TB Joshua, The Synagogue And Conspiracies
Posted: 10:20 am, April 3, 2009
By Christopher Anu Fobeneh

TB Joshua is a maverick. ‘Can a man using demonic powers cast out demonic spirits? Can Satan fight Satan? Doesn’t the Bible say a house divided against itself cannot stand? If I’m of Satan, how come I cast out demons? It will be likened to the case of dog eating dog.’

These are the kind of abstract questions that TB Joshua poses to anyone who bothers about the source of his healing power. He raised the questions with me when I sat one-on-one with him for an interview. Watch or read his press interviews. You will agree with what I’m saying – he never answers questions. If you are not a mature journalist, he makes you look stupid in the eyes of your readers.

TB Joshua makes innuendos and mesmerizes at all questions asked him during any press conference or interview. He says very little and means nothing. I received quite a handful of mails from suspecting and inquisitive readers of this newspaper after the first part of this story was ran. They wanted to know what I know about Mr. Joshua’s powers and whether he’s a true preacher of the Gospel or not. A little background of the man will serve the answer.

TB Joshua was the last of seven sons born to Mr. & Mrs. Kolawole Balogun of Arigidi Akoko, Imo, Ondo State, Nigeria. He was born June 12, 1963. His early childhood was quite a miserable one – his father passed on when he was only three. Education wise, he seemed not to have been anywhere near the rank of honoured students. Though he obtained the GCE ‘O’ Level, he sat seven times to achieve it. His father had two wives. His mother played second fiddle. In the absence of a father, TB lived and worked at the pleasure of Mallams. He will load trucks and transport garri with them to Lagos. It was through this, he said, he found habitation in Lagos, where his elder sister lived in Egbe, the town in which he will eventually establish the Synagogue Church.

When I first interviewed him in 1997, one of the questions I was very keen to getting an answer for, was that of his own personal relationship with God. And I began like this; ‘Man of God, if one were to ask the Apostle Paul, how and when he first became a Christian and then an Apostle – I mean, how he first got saved, the Apostle Paul will surely refer to the encounter he had with Christ on the way to Damascus. How that Christ appeared to him and got him not only converted but transformed. "Sir," I asked, "can you tell our readers when you first gave your life to Christ before getting into this work of the ministry? – I mean, how were you saved, when did you become a Christian? What is your testimony of salvation?"

There is no other yard stick of measuring who a true born-again Christian is except by his/her testimony of salvation. And whether you are a right or left Rev, Archbishop, or Bishop, it is your testimony that tells who you truly are. This is the only way you can tell who is a true man of God. If one claims to be a servant of God – no matter the amount of miracles, if he has no salvation testimony, if he cannot tell when he first met the God of miracles, he is a fake. There is no other standard. Miracles do not and have never validated one’s relationship with God.

I observed that TB Joshua loves publicity. He loves being in the lime light. He will go any length to have the popular media cover his shady deals and blow his trumpet. That’s why hundreds of journalists are made fat at the Synagogue. This question I asked was again posed when they wrote to Pat Robertson of CBN – Christian Broadcasting Network, (the 700 Club) to visit the Synagogue. One of the producers of CBN, Victor Oladokun, happened to be a Nigerian. For over 18 months, the Synagogue mounted pressure on this guy to make CBN to visit Nigeria so to feature the numerous miracles of the Synagogue and to have a chat with the man of the house. But before CBN could travel to Nigeria, it needed to do some back grounding on TB Joshua and his Church.

One of its producers was assigned to call the Synagogue for this purpose. They wanted to know when TB Joshua became a Christian – when did he become a born again; under which pastor was he saved? In which Church was he worshipping when he got saved? Who are the pastors he could give as reference? They also wanted to know whether he belonged to the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, (PFN) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). To all these questions, no reasonable answer was provided and CBN became suspicious and the whole thing was cancelled.

Jesus said in scriptures that not all who call Him Lord are his own. He equally said some will come in His name performing signs and wonders and will deceive many. It is the case with TB Joshua. This is exactly what TB Joshua has succeeded to do and it is pathetic that very many good Christians are being swayed. He justifies his healing prowess by arguing that, if he were of Satan, he will not be casting out demons- after all, dog does not eat dog. But I state as one who has seen things first hand and with a discerning mind that the man of the Synagogue is neither servant nor prophet of the Living God. Not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Reason?

TB’s answer to the question regarding his personal salvation corroborated that he doesn't have Christ in him. He told me and I quote, "This thing has always been in me when I was growing up." In fact, he told another magazine – one of his propaganda news magazines, THE BIOGRAPHER, of July/August, 1998, page 9, that, "I will only say that from childhood I separated myself from sin."

