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Continued...

The picture this scripture is painting for us is that of the Levitical priesthood. It is saying in essence that the people God calls to this ministry are sinners. And that before they offer up sacrifices for the sins of the people, they offer sacrifices for their sins first (Leviticus 16:6). But as they do this, they do it with compassion, realizing that they are partakers of the same grace they are extending to others. When sexual sins are talked about in church, you get the impression the ministers preaching are immune from this problem. If you are not careful, the very thing you have shared in private with your pastor will soon become public news in the congregation. I believe the way God designed it is that those who have battled a sin, and who have found the grace of God to overcome it, are the ones best suited to minister to others battling it. It means that you come to a subject with compassion and grace of heart, and you are patient with others until you see them overcome. Before God, sin is not in grades. A person who may not be besotted by sexual weakness may have anger problems and a history of killing people. All sins are sins, and it is the same sacrifice that is offered that both absolves and cleanses from sin.

Another point of view that must be seen before we look at practically overcoming masturbation is the subject of Christ’s death and sin itself. Christ died for the sinner – of whom I am chief, said Paul the Apostle (1 Timothy 1:15). If an apostle will call himself a sinner, it means God has given you and me freedom to freely associate and identify ourselves with our sins. But the good news is not that we are sinners; the good news is that Christ died for our sins. The challenge with this doctrine is not knowing that Christ died for sins; it is understanding that Christ died for my sins. Paul the Apostle goes further to explain in Romans 4:7-8 that there is a blessedness that comes with the death of Christ for our sins. It is this: that our sins are forgiven; our sins are covered; God will not impute iniquity on his people. My children’s catechism defines justification as “God forgiving sinners and treating them as if they had never sinned”.

R. T. Kendall said that the most controversial statement Martin Luther might have made was when he said to Philip Melanchthon: “…sin lustfully that grace might abound…” The simple-minded will say Luther was encouraging lasciviousness in his followers. No. Melanchthon was a very careful believer, who would not be found with a trace of sin on his conscience. Luther, his pastor, felt Melanchthon was not enjoying the grace of God. So, he explained that until Melanchthon experienced the deepest sin, and found God forgiving him all the same, he would not understand the grace. Nothing paints this better than that publican’s prayer: God be merciful to me a sinner. We preach the cross of Jesus Christ, not because we enjoy being called pastors; we preach the cross because we are the first beneficiaries of God’s mercies. Like Aaron, we applied the sacrifices of Christ’s death to our sins first. True pastoral work is then extending that grace to those who hear us. It is the reason why compassion for sinners is one of the leading attributes of a true pastor.

We now come to practical matters: how does a Christian overcome masturbation? The first thing of course is to hope and pray that God the Holy Spirit has done a true work in the life of the Christian. A Christian who still finds himself masturbating or is involved with any kind of sexual sin must show true contrition. There must be a genuine desire to be rid of the sin. The next thing that must be done is that this person must make the effort to avoid trigger points. It could come in what you see, the movies you watch, some websites you view, some friends you keep, etc. Jesus gives us the example by telling us that if certain things cause us to sin, we must cut ourselves off from them no matter how painful doing it is (Matthew 18:8-9). The effort that you put into separating yourself from your trigger points, will bring you to greater levels of discipline over that sin.

As you labour at doing this, you also want to give yourself means of grace. Go to a church where the word of God is taught. Occupy your mind with godly things – read a good book; indulge in writing an essay; get into theological debates; pursue a good course of helping the needy; etc. Just ensure that your mind is not idle. Sexual sins are a mind thing, and you will realize soon that the moment your mind is occupied doing something, you will have little time fixated on the things that trigger sin in you. As you do all these, I pray that you find a pastor or a spiritually older person whom you can confide in, and who can pray with you and also hold you accountable. All these must be done simultaneously and prayerfully, and you have to be incredibly patient with yourself. It means that when you fail, you consider it a fall; get up, repent, dust yourself, and get back at resisting sin. I also wish to ask that ministers who hold people’s past histories should never bring those things up against them, or share them with others. We must nurse people to spiritual health, not to use their past to hold them to ransom.


Concluded here

Overcome Masturbation

By: Deji Yesufu

Pastoral work is an extremely sensitive one and from time to time you get information from people you counsel that reveals a deep spiritual need that they have that has become something of an albatross to their walk with and work for Christ. Masturbation is the subject that I have in mind here. It is a secret sin, yet I feel it is a widespread challenge among young people in our day. This feeling is mainly intuitive but a deduction one can easily make as one observes the challenge that our days have sprung on us. Everything around us screams sex. From the television to the internet, to billboards, and then this thing, they call reality shows. It appears that women try to outdo each other in how provocatively they can dress.

