CAC General Evangelist, Prophet Hezekiah O. Oladeji
Fielding questions with the duo of PASTOR ADEMISOYE ALAWODE and EVANG. GBENGA BANKOLE in his office at Anlugbua Basorun Ibadan, the General Evangelist of Christ Apostolic Church, Nigeria and Overseas, Prophet Hezekiah O. Oladeji said the current practice by some prophets where they ask people to bring sponge, soap, oil and some other items to their prayer meeting is syncretism or return to idolatry which the Gospel of Christ took away from Africans when the revival of 1930 broke out in Nigeria. He said he believe in praying into water and sometimes oil may be needed but the shouldn’t be made to replace the name of Jesus Christ.
The General Evangelist also spoke about God’s deliverance he witnessed when his plane crash-landed in Lagos recently. He also dwelled on the theme of this year’s conference: DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL GIFTS FOR EFFECTIVE MINISTERIAL CALLING. A taste of the pudding is in the eating. Why not take some bites?
We rejoice with you for surviving the plane accident recently. Looking back at what happened, how did you see it?
I give thanks to God. No one can receive anything except it is given to him from above. What actually happened was indescribable. When we think about the whole incident, all we can say is to thank God for His protection is ever faithful and ever sure. Except the Lord keep the town, the watchmen wake in vain. God did it, not we ourselves. We read it in the Bible that three Hebrew men came out of the fiery furnace. Daniel came out of lions’ den unscathed. That is the summary of what happened.
So, the incident is compared in magnitude to the deliverance of those Hebrew men?
Yes. That’s exactly what happened. All the 55 of us in that plane ought to have died.
We were told that the flight that should have taken you back to Ibadan was cancelled that same day you reached Abuja. What was the reason for the cancellation?
Yes they cancelled the flight in the evening of Friday when we arrived at Abuja. But when they were buying the ticket of that plane I just didn’t want to discourage them. I was even hesitant to board the plane. My usual practice was to quickly enter the airport and board my plane and go. I went back into the lounge to take tea. We were drinking tea when they called us to come board the plane. I entered that plane last.
When I wanted to enter the flight, I was aware that there was going to be some danger. But I believe that by the love of our Saviour, all will be well. I put off the shoes on my feet and walked into the plane with bare foot. A divine communication that the plane mustland safely.
What exactly happened in the air at the time of the plane’s decent?
The pilot announced that the plane had entered a rough weather in Lagos. He said he would find way of landing the plane. On the ground as the plane was trying to land, passengers had seen how it was being tossed by strong wind and they had been shouting.That was the time I shouted a prayer: “God of our fathers, take control” When it finally landed, people were greeting me: “Baba, we didn’t know you were in this plane”. They couldn’t know I was in the plane because I entered last.
What was the programme you were coming to hold that made you decided to return that day?
I wanted to come to Ibadan for a Prayer program called Altar of praise. They had been appealing to me to come and minister in that programme since about one year ago.
We thank God for your deliverance. Let’ talk about your recent trip to Canada.What was the situation of things at Canada where you went recently?
We thank God for the wonderful way he made His presence felt. In Calgary, Christ Apostolic Church was firmly rooted there. When I visited the place last year, the Church we planted there was rebuilt and the Regional Superintendent of Latunde Region (that is CAC North America Region) had posted a minister of God to the Church. We had a large turn-out of people at Winnipeg Crusade. It was fantastic. God proved Himself there as well because He manifested His power in ways that I can say I never witnessed before. By the grace of God before four years, Christ Apostolic Church would have been fully and widely established in Canada just like the case in America. With all arrangements already made, the spread of CAC in Canada will be unprecedented. I am still going back to Canada in August this year. I am going for a great programme. We have already secured a mighty hall for which we paid a huge amount of money. The programme will be held at Toronto. The main aim is to plant a church immediately after that programme. I observed the people in Canada love the Church and if we plant about 500 churches there it will not be enough.
