Beautifulday:
Well said

CC: Seun, Lalasticlala, Mynd44

DavSagacity:
Thank you very much for this write up. It's so amusing that some people actually paid to attend the show in the name of Miracles...!!! How gullible can some People be. ? Any body that announces a crusade or program and is selling seat space is a business man not a Pastor. SSuch a person was NEVER CALLED. His stomach ministry and intestinal worms called him, Not God

Precisely

ODUMEJE

By: Deji Yesufu

On the 11th of March, 2024, a popular gospel musician in Nigeria, Dunsin Oyekan, wrote the following on his Instagram page: “Been seeing videos and people writing ‘abidoshaker’ and the rest… BELIEVERS, the things we find funny are a mockery of our faith. We should shut things like these down! No, it’s not funny! You would be shocked how gullible some people are!” The individual Oyekan is referring to is Prophet Chukwuemeka Ohanamere – popularly known as Odumeje. For most of the last three weeks, Odumeje and his promoters have taken over the social media space, advertising his proposed visit to the United Kingdom. To spice it up, Odumeje and his promoters got Flavour, a popular secular musician (known for his erotic and suggestive music), to publish a song where Odumeje’s clichés – citadel, santus sanatorias, ribadu, gandu gagandusa, dabush kabash, lebadushe lemande, indaboske bahose – were used freely.

It should be noted that though Odumeje claims to be a preacher of the gospel, the song was not a gospel song – to say the least. It was a rehash of words aimed mainly at promoting one man – Odumeje. The only thing that Flavor said in that song was to keep stretching the name “o-d-u-m-e-d-u-m-e-d-u-m-e-je….” The music is self-glorification at the highest level and they reflect the concerns that Dunsin Oyekan had earlier in the year expressed. The story did not end there. Odumeje was in London and carried out ministry as proposed. His promoters made a good show of the whole matter and the impression the public got was that Odumeje had a successful venture into the United Kingdom, not until this publication by the Punch of 28th April, 2024, that read in part:

“A UK-based Nigerian, Agu Chigekwu, identified on Instagram as richjoelng, recently called out popular Nigerian Pastor, Chukwuemeka Ohanaemere, better known as Odumeje, for failing to pray for members of the congregation at a recent event in London. Chigekwu stated that he attended the event expecting to see Odumeje perform miracles and pray. He said he was, however, left disappointed after Odumeje only sang and then left without praying for anyone. He said, ‘When he came, he was already advertising powers, abidoshaker , citadel, he will release powers and the one he has not touched. Na so people take come o, filled the place. People came out!’”

The man reported that there were no miracles. He said the prophet arrived at the venue of the event five hours late, with people waiting for him; some having travelled for the event from all over the United Kingdom and others buying front seats for as much as a thousand pounds. That video was widely distributed on social media, so I went in search of Agu Chikegwu’s Instagram handle to see the video myself.

When I arrived there, apparently Agu had begun to sing a new song. He claimed that after his video went viral, that Odumeje found him and explained matters to him. That he, Odumeje, had not come to the UK for crusade but to promote some personal business – maybe his music. He said that was why he did not carry out the said miracles as advertised by his promoters and him. He said in the future, he would be returning to the UK for crusades and then Nigerians in the UK will see “powers”.

The sad part of this commentary is this: Agu, who had earlier made a perfectly rational video, explaining the duplicity of Odumeje, now returns and backtracks on his own words. He began to call on blogs to retell the story he had earlier published. Unfortunately, the deed had been done. Remember how I began this essay: Dunsin Oyekan had warned believers about a tendency towards gullibility.

But it is not only Dunsin who warned us against false preachers and false gospel. The whole of the Bible is replete with warnings like these (Deuteronomy 18:20-22; Jeremiah23:14ff, Matthew 24:4ff, 1Timothy4:1-2, 2Peter2:1ff). In this essay, I will not be spending time to exposit the Bible and its warning against false prophets; I simply want to warn Nigerian Christians against a phenomenon I choose to call “stupid churches”. I will endeavour to dissect this matter and help us to have a little discernment and avoid future “abodishakers” because the Nigerian religious scene is only going to get worse.

While one sympathizes with Dunsin Oyekan’s sentiments in his tweet, you cannot run away from the idea that a certain kind of culture and atmosphere has been fostered in the Nigerian Christian community that will make it easy for an “Odumeje” to gain prominence in our religious communities. That culture, in my estimation, is a certain anti-intellectualism that pervades much of Nigerian Christendom. Once upon a time, there arose a culture within Nigerian Christendom that frowned at the idea of being studious; of being knowledgeable of biblical doctrines; and, one where ideas could easily be shared and challenged within the Nigerian Church.

Instead, we were told that all that mattered was for an individual to be “anointed”. When we confronted such views and made them understand that there was a part of the Bible that challenged our thinking and that godliness is a fruit of man’s collective thoughts, we were waved aside. Instead, Christians were told to seek “power” at all costs through prayer, fasting, and any other available means. The Pentecostal-Charismatic culture played down thinking and exalted the supernatural. It is this atmosphere that has produced the likes of Odumeje. In his own words, Odumeje has made it clear that he has no formal education. And the kind of ministry that he runs does not need an enlightened man to lead it. All that Odumeje and those like him need in ministry is “powers”. It is the reason why they go to London and unfortunately are unable to manifest their vaunted power.

Another atmosphere that has produced an “Odumeje” is the prosperity gospel that pervades most of Nigerian Christendom. When the gospel ceases to be about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for the express purpose of saving sinners; the gospel has become a means to get rich quickly. Or, a means to find healing and health for the body, the likes of Odumeje will emerge and become the popular face of Nigerian Christendom. They will go to London and do gbajue ministry there. In these days when money is hard to find, anyone putting a thousand pounds to buy a front seat at a so-called crusade is desperate to find solution to a life challenge. And this is the bread and butter of prosperity gospel preachers: they take advantage of those who are desperate to find solutions to their life challenges and they reap them off of their hard-earned resources.

I would not have written this article until I discovered that Nigerians, living abroad, exposed to the white man’s way of thinking, are still this gullible to fall for the likes of Odumeje. And even when it is clear to them that the man is a charlatan, they still find it quite hard to exercise basic discernment. If our people abroad cannot know what is true from false, what do you expect from those back in the country? The politicians will reap them off, and the religious houses will slap their faces – and you will still find many Nigerians making excuses for these charlatans. If this is not a perfect example of what stupidity is, I do not know what else to call it.

When the missionaries brought the gospel to Nigeria, the first thing they sought to do was to educate the young minds they had access to. The white missionaries understood that a thinking mind, one that could make logical arguments, would ultimately come to grasp the gospel message. They also knew that such people would realize that life is incredibly short and the most well-lived life is the one spent in the service of others. There is no way we can look at world civilization and not realize that the nations that make the most progress are those that allow for a system where people build upon the past achievements of others.