A grown-up Christian will agree that no one ‘grows up’ with the gifts of God. And neither is any one born with the gifts. They are given at the moment one makes a conscious decision to surrender to Christ. It is only there and then that one can start growing or nurturing the gifts. That’s why they are called gifts of Grace. What is very remarkable in TB’s answers is the fact that he makes no mention of a Church he grew up in nor a pastor that discipled him. It is a known convention in Christendom that for one to be an Elijah, -a pastor, he must have first served as an Elisha under some greater authority. But nowhere in TB's life does one see a spiritual mentor or father. And not only this, he has never seen the four walls of a Bible seminary.

In fact, in Nigeria, he has no minister friend from within main stream Pentecostalism and the Charismatics. The PFN rebuked him as a servant of the devil. CAN, the Christian Association of Nigeria, even though it is considered a loose liberal organization, refused to call him a fellow brother or minister. But he craves for it with all that is within his power. The late Archbishop of Church of God Mission, Benson Idahosa was very vociferous against him.

When he died in 1998, TB and his disciples in the false humility characteristic of them suggested that Idahosa died because he opposed a man of God, referring to TB Joshua. He hates W.F Kumuyi of Deeper Life Church, Pastor Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Ayo Oritsejafor of Word of Life Church in Warri, Mike Okonkwo of TREM, among others solely because they will not recognize him as a fellow minister. And it is here his dealings and connection with Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy Church comes in.

In his quest for membership and recognition by the PFN and CAN, Oyakhilome, according to a defector from the Synagogue, was hired with the sole purpose of connecting TB to the rest of the Pentecostal world. Other pastors of major Churches that he initiated into this cult of thing were Pastor Anwuzia of Zoe Ministries, Gabriel Oduyemi of Bethel City, Lagos.

Others were pastors of white garment churches – the Celestial and the Cherubim and Seraphim Churches. But his plot to get admitted into the PFN, according to sources, was basically going to be through Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy. The thing botched when a Lagos tabloid printed a photograph showing TB and Oyakhilome jointly laying hands on the sick at the Synagogue. Solomon Ozi David, a co-founder of the Synagogue with TB Joshua, the defector, narrates the story.

"Pastor Chris Oyakhilome happened to have been in some strange deals with us… This Oyakhilome was brought by Ezego (a drug pusher) and one Anajemba. These two had known Oyakhilome. They linked us with this Oyakhilome who was already accepted in the Christian fold so that we could be accepted too," Ozi David said.

He spoke exclusively to City People and The New Treasure, both are Lagos papers. He said "a lot of money was given to Chris Oyakhilome" by TB Joshua. In exchange for the money, Oyakhilome was made to take an oath of loyalty – not to betray the man of the Synagogue. They requested that "blood should be exchanged. Then we took his finger nails, cut some part of the hair from his forehead.

We also marked his tongue and took part of the hair from his pubic." This initiation gave Oyakhilome the healing powers he now operates in. Hear him, "Oyakhilome is demonic… He had been able to gather people before we met. But he could not perform miracles, he could only take hold of people through deliverance, but he couldn’t perform any miracle." The whole deal between the Synagogue and Oyakhilome became a big scandal as other pastors in Nigeria discovered Oyakhilome had dealings with Joshua with the goal of getting him recognized by the Church community in the country.

But the revelations get even interesting from here. When Joshua says he was born with the calling in his life, what he forgets to remember is the fact that he grew up as a Muslim. He lived all along in Muslim homes when his father passed on. On page 8 of the same BIOGRAPHER magazine, he said, "I was living with a Muslim and I even served him.

God made me to know that both Muslims and Christians are doing His will. I learned Arabic, I lived with Hausas for three years and I lived with a Yoruba Imam for seven years. It was a very funny life. During Ramadan fasting while I was living with the Imam, I was usually forced to fast through the entire 30 days. And this Imam had three wives." Isn’t it very interesting that this maverick can recall all the people he passed through in his childhood but cannot for once tell the church or pastor that mentored him? Think about it!

Here comes more revelation. TB Joshua started his Church in 1991. The Church wasn't called The Synagogue of All Nations as it is known today. The Church started out as The New Jerusalem Church and his last name, JOSHUA wasn’t there. See what happened; Ozi David, one of the founding fathers of the Church was the closest to TB Joshua of all his disciples. This privilege came as a result of the fact he was more enlightened and more educated than all the rest that surrounded Joshua.

