PASTOR ADEBOYE EXPLAINS WHY HE GAVE NO PROPHECY CONCERNING NIGERIA AT NEW YEAR
IF YOU ARE NOT BORN AGAIN PARTICULARLY IN NIGERIA TODAY, YOU ARE IN DANGER
WHEN YOU DON’T THANK GOD FOR ALL HE DID IN 2022 YOU WILL HAVE HIM TO DEAL WITH IN 2023
YOU CAN KEEP ON SURVIVING IF YOU KNOW HOW TO THANK GOD
– Pastor E. A. Adeboye at Redeemed Christian Church of God January Thanksgiving Service || January 1st 2023
🎶 We give you all the glory, we give you honour 🎶
Ancient of Days, The I am that I am, the one who never grows old, the same yesterday, today and forever. Father, glory be to your holy name. Thank you for all you did for us last year, thank you for your mercy, support, provision, health, strength, victory. Lord God Almighty as we gather together to thank you please be present in our midst. Church Gist. I am especially committing to your hands all your children who have been faithful all through last year in the giving of their offerings and in the payment of their tithes. This year, embarrass them with your blessings. Lord God almighty, in the life of every one of us here do something new.
Let someone shout hallelujah!
I discovered something while I was preparing for the New Year. Something that we’ve not been doing that we should be doing from now on. That is: we have not been celebrating. Many at times you wait for people to celebrate you and they don’t show up. Church Gist. I discovered that scripturally speaking, it is good to celebrate yourself. You know when we were in the primary school, when you do something very good, the teacher will say, “clap for yourself.” Go ahead and clap for yourself.
I know it will sound strange to you; initially, it was to me too until I can see from the scriptures that we need to celebrate even if we have to celebrate ourselves. So, you’re going to be helping yourself this morning by visiting 2 or 3 people and telling them to celebrate you. Tell them, “celebrate me, I am a survivor.” Church Gist. The elders have a saying and I am telling you, next to the Bibles the next people you should be listening to are the elders – they’re very deep in wisdom. They said (you know that lizard with red head?) The red-headed lizard jumped down from an Iroko tree. When it landed, it nodded its head 3 times. The elders say what he was saying is: “I tried; if nobody is praising me I will praise myself.”
Now, when you say you’re a survivor, let your neighbor know, “Ebola came, I survived; Corona virus came, I survived; kidnappers are out there, I survived; bandits are out there, I survived; there are murderers wearing police uniform, I survived. Church Gist. Go ahead and tell 2 or 3 people, “I am a survivor; celebrate me mehn! I survived 2020, 2021, 2022!”
Now, it may sound strange to you: why should I celebrate myself? When you go through the book called Genesis 1, then you notice you have a lesson to learn from God. When he finished the work of the first day, because there was nobody around to celebrate him, he looked at everything he had done on the first day and said, “this is good. There’s nobody to say it to me so I say it to myself.” Church Gist. The second day, “this is good.” Down to the fifth day, “this is good.” The 6th day He said may be I better create somebody who probably will be celebrating me later on. When he finished man he said, “now this is very good.” Then he took a whole day off to celebrate. Clap for yourself mehn! You are a survivor!
You know what? It is not even expensive to celebrate. You don’t have to be rich to celebrate. When I graduated in 1967, nobody attended my graduation ceremony except the girl that I finally married. Church Gist. The same was true of my best friend. There are other people, parents were coming with big cars to come and celebrate with them, nobody came for my celebration. The only fellow who came for my best friend was the girlfriend he too finally married; and we celebrated. How did we do it? We went to the motor garage; there’s one Mama Buka there – very good! Those of you who don’t go to Buka, you don’t know what you’re missing. Church Gist. Those Mama Buka, if you have ever been to Buka, you will never hear anybody say, “I need extra salt” – never! Mama Buka can smell when the food is right – the salt is right, pepper is right, everything is right.
Anyway, my friend and I and our 2 girlfriends, we branched at the Buka, bought 4 big wraps of Amala and bought 8 pieces of meat. 4 of the 8 pieces were beef; the others were ponmo – original rain coat! We finished the thing, came out and drowned it with a bottle of coke each. Church Gist. Me, I am telling you we celebrated and I am telling you that you can celebrate today just by going out. On our way coming, I saw the bole seller already there just a little before the branching to Jeba street. I looked at the thing and said, “This is good.” 1st of January! Some people might be wondering… “Bole seller out on the 1st of January?” Kentucky kitchen restaurant are they not open today? Life must go on; go out and celebrate mehn!