One person discovers arithmetic; another person uses these numbers to build the theories of sciences; another person, from a later generation, uses all of these to create discoveries that better the health of others; etc. The developed world we know today reached the point they reached because their societies paid premium to thinking and ideas. When a society loves stupidity; when ideas are frowned upon; when the churches are at the forefront of discarding knowledge to obtain “powers”; foolish men become the leading faces of our religion and our politics. And for those who think I have used too strong a language in this article, understand that sometimes extreme measures are required to slap some of us back to reality (Galatians 3:1).

Deji Yesufu pastors Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY.

Source

What God Told Me About My First Crush

By: Deji Yesufu

The year would have been 1990. I was just entering into my teenage years, and here was I encountering a challenge that I would today say remains a life-long problem: I had a crush on a girl in my neighbourhood. The real problem was not that I was in love. The real challenge was that it was about this time that I was also encountering the Christian faith in its pristine form. By profession, I regarded myself as born-again, and sincerely, there was nothing dubious about my profession then. I took my religion seriously: I attended church when I could; I studied the Bible diligently; I prayed and fasted – yet I was madly in love with the girl next door. Long before I read Paul’s words of despair in Romans 7, I had also agonised:

“…Romans 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 7:24 O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

As I battled my heart and wondered if I would ever be rid of this sinful nature of mine, God spoke to me. It was one faithful day – I can not remember the events around it, but I remember what God said. I was reading 1 Timothy 5, and stumbled on these words: “… 1 Timothy 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.” God’s words were clear: treat the younger women as your blood sisters. The girl I was crushing on was younger than me, and I understood what God was saying: treat that young woman as your sister – nothing more. I did not immediately end the relationship. I still battled God on the matter: questioning God like the devil did Eve – “…did God really say…?” If I would be honest with myself, I knew what God was saying and what he wanted.

One day, I summoned courage, and I brought an end to the relationship. I can still remember the puzzle on the girl’s face. It was not like we were dating or married; but there was a heart condition I believe God wanted me to deal with, and with his help, it was done. Let me state straight away that that situation was only the first of many kinds of relationships that have arisen between me and the opposite sex. There have been hundreds of other crushes, but God’s word to all of them has always been: 1 Timothy 5:2 – treat the older women as mothers and treat the younger women as your sisters. As I grow older, and now that I have a daughter too, many of the younger women are no longer my sisters but my daughters; some others, due to age, remain sisters; while the older women are my mother. The only woman I have legitimate rights to crush on is my wife.

I tell this story today as a response to a pastoral concern I am handling presently. I used to think only men crushed on women. I didn’t know that women also crushed on men. And it makes sense because men and women are human beings with inert sexual desires implanted within them by their creator with the express purpose of such desires materialising in holy matrimony. In fact, the biblical solution to “crushing” is not prayer and fasting. It is simply to MARRY. God gave us our sexual appetite so that we can procreate and populate this earth with offspring and so that humanity does not go into extinction. And when the desire for companionship and sex hits a teenager, like I got stung years ago, the solution is to find a lady, marry her, and then find all my desires met in her. Unfortunately, as a 13 year old, I couldn’t afford to keep a wife. So I had to finish secondary school, grab a university degree, get a job, and then marry. In my case, it took another twenty years for this to occur. For others, and in places where things work, such teenagers could be married as early as nineteen/twenty.

Now besides God’s instructing us to treat women with dignity, let me hurry to add in this essay that when I say God spoke to me, I was able to point to the chapter and the verse in the Bible. It would do my charismatic friends a lot of good if they realize that God’s objective words are stated in the Bible alone. What God told me in 1990 is what he has been saying to every man crushing on women since Adam. It is also what he has been saying to the women in the converse. God’s objective word, as stated in the Bible, is relevant for all time. The Holy Spirit is able to take this objective, sufficient, inerrant, and authoritative word and make them relevant to our day. In the sense that God’s word in scripture can be illuminated and adapted to act both as instruction and/or direction for God’s people today.

To close my thoughts on this subject, let me draw my readers to the supreme need of men today, which is obeying 1 Timothy 5:2. That need can be seen via the sexual revolution that has taken over our world. The result is the birth of unwanted children, abortion, broken homes, divorce, etc. If men understand that women are not sex items but our mothers, sisters, and daughters, they will treat them differently. You only need to imagine another man treating your mother, sister, or daughter the way you are treating that young girl for you to change your ways. The sexual revolution of our time has become so rampant and defiant that homosexuality, paedophilia, and bestiality are the latest campaigns of the progressive man. Very few things define a man than sex does, and the moment a person becomes sexually debased, such a person becomes incapacitated in many areas of life.

I look back now, some 34 years, and I am thankful that the Holy Spirit instructed me to end that relationship, and I obeyed. I do not even consider my “obedience” in this matter an achievement; I think God simply had mercy upon me. And I pray that as many as are finding challenges obeying God in this matter of sex, God will empower you and ensure that your obedience is complete. No one ever gets over crushing at the opposite sex. We simply develop a disciplined mindset at these things, and we find grace in God in finding all our pleasures in our spouses. As for those who are single, well, get an education, get a job, and then get a spouse. Then thank me later.

Let me add something as a postscript: it is one thing to know what God demands of you. It is another thing to have the resources or ability to do it. If you are a person who does not believe in Jesus Christ; if you have never repented of your sins and trusted Christ for salvation; then you have no resources within you to obey God. So, repent today, trust Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and then God will give you his Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that empowers and gives us grace to obey God’s commands, as stated in the Bible. If you have done this, send me an email at newdejix@gmail.com, and I’ll share some thoughts with you on continuing in your newfound faith.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is also the author of HUMANITY.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/what-god-told-me-about-my-first-crush/

Steep:
I pray for your quick recovery in Jesus name

Author expresses gratitude

LilMissFavvy:
Sell this off and buy a scooter bike. Power bikes are risky.

It is an option

It Takes One Second to Die: The Story of my Bike Accident

By: Deji Yesufu

It has been my desire to take Christian missions a notch higher in Ibadan, and transportation is obviously a vital aspect of this pursuit. So, after making enquiries on the type of bike to buy, I got myself a Honda CBR – 250CC. I was told it is a good beginner’s bike: it will serve the purpose of covering long distances, lower fuel consumption, and riding at a faster rate. The challenge, however, is that I have never ridden a motorbike before and thus must learn the art. My instructor ensured I got all my riding gears – helmet, boots, and body armour. Saturday, 13th April, was to be my first day riding a motorbike. That day, I covered paddling the bike: balancing it under my weight without power. Then I rode the bike around on gear one – concluding the day with balancing myself on the bike, after powering the machine and gaining some speed.

The following day, a Sunday, the assignment was to build on my previous day speed, still riding on gear one but working on making turns with the bike, both to the left and to the right. I had driven an hour into the day when the accident happened. Before the accident, my younger brother, who had introduced me to power bikes, had told me that I needed to have all my gears on. It was a bit cumbersome transporting all the gears from one end of Ibadan where I lived to the Challenge area where the training was to hold. To solve this problem, my instructor told me to come with only my gloves and helmet. I brought along a boot, too.

