FEATURE ARTICLE

Archbishop Gloria GraceMonday, August 18, 2014
[email protected]
USA

ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE
TO YOUR FRIENDS

THE RESTORATION OF IGBO-JEWISH ORIGIN: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

advertisement

wo of my daughters never want to be identified as Nigerians. However, recently they picked interest on their Igbo-Jewish root. In our discussion, I began to compare certain Biblical traditions with Igbo tradition such as a woman who has a child is not allowed into the House of God until thirty days when she will dedicate the child to the Lord, the eight-day circumcision of male children, certain names and phrases in the Bible that are Igbo names and phrases, traditional attires, certain foods they avoid such as pig meat and some foods God forbade His people from eating, and so forth. The more I read the old Testament the more I see Igbo lifestyle and tradition. I did not need anyone to convince me that Igbos have Jewish origin because their lifestyle are in the pages of the Bible, especially their ancestral practices which one can find in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

However, while my children and I were into this discussion, which was making meaning at the time, we began to experience some opening of demonic presence in our house. The whole atmosphere became oppressive and my son began to react to the oppression.I began to perceive in the spirit some of those traditional and ancestral activities such as masquerade dances and so on. I asked them to stop this discussion. These were people that were uprooted from the Promised Land and scattered abroad to become slaves in other nations, because of their abominable practices, and they still hold unto such practices even in their captivities and continue to suffer the consequences. I assured them that we are the generation of Jesus Christ, redeemed from our sins and purchased unto God. Let us rather stick to our new identity in Christ.

Last week on Facebook, I tried to chat with a woman of God to pray in agreement with me over something. She sent a message to me to look into my foundation. I have always dealt with my foundation in prayers.

Two days later in the library, I bent down for my now eight -prayer-watch series. It was 6pm and I stopped what I was doing to take over the evening in prayers (evening oblation). Immediately, I was taken in the spirit to my village on what happened sometime in the early 80's. The name of my village is Umuokpara-ozara, the first son of Olokoro community in Umuahia, Abia State. They constructed and built an Elephant structure (Enyi, they called it). This structure was strategically placed across the central Shrine located at the heart of the village, Oge-ele. It was such a huge celebration for it was first done when my mother was small. After this celebration, it has not been done even till this day. So it was historical.

The sons and daughters of umuokpara-ozara came home to celebrate it, and also the entire community of Olokoro (comprising of about twenty one villages or thereabout) gathered to play whore with this structure. We all came and stood, watching. It was accompanied with masquerades and the people were rejoicing and celebrating. Later, with the masquerades, they went to Olokoro main market (Ahia-ukwu) to celebrate it before the entire Olokoro community.

When I was taken to the scene of this celebration in the spirit just as I bowed my head to pray, I saw what I called whoredom. It was like seeing the children of Israel in the wilderness dancing and playing whore with the golden calf they built when Moses was forty days in the mountain communing with God. At this instant, I understood that what my people did was only a continuation of what the children of Israel did in the wilderness, playing and harloting with images, after God gave them the command not to have any other gods besides Him, or worship any image. The Jews are still in their rebellion against God even in slavery.

While still on this scene in the spirit, I was told that the sons and daughters of Umuokpara-ozara were all dedicated to this structure, and the whole land was polluted before God. The Lord showed me His heart. His heart was broken over this. I felt the heaviness in His heart, and became very sorry for what my people did, and are still doing. I perceived Umuokpara-ozara more polluted than all the rest of the villages in Olokoro. I opened my Bible and was taken straight Jeremiah18: 13-17:

Ask now among the Gentiles, who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing. Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters? Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols, and they have caused themselves to stumble in the ways, from the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on highways, to make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy, I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity.

As I was reading these, I continued to see our village more and more in the book of Jeremiah, harlotting under trees and stones. I know it's the same in other places, but it made my foundation more real, and why in spite of all the prayers and warfares, which I have made, that Umuokpara-ozara Shrine continues to stand before me. Physically, it has been thrown down but spiritually it's still there. Something needs to be done. Many sons of my village continue to die as soon as they are about to shine out as stars. Like Daniel in Daniel Chapter 21, I went into prayers for my people, confessing their sins before God. The scene continued to stand before me. I made a call to a lawyer /Pastor friend from one of the neighboring villages and asked him to tell me what he knew about that Elephant structure, and why am I perceiving that my village is more corrupt than others. He explained to me that our village was the first son of Olokoro, and so was the lead. When they built that structure, they got all the needed financial and human support from the entire community. They had to give them all the needed support because, they were firstborn village.

