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.
Every year, people come for the Congress from all over the world. How will you assess the international impact of the Congress, not only on the church, but also on Nigeria in terms of image?
I will assess the impact from about two perspectives. One is that a friend of mine wanted to come for the Congress from Hong Kong, and he left Hong Kong, came to London thinking that there are so many airlines going to Nigeria and all he had to do was get to London, buy a ticket of whichever of the airlines available; only to discover that all airlines had their seats fully booked since August.
In other words, more and more people are travelling to Nigeria in December during the period of the Congress, that anyone who wants to come and has not booked his seat before August of this year, is not likely to get a seat. That must be definitely an impact because there are quite a few airlines coming to Nigeria. Even some had to go via South Africa, Dubai, anyway possible to make sure they arrive here.
The other impact, I thank God for this, is that wherever I go now, I meet people who say how come the press is not reporting what God is doing in Nigeria? How come the only report they are getting is kidnapping, terrorist activities, highway robbery, etc. And I try to defend the press by saying to them that a time will come when whatever God wants to be known will be known. God is His own advertiser. When one of them said to me that the Congress, because now they now go online and they see the Holy Ghost services every first Friday of the month, they say how come this is the greatest kept secret of this century?
And I tell them that my father used to say that when you light a fire in the jungle, and the fire is small, then when the wind is blowing, you cover the fire with your hand so that the wind will not blow out the fire. When the fire is big enough, you'll remove your hand because any wind that blows there will only make the fire bigger. What they are seeing is still small, when it becomes big, nobody will be able to keep it under cover. I believe that already, people are beginning to feel that it is negative reports that they are hearing about Nigeria, it's not all there is to report. There are some beautiful things happening here and I think that's a beautiful impact.
I want you to assess pentecostal church activities in Nigeria. I'm asking this question because a lot of people blame the pentecostal churches for all the confusion, while some pentecostal churches will say it is the orthodox churches. Secondly, I was at one Cherubim & Seraphim Church where it was said that you travelled abroad and you were given a thorough search.
It is true that I travelled somewhere and they saw my green passport. Before they saw that I am a pastor, they pulled me aside for special search. And when they finished their searching, they wanted me to prove that I'm truly a pastor. They asked me when was the last time I preached, I told them. They told me what was the topic I spoke on, I told them. They asked me to give the text that I used, I told them. And they asked me to preach the sermon, and I did. The only unfortunate thing is that they didn't allow me to give an altar call. Even after that, they still took me inside and asked me to put my hands on the wall and they searched me thoroughly.
Finally, they became convinced that they were dealing with a true man of God. And they apologised. I asked them,' why did you give me this VIP treatment after I've told you that I'm a pastor?' And they said that there had been some people who came from Nigeria claiming to be pastors with drugs hidden in their Bibles. And I said 'I forgive you then, because it is not your fault, the fault is from my own people.' While they were still apologising, I told them 'you don't have to apologise, it's me who have work to do. To go back home and do more, to be sure that a time will come when those few bad eggs that are spoiling the name of our nation abroad will be converted to God and then they will change their ways, because it's only God converting them that will solve the problem.'
As to the assessment of Pentecostal, I don't see why anybody should say it's the Pentecostal causing trouble. There are some people who claim to be Pentecostal who don't even know the meaning of the word Pentecostal. There was one King who called himself Pentecostal and he doesn't even know what is called salvation.
I think the problem is that the moment people saw that the Pentecostal were aggressive in soul winning, the Almighty God was blessing the work of their hands and everybody also wanted to become Pentecostal. The genuine Pentecostal - those who are thoroughly born again, sanctified by the blood of the lamb, filled with the Holy Spirit - are the treasure to any nation, because if you move out the Pentecostal, darkness will cover the land.
As for the traditional churches, may the Almighty God continue to bless them. We all came out of them, I was born an Anglican, my wife was born a Methodist. I remember one Anglican church where I was invited to preach and the leader introduced me as an Anglican on missionary trip to the RCCG. And I said, I like that very much. We will not gain anything by playing the game, saying this one is the one causing trouble. I think we should all combine our efforts and drag the devil out of this nation.
From a very modest point of view, one of the greatest causes of sorrow in this country is the high rate of corruption in Nigeria, and government has been trying to tackle it. Are you satisfied with the fight against corruption, presently or in the past in the country, and what do you think should be done? Because in a situation whereby millions or trillions of Naira is spent and the people are left impoverished. It really gives cause for concern.
