IF YOU are in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Ho or any other big city in Ghana, I daresay you have started seeing huge and costly billboards of one-man churches erected at vantage points. Inscription like “Crossover”, “Passover’, ‘Stepover”, etc. with imposing pictures of leaders of the churches and in some cases, with their spouses embossed on the billboards springing up all over. It has been so every year. It is a trap for the unsuspecting easy-to-convince poor souls who continue to seek for non-existing salvation from these crooks called “Men of God.” As usual, December is the last month for these churches to make money after milking their congregation for eleven months. December to them, is a major harvest season to crown the year. The Jesus Enterprise flourishes more in December than in any other month of the year.
Every year, they make their congregation to ‘Crossover’ and ‘Passover’ to phantom places where nothing exists and spend the rest of the following year thinking of how to ‘Crossover’ and ‘Passover’ again the next year. The ‘man of God’ promises to heal them, deliver them from the grip of witches and make them wealthy during the ‘all night’ to usher in the New Year when they attend churches to ’Crossover’ and ‘Passover’ but they end up with more ailments and poverty while the ’men of God’ and their families live good lives. The illusive salvation continuous to be illusive. It is like searching for a needle in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Poor souls! They never wise-up. No wonder Carl Max said religion is the opium of the masses.
In this austere period, where the whole wide world is reeling under harsh and unbearable economic meltdown, we must drum into the ears of people that they must take their destinies into their own hands. The truth is that no ’man of God’ can change your destiny. Only God, hard work and perseverance can. They will prophesy that harsher times will come and that the world is coming to an end but they will not be able to tell us the remedy to avoid such harsher times. Even as they tell us that the world is coming to an end very soon, they continue to amass wealth at the expense of the fooled and hypnotised members of their churches. To them, prophesying is synonymous to forecasting. Last year, the smart ones among them followed the climate forecast by climatologists and ‘prophesied’ that there would be draught, flood and hurricanes across the world and it came to pass in many countries. So, this year, because their ‘sure banker dropped’ they will use that to tell their unsuspecting congregation that their prophesy came to pass. When they start to prophesy again, monies will flow and members of their churches will continue to be poorer. Meanwhile, no ’man of God’ in Ghana was able to prophesy the Russian invasion of Ukraine which will turn the economies of the world upside down, neither were they able to prophesy that an epidemic like Coronavirus will break out in the world where millions will lose their lives. They are crooks who are out there to skin their unsuspecting followers alive. And anytime I take them on, like the way I am doing, some of them cast insinuations that I should not touch the anointed ones, forgetting that as the senior messenger of God, I, the irrepressible Angel Gabriel, have been given the mandate by He, who delivered Israel to pronounce their guilt. Who anointed them in the first place? Thieves!
Talking about fake prophesies takes me back to what happened last year. IGP Dr. Dampare foresaw the risk of false prophesies to our national security and warned these fake prophets to desist from false prophesies. The hard-hearted ones who defied the IGP ‘smelt pepper’. Some of them ended up in police cells. For the first time in many years, Ghanaians saw relative peace last year as fake prophets became afraid to prophesy. May be their “holy ghosts” deserted them. The time has come for these ‘prophets’ to rethink because like the Kumasi Kejetia pickpockets and magicians of yester-years, in no time, their tricks wouldn’t work anymore. The multi-million questions are: Did Prophet Jeremiah and the other Prophets of Israel wait for December or Yom Kippur before they prophesied to the people of Israel? In fact, did Jesus Christ ever announce that people should meet him elsewhere for him to perform miracles? Did the Lord Jesus Christ collect consultation fees before curing the deaf, blind, epileptic, the cripple and the woman who bled for so many years? And did he ever announce the type of illness that he would cure as he moved along the streets with his disciples? But what are we seeing today?
Huge amounts of monies are spent on advertisements on radio and TV by these criminals for people to attend their crusades, all nights and prayers and deliverances where they expect to embark on their ‘robbery’ expeditions. And they promise to heal the blind, sick, cripple, make barren women pregnant, pray for people to get visas to travel abroad, make students pass their exams and even double monies for their members. But come to think of this: Why has God failed to choose any prophet from the Roman Catholic, the Methodist, the Anglican the Presbyterian, SDA and other orthodox churches to prophesy to Ghanaians? Think about that. So, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot prophesy to mankind? May be the Holy Spirit works only in these one-man churches! Today, I am hunched with emotions, anger and sheer desire to kick like a bull. Men of God should keep their distances this December because I am going to spit fire and be my irreverent self, no matter whose ox is gored. After all, no one can say I have not been writing about the activities of these criminals in cassocks for so many years.
Today in Ghana, we have three types of robberies. They are armed robberies, pen robberies and church robberies. We seem to focus more on pen robbery and armed robbery, leaving those who are engaged in church robbery to have a field day. You see, these so called ‘men of God’ who extort and steal monies from their church members in the name of God do not know that they blaspheme the name of God. In fact, they are the real robbers. I am convinced that one day, the Lord God of Host will strike the hammer of justice and set these poor souls who continue to fall victim to these criminals free. The Akans say when God picks up a stone, He takes time to throw it. The day of reckoning is beckoning. Look at the type of luxurious cars they ride and their ostentatious lifestyles and ask them what job they do to be able to get money to live so well. They use the Bible as an AK 47 assault rifle to rob members of their churches. Anyway, why are they always walking or travelling with armed, strong and hefty bodyguards? Because they fear? Fear of what? The evil that they do? Did Jesus or Paul travel around with bodyguards? We have seen their likes before. When they die, their churches too die with them and their followers scatter. Where is TB Joshua who professed he could heal any disease on earth but could not heal himself when he felt sick? His candle burned out before he could acquire his latest car. And where is ‘Apraku My Daughter’ and his King Jesus Evangelic Ministry International? His world collapsed when he was hooked to Akpeteshie. Think, my beloved!!!
BY Eric Bawah