𝐁𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐍𝐳𝐞
Nigeria is supposedly a country where her citizenry make bogus claims as regards having full knowledge of God, and being closer to Him. The country comprises basically, Christians and Muslims. However the ratio of Christians supersede that of the Muslims. The country has uncountable number of churches ranging from kiosk sizes to cathedrals littered on every nook, and cranny of her streets as well as all kinds of individuals masquerading as pastors or “men and women of God,” as they are usually called by their followers.
These so-called men and women of God who are simply nothing but merchants operating business centres or ventures labelled churches with all sorts of enticing names like, ‘Anointing of God Church,’ Spirit of God Ministry,’ ‘Mountain of Liberation and Prosperity Miracle Centre.’ Some of the marauders are in the Catholic or Anglican denominations as clergy men where they defile their oath of celibacy, throw caution to the wind, to sexually abuse minors.
They arrogate themselves special messengers of God without flaws who ought to be revered, and their words unchallenged. They cleverly create the delusion in their followers that they are divinely anointed people, and by extension carry an uncommon grace, and anointing. And when they flagrantly abuse the law or err, they try to escape the consequences with the Biblical verse in 1 Chronicles 16:22-25, which says, “Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm.” And I ask, even if they were truly anointed, and called by God, is that a justification for them to commit atrocities?
In the so-called churches where the poor, and the destitute ignorantly run to for succour, and hopefully expect their conditions to improve, they end up most times leaving these business centres known as churches milking people, because the churches give them a clear message that they are not welcomed.
How do you expect a poor man who comes to church to cry unto God to take away his poverty, to feel comfortable, and remain in the business venture, when these swindlers masquerading as pastors start asking for financial donations, and the marauders begin to ask the congregants to stand up or come to the altar with their donations which they call, “seed?”
Usually, you would hear the marauders, after they must have heard their own voices, say, “The Lord laid it on my heart that everybody here should come to the altar with a minimum of ten thousand naira seed, to tap into the prophetic blessing, 100,000 naira for extraordinary anointing in business, 200,000 naira for advanced business strategies, and $1000 for those who desire to take their businesses to the international level and earn in dollars.
If you don’t have the money now, it is fine, just make a pledge, and redeem before next Sunday. You can write cheques in the name of our ministry, or give via POS. This is a must for everybody here, the Lord said so.” (1 dollar is equivalent to 365 naira presently in Nigeria. Currently, in the country minimum wage is about $80 for one month of work. And this should give one, who is not familiar with the harsh economic condition in Nigeria an idea how terrible things are).
The message of Christianity today in Nigeria basically talks about ‘sowing’ financial seeds, to God before He can bless you, the prerequisite to be blessed in life as far as these marauders who parade themselves as men and women of God are concerned, is to give your earnings regularly to church even when you have pressing needs to take care of, of course the money go directly to them and their families, and never develop wings to fly to God in His exalted abode.
The Adeboyes, Ashimolowos, Oyedepos, Eneches, Sulemans, Adejumos, and many others too numerous to mention in Nigeria are well known for propagating such message. They earnestly preach that if you do not pay tithe and give first fruits, you are cursed, and have no place in Heaven. What a misconception! They instill fear in their gullible followers regularly using Malachi 3: 8 – 11 which says the following:
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation.
10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.
11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” Says the Lord of hosts;
12 “And all nations will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land,” Says the Lord of hosts.
The tithe was given to the Levites who had the sole responsibility to take care of the temple in Jerusalem, and because they were not permitted to work and owned no lands, they received ten per cent of tithes from other Jews which was usually in form of agricultural produce, and that is why verse 10 above emphasises that, “there may be food in My house.” Tithe original is not fiscal cash. Christianity created the the idea of it being monetary.
The concept of tithing in the Jewish religion where Christianity borrowed the practise from had stopped long ago because the original Jewish temple which the Levites took care of had been been destroyed, and it is believed that the coming Jewish Messiah would rebuild it according to the Torah. The fundamentals of the Jewish faith is anchored on the Torah basically, which Christianity completely copied from. Did a transliteration of the whole Tenakh , and made it part of the Christian Bible.