Then there is the proliferation of X-rated movies. When I was growing up, you had to make some effort to find those movies on the VHS cassette tapes. Now, X-rated movies are everywhere – thanks to the internet. What X-rated movies do to the mind is that they introduce watchers to the grim world of sexual perversion. Those who watch those things will do everything they see. The least watchers will do is masturbate – have sex with themselves. The real challenge with X-rated movies is that the images rarely go away – some people may take those images to the grave. It is the reason why those things are extremely harmful. Now, my essay is directed to believers. People who, in the days when they were in the world, indulged in watching X-rated movies (and may have been sexually active too) and now that they are Christians, they find that the images have not gone, and masturbation is still a secret sin. I pray that God the Holy Spirit will give grace to your heart as you read this, and I trust he will empower you to overcome masturbation and all other sexual sins you may be battling. As I ventured to tackle this subject, one scripture that kept coming to mind is Hebrew 5:1-4:

“For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in thing about God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that, he also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron”...

Conclude the article here

In this video, Pastor Deji Yesufu, minister at Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan, talks about the sensitive subject of masturbation. He proffers biblical solutions to it.

Below, is also an article on the subject.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1tLyGkagNM?si=G95Kck7lpthWAL_N

Lege Miami:

https://textandpublishing.com/lege-miami-doing-marriage-the-wrong-way/

[quote author=eedhrisademola post=130657850][/quote]Yep

The article on Lege Miami:

https://textandpublishing.com/lege-miami-doing-marriage-the-wrong-way/

Deji Yesufu stumbled on Lege Miami's videos and was aghast at his method of finding spouses for people. He shares how not to find a spouse using Lege as a case in point in this video:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aPgcXPM-tw?si=69jpBpXPrT7L6VQ0

Nukilia:
Oga leave serious matter alone. We have seen a lot of terrible marriages by religions leaders that the society thought were immune to marital chaos. A lot of examples are there for us all to see.
Let Lege continue his business and let the parties find areas of mutual connection and alliance

Hopefully those who have ears to hear, will hear

Lege Miami: Doing Marriage the Wrong Way

By: Deji Yesufu

A vital philosophy that internet users should bring to use the facility is that the internet will give back to you what you truly possess. If you are filled with garbage, most of the content that you will consume on social media will be content that will increase what you truly are – making you worse off. The converse is also true. I do not know how I began to watch Lege Miami’s content. I suspect that I had clicked on one video of him, and then social media began to recommend his content to me. To me, at first, the videos were comic reliefs, until I realized that a lot of people may be feeding on this man’s work and in the process making the marriage institutions worse than it is already. This is why I felt compelled to write this essay to warn against the kind of marriages Lege Miami is dolling out to his viewers and to draw our attention back to what marriage is as defined by God.

Lege Miami’s real name is Adams Kehinde. A little search on him reveals that he is a musician and an actor. But it appears that where he has finally found his niche is in matchmaking men with women via social media. With a following of 751,000 people on Instagram, Lege comes on his social media handle and opens the space up to anyone in need of a spouse. The person, male or female, joins Lege live. Lege does a short interview of the “prospective client”. He wants to know how handsome or beautiful the person is. He asks about their work – how much money they make. He even goes to the extent of asking them to stand up and station their phone in a place where he can view their physique, etc. When Lege is satisfied with what he sees, he begins to trade.

With hundreds of people viewing his live program, many potential “clients” hook up and express a desire to enter into a relationship with the person Lege is offering. Lege wants to know how “fresh” an individual is. He is not too concerned with the character of the person; the moment a potential client appears haggard or unwelcoming, Lege removes him or her and moves to the next person. A few of the videos I have seen have led to possible relationships. Lege tells Punch newspapers that many of those he has linked up with are in thriving marriages. I do not doubt this. What I however suspect is that Lege’s modus operandi will produce more problems for people. It is not likely that people who go on Lege’s show will see my article: I would however be content to know that one person read this and takes caution.

Marriage is too difficult a business for one to simply go on social media, fetch a spouse, and hope to live happily ever after with this person. Two things are very clear to me from Lege’s shows: first, there is a deep yearning for companionship in our world today. Social media has made it worse by increasing our tendencies towards individualisation with our increased attention to electronic devices. Rather than people building relationships with real people, people prefer virtual relationships. The marriage institution has not been helped with this phenomenon. Second, while people yearn for relationships, they are again returning to social media to find a solution to this problem. It is clear that the moment you see a spouse from social media, you will soon get tired of this person because of a culture of individualism you have built; and then you will return to social media to get another spouse. This is one reason the Lege Miami thing is not likely to work.

