or any nation, which has her citizens impoverished and suffering, there is a story of hope recorded in the book of 2Kings 2: 19- 22. But it is one of hope only if that nation will take the appropriate steps, which the people concerned in the story took in order to have their frustrations gone.
The story goes thus:
One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha the prophet. "We have a problem, my lord," they told him. "This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive." One translation has it as 'causes our women to have miscarriages'
20 Elisha said, "Bring me a new bowl with salt in it." So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, "This is what the LORD says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or barren land. Another translation has it "It will no longer cause infertility or miscarriages" 22 And the water has remained pure ever since, just as Elisha said.
Father I pray that Nigerians and other suffering nations of the world will learn from the people of Jericho and be wise.
So the topic of my sermon today is "The Bad, Bitter Water of Nigeria and Solution"
Let us pray. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Bad, Bitter Water of Nigeria & Solution"
For the benefit of people who are just joining, let me read again, a story I just read from the book of 2Kings 2:19-22.
It goes thus:
One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. "We have a problem, my lord," they told him. "This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive." One translation has it as 'causes our women to have miscarriages'
20 Elisha said, "Bring me a new bowl with salt in it." So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, "This is what the LORD says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or barren land. Another translation has it "It will no longer cause infertility or miscarriages" 22 And the water has remained pure ever since, just as Elisha said.
The topic of my sermon again is "The Bad, Bitter Water of Nigeria & Solution"
Jericho is not a fiction. It is a reality. The city is still in existence. It is now part of Palestine.
But do you know that Jericho was at the beginning, a black city, built and inhabited by the descendants of Canaan? Canaan was a child of Ham; Ham, the progenitor of the black race.
The elders told the prophet Elisha "This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see yourself"
To confirm this Biblical story, I did an excursion of the history of Jericho.
My study informs me that the old Jericho is one of the oldest city in the world and probably the oldest. Though the whole region is a desert, Jericho is specially blessed. It is boarded by River Jordan and many other springs. So the people enjoyed irrigation farming. It is also noted for palms in abundance. It was a lovely spot, with a lush oasis fed by a number of sweet-water springs. All these made Jericho a compelling trading attraction.
In spite these blessings however, at the time under reference, the land was unproductive, it was barren. The natives were afflicted with infertility and miscarriages.
What then was their hope? Did they fold their hands, complaining and murmuring?
No. Their elders conspired for action to find an answer to their malady.
The elders of the city must have spoken among themselves and assembled themselves to seek for solution.
To me, that was a Solemn Assembly.
And what steps did they take?
What they did first was to identify the cause of the bareness and unproductivity of the land and they identified their water as the culprit.
So they went to the Prophet of God and they told him in clear terms 'We have a problem, my lord," they told him. "This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive"
What does Nigeria need to make her citizens comfortable that she does not have? Can anyone think of one thing?
I cannot.
If no one can, why then do most citizens live in abject poverty?
Nigeria has all it takes to make her citizen comfortable to a satisfactory degree, why then are we suffering?
Have our elders identified the cause or the culprit of our suffering? Have they?
In the history of Jericho I related earlier, we noted that the elders of Jericho promptly assembled themselves together to seek solution. They identified the cause of the problem and took the appropriate steps.
Do we have elders in Nigeria who can bail us out like the elders of Jericho did? Do we have them who can sincerely dedicate themselves to solving our problems without expecting any reward?
Which group itself can be described as our elders?
I can identify those who selflessly built this country called Nigeria; many have passed beyond while many are still around, though already full of years. If you are listening to me, you know yourselves. I am aware that some of you watch the trend of what is happening in agony and despair. But can you be watching on the side lines while the nation goes into destruction?
Sirs, Mas, may the Lord prolong your years, you cannot rest. Rather unfortunate!
Which other groups can we classify as elders?
Our traditional rulers! Really they are the real elders; the natural custodians of all the citizens, wherever anyone hails from. In fact if they will unite and will let go whatever benefits, which they are enjoying now, they are really the ones who can turn this country around, positively; very swiftly and very effectively.
Which other groups of elders do we have?
Spiritual!
These are the ones I will address, for the rest of this sermon.
Can we Spiritual elders identify the cause of our poverty?
Like it was with Jericho, which is located in pleasant surroundings but the land was barren, so it is with Nigeria, which is blessed with oil and abundance of natural and human resources and, yet the citizens are hungry and impoverished.
In reality, who cannot identify the cause of joblessness or none payment of salaries of workers for months?
Someone tells me it is because of the crash in the price of oil.
What about the years we have been selling it exorbitantly?
Did we not prepare for rainy days, when no one is able to go out to work?
Our leaders have used it to purchase mansions in Dubai, London, US and other parts of the world. They also kept raw cash in overhead and underground tanks and buried others on the farms etc
The elders of Jericho identified their problem as resulting from bad water.
