By Dare Adejumo
There is something quite extraordinary and intriguing about Temitope Balogun Joshua the prophet!
Most people spent around nine months in their mothers’ wombs before they were born but TB Joshua’s case was different. He stayed in the womb to spend double periods, 18 solid months!
Born on June 12, 1963, in a rustic village to peasant parents reminiscent of the biblical birth in the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ, Temitope was obviously an unusual child.
Mysteriously, a few days after his birth, a fiercely errant heavy boulder from the nearby rock pierced the roof of the house, at the exact centre of where he was laid on the mat, smashing everything around him but the little baby boy Temitope was miraculously protected and unhurt, to the amazement of everyone around!
TB Joshua was a big puzzle, an enigma ab initio. As a child, he was a precocious one. Little Temitope stood out in character, understanding, knowledge with a propulsive bold faculty that used to transmogrify the elders. In life, what people do not know they call names and what they know but cannot explain, no matter how real it is, they deride because of their impure hearts!
He grew up facing the vicissitudes of life without losing focus of his assignment on earth as he grew up more in grace, wisdom and power till when the time came for him to announce his apostolicism.
The Bible had more or less become a moonlight tales in several quarters when TB Joshua emerged. Christianity and church-going had become a camouflage as worshipping had degenerated to mere ceremonies without power. TB Joshua, the game changer, invigorated and rejuvenated the ruggedness of the early church, the real Christianity that was in abeyance!
That was the beginning of his ordeals with modern Pharisees and sadducees!
Persecuted in life and death, TB Joshua was the most abused prophet of our time. He was under the siege of concocted lies yet he never lost focus. The radiance of his legacy, the glorious works of God for which he was born and died for continue to blossom beyond human imagination and to the chagrin of his traducers.
He was the golden tree planted by the river that brought forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf could not wither and whatever he laid his hand on prospered.
“I cannot but do the work of my Master Jesus Christ. Jesus loves sinners but he hates sins and his mission was to redeem the world and bring sinners into repentance in order for them to be attuned with God. Why should I discriminate against those people you people like Pharisees all regard as sinners by their appearance, dressing or lifestyles from coming to me? Jesus is interested in them to have an encounter with Him,” he once stated when some people were wondering about his open arms to all that came to him.
“Many of your big people cannot come here because of the evil powers they worship or what they carry inside their clothes because the power of God would expose and neutralise them the moment they step here,” he also once commented.
TB Joshua was a man who walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the path of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful; but his delight was in the law of the Lord in which he meditated day and night. This was very palpable and apparent in his life.
Corollarily, he introduced faith bracelets for use by SCOAN’s members for the purpose of making them imbibe the culture of true meditation on the Words of God as he often told us: “the greatest achievement you can have in life is the ability to hear from God.”
TB Joshua was the prophet of the prophets. He had no time for frivolity and wonton desires. Can you ever imagine or believe that TB Joshua did not have a personal house outside the church where he lived or the open prayer mountain where he spent most of his time on knees? He lived the Word, taught the Word and preached the Word with power. He was the chip of the apostolic old block holding tenaciously to the old rugged cross! Before he departed the world, he issued out some prayers, which he called timeless prayers, that can never expire. Today, whenever his voice is heard in the prayer, it brings comotion into the kingdom of darkness with various manifestations of unclean spirits. With his “distance is not a barrier to power of God,” once you pray with him on Emmanuel Television or merely touch the television screen while the prayer is going on, the power of God would touch you visibly. It’s amazing and unfathomable! God is awesome!
TB Joshua brought people closer to God. Through him people came to understand the God they worshipped and not an imaginary being you just worship for worship’s sake on the common meretricious bandwagon!
The humblest human being you can ever come across, in him you would learn and see the greatness that lies in simplicity.
TB Joshua was a turning point not only in the development of the history of Christianity in the world but also as the lodestar in the illumination and advancement of the spiritual knowledge concerning the essence of humanity and mankind in creation.