Another reason is that social media cannot replace traditional ways in which marriages are contrived. If our generation does not continue to increase divorce rates, we might want to return to a time when marriages were much stronger and learn from them. Rather than coming to social media, linking up with an unknown person and trying to see if the relationship with this person will work, what has happened to good old family marriages? Where are those marriages that are contrived as young people meet up in churches and strike up relationships that last a lifetime? What has happened to good old recommendations from trusted friends, family, and colleagues? I still hold the position that the best marriages are the ones family contrive together.

For those of us who are Christians, we should remember that of the three Jewish Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only Isaac was in a marriage union that was monogamous. And that marriages were contrived by his father’s recommendation – after a servant had ventured out to search for a wife for him (Genesis 24). As our children grow older, we must have family and friends whose values we know very well. There is nothing wrong with keeping an eye on such a family with the view of linking up the children for marriage. The testimony of many old-time marriages is that the choices parents make for their children are usually better. This is just one. Then there are the recommendations that could come from friends. Some marriages are contrived through Christian fellowship, church gatherings, etc. I know of one marriage that came about through the internet that is still working – but I think that that one is an exception.

The point I am trying to make from the Lege Miami matter is that marriage is too serious a business for one to just come on social media and then fetch a spouse. This thing is very much likely to end in heartache. There is one question Lege appears to never ask. He usually would ask if the person has children, but he never seems to ask if they have been married previously. He never asks if these people are virgins or chaste. He asked one twenty-three-year-old girl if she smoked marijuana. The girl admitted on camera she did, and he did not think there was anything wrong with putting a girl on drugs out in public. Surprisingly, a thirty-year-old guy joined up and Lege linked the two together – one of the few successful link-ups I have seen him do. Now, I know a little thing about young women hooked up on drugs in our times, and to say the least, it is the worst-case scenario you want to witness in a home.

The way God designed the man and the woman, it is safe to say that any marriage between a man and a woman will work. The things that make for a successful marriage are not the things that Lege Miami looks out for in his potential clients. Looks, physique, and money are the flimsiest things in a marriage. In one year of being married to someone because of these things, they can all be gone. What makes for a good marriage is character – pure and simple. And You do not see character on the faces of people – you see it in their day-to-day lives. There is no way you can find such a thing on social media. Besides, if the people who come on Lege Miami’s shows are the people who possess his kind of worldview: who cuss easily; swear with abandon; use profanities; etc – if these are the kind of people Lege is linking up together, I fear for the kind of marriages we are building today. Marriage between two normal people is hard already; you do not want to witness marriage between two people with warped worldviews. The marriage institution is a good thing if it is birth in the right manner. Social media is not likely to give you a good spouse.

My two cents.

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

Source.

MaxInDHouse:
Good!
Surely Jesus will never eat anything from pagans just as God commanded in the law!

Jesus kept the law as a Jew.

Jesus fulfilled the law for Christians.

Christians are therefore not obliged to keep the law - ceremonial and civil laws, that is.

MaxInDHouse:
Who are CHRISTIANS?

People who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Yep

Sapasenator:
No. I get paid to watch videos.

Oh. I see

Sapasenator:
Why not? Use better toothpick self after eating the Sallah Meat.

Did you watch the video?

LordIsaac:
Yes, if they are hungry. All there is to it is sanctifying it in the name of Jesus and giving thanks to the Father for delivering us from the sacrifices of rams!

Yep

Cesarr1:
Sebi you get option na

Abi o... lol

It is a question many Christians ponder, as their Muslim neighbours invite them to feast. Deji Yesufu speaks on the subject in this video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfTHNNlRX4?si=5dpVXB9tvMl18-3P

A Comment from a Reader:


Atiang Jonathan sent me to this note with regards to my article on my family:

Good day sir. I hope you and the family are doing well?

I read your article yesterday and the writing was very smooth and the story telling even more captivating. Very interesting and useful was your short interjection of the WWII’s D-Day scene and pointing to impact the judge’s mindset and worldview. Co-incidentally I had started a historical tv mini-series “Band of Brothers”; a good retelling of the war through the eyes of “Easy Company,” the 101st division of the US Allied fighters. I have watched the series slowly (In fact I have not seen it in almost two months), partly because of time and partly because of its impact on me emotionally. It often leaves me contemplating such profound themes as death, the brevity of life, friendship, comradeship, brotherhood and sacrifice.

The interesting thing, however, is that I had not realised the relationship between your brief story and the TV series. It excited me greatly to have discovered that reading a short blogpost this morning whose excerpt I shall post shortly. I must say your article has gone beyond what you intended, concretized this piece of history in my mind.

