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Open Letter to Dr. Raymond Ijabla by Emmanuel Sokefun

Dear Sir,

I was surfing the web sometime ago when I stumbled upon some of your articles; titled “Why I’m Even More Convinced Pastor Adeboye Is A Charlatan” got me interested in hearing your point of view. I would have replied soon after, but my schedule made me keep postponing.

Let me begin by affirming that I am civilised. I am not the type of person that will come against one with opposing views with finger-pointing, insults, criticism and curses, irrespective of how divergent such viewpoints are from mine. If I want to change a person’s mind so that they will reason along with me, I do not do so by being condescending.

I have learnt so much about arguing too, and the greatest lesson I have learnt is that an argument is different from a quarrel. An argument is different from screaming and shouting at the fellow who has opposing views, like many people (including many Christians) do. A successful argument lies in the superiority of your points, regardless of how calmly (or otherwise) these positions are stated.

Before you decide to respond to this letter, I will advise you to read it all up so you can have a holistic overview of its contents. You do not need to read it all up at a sitting if it will prove too cumbersome for you.

Let’s start with your statement that you do not believe the Bible.

The Congruence of Bible Accounts

Sir, archaeologists and scholars of history have agreed upon the Bible as the most irrefutable record of history, and the most consistent. They have scrolls, books, artifacts, and so many other antiques to prove that these books were written at specific periods in history.

The truthfulness of the Bible is confirmed even more so by the fact that throughout the Bible, the very same events and circumstances play out repeatedly in different ages but with different characters. There are literally hundreds, of examples in the Bible, but I will bring just a few examples of these congruent events to your attention.

1. During Adam and Eve’s disobedience and banishment from the garden of Eden, God slaughtered an animal for them to cover their nakedness (Gen 4:21). This scenario was replayed when Jesus (called the Lamb) was slaughtered for the world (Rev 5:12). Can you imagine the thousands of years distance between those two events?!

The event that also panned out when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son to prove his love for God, and the subsequent replacement of the boy with a ram (Gen 22:1-13), is also repeated when God Himself sacrificed His only Son to redeem mankind and prove His love (John 3:16). Therefore Abraham’s test was to foreshadow God’s ultimate plan.

The writers of these different books were thousands of years apart and had no consultation with each other.

2. What about the story of the harlot, Rahab? She was asked to put a red cord upon her window before the Israelites invaded Jericho, so that she and her household would not perish with the rest of Jericho (Josh 2:18). When the whole of Jericho collapsed, only her building did not collapse because it had the red cord in it (Josh 6:20-23).

This was also a foretelling of the death of Jesus and how his scarlet blood was to be shed to save all those who come under the cover (1 John 1:7).

3. There was also an event in which the Israelites sinned against God, and He sent snakes to bite them. When they repented, Moses was instructed to raise a snake, and everyone who looked upon the uplifted snake was spared death.

Many years later, Jesus became sin (which was introduced by the snake in Genesis 3, and is symbolised by the snake), and was raised high up on a stake as well, and as many as look upon Him will be saved from sin and be spared from Judgement, which is the spiritual death (John 3:14).

4. Jonah’s case is also an example. He was asked to go and preach repentance to the city of Nineveh, but he refused and instead took a ship headed for Tarshish (modern day Spain). God was displeased and sent a storm upon the sea.

Jonah was then thrown into the sea to save all the other mariners. He then spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish (Jonah 1:17) and spent three days in the depths of the earth.

Jesus was also cast into the grave to save the rest of mankind. He was in the depths of the earth for three days. Jonah’s calamity, therefore, was a prophetic picture of Christ’s salvation.

5. It is written in the book of Revelation that the river Euphrates will be dried up in the End-time as precursor sign for the return of Christ.

The Euphrates was the largest and most significant river in Western Asia (as Nile is to Africa) and was first mentioned in Gen 2:14. Mentioning that such a mighty river would ever dry up is totally bonkers and naturally highly improbable.

May I announce to you that the Euphrates in Turkey has been dried up according to that Bible prophecy.

Verify the news at this URL: https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11828.19.0.0/middle-east/turkey-dries-up-the-euphrates

6. Those of Hebrew and Jewish descent are very skilled in record-taking. They were able to trace the roots of Emperor Haile Selassie to Solomon and Sheba and no evidence has come forth to the contrary.
7. The pool of Siloam where Jesus healed a blind man has been found by archaeologists.

Http://www.bibleplaces.com/poolofsiloam/

8. Many other places of Biblical significance have also been found by archaeologists to confirm the authenticity of the events.

