NEW
STYLE PROPHETS AND THEIR VISIONS OF PHONE NUMBERS, BANK DETAILS AND
LADIES UNDERWEAR
New style prophets
from Nigeria and Ghana have bastardized the once prestigious
prophetic ministry and turned it into a caricature of visions of
phone numbers, bank details, and ladies' underwear. The prophetic
ministry is one of the fivefold ministries which Jesus Christ gave for
the edification of the church (1 Corinthians 12 vs 28) The New
Testament order was apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and
teachers. The reigning craze among the new style prophets is calling
people's phone numbers and bank details on the pulpit. Some of them,
in order to convince the congregation that the Holy Spirit is in
operation and can reveal the deepest secrets, mention the colors of
underwear, panties, brassieres of pretty female worshippers to the
cheering of equally spirit-filled congregation. Prophets have been
used by God occasionally to reveal deep secrets about people
especially when a gross danger is about to envelop a person, city or
nation and profers solution on how to overcome the situation.
(Ezekiel 11:1-4), therefore the bastardization of the process by
fraudsters do not eliminate the existence of true prophets and
pastors.
The prophetic
ministry is the highest in ministerial rankings, Jesus Christ called
Himself a prophet who is without honor in His home (Matthew 13 vs
56-58) and Apostle Peter while addressing the crowd after the healing
of the lame at the beautiful gate said, ''For Moses said, 'The Lord
your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own
people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who
does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their
people.' '' (Acts 3 vs 22-23). The Bible said that God will send them
a prophet in the order of Moses and Elijah. During the time of
transfiguration of Jesus Christ, two prophets, Moses and Elijah
appeared and flanked Him (Matthew 17 vs 1-3). Most of the fathers of
the faith, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Daniel operated the
prophetic unction. Therefore, prophetic ministry is a ministry
ordained by God as a medium of directly communicating His mind to
people. Simply put, prophets are spokesmen of God who must deliver
the counsel of God whether the recipient likes it or not.
A prophet must
always manifest a word of wisdom (future predictions and solutions),
word of knowledge (recalling past events and solutions). There are
three types of people parading themselves as prophets in contemporary
Nigeria, those called by God, those who called themselves and those
called by the devil. There are prophets called by God, some of them
are still in our midst. As an undergraduate, a classmate, who is now
a pastor with the Assemblies of God Church, Enugu convinced me to
follow him to the house of a lady prophetess from Christ Ascension
Church, Enugu. This lady then living in abject poverty and under
oppression by a difficult husband was able to tell me things still
unfolding in my life almost twenty years after. I had to cut out a
large chunk of my feeding money to assist this woman from poverty. I
can never forget the prophetic counsel and foresight of this woman
whose daughter, Chimuche, is now a successful Abuja based gospel
singer. I have had recourse to meet others like Rev Stephen Tamfu, a
Taraba born missionary whose advice and counsel then was as if God
had spoken and fifteen years later, those things are still
unraveling. The two I talked about lived a Spartan life until God
deemed it fit to change their financial status.
During a prophetic
session at the Abiding Word Gathering Campus Fellowship, a beautiful
female student known for prophetic messages cried aloud that
fornication has entered the fellowship. At the end of the service,
the responsive campus fellowship leaders conducted a discreet
investigation and found out that some prominent actors in the
fellowships are into immorality. Those affected were confronted and
openly suspended from fellowship and after evidence of repentances,
were readmitted back. Such is the edification process of the
prophetic ministry.
These new styles prophets are not interested in whether the worshipper is going to
heaven or hell, their focus is intimidating the congregation with the revelation of hidden secrets with the intent of fleecing the stunned
worshipper of lands, houses, cars, and life savings. These groups of
people first call the phone number of the victim to the cheering of
the excited congregation, others go further to mention the person's
bankers, bank details, and the amount of funds with the bank. Some
others will move a step further to mention the color of the
underwear some beautiful ladies in the congregation are putting under
their skirts, to the cheering of the congregation.
The prophets will
then invite the beautiful and figurine ladies to their hotel rooms
for special deliverance and anointing while the ugly looking and
shapeless ones are asked to have faith in God, except if they have
fat offerings as compensation for their unpleasant figure. This
bedroom invitation always leads to bedroom exercise and the prophet
repents, asks for forgiveness, and awaits the next lady visitor. When
the people discover that their miracle is yet to come, they transfer
their aggression to anyone who is called a pastor. Therefore, genuine
pastors should shut down the activities of these new-style prophets
before they distribute the stench of their activities to the honest
ones.
These new styles prophets from Nigeria have been known to travel to Kofiridua, Ghana
while others visit Kumasi with the aid of some Ghanaian pastors where
they consult the Antoa river goddess for powers to see people's
secrets. Others travel to bar beach Lagos, some to Calabar, Port
Harcourt among other places to consult with powers. These powers must
be serviced by constantly sleeping with church members or else the
powers will dry up.
The second group of
phone number callers are those who cannot muster the evil courage to
consult spirits for strange powers, therefore, with the collusion of
some church pastors, they send people in advance to gather
information about certain persons in the congregation, including
their vehicle plate numbers, villages, number of children, etc. Four
years ago a visiting prophet based in Enugu, who have influenced a
lot of youth for God in the early nineties when his anointing was
full, contracted some young men to get information about certain
people in a church where he was invited to preach at Owerri and
promised to share the booty in the ratio of 70:30. At the end of the
shows he released a paltry N200,000 nairas to them. The embittered
accomplices went to the chief donor and exposed the deal. The chief
donor dragged both the visiting prophet and the host pastor to the
police station to help recover both the state of the art vehicle and
the millions he gave to the prophet.
This second group is
less harmful than the first group because they can only access the
finances of the worshipper while the earlier group can be spiritually
harmful.
In 2003 I was
invited to the church of one of the new style prophets in Lagos. The
church service started at 9am and ended by 4pm. This handsome pastor,
whose brothers are all prophets, walked up to a man and asked his
name, the man replied John. He moved across to the other side of the
large congregation of over two thousand and asked another man his
name, the man replied John. The congregation erupted in cheers. He
walked to a woman and asked for the name of the absentee husband and
the woman replied John, everybody rejoiced the more. Then he moved to
the first John and asked him what he does for a living, the man said
that he is a staff of the University of Lagos. He proceeded to a woman
near the window and asked her what she does for a living, the woman
said that she is a staff of the University of Lagos; the crowd erupted in
dancing and jubilation that God had revealed deep things. Then he
moved back to the second man named John and asked for the name of the
wife, the man answered Phebe. He moved to the first lady whose
absentee husband bears the name John and asked her the name of the
person that invited her to church, the lady replied that the person's
name is Phebe – this time around the congregation went wild with joy
that God is in this place. This cycle continued with intermittent
songs and dance until service closed and the congregation went home
satisfied that next week will be their turn for God's visitation.
The Bible said that
Christians should test every spirit but these prophets with lots of
intimidating credentials of the number of senators, governors,
ministers, ambassadors they have prayed for easily sways unsuspecting
worshippers to their sweet talks until it is too late. For those who
have fallen victim to these people, it serves them right because
people who reject the simplicity of the gospel and ignore those who
appear too simplistic, preferring those with a plethora of bodyguards,
convoys and affluence as signs of genuineness they will fall victim
to conmen who use the power of effects to manipulate others. Let
every Christian grow in maturity with the help of the Holy Spirit,
constant reading and meditation in the Bible so that when the new
style prophets appear again with visions of bank details and ladies
underwear, they will not fall victim.
Obinna Akukwe
Profetobinna2@yahoo.com