MESSAGE TO IGBO-JEWS

As I study the Bible, I have no need of any prophets to tell me that Igbos are Jews. While the Igbos are rediscovering and reconnecting to their Jewish roots, they need to understand why they are in exile and why the Lord God cast them away from the land that flows with milk and honey. Have they forsaken the very practices that sent them to exile? Are they not still suffering slavery even in their strange lands till today? How many millions of them were massacred in pogrom before Biafra-Nigeria war, and continuously being massacred year by year by Boko Haram in the Northern part of Nigeria, and all their wealth wasted? How many of them died of starvation during Nigeria-Biafa war including other forms of death? This is a fulfillment of sword, pestilence and famine the Lord appointed to the Jews before He cast them off the Promised Land. Jeremiah 15: 2-4,14.

...Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. And it shall be, if they say to you, 'Where should we go?' then you shall tell them, Thus says the Lord: Such as are for death to death; And such as are for the sword, to the sword; And such as are for the famine, to the famine; And such as are for captivity, to the captivity'. And I will appoint over them four forms of destruction, says the Lord: the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. I will hand them over to trouble, to all kingdoms of the earth...and I will make you cross over with your enemies into a land which you do not know.

In the course of writing this article, I decided to make some research on the fulfilment of the above prophecy over Igbos. I stumbled unto an article by one Dr. Chidi Osuagwu, where he listed some historical massacre of the Igbos in Nigeria. The whole project has been to completely wipe out the Biafrans (Igbos). In 1945, hundreds of them were killed in Jos and their properties worth millions of dollars looted; 1953, Muslims warred on them and looted hundreds of millions of their properties. Just as other Jews in other nations such as Germany during Hitler's reign, Russia during Stalin's reign suffered holocaust, in 1966 Igbos suffered the worst holocaust that was meant to completely exterminate them. They were systematically executed in pogrom. They were skinned alive, executed in market places, and had their throats slit. Their pregnant women had their wombs slit open and their babies were slashed in market places. After the killing of Aguiyi Ironsi, a Nigerian Igbo President, their armies and officers were executed.

During Nigeria-Biafra war where millions of them were killed, tens of thousands of them who did not die from sword, died from starvation, pestilence and other ways. All these are fulfilling the above prophecies on Igbos as Jews. But in all these, just as God promised them, He continues to keep the remnant alive. Since then till today, they continued to face swords of the Muslim extremists in the Northern part of Nigeria, and their properties being looted.

More so, in Deutronomy 28, the Lord listed great covenant blessings that will come upon them and overtake them if they will obey His voice and walk in His statutes; and also curses that will come upon them and overtake them if they forsake Him and serve graven images.

And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see no more again: and there you shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen, and no man shall buy you (Deuteronomy 28: 68).

In fulfillment of the above word of God, Igbos were heavily affected by the Atlantic slave trade between 16th century up till late 19th century. Just as the Lord God said that they shall be brought again into Egypt (hard labor, bondage) by ships, and be sold into the hands of their enemies as bondmen, and no one shall buy them.That was their story. Every word of God on this was fulfilled. They were being shipped from their various ports to Virginia in chains, and sold to various areas of the USA . According to history, they were either suicidal or runaways. God described Jewish people (Igbos) as stubborn, headstrong and stiff naked people: Exodus 32: 9;33: 3,5; Deuteronomy 31:27.

In their stubbornness, after all their sufferings and hardships during shipment, chained together, they preferred to commit mass suicide, drowning themselves rather than become slaves. It was recorded that they drowned themselves in Savanna Georgia, USA after chanting together that sea brought them , and they would return by sea. Because of their suicidal and runaway tendencies, it was difficult to buy them. They suffered too much whipping and agonies in the hands of their slave masters. Thus, as millions of them were sold in slavery, many of them died in the process.

