January 5 marked the first Sunday for the year 2014 and for those who gathered at The SCOAN in Lagos Nigeria, there could be no better way for stepping into the year than the praise and worship that filled the auditorium. The man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua, preached with power and gave Words of Wisdom, touching on the topic of faith. He stressed that faith is not an imitation but a spiritual experience that should arise in one’s heart according to the Word of God.
Prophet T.B. Joshua
Said the man of God: “Faith arises in each person’s heart because faith is of man’s heart. Don’t base your faith on your improvement after prayer” He then warned against basing one’s spiritual experience on feelings and emotions saying, “If you continue to base faith on your improvement after prayer, the devil will continue to deceive you. You will begin to count how many times your prayer is answered,” he said.
Wise Man Harry preached on the message: MAKE THE YEAR WORK. The proof text was from the Book of Matthew 15:21-28, a scripture about a woman from Canaan who had an encounter with Jesus Christ and persistently begged for the healing of her daughter who was suffering from demon possession. He described the woman as one with vision and active faith, hence her ability to attract Jesus’ attention and to have her daughter healed.
Wise Man Harry
He said, as a Christian, when one’s focus is on a dream, whatever happens around the person would not matter. “Today, it’s not that we do not have a dream, we have but we do not believe in our dream. If you have a dream, remember that nobody else would believe that dream. If you don’t believe your dream, your dream will not come to pass. Therefore, you must protect that dream as nobody else can do it for you. To protect your dream, you must stop the language or the vocabulary of the victim; be positive. Let your words become the photograph of the future you desire instead of the future you fear,” he said.
TESTIMONIES
The service was laced with testimonies from people who came from all over the world to glorify God over His goodness in their lives. Here are but a selected few:
BULLET PROOF CORPORAL FINDS SAFETY IN GOD’S ARMOUR
When Corporal Benjamin Gabriel of the Nigerian Police Force left his station at the Lagos State Command on a special assignment last year to an area notorious for armed robbery, he thought it was just going to be ‘business as usual’ – patrolling the street and mounting a road block that would scare away such criminals from operating. But little did the 24 year-old know he was going to have an unusual dangerous encounter with these men of the underworld that, without God’s presence with him, they would have taken his life! Corporal Benjamin’s experience was one that eventually proved to any doubting Thomas of God’s mightiness as Protector and Defender of His people. While at the checking point with three of his other colleagues that fateful night, he suddenly found himself and his colleagues surrounded by no less than 14 men heavily armed with sub-automatic machine guns. Instantly, the robbers uncorked their AK49 weapons and opened fire at the unsuspecting police officers. The AK49 rifle is a later model to the AK47 which Corporal Gabriel and his unit carried. The officer beside him was shot dead instantly, others were severely injured while another escaped into the bush leaving Corporal Gabriel alone staring into 14 muzzles of loaded guns.
“I could see flares of gun-fire all around me and could feel bullets hit me all over,” he said. Thank God, none of the bullets could penetrate his flesh; he was under the protection of Heavenly armour!
Before he left for the assignment, a friend had given him a copy of one of Prophet T.B. Joshua’s sermons, known as an ‘MPG – Mouthpiece of God’ titled, You Must Be Born Again. Although he had never visited The SCOAN before, after reading the message, he was touched and his faith in Christ Jesus increased because he had heard a lot of God’s great work for mankind on earth today through His Prophet, T.B. Joshua. He took his own personal photograph by faith and placed it inside the sermon leaflet as a point of contact for God’s intervention in his life. He had then placed the leaflet inside his bag and believed that the yoke in his life was broken, in Jesus’ name. This was what he went with on this extra-ordinary encounter.
Now, confronted by notorious criminals shooting at him and his fellow officers, he remembered the MPG in his bag. Just as the first bullet rung out, Corporal Gabriel shouted the name, “Jesus!” Even as bullets rained on him, tearing through his combat boots, trousers and underwear, none could go beyond what he wore. They continued firing at him at close range and he continued shouting: “Jesus, God of Prophet T.B. Joshua, save me!” It was a barrage of gun shots tearing everywhere into pieces including the battleground like a volcanic eruption, yet Corporal Benjamin was not hurt despite their firepower and numbers against him even when they had taken his Police Service AK47 gun away as he fell thinking he had been shattered into pieces!
Corporal Benjamin Gabriel
But they failed because the presence of God was with him! The armed robbers were shocked to see the bullets ripping his uniform but not piecing his body. All he was shouting was, ‘Jesus, God of T.B. Joshua!’ The Corporal, now confident that God was at work, charged at his adversaries even without any gun in hand like a lion and eventually collected one of the armed robbers’ guns, an AK49!