After an hour of riding, my instructor told me that bikes become increasingly stable as they gain speed. My assignment now was to build up some speed but still operate at gear one. Prior to telling me this, I noticed I had challenges making turns – particularly to my left. I sort to solve these problems of speed and left turning in another round of riding. Off I went. I rode for a little while and then gained some speed. Then, I tried to make the left turn on that speed level. Unfortunately for me, I was nearing an obstacle that I became fixated at avoiding. These two conflicting thoughts were on my mind when, while turning to the left, I pulled the front brake to the full. The next moment, I saw myself screeching to the floor. The first thing that hit the ground was my head – but thankfully, since I wore helmet, all I heard was the sound of the impact to the concrete floor. Then I think the bike fell on my left leg. As I struggled to lie flat, awaiting my instructor’s rescue, I discovered a terrible pain shooting out from my lower left leg.

My instructor and two other gentlemen picked me up, but I couldn’t walk. The pain in my leg was fantastic. I requested to sit down while they sorted out first aid on my leg – pulling it but only making the pain worse. Eventually, I found a Bolt cab that took me to UCH’s accident and emergency.

At UCH

At UCH and with the help of a colleague, I was placed on a stretcher and taken for X-rays. As many of the doctors had guessed, I had a fracture. My fibula bone in my left leg was fractured and slightly displaced. I would eventually get a cast on the leg and was discharged from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. But that is not all my experience at UCH.

About the time I came into the emergency department of the hospital, a boy was rolled in. He could not have been more than 22 years old. He was unconscious. The answers I could glean from the discussions the family was having with the doctors was that the boy was riding okada and had an accident in front of IITA. He had no helmet on. As they rolled him into an inner room for more intensive care, I saw blood streaming from his head down. About the same point, I had hit my own head on the ground. The doctors were telling the family that he would be fine, except that it would require a great deal of money to care for him.

As I thought on this young man’s plight, I could not help but think that if I had no helmet on, that first impact my head had to the ground could have been my end. It takes only a second for a man to die. My instructor said that our heads are like water melons. Riding a bike without a helmet on is high risk for sure.

What Will Happen to My Quest to Ride a Bike?

My instructor told me that bike riding is extremely risk free, if you follow the guidelines. As a first-time rider, the possibility of falling is 100%. It means that I should have followed my brother’s instruction to be fully geared up. The twist to my leg, which resulted in fracture, was because I was wearing oversized boots. A more fitted boot would have prevented the turning of the leg and subsequent fracture. Thankfully, I had my helmet on. If not, I would have been sending this article to you from the land of the dead.

My quest to ride a bike remains. As soon as I get better, I return to my lessons. Except that this time, I would have my gears all on, and I would get better fitted shoes. Every endeavour in life comes with risks and setbacks, and only quitters lose the fight. Riding a lower powered bike on the streets of Ibadan will solve for me the challenges of cost of fuel, ease of accessing rural communities, and promptness. It will be “gospel on okada”, a reality show I am already thinking of in the same guise with Itchy Boots, except that I will not be traveling from Holland to Nigeria; but taking the good-news to inner communities of our society. My accident is a small setback at achieving this great ideal. Join me in thanking God for a great deliverance while praying God’s mercies on my trips as I seek to reach the nations on two wheels.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan. He is also the author of HUMANITY.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/it-takes-one-second-to-die-the-story-of-my-bike-accident/

ThothHermes:
I read your blog on Selman and I think like his other detractors, you are driven by envy and not any desire to advance the Gospel. I am willing to discuss all the "points" you raised against him if you are.
Criticizing Joshua Selman is one of the fastest ways to gain traction it seems. Even you admitted that your piece on him is the most read on your blog.
There's is a preacher Takim on YouTube whose only claim to relevance is talking against Joshua Selman.
Na envy dey worry all of Una. You just don't know it.

When you reduce a weighty matter like this to mere issue of gaining traction, you lose me. If you wish to discuss points raised, good. But to read motives that are simply not there, is really a waste of my time engaging it

The Problem with Paul Eneche

By: Deji Yesufu

This past weekend, the Internet went agog with a matter of a “testimony” given at Paul Eneche’s church – Dunamis International Gospel Centre. One Veronica Anyim came forward to testify of what God has done in her life. With very limited spoken English, this dear woman talked about how she became a graduate of law – the first graduate in her lineage. She attributed her success to God and to, in the tradition of modern Pentecostals, the “commission” of Paul Eneche. She was, however, interrupted by the General Overseer, Eneche, who questioned the veracity of her testimony. According to him, graduates of law are not given BSc but LLB. Therefore, her testimony was a lie, and she was asked to leave the stage while other members of the church were warned against giving false testimonies. While it is true that graduates of law are not given BSC, the Foundations for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) discovered that Anyim is a true graduate of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). They wrote:

“To verify Enenche’s claim, FIJ reviewed NOUN’s Comprehensive Graduation List for the 2024 convocation. In this document, the newspaper found Anyim Veronica Nnenna, with Matric Number NOU133971176, listed as an LLB recipient. She bagged third-class honours… FIJ also found her project topic filed under NOUN’s Projects Administration System (PAS). Her topic was ‘The Legal Framework Regulating International Peace-Keeping, Building And The Role Of Nigeria Police Force’…”

The challenge with this matter is the spirit Paul Eneche brought with it. The discerning will discover many things to be wanting about the exchange at that church. First, what is a “testimony time” doing in a worship service? Second, would Eneche have questioned this woman’s claims if she was speaking impeccable English and exuded wealth? Why did it require social media uproar for Dunamis Church to respond to this matter? Where is charity in Eneche’s initial actions? Answers to these questions will show the discerning the problem with Paul Eneche and why those looking for church associations should stay from gatherings led by the likes of Paul Eneche.

Testimony Time. One wonders what “testimony time” is doing in a Sunday morning worship service. We are told that it gives opportunities for people to learn what God is doing in the “commission”. A church whose first principles are the working of miracles and the divine validation of God on the minister is forever looking for new miracle stories to bolster this position. The testimony time is a time to tell everyone that God is blessing the church and a reason for everyone to stay in the gathering. When you understand that God is both in the good, the bad, and the ugly situations that occur in the Christian’s life, you realize there is no need for any divine approbation. All we need is obedience to God, and we leave outcomes to him. The minister of a church should care for and celebrate the weak and needy even more than those experiencing so-called miracles. Testimony time is both unbiblical and unnecessary in church.

The Minister’s Authority. Another problem with Eneche is the authority he appears to exude in that local church. Eneche appears to be only next to God in that gathering, and since God can not be seen, Eneche is the all in all in that church. This is the perfect picture of the General Overseer in Pentecostal Churches in most places around the world. Even if we were to allow that a “testimony time” is permissible in a meeting, why will the minister suddenly interrupt a segment of worship? He is able to do this because he wields an authority in that church that is way beyond the authority God has given any man in a local church. The biblical position is for a number of men, not one man, to oversee a church – and a godly assembly must be constituted with mature members who love God and are committed to each other. A gathering like this should never have one man as the conspicuous face of the church, whose words are final and can even interrupt sessions during public worship. Those people are supposed to be worshipping Christ, not Paul Eneche.

