SERMON TITLE: Christ and Africa

SYNOPSIS

Brethren blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah. The people that he has chosen for his own inheritance. The mission of Christ for Ghana and Africa is that he will create a holy nation and by our activities testimony, our nation shall be converted and transformed unto the holiness of God

TRANSCRIPT

Jesus had a vision for a new world. We have learnt here that his aim is to do a new thing. A new man, new nations, new people, new heaven and new earth. I have come to understand in my relationship with Jesus Christ that he had a special new Ghana in mind and I’m sure everybody who has really had a burden and known the mind of God for our nation will see how precious Ghana is before the Lord. And so, before I even said anything about Christ and Ghana, let’s give him a special ovation.

Do you remember there was an encounter with Jesus when Handel wrote “The Messiah”. Then he came on at the end of it, the tale, and he said, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Brethren blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah. The people that he has chosen for his own inheritance. We are coming here as individuals that have been chosen but when you come to think of it, it is not us just being chosen in isolation, but we have chosen as a people. He creates a holy nation and our presence, and our activities will give a character of holiness to our nation and by our testimony, our nation shall be converted, transformed unto the holiness of God. That is his vision. Sin shall not have domain, righteousness shall be exalted, and sins shall be forgotten. Idols shall not have any space in our midst. No demon, no power of darkness can pretend that he owns anybody in our midst because Jesus said, the enemy comes but he has nothing in me. I remember one time the Lord said, pray for the country, I will send angels to surround your nation. There was a time the nations of the world met the power by which the European, Western countries and other nations controlled the world. They took Ghana and they can’t control it. They haven’t found Ghana. They put the whole world under remote control, and all nations are passing, but they cannot find Ghana. The Lord built a wall of fire and this is possible because there are people like you who love your country, are praying for your country, and you’re bearing the true testimony of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday the Lord was telling me, not a spirit of compromise. I used to tell my Ewe brothers, a little goddess here, a little juju here, a little talisman here, a little something here, a little ring here, a little necklace here, a little swallow here, yet you can stand on the pulpit with all this around you. I am saying that you as an individual represent your country and if any spirit, I was telling you of a spirit called “pata engyi” and we cast that spirit out from Tarkwa. Then when the spirit was coming out of the country, there was somebody in Takoradi who said, as for me, I will receive you. If they don’t want you in Tarkwa, I will receive you.

Satan shall not find any house, any tribe, any group of people who welcome Satan in their homes. All our tribes shall reject him. Satan, no more blood sacrifices, no more calling of ancestors in the night because ancestors are dead and we don’t call the dead-on behalf of the living. That’s an abomination against God because the Bible says the soul that sins shall die and so if you call the dead, it means that you are telling God that you are foolish, as far as I’m concerned, your decree that a soul is dead, I’m not agreeing so I will call the dead.” The wisdom of God and the authority of God is defiled by your practice, but this thing shall seize in our country and must seize in our country, so Ghana becomes a holy nation, a royal Priesthood, a peculiar people.

I like the King James Version. The Bible Society always accuse me. I used to be on the business committee, and we are discussing importing Bibles and what Bibles to buy, people will say as for brother Enoch if you leave King James, he will fight you. I like King James, I know why I like King James. It’s straightforward with the spiritual intent of God. That’s all. It’s not because of the old English, thou and those. but when you are really walking in the spirit, and you read King James, you can see the mind of God clearly. Those people were devoted people, and they took pain to find the mind of God and express it. I’m not saying the other versions are not correct, but many versions are only a display of scholarship and not spirituality. That is linguistic in their display so they want to see how scholarly they can control the language. It is good because you must express it properly but then in trying to be scholarly, you don’t reject the spiritual message and the essence of the message.

Today, we have a new Ghana and that’s why I can stand boldly before you and say, Christ and Ghana. If you don’t like the idea, please go out but before you go out, hear what I will say before you go out because if they ask you why you went out, you’ll have nothing to say so hear it first. I’m taking liberty of you because we are one family. I don’t want to pay attention to people because we are all important, but we have the Catholic Archbishop here represented by the Vicar General. It’s not easy to find him in our midst but he’s here. In my working in Ghana, working with churches, I’ve met a few like Father Senu and a few others. But it’s not easy to find them in our midst so we are blessed to have him. One of my greatest friends in the Catholic Church is Archbishop Andoh, very good friend and he used to tell me, as for you, all your programs bring us back to Christ and bring us back to the realities of the faith. You are not the pan who makes programs that people will go and shout yet we don’t know what they are shouting. As for you, your programs are direct and sure about Christ. That is what Archbishop Ando told me. He said, “I don’t come but I’m always following you.”

Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will to all men. We have had a challenging but exciting time revisiting and reconnecting with Christ Jesus the Master and the Head of the Church. We have been challenged with the need to realign afresh our personal lives and our callings, our churches, our fellowships and our ministries, our ventures, our missions and activities with Christ, his vision and mission in the world. There has been inspiration alongside to seek to meet requirements of sainthood. To stand and serve the Master in holiness, righteousness and faithfulness. Soon he comes and his reward with him. Yesterday we ended the seminar on Christ and the Church mission on a note of renewal of covenant with Christ. The vision and mission and the Messianic Kingdom order on earth. I must say that these were in my note, but the Holy Spirit took me to another dimension. As one lady puts it, “yesterday it was a one-on-one encounter with Christ”. Everybody who was here had a personal encounter with Christ to renew your calling, your vision, your understanding, your church, your activities, whether they are in harmony and in true reflection of the will of God, the vision of Christ and whether what you are doing will receive his approval at the end. It is not how many buildings or how many churches or how many congregations you have, but how much you are in the will of God according to his commission to you. That’s a critical question so you don’t become a pastor, then when you start to see how other people are doing things you follow them or you read a scripture and you try to read, “oh Peter did it that way or when Paul went to Macedonia the Lord said, come to Macedonia and help us” You read that somewhere, then you say I’m going to Macedonia. There’s a right to change my course because even Paul changed his course to Macedonia when the Lord had not spoken to you and because you saw somebody changing his methods. One of the things I like very much in church today, “this is modern, we are in modern times, and the church must be modern.” Human beings have changed, the Holy Spirit has changed, the Word has changed because this is a modern time. Are you getting my point? It is modern time; you can’t preach this gospel. They used to preach it that way, but we are at different times.  What is modern? The new lights or the sound? The sinful man has not changed and in fact, the modernity is going more into depravity. The more he wants to be modern, the farther away he is from God so if you want to follow the modern man, your message shall no more be with God, but with man.  Modernism is a system of betrayal or a challenge to your faithfulness to Christ. Modernity is not the equipment, but your style, your approach, this is modern times. Yesterday I crowned my father a grandfather.

So my grandfather, in the language, contextualization of the theme. The theme must be contextualized. It must be in the context of the times. I hope that in the context of the times there will be need for Christ. It is the need for Christ. That is the message will be so that whatever the changes in society, whatever the season, you don’t miss the core issue of Christ being the Savior dealing with sin, leading men out of sin and transforming their lives.

We are a new country, and God wants to build a new Ghana, but it cannot be a new Ghana when we are looking at modern times. We look at the new Ghana in the glass or spectacles of Jesus Christ. What is the Ghana God wants to build? Not in tarred roads or 200 skyscrapers. My son was telling me this morning that we are supposed to be wealthy and rich and therefore, if you are in righteousness, you must be wealthy and rich. The Bible has not said that the reward of righteousness is riches or wealth. It has not said that so, that is another gospel. It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s another gospel.

I’m persuaded that many of us would like to find time after the Congress to visit our callings again, our commissions again, our visions and mission programs, our objectives, purposes and goals again to ensure that we are on the right path with our master, Christ Jesus. I cannot emphasize this anymore, but I am suggesting that the time has come that every pastor who has heard and the Lord tells me this message will go to many nations so, we must find a way of making sure that we send it across the universe that nations, churches all over the place must have opportunity to reconsider their connection with Jesus Christ because the disengagement or disconnect and the activities of the antichrist within the church has grown so strong that except the church rises up again, we shall have no more church. I wrote to one of these great men of God in Ghana, I say men of God because that’s how we describe them, I wrote to him, I said, brother, I like the way you preach and the messages you are giving. But how many Christians will come out of your messages? and number two, how many of those people whom you are preaching to on TV and radio will go to heaven with you if you make it.

