By Funke Busari
Christian ministers from 19 African countries gathered recently at Mowe, a sprawling suburb on the Ogun State border with Lagos. Their mission? To rub minds on Christianity, challenges, prospects and how to get the best for humanity, especially Nigerians.
The three-day event tagged Tyrannus Conference 2023, held between Thursday July 27 and Saturday July 29, was packed with lectures and exchange of ideas by clerics from different countries. There were also attendees from six geopolitical zones in Nigeria.
The conference was organised by Destiny Life Christian Centre, DLCC, in partnership with the South Korea-based World Evangelisation team. It was hosted by South Korea-based Pastor Thomas Adesina.
In attendance was Pastor Sung Uk Cho, Senior Pastor, Gospel Overflowing Church, Seoul, South Korea who illuminated the conference with his deep, spiritually-enlightening lecture.
Setting the tone for the conference with his lecture, Pastor Cho urged all attendees to focus on the gospel of the Bible.
The fully packed conference with 27 lectures, organised in the Disciple’s Study Handbook by Pastor Cho was entitled: ‘World Evangelization in our generation – The Gospel of the Bible and the Evangelisation of the Bible,’ The lectures were delivered by various church leaders from Africa and Asia.
Pastor Cho, who was assisted in his lecture through an English-speaking interpreter, Pastor Moo Hong from Korea, highlighted that God uses those who believe in the gospel and those who please Him.
While admonishing his listeners, he stated: “Africa will come alive through your life.”
The lead speaker also cautioned attendees to avoid the actions of the Jews who failed to recognise Christ, despite investigating God’s word. He also urged them to avoid doing things that could make them lose the essence of God’s word.
He advised them to follow the Bible instead of prophets, to study the Bible in order to precisely know why it was written, and to direct their energies properly to avoid activities that could sap them of energies that could have been directed to God’s word.
He stated: “The Bible is given to us to believe in Jesus, that he is the son of God and that he is the Christ, the son of God. The church of this generation has gone astray from his original direction and believers are wandering, because the Gospel of the Bible has disappeared and has been corrupted. We have been diverted from the call of the Bible. The church today is not the same. There’s only one way to salvation and it is Jesus. He is the Messiah. This is all the Bible said.”
In an interview with Saturday Sun, Sung Uk Cho said: “The essence of this programme is the correct gospel that the Bible talked about and that Jesus is the son of God. But we have lost hold of the meaning of Christ. Many people might say they believe in Jesus but they are not living different lives from other religions. If we believe in the correct gospel, the faith of the early Christian can be restored in our lives.”
Many other clerics also spoke. Bishop Ekopai Mesullam from Uganda spoke extensively on the purpose for which God created man in His image and asked the clerics and ministers in attendance to avoid the path of sin as sons of God.
Pastor Alexander Gattogo from Ghana attributed the emergence of man’s problem to what he described as deviation from God. He also linked problems in communities, homes and in the world to deception triggered by Satan in the Garden of Eden.
He told his audience that despite the problems confronting Africa, God has provided the solution, which he said is the message about Christ.
Also speaking was Pastor Thomas Lamidi Adesina, the host of the conference in Nigeria.
Said he: “The essence of the conference is to have church leaders, such as pastors and prophets from various ministries, understand the Bible.
“If the leaders, the pastors who are leading the gospel can understand the Bible and believe in it, then it becomes easier to preach and teach it like the early church did in their various assemblies, and by that the members also would be full of that understanding, be able to save their family with the same gospel, save their communities, and our lives and the whole of Nigeria.”
Pastor Adesina said Satan has blinded not only the unbelievers, but also even the church leaders from seeing the light of God.
Adesina commented that men of God have deviated from the gospel while using God’s name for selfish purposes.
He also spoke with Saturday Sun on the involvement of men of God in politics. Hear him: “There’s nothing wrong in politics when the righteous people are ruling. The wrongness in politics is the way we do politics. So Christians, pastors, leaders have their various roles.
He noted that pastors have a five-fold ministry, explaining that ministers are apostles, prophets, teachers and evangelists. They are not supposed to be in politics but to be the light by which the members who rise up with the life of God are in governance, so that they become a role model for them.”