Conclusion. My first essay on Paul Eneche was in 2018, where I criticised his building of a Dome, the opening of which coincided with the death of John Chau (that essay is now published in HUMANITY). Chau was killed by the natives of an unreached people group on an Indian island. Chau felt the need to bring the gospel to these people. I compared Chau heart with those of Eneche who appears to only revel in gathering more and more people under a roof – his dome. The moment his own uncharitable statement in church began to threaten the gathering under his dome, he released a statement talking about some supposed love and care they have for insignificant people like madam Anyim. I do hope that people will discover quickly that Paul Eneche and individuals like him are not leading churches with the hope of bringing their members to God’s kingdom. The gospel they preach, the prosperity gospel, is defective; they possess very little quality of life that lends itself to be Christian; and they are about the first to trample on the weak whom Christ has called the true pastor to feed (John 21:15-17). These are the problems with Paul Eneche and men like him, and people must possess discernment to stay away from them.

Deji Yesufu pastors Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan.

Source

TGCML:
Where Can I get WAEC, NABTEB and NECO Scratch Card Online?

https://triplegltd.com.ng/

Not here. Certainly

CC: Seun

Chukwuka319:
95% of Nigerian pastors would end up in Hell and many sinners would end up in Heaven.

We can be less judgemental

Why Many Nigerian Pastors are False Teachers

By: Deji Yesufu

A lot of people underestimate the power of the media. You however get an inkling as to how powerful media, whether it be broadcast, social, or print, is when you remember how the military government utilized them years back in Nigeria. When a military coup occurs, the soldiers go to the media first. They invade a radio station and broadcast their message to the nation: “…we are not only in government, we are now in power…”, they used to say. And I remember those words with some nostalgia, especially as I recall my father huddled around a radio set in far-away Zaria the morning the government of Shehu Shagari was overthrown by soldiers loyal to Major General Muhammadu Buhari in December 1983.

One group of individuals who quickly realized the power of the media and used it to their advantage were Pentecostal Pastors in the 1980s/90s. The likes of Benson Idahosa, Ayo Oritsejafor, Tunde Bakare and others very quickly latched on to the ability of the television to bring their messages to Nigerians and they invested a lot into TV broadcasts of their messages. They reaped a fortune in the process because people could easily watch them from the comfort of their homes; find the churches in the locality; and then go on to become life-long members of these churches. The pastors invested in the media and they earned a fortune from members’ tithes and offerings.

That is how church became big business in Nigeria. If you follow this narrative, you then begin to understand why the same pastors became incredibly uncomfortable with the emergence of social media. Social media simply came to compete with their space. I remember when I gave a talk to Television Continental on tithing and the video went viral. One Ibadan pastor told his congregation that I was seeking cheap popularity via social media. The same pastor forgot that many of us know how much his church invested (and is still investing) in the local broadcasts of his messages to Ibadan via the NTA Ibadan – which was the avenue through which I found out about the church in the first place. Media is media – it could either be social, print, or broadcast. All of us are trying to reach men with a message; the sin is not the medium of broadcast but the substance being sent out. This is what brings me to Joshua Selman.

Selman is about five years younger than me but one might consider that we are of the same generation. We even went to the same school – Ahmadu Bello University. We attended the same faculty – engineering. Although he read Chemical and I read Electrical Engineering. I also suspect that I had long graduated from ABU before he came in. I write all these to say that despite whatever we share in common, I did not know who Selman was until some young people working with me at the University of Ibadan began to tell me that if I would succeed at reaching the Christian students on that campus with the gospel, I would have to be able to refute Joshua Selman. Sincerely, I did not know what to refute about him. It was enough to know that he is a false teacher since he regards David Oyedepo and Kenneth Hagin as examples in ministry. He was simply guilty by association.

I however took the time to listen to him via YouTube and I came to understand why he is a false teacher. He combines false doctrine with eloquence, suave, and false humility. All of these add up to bring listeners to him. And unlike his predecessors who used the broadcast/terrestrial media to reach their listeners, Selman has taken over the social media space among Nigerian Pentecostals. I still did not have enough in my arsenal to write on Selman, so I asked a young man to write the essay, while I edited and added a few important remarks. That essay has become the most-read article on my blog. And every time I publish it, people come to read it. If I wanted cheap popularity, I could spend all my time refuting these false teachers. But I have come to realize that showing what is false (apologetics) is just as important as teaching what is true. So, I do both. In this article, however, I want to show you why many Nigerian pastors are false teachers.

They teach false doctrine. Christianity stands and falls on doctrine, doctrine, and doctrine. What you teach, not how you look; not what you wear; not how much you own; but your doctrine is everything. It will determine whether you and your listeners will be saved at the end of life (1 Timothy 4:16). Teaching, teaching, and teaching, is all that Christianity is. Many Nigerian pastors are therefore false teachers because they teach a gospel of health and wealth – the prosperity gospel. The trouble with the gospel of prosperity is that it comes in many shades and it requires some discernment to know it. There are those pastors who teach full-blown prosperity – all they talk about is money. They tell you how God has blessed them because they now own houses abroad; they have churches abroad; their children school in foreign countries; etc. At the core of their message is money, money, and money.

These are full-blown prosperity gospelers and many Nigerians have become quite discerning of them now and they are beginning to lose market. Others are less subtle. Their own brand of the prosperity gospel comes in the guise of the Word of Faith teaching. They teach healing, prosperity, faith, positive confession, and that suffering is sin. These are the disciples of Kenneth Hagin. They tell you that Hagin wrote “Midas Touch” and condemned the first group, but they do not tell you that Hagin never repented of his own false gospel till he died. A third group are those who have succeeded in taking the Word of Faith doctrine into orthodox churches. So, you see these young men who used to be in Pentecostal churches, but who have now gone to mainstream seminaries. They have imbibed some orthodoxy but at the heart of their teaching is still Hagin. They bring the Pentecostal/Prosperity Gospel messages to the Orthodox churches and because no one can refute them successfully, they are running amok with these messages. It is this latter group that has the like of Joshua Selman as a colleague. In any rate, one thing all these men share is false doctrine. The reason why my article is read by many is because they find it surprising that anyone will call Selman a false teacher. Why? Because they all teach essentially what Selman teaches. Making all of them false teachers.

Their teachings are not reforming society. Societies are ruled by ideas. There is a big difference between the Western world and the Eastern parts of our world because the two parts of the world, despite increasing in modernity at an almost equal rate, have differing ideologies. The West developed on a Judeo-Christian worldview, coupled with a capitalist mentality founded upon biblical principles that the man who does not work, should not eat. Unfortunately, the eastern parts of the world were built on socialism – a Marxist/Lenin worldview that teaches that society can be run with every man on equal footing. Marxism despises religion and the guardrails that the laws of God bring to society are not inherent in a socialist system. The result is what we see in Vladmir Putin today – autocracy. This was the point George Orwell made in his evergreen book “The Animal Farm”. While the West believes in freedom of ideas, the East is run by the idea of the man in power.

