I BEGAN ACTIVE MINISTRY ON 14TH JULY 1934, IN MY BEDROOM IN ENGLAND, THE LORD SPOKE TO ME AND TOLD ME HE WAS SENDING MY WIFE AND I TO NIGERIA
THERE IS A GREATER RESPECT AND RESPONSE FOR GOD IN NIGERIA THAN IN EUROPE. THERE IS A GREATER FAITH IN GOD IN THIS COUNTRY.
THE BLACK MAN HAS A SIMPLE FAITH IN GOD AND GOD MEETS HIM MORE THAN HALFWAY.
THE THING THAT WAS MISSING IN THIS COUNTRY WAS LOVE AND LOVE IS THE ANSWER TO ALL PROBLEMS.
IN THOSE DAYS, 800 PEOPLE IN CHURCH WILL GIVE OFFERINGS AND IT WILL NOT BE UP TO 1 POUND (£1 OR N1000 EQUIVALENT)…
THEY WERE MOSTLY GIVING ‘ONINIS'(1/10 PENNY OR ONE NAIRA TODAY)
I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A SALARY FOR THE PAST 28 YEARS (1954-1982). GOD TOLD ME TO TRUST HIM
GOD’S METHODS ARE MEN!
IT IS GOD’S PLAN THAT THE CHURCH SHOULD MAINTAIN ITSELF
BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU ARE CALLED OF GOD BEFORE GOING INTO HIS WORK. WHEN GOD CALLS, HE WILL PROVIDE
IF GOD CALLS A MAN IN NIGERIA HE WILL TRAIN HIM IN NIGERIA
THERE IS NO WAY GOD’S WORK CAN BE DONE WITHOUT USING MONEY. GOD HAS TO USE MEN AND MEN HAVE TO BE SUPPLIED
MANY PEOPLE CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW THE LORD ELSE THEY WILL TRUST HIM WITH THEIR LIFE
LOVE IS THE FAILURE PROOF INGREDIENT MISSING IN SO MANY MARRIAGES. IF YOU MARRY FOR POSITION YOU WILL FAIL
WE WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO TEACH THE BAPTISM IN THE HOLY GHOST.
MINISTERS WHO REFUSE TO RETURN TO NIGERIA DUE TO THE FINANCIAL SITUATION ARE EITHER NOT CALLED BY GOD OR HAVE FAILED IN THE CALL.
MAJORITY OF THOSE GOD USED TO BRING REVIVAL IN NIGERIA FROM 1937 TO 1945 DID NOT GO ABROAD.
GOD CAN USE NIGERIANS AND TRAIN THEM IN NIGERIA.
I WOULD WILLINGLY DESIRE TO GO BACK AGAIN TO SCHOOL TO LEARN MORE. AGE IS NOT A DISADVANTAGE.
THERE IS NO LIMIT TO WHAT A MAN CAN ACCOMPLISH IN GOD.
–Archbishop Benson Idahosa’s Interview with Pa Sydney Granville and Mama Hannah Elton, April 1982.
Benson Idahosa: Today, God is doing a new thing around the whole world. God’s name is sounding round the entire globe but the man we are about to talk to experienced the Pentecostal ministry. So I am going to ask him some questions to be led by the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of man on what exactly moved him from home many years ago. Welcome to this Documentary. Welcome to Dad and Mum, The Eltons to this program. I will ask you to lead us in short prayer before I ask questions, we need divine guidance, you have prayed over my life and I have been privileged to pray for many millions through the media of television, I am glad to tell you that the prayer you thought was small which you prayed over me when I came here first a few years ago, as at today we are now in 15 states in this country on Television every week including the Northern Parts of this nation. Church Gist. We just got Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Ilorin and so on in the North where the gospel is going on every day. Here in the Western states, Ondo, Ibadan takes us occasionally now and they are planning to take us full time, Cross River, Rivers State, Imo, Anambra and Bendel States, we are on TV. I want you to pray because part of this tape will go around the whole nation. We are going to cut some of it to put on tape, how my life met with you. I just want you to pray before we start.