On the hardship in the country, he recommended that preaching the gospel would go a long way in curbing the poverty crisis in the country, adding that the real problem is that Nigerians are not with God.
“The problem is that the people that are holding the affairs of Nigeria are not the people manifesting God. We don’t even believe in God. We believe in other things and because we believe in other things we want to be there at all cost. For instance, if I’m there at all cost, I can’t solve the problem of the nation because I do not have the revelations of the true problem of Nigeria,” Adesina explained.
He faulted the designation of certain behavioural patterns in the West as “development”
“Take for example, the West that we call developed countries, are they really developed? Is that development guiding them towards their creator? Because these are the same people we say we want to be like. They introduced homosexuality, many immoralities; many things that do not show the real essence of living. The moral ethics are not even there. We justify all that. Is that really development? The real development is to guide people to be like their creator, to manifest God.”
Reverend Festus Egwu, a senior pastor of DLCC, in Nigeria, commended the World Evangelisation team from South Korea for spreading the Gospel of Jesus at the event.
Reverend Egwu said the team’s mission in the country is to spread the gospel through pastors who would also teach disciples to spread the gospel and to reach out to souls.
He bemoaned that there are many false teachings being taught today in the country. He urged the ministers present for the conference are to teach the gospel about Jesus Christ, that any teaching to be taught going forward must be centred on Christ.
He said the conference was expected to impact on participants to be able to go to their various states or stations and spread the gospel.
Said he: “One of the challenges is that we don’t know the purpose of the scriptures, why it was written, what it is all about from Genesis to Revelation. I have seen its message transform people. They have faith in it and transformation begins to take place in their lives, marriages, because they begin to see that it’s not about them. It’s about pleasing Christ.”
About clergymen in politics, he explained: “I believe there are men of God that are called into politics, but not all men of God are called into politics.
“When you go into politics or in government, you should go out there as a servant, and know that it is not about you, it’s about God and serving other people and If you are not selfish, are you going to embezzle money?
Speaking on other issues, he urged the Nigerian government to roll out palliatives to reduce hardship resulting from the removal of fuel subsidy.
Senior Apostle Stella of the Dominion Ambassador Gospel Assembly, Ibafo in Ogun State was elated that the conference had given her a new perspective different from her previously-held notion about the gospel.
She said: “The programme is a must attend for anyone who desires to know God, know who Christ is and the essence of what he or she believes.”
Pastor Emmanuel C. Ezeh, who came from Abuja, described the programme as fantastic.
Said he: “I have never heard the gospel in this form. I was at the last year conference and the reason I am back here is because I benefited a lot. There’s so much in this teaching that the whole world needs to hear about it and if we should move with this vision, the world would be saved by his grace.
“What we have been taught here is quite different from what we have been hearing because this is the simplicity of the gospel. Some of the gospel that we hear, they make it difficult for us to understand and some of the way they share the gospel is quite different from the one we are receiving now.”
Reverend Mrs. Ndubuku Ijeoma, from Akwa Ibom State, informed that the event met her concerns about the Christian ministry.
Also, an assistant pastor of the Oasis of Grace Mission, Ruth Emmanuel Ikeji who came to the event from Uli, Imo State said she was more ready to deliver the gospel in a manner she has never experienced.
She explained that the programme has taught her to do things differently with the Holy Spirit.
“Some pastors in the South East, like Anambra, Imo, Enugu, including me, believe that when you have the Holy Spirit, we thought that it is about you pray, you release fire, you send fire or such things. No! We are just witnesses of Christ. When you have the Holy Spirit, when you are preaching, tell them what is in the Bible, what Christ said, not cunningly preaching to them and taking money from them. In the four days we have been here, I have not heard give offering, sow your seed or give your tithe. Nothing like that. They are only saying, tell people the gospel, what they need to know because there’s no time,” she said.
In appreciation of the works by the Korean team at the Tyrannus Conference, the Planning Committee led by Pastor Adesina gave awards of commendation to Pastor Cho, Missionary AJ, Pastor Moo Hong, and Elder Kim Hoon.
