[Opinion] T.B Johua: The Man I Preached Was The Antichrist Ended Up Delivering Me

Posted by: 9ja must hear this on April 21, 2013

Pastor Gabriel Ikpenwa was an avid advocate against controversial Nigerian Pastor T.B. Joshua, vehemently testifying that he was the antichrist, offering public prayers against him in crusade grounds and fervently discouraging anyone who planned to visit his church. However, in an ironic twist of fate, the man he had campaigned against and slandered religiously ended up being the one used by God to set his family free.

“I have actually preached a lot of messages against Prophet T.B. Joshua, as the antichrist of our generation,”Pastor Gabriel remorsefully told the congregation at The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) in Lagos, Nigeria during a Sunday service broadcast on the church’s television station, Emmanuel TV.

Ikpenwa, who was the President of Deeper Life Campus Fellowship in his university days as well as the President of Nigerian Corpers Christian Fellowship (NCCF), said that when the major Christian bodies within Nigeria, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) had publicly denounced The SCOAN and its leader, he adopted the same stance without questioning. “I took it upon myself as a leader of the youth to make sure that none of them would have anything to do with Prophet T.B. Joshua,” he stated.

He recounted organizing huge crusades for young people as well as being a regular guest speaker at mammoth Christian Union events. “You can imagine when a crowd has gathered and you handle such a message, psyching up the youths against T.B. Joshua as the antichrist. You can imagine the type of prayer that would happen in the crowd. We started casting and binding him.”

After leaving Deeper Life, Ikpenwa joined Redeemed Christian Church Of God (RCCG) as an Assistant Pastor while pursuing his medical career and managing his increasingly influential microfinance bank. Soon joining the ranks of young Nigerian millionaires, Ikpenwa decided to look for a wife to stand at his side in ministry. Meeting a beautiful young lady who was working as a model, the fiery pastor preached repentance to her. Moving closer to her, he did not know the deep spiritual entanglements he was about to engulf himself in.

As the pair courted, Ikpenwa had a strange encounter with two snakes who attempted to attack him in his house. As a date for marriage was set, he one day awoke to find a strange man in his house, who warned him to ‘leave that girl alone’. Shocked at the man’s entrance to his locked house, Pastor Gabriel attempted to hit him. His hand passed through the man as if he was boxing thin air and he mysteriously disappeared before his eyes.

The day of his marriage seemed to spell the beginning of his downfall. “I saw myself going down to a zero level after we married,” Ikpenwa stated, explaining that employees in his bank stole millions which led to its premature end. Ministry-wise, Ikpenwa admitted that he became ‘an administrative pastor’, confessing that he backslid in his faith and became someone merely “practicing religion, teaching people the Bible without the power.”

In the search for the deliverance of his wife who was regularly plagued with spiritual attacks, Ikpenwa remembered the man he had fought so hard against in the past. Despite banning Emmanuel TV in his house, an instruction that had been passed onto him by his superiors at CAN and PFN, Ikpenwa secretly began watching it.“I started matching the activities I saw with the Scriptures,” he revealed, deciding to go on an investigative mission to The SCOAN incognito to assess for himself.