A man of God pronounced before he went to be with the Lord early in the year 2015 that many of our Politicians are bad, bitter waters.
Most of us, the general citizens ourselves are horrible, bad, bitter water who rather than seeking the counsel of God to solve our problems, resort to fraudulent practices, cheating and defrauding ourselves, thereby compounding the problems. We do not show mercy to ourselves.
Identifying some of our politicians as bad, bitter water to Nigeria is no longer a subject of debate.
Thanks to God for President Buhari who is exposing them. Except President Buhari had ascended the throne, we would not have known that our Politicians and others who are highly placed are such bad, bitter water. Had they continued in government, in a few years time, our case would have been worse than Ghana's of late 70's.
Except that they are bitter water, how can individuals having the spirit of God grab for themselves from the commonwealth, the amounts in billions of Naira as we read in the newspapers every day?
In spite of all the determination and efforts of President Buhari for a change, many in the legislative arm of the government are unrepentant. Among them are those who have ruined their states when they were governors. Among them are weed smoking, wild cats who in a normal society should not in any way, find themselves representing any human society.
I am always in prayers for them since God does not want any sinner to perish but to come to repentance, that God have mercy on them for a repentant heart so that they may not go to hell. They are really bad and bitter water and a temptation of faith.
A onetime big but late Politician was once quoted as he voiced his frustration by saying "People alleged that we stole during our time, these ones of today have actually carried away the treasury"
Now that we can identify the cause of our bareness, what will the elders do? If the elders of Jericho had kept quiet, their frustration will have remained.
By the grace of God, I have committed and dedicated myself to finding a solution to this plague called poverty, which has besieged us. And the Holy Spirit, a long time before now, has identified it to me that the peanut money, useless clothing materials, useless food items, used oyinbo automobiles popularly referred to as Tokunbos, which the Politicians dole to some people in the community is poison and I did not fail to alert the nation. I did not fail to alert the nation that they are gifts that lead to an unending poverty. But the nation did not listen to the Holy Spirit of God who revealed it to me.
Citizens can now judge for themselves who is truthful, whether the Holy Spirit or they, now that unprecedented, massive looting of the commonwealth is exposed by Buhari's government where many State governments are owing workers up to six month salaries in arrears.
They were giving you peanuts, while they were keeping billions for themselves; even in the bank account of their housemaid, which the house maid cannot reach. They ate the common wealth so greedily, each of them competing with how big their mansions, which they have in Dubai, London, US and other parts of the world are, which their income all their lives cannot account for. And now they can no longer pay salaries and people are dying.
The elders of Jericho assembled themselves, they set aside their religious differences to fight the stigma that confronted them. And why would they allow religious differences to prevent them from doing the right thing, when the stigma was present on all sides. It affected everyone irrespective of their different religions.
Unfortunately in Nigeria, rather than the spiritual leaders on both sides of the isles, rallying together and fight our common woe, we allow religion to divide us while our stigma is escalating.
The bad waters are getting cover from the people of their different religions referred to as 'omo iya awon' i.e those from their religion. They enjoy it so much and enjoying their loots while those who are shielding them are wallowing in poverty and cannot get their legitimate wages for their labour. And these are people who do not even know God in the first instance; they pray with the children of their mother in the day but under the cover of darkness, do fetish things; including plans to murder.
But if people of one religion plans that they alone have the right to be comfortable and be employed and make people of other religions to be second class citizens and be subservient, they should have a rethink because such a plan is not from God, it must be from the devil who does not want us to live at peace with ourselves.
Consider how God works, He allows rain to fall on the properties of everyone; the godly and the ungodly or does anyone think that God cannot do it to allow rain on the properties of the good people and disallow it on the bad people?
God, in the meantime allows all to thrive; godly and ungodly while He reserves big punishment for the day of judgement at the close of age.
God at no time gave permission to people of any religion to punish people of other religions. Therefore anyone who thinks that only people of his religion should be able to access the wealth of the nation to the detriment of people of other religions is not in tune with the righteous God.
The Politicians know our lines of thought and they are cashing on it to loot us in billions while our salaries are unpaid and we suffer hunger and deprivation of amenities of life.
Thanks to God for President Buhari's government, which is trying to bring the bad waters, who have made us sub-human to justice but we all are witnesses of how difficult it has been for him. The truth is that these bad waters have money more than the entire nation and as such are able to engage rogue lawyers like themselves, who can prolong the case as ever.
I as a person have always believed that the solution to our anguish is to give God a place in our hearts, allow Him to cleanse our hearts so that we may love other people as ourselves. This is the greatest of all the laws. If this is done, then we shall all be comfortable; no one cheats the other fellow, no one takes more than his share thereby pauperizing the other citizens.
These are the reasons why we need an inter-Religious Solemn Assembly, where we shall all dedicate ourselves to godliness.
Let us pray.
Signing out music and announcement
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