Pastor Daniel Olukoya is the General Overseer of Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries Worldwide. He is a great teacher and author anointed by God with an uncommon gift and fine expression as a prophet, evangelist and preacher of the word of God. His messages and biblical teachings are thoroughly expressed with the backing of the Bible. One of such was when he delivered a powerful sermon at his weekly services on the anatomy of names. He explained how one’s name can either destroy or help one fulfill destiny. He spoke greatly about how our names could affect our life in its totality.
At one of the Sunday and Wednesday services with the topic, Your Name and Your Destiny, when your names fight you, he says backing it up with a quote from Dan. 1:6-7.” There is a great significance between your name and your destiny. God is interested in the name you bear because name affects your destiny in a very long way. Your name is your identity. We have 2 types of names 1. Physical name, 2. Spiritual name. There are consequences of Evil spiritual/physical names: It brings slow progress, evil family pattern, demonic attack, constant nightmare, curses, incomplete deliverance, it acts against your prayers. In our African society today, so many names are attached to deity. The solution is to carefully make research of the meaning of your name. Find out the meaning of your family (surname). Find out the history of your name, cry out unto the Lord for forgiveness, Change the name(s), You need to cancel every effect of that name in your life. Pray aggressively and targeted prayers. Genesis 32:26-27.
When your name fights you, all tragedies of humanities are due to ignorance. Every man’s mountain is the mountain of ignorance. Fear is the mountain of ignorance.
As a person, you can start learning what won’t favour you, you can begin to learn everything about nothing. Knowledge won’t acquire you, you must acquire knowledge. The recipe for constant ignorance is to be content with your knowledge. The mother of all sin is ignorance. That’s why in the moral of knowledge “Ignorance is not an excuse” The thing that is more expensive than knowledge is ignorance.
Name is important to GOD and Satan. Example is “Thou shall call his name Jesus, because he shall deliver his people”
Names brings prophetic proclamations, Names brings curses or Blessings, Names brings death and afflictions, Names can detain your blessings, Names are important, Names can be a lawyer you have employed for yourself, Name can be a means of prophecy of what will happen in your future, Names inspire Lives, Names inspire destiny and testimonies
Names can say wrong prophecy, In GOD’s own view, some people’s name will stop them from fulfilling their destinies. Some can be heartless; are you here today and you bear a name of the days of the week or market name means you have devoted the business market to Idols.
Sunday is the dedicated day of the sun. Monday is the dedicated day of the Moon. January is named after two-faced demon in Rome, in Janus.
If you name your child after a dead relative, it means that the challenges that the dead relative faced will be faced by the baby. In Yoruba language, the Yoruba use to say “Oloopade”, Oloopade means the idol behind the staff has arrived. Job means suffering and affliction.
Anchored Scriptures: Isaiah 5:13, Phillipians 2:9-10, Acts 4:12, Genesis32:2, Jeremiah 46:1, Isaiah 62:2, Revelations 2:17. We are looking ‘Anatomy of Names’ which will drive us into the Mystery of Names.
All tragedies of human experience is owing to ignorance. Like I use to say ‘Ignorance is the greatest enemy of man, every man’s mountain is the mountain of his ignorance’.
Beloved, ignorance is at the root of most of our problems. Many of us don’t really know what the problems are, so we don’t know who the enemy is. Fear is a product of ignorance. Ignorance is the father of heartless destruction.
Listen carefully beloved, when you are at the university of ignorance, it will control you. It will push you here and there because you really don’t know what to do.
Experimentation is an admission of ignorance. When you continue to experiment, and you are looking for information and you don’t know something. It is a tragedy to be ignorant of your own ignorance. Knowledge is not wisdom, being smart is not wisdom. There are many people who are very smart, but they are not wise. Education too does not bring wisdom. A person can spend the whole of his life learning all the negative and the wrong things that his destiny does not need.
Age is not Wisdom. There are plenty foolish young people and there are plenty foolish old people. A person can be an expert in ignorance. A person can learn everything about nothing.