The above are only few points to prove that the accounts in the Bible are accurate.

I could write an entire book on the recurrence of Bible events, and the coming to pass of Bible prophecies both in Bible times and in today’s world, but that would take up too much space and derail my letter.

Your Statements Regarding Pastors and Wealth

You implied that it is wastefulness, carnality and greed for pastors to fly private jets, and that the wealthy pastors acquire their wealth by fleecing members of the church.

I’ll start by proving from the Bible that God is in support of pastors getting rich, before going into the issue of whether they make the money dubiously or not.

To begin with, I have a hard time understanding how you spend more time criticising pastors without evidence over their wealth, than you talk about politicians who mismanage public funds.

1. You said it is wrong for pastors to be wealthy: However, the Bible PROMISES clean wealth to all those who serve God genuinely, and many of those you accuse of getting their wealth unscrupulously are innocent of your accusations.

I want you to begin to see wealthy pastors in a new light, as not having gotten their wealth by stealing or fleecing, but from God. Check the following argument:

As a doctor, you try to make people healthy. How would it be if your patients came to you for treatment, and you, the doctor, were lying chronically ill while treating them? Which patient will remain in such a consulting room?

Drawing parallels with the case of pastors: pastors pray for people to get prosperity and God answers these prayers and makes the church members rich. Would God then leave the pastors whose prayers make others rich, to be poor?

Do you know that there are many verses in Scripture that promise great prosperity to those who obey God? Many of these pastors obey God, so it is only logical that these verses are actualised in their lives.

Below are some examples of blessings that come to those who obey God:

If you have a Bible, read Deuteronomy 28:1-14.

Verse 11 says:

And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods… [So the material possessions that you condemn pastors for come from God Himself]

Verse 12 says concerning children of God that there is provision for them to be so rich as to be giving out to nations.

The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. (Deuteronomy 28:12)

Can a poor pastor lend to nations? Nope.

This prophecy is playing out in the lives of many pastors, and we condemn them, without realising that the blessings are not human blessings, or derived from theft, but from God.

The Bible says in the New Testament that God’s GREATEST desire is for us His children to prosper in all our endeavours. He stated this in the following verses:

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. (3 John 2)

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

The above verse explains that Jesus intentionally lived a modest life so that we can enjoy the prosperity He did not. Why then do you criticise prosperous pastors?

I was also against pastors exuding prosperity, until I had the proper understanding from Scripture and I realised my error.

What is actually unscriptural is to have a tattered, beggarly pastor roaming the streets.

2. You said it is wrong for pastors to own private jets:

The purpose of the private jet is to easily monitor the churches all over the world. The Redeemed Christian Church of God for example, is in 197 nations of the world. If you had hospitals in 197 nations of the world, you would not rely on the inconsistent airlines in Nigeria to get you out of this country anytime you need to go out urgently.

I have suffered flight delays, even for several hours, and I understand that in urgent cases, you could be grounded, and your appointments missed.

Why are you on the neck of pastors who have churches in many nations, while you permit businessmen whose business empire does not cut across half of that number, to own private jets?

Today, I pray for God to bless me with a private jet. If I work hard and earn the money and buy it, is it a sin? If your profession generates so much money that you can buy a jet, is purchasing a jet a sin?

3. You said without proof that pastors live lavish lives by stealing tithes, offerings and seeds:

In the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Anyone accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent until he is tried in a court of law and proven guilty, but in your case, you label these men without backing up your claims with valid proofs.

I want to advise you sir. Please do not make statements that you have no proof to support. You have no proof to support the claims that Adeboye and other pastors steal offerings and tithes.

Did you see the cheque for the laundered money? Did you witness them in any fraudulent or unscrupulous act? Have you ever seen or heard him beg for money in public or in private? Have you seen him try to motivate the church treasurer to transfer church money to his private account?

I was in a meeting when Pastor Adeboye declared that if we want to give the RCCG any money, we must ensure at all cost that we do not write his name on the cheque. He joked that if we write his name, he will simply eat pounded yam with the money. He has thus drawn a line between personal funds and church funds.

“Oh,” you may say, “he is the General Overseer, and the money still comes to him somehow.”

No, it doesn’t.

There is a Governing Board of RCCG, and a Board of Trustees who monitor the in-and-out of affairs within the church.

If Pastor Adeboye were indeed a charlatan, his secret would not have been covered since 1981 when he abandoned his successful academic career to become a General Overseer in a very unpopular church.