TB Joshua was a bundle of love, the most generous human being, without any discrimination I have ever come across. Your background, colour, religion or tribe was completely irrelevant to him. It’s difficult to offend him in any way. The love in him, the grace of holiness in his focus and concern for you even in your foolishness would magnetize his sympathy and blessing. He did not have two eyes; the only one he had was the one that saw only what his Master, Jesus Christ wanted. There was no way anybody could meet TB Joshua and remain the same. In him was an oil of blessing incessantly flowing.
He was not an academic person, though he honoured and cherished learning. Here was a man with little or no education but his wisdom and prowess of intelligence would humble any man with a prodigy of learning. He was not given to verbosity but his lucid short conversation with you would expose the inadequacy of the chains of your degrees.
TB Joshua was unimaginably very deep! He was the only pastor or prophet who would hold crusades in different countries without collecting offerings or taxing the crusade organizers for any monetary support. Instead he would be the one to carry out additional stupendous charity works and donations for such countries.
At home or abroad, he never for once printed any envelopes for donation of any kind for church works. “No, have you ever seen me printing envelopes asking for donations? No I won’t do that because whenever God truly sends you on a mission, He would always put in the hearts of those who would support the mission” he once decried the situation in Cameroon where there was a massive advert for donations towards establishing a branch of Synagogue Church in Yaounde without his consent or knowledge.Your tithes, thanksgivings and offerings were meaningless to TB Joshua. He would tell you tersely: “go to your church where you worship, don’t bring it here because you received healings or miracles. God had already answered your prayers there before you came”. That was TB Joshua who was never happy with the reckless individualism in several Christian quarters, the disunity among the churches and servants of God that could have made them work together as a team for Jesus Christ. Even for his church members he would tell them: “take such monies to the sick, orphans and those in need. God would hear your prayers if you do that”. Material acquisition was completely meaningless to him.
He was never a burden to anyone but a carrier of other people’s burdens.
A workaholic and exemplary leader, whose good works touched the lives of millions of people across the globe, TB Joshua was a thorn in the flesh of religious shenanigans and charlatans, the agents of darkness, the spiritual highway robbers, masquerading as servants of God dishing out and feeding people with stone disguised as bread by their exposure through the reality of what was happening in the Synagogue Church of All Nations!
“A true prophet of God would not be asking questions before telling you the mind of God for you. He would not allow you to talk before addressing you. “Prophecy is a complete package. Once it’s from God, your bondage is automatically broken when delivered. Once I talk to you that’s all. Have you ever seen me prophesying to people and still asking them to go and do anything for their problems to solve? No, It’s like breathing. Just go and sin no more your past is over”, he said.
TB Joshua was the quintessential prophet of God. You cannot be a true follower of TBJoshua, listening and attending his teachings, following his footsteps and lifestyles and still put your hands in dirty or sinful things. The fear of TB Joshua from exposing your secret sins was the beginning of wisdom to worship in truth and spirit in SCOAN for those who were awake. I personally witnessed instances where he could just be walking and suddenly stop and say: “you, you (pointing at a person)stand up. You are a member of this church and you are still patronizing the witch doctor or babalawo! What’s this I am looking at inside your cupboard or a corner in the room of your house? Such infidels would collapse and confess immediately with faithless excuses and be crying for God’s forgiveness. You cannot hide from him because he would dissect you from the womb and things of centuries from your background to your amazement. Sometimes it could be on the television screen that he would see you and immediately ask you to be fetched out. You cannot escape from his spiritual antennae of capturing people with a sinful lifestyle once he sees you.
That’s the TB Joshua, the man of God in the Synagogue who would not compromise with evils. He was the light shining in darkness that people in darkness could not comprehend!
In the words of Williams Shakespeare, you came, you saw and you conquered! Your legacy of love, pure Christianity, service to humanity like a Colossus has continued to be-stride the entire world breaking and chartering all fetters and shackles of darkness veiling the human eyes.
