PRESS CLIPS BY MIKE AWOYINFA OF THE SUN NEWSPAPER
ON ERA OF ERRORS
WRITTEN BY BISHOP HUMPHREY ERUMAKA OF WORDBASE ASSEMBLY.
I have been reading an interesting book by Bishop Humphrey Erumaka, the pioneering President of the Epistle Communication Ministries and Senior Pastor of Wordbase Assembly, a fast-growing church located at Okota in Lagos.
The book titled Era of Errors is a letter to the Christian Church in Nigeria where the author points out what he considers ungodly and unchristian practices that are destroying the Christian faith in Nigeria and the whole of the African continent.
“The church is now invaded by false brethren who are armed to the teeth, with falsehood and lies,” he writes. “Day by day they gain boldness, and break fresh grounds. They make mockery of the gospel. Their goal is to make the true word of God scarce. What would be the fate of the church if the nefarious activities of these people continue?”
In the opinion of Erumaka, the peaceful faith propounded by Jesus has been turned into a wartime religion where the Holy Spirit is now a missile fired to kill and burn perceived enemies. Rather than the religion of love and forgiveness that true Christianity is, what we have today is a religion where the Holy Spirit is sent on a mission to assassinate. When people go to church to pray, the prayer turns out to be war where the Holy Spirit is incited to go and kill! But Erumaka says in his Era of Errors that this is an erroneous act that should be stopped.
In a chapter titled “Holy Ghost is not an assassin,” he writes: “The use of ‘Holy Ghost fire’ as a conjecture in prayer has become a great concern to me. The insult is so grave that the Holy Ghost is sent to do all kinds of dirty jobs in the lives of every perceive enemy. Some make statements like: ‘Holy Ghost, I permit you to shatter their brains’; ‘Holy Ghost, I command you to destroy them.’ What a command!”
The author continues: “As I travel round the world, I observe that these statements are prevalent in Africa. But it is gradually spreading as the proponents are planting churches all over the world.”
Beloved members of Press Clips Pentecostal Church (PCPC), today I bring you snippets from Bishop Erumaka’s latest book, “Era of Errors: Rumbling in the Temple” which will be launched on April 9 at Muson Centre, Agip Hall, Lagos.
“The fire-for-fire, and eye-for-eye phenomenon is now the norm. Forgiveness is eschewed during back-to-sender vigils of hate and acrimony. The number of tyrants grow in the name of churches. Here, everybody is considered a suspect. The older ones are considered witches or wizards outright.
“Laptops-carrying native doctors in designers’ wears are fast taking over the pulpit. Ex-robbers have exchanged guns for the Bible. They raise huge money with lying tongues and divide their loot without a modicum of remorse. At this stage of insanity, one needs to attempt an epistle to institute sanity into Christendom else we shall be swallowed up a sea of wrong doctrines and unfathomable fables. Where there are no elders, the children eat vulture as chicken.
“As a teaching Apostle, I believe that the next generations of Christians should receive a baton from our present priesthood. If not better, but a remnant of what the scripture union revival handed over to us from the Holy Spirit.”
Era of Dangerous Prayer
“We are in the era dangerous prayer pattern. The typical warring stance of Christians contradicts the beatitude, Jesus’ message to us, which represents a model for our behavior, spiritual and relational activities. This prayer trend has in recent times dominated the psyche and sense of reasoning of Christians. God’s precept has been jettisoned. Today, Christianity is practised with incredible hatred and palpable suspicion. It has stained and saturated our pure hearts with murderous tendencies against those that offend us. Is forgiveness still part of our Christian virtue?
“This book is just an attempt to address some anomalies in the church. Therefore, it is not a fix-it-all piece but my modest epistle to the African church. It is a call to stop the madness to quit money gospel and the wrong map to the incoming generations.”
“The African church today is so much in error with doctrines that promote hatred, cursing and revenge instead of the Christian charity which Christ and the foundation Apostles of our faith taught. These doctrines have magnified demons, enemies, and have also enhanced suspicion. It is such that everybody is a now declared a suspect and treated like one. It is daily being heated up with murderous tendencies such that Christ’s teachings of the beatitudes otherwise called ‘The beautiful attitudes’ as a virtue of Christian living is now considered a weak gospel. If your emphasis is not on massive and instant destruction of all your enemies via an outpour of imaginary cascading avalanche of ‘Holy Ghost Fire’, you are not considered powerful.
“If you are not insightful in tracing ancestral origins of curses and hindrances, you are considered a weak minister of the gospel. It is a pitiable gospel of bondage that we now preach. Such made Paul ask the Galatian brethren, ‘Who bewitched you to have started in the spirit but ended up in the flesh.’ If my freedom will only be gained by how many times I pay and send a liberation team to my village compound, paternal grandparents, and even in-laws homes for my deliverance, then Christ died for nothing.”
Prayer Warriors?
“It is now fashionable to call some people ‘prayer warriors’ based on the assumption that they pray much longer and louder than others. But, oftentimes, their dispositions do not affirm this impression. Some of them are irritable, quick-tempered, loquacious, selfish, hateful, self-opinionated, to say the least. In the religious pride, they extol themselves too highly above others. These traits are in contrast to what happens in the lives of the holy people who pray.
“People are supposed to be broken at the altar of prayer. But in the era of error, prayer warriors appear aggressive in all things. They approach prayer point with a war-like attitude of ‘kill and bury’. To them, everything is war, no love and no human relational character. Having observed this anomaly over a period of time, I reached a conclusion that heaven now needs more intercessors than prayer warriors.”
There is nothing like Holy Ghost Fire
Today, Christians “now focus on ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ as a weapon of destruction. This is an error. There is nothing like ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ in the Bible let alone its wrong application as per using it for destructive assignments.”
“When Jesus sits at the right hand of the father and looks at the church for whom he died, his heart bleeds because of the state of the believers’ servitude and ignorance. He sees us fighting a fresh battle and living like refugees in our own land of freedom. He sees us doing something extra in pursuit of our freedom for which he had paid the price from a foe he defeated and had placed under our feet by virtue of where we are sitting with him in high places.
“Instead of devoting 12 hours of prayer on Satan-related issues, develop your prayer life towards the sound knowledge of God. It is time to put on the whole armour of God and stand on the liberty wherein Christ has set you free…Beloved, stand and give no place to the devil.”
Conclusion
“This book does not in any way condemn prayer and fasting because I too pray and fast with the right knowledge and motive. I am not anti-deliverance. But I lay emphasis on the word that delivers.” Turn your Bible to Philippians 4:8.
