Wednesday Manna Water Service.
October 15th, 2025.
Topic: THE GEOGRAPHY OF ADVERSITY
Text: Proverbs 24:10, Job 14:1.
Minister: Dr. Daniel Olukoya (G.O. MFM Worldwide)
Proverbs 24:10 (KJV) says: “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.
Job 14:1 (KJV) says: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.”
Anyone telling you that you can live a trouble-free life is deceiving you. Hard times are part of human life. Adversity entered into the world through Adam in the garden of Eden, and it has become the lot of man.
- My decreeing prophecy upon everyone here today is this: By the power that established the heaven and earth, that sank Pharaoh in the Red Sea, that destroyed Goliath, your adversity will become testimonies, in the name of Jesus. (a sevenfold amen).
Adversity is Satan’s tool of discouragement and defeat. At the same time, that adversity is God’s way of making giants and warriors. As far as the believer is concerned, adversity always precedes victory. It can come in many forms. It will make you recognise your dependence on God. You will understand “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will answer you, and you will glorify me.”
There is a time of Jacob’s trouble. Unto every life on earth, a little bit of rain of adversity is allowed to fall. The wilderness is still the road to Canaan; Gethsemane still precedes victory. And whether you like it or not, every work of God is opposed. You are saying, “I am working for God; why are they attacking me?” If you are not working for God, they will not attack you. Anytime a destiny to shine is announced and the enemy gets the information, war is waged against you from the bottom of hell.
- I am praying for somebody here today: any power that is saying your star shall not shine and your destiny shall not be fulfilled, with a tenfold amen, bury them now, in the name of Jesus.
But the beauty of our God is that he will not allow more than you can handle. You can disallow adversity from shaking you and turn your troubles to joy. Paul said, “I count it all joy.” Jesus Christ has overcome the troubles in the world, but you have to fight before you win. Nobody is declared a winner in a football match when no match is played.
There is no education like adversity. It teaches people a lot. God’s best soldiers are trained in the school of adversity. One woman was telling me why she learnt to drive. She got a car and got a driver. One day, they were going to work, and this driver put a long chewing stick in his mouth and was winding down to pour out his spit. Madam said, “What nonsense is this? Common remove the chewing stick and concentrate on your driving!”
The man said, “Can you say that again?” She said it again, and the driver continued driving. He did not remove the chewing stick from his mouth. Instead, he drove the vehicle to a dangerous place, parked it, and dropped the key in her lap. He then said to her, “Madam, drive yourself,” and left. She was so pained because she had to ask someone to tow the car away. Another incident happened again with a second driver.
This time, the driver would go to the bus stop and pick up passengers with the car. He picked up one of her brothers in the taxi he was running. That one looked at the car and said, “This is my sister’s car now,” and went to report to her. That was what pushed her to learn how to drive a car. If that did not happen, then perhaps she would learn how to drive.
God’s best soldiers are trained in the school of adversity. He sent Moses to the desert to go and learn that without Him, he could do nothing. He was there learning for 40 years. He sent him back to come and start the work of deliverance. You learn more from adversity than from teachers and books. Adversity has no respect for your brainpower or your wealth. The rich also cry. We were in the psychiatric hospital to pray for somebody when we saw a couple with the latest brand of Benz in those days visiting their only daughter, who had a PhD and was insane. When I saw them, I had compassion on them; I felt sorry for them. I asked them, “What are you doing here?” They replied tearfully, “We are here to see our daughter; she has a PhD, and she is now insane.”
I followed them to the bed where this young girl with a PhD was. She had very rich parents. When I saw her, she had lipstick on, but the lipstick was on her nose. It showed that something had gone wrong. Adversity has no respect for your wealth, standing, family connections, or whether your father is a pastor or not. spirituality. But the stand of the scriptures is this: God will not prevent trouble from happening to you but will deliver you from trouble. He did not say “if thou passeth….”, He said “when thou passeth…”, meaning that certainly, that time will come. Many of you here are passing through your time of Jacob’s trouble now. If not for that trouble, many would not be here today.
If many sisters married well, they would not be here. The enemy made a mistake by bringing problems your way that drove you to Jesus. The enemies of Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego made a mistake to throw them into the fire, and when they did that, these men experienced four miracles:
- Their enemies died in their place. Those who threw them into the fire prepared for them to die by that fire.
- I am praying for someone here today: every fire prepared by your enemies shall destroy them, in the name of Jesus.
- When they got into the fire, it became an air conditioner; it was not burning them.