However, some discrepancy (if its anything as such. Since it may just be a matter of judgement) with the blogpost on the outcome of the war, made me decide to share this with you while taking the chance to share my gratitude. You supposed on your article that the allied forces were too confident in their victory not to have realized the danger Hitler’s forces would still pose, and hence, lost a lot of men. The death poll really supporting your view. However, the history expert in the blogpost I read seems to suggest that the allied lost fewer men than they anticipated and had a good win. Here’s the short statement, partly on the tv series and partly on D-Day:

“This is one of the great scenes, I think, in television history. They’ve gone through enormous lengths to make sure it’s pretty accurate, they’ve put the cast through the type of tactical training these men would have gone through, the sound design, the weapons are accurate. They fired World War II weapons to create an accurate soundscape, and it shows the importance of small units of well trained, well led men, each playing their part on D-Day and it’s the sum total of all those small actions that meant that D-Day was a success and the Allies suffered less casualties than they’d feared when they hit those beaches.”

Band of Brothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKRBAFlN5ww?si=Sy95poleN60WAdIe

The Story Behind a 24-Year-Old Photo

By: Deji Yesufu

I will begin to tell this story from a courtroom in the United States of America. My mother, Henrietta Temilola Yesufu (nee Williams), stands before a judge. My baby sister, Adewumi Yesufu, is about eight years old and standing beside her mother. The prosecuting team, acting on behalf of the State, are threatening to deport my mother back to Nigeria because she had overstayed her study visa to the USA. The Judge, a particularly mean man (mother said that his handicap might have contributed to his mean spirit), explains that there is no reason why he would not grant the prosecution their wish to send mother back to Nigeria. The year would be around 1993.

Mother tells the judge that she has been a good citizen, and contributes immensely to the community as a teacher, handling a particularly difficult aspect of the State of California – Compton (those who know that this is where Dr. Dre came from, understand mother’s point). My mother then goes ahead to add that she even wishes that her four sons, who are still in Nigeria, join her in the USA. The judge was not going to have this line of thinking. He shot back: “… if war were to break out in Nigeria today, those boys should be fighting to preserve their country…” Mother told me later that she replied to the man under her breath: “My sons would not fight Nigerian wars”. Mother was wrong.

Facebook has this thing where people try to recreate photos of themselves after many years. When my brothers and I took this photo yesterday, nobody was thinking of recreating anything. My sister-in-law, Comfort Yesufu, was the person who continued to press us to take photographs. The truth of the matter was that I was not in the mood for taking photographs, and if ever one has taken a photo reluctantly, this is one. My niece, Divine Yesufu, had to plead with us to smile after the first shot she took appeared like men heading to a mourning house. But one should thank God for family. Everybody is wired differently in a family setting. While the men are thinking about preserving and providing, the women are thinking of feeding and merry-making. That was the mood that we all were in when we visited my father in his house, here in Ibadan.

My elder brother, Toro Yesufu, had come in from Abuja with his wife, Comfort, and two daughters: Divine and Davina. My brother’s son, Daniel, is in the university, writing his final exams, and trying to graduate as an Accountant. He could not join the party. I brought my two kids, Adesola and Iseoluwa, to see their grandfather: Disu Adeyemi Yesufu. My immediate younger brother, Adebowale Yesufu, standing to my right, also had his wife, Kemi, and children, Dapo and Dolapo, around. Then there is our youngest brother, Adeoye Yesufu, at the extreme left of the photo – he is the brain behind putting together the 24-year-old photograph. Adeoye was in town from Lagos with his wife, Halima, and two children: William and Abigail.

The real heroine of these photos, my mother, is not in the picture. I have no doubt however that she is with us in the spirit. Mother died in April 2006, after years of battle with breast cancer. Before she passed away, she had completed a doctoral study and she was awarded the degree posthumously. My mother is not just a hero to us, and her children, she has also been a hero to hundreds of other people. My elder brother, Toro, tells the story of how he went to Ikom, Cross River State. While working at the Federal Government School there for his National Youth Service, he met one of mother’s colleagues at the Unity Schools where mother taught French before she left Nigeria in 1988 for a Master’s degree in photography. When the man heard that my brother was “Yesufu”, he immediately asked to know whether he was in any way related to one Mrs Yesufu who taught at FGGC Bakori between 1983 and 1988. My brother told him proudly that that woman was his mother.

