igerians generally are naturally enthusiastic religious people. The minarets blast five times a day simultaneously across the length and breadth of the country, calling the people of the Islamic faith to prayers. Wherever your location is, you cannot claim not to hear it except those living in any of the Government Reservation areas (GRA). A Muslim does not believe he has completed his personal house until a mosque is erected in the compound. Many in the Islamic faith endeavour to perform Umra in far away Mecca as many times as possible to make special prayers.
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Every street and corner of all our big cities, villages and hamlets, are full of Churches. The Sunday services are filled to full capacity, some running three or more sessions. In spite of all these, corruption, dishonesty, moral decadence, decay, injustice, cheating, bribery, extortion, stealing and looting of government treasuries are on the increase. Could it be people other than these faithful worshippers that are perpetrating these evils? But I once met a policeman who wore a tag on his uniform, with an inscription "Touch not my anointed-----"yet he was harassing and extorting motorists on the high way. I had thought that the religious houses are there to mould the characters of the worshippers in order to have a peaceful and habitable society, where all and sundry will live in brotherly love without being difficult to one another but instead be helpful to one another. Is it that these preaching are no longer emphasized on the pulpit or is it the worshippers that rub them off their ears the moment the services are ended and return to their different businesses as usual?
Where have things gone wrong?
Last week, I did promise that I would turn my searchlight to my own constituency, which is the Church to see what has gone wrong. Certainly the moral lapses, now in play have failed to justify the ever-increasing number of Churches in the communities. Nigeria was a lot better when the Churches and mosques were not as many. I hope someone will also beam the searchlight into what may have gone wrong in the other faiths especially, the other prominent religion, the Islamic faith.
I want to blame the departure from the uprightness that was in existence up to the early part of the 70's to the poverty that has plagued the nation ever since. The poverty itself was borne out of the greed of the ruling class that emerged and their handlers, the civil servants.
The greed and selfishness of the perpetrators were what the Church should have attacked fiercely and ferociously with boldness and mobilize the citizens to do also. Instead, it was heresies and imbalanced preaching that overtook the pulpits.
Emphasis shifted from the Cross-, largely to the stomach. I must not be misunderstood; poverty can easily make one to lose heaven. This informed the prayer of Augur in Proverbs 30:7-9 "Two things have I required of Thee (God); deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me. Lest I be full, and deny you, and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the Name of my God in vain"
Poverty, when overwhelming can easily make anyone and I repeat anyone with no exception to derail the faith and make him or her do ungodly things and this is why I have been sensitizing religious leaders of all faith, especially my own constituency, the Church to consider the suggestions, which God inspired me to draw in order to smoothen the earthly journey of the faithful so as not to derail their heaven ambition. The plan, God inspired me is for the religious leaders to mobilize a massive, collective righteous walk (life) where every citizen will vow to abandon unrighteous behaviour and filthy lucre for brotherly love. It is not late yet and it is the only way out of the chaos.
Emphasis, as I wrote earlier unfortunately, on the pulpits has shifted from the Cross-.
The Cross in relation to the one on which Our Lord died, is understood by the Church from time immemorial, as an emblem (symbol) of suffering. Yet this is what the Lord said His followers must take up. The instruction to whomever will be His disciple, to take up the Cross-was the major emphasis of His message throughout His ministrations on earth, which was well documented by all the gospel writers. Mathew recorded Him "If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine" (Matt.10:38). Luke recorded Him "And whomsoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). The young rich man who claimed to have kept all the laws from his youth was told by the Lord one thing he lacked: "Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor and thou shall have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross and follow me" (Mk.10:21).
When Peter rebuked the Lord for talking about a suffering that was awaiting Him, He warned Peter and the crowd very sternly: "Whoever wants to be my follower, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). Luke recorded same incident as: "take up his cross Daily----"(Luke 9:23).
The consequences of being a disciple of Christ, which attract problems and difficulties because Christians cannot pursue the comforts of life, the way the world does, was once considered a life of dignity to the Christian. Christians preferred to suffer deprivation than to compromise with uprightness and anything that did not conform to the Bible teaching standards or Christian ethics. This face of the Cross was once the main emphasis on the pulpits.
