The yearly feast

I have observed that most of the religious leaders and seers have been careful this year to speak in general terms in their predictions for the New Year, 2022. Predictions have become a yearly ritual during cross-over religious gatherings when congregants bid the outgoing year goodbye and welcome the emerging year from which face the veil is been removed. The rejoicing takes place not only in churches, but also in homes. Families stay up to 12 midnight to receive the New Year as the bells toll and crackers are fired. The predictions take place mostly in churches, what has become a preoccupation by religious leaders, and matters of interest for a great many in the larger society. We are eager to know what the future, but specifically the New Year, has in store for us. One priest of standing has said there will be prosperity in the land this year, but was quick to add the proviso that it would happen only if Nigerians would pray hard. My suspicion is that there is resort to caution this time because it may have been sensed that the predictions are losing their novelty and grip and are vast becoming a joke.

Take, for example, the following prediction made in 2018 and titled “2018—Year of Enforcement of Divine Prophecies” (I have gone this far back so that the priest who made the prediction will not be identified): “There shall be series of resignation from his cabinet and officers of his government in the second and third half of 2018.” The prophecy was about Buhari. The cleric said further: “The world will witness natural disasters in 2018 more than ever that many cities, states and even two sovereign nations shall be wiped off the map of the world due to earthquakes, storms and hurricanes”. Another ‘prophet’ said: “There will be surplus food and money in 2018. Nigeria will begin to change for the better in 2018.” He then went on to say: “The Lord said that Nigerians should pray and fast for three days before 21st of January to avert the death of children in 2018.” And hold it: “A great and popular man of God along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway will pass away in 2018. One Governor from the Eastern part of the country will die in a road accident in 2018. Petrol price will fall massively in 2018. Dollar will also crash in 2018. Nigeria will enjoy economic boom and business activities will thrive in 2018.” These are just a few out of 38 the cleric made that year.

While one prophet said there would be boom that year and pump price of petrol would fall ‘massively’, another priest prophesied tough time ahead in the year 2018: “This coming year is a year you must be ready to fight the battle. It is a battle year—a battle to survive. Think of your survival.”

Yet another cleric, described as Senior Pastor predicted during the cross-over night service in Abuja that the year would mark a new beginning for the nation and its peoples as well as a supernatural opening of new opportunities. “There shall be drastic shift in dimension in all realms in an unpredictable manner.” A well-known urbane pastor said the Almighty Creator told him to run for the office of the President, but had not told him the appointed time. Listening to him this year, I could sense 2023 is the appointed year. In 2018 he gave a rundown of 12 major things he told his congregation the Lord had revealed to him would happen in 2018.

He said to his listeners: This 12th one is a difficult one for me. It may draw excitement or condemnation. I have tried my best to keep it (to myself) but the Holy Spirit will not allow me to do so. In my study around 4a.m. on Sunday morning, God told me ‘you cannot bring your political career to a close; there is still more to do. Run for the Presidency. I will do it at the appointed time.”

He said he had no fears about the daunting task and expressed the confidence that once the Lord had spoken, it was left for God to perform it. He then went on to say, some political juggernauts will fall at the feet of women this year. Joseph (in the Bible) did not contest an election; yet, he became the prime minister of Egypt. Why should I worry myself about where to get the resources for the task? Your own duty in this assignment is to pray along with me. When it is the appointed time, He (God) will do it. When he tells me the time, you will hear about it. In 1998, I told you that I saw your President dying between two women. Did it happen? I am telling you again: Some of these political juggernauts will fall at the feet of women and you will see it happen. I heard the Lord say to me, politics is not over for you, there is still one thing left for you to do; run for president. And He said to me, I will make it happen in due course. Please, trust me, I lie not in the Holy Ghost. This is not easy for me to share with you, so that you can pray along with me.”

Seers, clairvoyants and clairaudients exist in all lands and in all cultures, in sophisticated societies as well as in primitive communities. The faculty they use is mainly the inner, ethereal eye, for the clairvoyants, and ethereal ear for the clairaudient. There are star gazers and there are those who use crystal balls. However, it is not given to many a man to see far. To see far will require the spiritual eye or ear to open. The opening comes with very high spiritual development, all dross clinging to the soul, either through thoughts, speeches and actions, dropping and the spirit is unhinged, shinning through the soul. Many specially Called and connected with the Ray of Light may have their inner eyes open for their tasks such as shepherds on the field from whose eyes and ears the bandage suddenly dropped to see the joyous upheaval in the universe on the day of the Holy Night. Their earth life was linked with the Mission of Christ. The wondrous and unique Event of the Holy Night overwhelmed them and they fell on their knees. The incomprehensible Event was for them to bear witness and spread the tidings of the coming of the prophesied and eagerly awaited Messiah. The Heavenly Hosts appeared before them to herald the Omnipotence of God made manifest in the incomprehensive Event of the Holy Night, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Three Wise Men from the East were similarly permitted to behold an unusual Star, the Star of Bethlehem, a greeting from the Father and follow it to where the Child lay in the manger. The Star accompanied the Lord to this earth.