In the first place, he would not even have agreed to head a church whose total income was less that his monthly salary, and it had to be shared among thirty persons.

No one complained this much about him when he was very poor, until he became successful, because success has many friends and many critics as well.

Can a Pastor Earn Billions Without Stealing?

Let me prove to you that a pastor can make BILLIONS without stealing a dime.

1. Pastor Adeboye publishes “Open Heavens” devotional annually and it is widely purchased in millions of copies all over the world.

Assuming that only 5,000,000 copies of Open Heavens are sold in a single year at the rate of N1,000 per copy, that is N5,000,000,000 from the sale of Open Heavens alone. That can fund the purchase of an aircraft!

He has been publishing Open Heavens since 2001, and is likely to have a made much more than that in returns from just that one book.

Consider that he is a prolific author who has written hundreds of books.

All of these pastors have very large followings. A single book they publish sells fast among their members and even among the general public.

You cannot tell me that a pastor is not permitted to make money from the books he published, simply because he is making billions from it. Whether you agree with what he writes does not matter, and that is another issue entirely, but if he publishes bestsellers and make billions, he is not a thief!

Pastor Tunde Bakare was a lawyer and had his successful businesses before going into the ministry. Pastor Adeboye’s wife has a chain of restaurants that generate good money. Other family members are also into lucrative businesses that meet the family’s needs. My own father is a lawyer and a professor of Law, and has also made a sizable income outside the ministry. You cannot accuse these people of theft.

1. I am a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and have listened to so many sermons from Pastor E.A. Adeboye, and I have never heard him demand for any gift from his members.

Yet, when Christmas, New Year, March (his birthday month), and other times of the year come, the pile of gifts he receives rise higher than a building. He never requested for them but they simply come according to the word of God.

Do your friends give you gifts? Do you collect them? If yes, then you are doing the same thing as these pastors, because the congregants are their friends!

When you were in Deeper Life, were you forced to pay offerings and tithes? Mr. Ijabla, no one is ever forced to pay an offering in the church. Even if the pastor makes statements that you think are geared towards conning you out of your money, it is your own decision whether to release the money or not. Members are not being fleeced, as long as they willingly consent to the payments being requested for.

Did They Collect Offerings in the Bible?

Yes. Many times. Melchizedek the priest took up offerings in the Bible (Genesis 14:18-20). Moses took up offerings for the building of the ark and the tabernacle of God (Exodus 36:3). Jesus took offerings from people who were blessed by His ministry (Luke 18:2-3), including an extremely expensive perfume worth a whole year’s salary (Mark 14:3-9). Apostle Paul took up offerings in the Bible (Philippians 4:14-19). God even took offerings in Person in the Bible (Genesis 4:3-4).

What Do They Do With Offerings?

When God commands a pastor to demand offerings from the congregation, just as He commanded Moses to collect in Exodus 25:2 (I strongly advise you to read this verse), God will not collect the money personally. The pastor is the representative to receive it, and it doesn’t mean he is spending it on himself.

You don’t suppose the 3Km by 3Km worship auditorium was built free of charge, do you? How do they plant churches and expand to what they are today? How do they maintain their structures and pay fulltime pastors? How do they cater for missionaries they send abroad to start churches? How do they maintain their existing structures? Donations.

You are always so quick to ask pastors to give their wealth to the poor as a proof of their genuineness, but these men will not come out and tell you that they give to the poor, because the Bible forbids broadcasting one’s good deeds in public.

Notwithstanding, I’ll share a few things that I know about Pastor Adeboye and his wife regarding giving.

1. There is an institution called Habitation of Hope. They gather children from the streets and give them a life. They feed them, clothe them, house them, train them, and educate them. As we speak, some of these children are in expensive universities.
2. There is an organisation called “Africa Missions”, and they travel all over Africa, spreading the Gospel, and providing basic needs to the people wherever they go. They give free medical treatment, food, clothes, and build useful structures for them in some locations. The trips are not funded with handshakes, but with money. The Adeboyes donate very generously to the organisation.
3. Pastor Adeboye and the family donate very liberally to universities. One day, his wife walked into the office of a particular struggling university and gave the Vice Chancellor a cheque of one hundred million naira.

Pastor Adeboye also funds research projects and has donated at least fifty million naira grants EACH to all the universities where he schooled, and other universities that he feels drawn to. A charlatan would never do that.

These are a few reasons why I think you have erred in your assessment of most pastors. As the son of a bishop myself, I am familiar with the pressures and criticisms that pastors face everyday. My biological father has made many sacrifices and denied the family of many luxuries, but most times, his efforts are not appreciated.