However, the face of the Cross, which symbolizes deliverance from the menace, aggression and incursion of Satan on and in God's children, was not adequately addressed. The phrase: "By whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24) was not probed. The explanation was that God had replaced this with the medical knowledge. The commission of the Lord which says: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16:15-18) was reasoned as inapplicable to this age. In fact, we were told that the manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit had fulfilled its purpose during the era of the early Church and so no one should expect them again.
However, Christ in His mercy revealed Himself to my generation of Christians and we started to witness the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in abundance, vis-�-vis- prophecy, dreams, visions, healings, speaking in tongues etc etc.
Unfortunately within the twinkling of the eyes, the preaching on majority of the pulpits tilted totally only to this face of this Cross that symbolizes deliverance and erroneously added to it, is the right to possession of materials in abundance in what is referred to as "prosperity for all Christians" to the neglect of the face of the Cross that symbolizes partnership in Christ's suffering and non-conformity with the world. The slogan in the mouths of many of today's Christians is "Suffering is not for God's children Or Christians are supposed to have the best of things in the world". So, Christians today in whatever employment they find themselves participate with unbelievers in full glare: fraud, whether of the Government or whoever, extortion, taking and giving of gratification / bribery, under the cover or illusion that it is God's wish for them to prosper. There is no inhibition to engage in any business, not caring whether it violates the principles of Christianity or not. They afterwards return to the Church with donations and praises to their sweet mouthed Pastor who had predicted it for them as a year of wonders, surprises etc. Christians do no longer consider it a shame to acquire possessions and live completely beyond their visible legitimate earnings. Yet we are supposed to be the light and conscience of the world. This is where things became uncontrollable because there are no more differences in the morals of those who are supposed to be the conscience of the society and others described as the people of the world. In short, the checks to frauds, extortion and all ungodly behaviour were lost.
In Nigeria, in the earlier time, the born-again Christians did not announce themselves on the microphones/ speakers. Their character and their behaviour did. They were quite few in the work places, in schools and on the campuses. But they could not be mistaken. Even in Churches, they could easily be identified, because they were separated in and from the crowd. I am not talking about those who thought that dressing poorly was a way of identifying themselves as Christians or thought that staying aloof, not taking interest or not being bothered with what went on around them was an identity for Christianity.
These 'Born Agains', upheld anything that was righteous, just and pure. They distanced themselves from anything that had the appearances of dishonesty, cheating and embezzlement. They would rarely be lured. They were a threat and reproach to the sinful world.
Once upon a time this was the behaviour of Christians in Nigeria. I witnessed it all.
However, within a short time, all these have changed. The new generations of pulpits have been replaced with religious falsehood. The preaching of prosperity in abundance for all Christians coming from the pulpits has opened the floodgate of the Church to all who want to be rich, purporting to accept Christ without a renewal or regeneration of the mind leading to the degrading of the Christian virtues, which was once cherished. So Christianity, in my observation as of today, in Nigeria, has become a cosmetic or a superficial thing.
Preachers and Christians today have created their own imaginations and ideas of those things that will only glorify God. Possession of materials in abundance, as opposed to humble living alone will glorify God, forgetting that the Lord Himself came to the world through a family of humble background and in all His utterances, He said nothing favourable of wealth because of the danger of one's attention being driven away from God to material things. He did not condemn the rich however, as long as it is righteously acquired and properly managed i.e without shifting attention from heaven.
The situation, which today we think in our imagination will alone glorify God is the one which depicts us not as an ordinary man, but a super power where anywhere we are, we make things to happen, we change any situation which we are not comfortable with at the Name of Jesus. We do not want affliction. Those will not glorify God, we think.
The type which we consider alone glorifies God is the type that happened at the garden of Gethsemane on the night when Judas led the captors of our Lord to arrest Him and as the Lord asked them "whom seek ye?" And the Lord answered, "I am he", the captors went backward and fell to the ground (John 18:4-6) or where the apostles of the early Church were imprisoned and by morning time when the jury asked them to be brought, they were no longer there. They were already teaching in the Temple because the heavy security of the prison could not prevent the angel of God from performing his duty. He had led the apostles out in the night (Act 5:17-25).