Nigeria, on the other hand, claims to have a strong Christian population – with our pastors all over television preaching a gospel. Yet, the one single prevailing ideology in our society is gbajue. Gbajue is a Yoruba word for deception. It means literally to hit someone in the face, and while he is dazed to take away his possessions. The gbajue culture took root in Nigeria following the affluence that hit the nation after the oil boom of the early 1970s. Nigerians suddenly discovered that with very little effort and by knowing a few people in power, you can get your share of the national cake. Those who could not get rich via these means, sought to take advantage of those who had the money already. And since the rich themselves got money very easily, they did not mind losing the money. A culture of deception was entrenched by the military government and many of those who ruled the country following military rule were themselves military men in civilian garb.

If the gospel that these Pastors preached possessed any power at all, and with the wide influence that these men have over the minds of Nigerian churchgoers, who went to church every Sunday to listen to them, this culture of deception ought to have eased out of the country. Instead, the churches themselves perpetuated gbajue when it was discovered that those who possessed easy money would not mind parting with it through donations in the name of tithes and offerings. The churches have grown rich, the people’s moral outlook remains unchanged, the society is depraved, and the nation is known more for corruption than anything else in the comity of nations. If the gospel these men teach their people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, there should have been a marked difference in the moral temperature of the country. After listening to a gospel of health and wealth for half a century, Nigeria has only been worse off. There is no greater proof that the men who teach these messages are false teachers.

On the 13th of February, 1976, soldiers in civilian garb waylaid the man who was head of the Nigerian state at that time – Major General Muritala Mohammed. Mohammed was quite radical in thinking – he did not believe in much security. He drove in his 504 Peugeot car with his driver and aid-de-camp seated in the front seats. They stopped briefly to observe traffic light when these men who had waylaid him opened fire on his vehicle. They put enough bullets into the car to ensure that all three men were killed. The man who led that violence was Lt. Col. Buka Suwa Dimka. Immediately after they shot Muritala, they moved into the Federal Radio Station which was just some distance away from the place Muritala was felled. They announced the coup by stating that Muritala had been killed – they were not only in government, they were now in power. Olusegun Obasanjo, Muritala’s assistant, went into hiding immediately.

The man who saved the day that day was a relatively unknown colonel, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. Babangida and many of the men who carried out the coup were course mates and the burden fell on him to go and talk to his colleagues to lay down their arms. The radio station was surrounded by soldiers still loyal to Muritala and there was no point fighting on, increasing the bloodshed. Despite knowing that the coup plotters had earmarked him for death, Babangida walked into the radio station unarmed. He said when he got there, the whole place was reeking with alcohol – the boys were as drunk as a skunk – they knew that the coup had failed and could only numb the pain with booze. Babangida told the boys to lay down their arms and they did. Whatever else Babangida’s name has become in the history of Nigeria, what he did that day to quell bloodshed should never be forgotten.

My point in telling that story is to remind us of the power of the media. The purpose of the media is to inform and educate the populace. It was the media that the new generation churches ceased – almost forcefully – and used to propagate their false messages. We know that those messages are false today because they have not changed the moral fabric of Nigeria. Social media is another medium where messages can be used to reach the populace. It is a lot cheaper to use – this is why that man said I was embarking on cheap publicity. I use all the social media handles that my time can afford me to broadcast on. Right now, I need to employ a webmaster – someone who will put my resources on all social media platforms. These things do not come cheap and those who can invest in it will reap the fruit of it in the future. If the gospel I preach is true, God will provide the resources I need to pass my message to my listeners and my testimony thus far is that God has been faithful. I do not need to solicit funds from my readers and listeners. What I need from you is to believe the gospel. To do this, you will first have to “unbelieve” the false gospel messages you have learnt from many of these Pastors – the leading purveyor of this false gospel message being no other person than Apostle Joshua Selman.

Thank you very much for reading.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Ibadan. He is the author of the book HUMANITY.

Source:

Giannis

Gombs:

Jesus can fix your sadness, sir

I'll rather live with my sadness than continue in a cult

Gombs:


i'm never leaving. Hope you've healed?

Meanwhile...

Sad

Gombs:

Helllo!

Gombs.

Hope you've left Christ Embassy and the cult of Christian Oyakhilome?

SirJohn:

Great to know you are well. Cheers!

Sir John!

MrPresident1:


Nobody goes to hell when they die. When the spirit leaves the body, the spirit goes to God to rest. The flesh decomposes into dust.

Right here on this earth is the place of judgment.

Why are you people so stubbornly recalcitrant, isn't the bible supposed to be a book of continuous knowledge and revelation? Why do you hold on to the doctrine of a hell in the skies where God incinerates people? This is horrible doctrine!

God does not have a furnace in the skies where he incinerates people.

TB Joshua, if he truly died will reincarnate back to this each to face his punishment. He is not in any furnace up there in the skies. Neither is Hitler in any furnace in the skies too. Anyone that does has gone to rest! That is why we say tpnthe to 'Rest in peace'! And resting presupposes that there is a time period for resting! After you rest, you wake up!

Ecclesiastes 3:16
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

Ok

mbaise1000:
Hmmm.
When we said this, they called us haters, now they Said it themselves, TRUTH will always find a way

Fact!

Helgreenluv:
Absolute nonsense! There was no single proof in that video. That script was written by a dumbo. Deji Yesufu abi na wetin you call yourself, you are a mumu man

Ok

Examining BBC’s Expose on Prophet T. B Joshua

By: Deji Yesufu

In April 2012, I was in Tunis, Tunisia, for a training from my place of work. Ten engineers from different countries in Africa had been picked by an organization to be trained in the use of a particular machine. The only lady among us was from Zimbabwe. One conversation I remember having with this lady was one where she asked me about Prophet T. B. Joshua. I was a bit surprised by this question, given that T. B. Joshua is about the last cultural icon that Nigerian would wish to sell to the world. But that question revealed one thing to me: Joshua, in his lifetime, carried out an aggressive marketing scheme among people from southern Africa and the man reaped a fortune in the process. I told this lady that while Joshua was indeed a preacher in Nigeria, he was a rather controversial figure who enjoyed very little acceptance among fellow Christians in Nigeria. There was too much darkness around his kind of ministry and it was safer if one kept one’s distance from him. I lost touch with that lady after that trip and I sure hope she never wasted her resources coming to Nigeria to see T. B. Joshua.