Why Are Church-Owned, and Other Private Universities, Expensive?

The government does not give private institutions any form of funding like it does to public schools, yet they have to pay hundreds, and sometimes thousands of staff, ranging from professors and top management personnel, to drivers and cleaners, every month of the year! This doesn’t come cheap. They have to provide electricity, pipe-borne water, and other utilities, for all structures on hectares of land and all cardinal buildings on a daily basis. In the absence of electricity, (which is often absent in Nigeria anyways), they have to fuel generators, which themselves cost a whopping sum.

They have to build and maintain structures. They have to feed the students and stock up supermarkets for thousands of people. They have to equip their laboratories, lecture rooms, studios, dormitories and chapels, with state-of-the-art facilities. They have to provide adequate welfare for their staff, like official cars and affordable housing, leave bonus, and a plethora of other expenses. Yet without a dime from the government.

lf they do not increase the fees to what is required to keep them going, the universities will fold up.

As a graduate of a private university, I can testify of the quality of education and level of comfort and peace of mind I enjoyed during my stay in school.

Pastor Adeboye does not own Redeemer’s University and he does not pocket the profits. As much as I know, he has GIVEN to the institution.

On his birthday some years ago, he gave out food to all the students in the school. When I was in my final year, he bought drinks for all the students in the school, and there were many crates left over. The welfare of the students is paramount to him, and he enjoyed admonishing us and praying for us.

A Few Other Sundry Wrong Statements

I am not a Bible scholar, neither am I one that is blinded by the spirit of religion, which I feel is a bad spirit by the way, but I have to address a few of your past statements.

1. You stated that, “I’d love to see Adeboye fly his private jet without fuel.”

Unfortunately, he cannot do this intentionally because it is contrary to the Christian faith. You do not perform miracles to show off. God only performs miracles to propagate His Kingdom, and to save His children in tight situations.

When Pastor Adeboye drove his car for several kilometres without fuel, he was in a tight corner with no escape route and that was why God responded. If he had intentionally said, “I will drive this car without fuel, just to prove I can,” no miracle would have taken place and he would have been stranded.

Pastor Adeboye cannot intentionally ask his flight crew to be negligent in order to prove a point to anyone.

Jesus Himself said so in Matthew 4:7:

“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

Do not put God to test.

2. You complained one day that Adeboye asked readers of OH to sow generously and reap generously in the same form they sow. Did he specifically state, “Sow into my life” or “Sow into my ministry”? No. He encouraged to sow into any fertile ground, which might be in the life of anyone, including the poor.
3. You said God asked us not to eat pork: Wrong. I understand you are not updated in that line. God has licensed us to eat any animal, and not call anything he created “unclean” (Acts 12:9-16). I love pork, and I relish eating it.
4. You erroneously said that God permits slave trade and child marriage: God was the first Person who commanded the abolition of slave trade. He commanded us to love our neighbours and treat them exactly as we want others to treat us.

Would we want to be treated as slaves or sold off? No. In essence, we should not do it to others. Would we want to be sold off in child prostitution and forced child marriage? No. God says we shouldn’t do the same to others.

5. On Apostle Suleman: I read that write-up titled “I Would Be a Pastor if I Had No Conscience”.

All I will say is that you should treat him right and give him all due respect until he is tried and found guilty by a court of law. He is to be presumed to be, and treated innocent until he is convicted of his accusations. This is what behooves you as a person with a modicum of honour and decency. Do not feed on hearsay and rumours.

If a person woke up one day and began accusing you of various ills, would you want people to believe without the case being fully thrashed?

6. You claim witches do not exist: There is a true life story with many living witnesses to disprove this.

In 1994, some members of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM), were praying outside a church in the night, when they saw a group of birds flying. They felt uneasy about the birds and prayed against them.

To their utmost surprise, one of the birds fell to the ground and transformed into an old woman. She confessed that she and the others in the group were going to supply cultists with powers in a particular institution. She said that if she knew that there were Christians there, she would have steered clear of the place.

The General Overseer spoke to her and asked her to accept Jesus. She refused, claiming that she had sold her soul to Satan. He then decreed that if she refused, she would never fly again for the rest of her life. This woman literally walked out of the place on her feet.

7. You claim miracles do not happen: Watch these videos with an unbiased mind, and I leave you to draw your conclusions:

I’ll leave you with these nuggets for now.

Emmanuel Sokefun is a graduate of Redeemer’s University, a freelance writer and an entrepreneur.

This article was originally written in April 2017.

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