I cannot remember how many times people have stopped me and asked to know if I am the son of one Mrs. Yesufu, I also always reply proudly that she was my mother. It is instructive to know that Mother spent only five years in the Nigerian Unity Schools system, but she is still remembered by everyone whose life she touched. I once attended a book presentation by Ayisha Osori (“Love Does not Win Elections”). Ayisha mentioned that she went to Bakori, and then during the Q and A, I asked her if she knew my mother – Mrs. Yesufu. Aisha was elated – we nearly derailed the whole program with our banters following this. In these days of social media, my mother’s former acquaintances keep reaching me. But our mother’s best achievements must be reserved for the lives she touched out there in the United States, particularly in the State of California, before she passed at the very young age of 54.

Every one of us grieves differently, and besides grieving the loss of a mother, I also grieve the loss of a nation. When Mother told me the story of that judge, I always wondered what exactly was wrong with that man – denying my brothers and me the opportunity to go to America. I began to however understand that judge’s mind as I read history. Once upon a time, a madman invaded our world. His parents named him Adolf Hitler, and for whatever this information is worth, no one today bears “Hitler” in Europe anymore. Hitler possessed a grand plan: he felt that he alone had the idea to rule the world. Germans are the greatest of human species, and only Germans, of pure Germanic blood, must rule nations, he argued. Hitler held contempt for the idea of taking colonies in Africa (I am learning from reading Obafemi Awolowo’s autobiography that Britain offered Hitler Nigeria in 1938 as a colony).

Instead, Hitler felt he must rule the whole of Europe. World War 2 began with Germany taking nation after nation in Europe. They only avoided conquering Britain because of the English Channel, the large swathe of water separating continental Europe from Britain. But Britain suffered the Blitz. Then one day, Hitler had another idea. Rather than fighting Britain, he could conquer Joseph Stalin’s Russia, win over the Soviet people’s oil, and use those resources to conquer the rest of the world. Somehow, Hitler had never read the story of Napoleon’s wars well. Napoleon began to suffer defeats only after he had tried to conquer Russia. Napoleon did conquer Russia but the sheer number of men and resources he expended in doing it, led to his Waterloo eventually. Hitler may have believed that by invading Russia with three million men, he would not have a Napoleonic experience. Unlike Napoleon, about a century before that time, Hitler failed to take Moscow. As his men withdrew in defeat, returning with their tails between their legs to Berlin, the Allied forces invaded France in 1944 (which at this time was under German rule).

D-Day landings is what I believe that judge was talking about. As the Allied Forces brought a total of 850,000 men to the shores of Normandy, France, it was certain that a wounded Hitler was only about facing defeat. But there is a problem with a wounded man – he fights to stay alive. The first swathe of young men that invaded Normandy that day on June 6, 1944, were mostly boys between the ages of 16 and 22. These boys did not have cover from enemy shooting and the Allied had wrongly believed that the aerial bombing that went before them would have hit most of the German snipers on the beach. They did not. The story of D-Day is this: the first set of soldiers that hit the beach, all young men, paid the ultimate price. The Allied forces then had to rely mainly on human shields and the fact that the German snipers would continue to shoot and kill until they ran out of ammunition. The D-Day landings owe its success to the sheer number of men that invaded France that day. The Germans killed and killed until they could kill no more. 4,414 Allied men died on D-Day alone. The remaining forces that kept moving on the shores, took Normandy and brought the second world war to an end. This is what was behind the thinking of that judge when he denied my mother bringing her four boys to America. “Your boys will fight the wars when it breaks out in your land…”, just as some boys fought the war, and paid the price, for the liberty that many Nigerians go abroad to enjoy through japa.

My elder brother, Adetoro, would be fifty in December 2024. His first son, Daniel, would be graduating that same month – by the grace of God. While we have not fought physical wars, my brothers and I have waged economic wars throughout our stay in Nigeria. Mother’s dream to bring us to the USA never materialized, and at some point, we had the good sense of facing our lives here in Nigeria and making the best of it. It is the thoughts of some unrealized potential within my family, which had been wasted by evil men that left me depressed throughout the family reunion yesterday. Whatever the case might be, the wisdom behind these photos and the story in them should be told. The wisdom is this: despite all the challenges, God has been extremely kind to my family. We have enjoyed good health; everyone has their children; our children are well and are doing well in their education; our homes are together; our father is still alive at seventy-five; and God has been very good. It is a big deal that a photo was taken at Ahamdu Bello University Zaria’s first gate, and that picture can be recreated twenty-four years later, with all the persons involved still alive and well in it. We will not always have it this way but while it lasts, we have every reason to thank God.

That, my readers, is a bit of the story behind these pictures.

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

Source

.

CC: Seun, Mynd44, Lalasticlala

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Something like this...