What progress have you made on the collapsed White House in Ikeji?
I can’t say much on that now. All I can say is that work had started on that building in Ikeji. The Church fathers had laid the foundation in March this year. The block work is being done as we speak. God is the one doing His work. Within the next one month, people would have noticed that work is going on at the Church building in Ikeji.
It is noted that in all your ministration on the crusade round, in the Church and everywhere, you never asked people to bring oil, soap, sponge whine and other objects. You relied on Jesus name only. But so many other prophets are doing so, why are you not doing the same?
The work of ministry in Christ Apostolic Church is patterned after the Apostles’ style. The Holy Spirit was the One in control. The power of God was working in them. When that plane accident happened, is it sponge that we would have resorted to or soap or is it anointing oil? But we used the name of Jesus Christ. The word of God and His power. It is the word that is very powerful. There is nothing under the sun that would not respond to His word. The land, the sea, trees, leaves on them, even spirit including darkness, human beings in their different races hear His word; the firmament all are responding to His word.Whenever all of these hear the word of God, they bow. The word of God says, by calling the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. All kingdoms of the world and that of heaven and that of the ground. So, the Holy Spirit and the word of God have limitless powers. Oh yes, I believe in oil and water, that is what we met our forefathers in faith doing. Everybody knows that Christ Apostolic Church believes in the efficacy of praying into the water and getting result. Water is the covenant our fore fathers had with God to heal many diseases that defied orthodox medicine in those days. Once they spoke their prayers into the water, the water would become powerful and perform wonders.
Our forefathers had first-hand, manifestation of God’s raw power. Can those of us today do anything close to what those fathers did? Many are just looking for money in whichever what way. Those asking people to bring orange, sponge, soap and other things are doing it for money.
Ironically, we find among our own CAC where people are asked to bring some of those things.
There is no need for that if you have the mighty working name of Jesus with you undiluted. Those who are demanding those things from people are simply hungry. When a hunter doesn’t have power, he would resort to killing rats and cats.
The theme of this year’s conference is about Holy Ghost, but why is it that many of today’s of prophets do not rely on the Holy Spirit to do the work of God, we hear so many odd stories of them using dark powers for the work of light.?
Were they called? If they were truly called, they wouldn’t be carrying about merchandise as ministry. That cannot enter the kingdom of God.That’s why they practice anything. There were so many Babalawo among them. They use Ifa for divination and call it vision, they use afose and other fetish things to deceive their followers. If they were called by God, they would seek and get His power. But they want the short cut. Because the power of God requires total submission to God. That is too much for them to do. They would do aworoto have crowd, use juju to foretell. But the Bible says in Act 1 verse 8: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you. And you shall be my witness in Judea, and Samaria unto the uttermost part of the world. Whoever has the Holy Spirit would never go to Babalawo. Our forefathers in the faith used to convert Babalawo, they would destroy their Ifa corpus. They were pulling down the house of idol worshipers, pull down the grove of egungun with the power of mighty God in them. I cannot count the number of babalawo and herbalists that God had used me to bring to the salvation of Christ. There are uncountable numbers of Ifa priests who had submitted their paraphernalia of worship to me to burn or destroy after preaching salvation in Jesus to them. There is an old man at Origbo-Ifetedo after we preached to him, he said his Ifa corpus could never be burnt if they are set ablaze. Truly, we set it ablaze and it refused to burn the first time, I had to gather the corpus in my two hands, I raised it up and said: Oh Lord, show us today if you are the greatest or if Ifa is the greatest in authority, I poured the kernels back into the same fire, they burned as if they were soaked in petrol.
When did idols come into the world? It was when the devil fell from his lofty position in heaven, he gathered co-rebellious angels and other spirits and distributed them into various objects in the world.
What says the Bible, “you will receive power and be my witnesses in Judea, Samaria and utter-most part of the world”. That means the fake prophets are not found in Judea where they should be witnessing for Jesus, they were not found in Samaria, neither could they be found in the utter-most part of the world. That’s why the population of those who have truly accepted Jesus are not more than one percent of the world population.
