It is time that every born-again Christian realised that the purpose of Christianity is not to teach us, believers, how to avoid or eliminate difficulty, but to nurture within us the strength of character necessary to offset difficulty when it comes. Christianity does not make life easy, rather it provides the strength needed to face and overcome the trials of life -Dr. Benson Idahosa.
The Pentecostal Movement in Nigeria began several decades ago with denominations like the Apostolic Faith, Assemblies of God (which recently celebrated its centenary in Nigeria) and the Four Square Gospel blazing trails in Southern Nigeria and later beyond the Niger.
A passionate commitment to God, a vital personal and deep love and reverence for Him alone, were the driving forces that propelled men and women of faith to take the Gospel of Christ with power, signs and wonders, albeit at the very risk of their lives, into fetish communities and villages and worldly towns in Nigeria, particularly in the South.
In recent Pentecostal Church history, God would raise a man, Benson A. Idahosa, of Edo extraction, to transform the landscape and fortunes of the Church in Nigeria, especially the Pentecostal movement.
Indeed there was fire in the bones of this great man of God, respected by laity and clergy, feared by men in government, resisted by men of satanic machinations, but undeterred and with the power of the Gospel on his lips, he took the gospel of Jesus Christ as his tool of transformation, reformation and spiritual reawakening all around the country and the world.
God used the man greatly. With divine wisdom, he taught the children of God to believe in themselves (that is, in whom God had made them be); to have great faith in a great God; to believe in the impossible; to achieve the incredible.
With boldness, he resisted the spirit of wickedness that had kept his people in bondage. Today in Nigeria, there is hardly a minister of this generation who was not influenced, directly or indirectly, by his ministry.
Consequently, depending on the persuasions of different men and women, love, respect, dread and even hatred grew in their hearts for the man and a Pentecostal movement that was erstwhile largely despised in the polity.
Archbishop, as he was and is still fondly called, because of his love and passion for the Lord, His people and His work, became the figure around which Pentecostalism and its influence in Nigeria and dare I say Africa would revolve and grow in exponential proportions.
No man or woman has been able to wear the shoes that this man wore since his Master took him home.
There are some things that Pentecostal Christians had loathed and taught against which were practised in some other denominations, but on the heels of a curious “prosperity gospel,” they began to take root in the system in the early nineties, before Archbishop Idahosa passed on: sprinkling and drinking of holy water and anointing oil; purchasing of handkerchiefs, oils, and special prayers (with the best services available to people of means), different offerings tagged with several nomenclatures began to take root; questionable deliverance and prayer ministries and methods; the blessings and gifts of God could now be purchased or transferred through “sowing a prophets offering”.
You might rightly say the gospel began to be monetized. People were now been encouraged to ‘pay’ or ‘buy’ their way out of difficulties and challenges. Christian character and its nurture, the building of a deep and personal relationship with the Lord began to take the back seat.
Now the fear of God and fundamental Christian character and values are being relegated by a fickle ‘how-much-money’ value system.
As I said earlier, some of these things began and even raised controversy before Archbishop passed on. Did he consent to some of them? I believe with a word many of these things would have been checked, but the man died!
May the Lord bless his gracious soul.
References:
Culled from Criminals Behind the Pulpit: by Solomon Aror; Copyright © 2010 Wordworth International.
Benson A. Idahosa, Strangers to Failure: Developing Faith and Power in an Awesome God, © 2003, Harrison House, Tulsa OK. USA.