Yesterday, 8th January, 2024, the BBC published a three-part video on Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, and also a blog. The investigations were thorough, taking no less than three years. The revelations were immense with allegations of sexual, physical, and verbal abuse; rape; abduction; bribery; arson; and cover-up. The videos revealed happenings on the 12th of September, 2014, at the Synagogue, Joshua’s Church, when a guest house, housing numerous foreigners, collapsed, and which led to the death of 115 people – most of whom where foreigners. The videos also unveiled the person of Ajoke, a product of one of Joshua’s illicit affairs, but whom he poured so much venom and hate on, that it is impossible to imagine that that girl made it out alive from Synagogue. If anyone wishes to know the making of a cult, you must see these videos. Those of us who are ministers and are in danger of controlling God’s people in the name of compelling obedience to God, should look at those videos and learn the things we ought to do and the limits God has put on us for ministry. Then there were the hundreds of girls, many of them foreigners, who lived at the Synagogue as Joshua’s disciples – some of them staying there for as long as twenty years. The penchant to call him “Daddy” – in fact, I think that following this video, churches should outlaw the calling of any man “Daddy” – who is not one’s biological father. The thing is being abused. Then the abortion mill – how Joshua abuses these girls sexually and then force them to abort the moment they are pregnant. The starvation and sleep deprivation were another thing entirely.

In this article, I want to share three thoughts essentially: there is nothing new that the BBC uncovered on Joshua. Second: the moment you call a man a prophet, you open yourself up to all kinds of deception. Finally, within so much falsehood and deception, there is truth.

There is Nothing New in the BBC Expose. Two individuals who had worked with T. B. Joshua, Agomoh Paul and Bisola were in the video. The two of them had left Joshua’s organization with the commitment to exposing the man to the world. Joshua had sought to discredit them and, in some cases, allegedly tried to kill them. These two individuals have published videos and evidence against Joshua; but the might of Joshua’s resources and influence silenced them. Besides these two, the Nigerian Christian community has never warmed up to T. B. Joshua. Joshua had sought to join the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) to gain some legitimacy with the Nigerian Christian public. Every effort he made to do this was thwarted on the grounds that the leaders of both CAN and PFN could not trace Joshua’s roots. No one knows where he is from exactly. He had no educational records, nor did he have any mentor in ministry. He appeared to have suddenly emerged on the Nigerian Christian stage, and his manner of ministry, when observed carefully, was no different from the ones that Shamans in India employed. So, while no one could find clear-cut proofs against Joshua’s ministry, there were also too many doubts around his methods. In 2006, Rev. Chris Okotie, the musician turned pastor, alleged that Joshua had been appearing in his bedroom, threatening his life, because he, Okotie, made Joshua’s association with Chris Oyakhilome public. That matter created a little furore in the Nigerian public scene then, and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police had to invite the two individuals to his office and sort an amicable settling of the matters. In summary, there is nothing new that the BBC said on Joshua. They simply used the credibility of their own platform to relay allegations on T. B. Joshua; allegations which are already in the public space.

The Dangers of Believing in a Prophet Today. In most religions, the office of a prophet is an exalted one. He is only one step below Almighty God. Islam regards Prophet Mohammed as the last of a series of prophets that God sent to the world. Orthodox Christians hold that Jesus Christ is the last prophet God sent into the world, while Christ’s apostles are the last set of people to bring divine revelation to our world. Regardless of what you and I believe, the moment you open yourself to believing that prophets exist today, you open yourself to fresh revelations from heaven. The dangers, however, is that while time has proven the veracity of Mohammed’s prophethood for Muslims, and similarly proven that Christ is the last prophet for Christians, the life of prophets of today is still being played out and only time will tell whether these men are true or not. Biblically, a prophet is regarded as true if his prophetic declarations come to pass one hundred percent of the time (Deuteronomy 18:22). If a prophet gets all prophecies right and fails in one, he is a false prophet. Even more still, as we are seeing with T. B. Joshua, the outcome of a man’s life will determine whether he was a true prophet or a false one. Following these allegations, whoever still thinks Joshua is a prophet, will remain deceived forever. One thing is clear: the safest position to take in religion today is to regard no man as prophet – because sincerely there are no more prophets. To believe there are still new prophets today is to open ourselves to new revelations which will certainly be false revelations.

Distinguishing Truth from Falsehood. Biblically, the one true prophet is Jesus Christ. Before the coming of Christ, God sent many prophets to Israel. The greatest of these prophets was Moses. Moses gave Israel, and by extension, humanity, the ten commandments. Moses also laid out for God’s people what the primary calling of a prophet would be: “The Lord your God will raise for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear… ‘I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him’” (Deuteronomy 18:15,18). God is saying here that when the prophet arrives, he will cause God’s people to hear God, and he would lead them to obey God’s commands. In other words, the primary duty of a prophet is not necessarily prophecy; the primary duty of a prophet is teaching God’s people God’s ways and guiding them on the path of obedience. In this passage, the prophet Moses is referring to is Jesus Christ. And when we examine the ministry of Christ, you see these two emphases: teaching and a call to obedience. Despite Jesus being a prophet, most of what he did was to teach people; while on very rare occasions, he gave prophecies. Also, a cursory look at Old Testament prophets will reveal that these men were continually calling God’s people to obedience and teaching the nations the ways of God. Prophecy was usually a last resort: a kind of warning of the consequences of disobeying God.

That leaves us with a fact: the true prophet today is not the person who gives New Year declarations; or, the pastor who stands at his pulpit, declaring good on people – calling it prophecies. The true prophet is the person who teaches the word of God – this is the reason the Bible calls false prophets false teachers (2 Peter 2:1). The minister who labours to give sense to scriptures and guides the people of God towards obedience is the true prophet. It is the reason why prophecy, biblically, is regarded as forthtelling and foretelling. Foretelling is prophecy; forthtelling is teaching. Both are the calling of a prophet. So, because the best of ministers today are still sinful men, whose minds are affected by the subjectivity of their own thoughts, it is best not to regard any man at all as a prophet. It is best not to regard any statement as prophecy – because the best of foretelling will still fail. However, it is my experience in ministry and my observation of years of historic preaching, that those ministers who spend time to teach God’s people the ways of God and help them to obey God, they, sometimes, have these very rare occasions when they say things that could amount to prophecies. For a long time, in America, for example, Christian ministers have been warning of the decline of the USA because of that nation’s imbibing liberal tenets. So that the emergence of China and Russia on the world stage today is not a surprise to many. If America does not repent of her sins, it will someday return to hunt her – her sins will someday dethrone her. This is a prophecy that will come to pass – sooner or later.

Conclusion. T. B. Joshua, like Old Roger in the nursery rhyme, is dead and has gone to his grave… he is today answering to his sins before a holy God. Biblically, hell has parts – there are some parts that burn hotter than others. Joshua, if these allegations are true, is today in the hottest parts of hell. Why? Because he used a veritable tool that God has given humanity, preaching, to save men from sin… he used this for his own personal lust, pursuit of fame, and self-aggrandizement. In the process of doing this, he left a trail of destroyed lives. The hundreds of his children that were aborted by those ladies are today crying into his ears, calling for his eternal burning. I would not be surprised if Joshua is in a worse part of hell than Hitler.

