The Defector

Why were thistles allowed to grow with the wheat?
Why were thorns allowed to grow with the corn?
Why were tares allowed to grow with the grain?
It made a liar of many preachers to him
It made a fable out of the Bible to him
Believers were supposed to be healed by His stripes
A born again Christian who walks the talk was supposed 
to be immune to the elements of this world
The smart denominations kept away from that teaching
They were right to do so!
It made no sense!
Listening to the orthodox churches explain some things 
in the Bible was very interesting to him
When they preached about angels, they were quick to say
"We believe there are angels because God's word said so 
but we cannot categorically say if angels are still 
allowed to visit the world of men or not
Ask them if angels have wings and they would say
"The places in the scriptures where angels had wings
were mostly in a vision
Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10, Revelations 4
When angels appeared in other places, they appeared in 
the form of a human being so we cannot say categorically
that angels have wings because dreams and visions should 
not be taken literally!
Ask them about divine healing and they say "God has given us 
knowledge to create medicines, perform operations and
develop great equipment which we can use to save lives,
we don't need divine healing anymore, 
what we need is a better government with good 
policies and well-equipped hospitals!
We must also remember that man 
was made to eat herbs from
the beginning, it was after the 
flood that man began to eat meat!
If you can become a vegetarian, 
it would help your body combat 
strange illnesses!
Ask them about working of miracles and they will say "The Bible is 
the greatest miracle and other miracles 
ceased when the first apostles died!
Ask them about speaking in tongues and they will insist
it is not for the church today!
He grew up among them and their excuses made a lot of sense!
It was as if they were determined to rob God of all his
supernatural abilities so as to justify why they lack
the ability to do the supernatural!
Their sermons were nothing better than a good 
lecture on morality when they pray they 
don't expect answers! They pray only because
Jesus said "Pray without ceasing"
Prophecy is not allowed in their gathering!
Prophecy? It has been used by the devil to 
scatter a lot of churches! Didn't you hear of the 
man who poisoned his whole church
claiming God told him that was how the 
rapture will happen?
Didn't you hear of a woman who went to 
buy a wedding gown
claiming God told her a certain married 
man is her husband?
Didn't you hear of a certain prophetess who 
snatched a church member's
husband in the name of prophecy?
We will run the church with logic, 
the primary purposes of the church
are a behavioural modification and moral agency!
As long as we get people to toe the line, 
why do we need all the spirit business?
That was the reality he grew up to know as religion!
The problem was, even though he was 
easy going and Christlike 
He had serious spiritual issues
Once in a while, since he was 
a child he would see himself at a 
T-Junction caught in between three snakes
He would usually try to escape or kill the snakes
But no matter how hard he tried
One or two of the snakes would bite him and he would
wake up from the dream in a panic
Weeks later, everything would fall apart
He had the dream after his common entrance examination
His Father who was a Principal had 
arranged for him to be
placed in a particular public secondary school
Somehow the whole thing failed because 
they couldn't locate his results
He had to resit for the examination the following year!
He had the same result when he was writing his WAEC
As brilliant as he was his English result was not 
released until well
after admission into the universities had closed
He waited for three years before gaining admission 
despite having a good result
At the end of the day, he had to settle for 
the English Language as his course of study 
because he missed the cut off 
mark to study law by the whiskers!
A day before his matriculation, 
he had the dream again and this time, 
while he was trying to run away from the snakes, 
he fell down and one of the 
snakes bit him in one ear!
It was the pain of the snakebite that woke him up from sleep, 
he rushed to the clinic, they gave him some pain relievers!
Within three days, he lost his hearing 
completely in that left ear!
All the tests he ran in the hospital came up negative!
Ten different doctors over the course of eight 
months couldn't find anything wrong with him! 
He agreed to exploratory surgery, still,  
the problem persisted! 
Eventually, he got a hearing aid and yet...
The doctors claimed the loss of hearing 
he was experiencing was mental or psychological!
As far as medicine was concerned, 
he was fine and he could hear perfectly well!
One day when he was at 300 level, 
a young man in his room suddenly ran mad!
The young man was rushed to the 
hospital and later to his father's house!
The verdict from the school's clinic was very discouraging
Two weeks later, the young man was back in school!
How?
He said his Father was a shipping magnate! His father 
had a misunderstanding with some people and those people 
decided to afflict his  father's only son (HIM)
As soon as he got home, his Father 
took him to a herbalist and he was set free
He couldn't believe it!
