The NATIONAL PRAYER ALTAR
MARATHON PRAYERS
Monday 19th – Sunday 25th February 2024
LAMENTATIONS OF THE SPIRIT OF JEALOUSY
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)
For the Church in Nigeria, 2013 was an interesting year. It was a year in which the Lord sent messages to Nigeria Christians. The results are now manifest. We shall look at some of those messages.
1. Your Church leaders are like Rachel sitting on an idol. They will rather die on top of the idol than get up.
2. If care is not taken, in 30 to 40 years, Nigeria will be like Turkey.
3. The Nigeria Church is guilty of the sin of irresponsibility.
Nigeria is facing enormous challenges, socially, economically, and politically. The challenges are a reflection of the deep crisis within the Church. The Lord endowed His Church in Nigeria with enormous capacity for national transformation and the spiritual liberation of the country. Unfortunately, at every critical junction in the life of Nigeria, Christian leadership has failed to act like Jesus. That is the deep crisis within the Church.
The first casualty is the Church itself. Nigeria is in disarray today because the lamp of the light bearer has been smashed in many places and its glow has gone dim. Most of the acts of insincerity that weaken the Church are from within.
After the dispensation of the early missionaries who, to the best of their ability, laid a credible Christian foundation for Nigeria, leadership of the Church fell on the shoulders of indigenous Christians. In August 1976, forty-eight years ago, God established a central management body for the Church with the mandate, “That they all may be one”. As of 1976 when the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) was established, the following were some of the stable conditions of the Church:
1. Christian influence was paramount in government and in the society.
2. There was free Christian education all over the country.
3. Church buildings and properties were not being burnt.
4. Christians were not being murdered and maimed.
5. Christian communities were not sacked, and the Christians driven to IDP camps.
6. Christianity was well respected in the society.
7. Christians were amongst the most trusted and credible people in the country.
CAN met the Church in a stable condition in 1976. Fast forward forty-eight years to 2024: what is the condition of Christianity in Nigeria?
a). Christian influence is insignificant in Nigeria. Islam rules the country.
b). There is scarcely free Christian education in the country. Where Christian schools exist, the fees they charge are the highest in the neighbourhood.
c). Church buildings are burnt in their thousands without repercussions to the arsonists.
d). Christians are murdered daily on a genocidal scale. Current statistics indicates that 82% of global mortalities due to faith-based persecution are Nigerian Christians killed in Nigeria.
e). Hundreds of Christian villages have been sacked by insurgents who often invade in their hundreds, and the Christians are driven into IDP camps. Millions of Christians are in IDP camps while their villages have been occupied by Muslims (mostly from the desert) and the names of the villages changed by the new residents.
f). Christianity in the country has become a joke and a ridicule. Comedians make a living by poking fun at Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Blood of Jesus, and of course, the pastors and their wives.
g). Christians are the least trusted in Nigeria.
The parable of the unprofitable servant in Matt. 25:14–30 provides a scriptural perspective to the state of the Nigeria Church from 1976 to 2024. How have the clergy managed Christianity in Nigeria, resulting in a stable Church in 1976 becoming a distressed Church in 2024?
The situation would not have been so bad if church leaders accepted Godly counsel. A few years ago, God raised some Christian Elders from the six geo-political zones in the country to professionally support the Church leaders, but those were offended that anyone would seek to advise them. They headed for PUNCH newspaper and paid for an advertorial entitled “CAN HAS NO SUPERVISOR”. Nobody could talk to them. The consequence of that sad display of power is what both Christians and other Nigerians are suffering today.
It is a spiritual reality that when leaders sin, their followers suffer consequences. Under the circumstances, what should the followers do? It is time for Christians in Nigeria to demand accountability from their leaders. That way, they will absolve themselves before God of complicity. What has happened in the Church cannot be swept under the carpet. Too many people have died without justification. Questions must be asked, and answers provided.
The Lord is jealous for His Church, and He will hold accountable those who undermined it, and their supporters, too. Unfortunately, when the Lord comes to judge, He will not judge the leaders only. He, however, gives grace, that if judgment is executed on the earth, Heaven would refrain or review other actions. In 1 Cor. 11:31, it says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.”
If the Church does not call itself to order, evil will continue to multiply in the Body. Too many things have gone wrong since 2009. Tens of thousands of innocent Christians have been murdered, millions of lives have been devastated, and the credibility of the glorious Church of Jesus Christ compromised. The Church has no option but to query itself. If Christians do not do it on earth, the Lord would do it from Heaven, with serious consequences. The spirit of jealousy has been provoked.
Demanding accountability from Church leaders in Nigeria should cover the following areas:
1. What role did the Church leaders play in 2015, 2019, and 2023, in handing political power in the country over to the Islamists who have daily murdered Christians and inflicted hardship on the populace?
2. What warranted the neglect of the persecuted Christians who are daily wallowing in abject poverty and suffering?
3. In the ongoing famine in Nigeria, how come the Nigeria Church has not adequately helped suffering saints, as demonstrated in the scriptures, in Acts 11:27-30?
4. What action did the Church leaders take about the cases of corruption and abuse of office reported in the Church?
5. Despite the much money that enters the Church every week, why haven't church leaders sustained the tradition of free quality education which the early Church leaders in the country offered, without access to funds such as today’s Church has?
In every organization, spiritual and secular, leadership is crucial. The success or failure of an organization depends on the quality of its leaders. It is time for Nigeria Christians to pray fervently for Good Shepherds like the Lord Jesus Christ. The spirit of jealousy is lamenting over the distressing state of the Nigeria Church.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
PRAYER POINTS
1. 1 Peter 4:17
Pray that God will commence judgment according to His word, against every corruption, treachery, and betrayal of Jesus Christ by those entrusted with leadership in the Church.
2. 1 Cor. 11:31
Pray that the spirit of judgment shall be stirred in the Nigeria Church, and Christians shall be of one mind, and the Church be purged from evil and wickedness.
3. 2 Cor. 11:13–15
Raise a lamentation to heaven against the hypocrisy and duplicity of those claiming to be Christian leaders yet they work at cross purposes with the Holy Spirit. Pray that God will terminate every Church leader who has placed personal interest above the collective interest of the Body of Christ in Nigeria.
4. 1 Cor. 12:26
The neglect of persecuted Christians in Nigeria, which amounts to criminal negligence by the Church, was on account of some Church leaders who frustrated support from reaching persecuted brethren, in deference to their Islamist patrons. Pray that the Lord would judge all who deliberately frustrated, and are still frustrating, every effort to minister to persecuted Christians in Nigeria.
5. Job 5:12-16
Pray for God’s intervention on behalf of the masses of Nigeria from the hands of a greedy and covetous political class inflicting suffering on the people. Pray that all their conspiracies to inflict further sufferings on the people shall be nullified.
6. Acts 10:38
Pray that the Nigeria Church shall return to good works, which the early missionaries established as tradition in the Church; good works such as the provision of free education, free health care, taking care of the poor, and humility amongst the clergy.
7. Ps. 75:6 -7
Pray that God will promote righteous and God-fearing Christians into positions of relevance and authority in the Church.