The only way we could eradicate corruption is to bring everybody to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the fear of God will dwell in them and so that they will realise from the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ that stealing public money, for example, is an effort in infutility. Because many of the people who steal this money will never spend it.
The Word of God is clear on that. It says that those who acquire riches illegally will be like a partridge that lays egg and does not hatch it, because they will die suddenly and they will die as a fool. A lot of this money that has been stolen, particularly from Africa, has been deposited in coded accounts in other nations of the world. Then, unexpectedly, the owner of the money dies, nobody else knows the codes, and that's the end of the money.
Even those who acquire this wealth and keep the money in the country get to a stage in their lives when they will realise the futility of it all because it doesn't matter how much money you have, you cannot eat more than one meal at a time. You cannot wear more than one suit at a time. And if there are 100 rooms in your house, you can only sleep in one room at a time.
And if you want to prove that you're rich, that you want to enjoy this wealth at all cost, and you begin to move from one room to the other in your 100-bedroom house, you sleep in this room today, sleep in another one tomorrow, your relatives will take you to a psychiatric hospital, because they'll know something must be wrong. I believe that if only the Almighty God will help us to penetrate into these people, get them converted, get them to see the reason they shouldn't acquire wealth unnecessarily, corruption will be on the way out.
You cannot really legislate against corruption because, as you're making one law, these corrupt people will be finding loopholes to subvert that law. There was a time when you could catch a corrupt person by examining his assets. But I'm sure that now we all know that many of the people who steal money don't keep the money in their own bank accounts, they have several people with several dubious companies where these money will go to and there's no way you could trace the money to them except the Almighty God exposes them.
The international community, or let's say the developed countries, refer to Africa as the dark continent. And some pastors recently said that it has a lot of spiritual meaning for the country. As a spiritual father, I want you to comment on this. Does Africa actually have such a dark environment compared to any other part of the world?
I think that those who say Africa is a dark continent said so several years ago. I believe that, by now, they must be fast changing their opinions. And I believe that, in those days when they called Africa the dark continent, the dark there simply means unknown, undiscovered, unexplored. And probably because there was a lot of idol worshipping, human sacrifice, witchcraft, which we can't deny if we are going to be sincere.
Some of us grew up in villages where witches cried during the afternoon. But things are different now. If anything at all, in the rest of the world, they are beginning to see that Africa is the hope of the world. I was interviewed by BBC some time ago, and they were asking, how come that it is in Nigerian churches or churches brought in by Nigerians to Britain that are packed full every Sunday; whereas the main churches are slowing down?
You could go to Europe now and find at least 7,000 cathedrals closed down because nobody is worshipping there whereas, by the grace of God, the churches headed by Africans are bubbling with life every Sunday. The RCCG has close to 300 branches in Britain now. And my answer was that the Western world brought light to us, the light of the gospel, they sowed a seed, the seed germinated, and now the harvest is coming back to them.
Because they have more or less become post-Christian country and we are full of vigour of the Holy Spirit and we are now turning them to missionary fields. So if anybody is going to talk about the dark continent, maybe there are darker continents elsewhere and we are becoming the lighting continent.
When we say things are bad here, we agree that things are not yet ideal. But you're yet to hear of men marrying men in Nigeria or Africa. You're yet to hear of a pastor running away with the wife of his son because she loves me, etc. You are yet to hear of men having sex with children who are less than three years old. So things are not perfect here yet, but, when you look at the other side of the world, you'll know that, by the grace of God, we are doing better.
I got a text message a few days ago posing a question and I will like you to help me answer it: Does the Bible say one man one wife? There's a lot of controversy in church doctrines today. For instance, there's this contention about the date of birth of Jesus Christ. While some claim He was born in October, others say He was born in December. What is your take on that?
If we want to have what we call an academic exercise, we'll sit down and take one doctrine after the other, and argue and discuss. At the end of the day, we will leave here probably more confused than when we came in, when we'll feel that at least we have exercised our brain. But the Bible made it clear that those who are interested in making it to Heaven should concentrate on things that have to do with the salvation of their soul.
For example, giving the illustration of the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ, to me, what is important is not whether He was born in October, or born in December or born in March; what is important to me is that He came as a saviour, He shed His blood to cleanse me of my sins. By His stripes, I am healed. The day He was born is immaterial to me. Afterall, there are many people in Nigeria today, who don't know their birthday.
