“Our New Generational Christians See Corrections As An Offence!” Bishop Adol Obinwaogu

Bishop Dr. Adol Paul Obinwaogu is the Founder and General Overseer of the Redeemed Pillar of Fire Praying Mission Inc. Worldwide.

As a much-sought firebrand Pastor, he has gone beyond the shores of Nigeria to many countries with the gospel of the Lord. In Christendom, he has seen it all and done it all; yet, he beams with fresh anointing and bares open new discovery of the Word of God.

With the seemingly endless problems beclouding the Church and the Country, the crew of the Preacher's News magazine paid him a visit to tap his 'anointed brains' to proffer solutions for these issues. One of such issues is the 'spirit of hostility to correction' that is rife in the Church. Often, many Christians don’t want to be corrected, and that’s sad, because a rebuke can be good for the soul. “The wise of heart,” says Solomon, “will receive correction” (Prov 10:8). Despite that biblical backing, many Christians see corrections as offence and ultimately, dump the church for some other Church!

So, how does one know when to correct a brother or sister in Christ?

Thankfully, Bishop Dr. Adol provides a trustworthy answer among others.

Excerpts.

A Summary Of How His Ministry Started:

I passed through a lot of things because I came from a poor family. I was once an apprentice in somebody’s house for seventeen years without any settlement. It even got worst that I even had to sleep under the bridge for some time. But somehow, I went into sporting activities and from there, ventured into some businesses, which by God’s grace, I had assistance from inside and outside Nigeria. I became financially comfortable but God came to me and said, ‘My son, work with me! Don’t look at material things but work with me!” God, the owner of life, picked me, His property, to do something for Him, and I couldn’t say, ‘No’!

I did not want to be a servant of God, but God forced me to be His servant. By God’s grace, I am not a hungry man, He has blessed with everything I need to survive in life. I know my capability and what I have produced for this country when I was a sportsman from amateur to a professional boxer.

But I'm more fulfilled in life to work in the vineyard of God as His vessel.

God is the driver while I am the vehicle; wherever He swerves to, I head to.

So, I did not call myself – God called me! One mystery is that, nobody taught me the Bible or how to interpret it; God is the one that taught (and still teaching) me.

He said I should not listen to people and that He will give me what He wants me to preach. So, I began preaching what He said (or says) to me.

I have a peculiar ministration of the Word; the Word without the Holy Spirit interpretation is fake. When God directs you to the Word, He will interpret it to you. I am not in the ministry to prophesy but to interpret the Word of God. For instance, anyone that enters my office, God will show the person through the Word and I will interpret his or her life to such person.

I often preach that 'God has blessed everyone on earth but sin is the blockage to our blessings'. But when the sin moves away, we will get our blessings. No pastor or Church can bless you because God has already blessed you; what will be, will be!

The blessings of God will come to you when you are doing the will of God. I have done many businesses and did not go into the ministry because of hunger. God has blessed me and He picked me up and used what He gave me to bless other people.

On His Acclaimed Charitable Works In Nigeria and Outside:

I’m very grateful for the praises over my charitable services but there is an area I will like to make a little correction – that area is, 'no man can do such things except through God'!

A man can strive to do his own work but the helper is God. We need God's help; there is no exception of anyone. There is nobody that can help others without God, first helping such a person. These good news about things I did are not my efforts but God's. God helps people, not me! God can use any vessel; God has been using a lot of people to assist other people; we are just vessels, not the helper.

God has been using my ministry to do many charitable works but as a vessel of God, I cannot start shouting and telling people that I am the one doing this or that, because all the things I am using to do those benevolent works belong to God. Nobody has brought anything to this earth – it is God that made them and then, gifts them to us! The owner of your properties is God. So, don’t use what you did for someone to boast and start publishing that you have done this or that. You are not the one – it is God! The money you have today is through God! There’s nothing you can boast you have if God hadn’t provided it for you; you are nothing. Don’t claim God’s properties as your own properties. When you boast with God’s properties, He can take it away from you. So, what I know about my charitable acts is that, it is God that is helping His children though me! So, I am one of the vessels that God uses to help and not that I am the one helping people. Let people praise and thank God, not me.

On Sanitizing The Church Of 'Uncalled' And Money-Seeking Pastors:

Many of the problems we are having in the Church today is because of bad leadership in the country. Everyone wants to be a Pastor so he can find ways to milk others of their money and survive. If the government is good and the economy is buoyant, I don't think we will have the kind of influx of people into the Church who want to become pastors when indeed, they weren't 'called'.

Christians need to investigate how a pastor started his church, who he serves and the power behind his miracles. Many pastors just left their masters to start their own churches without their masters' blessing. They carry curse and anybody who follows him is also cursed because mango cannot produce orange. You can only produce what you have. The church cannot be in order when the leadership of the country is not in order. I don’t condemn churches, but I am against the spirits that are behind some churches. They don’t operate with Holy Spirit but anointing. Many are operating with the power of native doctors and evil charms and call it anointing.

On Redeeming These 'Uncalled' Pastors And Bishops:

Those who know the truth will live by the truth! I can remember the Church of the olden days; you go to Church and the pastor will tell you the sin you committed for you to change so that God will bless you. But today, nobody is talking about the sin; instead, they are talking about problems.