Pa Elton: Shall we pray? Thank you Heavenly Father for your plan for Nigeria. Thank you that plan is working out. You are glorifying your son the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the men and the women that you have put your hands on in this country. Church Gist. Thank you for your servant, Idahosa, you put your hand upon him and we thank you for what you have accomplished through him. Use this film, use this message and glorify your name in Nigeria so that Jesus Christ may be Lord indeed in this great land. We are asking for the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Benson Idahosa: Viewers that has been a tremendous desire of my heart, that the glory of Jesus cover this land as water covers the sea. Church Gist. Glad to be here Dad Elton, I want to know how long ago you have been serving the Lord.
Pa Elton: I have been serving the Lord for 54 years but I was called into active service on July 14th 1934 in my bedroom where the Lord spoke to me and told me he was sending my wife and I, we had been married for 4 years then. He was sending us to Nigeria. He gave me certain signs and certain evidence which were confirmed and I waited. I told no one except my wife and then in the year 1936, I was called through prophetic ministry in a convention in the country, Wales. I was called to come to Nigeria. It wasn’t a surprise to me, we were waiting for it. Church Gist. The Council with whom I worked then said I must come alone. We said that was a mistake. It was wrong, what God has joined let no man put asunder, not even a council. Consequently, there wasn’t a problem. I submitted to the council my wife remained behind. It was planned by the council that I will come to Nigeria and live for two years and after finding out what could be done here my wife will join me. Man proposes God disposes. Six months after I arrived here, my wife and Ruth arrived to join me here and we have been together as a family ever since.
Ma Elton: God’s Will was that I should be with him and I knew that.
Benson Idahosa: After you arrived here, what will you as a woman say was the difference between the women you met here and the women in England as far as Christianity is concerned?
Ma Elton: That’s a very difficult question to answer. My first job after I was here a short while was to help to train the women because they didn’t know anything about training. The Pastor and the men said well, it was something for the white man to do. She wouldn’t change our women. Well, I talked to the women about the men and they said ‘Oh, you won’t change our men’ but in a few months, the men were coming to me begging to take their wives. Church Gist. They had seen the change in the women that have been trained. The big difficulty was that the women were not trained. The gospel didn’t train them. Just that they must be saved, they enjoyed Church but their homes were still not what God intended.
Benson Idahosa: What will you say was your most difficult task in helping to bring these women up to a Christian standard of living?
Ma Elton: That’s a difficult question because it was all difficult but I did find when I came to Nigeria first, there were two big demons and they are still here. One was the demon of cruelty and that is still here and the other was the demon of fear. Those two demons tried to fight against me and what I was doing. Praise the Lord we got the victory. The women said before I left the first time, that when I first came they didn’t love one another. They fought and they even fought in the Church. Now they had seen how I have loved them and so they were learning to love one another. Church Gist. So the biggest loss in this country I think is still the same today. Love! I found no love between husband and wife, no love between families, Parents and children, children didn’t love their parents. The school was nothing but quarrelling and beating. I went to the choir one day and practised because I play the organ for them and here was the choirmaster beating the children. I said what are you doing? He said they all came late. I said do you expect them to learn the love of God when you beat them with a stick like that? That was the thing that was missing in this country, love and love is the answer to all problems.
Benson Idahosa: The reason I asked those two hard questions is because these things that you have answered now are keys to the foundation of Christian living. Many people think that Christianity has no hardship, as a matter of fact you know the exuberance of the new call to salvation and redemption. The message we are first preached to is prosperity, health, salvation which is good but I think that the hard things you have passed through will help the young ones in experiencing the fact that life is full of varieties. Church Gist. Now let me come back to Pa. When you came and you preached to these thousands of people and great responses were seen by you, miraculous healing and so on. Would you say that the same revival you met here or that you became a key to leading the leaders to understand the actual ways of the Lord was the same thing you left at home?
Pa Elton: no! Totally different. Nigeria and West Africa as a whole is totally different from Europe in every way. There is a greater respect and greater response for God in this country. There is a greater faith in God in this country. You don’t need to tell the people to have faith in God, they know. Church Gist. They only had their Juju, they only had their idols, they only had their native medicines and they turned from that. When they saw the miraculous power of God evident in so many thousands of cases. They accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and trusted Him completely.