Number three, what kind of Ghana do we have in mind if this is the gospel you are preaching? Because the message you are giving is not creating Christians. By your message, we are having another church. In another 10 or 20 years, your message will create something other than Christians and then in another years, it means the Ghana that God has in mind will no more be the Ghana that you think you are building. So, we are going to have a new church, a new Ghana and a new world not by God’s design, by your design. He said oh no, I don’t preach that on the TV and radio, but when they come to our church, I present Christ. He wrote that to me in black and white. It’s in my office. I’m suggesting today, I bow before you. Please go back, remember the day the Lord called you and the encounter you had before you got convinced that God wants you to preach. If you are not called then, don’t go and attempt it again because you were not called. If you have a ministry of help doesn’t mean you are a minister.  You can have a ministry of help to support an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, evangelist, a teacher but you are not one and don’t pretend you are one and say because you have worked with a pastor for 20 years, you have a right to start a church. According to Pastor Jima, “he has had his share so not it I my turn.” If you have been called, you have been called and if you have been sent, you have been sent so you go and do what God has asked you to do not because somebody has had his turn so now it is yours. You say now I am old, and I have a wife and children so if I also get a house and a car it will be good and it will show that I am a man”. Are you a pastor because of the house and car or because God has called you. I’m suggesting that it is time for you to take time and think about your calling.  The message I gave in Kpando was “Why die when you can live?” When there’s life in Christ, why go and choose something else? Why do you choose to go away from Christ? Because when you go away, it is death. All your ways lead to death and not the way of God. The ways of God are life but if you take another way, you take death upon yourself so return.

There can be no debate in this connection that Ghana and her people, creation and future is the fundamental spiritual responsibility of the church in Ghana. We have been called, commissioned in or assigned to Ghana first and foremost, this is our Jerusalem. The reconciliation, deliverance, redemption, restoration, rebuilding and establishing the people, tribes, the rest of creation, the villages, our towns, cities, the government and the entire nation of Ghana in the heavenly, determined, divine redemption and kingdom order on earth is a prime task and ultimate responsibility of the church in Ghana. The church in Ghana also has duty to understand the burden of God for Africa and the hope for the nations in Africa and the human race at large placed upon Christ Jesus, our Lord because when God the Father sent Jesus, we learned yesterday, he had a vision for the Gentile world and he specifically mentioned the Gentile world in the calling of Jesus Christ In the calling of and commissioning of Paul, the Lord talked about the Gentile nations so the Gentile nation has a special place in the plan of God in heaven and that is why Jesus was revealed. Jesus was telling the disciples not to bother too much but he said you must start from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the utmost ends of the earth because he has a plan for the earth. Israel was not having a vision for the world.  They have a vision for themselves in a myopic and isolated, beautiful Israel, no doubt. That was a pilot project for the universe, for the nations but now Jesus has come and is going beyond Israel to the whole nations of the world and that is why we were thanking God that Ghana was in Christ’s plan. The bible says blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. The gospel has been given to us to proclaim, to turn it over to Christ so if you don’t have that vision and you have a vision only for your little church, when I say little, you may have 300 churches and 500 congregations and 2 million congregations. It’s not Ghana. You must have a vision for our beloved country. If politicians have a vision, political parties have a vision for Ghana, the church must first have a vision. When Rawlings and others came, we had a meeting in Accra, they said the church must support the revolution and I said what is the kind of nation you are building that the church will support? We cannot support a revolution we don’t know the end result but you must have a concept of a nation that conforms with what the Bible says then we can support you but if the church supports a political party or a revolution, and forgets that that revolution has a different thing, and does not know what revolution is all about, and supporting such a revolution, the church is blind.

When my papa said when would the blindnesses cease because you want to build a nation according to socialism, Marxism, Agbozoism, Kwame Nkrumahism, Millism, Rawlism, Akufoadoism, Kufourism, but not Christism.

You are an ambassador of Christ. Why are we so weak in our perception of who God is? And for that, by who you are. I see Christians dying for political parties whose philosophies are anti-Christ, yet they don’t know. Let’s have a vision for our country and the vision we have for our country is not our vision but God and it’s not far to seek. It’s in the Scripture seek ye first the kingdom of God and its Righteousness then all things shall be added unto you.

The church in Ghana also has a duty to understand the burden of God for Africa and the hope for the nations in Africa and the human race at large placed upon Christ Jesus. Indeed, it is Christ’s burden for Ghana and Africa that has prompted the Kingdom Glory Congress 2011 Kumasi. We are engaged on two levels of Christ’s burden and his vision and mission concerning the church in Ghana on one part and on another, the reconciliation, deliverance, redemption and restoration of glory to Africa in the knowledge of God and according to the principles, plans and knowledge of God. Theres a general concept if the church commission. There’s a general concept of the Church Commission, that’s what I’m saying but when you come back to national issues, then there must be a direct understanding that this general great Commission one must have your nation in as a starting point. “Tell them to observe all that I have taught you. Disciple the nations, Disciple the nations. It didn’t say individuals, but disciple the nations so as you disciple the church and the church goes out to bear testimony by their lives, you are also disciplining the nation and the people in the knowledge of God by your representative conduct and your translation of the meaning of life and pursuit of life or even happiness.