Blessedpalms:
This is a Lie

Discuss

In this video, Pastor Deji Yesufu explains how Nigerian graduates can make the best of what is available in the country in these difficult times.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJU6tKzUT0?si=H4m_Hjb07aNSSDGP

NNTR:
James 1:20
for the [resentful, deep-seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God
[that standard of behavior which He requires from us].

Anger has it justifiable place and time, holy anger the more.

Our Lord and Saviour of the whole wide world, Yahshua HaMashiach was hurt by seeing the temple being heavily commercialised, (i.e. turned the house of prayer into a den of robbers) but controlled His anger by shooing them all out

I for one, believe that no one should be taught never to be or never get angry, but be better taught, how to be angry, learn not how to react, but learn how to respond, as anger in the wrong hands, with it being one letter short of danger, can spell bad news

When a mosquito lands on the testicles, no need for advising, that there is always a way to solve certain problems without using anger and violence.

_{Personal text: Jesus is not a theologian. He is God who told stories.}

Always fun reading you

𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗜𝗗 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

By: 𝑫𝒆𝒋𝒊 𝒀𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒇𝒖

A duel is a situation where two men come to settle their disagreement with a fight. Most times the fight do not end in death, but in some extreme cases it does. In a duel, each man comes to the fight with a weapon. It could be a knife, a sword, a gun, or just their fist. In a regulated environment, with an arbiter and witnesses, both men enter into the fight and they settle their grievances this way. In occasions when the duel ends in fatality, there is a prior agreement signed by the two parties that the other person would not be prosecuted. The People’s Profile, a YouTube channel that tells the history of much of the West, has just published a video on a former American President – Andrew Jackson. When Jackson ran for President in the middle of the 19th century, one thing that his opponents brought against him was his love for duelling. On two or three occasions, Jackson had been involved in duels and a few of them had resulted in fatalities.

On one occasion, Andrew Jackson came face to face with a man he had a grouse with. They agreed to settle the matter in a duel. In 19th-century America, duels had begun to experience a decline and respectable men were not expected to fight in that manner. Yet, a few of them engaged in the old-fashioned thing. Jackson and his duelling partner faced each other on this particular day with their pistols. Usually, it is agreed that each person pulls his gun and shoots one time. You are not to fire a second time – no matter what. Jackson, on this day, did not realize that his pistol had not been properly serviced. So, when the guns were drawn, his opponent shot Jackson just a little above his heart and shattered his collarbone. Jackson also shot at his opponent, but his gun was jammed. As Jackson, struggled on the floor, he pulled at the gun’s safety, re-engaged the pistol, and shot the man. The shot was fatal and the man died. The real argument used against Jackson by his opponents during the election was that Jackson did not keep the agreement of the duel: he shot twice, rather than once.

These thoughts occupied much of my mind as I listened to the People’s Profile video. I came to the conclusion that there was something about the Ten Commandments that human beings were losing greatly from. The sixth commandment says: thou shall not kill. My children’s catechism adds: “What does the sixth commandment teach us?” Answer: “To avoid angry passions”. I cannot fathom what kind of anger will lead grown, intelligent, and respectable men to engage in duels except for this thing: angry passions. Jesus likened anger to murder (Matthew 5:21-22), and in a practical sense that is what it is.

The Bible gives us an indication that anger can be positive and negative. There are numerous scriptures that speak of God’s anger. Jesus experienced anger on some occasions. Ephesians 4:26 instructs believers “…be ye angry but sin not…” – in other words, there is a place for anger but we must avoid allowing our anger to result in sin. We understand from biblical studies that God requires us to be angry at sin: both within ourselves and in others. Anything that will occasion sin to thrive anywhere should occasion our displeasure. The Bible also gives us the impression that as God’s people, we should love what God loves, and hate what God hates. If God is angry at something, we must also be angry at it. However, the way and manner we display this anger matters. Anger must be directed at sin and we must pursue to eradicate it both in us and in others. There is no justification to permit sin to reign in us – particularly in the church of God. Having said this, it is safe to say that the majority of the anger men manifest is a negative one and every time we see anger welling up in us, we must remember the children’s catechism: avoid angry passions.

I think the first step towards dealing with anger is understanding that it is a sin and that most angry passions within us do not originate from the Holy Spirit. It means that the moment we feel a fit of anger welling up, we want to bring it to God in prayers immediately. Then, maybe we do not want to talk. Most words spoken in fits of anger are usually not rational and godly words, so you do not want to talk much. Then we must realize that seething anger manifests in many ways – the least of which is in character assassination. When we understand that anger and murder are first cousins, we realize that unrepented resentment is the root of character assassinations. You may comfort yourself with “speaking your mind”, but you have actually done this by misrepresenting that person both wrongly and unfairly, destroying his character and reputation, so that although the person may be alive, in the eyes of those you have narrated these things to, that person is dead. A lot more people have been killed this way than through actual murders.