Benson Idahosa: The purpose of that question is that sometimes when I am in Europe and we bring in testimonies of what God is doing here, it looks to them as if we are from another planet. Church Gist. It looks so strange that you say we can attend a crusade and people can be there for three weeks and listen to the gospel every day and turning out in thousands. You try to explain and it is just difficult to explain. That is why I am thinking if it was different then over there than what it is today.
Pa Elton: It is totally different in West Africa. The black man has a simple faith in God and God meets him more than halfway. Church Gist. There is more faith in Nigeria than there is in Europe. I am sure of that.
Benson Idahosa: How were you being helped to live in Nigeria? I know that in Nigeria when I was a young child, when we were going to Church, the Pastors were not being paid. Church Gist. We go to Church with yam, cassava, groundnut, pepper, maize, plantain and so on. But now that you are not a Nigerian by birth and by nature, how were you living?
Pa Elton: I was sent out by a missionary society, a missionary Church and I was given an allowance. Incidentally, in 1937 that allowance was in English money, 7 pounds 15 shillings per month. That was my allowance and I had to live on that. Of course I couldn’t live on that, fortunately, I had a little income of my own. Church Gist. When my wife joined me they increased that allowance to 13 pounds 15 (shillings) per month to cover the whole of our expenses. That allowance paid by the Missionary meetings and the Saints in England.
Benson Idahosa: what was the financial situation as far as the Church is concerned in those days when you newly arrived here?
Pa Elton: there was very very little money around. Many times I have paid what was in those days – 3 shillings, 4 shillings, 5 shillings per month for a man’s salary. That covered a man’s salary. I paid it many many times and when we eventually opened schools, our teacher’s salary was 15 shillings per month. Church Gist. Incidentally in those days, there were small coins which you don’t find nowadays. They were called “oninis” – a tenth of a penny and a very big proportion of the Sunday morning offerings were oninis. People brought a tenth of a penny and put it into the offering. So that you could have a crowd of 500, 600, 700, 800 which is quite normal and the offering was less than a pound.
Benson Idahosa: when you shout for money that money come, is there any escapable way where the work of God can be done without the use of money? Can you think of one?
Pa Elton: No, God’s methods are men. God has to use men and men have to be supplied and it is God’s plan that his body – that’s the Church on Earth should maintain itself. Church Gist. You speak of money in relation to the work. Let me give you my own experience: for the last 28 years I have never received a salary of any kind from anyone in the world. The Lord told me to step out and trust him.
Benson Idahosa: (cutting him short) are you saying 28 days or 28 months or 28 years?
Pa Elton: 28 years!
Benson Idahosa: how do you live?
Pa Elton: by what the Lord sends to me every month and I have no idea where it’s coming from. I never write to anybody for money, I have no circular letters, I have no news letters going out, no appeals for money. Church Gist. The Lord told me to step out, I obeyed, it’s his responsibility to look after me and so it is with the Gospel – He will provide. Appeals must be made to those who are inside the Church because they are part of it. I agree with appeals being made to Church members for them to support the work of God.
Benson Idahosa: When 28 years ago you stopped receiving a salary – what we call sustenance allowance, how did your wife respond to that? Church Gist. Mama Elton, when he suddenly came home and said, “salary is no more coming, we are going to live by faith – as a woman …”
Mama Elton: this was nothing as a surprise because we both had the same calling from the Lord. Church Gist. You see, if somebody pays your salary, then you must work for them and do what they want and we saw a bigger vision not working for any one Church. So I and my daughter we were quite agreeable to follow whatever it was the Lord said.
Benson Idahosa: Now I know that of a man because I am a man but I am talking to you as a mother. Church Gist. What will you say to a young lady married to a pastor who has no hope of monthly salary? What will you say to her?
Mama Elton: it depends upon her. If she knows the Lord then you can talk but if she doesn’t know the Lord – and many of them don’t, many people call themselves Christians but they don’t know the Lord. Church Gist. If she knows the Lord, she can put her life in his hands and he will provide. I have some that will agree with me on that line and they still do trust the Lord and he will provide.
Benson Idahosa: the reason I asked you this question is that we have today many young ladies whom pastors will love to marry but by the time they look at the Pastor – no car, no house, no promised big salary per month and they are talked to, I am glad to say I have escaped that, this Pastor has escaped that (the other pastor present) what I mean by that is that we are now married so we will not be faced with that difficulty. Church Gist. But, supposing a young lady has idea to marry a young man and that man is a pastor but she comes to discover that the man is not on a salary and she now says, ‘the only thing holding me back now is your not having money,’ what will you say?
