The late Prophet TB Joshua
They come when you don’t expect them to come and they go when you don’t expect them to go.
When they die, their churches too die, leaving behind followers who begin to look around for new places to worship. .Some say they are prophets whiles others say they are Bishops, Seers and many accolades which they bestow to themselves.
The rest of us who virtually worship them more than the God they say they represent cannot be “Men of God” because God did not call us. They profess to have the power to heal every disease, including HIV/AIDS and Corona Virus and can make people rich and those who wants wives, children and husbands can get one from their arsenal of miraculous wonders. As for visas to travel abroad, they are better in acquiring one for you more than even the ambassadors and consular officers. In the church which they control, whatever they say is law and their words are divine. If you try to challenge them, you are excommunicated. After all, are they not the ‘anointed’ ones ordained by God to save mankind from tribulations?
They first start preaching in small corners and before you can blink an eye, they will easily command many followers who will go about telling people about their supernatural powers.
As money starts to trickle in, they change their dress comportments and begin to dress foppishly like decadent societies of yesteryears. Then the luxurious cars will follow as they begin to acquire landed properties whiles their church members go hungry and wear tattered cloths, except on Sundays when they will wear their best to please other church members.
Sale of ‘Anointing Oil’ is a lucrative business in their churches. If you want to make quick money as ‘a man of God’, go and buy cartons of Dinor or Frytol cooking oil. Pour them in a barrel and add some lavender in it. Commission a factory to produce small bottles for you and label it. Tell your gullible church members that if they buy the ‘anointing oil’ and use them, it will be a panacea for all their woes and that the witches and wizards in your family will run away. Tell women who trade and who are normally plenty in your church that if they sprinkle the ‘anointing oil’ on their wares, customers will line up to buy and that in a matter of time, they will be fabulously rich.
I can recount several ‘one man church’ owners who rose up in this country and when they died, the churches never withstood the test of time.
So who will replace TB Joshua as a Prophet in the Synagogue Church Of All Nations ? Do prophets inherit dead prophets when God has not called them to prophesy to the people? That is the problem. Very soon, you will hear of another prophet healing people in the Synagogue Church of All Nations. Who inherited Prophet Mohamed and Prophet Jeremiah? Think! Anytime you write about these so-called ‘men of God’, their only defense is ‘God said touch not my anointed’. Who anointed them, anyway?
Death is inevitable so what will happen to the thousands of congregants in the churches of so-called ‘men of God’ like self-acclaimed ‘Bishop’ Obinim, Obofour, KwabenaTawia, AdarkwaYiadom, Nigel Gaisie, OwusuBempah, Kumchacha and a host of them who are out there, doing all sorts of things in the name of the Lord?
Following the death of TB Joshua, these guys should rethink because as they say, no condition is permanent. And those who attend these churches should learn from the demise of TB Joshua who seemed greater than his creator but died prematurely. Riches? He accumulated them but as King Solomon finally conceded, ‘vanities of vanity, all is vanity’. This man could prophesize everything but when death came knocking on his door, he was helpless. It tells us that God is Mightier.
Sometimes I wonder why people need only ‘men of God’ to pray for them when they can also pray for themselves. The Lord Jesus Christ thought his disciples how to pray to God and never prayed for them. Hannah was barren after many years of marriage. She was disillusioned but never lost hope. When she and her fellow believers went to a convention, she did not ask priests to pray for her to get a child of her own. She rather went and knelt in a secluded corner and started to pray to God. She preferred talking to God directly than asking any priest to intercede on her behalf. There was this priest who was passing by and when he saw Hanna talking to herself with sweat and tears running down her body, the priest thought Hannah was drunk and rebuked her but Hannah replied that she was not drunk and that she was speaking to her God. When she returned home after the convention, she got pregnant and delivered Samuel who later became one of the greatest prophets. The Omnipresent God is everywhere and listens to us when we pray to Him.
The late Professor Mills saw TB Joshua as his spiritual father and frequented his church in Nigeria for prayers and deliverance even though we have churches in Ghana. TB Joshua could not prophesize his death and today the same TB Joshua died without telling his followers that he was going to die. You see how God works? I once visited a Priest of the Roman Catholic church who was my good friend. When I asked him after our encounter to pray for me, he had this to say: ”Pray for yourself because even me, as a priest needs prayers and so I pray everyday for myself.”
Anytime I turn on my TV and listen to these charlatans who parade as “Men of God”, my poor heart bleeds. If you allow this small boy ‘Bishop” for example who has confessed to the whole world that he fornicates to pray for you, my friend you are wasting your time. Just look at his bleached face and ‘yoyoo’ boys’ haircut and you need nobody to tell you that the man is a fake pastor. And there in his church you can see men and women of substance, obeying whatever command he gives. ‘Stand up’ and they will obediently standup. ‘Raise up your hands’ and they will quickly do so as if they are zombies. ‘Clap your hands” and they will foolishly do so as kindergarten children. “Pull out your manhood”, and they will bring the rod of Moses out of their treasures without shame. As for me I will never allow myself to be fooled by these crooks and charlatans who are out there to milk their followers dry. Excuse me whiles I flick my last Havana. I have no time for grieving at any given line in time. After all, either we wait for death or death will wait for us any day, anytime. Say your prayers before you go to bed tonight!!!
By Eric Bawah