WE LIVE IN DESPERATE TIMES
“The mass of men lives of quiet desperation” – Henry David Thoreau
“Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Lk. 21:26).
Truth is fallen in the streets (Isa. 59:14), Justice is denied (2 Sam. 15:4; Psa. 82:3; 89:14; Amos 5:24). Yet, in such difficult moments finances are nose diving (Deut. 8:18; Psa. 46:4), and the beauty of Zion has departed (Lam. 1:6, 10). Jeremiah in describing the situation at his time said, the gold became dim (Lam 4:8, 14, Lam. 5:2-22) and as the Psalmist put it our harps are hanged already (Psa. 137:1-9).
The church is no longer the representation of Christ, because the love of self is the order of the day (Rev. 3:13-18) and our first love have departed from us (Rev. 2:4-6). Carnal Christianity is the practice of the moment (Prov. 1:22, 32; 9:16; 14:18).
Plastic Christianity is now being popularize due to defective commitment, complacency, men-pleasing tendencies and showmanship.
Our present brand of Christianity is for sale
and for a show-off, we are in an era of skepticism with the daily growing
uncertainty. In fact, uncertainty remains the only thing that is certain. The
perceptions of many are distorted about so many things, we even use our
experiences to misinterpret facts about divine issues and reality remains a mental construct in so many quarters.
Just as the Bible predicted iniquity has increased and the love of many is waxing cold (Matt. 12:24). We are being overwhelmed by fear, fear of war, fear of the current financial pressure and tomorrow’s future for our children remains uncertain and insecure. Governments everywhere are downsizing, laying off a great number of the workforce causing many to be jobless and exposed to the harsh marketplace environment. This is indeed an era of skepticism with an increasing debt profile, strange sicknesses causing a a widespread pandemic, and massive deaths without any remedy in sight. The Maxim that says, “It takes the desperate in life” is undeniably true one must say.
DESPERATE MOMENTS
Have you ever been trapped on a risky route
because you ran out of gas?
Have you ever faced your landlord with no money to pay your rent and the prospect of being evicted?
Have you ever missed a life-changing important meeting because you arrived at the airport two minutes late?
Have you ever discovered your wife in labor and been unable to get your car started in order to transport her to the hospital?
Or in a case where your children are returning to school and you've entrusted God with finances, only to find out that the day has arrived and you don't have enough money to pay their school fees?
Have you been misunderstood, misquoted, and condemned, or have you been called labels you don't deserve?
Have you ever proposed to a lady and prepared for her to say "I do," only for her to change her mind and reject your proposal before the wedding day?
Many of us have reached our wits end and have declared that the beauty of Zion has departed, but I am here to let you know that difficulty is the very atmosphere of miracle. It is miracle in its first stage. If it is to be a great miracle, the condition is not difficulty but impossibility. In fact difficulty is the fertilizer for a miracle. Without difficulties, obstacles, challenges, problems . . . there would be no need for divine intervention through the platform of the miraculous.
THE MANIFESTATION OF DESPERATION
Fake ministers are on the increase. They come
in their grade and color with the diabolic schemes to take advantage of
gullible and unwatching believers. There are many fake ministers who are mimicking
the anointing and deceiving multitudes. A man was paid to lay in the coffin to be used
to show people, that the minister is powerful to the extent that he raises the dead, and died in the coffin before it was time for the demonstration.
BABY FACTORIES
The so-called Baby Factories Phenomenon is relatively a new business where young
ladies are lured to give birth to children who are then placed for sale on the
illegal adoption market. In this business, young teenage girls are voluntarily
or forcefully impregnated and kept illegally until their babies are born and
sold for monetary gains in the black market.
Baby
factories according to Malande et. all (2015) are thought to have arisen to
meet two needs. First, is the social stigma attached to desperate teenagers with
unwanted pregnancies, who are convinced to give up their babies for a financial
benefit. Second, the high demand for babies by infertile couples with a desire
to complete their family and thereby fulfill a crucial social obligation. Thus
the high burden and stigmatization of infertility in Nigeria, and the
unwillingness of infertile couples to associate publicly with adoption or surrogacy,
contributes to the increased patronage of baby factories[1].
Baby harvesting through notorious baby factories is a crime of the end time, since childbearing is socially imposed, except in cases where people are set apart for religious functions, most human societies frown at women opting out of marriage or childbearing. It is based on this that infertility in most cultures attracts social stigmatization. Social expectation about gender starts from the moment a child is born. A female child, in addition to her biologically impose role at birth, is socially bound to bear children. Thus child bearing is within the sex and gender roles of a female.
The high incidences of promiscuity, and the socio-economic struggle of many families explains why the instances of abandoned babies are on the increase. The high rate of infertility has also aided the emergence of baby factories, but ought we not to turn to God or to our inventions?
Baby factory's operations have revealed a high degree of exploitation, intimidation, and abuse of the women used for production. The building where they are kept is often heavily secured to prevent them from escaping as well as from external visitors.
Their interactions are highly restricted and monitored, and they are exposed to sexual exploitation including rape. They are exploited financially and used for sexual gratification even by the operators of the baby factories.
Even where the girls express a desire to keep their babies, the proprietors of the baby factory would insist they run cash and carry business. Sometimes the girls do not even see their babies.
