By Dare Adejumo
It is never a simple task to dissect a global spiritual personality such as Prophet T.B Joshua. You need to be in a higher etereal realm or be graciously given the grace to do so.
TB Joshua as fondly called is a prophet of God with uncommon Christian lifestyles. Such a being cannot but generate some controversies. By his divine gift and endowment, he operates on a higher pedestal with an incomprehensible yawning spiritual gap between him and his generation.
He is the known but unfathomable divine envoy on earth. He has remained an enigma, a gigantic puzzle, a bundle of God’s inexorable and inexplicable mysteries to which mankind must simply and humbly accept their limitations.
The most persecuted, the most vilified, the most grossly misrepresented and disdainfully maligned in his country of birth, TB Joshua has continued to pray for his adversaries like his Master, Jesus Christ: ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’.
In today’s firmament when Christianity has become a mockery in many quarters, TB Joshua remains a shining light in darkness and has clearly shown to the world that “by their fruits you shall know them”!
One incontrovertible great fact is that The fate of TBJoshua cannot be different from his divine predecessors especially His Master Jesus Christ who out of spiritual blindness, rigidity, ignorance, crude envy, fear and unbridled jealousy was maliciously crucified in the most excruciating and agonizing manner by the same people believed to be most respectable religious authority of his time. What an irony!
TB Joshua must necessarily drink of that cup and joyfully too because of the grace of his Father.
There is something extraordinarily peculiar to TB Joshua. This is the unconditional love he radiates like the soothing moonshine in the sky. He cannot be offended. As a human being I doubt if he can allow any offence with him for five minutes.
It is love without discrimination and this is reflected in his joyful superlative giving, charity, activities and humanitarian and selfless services.
Unlike some other churches where you will be turned back if not in compliance with their physical and religious appearance standard, TB Joshua is home to everyone. Whether you are a Muslim, pagan, occult groups, lesbian, gay, idol worshippers just name any, TB Joshua is a friend to all.
“I am interested in the salvation of their souls. Jesus does not hate sinners what he hates is sin. If Jesus came for the salvation of sinners who am I not to welcome sinners in love and bring them to knowing Jesus Christ my Master and our saviour”? He would enthusiastically appear publicly with them like one who has just found a new lover. I could remember when a group of herdsmen in their rusticity visited him. He welcomed them like VIP, sat along with them and even collected their traditional caravan gourd which they all usually put their mouths in to drink water to also use the same thing to drink the water inside with them!
Because of human spiritual banality and pedestrianism, TB Joshua has oftentimes been maligned with outright chimerical tales and concocted lies by his superficial observers who could not decipher the Spirit of the Father working in him.
“I must necessarily experience all these. Who would I then resemble? Rejoice because every temptation and every situation is meant to draw you closer to God if you have been called by Him and maintain your focus, He would continue to strengthen you because God would never forsake His own”.
To talk of TB Joshua’s God’s endowed towering spiritual power in him is like dipping a cup into the sea to fetch water. The power radiates as he walks or talks with countless diverse healings and miracles beyond human imagination. There was one occasion when armed robbers waving fiery guns and shooting sporadically were operating in the upper street during the church service. The suffocating miasma of their operations extended to the church area. In holy anger TB Joshua fiercely came out of the service to confront them and collected their guns from them! The armed robbers were reduced to vegetables by the TBJoshua’s superb Holy Spirit power. It is not surprising to find Ogbonis, witch doctors, idol worshippers, psychists, Hindus, just name them – all forms of esoteric practitioners, confessing their sins and surrendering their satanic instruments by the fire of Holy Spirit engulfing them and accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in Synagogue Church Of All Nations SCOAN through the God’s nature in TB Joshua.
Nothing is done in secret in SCOAN. Everything is open and transparent. It is not a place of spiritual manipulation. Any wonder then that foreigners are trooping into SCOAN in droves and the church has to be overwhelmingly checkmating requests of intending pligrims and yet countless others will find their ways to Nigeria through back doors thus causing a lot of embarrassment in the enviroment beyond the church expectations.
“It is not everybody that can come here” says the Man of God. “Only those God calls will come here”.
TB Joshua is humility personified. Ordinarily he is very shy. He is indeed the biblical broken vessel in the hands of God.
TB Joshua has made the physiognomy of Christianity real and Jesus and His mission on earth clearer with discernible understanding of that narrow path to the Luminous Heights.