- Inside that fire, they met the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which the Bible calls “the fourth man in the fire”.
- The king brought them out and promoted them.
If they did not throw them, they would not experience those miracles. The trouble will happen, but He will deliver you from it. “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you.” God digs the well of joy with the spade of adversity. That adversity you are facing is a signal that your life is a threat to some powers. They are afraid of you. That is why adversity is called the best boxing partner. It brings out useful talents which in prosperous circumstances will just lay dormant. So every righteous man will face the plot of the wicked. There is no escape too. If you and the devil are going the same way, there is no collision. But if you are going in the opposite direction, there will surely be a collision.
Do not waste your time saying, “Why is my life like this? Why are they attacking me?” You are just harassing yourself? Do not cry, because if you cry, all you are doing is making the enemies have praise and worship. Adversity forms the platform upon which the Lord can display his power. No one journeys through life without facing challenges, difficulties, painful seasons or something that will test your life.
Adversity is the furnace in which destinies are purified, a classroom in which wisdom is taught. The psalmist says, “Before I was afflicted, I had gone astray.” But when he faced affliction, he became wise very quickly. Every man or woman who has ever risen into greatness passed through the crucible of adversity.
It could be a season of hardship, a state of difficulty, pressure on your character, or a storm that is facing you, but it is a process that shapes your maturity and builds your spiritual depth. It is that adversity that shows who you truly are when comfort is taken away. Some people keep saying, “I cannot steal,” but it is when you have access to money and do not steal it that you can say that. So, adversity is a test that separates pretenders from contenders in the journey of destiny. It is the battlefield where champions are trained and refined. It is a place where destiny is repaired, restored and made to shine. It is the womb of greatness where divine virtues are born. It is a spiritual examination to measure the level of your faith and endurance.
When you say, “I am not praying again,” or “I am not coming to church again,” it means you do not really understand what adversity stands for. There is no education like adversity. If you watch a person in adversity, you understand what kind of person he is. It is universal. It comes upon every man. It has no respect, does not need an invitation, is a rude visitor, and can afflict a person.
You cannot run from it; there is no place you can run to that it cannot meet you. Any preacher or teacher telling you of a trouble-free existence is describing to you a fraudulent dream. Trouble-free life only exists in the cemetery, and that one is even if you know Christ. If you do not know Christ, you are still in trouble in the cemetery where you are.
The truth is this, and what many do not know is that what many people need to get ahead is a powerful enemy that will harass them into their breakthrough. The more colourful your destiny is, the more severe your attack will be. For 20 years, Saul pursued David all over the place. Imagine a king pursuing just one small boy somewhere.
Joseph faced adversity from being sold by his brethren to being thrown into the pit to being sold off as a slave, being a slave in Potiphar’s house, and then landing in prison, but he did not allow all that to shake him. Just like Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, they did not allow what they passed through to shake them. King Nebuchadnezzar told them, “At what time you hear the sound of the flute, organ and dulcimer, bow down to this image I have made.”
The boys did not say, “Why are we even serving God here? After all, God was not asleep when we were carried out of our country to this place. He did not deliver us out of their hands. So why should we serve Him?” They did not say so. When Paul and Silas were arrested, they were dragged through the streets. Their streets were not like ours of today. They were dragged and thrown into the innermost dungeon in the jail. Those men would have said, “See, we are serving God. God is watching from up there, looking at them doing this to us. No, we are not praying again.” But they did not do that. The Bible says, “At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises.” Then the earthquake of deliverance began to shake. Why? They did not listen to the music of the devil.
They did not allow what happened to them to keep them down. This may be difficult for you to believe or accept, but trouble is an asset to the Christian. People do their best when they are up against great opposition. You cannot have victory if you run away from the battle. So every trouble you face as a child of God is a miracle in disguise. That adversity reveals who your true friends are. This is a serious matter. Adversity can make you better or bitter, depending on your attitude and how you react towards it, but I am here to let you know that adversity does not destroy destinies. It refines and purifies because it reveals the real you. Adversity will show you who truly stands with you and who only stood with you for your benefit.
- I am praying for someone here today: may your adversity become triumph. May it become testimonies, in the name of Jesus.
In times of adversity, you are pushed to trust God. You are pushed to do things that ordinarily you thought you could not do. But this is part one of what we are talking about here today. Now, listen carefully. The worst thing that can happen to you when you are in the midst of trouble or adversity is discouragement. When you are discouraged, you will pray the wrong prayers. When you are discouraged, you will be saying the wrong things, and the devil is happy that you are praying the wrong prayers and saying the wrong things.
