One of the most beloved promises in the Bible is God’s faithfulness to work all things for the good of His called people (ROM. 8:28). One of the ‘good things’ that we have pleaded with God to work from the Covid pandemic is the exposure of the empty promises of the Prosperity/Word of Faith false gospel. Within one week, I have received two encouraging reports of God doing that very thing in Africa.
A dear pastor friend who is intimately connected with the church in Lagos, Nigeria that we recently began to partner with wrote this:
“Since the pandemic has dragged on for so long, a lot of people, even in Nigeria, are becoming disillusioned with the many public, embarrassing, and unfulfilled claims of the dominant Word of Faith preachers.”
As evidence for that observation, he forwarded Pastor Tony Okoroh’s update:
“The Lord has been gracious to us at SGBC, He keeps adding to our congregation weekly. We have an average of 2-3 visitors every Lord’s day and many of them return and have become consistent attendees. Many times our venue is filled to the brim with some people sitting on the staircase due to lack of space.
Currently, we have about 34 people who have signified their desire to join the membership, the largest we have ever had and the list of names keep increasing…. As a result of this recent increase in attendance, it was apparent that we needed to move to a bigger venue. We prayed earnestly as we searched for a conducive space to rent, while also trusting the Lord for funds to own our own property. We eventually found a space that could sit 200 people…
We concluded renovations and had our first service on the 2nd of May and to our amazement, we had about 150 people in attendance. The hall downstairs was totally filled and we were already making plans to prepare the overflow upstairs for the next Lord’s day, but it was not to be.
By the next Sunday, we were prevented from entering the premises and had to congregate in the open! To our dismay, the landlady and the estate association had decided to prohibit any church from taking residence but we had not been informed.
We are actively searching for a new place. Please join us in prayers.”
In the same week, I received this encouraging update from the pastor of our lead church in South Africa:
“Pastor Karabo of Central Baptist Church in Rustenburg continues to faithfully serve the church and… it appears that blessings are beginning to attend the ministry. They have recently added several members (7, I think) and others are pursuing membership. There has been a steady flow of visitors, many of whom are fleeing the prosperity gospel ‘churches’ in the area.”
Please pray with us that these showers of mercy would become a flood of the Spirit’s activity in exposing false teaching and drawing multitudes to the truth that is only found in Jesus Christ.