There is a phenomenon that is rampant in churches: it is the process of cancelling people we do not agree with. This person may be within your own group, shares most of your position on the Bible, etc. But because you disagreed on one point of doctrine or practice, you go to the full length of misrepresenting that person to others. You destroy his character and reputation. The man may be alive, but before the eyes of those you spoke, he is dead. The Bible is telling us that through your own resentment, hate, and anger, you have actually murdered a Christian brother. I have seen occasions where it took decades before the true picture was unveiled. In some cases, all parties go to their grave with a wrong perception of the other person. We owe ourselves a duty to close our ears to gossip; and when we do hear about a brother, we should hear his side first before we reach a conclusion on issues.

When anger is nursed for a long time, the result is a desire to kill. One woman told me that on one occasion, she had actually purchased rat poison potent enough to kill a human being. She brought the product home and intended to put it in her husband’s food. Somehow conscience dissuaded her from doing it. Somebody told me that there is an area in Ibadan where all the people living there are female landlords – the story goes that all of them have taught each other to kill off their husbands. When you live with a spouse and you do not have control over your passions, it is very easy to allow a little resentment to grow into murderous thoughts and actions.

In a similar manner, duels are men taking angry passions to a logical conclusion. Wikipedia explains that with public opinion against duels becoming increasingly negative, the practice has dwindled in modern society. But in the days when duels were practised, even women engaged in the dastardly act. What we see in Western cowboy movies, with two men drawing their guns and shooting at each other, is a duel. The only thing is that in real-life duels, the fatalities were usually not often. But in some cases, people are killed. When anger is unbridled, men lose their sense of rationality and they can go to any extent to settle scores with the object of their anger. It is understandable that people who are not regenerated will do things like this. But for Christians, it must be different.

We must admit that we can be angry; we must also agree that on some occasions we have allowed our anger to result in sin; and most of all, we must submit every resentment and angry passion to the feet of God the Holy Spirit, and request that he help bring them under control. With time, a raging bull of a man, under the power of the Holy Spirit, becomes a lamb of a saint. Nothing is impossible with God. We should understand that a man without Christ and without God has no resources within him to bear fruit pleasing to God. One constant denominator of the unregenerate is that they are always angry. We see it with the road rages all around our streets; we see it in wars – kingdoms fighting kingdoms; we see it in broken homes; etc. The man who has however come under the power of the Holy Spirit has his sinful passions under control. One of them is his tendency towards anger. The Holy Spirit tames and redirects it. So that if the saint would be angry at all, he reserves his passions for righteous indignation alone.

Andrew Jackson’s time in the presidency of the United States of America was not one characterized by the rash decision of an angry man with a history of engaging in duels. Rather he quite uncharacteristically emerged from his time in government as a thoughtful and successful ruler. Jackson was simply a man of his time and the duel thing was something that men engaged in to preserve their honour. Jackson became a military general before eventually running for presidency and ruling America for one term. By the time he was in Washington, Jackson was nearing his seventies and age had tempered most of his youthful temper. This situation, however, cannot be equated with modern governments. The unending wars between Russia and Ukraine is fuelled by the angry passions of one man – Vladmir Putin. The Second World War was sustained by the irascible Adolf Hitler. And America is at the verge of electing Donald Trump – a man known for his unpredictability and also unreserved tempers.

I end this essay by making the point that just as it is important for Christians to have their angry passions tamed, it is also equally important that leaders of nations tame their angry passions. Our world is today a nuclear one. Countries are distinguished by whether or not they own nuclear war heads. Since America detonated a nuclear bomb on Japan in the closing days of the Second World War, no other country has ventured on that idea. It will only take one man, who cannot bridle his angry passion, to plunge our world into a nuclear holocaust. When God said “…thou shall not kill…” and the fathers advised that we all should curb our angry passions, this is what the makers of the heavens and earth had in mind.

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

Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgRYWeEyaYE?si=nal57Ef4CK8DHJSR

“Breath of Life”: A Review by Deji Yesufu

I am on holidays and visiting a friend at his putsch condo, somewhere in Ikorodu, Lagos. I have had lots to eat, a lot to drink, and a three-day freedom from my children’s troubles. Despite being on holidays, I ensure my morning hours are used for my discipline of reading, writing, and a bit of work too. But I use the evening to watch internet TV. Having seen quite a number of reviews of recent Nigerian movies, and with “Breath of Life” starring Wale Ojo enjoying some positive feedbacks, I thought I should see it on my friend’s internet TV – let me add that I do not own internet TV and might never own one because despite not being Deeper Life, I agree with Pastor W. F. Kumuyi that Television (and all kinds internet useless browsing) are thieves of time; and we all can make better use of our time than watching TV – a digression.