They were scattered all over the nations of which they did not know, or heard such as Jamaica, Haiti, other Carribean societies, and many more nations very far from home. The Lord said: I will make you cross over with your enemies, into a land which you do not know.

In spite of all these holocausts and enslavement and all manner of deaths these people of God have suffered, God in His faithfulness and mercy continues to preserve a remnant just as He said in his word (Isaiah 65:9,10; Jeremiah 50:20).

IGBOS! we have suffered enough. God says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. Now that we have discovered our identity, it is time to ask ourselves questions why the Lord God would let His own chosen nation suffer like this. He says that He kindled fire in his anger to burn His people because they forsook Him (Jeremiah 15: 14b). Isaiah 58: 1, it is written:

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sin.

The sin of Igbos as Jews is that they forsook the Lord God, Who brought them out of Egypt, out of bondage, and brought them into the land that flowed with milk and honey, and there they forsook Him. The Lord God said to them:

But you have played the harlot with many lovers, ... Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see: where have you not lain with men? By the road you have sat for them Like Arabian in the wilderness, and you have polluted the land with your harloteries and your wickedness, therefore the showers have been withheld, and there have been no latter rain...Jeremiah 3: 1-3.

IGBOS! this is your time for divine visitations. It's your season! He is calling His people back! He is pleading! Your identity is that you are a priestly nation, the firstborn of all nations of the world, you are married to God.

They say, If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man's, may he return to her again? Would not that land be greatly polluted?...Yet return to Me, says the Lord (Jer. 3:1). Will you not cry to me, My Father you are guide of my Youth? Will He remain angry forever? Will He keep it to the end? (vs. 4-5).

Return, O backsliding Israel, says the Lord, I will not cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful, says the Lord. I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your charms to Aliens under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, says the Lord. Return, O backsliding children...FOR I AM MARRIED TO YOU ((vs. 12-14).

IGBOS! God is bringing the remnants of His people (you) together! He is pleading with you to return to Him for He will abundantly pardon, deliver and restore you.

For it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, That I will break his yoke from your neck, And will burst your bonds: Foreigners shall no more enslave them, But they shall serve the Lord their God, And David their King Whom I shall raise up for them (Jer. 30:8-9). Therefore do not be afraid O My servant Jacob, nor be dismayed, O Israel. For behold I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you says the Lord, to save you ( Vs. 10-11).

All those who devoured you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, everyone of them shall go into captivity; those who plunder you shall become plunder, And all who prey upon you, I will make a prey. I will restore health to you, and heal you of your wounds, says the Lord (vs. 16-17)

It's time to stop groping in darkness in your land of captivity and return to your Maker, your Husband in repentance for He will abundantly pardon. His promises are yea and amen in Christ. He has sorely wounded you with the wound of the enemies, but He wants to heal and abundantly restore and refresh you. You are His heartbeat and nothing will change His abiding love for you.

Your reconnection to your Jewish roots therefore, will be to reconnect to God, your maker, through the Lord Jesus Christ and worship Him in spirit and in truth. Forsake your wicked ways, your evil practices and return with repentance and confession of sins. Pray for the forgiveness of the sins of your fore-fathers and destroy through the Blood of Jesus Christ every evil ancestral dedication over your lives and your children as well as those satanic altars and shrines in your various localities so that it will be well with you and your children's children.

If however, your reconnection is only to the nation that God drove away because of their abominable practices, if you remain in such practices without returning to Jesus Christ your Savior, you are in for more trouble. Read Deuteronomy 28: 15-68. That is the list of the curses associated with the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ, our only escape from such curses. Return to God, and spiritually reconnect to the covenant blessings of your fore-father Abraham, and you will come out of your graves and begin to be established as a nation living in milk and honey; as the head and not the tail, as above only and not beneath. IGBOS! it's time to return to the original purpose of God for you, as a priestly nation. Focus on being the Jew that is connected to God through Jesus Christ your Savior and your Messiah and not the Jews that were cast out because of their abominable practices. Be Messianic Jews! God bless you and continually keep you in Jesus name, Amen.

For strategic prayer warfare conferences, Apostolic/Prophetic conferences and Training and healing crusades, send information to: [email protected].

advertisement
IMAGES IN THE NEWS