I can imagine this testimony being related in one of the assemblies of today's saints (had it occurred of recent) and I can feel the thunderous rendition and ovation of "Praise the Lord" shouted at the Lagos end of the Lagos - Ibadan expressway and being heard at the Ibadan end of the express way. (A distance of 120 Km approx). Compared with another testimony of someone standing in front of the same assembly who had just witnessed Peter and the other apostles whipped (Acts 5:40). I can feel the coldness and total silence of this assembly where one can easily hear a pin drop. But contrary to the opinion of this assembly, who cannot see how such a human suffering can glorify God, the Scripture recorded that the apostles after they had received the lashes "departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name" (Acts 5:41).
The types, which we consider will only glorify God, was Peter bound between two soldiers and on the eve of his date with the hangman, the angel of the Lord broke all the chains and barricades and led him to safety (Acts 12). Or the earthquake incidence at Philippi, leading to the opening of the prison doors and the loosening of bands on the hands of Paul and Silas (Acts 16:25-26).
But as for Paul, he would not glory in those things: - the signs, wonders, mighty deeds, the abundance of the revelations, though they were clear to him as signs of his apostleship. But he will rather glory in "infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses, for Christ's sake" (2 Cor.12). Full details of what Paul would glory in, are listed in 2 Cor 4:6-11, 6:3-10, 11:23-33, which included "dangers of robbers". Those are Paul's dossiers (C.V) or resume, which he cherished as expressing the glorious power of God in him (Excellency of the power of God) (2 Cor 4:7). He described his afflictions as evidence of a 'true minister of God' (2 Cor 6:4; 11:23).
Consider this scenario. Two very famous charismatic Preachers, being attacked at different times but on the same night, by the same set of armed robbers. While the robbers were able to cart away easily the properties of one of the Preachers, on getting to the other charismatic Preacher, the Holy Ghost arrested them. They became paralyzed and could barely talk. However, they managed to beg the man of God for their release. From my observation of the behaviour and utterances of many Christians of today, with their lack of understanding of the various ways by which God works, I can perceive that as the stories of these two occurrences spread, the charismatic Preacher, who God allows his properties to be stolen will get to his Church the following Sunday to meet a sparse (scanty) crowd if not a totally empty auditorium and discover that his congregation had decamped to the Church of the other Preacher, who the robbers could not attack.
A close study of the lives of most Bible Characters reveals that being a Christian does not insulate us from suffering. The list is endless: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Jeremiah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. John the Baptist and James the son of Zebedee were beheaded by Herod. Deacon Stephen was stoned to death. We have already testified to the affliction of Peter, Paul and Silas etc. In fact, the more we strive to live a life pleasing to God, the more we expose ourselves to frequent attack from both the seen and the unseen forces (Eph. 6:12).
When one becomes a Christian, the previous life style is done away with (2 Cor 5:17). Peter wrote on the consequences of the new life: "Where in they think it strange that you don't eagerly join them any more in the wicked things they do, and they will laugh at you in contempt and scorn (1 Peter 4:4). Paul in the same tone wrote: "You may as well know this too, that in the last days, it is going to be very difficult to be a Christian ----" "For people will be rough and cruel and sneer at those who try to be good. Yes, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:1-4;12).
From these, we can confirm that the slogan in the mouths of today's popular Preachers and Christians that "suffering is not for Christians is falsehood and fraudulent. Where any Christian finds it all, an easy, smooth life, I can confirm that he must have been compromising, not abiding by the Bible teaching and not living to the Christian ethics and so the devil is not bothered about him to try or afflict him because he remains his (devil) disciple, though on the outward he professes Christianity.
The joy and the dignity of the Christian, lies in being a partner (identifying) with Christ in suffering (1Peter 4:13) "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust (1 Peter 3:18). "Since Christ suffered and underwent pains, you must have the same attitude He did, you must be ready to suffer too" (1 Peter 4:1). A Yoruba adage says "A good son resembles his father by behaving true to type" Jesus Himself said "A student shares his teacher's fate" (Matt 10:24, John 15:20). This however does not imply that we must sit contended in suffering without seeking a way out if we can but the way out must be godly and righteous. The Lord Himself prayed for the cup to pass over Him if it were possible but He quickly added that God's will over rides (Matt.26:39). He also counseled that we pray that the days of our affliction be shortened (Matt.24:20-22). If we can pray for it to be shortened, we can equally take whatever action is godly to remove our affliction and poverty but it must be in line with the Scripture, without twisting it. Only collective righteousness living can bail us out.