I would begin my review of the movie with the positives. I was entirely enthralled by the use of the various sceneries from Ibadan. Whoever came up with that concept has all my blessings and prayers because I live in Ibadan and I love my city. The producers could have used more sites in Ibadan beyond University of Ibadan, but the mere fact that they showcased a few parts Ibadan is sufficient for me. I am not sure how much The Chapel of the Resurrection charged them for using their church for the movie, but I think it is fine. My wife and I were married at those altars in December 2009, and the Chapel, which is the official local assembly of the University of Ibadan, is fast becoming am iconic site in the city. So, the producers scored very high with me for coming to Ibadan for the shoots.

Another positive in the movie was the overall good acting put forward by the actors. Different people see different things in movies. I see facial expressions. Are the actors able to translate into the reality the stories and bring expression to their characters that reflect the essence of the movie? Acting is story telling but via moving pictures. Too many times, I see great actors fail at producing the right facial expressions in their scenes – probably because they have not entered the skin of their characters. Too many times, the only way Nigerian actors skirt around this challenge is by acting only one role in all movies: there is that actress that knows to act only the wicked mother-in-law; there is that actor that can only act the role of the bad street lover boy; and there are those who can not be anything but grandmothers or grandfathers. Those are the only facial expression they can demonstrate. It would be hard to judge the actors of “Breath of Life” on their facial roles though, since I have not seen any other works they have done. It is however safe to say they lived out their characters well in the movie. I should add quickly that the asthma line was just perfect!

Other positives of the movie were that the cameras used were very good. The use of numerous camera angles, drone shot, etc, was excellent. I could also discern the wise use of resources, not unnecessarily wasting money on high tech productions but ensuring best production from limited equipment which they could afford. The producers of the movie also did well in discovering the young lead actor and actress – Chimezie Imo and Genoveva Umeh. While I consider that Wale Ojo and Ademola Adedoyin were already known actors, the duo of Imo and Umeh was an experiment that was worth taking in the movie. Besides the fact that employing young actors and actresses reduces the budget of a film, when they deliver, it launches them into higher realms in the movie industry. The producers scored a very great high by employing these two. And, in summary the story line was original and very moving. It was a captivating story. Having established the positives, I move to a few negative and this would explain the reason I am giving the movie a generally low grading – see the final paragraphs for the movie’s score.

My first criticism of the movie is the simplistic ending that was provided to it. Whoever wrote the story line of Anna (Umeh) coming into the room of Elijah (Imo) did an excellent job. That situation triggering his asthma and then leading him into the hospital was well thought out. I however do not think that it is realistic for a hardened atheist (Timi) to suddenly give up his philosophy of life and then lay down his life for another to live. It is something a Christian may do; but I do not see a hardened atheist doing such. That line was rather simplistic. I think if the screenwriters had taken their time, they would have successfully provided a link between the young man’s health challenge and recovery without employing those simplistic lines.

Second. I think the kissing scenes were totally unnecessary. Now, I understand that Nigerian movie makers are trying to break into a Western market and would need to sell some eroticism to a community that is depraved in thinking already. I however think that the story line did not need those kissing scenes. Yes, boy and girl meet; and they fall in love, but how many of such love scenes result in such passionate kisses – especially between a “sister” and an aspiring pastor. Now, if that is how pastors treat the young ladies in their churches today, I pity the state of religion in our day.

Having said all these, I should then provide my scoreline to the movie. I give “Breath of Life” a 53%. I think that the negatives took a lot off the movie and made it lose quite some marks on my part. Although, sincerely, I usually would not award more than 47% to most Nigerian movies and so for this one to get 53%, they have done very well as far as I am concerned. The positive part of seeing a movie like this is that movie making in Nigeria is getting better and would get better with time. I should also say that my blog is not a movie review one; it is a place where I express my thoughts on various issues of life, especially religion. I am happy to provide the review, however, and I hope that it adds to the overall success of the movie. I think you should see “Breadth of Life”.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of the book [/i]HUMANITY.

Source.

[i]Edited by Mod

Breath of Life Won The Highest Awards At 2024 AMVCA

Best Supporting Actress: Genoveva Umeh (“Breath of Life”)

Best Supporting Actor: Demola Adedoyin (“Breath of Life”)

Trailblazer Award: Chimezie Imo (“Breath of Life”)

Best Lead Actor: Wale Ojo (“Breath of Life”)

Best Director: BB Sasore (“Breath of Life”)

Best Movie: “Breath of Life”