You see for us Christians, probably because we do not celebrate that’s why we do not praise God enough. This is because as you are celebrating, as you are celebrating that you are survivor, it will dawn on you that you survived only because somebody was taking care of you. Church Gist. David said in Psalms 18:35 (when you get there, read it all the way to the end) “your gentleness has made me great…” You know what he is saying? – I am great but that greatness came because of God. I am alive today because new every morning is his mercy.
One of my house helps when we were having morning devotion and we ask her to pray she will include in her prayer anytime, “God I thank you because not everybody who slept yesterday is awake this morning.” Church Gist. There were people who did not survive 2022 because they died on 31st of December. You are here; you survived – no doubt about it because somebody is taking care of you!
Let me hear somebody shout hallelujah!
Paul the Apostle said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” You see, there’s so many things we don’t even think about when it comes to praising God. The other day I was just praying and I remembered one situation. I remembered a chief, very wealthy man and I mean wealthy man. He sat down to eat pounded yam. Church Gist. He took the first morsel and remembered something he wanted to say. Trying to swallow, trying to speak at the same time and the morsel got stuck in his throat. Before he got to the hospital he was dead! How many morsels have you been swallowing and I mean, ask the doctors they will tell you there is a valve between where the voice is coming from and where the food should go down. Church Gist. You’re eating and talking and the valve is going like this – swinging right, left, so that you can eat and talk and not get choked.
That’s why David said in Psalms 108:1, “My heart is fixed within me; I will praise the Lord.” Then he went on to say in Psalms 34:1-3, “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Church Gist. I am not going to wait until Thanksgiving Sunday before I bless the Lord. I am not going to wait till the Annual Thanksgiving before I bless the Lord. I will bless the Lord at all times. I bless the Lord everyday. Why? Because it is not everybody who slept who woke up. When I wake up in the morning I say, “Glory be to God. Satan you lose again!” Because there are some of us the devil does not want us to wake up because he knows that each time we wake up there is trouble for him. He knows that if he can just kill this one before the morning, the trouble will be less. While we were sleeping, (I am telling you, nobody is powerful when he is sleeping) Only there is somebody who neither sleeps nor slumber. Church Gist. Those of you who are high and mighty people, you have body guards, etc let me tell you one thing: if you rely on bodyguards, you’re dead. Oh we have quite a few of them at Redemption Camp and I remember on one occasion, I think we just finished the convention and everybody was resting and I was going round at night praising God. I got to one night guard, he was sitting down on a chair and there was a second chair beside him, he was fast asleep. I sat on the chair next to him listening to his snoring. Church Gist. But then I think a mosquito was passing by and he wanted to slap the mosquito, he nearly slapped me.
I went on and I saw another one, this one wasn’t even pretending. He removed his shoes, put 2 chairs together and was lying down there and was fast asleep. I just took his torch light, took it some distance away and left it. Church Gist. So that when he wakes up in the morning he will know he has had a visitor. There is only one fellow who neither sleeps nor slumber! He is never tired; he is watching over you, your business, settling whatever problems you have.
Will you shout hallelujah to him!
David said something: magnify the Lord with me, let us praise Him together. Now I ask you the question: what is the meaning of magnify? Church Gist. To magnify means to make bigger. How can you make bigger someone who is bigger than the biggest? How can you enlarge God? We sing a song: Heaven and Earth can’t contain him while he is sitting in Heaven, He is using the Earth as his footstool. Yet he says, “magnify him, make him bigger.” We all know the secret of juju musicians – how they make their money. Church Gist. That is in those days when you used to go to party by the street side. As soon as they arrive, they send their apprentice to go round, check the names of the big people. Big people are those who are wearing big clothes even though they might have borrowed the clothes. As soon as they begin to play, the zero in on your name and they begin to call you names – big titles e.g Emergency contractor, this, that and your head swells. Church Gist. The money you don’t want to spend you spend. You want to take the money out of your pocket something within you will be telling you, “you borrowed that money,” you say, “shut up! When we get home we shall settle that.”
When you praise the Almighty God, His head swells. The Bible says he inhabits the praises of his people. He seeks for those who will worship him in Spirit and in Truth. Church Gist. When you praise him the way he should be praised, he will leave his throne and pay you a visit. When he pays you a visit, yokes will be destroyed; prison doors will be open and mighty things will begin to happen so much so that even your enemies will become your servants. Church Gist. So David went ahead and concluded with a question, “What shall I render?” That should be a question you will ask yourself this morning.
God has been good to me; I don’t know about you. You may think you are nothing but there are several people who are jealous of you. Church Gist. There are people who are praying that if only I can become like you, God I will be satisfied. God has been good.