The church understanding of these things will permeate through society. It shall be different from the general understanding. You begin to influence as a leaven influencing the direction of this nation and if there’s politics, you have a machinery of making known to the politician that this is what God wants not what the church wants for our country. That’s what we stand for.  I’m saying that the Great Commission must be interpreted from nationalistic perspective, that is our Jerusalem is our nation. if you are talking about the kingdom, then it means that all kingdoms must submit to Christ. Immediately powers and dominions must give way, so it means spiritual warfare. We did that yesterday, if you like one day I may come and do that again, but we thank God for you.

What I’m teaching now is not something that’s here. In April I’m holding a conference on the church in mission in London. We are revisiting the church mission because even Europe has forgotten Christ, not God. They are doing thing minus Christ. For example, England, the Red Cross in the flag of England is the cross. Once upon a time they lived and they believed it. Today they have left it because the church has been negligent. A church that went to sleep, then it became dead. Then it was redesigned and became a social, a cultural expression and it’s no more an army built on Christian Soldiers. It’s no more an army to build a nation. It’s not that the people that will turn the nation to God, but the people have now become marginalized. To talk about Christ in Europe now is like sin, because the church has neglected her duty. The church has got away from Christ and her kingdom.

The year that I met my father here, 1984, we had a conference, and the Lord told me, “My son, the church had derailed 400 years. I want you to bring the church back to me. 400 years ago, the church has abandoned the kingdom”.

By the time the church came to Africa, they had already abandoned the national and kingdom perspective of the gospel. Salvation Army was a national body cleaning the streets of London, national perspective. A few years ago, about 20 or 35 years ago, the Lord asked me to make a hymn book, and he brought the Salvation Army hymn book and showed it to me.

Beloved, every church has a history. Every church that God commissioned has a history and I know church’s mission in national perspective in this country, because he has taken time to tell me. If you talk about Presbyterians, he knows what they stand for, moral probity. If you talk about Methodists, he said revivalists. If you talk about Baptists, he said they like to build houses. The Lord knows this, and they are not bad but let’s be faithful in the national context.

If I want to give my heart, we will not go home. So, I want you to know from all disciplinaries that God has taken Ghana as his beloved nation and he wants to build it afresh by his own might and for his glory and that is why he’s taking trouble to let the church in Ghana know that we are not just churching, we are building the kingdom and the nation.

We are engaged on two levels, I say. We have arranged to merge two concerns in a mission project dubbed Africa Redemption Mission with theme Africa is free.

Enoch Missions, a world missionary outreach movement with motto, Jesus is soon coming, is the body emerged with African Redemption Mission. We had been given the burden, and the Lord had designed the seminar on Christ’s calling for you to be here, the Christ and the church mission, as part of African Redemption Mission activities in Southern Africa for year 2010.  The Lord told me or told us, why not start from your home? While I was preparing for South Africa, the Lord told me, start it from your own nation, your home for charity, begins at home. This is the direction, change the Ghana Evangelical Society Kingdom Glory Mission. It used to be mission which we had originally made for this year to a Congress who were coming here on a kingdom mission.

I’ll tell you the history later but then the Lord said, make it a Congress to gather the church, the body in Ghana, hosted by the church in Kumasi so that you share the kingdom vision and God’s interest in Ghana with the church in Ghana.

So, we’ve changed the original theme to ‘Crowning the King of Glory, Jesus Christ” to embrace the entire church body in the country. It may be appreciated from the above explanation that the Most High God has a special eye on Ghana and Africa in these end times. The topic for discussion at this closing seminar then, Christ and Ghana or Africa is a matter of deep concern to the Most High God and Christ Jesus our Lord himself.

First, Africa stands in need of reconciliation with God and deliverance and redemption from satanic domination and control if she will, if Africa will make any headway with political stability, progress and prosperity. The problem Africa faces is deeper than backwardness, poverty, disease and death. When politicians, United Nations and other organizations are thinking of Africa, they are thinking of Africa with regard to backwardness, poverty, diseases and death. HIV, Bill Gates will give money for malaria or something, but we have something deeper than just these outward manifestations of the deep things. The only person that can deal with the deep things in this Africa is the church.

The second problem Africa faces is the open gate and hope for Africa is peace with God. It is not backwardness, we need peace with God. We need deliverance from idolatry and satanism and we need victory with social order of peace, righteousness, justice, liberty and joy. These are things that you cannot measure, but these are the things that provide a spiritual and cultural environment to take care of these outward manifestations of the deep things that are. If satanism is there and wicked men are going to war and they need blood, the problem with Africa is that we are deep-seated in idolatry and satanism and any nation that have defied God suffers.

What the Lord told me is that Africa had the best opportunity to know the mighty hand of God not Israel that was redeemed out of captivity but Egypt.

AMEN