Sam Eyoboka
9 November 2008
interview
General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, recently, addressed journalists in his office at the Redemption City at kilometre 46, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on the church's yearly Holy Ghost Congress.
The programme is scheduled for December 15-20 and the theme is 'Joy Unspeakable'. According to him, since joy is the opposite of sorrow, God is about to terminate sorrow in the life of every Nigerian. The man of God speaks on his embarrassing encounter with some Immigration officials abroad and fielded questions on several national issues including the traffic situation during the church programmes on that road, corruption and many more.
By the grace of God, we will do everything that is humanly possible to make sure that there will be free flow of traffic. As a matter of fact, I can assure you that for years now, any traffic hold-up on this expressway has not been caused by the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
There are other people who probably hold programmes on this axis, and I will not be naming names. But I can assure you that by the grace of God, we have perfected our own system to make sure that the flow of traffic into and out of the Redemption Camp will be very very smooth. We will even keep on improving. As usual, we have many government functionaries - the police, the civil defence people, and thousands of our own volunteers - that is members of the church who are probably retired police officers, military officers, etc, who combine their forces to make sure that the traffic flow smoothly.
Why do some Christian leaders not comment on government activities?
We believe that that should be the assignment of those who are leaders of Christian organisations. And by Christian organisations, I mean organisations like CAN and PFN. We feel that we will be doing disservice to the Body of Christ if this church leader is saying one thing, another church leader is saying another thing. We feel that anytime a statement is going to come from the Christian body, it should come from the people that we call our leaders. And I believe that, from time to time, we have been hearing from the president of CAN, and from the president of PFN.
In the meantime, our representatives are talking and I believe they're still talking. So, whether the situation in Nigeria is getting worse or better, I think it is a matter of will I say perfection. Because, if you're talking about where we hope we should be by now, and whether we are there or not, that's something to talk on. But if we're talking of about; are we getting what? I think that might be a matter of opinion too. At least, there was a time in this country when even journalists couldn't write freely.
They couldn't express their own opinion without getting into detention. Now, at least, there's democracy, you speak freely, you write what you consider to be proper. I believe that's a step forward. I believe that things will be better. I can assure you that regularly in our private churches and at the monthly Holy Ghost services, we keep praying for Nigeria. God will hear our prayers and take us to the promised land one day. I believe it will be sooner than later.
The theme, Joy unspeakable, cannot be levelled to perception of the individual because possibly God gave you that theme. Does God feel that there's too much sorrow in the land? Because God does not engage in idle words. He must have seen something before He gave you the theme. And the area of CAN and PFN sitting on behalf of the Christian body, administratively great...
Again, starting from the last question, I just said that we will not really talk about bureaucracy now. I'm talking about discipline in the body. When I was PFN president, it was a long time ago, I will feel a bit uncomfortable if I say something on behalf of PFN, and I hear another bishop of another Pentecostal organisation say something else. Infact, I will wait for him at the next meeting, and I will tell him that, 'sir, I know I'm a pastor, but I'm president.
So when I speak I have spoken for you. If you have anything different from what I have said, you ought to, at least, pass it through us so that we can reach an agreement as to what we will say.' We are talking about discipline as it were, not really bureaucracy. As to the theme, 'Joy unspeakable', I believe that if God has simply said 'Joy,' then one could conclude that God must have seen that there's too much sorrow in the land.
But 'Joy unspeakable' really means so much that you can't even utter it out. And that's why I said that not only will it deal with causes of sorrows, but even those who don't have sorrow at all. He will increase their joy. I don't think there's any nation in the world where there's no sorrow. Individually, in almost every home, there's one thing or the other that causes sorrow. And I'm believing God that during the congress, He will remove all the causes of sorrow in Jesus' name.
I want to know the number of people you'll be expecting during the congress. I also want to know the population of RCCG in terms of provinces, parishes and headquarters. I want you to say a word on Nigeria's immorality. Hardly do you open a Nigerian newspaper that you don't see anything about rape, kidnap, violence, corruption...
We'll start with immorality. Permit me for going a little bit into science. I was trained as a scientist, so from time to time, I refer to science. One of the ways of measuring the brightness of a light is by the intensity of the darkness surrounding it. In other words, when light comes into a place, it will roll the darkness away.
The darkness, as it were, rolls on itself as if you're rolling a carpet. So when you see intense darkness in a particular circuit, it means there must be light somewhere in the centre that is very bright. I believe that the reason the devil is so aggrieved with Nigeria is because there's a lot of prayers, a lot of Christian activities. There's a group of people who are determined to get rid of Satan completely from this land.
If we all become complacent, if we're no longer praying or fasting, if we're no longer calling on the Almighty God for Nigeria, I am not saying that will lead to improvement in immorality, I'm saying that there will be nobody who will even bother to report because if everywhere is covered by darkness, then nobody will be talking about it anymore. It is light that exposes darkness, that's what I'm trying to say now.
We will continue, God helping us, to preach righteousness, holiness and purity. We will continue to pray that God who is the light of the world will let His light shine upon Nigeria. We'll continue to pray that a day will come when morality in this nation will be what it should be. It's our own to pray, to talk to God to decide how and when He'll answer.
As to question two, the population of RCCG all over the world, it will be difficult for me to give an answer because, as of last year, by the grace of God, every passing day, a minimum of five parishes of the RCCG were planted every day. And that's in Nigeria alone, not including Africa, East, Far East, Middle East, West and so on. Even, as we are talking here now, the church is growing by the very special grace of God. For that same reason, it is difficult for me to say this is the number. Because today, only God knows how many people have been saved, how many people have joined the church all over the world.
As to the crowd that we expect at the Congress, the only correct answer I could give will be multitude. Multitude is a crowd so large you can't count. We held our convention in August, and, for the first time, where we used to call the Holy Ghost Arena has become roofed, so we held the convention in the arena. In the past, the arena used to take all those who come for the Congress.
Those who come for the Congress are not just the members of the RCCG alone, the Congress is an outreach. It's open for everyone. But we held the convention in the arena in August, and we found it too small. So, if it's too small for those who are members, who are able to attend in Nigeria, then we know that it will be too small for the people who will come for the Congress, since that is open to all. And when you have that kind of crowd, you just call it a multitude. I think that's the most accurate word I could use.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
