Our problems began when we adopted the gospel of prosperity and the result-based ministry of the American church. This started in the late 80s, 1987, 1988, and 1989, and continued into the 1990s, leading to a full-blown rebellion against discipleship teachings for believers and the raw message of salvation for the unsaved. According to Dr Lutzer, “With the loss of the gospel always comes a loss of power.”
History has shown that often, only a remnant survives, says Erwin Lutzer.
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Nine years ago, I visited a senior servant of God in Nigeria for an important discussion. Before I delved into the issues that brought me to his office, he interrupted me with an experience he had before my arrival. A branch pastor of one of our popular churches sent him the picture of a ring, a miracle ring. Out of curiosity, he asked this pastor to name his price. Three hundred thousand naira was the final price, no more, no less. As expected, many pastors had purchased this ring, using it to cause damage to tens of thousands of people. The senior pastor, whom I visited, turned down the offer with a strict warning to this pastor, “Don’t you dare bring this to me again.”
A few years later, another report came to me that some government officials in Nigeria arrested a group of Indian nationals with bags of talismanic rings. Upon thorough questioning, these men confessed that they had sold at least three thousand pieces of these rings to many pastors across Nigeria, particularly in the South-West. The truth is that the Nigerian church has been significantly contaminated and desecrated by a magnitude of occultism and ritual practices never seen before. This has shut down the move of God far below the standard we had been expecting. Idolatry kills the move of God.
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“Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god” (Psalm 16:4)
The church of Christ in Nigeria has been infiltrated by agents of darkness, masquerading as pastors, apostles, bishops, and prophets. From the South to the North, from the East to the West, the genuine church of Christ in Nigeria is witnessing the greatest attack since its inception during the revival of the early 19th century. History is replete with the immense sacrifices of many who laboured to birth the current move of God in Nigeria. Men like Pa SG Elton cannot be forgotten in a hurry; his fruits are still evident. Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola shook the South-Western part of Nigeria to its roots with unblemished miracles and apostolic signs. We have also heard of the mighty exploits of Baba Abiye, the man in whose house Apostle Ayo Babalola reportedly died.
Even from the late 1960s to the 1970s and 80s, the Nigerian church experienced a mighty move of God that saw the emergence of patriarchs like the late Prophet TO Obadare, a man who carried an unmistakable unction of the Holy Spirit with exploits that shook Nigeria and even spread to other parts of the world. History cannot forget the late Pa Akindayomi, a patriarch who birthed the RCCG, and who was dedicated to revivals, holiness, and salvation, and the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa, who traveled the world, shaking nations with generational exploits. However, we still have many of the great patriarchs with us, such as Pastor WF Kumuyi, Pastor EA Adeboye, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, Bishop David Oyedepo, and many others. These great men were on fire when they were raised by God in the 1970s. What has happened to this fire today is a question begging for answers.
Our problems began when we adopted the gospel of prosperity and the result-based ministry of the American church. This started in the late 80s, 1987, 1988, and 1989, and continued into the 1990s, leading to a full-blown rebellion against discipleship teachings for believers and the raw message of salvation for the unsaved. According to Dr Lutzer, “With the loss of the gospel always comes a loss of power.” As we speak, the power of God has been significantly diminished in the church because of the loss of the true gospel in many circles across the rank and file of the Nigerian church.
The rank and file of the church leadership now consist of those we call very “powerful pastors,” pastors who have law enforcement officers on their payrolls; pastors who are bigger and larger than Christ and His finished works; pastors whose words are laws and cannot be questioned; and pastors whose results tower above scriptures, regardless of how those results are achieved.
The rest, as they say, is history, many of our current leaders have left their first love, if they are still in love with Jesus at all.
Years ago, I had an intense argument with an elderly person. According to him, one of our highly respected church leaders had backslidden. I vehemently disagreed with him. He pulled out a tape of a message preached by this servant of God in the mid-1980s. He yelled at me, “Listen to this and tell me that this is still the same man that’s speaking today?” I listened and was dumbfounded — the fire had gone down. Money, fame, and influence had dampened the fire.
God has raised several people to call our attention to our backslidden state. But many will not listen. Sadly, the consequences of our current backslidden state are now being mostly felt in the quality of Christians we are producing in our churches, so called believers who are not respected in the larger society because they do not share any resemblance with the Christ they profess to know. In politics, governance, business, academia, and the marketplace, we are struggling to convince the world that Christianity is the authentic option. Things are so bad that many of our church members do not know who is greater between their pastors and Christ.
These brands of believers are so callous and wicked that they are willing to throw Christ under the bus to defend every teaching, actions, choices, and decisions of their pastors, even when these moves obviously conflict with the dominant values of Christ in their Bibles, if they have ever opened their Bibles at all.
Let me make it very clear that there are still several God-fearing pastors and churches in Nigeria, thousands of men and women across the country who are laboring in the word and doctrine. But the atrocities of a portion of the leadership in the church are weakening the influence and the effects of the sacrifices of the faithful pastors and leaders. To the world, there is no distinction, “they are all the same.”
Only in heaven is there a distinction between the tare and the wheat.
Above all, a new generation of businessmen, parading themselves as pastors, has risen. Many of them publicly refer to fathers in the land as their mentors and fathers. They, too, have started to produce the third generation of business-oriented pastors. It is a vicious cycle of compromise because every new generation is an improvement on the previous. If you have an iota of love for Jesus, it is time to not just pray, but to acknowledge the truth, prioritise the Bible above all men, and unite in spirit with the remnants of believers and ministers who still hold God and His word as the ultimate truth to defend the gospel.
We are already battling with a generation called Gen-Z, which is now rushing out of the church or re-creating its own seeker-sensitive, comedy-based, and pop-oriented church services. To this cohort, it is not about the move of the Spirit — it is all about the reign of the flesh. It is an age of “anything goes” for the youths. No more barriers or standards, they sleep around, make money through any method, and publicly justify their newfound lifestyles using some of the fathers as their moral scapegoats, “that is what our pastors, too, are doing.” This is neither a judgmental call nor critical hearsay, but a snippet of reality wrapped with the cloak of righteous judgment, Jesus said, “Judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24). The remnants must work together, pray together, speak out together, love together, share together, and win souls together. We must contend for our faith!
“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 1:3)
Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through [email protected]