So, fake prophets are not called, their bellies called them and that’s why they turn ministry to feasting.
But there are some prophets asking people to bring orange, spices, sponge to their churches for prayer.
Prophets who resort to all those things do not have Holy Spirit. They are calling people to only bring money for them to spend. In a way, they are stealing by trick.
We realize that the theme of this year’s evangelical conference is HOLY SPIRIT AND POWER, was this theme chosen to correct the prophets and evangelists of the church?
The purpose of the theme is to teach them as we have been doing, and to ensure that whoever found himself/herself in such idolatry repent and properly focus on God for power to do ministry. We have been teaching them and we can say to an extent, that true CAC prophets can’t be found doing such things. We not only teach them, we follow up to ensure compliance with our standards. That’s why you can’t find CAC prophets giving fake prophecy, we have turned many prophets in mushroom meal-ticket mountains to abandon their tricks. We emphasize Holy Spirit is a must for any worker in the vineyard of God. We emphasize Holiness as the required way of life for prophets. Holy Spirit and His gifts were the only instruments our fathers in faith used. This same Holy Spirit entered into Peter, Paul and the disciples of old. The same spirit entered into our great fathers of faith in CAC name them, Oba Akinyele, Baba Odubanjo, Odusona, Apostle Babalola and many others. The Holy Spirit entered into a Church warden in CAC and he raised a dead, pregnant woman who had died four days earlierwith the foetus in her being born alive later. But some of today’s prophets are lazy and can’t tarry to receive the same spirit. Many of today’s prophets are lazy and too much in haste. You call them to come for prayers, they won’t come, you call them to come and learn more of the word of God, they won’t come; they would tell you they are holding crusade. They want to be independent and they refused to stay under the control of God and the authorities of the Church. The way out for them to continue hood-winking those following them is to inherit the evil spirits,
So, all this conference purposed to achieve is to make our prophets and evangelists to return to God and His power through Jesus Christ and begin to do exploits in ministry. To win souls for the kingdom of God. There are many today who only believe in crowd-winning instead of soul-winning. Such people are only concerned with the people’s money, not the salvation of their souls.
So we want a revisit to Pentecost. God is looking for the likes of Apostle Ayo Babalola, Akinyele, Odubanjo and other giants in thefaith.
Is it only laziness that made these fake prophets resort to syncretism or they choose to deliberately do ministry the way they want?
They don’t want to be under authority. They want to be independent they don’t want to be directed by any leaders and they can’t stay where sound doctrine rules. Whereas, Apostle Ayo Babalola bowed down before Oba Akinyele, he did is tutelage under him. Yet in turn, Akinyele also respects Apostle Babalola. What happens is that there is no more humility in those people, all they do is to puff up in arrogant manner, the Christ Apostolic church of today remains the Church where the Holy Spirit dwells and no room there for such fakes. They have shunned the practice of our fathers. Recently, the President, Pastor S.O. Oladele spoke of the dying practice of clapping in the Church. He said we should return to this practice. When you are in a revival, you clap and Holy Spirit would descend and comfort the church with outstanding prophecy and astounding deliverance. In those days, ordinary Church members are usually filled with Holy Spirit and they would prophesy. But both the ministers and the followers can't make the sacrifices which the Holy Spirit demand to work with them.
As a result, fake ministers turn their followers to merchandise whom they trade with.
What are the steps the errant ones among the prophets should take to return to the right course?
First of all, they must desire to be united with the children of God who are in the ministry and are following the directive of the Holy Spirit. They must be ready to learn. They must earnestly desire the Holy Spirit and abandon all they had been using in the past. Then the unity of the spirit will reign among the brethren.
What are you doing to end the menace of freelance evangelists whom we often hear of their misdeeds, like a female evangelist was said to have snatched the husband of another Lady Evangelist who invited he to do revival in her church.