Jesus would tell us to “remember Lot’s Wife”. God’s words to us, following the BBC expose on Joshua, is to remember T. B. Joshua. While Joshua may stand as an extreme in this whole business of religion, there are others who are continually defrauding people in the name of Jesus: your judgement will not be any less than that of Temitope Balogun Joshua. The call to Christian ministry is an exalted one. Teachers will be judged more severely because we have been given so much opportunity to know and also practice what we preach. Let us keep Joshua on the extreme left of an example of what a minister should never do in Christian ministry. While we keep another “Joshua” – Jeshua – Jesus, on the extreme right of what we must all pursue to do in ministry.

May God grant his people ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Deji Yesufu is the author of the book HUMANITY.

Source

MightySparrow:
The problem of Palestine is the writing of Mohammed. When Jews didn't accept his message, he began to write to annihilate or humiliate them and Christians . If there is no such wrote up, the biblical prophecy of Israel and others living together is fulfilled.
Mohammed also is used of God to make the neighbouring nations to hate Israel. It is still part of Last Days agenda of God in preparation for Armageddon.

I agree

Present Day Israel

Now, the land of Judea, which the British would later name “Palestine”, remained largely empty between AD70 and 1948. During this time, a lot had happened in the Middle East. Palestine was still occupied by some Jews but most of the inhabitants were Arabs, who would naturally come into the historic land and live there. These Arabs are the ones we call “Palestinians” today. Besides, Islam had taken over most of the Middle East and northern Africa as its dominant religion – and with the prevalence of Islam in the Middle East also comes an entrenched bias by the people there against the Jews. In the late 19th century, a movement called Zionism began in Europe, which called for Jewish people to return to their ancestral land in the Middle East. Naturally, the movement did not have much influence because most Jews were very comfortable where they lived in either Europe or America and saw no reason to return to some “promised land” that was largely undeveloped in the midst of a desert, surrounded by hostile neighbors. All of that changed with the coming of Adolf Hitler and his rabid antisemitism.

By the close of the Second World War, it is believed that Hitler and his men had killed no less than six million Jews in the holocaust. The United Nations, which was formed after the Second World War, sought to appease the Jews by giving them the “promised land” that they had been clamouring for. Note, however, that this land is in Palestine, inside the Middle East. A land that has Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon on its boundaries. Note also that all these nations are committed Muslim countries. In 1948, the nation-state of Israel was created to the wide jubilation of the Jews everywhere in the world – the only people who were not rejoicing were their Muslim neighbours.

From 1948 until 1973, Israel waged war after war after war with her neighbors to retain a right to her sovereignty. Backed by the United Nations, the West and the sheer grit of its people, Israel withstood all aggressions against her. The United Nations has sought to appease the Palestinians by giving them their own lands which include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. But Hamas has committed itself to a lifelong war with Israel, while most Arab nations have settled for peace with Israel because of the economic advantage that Israel brings to the Middle East. The Palestinians also enjoy these things, except that their hatred of the Jews will not allow them to see through it to peace.

A New Reality in Our World Today

The saddest part of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is that in most news agencies around the world, Israel is being reported as the aggressor. Very few people are reporting the carnage that has greeted Israel in the killing of 1,400 of her people and the capturing of many others, including women and children. Instead, and like it has become a staple for the Western world, the news of Israel’s military pounding Palestinian cities, with the resultant deaths of women and children, is what is being reported in the news – so far 3,000 Palestinians have been killed.

News agencies are rarely talking about the fact that Israel still provides most of the medical help that the Palestinians use in that region of the world; they are not talking about the fact that Israel provides the water and electricity that runs in many Palestinian homes – especially in the Gaza strip; etc. Rather, all we hear is that Palestinian women and children are being killed. These news agencies refuse to report that Hamas, in its raging hatred of Israel, builds its headquarters under a hospital; they station themselves right in the middle of civilians – so that when Israel attacks the terrorists, the civilians die too. Then they take the photos of children killed and publish them to the world – sparking outrage against Israel. Unfortunately, this time around, it will be different. Israel will not stop the attacks until all the major Hamas leaders are brought down.

The real challenge is not even the crisis; the real challenge is that “a generation has risen that does not know Joseph”. People are blatantly ignorant of history and most of the people of our world today have no commitment to any religion and do not care about what some religious books say. The new religion of our day is progressivism. It is the idea that man is the author of his destiny – we do not need God. Therefore, faith is thrown overboard in many leading countries in our world today and people cannot understand why these two religions, Islam and Judaism, could be at loggerheads. Most Christians are sympathetic to the Jews, not because we do not have our grouse with the Jews, but because we believe the Bible. First, there would be no Christianity without Judaism. Christians believe everything the Jews believe; just that we believe more – we believe that the Messiah is Jesus Christ. The Jews reject Christ as the Messiah. Second, Christians believe the biblical account that the Jews will one day confess that Jesus Christ is their Lord (Romans 11:25-26).

The hope that these precious people of God will one day return to him, gives Christians sympathy towards the Jews and their plight. It is the reason Western nations, with their fundamentally Christian worldview, back the Jews. Unfortunately, there is an ideological shift in the West right now. Most people in the West are abandoning religion and, in their haste, to reject Christianity with it, they have moved to the political left and are now sympathetic to Islam (a case of the enemy of your enemy is your friend). It is these people who populate CNN, Sky News and MSNBC, and they are the ones feeding the ideological outlook of our own local news stations here in Nigeria.

The Way Forward

In my forthcoming book, Humanity, I write about how ideas rule our world. I also make it clear that ideas are backed by weapons. It is not enough to say you have an idea, that idea will be preserved by weapons – guns and muscles. Israel has weapons. Every Israeli male is a soldier – whether or not they are presently serving in the military. Israel is only behind America in the possession of some of the deadliest weapons this world owns. For example, in her defence, Israel built a weapon called the Dome. What it does is that it tracks every rocket shot into Israeli airspace, by Hamas, and blows it out. It takes 90 seconds for a rocket to fly from Palestinian territory into Israel – and Israel brings down the same rocket in less than a minute after it is shot. The Dome is ninety per cent efficient. What that means is that some rockets still hit their targets in Israel. But the Dome has prevented Israel from all-out war with Hamas – at least until Saturday, 7th of October. So, Israel has sufficient weaponry to protect its territory and to wage sustained warfare with all its neighbors at the same time.

Another thing that must be put into perspective as we move forward is the blessing of Providence. Israel is the people of God, and God will preserve his people. The days will come when Israel will confess Jesus Christ as Lord (Zechariah 9-14), but until then Israel will remain a force to reckon with in our world, and anyone who is a friend of Israel will remain a friend of God. While anyone who is an enemy of Israel would have God to contend with. Our world is an ideological world – and there are no ideas that are more enduring than religious ideas. It does not matter how much our world renounces religion, Christianity, Islam and Judaism will remain religious ideas forever. These religions possess fundamental differences, and adherents will naturally find themselves at loggerheads with each other. But it remains to be said that these religions are theist, and a fundamental commitment to any of their tenets will make anyone reject the leftist leanings of many in our world today. I believe that the biggest challenge we will contend with in the days to come will be atheism. This is why the crisis in the Middle East is a healthy reminder of the differences between the three Abrahamic religions.