Mama Elton: well, I would say the same thing as I said in the beginning. The thing missing is love that’s why so many marriages are a complete failure. They don’t marry for love, they marry for position as you’re saying this young woman wants. Church Gist. If you marry for position you will fail. If you marry because you want a man or because you want children you will fail. But if she wants to serve God side by side with the man she loves and with many many educated young women and young men today that are doing that and the parents are objecting because the Pastor isn’t rich or the worker isn’t rich. They say they want their daughter to marry a rich man but the women stand out and say they love this man and they love the work of God and they do what God wants, God is blessing them.
Benson Idahosa: thank you very much for that. Let me ask again: if for 28 years you have been living by faith, Pa, what can you say to a young man who is about to step to the field because I know when I came here years ago to seek your advice and told you that I want to resign my job and go on full time, you advised me to hold on first that you will advise me. I mean I should come back and you will tell me if it is God’s time and I went back and was very very disappointed because I wanted to go and you just said it’s not time yet, the Lord will speak more to us. Church Gist. I waited; finally, before I could know where I was, you sent a message to me to say, “Now is the time” and I left for the field. To have experienced what we have experienced today, it’s good news for me to pass to you today that as at April 2nd, 1982 we have 712 Churches in this Country now which was given birth to since I met you and since you prayed for me and 23 branches in Benin City. This is costing us so much. When 2 years ago Mama came to Benin, she said something very quietly. She said, “if this work is of the Lord, the Lord will sustain it.” And since 1979, 1980, we stopped asking for pledges and vows and just left everything like that and our needs are daily increasing and God is daily supplying. How do you mix things together? Church Gist. A young man who wants to go to the field, no hope of salary, no hope of income and yet they have the zeal to do the work of God. What will you say?
Pa Elton: First of all, it must be absolutely stressed that anyone wanting to go into the work of God must be absolutely certain he is called of God to do so. There are too many people who are coming into the work of God who are not called of God specifically to leave their work and come into it. When God calls, he will provide – that’s his responsibility. When a man is called to step out by faith, he steps out by faith looking only to God and God will provide for him. Church Gist. Inside the denomination that’s totally different, there’s got to be built up a system of faith in the members and as well as in the leadership. You are right not to stress money in the Churches it’s probably one of the greatest causes that’s mentioned in the Church today. Church people are against Churches because they say they are always taking up money. God is not needing money, he is needing their submission, their cooperation, their acknowledgement that he is the leader and owner of all that they have and they are acknowledging it. Church Gist. If a man is called, he has the faith to step out, then he should step out trusting God alone. If a Church is born, the same thing – they step out trusting God to provide for all their needs financially.
Benson Idahosa: while you are answering that, let me just top it with this: what will you say to a young man who wants to start ministry and because there is no money in Nigeria or Africa he thinks and he wants to go and start in America, to go to Bible School there, get trained, get rich and come back and finally evangelize?
Pa Elton: God calls a man in Nigeria, then he will train him in Nigeria. I haven’t a great deal of faith in training Nigerians abroad. This is our country, this is the Country where God needs us and they cannot be taught some other things that will be needed in this Country if they go to Bible Schools in America. Church Gist. What do they know about juju, witchcraft in America? They don’t know anything at all about it but here they gotta meet it. This is the place where God is moving in these days and I don’t advise anyone to go abroad for their studies.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: What will you think of those who left home and are now afraid to come back because of the financial situation in Nigeria?
Pa S.G. Elton: God didn’t call them obviously or if He did, they have failed in the call.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: If that is so, whom among the leaders, let’s digress from the question of those going to America and so on. Among the leaders that are living today or dead, whom can you remember were the offsprings of your training and background in the work of Evangelism today? Church Gist. Because I know as I go round the whole country you’ve been to many parts of the nations before I was born and then, today how many leaders will you remember that God used you to touch their lives?