He testified, “They collected my AK-47 and I collected their AK-49’s!” Full of fear and confused at this man who refused to die, the armed robbers disappeared into the darkness. Corporal Gabriel, ‘God’s bullet-proof officer’ who joined the police service in 2002, showed the congregation the very uniform and underwear he wore that night with the bullet holes in them. The AK 49 bullets destroyed his combat boots into shreds of leather but his feet were untouched! He said that when he told the Commissioner of Police in his State and his superiors, they could not believe what had happened and questioned him about his unexplainable, unharmed and untouched body. He showed them his photo, inside the sermon of Prophet T.B. Joshua from The SCOAN and they were all amazed at the miraculous escape and were left with no doubt; it was the supreme work of God.
“God made my body bullet-proof!” was his ecstatic reply.
ANOINTING WATER WASHES AWAY KIDNEY PROBLEM
Mrs Roseline Onyishi from Enugu State in Nigeria, and her 16 year-old daughter Precious, came to testify to God’s glory of the miraculous healing her daughter received through the medium of the Anointing Water. In September last year, Precious had fallen ill and had all signs of a malaria attack. She was rushed to hospital but after two days of admission, she continued to vomit and had been put on a drip. Although the doctors said they were doing their best, there did not seem to be any improvement. She remained confined to the hospital bed for four days and on the fifth day, the doctors confessed the limitation of human wisdom. They sent her for another test at a different facility; this was after she spent a week in the hospital. They were told that it was a serious case of kidney failure and that Precious should go for dialysis. The doctor explained that her kidney was enlarged and she needed emergency attention. All her daughter could do was vomit and go to the toilet; she was in a terrible state. Actually, the doctors said she would need to be on dialysis for the rest of her life. Each day, her daughter received one pint of blood and they continued with the dialysis. One of Mrs Onyishi’s in-laws visited her at the hospital and gave her the Anointing Water from The SCOAN. After reading the Anointing Water booklet, her faith was lifted. She ministered the Anointing Water on her daughter’s lower abdomen and in her mouth, in Jesus’ name.
Mrs Roseline Onyishi and Family
One day later, the doctor discharged them for no apparent reason. When they inquired why, the doctor told her that her daughter was inexplicably well and should therefore go home and return the following week. Another test a week later, confirmed that she was indeed healed of the kidney problem – no more dialysis, no more needles and blood transfusions. Today she is safe and free with all her eyes to becoming a medical doctor. Glory to God!
CANCER FLUSHED OUT!
Mrs Peggy Kaluba from Zambia was diagnosed with cancer last year. She had been experiencing a blocked nose for three years and felt pain when swallowing. She visited the hospital and the doctors advised her to go for a CT scan which exposed a tumour. After one month having gone through a biopsy, the next thing was for her to go for an operation in order to remove the large cancerous tumour of the neck and nose which in itself could not even be guaranteed. The doctors said she should go to a hospital where she would receive specialist attention. She decided to visit the Great Physician, Jesus Christ and came to The SCOAN where she received the Anointing Water. At this time, the tumour was massive in size. Back home, she prayed and ministered the Anointing Water, in Jesus’ name and went for another scan. She said she believed in the God of Prophet T.B. Joshua. When the results came out, she was free from cancer! Jesus had healed her.
Mrs Peggy Kaluba
“Jesus heals; learn to trust in God,” she said.
‘JESUS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!’ SAYS DELIVERED WITCH DOCTOR
Another testimony came from Miss Olipha Dube from South Africa, a registered nurse and a strong witch doctor who was delivered at The SCOAN prayer line last week. She testified of how futile the devil’s perceived solutions to man’s problems are. After graduating from her nursing school, she went into private business supplying nurses for government and institutions in the health sector. Her business was going well until a few years later when everything slowed down and plunged. Frustrated and with nowhere to run, her friend introduced her to a witch doctor where she received charms to help her business. Instead, her problems became worse. She started moving from one witch doctor to another, searching for a higher power until one of the witch doctors told her that her ancestors wanted her to become a witch doctor.
She accepted and went through the initiation school where charms were stuffed into her body. She was also given power to see what others could not see and the ability to communicate with the spiritual world. She was initiated and started practicing as a witch doctor. Many people came to her shrine but she discovered that she could not solve every problem brought to her. Even those that she ‘helped’ would later come back complaining that the charms only worked for a few days and then brought worse problems. So, she went to another initiator and paid a huge sum of money for him to teach her how to use plants, trees and animal parts to produce different kinds of charms.