This is a drastic shift from the protection of babies and vulnerable pregnant women to an overwhelming abuse and exploitation of women in our time. This is a desperate measure by some deceived young teenagers to make money and a platform created by dubious proprietors of such baby factories to harvest children for sale. What a shame!
KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM (K4R)
Kidnapping is the unlawful detention of a
person through the use of force, threats, fraud, or enticement. The purpose is
an illicit gain, economic or material, in exchange for liberation. Although K4R
is not a new phenomenon globally, Kidnapping for ransom has recently become a
common occurrence in Nigeria. It is a global phenomenon also found in countries
like Venezuela, Mexico, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Somalia.
Young people are desperate to be wealthy, they want to make a name, they want to appear big and show the world they are up to the task. Over the last ten years, so many Nigerians have been kidnapped for ransom. Kidnapping thrives in an environment that condones crime, where criminal opportunism and impunity prevail over and above deterrence.
The kidnapping business in Nigeria has been mostly perpetrated by criminal gangs and violent groups pursuing political agendas. Even bandits have often taken to kidnapping for ransom to make money to run their enterprise. Kidnappers persist because the benefits of the crime exceed the costs, so harsher and surer penalties should be set in place to curb this menace. It has remained the most virulent form of banditry in Nigeria, it has become the most pervasive and intractable violent crime in the country threatening our national security. The kidnappers have targeted individuals or even groups. School children have been taken away including Leah Sharibu of Chibbok who is still in captivity. If our young people will yield to God, he would provide for them a means of livelihood and sustenance that kidnapping will be history.
THE DANGER OF FALSE PROPHETS
Since the time of the disciples, religion has
been used as a tool to exploit others and make a fortune for personal
aggrandizement. Simon in the Bible wanted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit so that he can have the power to perform miracles and begin to sell miracles to
his patronizers.
Today in our time, there are many false prophets who have gone out into the world with schemes and devices to deceive vulnerable people and collect their hard-earned resources. Women have been deprived of the joy of a happy home because they yielded to the temptation to sleep with a prophet because of their desperate condition. The Bible did not leave us without a warning that false prophets will come. They will “ . . . privily shall bring in damnable heresies . . . And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you” ( 2 Pet. 2:1-3).
They have come up with a lot of schemes to manipulate people, they peddle errors and masquerade themselves as teachers of truth. They are often custom-crafted to times, cultures, and contexts. The Heretic is the most prominent and perhaps the most dangerous of the false teachers. He is the person who teaches what blatantly contradicts the essential teaching of the Christian faith. He is a gregarious figure, a natural leader teaching just enough truth to mask his deadly error. Yet in denying the faith and celebrating what is false, he leads his followers from safety of orthodoxy to the peril of heresy. The Charlatan is another false prophet who uses Christianity as a means of personal enrichment. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produces envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain (1 Tim 6:3-5). The charlatan is only interested in the Christian faith to the extent that it can fill his wallet.
The Prophet claims
to be gifted by God to speak fresh revelation outside of Scripture-new, authoritative
words of prediction, teaching, rebuke or encouragement. The Abuser on the other hand uses his position of leadership to
take advantage of other people. Usually, he takes advantage of them to feed his
sexual lust, though he may also desire power. The divider uses false doctrine to disrupt or destroy a church. He
gleefully divides brother from brother and sister from sister. Jude warned
about him (Jude 18-21). The trickler
is a false teacher who cares nothing for what God wants and everything for what
men want. He is the man-pleaser rather than the God-pleaser (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
It takes a Christian walking in discernment to escape the dragnet of the false prophet. We have heard of prophets who miracle makers are producing miracle oil, miracle water, branded T-shirts, etc., for sale. Some have told their members to eat grass like sheep and goats or even drink petrol so as to “be closer to God.” Some have walked on their followers or talked to God on phone and can do so anytime they like to. We have seen some prophets vomiting money, sucking the breast of their members because he believes that “the problem of a woman in is in her heart, and it can only be solved by sucking it out from her breasts.”
We live in a time when many young Pastors are in a hurry to make a name, make money, gain power and recognition, and significance in society so they fall prey to evil spirits and every form of demonic calculation to woo people to their congregation. The members are desperate for answers, they want a change, a better life, they need upliftment and since they are already so blinded by their needs they have lost the power of discernment and therefore fall victims to these so-called false prophets. In all these, I believe media has played a big role in even announcing and projecting these false prophets. In spite of the poor moral credibility, the media has given most of them visibility even though such prophets have shown the absence of values that have traditionally distinguished the Christian ministry. Their image consciousness, self-aggrandizement, and enlargement of personal ministry influence at whatever cost is the order of the day. The high level of emphasis on material blessedness as a mark of a genuine relationship with God is a shift from the real foundation of the Christian faith.
These so-called prophets are taking advantage of the numerous challenges we are facing as a continent to short-change our people of their hard-earned resources and dignity. MJG
[1]
Makinde, O.A., Makinde, O.O, Olaleye, O, Brown, B., Odimegwu, C.; 2015, Bay
Factories and Surrogacy in Nigeria. Reproductive Biomedicine Online 32, 6-8.
No comments:
Post a Comment