Ignorance is never out of style, ‘it was a fashion yesterday, it is the rage of today and it will certainly set a pace tomorrow’. Beloved, the truth is this, spiritual ignorance will completely mess you up! All tragedies of human experience are owing to ignorance. Ignorance is lack of knowledge and that ignorance is the creator of all other obstacles. Ignorance they say, ‘is the night of the mind’; that is, the mind is in darkness.
The most dangerous thing in this world is sincere ignorance. The next dangerous thing is when you are ignorant, and you don’t know that you are ignorant. Nothing is worse than active ignorance. What people sometimes call wisdom can sometimes be redefined as organized ignorance.
Beloved, as a matter of fact; there is no slavery but ignorance. An ignorant friend is a dangerous companion. The recipe for constant ignorance is to be satisfied with your own opinion and content with your own knowledge; it is believing you know everything, and nobody knows anything. Therefore beloved, the mother of all siblings is ignorance
I said all these so that you will be able to understand the importance of what we are talking about today; ‘Anatomy of Names.
Names are important to God; names are also important to Satan. Names are also important to people and whether you believe it or not; there are spirits behind names. Names have to do with destiny. A wrong name can destroy a life or destiny. It is not in vain that the angel said ‘thou shall call His name Jesus’. Jacob was blessed by changing his name from Jacob to Israel. Names then, can establish a curse. Names beloved, whether you like it or not or you believe it or not; they are prophetic proclamations. A name speaks of one’s assignment on earth. Perhaps you are not fulfilling your assignment now because the name you bear is opposite the assignment you have been given. I met a brother who said his name meant darkness. How can him be named darkness? A name speaks of character, A name can bring a curse or a blessing. A name can bring death and affliction. Beloved, a name can fight your destiny. Your name could be the lawyer you have hired to fight your destiny. A name can withhold your blessings. Names are very significant and important. Names have meanings, even if you don’t know the meaning; they have meanings. Names influence the lives of people. Names affect the destinies of people. An evil name, will bring evil manifestations to your life. Names are so serious that God Himself gives people names to enable them to fulfil their destinies. If the wisdom of God gives people names to enable them to fulfill their destinies, then we know that the major problem that we have on earth is those names we carry.
Names can release operations of God’s covenants and blessing into a life. If not, God will not be so interested in changing your names. There is a spirit behind names, it sets the tones for a person’s life. Names have dedicating and covenanting power. When people call you your name, they try to get your attention. After everything that Jesus did: He came to the earth – He suffered, He went to the cross – He suffered, He was buried. God didn’t give Him a land or property, God did not give Him a business; but God gave Him a name. There is power in names. God told Abraham that He will make his name great.
God classified affliction with names sometimes, so people’s names matter. Your name is your identity and you want that identity to be right. It is well known that people’s names are very important in scripture. I will be repeating many things in this teaching for the sake of emphasis.
Names are very important in scripture. So when Adam called his wife Eve, it is significant.
When Rebecca gave birth to twins and she names one of them, Jacob ‘the deceiver’; it is significant. When Isaiah married and gave birth to his son and named him Mahershalalhashbaz, there is a good reason for giving his son Mahershalalhashbaz.
When Hosea’s wayward wife bears a son and the Lord chose to name him Lo-ammi meaning ‘not my people’, a hard-wrenching point was being made.
Names are symbolic, names represent the essence of the individual. The essence of that individual was captured in that name. When God created Adam, He gave him that name because it means ‘man’. Eve was created, her name means ‘mother of all living’.
God brought the animals to Adam and asked Adam to give them names. Adam was the one who named them all. I’m sure the names Adam gave to them must have had something to do with the characteristics of the creatures. Jacob was named that name because he took his brother by heel. Jacob literally mean ‘heel hatcher’. His brother Esau, was so red and hairy.
