by Anike Jacobs
The General Overseer of the Foursquare Gospel Church, Reverend Felix Meduoye, has cleared the air on the misconception levied against Men of God over their heavy security.
Speaking with Tribune, he said “Well, to start with, security, I believe we all know, is in the hands of God. The Bible says it very clearly that “except” The Lord himself keeps the city, the watchmen labour in vain.” Now, we also know that experience has a way of teaching people some things in life. Pastors are human beings; they have blood running in their veins. And when they hear the things that happen and they also see the things that happen, especially in some parts of the country (not all), they may take precautions. I travel to some parts of the country and I see that on getting there, they have prepared policemen to take us round, because of what they know about the place. This is not my making; I don’t have them here. I’m not saying I can’t have them, alright? That should be very clear.
Even in the days when the Bible was written, there were walled cities and cities without walls. Why did the people make the wall? They made the wall to at least ward off intruders. So, I think that the reason some people feel there is a need to have security is that perhaps in their own locality, the level of kidnappng and all of that is high. Well, God will protect; but supposing you have means to also protect yourself, what is wrong with that? It is like when we talk of people taking drugs for healing. God heals, alright, but we know that we still go to hospitals, we still ask doctors to treat us. But as we are getting the treatment, I think what a Christian will do is to first of all ask for healing from God. And the doctors who are Christians or godly enough know that they care but it is God who heals. So also, I would say on this issue of security that, yes, we do make sure that we lock the door of our cars when we are moving around.”
On the issue of pastors making the list of the richest men in the world, he said “I don’t know whether there are pastors who fall into that category of the richest men on earth. But I would also think that there are many rich pastors. Am I saying that is a good thing? Not necessarily. I’m not also saying that it is the wrong thing. But I want to put it this way: God does bless people. Abraham was a man who was highly blessed. God gave Abraham gold and silver. Abraham had herdsmen and, as a matter of fact, over 300 servants in his house. And there are other people like that: Solomon was very wealthy. Well, we believe it that God does bless people. Now if somebody is a pastor and God blesses his members, I would imagine that he would also be blessed. That is what I think is happening.
But then we can query a situation where everybody in the church is a poor person and the man is building skyscrappers and buying aeroplanes. One would begin to ask why. Why is everybody around you poor and you are rich? But where you have people who are well to do and the pastor is just riding the same car like his people, I see nothing bad in that because it is the people giving to him.”
I am also a pastor and I have these to say,our level of spiritual understanding,matuarity and faith are not the same, But when a man attend a position of spiritualy leadership the person is expected to know better and live by example and also live by what he preach, otherwise he becomes a hypocrate by his actions,people are looking up to you as a spiritual leader so what ever you do has a way of afecting the people negative or posetive because you have become the bible that people read, when a man of GOD began to move about with security men he is simply telling people that he has no trust in GOD for his protection, that GOD don’t have the capability to secure his life. That man of GOD is disagreeing with psalm 91 and is totaly act of disbelieve and trust in GOD and is a great sin, the bible says “cast your burdens upon him for he cares for. you” what we do preaches the gosple more than what we preach with our mouth because we are dealing with inteligent beings who will some times seat down and analyse our actions, that man of GOD has also atracted a cause upon himself by so doing because the bible says “woe to him that trust upon the arm of the flesh” Most of our spiritual leaders make muckery of the word of GOD, they elevet themselves more than the GOD we serve. It is not sin to be reach but how you use the money is where sin come in, as a man of GOD your comfort is to comfort others but when revise becoms the case then you have questions to answer.The church is expected and obliged to always perform humaniterian services, provide for the poor etc whiten and outside the church,In a countery where people are dieing in hunger and pastors are lavishing money in luxery it is questionable. They can only be justfied when the needy are not in the land. The bible says “the just shall live by faith”