Let’s not make mistakes. Did God call that type of woman? It is the situation in this country tat made many people to become emergency evangelists. If Nigeria economy were to be okay, you will see many of those people we are talking about abandoning the work of ministry. Wen our economy become buoyant, you will see welders who didn’t have job to do, but quickly turn an emergency evangelist, going back to their trained vocation. All the fashion designers who did not have power to work and thereby turn to Church owner would go back to their trade when power is fully restored in this country.
You get to some streets and you wonder if the entire people in that community are all church planters. From house to house you will see many churches. Yet, we are saying there is need for evangelism. How do we reconcile this?
Make no mistake at all. Those mushroom ministries you are calling church, are not churches. They are meal kiosk or outlet. They want created the fellowship to be stealing from the innocent followers. The big ones among them are simply rentable halls. Very soon they will be selling them. This year alone, I have been asked to come and buy three church buildings. Even, here in Ibadan somebody has offered to sell a church to me. So, Evangelism is not enough, we have to be preaching the salvation of God through the blood of Jesus until the fake ministers and their followers meet Christ the Saviour. Until they reach the status of Christ likeness and become Holy-Spirit filled.
So Evangelism is not enough because most of the buildings we call “church” are no Churches, many of them are being sold because the Lord Jesus Christ has never been in their midst and the dark power with which they gathered the people had expired. So, since the once profitable venture is no longer bringing returns, instead of going on to be incurring debt, they would sell the “Church”off.
Then what should we do to increase evangelism that we haven’t done?
In the Bible Apostles of old like Peter, John were preaching the Gospel boldly and those being saved were getting converted. Even as we speak, people recognize good ministers of the gospel. Jesus says: “I am the way, truth an d life, no one come to the father except through me” That is we continue to teach the truth. Once the truth is known to people they won’t be deceived again. Jesus Christ says: And the Gospel shall be preached to the uttermost part of the world” So, Evangelism is not enough and that’s why Jesus Christ has not returned. We see large gatherings we call them Church, who are the leaders and their followers. Are true disciples of Christ? Many of them are mere Church bench warmers, they are no true disciple of Christ. There is world of difference between Church goers and Christians. In the CAC Secretariat here, we are many and only Jesus Christ knows who are truly His. He said: I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. So, Christ Jesus knows those who are His, we may be answering the same title, But God knows those who are worshiping him, in spirit and in truth.
What should the people out there do to know the fake from the true ministers of God?
The only way to recognize the fake is by critically noting the word of their mouth. Watch their actions. Before they could see these signs, they must first of all, get salvation and know their right from the left. Yoruba adage says: A so Esinmoile, gogo re yoni’ta. That is the horse is kept inside its lair, but its harness is seen outside. That is bad behavior can not be hid. It may be fast or long, but the fake will get exposed. Those of us genuine Christians, let’s be filled with the Holy Spirit, About two weeks ago, I was asking somebody why are you closing down several of your church branches, He said please help me Sir. I told him come and see me another time. Did he lay the foundation on the rock of ages? I want to assure you tat many “Jerusalem” that people think there is fire on their altar, will become desolate.
What is your view on the economic situation of our country, Nigeria? Will there be a big light at the end of the tunnel?
Let’s keep watching, God owns the whole world. He knows what He wants to do with Nigeria and He will perfect His work very soon. In a nutshell, there is light on the other side of the tunnel. Lets keep praying and I admit Nigerians love prayers, but what we lacked is the Holy Spirit of God and holiness. Once we have this God will prove Himself in our situation. But now, we pray but no response because we don’t live a holy life, we don’t love one another and again, the fear of God has departed from us.
What is your view about the sky-rocketing prices of goods in the market?
We have to return to God. So far, we are worshiping God in the flesh, we have not known nor worship Him in the Spirit Until we worship Him in the spirit, for such the father in heaven would cease.