How can you open your mouth and say, “I am finished”? When you are discouraged, you will be thinking the wrong things. I read a story about a man who went to a tall building and wanted to commit suicide by jumping down.
But while he was still meditating on the way to go about it, someone down below saw him and asked what he was trying to do. The man replied that he wanted to kill himself. The person said, “Sir, before you kill yourself, I can see that you have a wristwatch. Can you take it off and throw it down? I do not have one. I can see that you are putting on shoes; please give them to me. I do not want them stained with blood.” The man could not jump again.
He then saw that his life was not the worst. He realised that although he was poor, he found someone poorer than he was. So, you think the wrong things. When a person is discouraged, they will do the wrong things, go to the wrong places, and get into more trouble. And the enemy wants a person to get into more trouble. That enemy will be pushing the person from mistake to mistake.
Some people’s problem was small until they began to circulate from one prayer house to the other, one prophet to the other, and one mountain to the other, and as they were moving all over the place, the small virtues they had left were withdrawn and taken away without their knowledge because of discouragement. When a person is discouraged, they begin to see the wrong things.
You will be like the Israelites who were seeing the giants instead of God. It was only Caleb and Joshua that saw God. They said, “We will destroy these people.” The others said, “We are like grasshoppers.” They were seeing difficulty instead of God’s power. They were seeing the ‘bigness’ of the Goliath instead of the ‘bigness’ of the power of God. When you allow discouragement to take over your soul, you end up in the wrong place. Then you enter into a wrong spirit.
- So I am praying for those who are here today and counselling you that: May discouragement not steal your miracle, in the name of Jesus.
It was in our church in those days in Akure many years back. There used to be a woman seeking for the fruit of the womb. She had been married for years. Everybody in church knew this woman. Every morning, she was the first to arrive; she would clean and sweep before others arrived. She was consistently doing this every day. One day, the devil went to her and said, “You, this woman, silly you! “Cleaning and sweeping every day since you have been doing it, what has happened?” So that day, she was so discouraged and sat at home. I can never forget that service. As we were about to share the grace, there was a prophecy saying, “Hear the Word of the Lord: I came with my angels today to visit this particular woman, to give her the desire of her heart, but today she is not here. So I have no option but to give these children out to somebody else.” The day discouragement hooked her soul.
Can you lay your hands on your chest and let your voice be violently loud as you shout:
- I fire back every arrow of discouragement by the power in the blood of Jesus.
So discouragement in the days of adversity is what the Bible means by saying, “If thou faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” When somebody enters into the wrong spirit because of discouragement, then the spirit of defeat takes over. The spirits of murmuring, criticism, complaints, and confusion continue like that because discouragement has been allowed to take over. It is a silent killer, a robber of faith. It drains the confidence of God out of a believer. The believer will lose inner strength and start seeing the problem as bigger than God. That discouragement is a spiritual arrow that the enemy tries to use to break a person die. Those voices whispering to you, “You cannot make it,” “You cannot pass,” “You cannot have children,” and “You cannot marry,” are all voices of discouragement.
Discouragement will place a demonic weight on your mind and give you heaviness of the head. That discouragement is a spiritual sickness. It attacks your joy. That discouragement is the tool the devil normally uses to make people lose faith. It makes people give up before their breakthroughs manifest, like that woman. It is what pushes people to the wrong place, knowing that they will lose what they have gathered.
Discouragement is an expert at wounding the soul, a dark cloud that blinds the vision and divine direction. Listen: we have prayers to pray, because if you keep quiet, like those lepers said, “We do not do well if we keep quiet.” If we stay here, we will perish.” Let us take action and be on the move.
- I am praying that God will give you songs in the night, in the name of Jesus.
Christians are getting discouraged today. Some are already thinking that God is not answering them; some will say, “Well, the enemy answers prayers very fast,” not knowing that the enemy is just pushing them into a deeper well. Tonight, make up your mind that discouragement will not push you away from your breakthrough and that you will possess your possession. The temporary problem you are going through is not a full stop in your life; it is a pause, a comma, and your best is yet to come.
PRAYER POINTS.
- My turning point encounter, manifest, in the name of Jesus.
- Strange hands collecting my blessings in the spirit, dry up and die, in the name of Jesus.
- Any demonic meeting, summoned to bury my joy, thunder of God, scatter them in the name of Jesus.
- Powers using my past against my future, you are liars, die in the name of Jesus.
- Angels of divine speed, locate me: push me forward, in the name of Jesus.
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