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In Jesus Name Plc And Fake Men Of God By Jide Ayobolu In recent times, the body of Christ, which is the church, has come under severe criticism both from within and outside the church. This is because of the emphasis on material rather the spiritual aspect of the needs of the people. It will be discovered that the gospel now is mostly about prosperity, how the people can be rich and not how they can be saved. Yet, when Jesus died and resurrected on the third day, before he ascended to heaven where He is seated on the right hand of the Father, He gave the great commission, asking His disciples to go to different parts of the world to win souls for the Kingdom of God. But from all appearances, various men of God in the country today are interested in how to increase their on-shore and off-shore bank accounts. It is about how to systematically improve their socio-economic well-being. In fact, some of them are not called God, they called themselves because of the nagging is of bread and better. Hence, they are not serving God and His purpose but rather they serve their ulteriour motives. No wonder, these days, if one attends some church services, not only are ladies scantily dressed exposing very sensitive parts of their bodies, they do it deliberately with the intention of catching the attention of those that will not be able to able to control themselves. The church has now become a fashion house, or even a place where people compete on material things; my car is better than yours, my clothes are more expensive than yours, people just go to the church for the sake of going they are not rooted in the things of the spirit, they don’t even know the scriptures, and the men of God are not bother about this, what really concerns them is how to inflate their own profile, in terms of wealth acquisition and material increment. Besides, there are different types of offerings that are called and fund raisings, also miracles are the order of the day, but the question is which is better, miracles or salvation? Nowadays, in the church, there is no clear-cut distinction between preaching and motivational talk, many pastors today, will not even talk about sin, holiness, salvation, repentance, hell-fire etc, because they don’t want to lose their members, even when people ought to be at their workplace, working for their daily bread, churches fix special activities which people can attend and offering of various kinds will be collected, not minding the socio-economic conditions of the people. There are so many “men of God” who before starting their churches have no means of livelihood, they were a wretched lot, socio-economically they occupy the nadir position. They have tried all other areas but they find it extremely cumbersome to make ends meet. In fact, they were living from hand to mouth, begging from people in order to feed, but since, they venture into church business, not only can they now eke out a living, they have rapidly grown in heaps and bounds financially to the extent that, they now have to devise methods, means and strategies of sustaining the constant investment- “monetary flow” from the people. They see fake visions, manufacture problems, dream vacuous dreams, make tenuous prophesies and make a public show of their activities, no matter how anti-Christ they may be, to gain public acceptance and legitimacy. Yes, they may have the public approval, but the greater question is, does it have God’s backing? The Bible itself this much, that at the end times, perilous time will come, that the love of God will wax cold and people will become lovers of themselves, it equally said there will be countless fake pastors and prophets, and this is exactly what obtains in Nigeria today. Some of the pastors in the country today are herbalists, who really bow down to lesser gods, but in order to have public imprimateur, they put on the façade of Christianity by wearing the cassock of the clergy. But God cannot be deceived. The Nigerian public is a very gullible because of the prevailing socio-economic deprivations; they genuinely seek the face of God only for them to be serially deceived by fake pastors who are equally looking for a means of livelihood. Again, when Jesus was in the world before he ascended to heaven, He was available to everybody, He had no houses, no clothes, He was committed to the needs of the people, but what do we have today, pastors that go about with convoy of cars and security operatives, with loaded guns and what have you. The question is, do they need all these to genuinely preach the gospel of truth and good news? In the church in Nigeria today there is no clear distinction between the gospel and showbiz. The desire for fame, money and worldly things has gained the utmost currency. Yet, the Bible says man cannot serve God and mammon. The church of God in Nigeria has been commercialized. Fraudsters too ask prayers and they pay tithe. And, the pastors will tell them that God is a God of mercy. Yes, this is correct, but God is also a consuming fire. A case in point in that of one Reverend King, who was recently convicted by a Lagos State high court, who sentenced him to death by hanging for killing church members. The same Reverend King has terrorized the Ajao Estate area of Lagos state for quite a long time, beating people up. He was accused by female church members of forcing them to have sex on oath, some even said he had anal sex with them, some them were physically beaten, some of them were set ablaze, all the pastors have the same hair-cut, King was said to have had carnal knowledge of several married women who were members of his church, he lived in affluence and luxury, while his congregation slaved for him. Another case is point is that, of the well known Benny Hinn financial scandal, Pastor Benny Hinn was tricked to spend $4 million for a three-day crusade. Hence, the man of God was said to be annoyed and left Nigeria rather angry. He was quoted as saying, “I am not happy at all, what I see here is not pleasant, I do not like what I see. We expected larger crowd here because we were told that we would have millions of people in the crusade. The programme recorded estimated 1.3 million people in attendance. This crusade that cost our ministry $4 million should have cost us just $2 million. We have made this mistake because I was misinformed”. Though, the whopping sum of $4million was spent on the crusade, the organizing committee, who were mainly pastors, still declared undisclosed extra expenses incurred in organizing the event. However, the visiting pastor bluntly refused to pay any extra cost, which made the organizing committee to collect, a thing that has never been done before in any Benny Hein crusade. This was apart from the N1,000 registration fee collected from journalists that covered the event. When such things continue to happen with torrential rapidity then, it calls to question the integrity and credibility of the clergy in Nigeria. There is also the penchant amongst pastors to also take side with the government of the day, just because of what they can benefit monetarily. In the last eight years, it is Pastor Tunde Bakare and the conference of Catholic Bishops that have consistently put the government on its toes to ensure good governance and real democracy. Other behaved as though, they were government officials. This disturbing that, nobody can be trusted, not even the so-called” men of God. If “men of God” who have the fear of God can behave in this funny manner, what about ordinary people who don’t have the fear of God? Very soon, churches will start to go to the Stock Exchange and they will be quoted, yet, they don’t pay tax. But the pastors should pause and ask themselves that in spite of the proliferation of churches and upsurge in the number of attendants, the rate of crimes, prostitution, and anti-social behaviours have increased optimally. Also, because of the half-truths preached by some so-called pastor faithful now rely on God to do for them, what they ordinarily ought to do for themselves, God is constant and will always do what He should do, but do people do their own part? People now go to church not because they truly love God, but because of what they think they can get from God. They think there are short-cuts to success, and this is why Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the masses”. However, a point must be made quickly that, there are still responsible, powerful and God-fearing pastors in Nigeria. Yes, but they are extremely few and far between. That is why the Bible says, “Not everyone that calls me father shall enter the kingdom of God. Even if I cannot vouch for anyone, I can vouch for Pastor E.A. Adeboye and Bishop Olorunfemi Oniayiekan, as example of what true men of God should be. A man of God need not advertise himself, action speaks louder than voice. But God is not man, at the appropriate time. He will expose all the workers of anti-Christ, both within and outside the church. But Nigerians must be extremely careful not to be hoodwinked by these sugar-coated, smooth-talking fake pastors. That is why the Bible said, by their fruits, you shall know them”. May God help Nigeria, Amen.
By
Jide Ayobolu No 19 Gongola Street Garki 2 Abuja-Nigeria.
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