By his own admission, Christ appeared to him in a trance and warned him to defect from TB Joshua and the ministry that they were blaspheming the name of Christ by telling people that they were healing in the name of Christ. He said he nurtured the courage to defect and began to expose the real personality of TB Joshua and his Church. According to Ozi David, TB Joshua’s name when they first set out to start the ministry was Francis Fatai Temitope Balogun. Everyone then knew him by this name up till early in 1994.

Hear him – "We were having meetings with him, Taiye and Solomon – four of us in the room. He said that now, he cannot be bearing Francis – that Francis is an English name and Temitope is a Yoruba name. That he wanted a powerful name in the Bible that people can say yes, ha, ha, ha, this is the man. Others were suggesting big names like Gideon and this and that. I suggested Joshua because he led the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Ha, ha, ha, he said yes, yes …Since that very day, we changed his name to TB Joshua."

Now, what about the name of the Church? Ozi David said the idea of the name came from him. "When we took off, it was not Synagogue. The name Synagogue came in after TB visited the Jerusalem Synagogue. When he came back to Nigeria, TB said he wanted Nigeria to become the new centre of the Synagogue. It was then he renamed the Church as The Synagogue of All Nations."

There was a grand plot behind this name. I have made mention of the fact that, in the Synagogue, the name Immanuel is used very often. And very many unsuspecting people think that Immanuel or Emmanuel as used there refers to Christ. It is not the case. Ozi said there was a big conspiracy with the organization to propel TB to the top of Christendom. Calling him Emmanuel was a way of elevating him to the same level with Christ.

tartar9:
All this fake pastors,reminds me when kumuyi once tried molesting me
may God save his church.

true2god:


Which of the Kumuyi? Is it the DeeperLife's Kumuyi? I am 1000000% sure you are lying here, except it is the Kumuyi in your school or neighbourhood.

OLAADEGBU:


Are you taking tartar9 serious? If he was raped at all it must have been from his randy arabic teachers.

tartar9:


...but you'd readily accept such claims made against a pastor you dont like such as T.B Joshua.
Yes,K.F Kumuyi tried molesting me few years ago but I burnt him with the fire of the holy ghost!

tartar9:

...but you'd readily accept such claims made against a pastor you dont like such as T.B Joshua.
Yes,K.F Kumuyi tried molesting me few years ago but I burnt him with the fire of the holy ghost!

Mayzie:


Weather TB Joshua is legit or fake, e no concern me. The tin wey matter b say, make Christians try read the word of God (The Holy Bible) and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In that way no fake prophet can deceive us. END OF STORY. �

Mayzie:
Weather TB Joshua is legit or fake, e no concern me. The tin wey matter b say, make Christians try read the word of God (The Holy Bible) and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In that way no fake prophet can deceive us. END OF STORY. �

true2god:


It ought to be a source of concerning to you when people are being deceived with 'Lying wonders'. Men are so gullible as to assume that miracle is a sign of been from the positive divine power and as such it is our duty to warn the gullible of the dangers of going after so-called miracles from questionable sources.

dayo2me:


And I like to watch his TV show oo

OLAADEGBU:


jesusjnr, Joagbaje, finalboss, Maestro21, Truthchiz, TruthinAction, petra1, Image123 your attention is needed on this thread to either confirm or debunk this article.

OLAADEGBU:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG58uYUok5g

dayo2me:
And I like to watch his TV show oo

tartar9:
All this fake pastors,reminds me when kumuyi once tried molesting me
may God save his church.

true2god:


Divide and rule. TB is a known demonic man and no one has ever molested you. Stop this Islamic lies.

ochibuogwu5:
May the Holy Spirit enlightenment set the soul of these fake men on fire and deliver them from being used by the false spirit of devil; the beast in these last days and may the ignorant as well as gullible human beings held under their spell be set free in Jesus Name. Amen.

TruthinAction:


I have watched the video. Nothing really new. With or without the video, I don't see T B Joshua as a man of God. There are countless hundreds who have lost their lives trying to seek help from him. I don't really want to waste my time talking much about him. Those who want to follow him should continue but they should not cry when they experience their woes.

Maestro21:


May God have mercy on your soul and on the soul of anyone who reports this evil junk. I pray your spiritual eyes be open before it is too late. "I did not know" will not be a reasonable excuse when you stand before God. Never forget that.

The beauty of everything is..the people you scandalize and lie about never reply you or insult anybody. They mind their business and do what God has called them to do. And of course God keeps blessing them.

As for you...

Like I said earlier. God have mercy on you.

OLAADEGBU:


All your satanic scare tactics will not work for judgment in the house of God has already began. The cat is out of the bag and the earlier you repent the better.