The Torah, simply put is the first five books of the Old Testament, while the Tenakh, known as the Jewish Bible is the entirety of the Old Testament. The only original scriptures of the Christian Bible include the New Testament, and the two religions have different beliefs that are wide apart, the Jews do not believe in the concept of the Trinity, which is the core tenet of Christianity, they consider it as a pagan belief from the Greek Mythology. While the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah, Elohim promised them in the Tenakh, Christians already believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
While the Jews stopped paying tithe, giving first fruits because the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Christian faith still hammers strongly on the payment of tithe, and first fruit, which must be money, and not agricultural produce.
Now, this is the point as regards the above postulations, Christianity strongly believes that the laws in the Old Testament have passed away, and all things are new and different with the coming of Yeshua, popularly known as Jesus Christ, how come tithe is not passed away as well? Why do these marauders who claim to be men and women of God emphasise on payment of tithes by their members?
They always tell their followers that they are giving to God not man but in reality, the hard earned money of these credulous members are used for the flamboyant life styles of the rogues, they live in the state-of-the-art architectural masterpieces in the choicest areas of the cities, own the best of cars, some of them even have private jets while many of their struggling members trek to church to donate their hard earned money for them. They lie to them that they should keep paying their tithes, and first fruits, that their rewards are in Heaven while theirs – the rogues who teleguide the followers to give, keep enjoying the good life while on Earth.
The verse in John 14:2 that, “in my father’s house, there are many mansions’ is as misleading as the promise of “72 virgins in paradise,” which Islam preaches. At least common sense makes us understand that a mansion can not be found in a house, literally speaking.
These marauders not only take financial advantage of their unconscious followers, they equally exploit them sexually in the name of prayers or deliverance. Many of them sleep with their members in the name of transferring anointing to or delivering them because they carry, the, “unction of the Holy Spirit.” as they falsely declare. Many young men, and women including the married ones, have ended up being sexual slaves to these so-called men and women of God in the name of deliverance.
They preach a kind of Gospel for their own selfish gratification, indoctrinate lots of people with fallacies that always result to ruination of lives in the name of faith. Many Christians have died carelessly because they were sick, and bluntly, refused to take medication or visit the hospital for proper treatment while believing their General Overseers or Daddies in the Lord who instructed them to take, the “Blood of Jesus” (usually any non alcoholic red wine or juice)and they would be healed. While the so-called pastors would visit well-equipped hospitals, and get the best treatment for whatever illness they might have.
Many Christians are deliberately denying their families the basic needs of life just to please their pastors, they work in the harsh economic condition of Nigeria, and take all their earnings every January in the year, and give these so-called pastors in the name of first fruit then they would starve with their families while the marauders live extremely comfortable with their households.
The Bible, they preach, and teach falsely states in Proverbs 14:34 that, “Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a reproach to any people.” With the rate of poverty in Nigeria, it is clear that poverty is one of the reproaches bedeviling the country among others like the menace of Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, and the maladministration of the All Progressives Congress(APC) party. With the teeming number of churches, and so-called men and women of God, it would not have have been out of place to expect that Nigeria would have been Heaven on Earth.
The merchants of the gospel, who use the Bible to swindle the ignorant, claim they hear from God, and Christianity is the only way to salvation, and life abundance yet Nigeria, is the poverty capital of the world with 86.9 million people out of over 190 million people living in extreme poverty regardless of the fact she is the 6th largest producing oil country in the world.
The Jews that, the Christians regard as unbelievers and as such not as close to God as they are, constitute only 0.2% of the world population yet they control the world with their wealth, have quite a number of Nobel Prize winners in diverse fields of human endeavours while Nigeria is 2.61%, has only one Nobel Prize winner, own and control practically nothing when compared to civilized countries in the world.
If Nigeria truly wants to break free from being poverty capital of the world then it is paramount, those that patronise these so-called ministers of God stop doing so, and channel their income into productive areas. Nobody knows your problem more than your do, hence you are the perfect person to talk to God about your case. Stop running to mere mortals like yourself in the name of ministers of God, who in truth are far from the creator.