How can you talk about problems without you talking about the causes of the problems?

Things have gotten worse in the Church that if you rebuke or correct anyone for going astray and your correction is for the person to change, instead, the Christian will see it as an offence and maybe, leave to where they will tell them what soothes their hearts, like it is your father, mother, siblings, family members or friends that is (are) pursuing you and remedy like, there is something you will do to survive these attacks.

Jesus taught us to correct one another because he understood the danger of unrepentant sin. In Matthew 18:15-18, He carefully lays out a process of correcting a brother who sinned against another brother.

Many other places in the New Testament speak to the value of correction. James commands us to warn brothers wandering away from the faith (James 5:19-20). Paul tells us to caution those who ignore his teaching (2 Thess 3:14-15). It’s a loving thing to point out the sin in the life of a brother or sister.

Some Pastors are even scared of rebuking or correcting their members because they are afraid of losing them to another Pastor or church.

Instead of the Pastor to correct and tell them to repent first – the Bible in Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” – they are teaching people to add other things without seeking the Kingdom.

Nobody wants to hear the truth in the Church again because liars have taken over. The truth is that, anointing has destroyed the Church and Holy Spirit has left the Church. However, if we want to redeem such people back to the Church, we have to ask them to seek first the Kingdom of God before any other thing would be added to the redemption. True salvation before any other thing.

The fact is that many of them have been misled by prophecy; in fact, prophecy is likeable to predictions. Understand this: a Prophet is not a man of God; a Prophet is the servant of a man of God. In Exodus 7:1, God called Moses and said He had made him a ‘god to Pharaoh’ and that he had the mantle to face Pharaoh but Aaron, his brother, should be 'his prophet'.

A prophet never starts a journey without a man of God; a man of God has the mantle and can give the title of prophet to a befitting person as led by God. When Aaron made a mistake, God went to Moses and asked him to go back to Aaron and take the title of the prophet and then, give it to Eleazar, Aaron's son. Aaron died and Eleazar continued. But when Moses made a mistake, God asked him to ‘hand over’ to Joshua – ‘hand over’ doesn’t mean ‘to surrender,’ because God holds the mantle. So, he handed over the mantle to the person that would continue the journey. Today, prophecy has replaced the Word of God and destroyed the Church; nobody is ready to know the truth. Deceivers have taken over the Church; everybody wants to be the General Overseer. The Bible says that, if a man does not know how to build his own house, how can he take care of the Church of God?’

For instance, God has never called a woman and given her a mantle; women are ministers under a man’s ministry. God gives a man a mantle, and gives woman a title – that is why they are the ‘weaker vessel’!

But today, the Gospel has been destroyed – no truth again! So many people that doesn’t understand the Bible or know how the Spirit works, have become bishops and pastors and go astray over little temptation.

On The Trend Of A 'Bishop Without A Church':

It is wrong! A bishop must have a base – a bishop is a man that has a ‘ministerial place of address’. A man of God, who calls himself a 'Bishop' without a base' is a fake!

On His Calling In the Five-Fold Ministry:

I operated as an evangelist before God gave me a certificate to operate as an Apostle. I remained under that apostolic fold until God said, ‘You are now a father. You are qualified to be a father!’ A bishop is a father!

His Advice To The Youth, Pastors and Nigerians As A Whole:

It is impatience that is destroying many people and then, the country as a whole; impatience or anxiousness of material things.

As per the youth, they should believe that they are special because God did not create anybody with zero-talent; He gave everyone a gift to explore and be great in life!

But the problem is that the youth are not interested in the gifts God has given them.

Take politics as a case, it is a field for for the professionals that have studied it academically but what do we have today, we see all sorts of people - farmers, teachers, traders etc. – going into it with the necessary knowledge of how to run it perfectly well.

That is why politics has become a do-or-die affair!

So, when a youth discovers his/her calling, he/she has succeeded in cutting away the anxiousness of survival because his/her survival is dependent on their gift or calling.

Generally, whatever challenges we are facing in our calling, we should not be weak. We should also do away with envy because it causes many disaffections in the country and in the Church.

As for the pastors, many understudy-pastors who have gotten anointed under some other Pastors’ grace or umbrella, just because of envy or a little problem, leave the Church with claim that ‘God called me’ and begin theirs. But along the way when the glory or anointing departs from them, such runaway pastors start going to fetish priests or herbalists to ‘fortify’ them so they can sustain their ministry. And then, these herbalists would start requesting ‘human offerings’ for the sacrifices to do the charms for the pastors. So, how can the pastors with such evil anointing deliver people from evil bondages – it is impossible.

My advice is for them to remain loyal whatever the situations may be and then, be amicably released by your masters or senior pastors.

We must know the truth and the truth will set us free! Anyone that tells you that God will bless you, please leave that person because God had blessed you already. But try to make your way right before the blessings will start manifesting in your life. If you are not confident of what you are doing, you cannot succeed. If you trust yourself, God will trust you but today, we don’t trust ourselves. We are looking at others as our helpers and have abandoned God; but God uses people to help us. If we can be able to exercise our own authority under our own calling on earth, things will be better for us and the nation. Everyone wants to jump out from where God called them to where God did not call them – that is why we have problems all around us.