Conclusion

God made the heavens and the earth. God has given us the whole thrust of history, from start to finish in the Bible. Scripture tells of God’s elect people Israel; it tells us of how Israel’s continual rejection of God’s laws remains a sin at the heart of his people; it tells of how Jesus Christ died to redeem all men from the sin that separates man and God; and the Bible records for us how God will preserve an elect for himself in the days to come. These elects of God will include Israel – in the days when the Jews shall say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Matthew 23:39).

Peace to the Israel of God.

Source:https://textandpublishing.com/thoughts-on-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/

Important Notes on the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

By: Deji Yesufu

On Saturday, 7th October 2023, gunmen invaded the land of Israel in the Middle East. As of the time of this publication, 1,400 Jewish men, women and children have been killed. This incident is now regarded as the worst terrorist attack in modern times since September 11 and since the attack on the United States naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 by Japan. Unlike most terrorist attacks that happen in other parts of the world, where it takes authorities years to find out who might be behind the attack, in this case, everyone knows who attacked Israel. Their name? Hamas. Hamas is regarded as a terrorist group by the nation of Israel; unfortunately, a lot of people in the world see them as freedom fighters. It is this ideological divide that fuels the crisis – I will return to this thought later.

Hamas was founded in 1987 with the sole purpose of wiping off the state of Israel from the map of the Middle East. Hamas has not only carried out terrorist attacks on Israel, but they have also gone forward to bring some legitimacy to their actions. They have become a political group and are today the ruling party in Palestine (to understand this better in a Nigerian context: can you imagine Boko Haram forming a political party and becoming the ruling party in this country?). Now, every time there is a terrorist attack on Israel, it is always Hamas launching offences on Israel; and then Israel will reel out her military and pound Palestine (the home country of Hamas) with bombs for days; and then the Palestinian people will begin to publish videos and pictures of children dying from these attacks; and then the United Nations will plead with Israel to stop the attacks; and then Israel will withdraw; and then we will have some peace until Hamas goes mad again. This time, however, it is different.

The sheer number of people killed in that Saturday attack has made the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, make this promise: “Hamas started this crisis, Israel will end it.” Now, this is not a mere boast: this is a final solution. Israel will invade the Palestinians with boots on the ground; they will fish out all the Hamas leaders who hide behind women and children to commit atrocities; and they will bring a final solution to this crisis. It will require military might and it may be a war that will pit other nations against themselves. It is the reason why you and I must be ideologically prepared for whatever crisis is ahead.

Historical Perspective

Islam, Christianity and Judaism are regarded as monotheist religions. They are also called Abrahamic religions because they all flow from God’s interaction with Abraham in Genesis 12. Judaism is the religion of the Jews. It is the religion that is built around the Torah: the Old Testament. Understand that Judaism, unlike Islam and Christianity, is not propagated through evangelism. There are essentially two ways people become Jews: by birth and through willing conversion. So, men become Jewish today because they were born of Jewish parents. There are some instances, however, that Gentiles observe the religion of the Jews and become Jews themselves. So despite their relatively small number, the Jews are an enduring population all around the world. There are Jews in America, Europe and even in the Middle East, this is besides the Jews in Palestine – which is the land under dispute today. Understandably, Judaism will not bow to new concepts of religion.

The New Testament account records the Jews’ clash with Christianity. It begins with the Jews’ rejection of Jesus Christ as Messiah; then their rejection of his resurrection (the Jews hold that Jesus lived and died, but never resurrected – Matthew 28:11-15); and finally, their rejection of the teachings of Christ’s apostles – which is the New Testament. So, a Jew believes the Bible but his canon ends with Malachi; they reject Matthew to Revelation. Jews’ rejection of Christ has often pitted them against Christian nations and authorities. And, historically, in reaction to their brilliant minds and doggedness, Christians have also persecuted the Jews. One blight on the life and ministry of the great Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, was some negative remarks he made on the Jews – statements that the Nazis will use later in the early 20th century to persecute the Jews.

AD 70 remains an iconic year for the Jews and Judaism. This is some 37 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus had prophesied of this impending cataclysmic clash (Luke 19:41-44). The Jews had always been at loggerhead with their Roman colonizers but that year they clashed with the Romans and a number of Roman soldiers were killed. Emperor Vespasian sent his son, General Titus, “to teach those Jews some lessons” and he was not given any limitation. Titus moved into Judea and mowed down the Jews in thousands. The great temple at Jerusalem was destroyed, with no stone left on another (Matthew 24:2); and the remaining surviving Jews were dispersed into the diaspora. So, while a tiny remnant of Jews remained in Judea, most of them moved to other parts of the Middle East, Russia and Europe.

Then came the 7th century and the religion of Prophet Mohammed – Islam. Mohammed was born in Mecca in AD 570 and died in 632. During Mohammed’s lifetime, he had interactions with three sets of people – as he sought to proselytize the people around him – the Jews, Christians, and polytheists. Polytheism was the religion of the people of Mecca and all the Middle East in the days of Mohammed.

Now, of all the three groups of people Mohammed interacted with, understandably, the Jews were the most obstinate. So that the prophet did not have very kind words for them and at some point, even made this statement against them as narrated in Sahih al Bukhari: “Allah’s apostle said, ‘You (i.e Muslims) will fight with the Jews until some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying O Abdullah (slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.’” Besides this, three years before the prophet died, a Jewish woman poisoned his food. Many believe that Mohammed died as a result of this poison, but Muslims generally reject this narration. What cannot be disputed, however, is that there is a historic enmity between Jews and Muslims.

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BadEnglish:
@op, are in anyway related to Aisha Yesufu?

the author is not related to Aisha Yesufu.

Zxcvbnmghtr:

Very true, like Deji Yesufu too. It's merely an opinion.

Yes. But opinion pass opinion. Some make it to front page of Nairaland.com.

Kobojunkie:
But according to OP's story, Spurgeon wanted his son to succeed him, so he did in fact acknowledge the business was to be kept in the family. So, what point is OP trying to make here by suggesting it should be considered a family business? The church could have turned it several times larger than it eventually did if Spurgeon's son had taken the reigns from his family.
Talk about trying to squeeze water out of stone.... e no dey work.

The author does not query sons succeeding fathers. The author thinks it right and wholesome - all things being equal. The author thinks that the self promoting spirit of Pentecostal churches however leads almost inevitably to churches running as family businesses. Truth is that if these churches were sacrificial and serving humanity, it will not be the business that most of them have become, that warrant family members succeeding themselves.

Righthussle:

Which one is pulpit ministry? It's pulpit business.

Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one.

Benekkk:
I’m an Independent Baptist and well acquainted with C.H. Spurgeon but I never knew this about him!

Spurgeon lived a short but very eventful life. There are many biographies still on him.

Kobojunkie:
Storyland! Is this the first son to succeed his Father in this business of religious houses called churches which are majorly social clubs? Or is this simply discrimination masquerading as concern.

Did you read the article?