Casting our minds back to 2018, we can all see which prediction has come true and which has turned out to be false. Did those predicted would die pass away whether as governors or priests? Did the boom predicted happen? Someone simply referred to as Uc Wiz tweeted that year: “God has asked Tunde Bakare to run for President; God has told Mbaka that Dankwambo will be president…but for me God has asked me to leave the country. And I will. Tunde run, Dankwambo run; Buhari run, while I run away! That was the joke made of what were supposed to be “sacred tidings.”

All the priests reported here said it was God Almighty who spoke to them. In other words the Creator that is all perfection addressed them and gave each priest in different parts of the world different messages for the same year 2018. He told one there would be boom in Nigeria but said to another that things would be tough, it was going to be battle for survival! It is often battling how we regard and picture God the Creator. Here is God whose countenance the archangels in the Divine Realm cannot bear. Nor can any human being bear the mere approach of the Holy Spirit how much more of the God the Father. I have said it before, if Christ were to come to this world in all His Power and Glory, the entire universe would simply melt under His feet. High tension wire sucks in a technician not properly attired. Power from Egbin or Kainji power station has to be stepped down so it does not sink a whole town. Power surge will all know destroys equipment or gadgets in the home or factory. Power Egbin or Shiroro attracts is no more than precipitation of the power flowing from On High, from the Holy Spirit into our universe and which He uses to hold the entire Creation.

Many of those who claim to be prophets or seers do not see beyond their ethereal environment filled with and populated by their thoughts which have taken on ethereal forms. And so a great many see only demons. To appease demons, especially in the primitive societies there is recourse to ritual practices. In cases where genuine revelation for a higher plane is to be made, a dark entity in the Beyond may intercept it and twist the message. A more luminous being bearing the message will always avoid a dark soul so it is not smeared with filth. The man who is clairaudient on earth for whom the message is meant may not be able to tell the genuine from the false information being passed down to him. He is hardly able to sense that he has been misled. It is the false revelation he passes to his client or to the public in general.

The predictions remind me of the prophecy of the doomsday December 31, 999 A.D. and the one of October 28, 1992. A Korean priest, we would recollect had predicted the end of the world by 4 p.m. on October 28, 1992. This was about 30 years ago. Many, I remember, waited with baited breath for the final hour more so that the prediction was made not by a Nigerian. Reports from several countries at the time said many had sold their property, waiting with hearts beating for the final hour. Many gave away their property, and estranged families and friends made up. Many refused to go out, for you never know. Will it or will it not? Imagine being caught on Kaduna-Abuja highway, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway or Aba- Port Harcourt Expressway! In 999 A.D. faced with the approach of the dreaded prophecy of the doomsday, many a man, according to accounts, sold his belonging, neglected his building to fall into ruin. Slaves were set free, and so were prisoners. So were animals—sheep, goats and horses. Many prisoners wanted to stay behind, crying that they wished to live off their sins before the end and judgment. The rich gave away their most treasured garments and so on. It was suspense, excruciating suspense in which all Europe was held in expectation of the end.

A historian, Fredrick H. martens, gave a graphic account of this in his book, The Story of Human Life on what happened on the night of December 31, 999 AD. I quote it in part: “Pope Sylvester 11 stood before the high altar. The church was over-crowded; all in it lay on their knees. The silence was so great that the rustling of the Popes white sleeves as he moved about the altar could be heard. And there was still another sound. It was a sound that seemed to measure out the last minutes of the earth’s thousand years of existence. It echoed in the ears of those present at the pulse- beat does in the ears of a man with fever, and its beat was loud and regular and never stopped…and what the audience the audience heard was tick, tock of the great clock which hung within, one tick for every passing second.

The midnight mass had been said, and a deathly silence fell. The clock kept on ticking. A long sigh came from the people, but nothing happened. Like children afraid of the dark, all those in the church lay with their faces to the ground and did not venture to look up. The sweat of terror ran from many icy brows…”

The point being made is the power of predictions and that the priests cannot be too careful. Where the prediction is unfavourable it invokes fear, and there is the sinking of the sprit and the attendant loss of natural defence mechanisms that we all bear. When the prophecy is favourable we are overjoyed. This often leads to carelessness, to overrating, misstep and eventual harm, if not disaster. Apart from the two dates, the next prophesied day of Armageddon is 14 August 2116!

Next week: Difference between the world coming to an end and end-time.