Pa S.G. Elton: Oh! The majority of the people who were used by God in 1937 to 1945 in Nigeria to bring revival, none of them went abroad, none of them at all. Church Gist. They’re all dead now of course, they’ve gone on but you must realize this one big factor we are forgetting and that is, when we came to Nigeria we not only brought Salvation and Gospel by faith in Jesus Christ, we were the first people to teach the baptism in the Holy Ghost, we taught it and that revolutionized a whole of the lives of those early leaders that are a large number of people who go to Bible School without the baptism in the Holy Ghost and they… they’re not successful but a native Nigerian even though he is not trained and we have quite a few today who are successful Evangelist who have never been in Bible School in their lives, they’ve been baptized in the Holy Ghost, they’ve been trained by us personally here and they’ve gone out and now tens of thousands are attending the Crusade and God is blessing them. God can use Nigerians and train them in Nigeria.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: As an Educationist, in the early part of your Ministry, what role do you think education will play in any new organization that is being founded today?
Pa S.G. Elton: Oh! Very great part! God asks for and can use the best. We advise anyone who has got a degree, if the way open for them to get a higher degree, get it! We shall need them in the future. Church Gist. God will need them in the future but whatever education they get in, whatever training they get, dedicate it to God laid at the feet of the Lord Jesus and He will use it. God requires the best and deserves the best.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: The reason I asked that is eh, through my revisiting your past record we opened Kindergarten and Nursery. Our women in a joint effort have built 8 blocks and they are certain on other blocks now. Church Gist. They have Kindergarten, Nursery and Primary School now and we have got Certificate Bible School of 12 months, a Diploma School of 2 years and we have just started ICI for a BA in Theology. Is there any way that education is wrong in the Ministry?
Pa S.G. Elton: Only when it is used for personal advantages. Education without God leads to unbelief and destruction, education with God means a dedicated life that is going to be fully dedicated to Him. I was trained, I was educated, I came out as a School Teacher, I came out as a Principal of a College and I will still like to go for more training.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: Even yourself?
Pa S.G. Elton: Even myself now
(Everyone is Laughing)
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: Well, we are laughing because some people think once they are to a certain age not even half of your age, they think that the disadvantage in their lives is because of age. Eh! You are talking now like Caleb, now you… if you can still have a school to admit you today you may like to attend. Church Gist. Are you saying there is no limit to what a man can pursue to knowing more about God and knowing…
Pa S G. Elton: There is no limit to what a man can accomplish in God – No limit whatever. And anything that he can get in the way of education – Experience, training, suffering anything he can get that will help that should be sought for and actively pursued. Church Gist. I would willingly desire to go back again to school to learn more and I know my subjects I would go for too.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: (Laughing) Well! What will you say is the greatest experience you’ve had in marriage? I know from record you are now over 50 years in marriage and married to one wife alone and you have a child now and she’s a daughter. Church Gist. Here in Africa, much emphasis is placed on having children and if you don’t have children, oh the days are blue and red. I want you to answer it bit by bit. What will you say is the priority of a Pastor: To have children should be his highest desire or to have happy marriage (a second question) or to believe God that the life of a couple can achieve more of God’s goal if they face what God called them for? How will you answer these three questions?
Pa S.G. Elton: Yes, that’s not very easy because you see, unfortunately, I’m a White man and that has limitations. As a White man, surely my children would be expected to be trained in the UK in English schools and you can’t be a Missionary and have a large family because I don’t believe that the family should split up. I don’t think children should go to school without their parents so if there are children here then eventually when they become school age for education the parents have got to go back again to UK and live. Church Gist. That’s the end of Missionary life. We faced that problem in 1937, no more children and there have been no more children. We are to sacrifice to get that but today is a different day. These are last days and whether you are White or you’re Black or any colour you are, if you get married and that is God’s will for the man and wife and woman to get married. If you get married your first priority is to dedicate your lives jointly to the Lord Jesus Christ. The matter of children should not come into it at all and a large family are going to be a very grave disadvantage in many ways in these days. You will have to be very very careful.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: Now that… What will you say of Pastors and Ministers that have been gifted with the Ministry of producing babies every year?
Pa S.G. Elton: I should say they will need to seek God and find out which comes first. Their own desires, their own feelings and their own appetite, or the will of God in their lives. And I think in these days God would help them to control themselves. Self-control is one of the gifts in the Bible, the fruits of the Spirit.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa: Let’s now ask round, from your first experience in 1937 to your present-day experience, what will you say is the Evangelistic overall
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