Senior Pastor and General Overseer, Sovereign Word Church, Pastor Antoni Okoh, has sensationally revealed how by merely mimicking the late televangelist and preacher, many evangelists in the country became miracle workers.
The evangelist recalled this ahead of his church’s forthcoming quarterly programme, ‘Day of Recovery’, billed to hold at the Banquet Hall of Excellence Hotel, in Ogba, Lagos on Sunday June 9, 2013.
Okoh whose church’s headquarters is at 11, Awori Street, Egbeda, Lagos with outreaches in different parts of the country, recalled how he, along with others, was endowed with Idahosa’s style of performing miracles, he said many of them merely mimicked the late man of God.
His words: Consequent upon my healing, the Church of God Mission automatically became my church and Archbishop Benson Idahosa became my pastor. We also watched him on television and saw all his crusades abroad. Taking spiritual inspiration from him, we started putting up crusades right in the dining hall of our school and urging our fellow students to go and bring the sick people around to attend and get healed. Interestingly, our friends brought a lot of sick people.
“It was indeed a frightening experience. Couples of deaf and dumb person were brought among the sick to our crusade. So, I just did what I saw Papa Idahosa do i.e. I put my ear near their ears and my finger on their tongue, even when I didn’t know what those gestures signified. I just replicated what I saw Idahosa do and said, ‘You deaf and dumb spirit, come out in the name of Jesus.”’
“Though the first, second and third persons were not healed immediately, it was on the fourth person that miracle happened. He was deaf and dumb but spoke and the crowd yelled and erupted in jubilation. He recalled with nostalgia how he had physical challenges in his early days before he was miraculously healed, saying the miracle made him a living witness of God’s power.
“The vision has been birthed in my heart right from my childhood, precisely at age 13. My encounter at that time could be described as the catalyst that actually thrust me into the healing ministry and that was how I got to know Jesus. I fell sick and what they thought was malaria was later discovered to be tuberculosis of the bones and it damaged my cartilage. “Within a space of months, I could not walk. That caused me to actually repeat a class. There was something demonic about the sickness because after about one year, the doctors felt I was not improving and forcibly discharged me.
“It was then that my elder sister invited me to a crusade that was organised by the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa, of Church of God Mission, at Upper Mission Road, Benin City. That was in 1980. Evangelist R. W. Shambark was one of the guest ministers from America. It was in that crusade I got healed and till date, the testimony of the healing is still outstanding. I gave my life to Christ at that crusade.
“The two people that actually brought me out of the car, crippled, were Pastor Chris Oyakhilome and Dr Boyo. Pastor Chris was the President of the Christian Fellowship in Edo College, then and Pastor Boyo, a medical doctor, now has a church in Mafoluku, Lagos. It was at that crusade that I took my first leap after almost a year of being bedridden,” he realled.
So what has the miracle of your healing got to do with your ministry?
He stressed that his healing ministry is intrinsically linked with his childhood
He added, “For a child of about 13 years to have been bedridden and seeing your mates go to school and not being able to walk, the emotional torment and torture are intense.
Eventually, when God gives you a second chance to bounce back to life, the experience just ignites a passion in you naturally, to see other people healed. Also, you can identify with the suffering of people that are sick and infirmed. Sometimes, you cannot really be compassionate until you have been in places where other people have been.
Take for instance, somebody who has been an orphan or widow, naturally will gravitate more towards those who are in that situation and be more sympathetic towards them.
“So my case was like, ‘Yes, you have tasted sickness, you have known what it means for doctors to say, ‘there is nothing we can do.’ Then, God gives you a miracle. It just makes you passionate to see other people healed and delivered.
Culled from National mMirror
The evangelist recalled this ahead of his church’s forthcoming quarterly programme, ‘Day of Recovery’, billed to hold at the Banquet Hall of Excellence Hotel, in Ogba, Lagos on Sunday June 9, 2013.
Okoh whose church’s headquarters is at 11, Awori Street, Egbeda, Lagos with outreaches in different parts of the country, recalled how he, along with others, was endowed with Idahosa’s style of performing miracles, he said many of them merely mimicked the late man of God.
His words: Consequent upon my healing, the Church of God Mission automatically became my church and Archbishop Benson Idahosa became my pastor. We also watched him on television and saw all his crusades abroad. Taking spiritual inspiration from him, we started putting up crusades right in the dining hall of our school and urging our fellow students to go and bring the sick people around to attend and get healed. Interestingly, our friends brought a lot of sick people.
“It was indeed a frightening experience. Couples of deaf and dumb person were brought among the sick to our crusade. So, I just did what I saw Papa Idahosa do i.e. I put my ear near their ears and my finger on their tongue, even when I didn’t know what those gestures signified. I just replicated what I saw Idahosa do and said, ‘You deaf and dumb spirit, come out in the name of Jesus.”’
“Though the first, second and third persons were not healed immediately, it was on the fourth person that miracle happened. He was deaf and dumb but spoke and the crowd yelled and erupted in jubilation. He recalled with nostalgia how he had physical challenges in his early days before he was miraculously healed, saying the miracle made him a living witness of God’s power.
“The vision has been birthed in my heart right from my childhood, precisely at age 13. My encounter at that time could be described as the catalyst that actually thrust me into the healing ministry and that was how I got to know Jesus. I fell sick and what they thought was malaria was later discovered to be tuberculosis of the bones and it damaged my cartilage. “Within a space of months, I could not walk. That caused me to actually repeat a class. There was something demonic about the sickness because after about one year, the doctors felt I was not improving and forcibly discharged me.
“It was then that my elder sister invited me to a crusade that was organised by the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa, of Church of God Mission, at Upper Mission Road, Benin City. That was in 1980. Evangelist R. W. Shambark was one of the guest ministers from America. It was in that crusade I got healed and till date, the testimony of the healing is still outstanding. I gave my life to Christ at that crusade.
“The two people that actually brought me out of the car, crippled, were Pastor Chris Oyakhilome and Dr Boyo. Pastor Chris was the President of the Christian Fellowship in Edo College, then and Pastor Boyo, a medical doctor, now has a church in Mafoluku, Lagos. It was at that crusade that I took my first leap after almost a year of being bedridden,” he realled.
So what has the miracle of your healing got to do with your ministry?
He stressed that his healing ministry is intrinsically linked with his childhood
He added, “For a child of about 13 years to have been bedridden and seeing your mates go to school and not being able to walk, the emotional torment and torture are intense.
Eventually, when God gives you a second chance to bounce back to life, the experience just ignites a passion in you naturally, to see other people healed. Also, you can identify with the suffering of people that are sick and infirmed. Sometimes, you cannot really be compassionate until you have been in places where other people have been.
Take for instance, somebody who has been an orphan or widow, naturally will gravitate more towards those who are in that situation and be more sympathetic towards them.
“So my case was like, ‘Yes, you have tasted sickness, you have known what it means for doctors to say, ‘there is nothing we can do.’ Then, God gives you a miracle. It just makes you passionate to see other people healed and delivered.
Culled from National mMirror
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