He and other Christians on campus couldn't do anything about it
The hospital couldn't do anything about it
A herbalist did something about it!
Does that mean the herbalist had more power than believers?
He approached the school's chaplain the next day
Please sir, can you explain what happened?
The chaplain said "There are evil forces in this world,
as long as you avoid them, you will be fine! They don't go
about afflicting innocent people!  
Just keep away from such wicked people!"
But sir, he asked, what about the Herbalist? Was he evil too?
The elderly man looked at him and said "There are 
people who can bend times and seasons to their 
favour through sorcery! It might look like a good 
thing now but at the end of the day, 
it will lead to big regrets!
He didn't get the explanation but he pretended he got it!
Two weeks later he saw one of his classmates 
who had a very serious eye defect walking, writing 
and doing everything perfectly without her glasses!
He asked her what happened to the glasses!
The classmate said God healed her at a crusade 
she attended at home during the holidays!
How could God have healed her?
He went back to the chaplain! Sir, this and that happened to a
classmate, how?
The chaplain said "God works in mysterious ways and
 his ways were unsearchable! What you described was 
a miracle and miracles by definition cannot be explained!"
WOW!
He went back to the lady, "How did you say the miracle happened?"
The lady said 'We had a healing service in the church and one 
of the sisters in the church laid hands on me and 
commanded my sight to be made whole, 
afterwards I noticed that my sight became blurry with my 
spectacles on but normal without, 
that was how I stopped using glasses!"
The simplicity of the explanation given by 
the sister was galling! It wasn't an apostle 
that healed her! It was a fellow sister! 
Just like it was written in the Bible!
He went back to the chaplain! 
He needed to make sense of it all!
The chaplain told him "Jesus rebuked those who 
were seeking him only for the miracles because 
miracle seeking is like idolatry! 
Someone who loves God will not be seeking miracles! 
Miracles are not the end, they are a means to an end!
But Jesus called healing the children's bread! 
If he was a child of God and he had 
accepted Jesus Christ as His Lord and 
Saviour why couldn't he be healed of his 
infirmities in the name of Jesus?
During the next holiday, he visited the 
church of his classmate to attend the healing service! 
He promised himself if anybody did anything like light a candle, holy water, holy soft drink, honey or any such nonsense, 
even anointing oil, handkerchief and/or 
talismanic crosses, he would walk away!
He needed to know if it was the real Jesus or a demonic one!
He was dressed in his best suit to fit into the 
service only to get to the church and discover it was their casual Sunday and they were all dressed down!
The service started, they sang a good hymn, 
the choir sang, the preacher preached and 
after the sermon, the preacher invited all 
those who have any form of illness to lift up their hand!
He did!
The preacher told the person next to him to ask him what the illness was!
He explained!
The preacher put a finger in his own left ear 
while standing on the altar and said: 
"Put your finger in your ear the way I have done!" 
He obeyed! Then the preacher said  
"In Jesus name every spirit of deafness I cast you out 
and command the ear or ears to become unstopped now in Jesus name"
Then the preacher removed his finger from his 
own ear and told him to do the same!
He couldn't explain it!
His hearing was back!
Just like that!
After the service, he sat there looking at the altar! 
He was afraid if he left the church, he would lose his earing again! 
He thought it was just a trick!
His classmate came to meet him
He expressed his fears
She laughed it off
They left the church together!
The following Sunday, he was back!
He wanted to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit 
He wanted to pray in tongues
Hands were laid on him and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, 
just like that!
He signed up for the foundation class 
of the church and became a member
Few weeks to his graduation he had a 
dream of the three snakes again, unlike 
before when he would be worried and fearful 
before sleeping so as not to have the dream, 
he was the initiator of the dream! 
He had gained ascendancy in the spirit and his 
inner man was no longer weak spiritually!
He killed the three snakes and he never 
had the dream again!

PS: This event happened in 2006
The brother married his classmate who got healed 
of defective eyes in 2010
Both of them pastor a branch of the church today
You cannot continue to be tossed here and 
there by the winds of doctrine!
Take the word of God as it is written or leave it alone
Subjecting the scripture to your logic is pride
If you are hungry and thirsty for the fullness of 
the Holy Spirit, all you need to do is ask
If you are sick at the moment, as you read this line, 
I command the sickness to leave! 
You are healed in Jesus name