The Damnable Errors of Arome Osayi and Jerry Eze
By: Deji Yesufu
I am a civil servant. For the past fifteen years, my morning revolves around preparing children for school; dropping them off early to make their school assembly; and then reporting to the office before 8 am which is the official resumption date for workers in many Nigerian institutions. This particular morning, I complete the circuit early enough and then I drove into our parking lot around twenty minutes past seven. Because I had forty minutes to spare, I wound down the car glasses and tried to inhale and exhale the morning cold breeze. As I did this, somehow my attention was drawn to the two vehicles to my right and left. There were two ladies in these cars, who had the windows of their vehicles wound up. They were praying. As I watched the motion of their mouths, they were obviously listening to prayer session emitting from their phones. I could tell that they were both listening to the same prayer channel from one of these YouTube prayer pastors – either Jerry Eze or Arome Osayi. I found it strange and fortuitous that in a public place, two women who do not know themselves, will be tuned to the same prayer channel, and will be uttering the same “amen” in the same location thousands of kilometers from the individual leading the prayer. I considered it both the magic of the internet and the deception of the prosperity gospel. It is the errors behind the latter that I wish to shed light on in this article.
I do not know Arome Osayi and Jerry Eze in person and it will be impossible for me to comment on who these men are. I draw my judgement on them simply from the content of their preaching and prayers which is all over the internet. I would also naturally not have responded to these men, except that I find their content in the public space, and since I am a religious public commentator, I felt I should share my thoughts with the public too. It might help one or two persons. I will be writing on three essential points about these men: their false prosperity gospel; their endless and meaningless tales; and their “many” deceived followers.
Theologically, there are a few errors that Christians peddle that one cannot consider as damnable. Some of these errors are products of traditional practices in a place that might have influenced the teaching of the Bible in those places; there are other errors that exhume from a faulty interpretation of the scripture. For example, I consider the practice of “speaking in tongues” among Pentecostals as an error but it is not a damnable error. I think that one can be speaking in tongues and still be a conscientious Christian who does not deny the tenets of the Christian faith. The trouble however with these endless prayer sessions, led by the likes of Arome Osayi and Jerry Eze, is that at the root of it is the damnable heresy of the prosperity gospel. The reason why the adherents of these teaching spend morning, afternoon, and night praying, is so that God might bring them into some prosperity and blessing, and so that they might have some liberation from a health challenge. This is not the Christian gospel.
As I write this, the local church that I am pastoring is looking at the life of Jesus as it is recorded in the gospels of John. In chapter eighteen of that book, Jesus Christ is brough before Pilate and the Jews are recommending to the Roman leader that Jesus should be executed. Pilate is confused. He makes it clear to the Jews that he finds no faults in Jesus. In fact, by the turn of the next chapter, the Jews begin to recommend that Jesus be crucified. And Pilate is wondering why the Jews will recommend a capital punishment to a man who had done no offence. When he enquired further from the Jews who this Jesus really was, they respond and said that Jesus had called himself the Son of God. Pilate, a bullish Roman warrior, was scared. He asked Jesus “who are you?” Jesus did not respond. The heart of my point here is however in the final verses of Chapter eighteen, Pilate gives the Jews an option: take Jesus or take Barrabas – Barrabas was an insurrectionist and a murderer. The Jews took Barrabas. In other words, since Jesus did not have an offence, they took the sins of Barrabas and put it on Jesus, while they declared Barrabas free. That, my friends, is the gospel.
The gospel is about God’s gracious work in Christ Jesus – where he took the sins of the world and put it on his Son. Then God brought the whole gamut of his wrath on his Son, and killed him on the cross because of the weight of the sin of the elect that Christ bore. The story did not end there. Jesus, however, rose from the dead after three days. In other words, while the wages of sin is death – Christ defeated death by rising from the dead. Therefore, whoever believes in Jesus, they can trust that Christ has taken away their sin; Christ have forgiven their sins; and Christ has brought them into newness of life in the Holy Spirit. Our duty as Christians, is not to spend the rest of our lives, looking for breakthroughs of prosperity and deliverance from demonic influences; but to simply repent of our sins, believe in Christ as Saviour, and then live the rest of our lives bringing the positive influences of the gospel on our societies. The pastor continues to remind his community of the gospel, and press gospel demands on sinners to repent; the civil servants bringing the effects of the gospel to his community – serving the civil populace at work; the Christian politician bringing gospel light to leadership – showing the world that there are still Daniels and Josephs in our day and time; etc. There is simply nothing Christian in what Arome Osayi, Jerry Eze, and the likes are doing on the internet!
The doctrine that underlines these men’s preaching is called the prosperity gospel, and I can say with biblical authority that anyone who believes their message will not go to heaven. The prosperity gospel is damnable heresy because it teaches that Jesus Christ died to make us healthy and wealthy. It has gone a little further in the Nigerian animist environment, where there is an ingrained belief that there are forces of good and evil forever at war in the “spiritual realm”. They then teach their followers that those who can pray enough; fast enough; give to church enough; etc, are those who will possess the powers to defeat the devil and all of his evil machinations in the spiritual realm. They reduce Christianity to give and take. The whole element of grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is lost. Everything is contingent on what you do. If you want results, do the things that these men are asking you to do and you will see results. This is why these prayer sessions are inundated with “testimony sessions”. The testimonies lend credence to the fact that what the man is preaching is true. Osayi and Eze have simply taken over from the false gospel that their fathers in the faith, the like of Oyedepo, Adeboye, and the late Benson Idahosa have taught for years now. They are the new kids on the Charismatic bloc, and they are reaping a fortune in the process.
Again, these men’s “products” are in the public space and no one is using my money to purchase their rubbish. But the time comes when it becomes necessary to put a word of caution for all to read. There is one word that concerns me when it comes to deception in the religious communities. That word is “many”. Jesus used it in Matthew 24 when he spoke about the signs of the end, and what will happen when he is about to return. He said “many” will be deceived by false teachers and false prophets. Similarly, Peter used the same word in his second epistle – the second chapter. He talked about how many false teachers will deceive many in those days. The days when “many” will be deceived is today. And Nigeria has so cultured the environment to allow for these deceivers to flourish in our day and time.
For those who may still have ears to hear, let me say it again: there is no redemption in what Arome Osayi and Jerry Eze are teaching. They are simply repackaging an old heresy: it is the teaching of Balaam who was deceived by the gains he sought to get from ministry. Jesus Christ did not die for anyone to be healthy and wealthy. Jesus died to save you and I from our sins. When we repent of our sins, and trust Jesus as Lord and Saviour, he begins to bring the fruit of righteousness to bear on all that we do. It might please God to make a Christian wealthy. Such a person should understand that God demands that he uses his wealth to further kingdom purposes. It might please God to give you and I a lengthy and healthy life. We should understand that God will demand from us what we used every moment of our health for. For some other Christian, they may never know wealth or enjoy good health all their days. For such, the Lord has given them little and the Lord will still demand to know what they do with the little that they had. Please renounce the gospel of prosperity. Stop listening to Arome Osayi, Jerry Eze, and their likes. I know that my words will fall on “many” deaf ears. But if one person has ability to hear the warning in these words, the effort in writing all these would have been worth it.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached on [email protected]
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