One of the most shockingly admirable things in TB Joshua’s life is his in-depth knowledge of Bible and the words of God. Here is a person who never went to theological school, mentored by anyone or really educated in the real western sense. Yet he is a teacher of teachers with strikingly penetrating power into your spirit. He opens your eyes and hearts at every teaching with profound spiritual transformation for eternal yearnings in the listeners! It is usually a moment of spiritual rediscovery. You cannot ignore his messages. Simple, nonoratorical or colourfully/attractively presented, it carries fire and power with uncommon insight and revelations.
You cannot be going to SCOAN and be engaging in sinful lives. TB Joshua will see all you are hiding secretly in your house or any immorality you are committing which you think has been successfully covered. He would compromise indiscipline and immorality. He is stern and firm!
I have severally witnessed instances where such members are called out except he doesn’t come across you.
“In this church, you are coming here and you are still living in this sin”? Whatever is saying is confirmed, no quibbling or mincing words as such sinners will immediately fall down crying to Jesus narrating the circumstances that led him or her to it asking for God’s forgiveness. You will be shocked when he exposes all the details of what you did!
SCOAN is not a place for ‘bigmanism’. Whatever you are from outside cannot be carried inside the church. You must be humbled! Have you ever seen where a big man or woman is asked to go and join sanitation group where they do cleaning or what you can regard as menial jobs? Yes, TBJoshua would tell you: ‘go and join them, God will hear your prayers’. In most instances it is like the case of that army General Naman the leper in the Bible who in arrogance felt how could he go and wash in a particular river directed him to go by the prophet when there were other better rivers he could go. But the grace of God saved him by listening to his servant and eventually was made whole as he washed himself in the very river.
One crucial lesson you learn from TB Joshua regarding prayers and fastings is that when they are not done on the precious arms of the Holy Spirit it is a balderdash. ” You can pray and preach wonderfully. Once you have not been adopted by Holy Spirit, people may hear you and even clap for you but God will not hear you. You can call yourself born again but as long as you are not adopted by Holy Spirit you are simply wasting your time”.
He has made worshippers in his church realise that your faith must be genuine, your meditation in God’s Word and making it the standard practice in their lives as NOT NEGOTIABLE for their Christian lives not be a failure and for them to have rewarding faith. To live in pure love to all your neighbors regardless of their religion or who they are, holding no offence against anyone and be a blessing to others for you are blessed to bless otherd. “O Lord give me love enough not to see the mistakes of others” is one of the prayers
Hear the Prophet:
“God cannot entrust you with His power if you do not have UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. This is because you will begin to use it for the benefits of those you want and then against your enemies. Look at this church, can you see any member of my family holding any positions? It’s God’s church and He knows what to do even when I am no more”!
TB Joshua is not competing with anyone. He has no faculty for looking into the affairs of any other churches or what anyone is doing or saying anywhere. His focus is on God. His only pain is the disunity in the church of Christ.
On several occasions when people from other churches received landmark healings and miracles he won’t allow them to do any Thanksgiving in SCOAN. He would tell them: “go back to your church and do the Thanksgiving there. We are working as a team. It is the prayers you have been praying in your church that also brought you here. Go and remain in your church and be worshipping there”.
That is TB Joshua for you. He is the embodiment of Jesus Christ himself. In SCOAN no soliciting for fundraising, sowing seeds, donations or Thanksgiving. Even payment of tithes or offering is completely voluntary. “Take your tithes or Thanksgiving money to the needy; look for poor pupils to give scholarship; look for the sick and all others you see in hardship to help. When you do that God will hear your prayers”.
Hear him again:
“Have you ever seen me printing envelopes here asking for donations? No! When God truly give you an assignments He would also put in the hearts of those that would assist you on the assignments”.
Today TB Joshua has brought back the early church of the apostles with Christian revival for a better understanding of worshippers to worship God in truth and in Spirit.
Speaking with a spiritual elder who prefers anonymity, he said: “There is no other person like him today in the entire world. It’s usually one at a time. He is on God mission but unfortunately God’s design did not permit many who ought to know from recognizing him. Do you think if he is fully recognized in Nigeria there will be any space in Nigeria for other people in the world to come?
Hear him: “You can see he is not establishing branches like others. He has kept absolutely to God’s directives and agenda and not to human opinions.
“God really loves TB Joshua. Some did not know that it was out of God concern for him to fulfill his mission that his last prophecy on American election did not click. If it had clicked there’s every tendency for some people to turn him to God which will affect him. God has brought him for the rise and fall of many. I only pity those in ignorance of his origin and are using their mouths unconsciously to jeopardize their own eternity”.
- Dare Adejumo is Lagos based journalist and public affairs analyst.