Judah means prince. Samuel means of ‘asked of God’. By the way, have your parent named you Samuel? Then, don’t try to run away from God, you are already divinely dedicated. Any attempt to run away will mean a closure of your destiny.
Jacob became another person entirely after he had fought and wrestled with that angel.gen 32:28.Beloved, names are highly significant and important
From one or more of the following, the names that people bear can have large impact: If you are named religion of the giver of the name, If you are named according to the traditions and the belief of the giver, If you are named according to something that gives a strong impression of the giver, If you are named according to a dead relative that is adored. Saul’s name was changed to Paul in the scripture, there is a reason.
In marriage, the wife takes the name of the husband, this is so because it is a covenant relationship. Beloved, a name normally perform 5 functions: Identification purposes, It reveals something about the bearer, It is ascribing something to the bearer, It personifies the person, bringing the direct presence of the person into immediate manifestation of the person, To portray the state of the person’s background.
When a man’s negative experience aligns with the interpretation of his name, then that name is not correct. Bearing a cursed name can spell disaster on even born again Christians, so you need to check your name beloved. Does it implies evil? That your surname that you are so proud about, what is the meaning of your surname? You say you don’t know, it is not good enough for you not to know the meaning. Does the name aligns itself with unpleasant experiences of life? Is the name dedicated to local gods and idols? Does your name have anything to do with market days, particular trees, animals, rivers, notable ancestors, idol worship, familiar spirit, reincarnations, witchcraft practices or bad family history?
Does your name have relationships with all these things? This is a very serious matter.
When a believer, a Christian; bears a names that suggests evil, misfortune or ruin; he or she does a lot of harm by retaining such names because when that name is called in the spirit realm; it brings an evil oil upon it. It is also not good to have a combination of good Christian names and then, demonic surnames in addition. These are serious issues that the enemy has been using as a serious ladder to destroy so many destinies.
Because names can authorise particular demons to exercise power over them and their offspring(s) and their circumstances and their work and their progress and what they are standing for; other problems in these areas are these: Names given under sad parental experiences, Names given before idol or in front of the shrine, Names given by witch doctors, by magicians, sorcerers and diviners.
Beloved, if you don’t know the meaning of the names you bear, the demons know the meaning and satan and his agents will work tirelessly to execute the curse on a such a person. Jeremiah 46:17.
Pharaoh may be boasting, but in the spirit realm; he is just a mere noise! Some people in the spirit realm have become cow, goat leaf. Many times, change of fortune has been tied to the change of natural names. Abraham, Sarah, Israel, but sometimes; it has been tied to the change of a hidden spiritual name. There is a difference between the hidden ones in the spirit, and the hidden one in the physical. When you have a wrong name in the spirit realm: You are denied access to your rightful position, Good things are silenced from you, Problem grow bigger, Stars get hijacked, Vagabond power begins to pursue you.
Names are serious and God Himself give names. When HE says new name, many things can give you new names: Marriage can give you a new name, you acquire the name of your husband, Salvation can give you a new name, a new creature in Christ, Your academic session can give you a new name and you become a doctor or you become a professor, You can pronounce a new name upon yourself. Job 22:28, Promotions can give you a new name, Divine encounter can give you a new name, Miracles can give you a new name, Divine pronouncement can give you a new name. God can pronounce a new name upon your life and I decree that He shall pronounce that new name upon your life today; in the name of Jesus!
What are you going to do now? There are steps to take: Do not hang on to a bad name because you desire to retain your family heritage, If you have a name that does not glorify God, drop that name and pick a new one, Drop the spiritual principles by which the former name operated to reduce evil experiences, Bring it to force the blessings you actually expect.
There is a book written many years back, called ‘prayer rain’. In prayer rain, there is a section for you to pray; if you will like to change your names. So this is a multi-facet matter. There are natural names that trouble people, there are spiritual names that trouble people. Some of these names are known, some of these names are unknown. Before you can take all these steps, You need to surrender your life to Jesus.
-TAYO OYEDIJI