Like I was telling my children the other day; I said, 'when I asked my mum when was I born, because my mum was an illiterate, she got married in 1910. She said, 'you were born on a Sunday'. I said, which Sunday?' She said it was junior harvest in our church. So how do I know which junior harvest? She said that day the rain was falling and the sun was shining. So, I kept on asking until finally she said it was so many days after this particular Oba of Ijeshaland came to the throne. So I had to go and search for the date the Oba came to the throne and calculated from there to locate my birthday.
Whether I was born in March, which I believe, was, March 2, or even if I made an error and it was April or May, that is nothing to do with what God has made me today. I think that Christians should focus on things that have to do with their salvation. Things like living holy, pure, nobody can argue with the statement of the Lord that be ye holy for I am holy'. Nobody can argue with the statement that without holiness, no man can see God.
Those who say that, does the Bible teach that one should have one wife or not? They should go through the scriptures when God was creating a wife for Adam, He created only one Eve. If they feel that God didn't know what He should do, He should have created six or seven Eves, they should ask God or give Him a query, maybe He will give them an answer. What is most important is you make sure that you make it to Heaven on the last day.
What are the criteria of practical Christianity and what is the significance of giving or sharing with the poor during the Christian festive periods?
Let's take the last question first. There is a law called the law of harvest and it's the most powerful law on earth. That law simply says whatever you sow, you'll reap, which is another way of saying if you don't sow anything, you will not reap anything. No matter how anointed you are, if you go to very good soil, clear it, fast for 30 days and 30 nights and pray and decree that God, rice must grow here, and you don't plant rice, the only thing that will good will be weed. If you want to receive, you must learn to give. And, of course, you will say some of us don't need money, why do we still need to give.
When you give, you are giving to your future because you never can tell, the tide may turn. The Bible says riches can develop wings and fly away. In other words, the one who is a millionaire today can become a pauper tomorrow. And it is in the process of giving that you ensure that you will never become a pauper. Not only that, when we give to the poor, the Bible says that he who gives to the poor lends to his maker and the maker will reward that fellow sooner than later. In fact, the Bible goes further to say that those who give will be remembered by God in the day of adversity. That if they should fall sick, one of the things they can get from God is to say, God I am a giver, heal me'. And God will respond.
One final example, in 2nd Kings 4 vs 8-17, Bible talks of a woman who was very wealthy, who decided to give to a man of God, by giving him food, went ahead by building him a house. One day, the man of God asked her, 'what do you want?' And the woman answered, 'I don't need anything'. Then the man of God discovered that she was barren. He said, 'Alright, I don't have money, but I have contact with God, that which money can't buy which you need desperately, you will get it'. And nine months later, the child came. So those who give always get in return, money, security for their future, they will be remembered by God in time of adversity, and God might even give them things that money cannot buy.
Your first question, the criteria for practical Christianity. It is true that Christianity teaches that if you behave this way and that way, you have a glorious day waiting for you in heaven. It's absolutely true. My own contention is, however, the God who is able to provide a mansion for me in heaven should be able to give me at least a room and a parlour here for now. So I believe that when we are teaching Christianity, we should not just teach Christianity for the sake of the by and by, we should teach Christianity for the now. And that's why we say if you do the following practically, right now, you can get the following practical results.
If you give, you will be given. Ex 15 vs 26, God says 'if you'll harken diligently to the voice of the Lord your God to observe and to do all that I command you, I'll make sure that no disease will come upon you'. If you will do certain things practically, obey God, do what He says now, not in the by and by, you can enjoy divine health. That's why we teach step by step.
My question is on the deregulation of churches in Nigeria. What's your take on that?
Let's take the issue of taxes. All over the world, everybody knows that the income of the churches come from members. And the members pay taxes. So to tax the Church will be to double tax the members, and that will be illegal. Because those who are giving to the Church have already paid taxes. If you're now taxing what they have given to the churches, then you're taxing them twice on the same income and that will not be just.
On regulating churches, I will love to see a situation where we can guarantee that everyone who calls himself a pastor is a pastor indeed. How are you going to do that? Because only God knows those who are His own. The foundation of God stands sure. From time memorial, there has always been crooks in the churches, I'm sure if you search other religions, there'll be crooks there also, afterall the Lord Jesus chose 12 disciplines and one of them is Judas who betrayed Him.
I think even the churches of today are doing better than the original one. But I think that if we are talking about regulating the churches, we should not leave it to the government because the government will not even know what criteria to look for. We should probably give it to the Christian organisation like CAN and PFN.
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