I’ve told you of a year before when in December I was at the camp and I was trying to prepare for the New Year service. I said, “Lord, it’s just the 2 of us o. You’re my Daddy and I’m your son. Church Gist. I know I’m your favourite so I can talk. There’s nobody here just the 2 of us. I will tell the people to praise you on Sunday but honestly speaking, I have nothing to thank you for. You didn’t do anything for me but I will tell the people to praise you. I will do the job of a pastor.” He spoke back to me and I am sure God is speaking to somebody today – somebody who should be more grateful than he or she is. He said, “Son is that so?” I said that’s the truth Lord. Church Gist. A whole year passed, I can’t think of a single miracle. He said, “take your exercise book.” So I took my exercise book. He said I just want to ask you some questions you write it down.
He said, January 1 of last year you slept and you woke up on January 2, I said Yes? Is that a miracle? He said, how many people slept on January 1 and didn’t wake up on January 2? Church Gist. Well, there might be some people and incidentally, just by the end of that year, there was the story of the trailer going to Ilorin, got to Ibadan and was about to take a bend and the driver lost control and the trailer hit a house and killed somebody who was sleeping on his bed. That fellow didn’t travel; he didn’t go anywhere. He was sleeping on the bed and death met him there. “Did you wake up on the 2nd?” I said Yes. “Can we put that down as one?” By the time he has been talking to me for 10 minutes I was flat on my face – “Father I thank you.” Church Gist. This is because he asked me, “How many times have you travelled and came back safely? Are you sure every driver coming in the opposite direction, how many of them do you know who are on drugs?” How many of you know those who are demon possessed? How many of you know whose relatives are pursuing to make sure that he won’t arrive? How come they didn’t branch and cross the road to you? Church Gist. You think it is because you are very clever that’s why you travel everyday you return, you go out, you come in? I said I apologize.
New every morning is his mercy; it is of the mercy of God that we are not consumed because he kept on renewing it everyday. You can move your hand and when he says, “clap your hand” you can’t clap. When David said, “Bless the Lord O My Soul and all that is within me bless his holy name,” do you know the implication of some of the things this fellow said? Church Gist. Do you know if there is any problem with what is inside of you? It could lead to death. Do you know that there is something within you that they call the voice box? That thing that produces the voice. Do you remember the story of that great socialite who had a stroke? The kind of stroke that would take away the voice that I said I visited in the UK with a common friend? Church Gist. It took him 30 minutes to say to us by signs that his wife who was sitting by his side when we came in is coming back again?
How long does it take you to say, “Glory be to God?” Do you know there is something within you (because David said, forget not all his benefits) that is very precious to you that is called, memory? Church Gist. Ability to remember. Have you ever seen anybody suffering from memory loss? Nothing can be as painful as that. They won’t even recognize their child.
– I decree in the name that is above every other name, you will never lose your memory!
Some of you will remember the story I told you before when I was at Ilesha grammar school in the 1950s. There was a mad man sitting always in front of the gate and any time we wanted to learn serious history, we will buy a keg of palm wine, take it to him. After he has taken 2 cups he says, “ehen, what history do you want to hear – European, American, British?” Church Gist. Then you tell him European history. “Alright, from what date to what date?” And he will begin. We were the ones who will say, “Okay we will come back.” This is because he was a professor of History and something went wrong. He knows all the History but when you ask him, “What is your name?” He can’t remember. “When were you born? What’s your address here?” He doesn’t know.
Church Gist. If I ask you today, “What’s your name?” Can you remember? If I ask you to stand up, do you know what that means? If I ask you to shout hallelujah, do you know what that means?
David said, “what can I render?” That’s a mighty question you must ask this year. This is because if we don’t thank God for 2022, he is waiting. 2023 has just started; ignore him for all he did in 2022 and you will have Him to deal with in 2023. Don’t let anybody deceive you. Church Gist. Not everyone who said, “Happy New Year today will be around in a month’s time.” But you survived thus far; you can keep on surviving if you know how to say thank you. Did I hear somebody say, thank you Lord?
That’s why those of you who are not born again, you don’t even know the danger you’re in particularly in Nigeria of today. Those who came to watch night yesterday when I was giving them a little bit of the prophecies for the year and I saw some of them looking at me saying, “Daddy you didn’t say anything about Nigeria.” Church Gist. I said “Ah, in Ghana, they made a law. The police said that anybody who gives any prophecy that can frighten must be arrested.” Ehn, that is Ghana. Ghana is next door to Nigeria. The elders have a say, ” “
If you don’t give your life to Jesus Christ soon and I mean very soon, God have mercy on you.
This year is going to be a year of wonders but there are 2 kinds of wonders: good and bad. Church Gist. When a woman who is 90 something years old gives birth to a child, that’s a wonder! When a King became an animal, that’s a wonder. Which one do you want?
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