In the process, she used many charms on herself in order to be able to communicate with the spiritual world on a daily basis and attain more powers. She had an evil altar in her bedroom, where she would talk to the ancestral spirits – they would appear to her and communicate with her. She had two shrines for the ancestral spirits – one for her father’s side and another one for her mother’s side. She would use parts of animals, like dogs, drying them in the sun and grinding them into powder. People would receive the powder, not knowing what it was made of. After inserting the powder into the person, the spirit of the animal would enter them, giving the person an uncontrollable spirit of lust. She explained that because this did not provide a lasting solution, it caused people to start moving from one witch doctor to another unaware that it was actually increasing their problems. As a witch doctor, she said, she was raising spiritual husbands and wives for people by going to the graveyard and raising the spirit of a dead man or woman which she would assign to her client’s victims. That way many families were destroyed. She also explained that she was able to connect with the evil spirits and could tell people about their past, present and future. If she was standing next to a person, the evil spirit would be telling her about that person. Despite all the powers she possessed, she found herself having more and more problems. She lost her business and all her assets. Her situation became pathetic and one day, one of the people she had initiated told her about Emmanuel TV where she saw people manifesting and confessing the very things she was doing. She was surprised and frustrated at how the evil spirits like those she had unleashed on others, were commanded out of people at just one word – Jesus!
Miss Olipha Dube
She came to The SCOAN and was arranged at the prayer line. As the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua came towards her, she explained, she felt a great force and at the same time, she heard a voice telling her to run but she could not escape, something was holding her feet
The evil spirit inside of her manifested and was cast out, in Jesus’ name. Today, she is delivered from the evil spirit that had destroyed her life. “I now feel peace inside and outside me. I am a happy person. My past is over and I am ready for a new life in Christ Jesus,” she said, adding, “If you want to be a Christian, be a Christian. The only solution is Jesus Christ; there is no other solution.”
I SEE YOU CARRYING BABY SAMUEL!
When Mr and Mrs Eze came to The SCOAN last year, they received a prophecy from the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua. He told her she was too young to have problems in her home and that he saw her carrying ‘Samuel’. In her testimony, she said her marriage was full of quarrels and she was also experiencing miscarriages. She was pregnant at the time of the prophecy. After the prophecy, she went for a scan which showed that she was indeed carrying a baby boy and that he was safe. Her husband’s attitude towards her also changed. He became loving. Now, they have a baby boy named Samuel Okechukwu Eze as fulfillment of the prophecy by the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua!
Mr and Mrs Eze
TOTAL LOSS OF SMELL AND TASTE RESTORED AFTER FIVE YEARS
Mrs Diana Nkwo from Cameroon had the horrible problem of no sense of smell and taste for five years. This severely affected her life. At one point her daughter’s apartment in the USA and the rest of the building could have been burnt by the fire she caused by placing a pot on the cooker and not being able to smell that it was burning, if not for her daughter’s intervention. She could not detect the impending inferno because of her dead sense of smell! The incident would have cost life as her daughter’s child was sleeping in one of the rooms. By the time she realised the tragedy and carried the child out, the whole house was thick with smoke. Also as a result of the problem, she could not enjoy her own food because she could not taste. Her nose was also running ‘like a baby’s’ because of the same nasal problem. She went to many hospitals within and outside her country in search of solution but found none. The only hope given to her was an operation in the United States which could not even be guaranteed.
Mrs Diana Nkwo
She tried traditional medicine but to no avail. After everything humanly had failed, she decided to come to The SCOAN for a divine solution. She was placed at the prayer line where the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua, prayed for her, in Jesus’ name and instantly, she regained her sense of taste and smell. For the first time in five years, she could smell the scent of her own perfume. She glorified God for her healing and advised people to believe in God.
DRY BONES RISE AGAIN!
Emmanuel Batawa from Ghana came to The SCOAN with the problem of stiff neck due to cervical spondylosis. He also suffered from lumbar spondylosis. He could not turn his neck and walked with difficulty. He was experiencing dizziness and had blurred vision. He had visited many hospitals in search of solution but got none. Wearing a lumbar corset and a neck collar that held his neck and back bones together, the 41-year-old was placed at the prayer line where one of the wise men prayed for him in the name of Jesus Christ and he instantly received his healing. Today, he came to testify how he now is a free man, having been healed by Jesus Christ. He no longer uses a neck collar or lumbar corset. He demonstrated his healing by walking across the altar, bending and turning his neck.
Emmanuel Batawa
CHARITY TO THE ELDERLY
Where are your elderly ones? Care for them and you shall reach old age. Today, Prophet T.B. Joshua gave 3 million naira and a trailer full of rice to the elderly members of The SCOAN. He then announced that this care and support is given monthly to the elderly. The elderly gave thanks to God for the life of Prophet T.B. Joshua and the wonderful gifts they had received.
Glory to God and stay blessed!
