. Such people, generally started out in life with a bad foundation. Maybe, when they were young, they lost their parents and had to live with some wicked uncles who treated them as if they were not human beings.

Maybe they went from the house of such wicked uncles, to live with their grandmothers. By the time they tell you the number of places they had lived, you will come up with ten or so places. When you interview them, they would tell you that they believe that nobody on earth loves them. Such people are generally introverts. A very powerful spirit of rejection had settled in their lives.

With that background, facing the future will be difficult. Such people, need to receive deliverance from the spirit of rejection.

• Parental Curses

Parents generally curse their children as if such curses do not really mean anything. When a child makes a mistake, parents often make statement like “Your child will do to you what you have done unto me.” That is a very terrible curse.

Many mothers and fathers curse their children in moments of anger. They make statements like “You will never experience peace in your home.” “You will never settle down in your own home.” “None of your children will ever listen to you because you refused to listen to me.” “You will never make it in life. Everything you will lay your hands upon, will end up with failure. You will only succeed in life if you did not suck my breast.”

Such powerful curses have worked against the lives of so many people today.

The truth is that our parents have authority over us. Their curses can work upon our lives if we fail to cancel every parental curse which has been placed upon your life since you were born.

• Bad Health

A lot of people experience marital failure because of bad health. There are people who always become sick each time they come up with serious plans in the area of marriage. What do you think would happen, when a man decides to get married to a lady and discovers that the lady is always sick? The man would think of running for his dear life, in order to avoid taking care of a sicklier all the days of his life.

There are people, who always fall sick mysteriously, whenever they come across a decent partner. This kind of sickness is not normal. It is generally ochestrated by powers that hinder marriage. Nobody wants to marry sicklier. Satanic agents are always active in manipulating the health conditions of those who want to get married.

A sister once narrated a strange experience to me. She had taken her fiance to her father who happened to be serious demonic agent. The father specifically instructed them to go for blood test in a particular clinic. Unknown to her, the father was looking for ways of rejecting her fiancee. He had connived with the doctor of that clinic who was a member of the same cult. His goal was to give them an evil clinical prophecy. I therefore advised an them to go to a popular Nigerian University College Hospital, a place that is respected for medical laboratory tests.

They followed my instructions to the letter and came back with a favourable result. When they gave the result of the blood test to the girl’s father, he screamed at them asking them why they decided to avoid the particular clinic which he chose. They simply told him that they did the test at a renown university hospital. The father felt disappointed, but there was nothing he could do. His satanic plan failed woefully.

Don’t allow the devil to manipulate your health condition and set it up as a stumbling block on the road to your marriage.

• Spiritual Dowry

Just as bride price is important in the physical realm, it is also important in the spiritual realm.

What then does a spiritual dowry mean?

The payment of spiritual dowry takes place in the spiritual realm. If you have a wicked mother or grandmother, who belongs to the spirit world, such a parent, may decide to give out your hand in marriage and collect your bride price in the spiritual realm. That means that, you have been married in the spiritual realm.

Generally, the fact that a dowry has been paid by a personality in the spiritual realm means that you have already got married. It will be difficult, therefore, to find anyone who will accept to get married to you in real life.

Unfortunately, most people are not aware of the payment of such a dowry. Therefore they make several efforts in order to get married but every effort fails, because their parents have collected the bride price in the spiritual realm. Nobody will ever come up to pay any dowry on such a person. This is one of the local forces which cause problems in marriages in the African environment.

• Anti-maintenance Forces

This local evil forces, will allow you to start a relationship but will never allow you to maintain the relationship. The problem of most people is that they are very quick to start new relationships, but they don’t know how to keep the relationship going. This is the work of anti-maintenance forces.

• The Spirit Of Polygamy

This spirit, is prevalent in almost every African community. It is a common knowledge that most African families are polygamous in nature. This is not an ordinary thing. There is a spirit behind it. When this kind of spirit, comes upon a woman, she will never find a man who has never married before to marry her. All those who propose marriage to her, are all married. All of them are inviting her to become second or third wife.

A man who has the anointing of polygamy will never be satisfied with one woman. Although he has one or two wives at home, he will still be busy roaming about like a foolish dog. This kind

of men are capable of doing a lot of unimaginable things. They can sleep with a woman everyday throughout the month without getting tired. Some pastors who belong to this category and fail to go through deliverance have fallen flat on their faces because the single wife which they have at home cannot cope with their excessive demand for sex.

• Evil Marriage Covenant

A lot of people have gone into evil marriage covenant, without being conscious of it.

Unknown to such people, they have been donated to certain powers or shrines.

If you are in this category, you are already covenanted. You will find it difficult or impossible to break loose and live your own life.

• Broken Homes

If your parents are divorced or separated, you have a lot of prayers to pray. Those who come from broken homes, often find it difficult to achieve marital stability.

You must shield your own marriage from such evil influences. It has been observed that most of the people who come from broken homes often suffer the problem of marital instability themselves.

• Homosexuality And Lesbianism

This is a very stubborn force, which fight against people’s efforts, towards getting married. The problem of homosexualism and lesbianism is not only restricted to the western world, it has also become common in Africa. If you attended a boarding house meant for boys or girls only, you would have discovered that it is generally common for girls to try to behave to other girls as if they were men. They often try to use many methods to give themselves some ungodly pleasure.

These twins’ sins constitute a gross violation of Biblical principles. You must also deal with this problem if it is present in your life, or if you have ever got involved with it in the past.

You must deal with all these local forces, if you want your journey into marriage to be smooth, and if you want your marriage to work.

Deal with every local marriage scorpion today. Pray until all the hindrances to getting married successfully are consumed with the fire of the Holy Ghost. Subject all marriage scorpions to the fire of aggressive warfare prayers.

Your testimony is sure, in Jesus’ name.