The SCOAN Choristers, some of whom had on Christmas Eve enjoyed the unique privilege of singing right in the very grotto where baby Jesus had lain in a manger over 2000 years ago, fittingly began their ministration with a traditional Christmas carol: ‘Mary’s boy child’. After performing this song with infectious gusto, they moved on to some of Prophet TB Joshua’s songs that have now come to typify the worship and praise style of The Synagogue, such as ‘Abba Father’, ‘My Helper’ and ‘Holy Spirit Take More of Me’.
Prophet TB Joshua had gone into spiritual seclusion on The Prayer Mountain seeking the face of God on the coming year. For this reason, Prophet Racine announced, God’s servant could not be physically present at ‘The Arena of Liberty’.
However, congregants and viewers saw video clips of the prophet as he sat meditatively on a boulder, with evidence of self-denial reflecting on his person. Meanwhile, in The SCOAN’s tradition of giving, all the elderly members of the church received three bags of rice each, in addition to sharing the sum of two and a half million naira.
For his message titled ‘The World of Truth’, Prophet Racine read from John 18:36-37 to highlight the primacy of truth over falsehood. He noted that those who live in the world of falsehood always end up with things that do not last, such as material things and ‘manufactured joy or peace’ that brings disappointment at the most crucial time. Those who inhabit the world of truth, he explained, will be blessed in their going out and coming in (Deuteronomy 28:6).
Moreover, such people will receive permanent blessings and will be able to overcome whatever challenges they face, since they trust in God and live by the leading of the Spirit only. As such, Prophet Racine added, those who are led by the Spirit tend to value true prophecy, no matter how uncomfortable it might be (2 Chronicles 18). He therefore asked congregants to look forward to a new year of truth. In his words: “Those living in the world of truth embrace God’s kind of lifestyle of positive faith. They leave their imprint in people’s lives in a positive way. They multiply and add to people’s lives. They are channels of love where there is hatred. They are channels of shining light where there is darkness.”
After the message, Prophet Racine, as well as Prophet Chris and Prophetess Yinka, entered the midst of the congregation to minister healing and deliverance during the Laying of Hands and Mass Prayer sessions. This last Sunday of 2019 was indeed another day of instant miracles and testimonies as yokes of affliction were lifted off God’s children.
TESTIMONIES
A FOOTBALLER BOUNCES BACK INTO ACTION!
Miss Sarah Michael, a Nigerian professional footballer based in Sweden had experienced difficulty in walking due to a severe knee injury. Despite surgery and physiotherapy, she had been unable to carry on the sport of football, thus suffering career stagnation. Sarah’s brother had advised her to visit The SCOAN.
As prayers were offered for her in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit went to work on her case, causing her to shed tears of relief. Last Sunday, she returned to church to testify about the problem, which had affected her for about five years.
“I could not get national call-ups or a club contract,” she told the church. Now, Sarah can do the squatting and jumping that she had been unable to do before. She advised people to trust in God.
10 YEARS OF ASTHMA END IN AN INSTANT
“Man of God, please help me. I have had difficulty in breathing due to asthma for 10 years now,” pleaded Mr Musa Sekatane during The SCOAN Sunday Service. Pleading alongside Musa was his mother, who said he would sometimes faint in school. “Even last week he nearly died in the village,” she added. In the mighty name of Jesus, Prophet Chris prayed for both mother and son and declared them free.
However, he prophesied to Musa and asked him to open up to his mother about some things he had hidden from her. Immediately, Musa parted ways with his nebuliser. In his testimony on Sunday, Musa said he was a regular visitor to hospitals and that he frequently needed his mother’s help. “It affected my confidence and I could not sleep easily,” he added. Now, he no longer needs his nebuliser, inhaler or drugs. Confirming the prophecy, Musa said he had been smoking, fornicating and using his parents’ car without their permission, a confession that had shocked his mother. Not able to pursue his ambition of playing rugby, Musa had felt left out of all the fun he could catch. He is therefore grateful to God for his perfect healing. “Now I can easily run for 10 kilometres,” Musa boasted. He advised children to honour their parents so they can live long.
“I WENT FROM HEPATITIS B POSITIVE TO HEPATITIS B NEGATIVE”
For 15 long years, Ms Josephine Kumedjina had Hepatitis B. Every six months, she would have a medical check-up but the condition persisted. After discovering Emmanuel TV, she began praying along with Prophet TB Joshua. Having built her faith, she visited The SCOAN and received The New Morning Water.
She returned home and started ministering the water on herself while asking God to flush the disease out of her body. Once she realised she no longer felt dizzy, Josephine returned to her doctors, who tested her comprehensively and found that she no longer had Hepatitis B.“Are you the same person we tested before?” the doctors asked Ms Josephine Kumedjina.
“I went from Hepatitis B positive to Hepatitis B negative,” she told the church. To the further glory of God, Josephine received her Irish citizenship after years of being denied due to police cases. She had ministered the Morning Water on her documents before sending them to the authorities. She advised people to believe in God.
DELIVERED FROM CHRONIC CONSTIPATION AND URGE FOR DRINKING
For half of her life, 44-year-old Botswana national Ms Kedib Lesego had chronic constipation that forced her to depend on a water enema to flush out her colon. At her England base, Kedi had tried all sorts of laxative and consulted a diverse range of doctors and consultants without finding a lasting cure.
All she heard was, “You have slow bowel movement.” After a touch by Prophet TB Joshua earlier this year, 2019, the pharmacist received her perfect healing and returned to church last Sunday to testify to God’s greatness. “After the touch, I felt light and experienced movement in my stomach.
Since then, I have not needed to use the colon irrigator,” she disclosed. She also said she received her deliverance from the urge to drink alcohol by simply praying along on Emmanuel TV. “I started screaming and yelling and I could not control what was happening. I screamed and laughed three times that morning.” She said that from then on she lost the urge to drink alcohol. “Jesus Christ is real and He is the Healer,” she told the church.
WENDY’S DEAFNESS VANISHES AFTER LIVING WATER MINISTRATION
Two Mondays ago, South African Ms Wendy Jack had attended The SCOAN Living Water Service as a partially deaf person.
A certain liquid used to ooze out of her right ear and it would cause her to be hard of hearing, forcing her to read the lips of those talking to her.
After communing with God on The Mountain of Prayer, Wendy went on to drink The Living Water before letting some of it into her ears. Moments later, she began vomiting the evil deposits in her system. During her testimony on Sunday, she said she had been virtually deaf for 15 years.
She told the church, “I could not hear the person sitting next to me and I would not know why people were laughing. In Winter, I used to be totally deaf.” As a caterer, Wendy found it hard to sustain her business, as the discharge from her ears was a turn-off. Now, Wendy can hear perfectly in both ears. She advised people not to lose hope in God’s ability to set them free.
COUPLE HEALED OF 12 YEARS OF ABDOMINAL HERNIA AND INSOMNIA
Mother of four daughters Mrs Ngozi Adetola had abdominal hernia for 12 years, following the birth of her last child. After either of two surgeries, the hernia had simply shown up elsewhere in her abdomen, with her intestines threatening to burst out if she did not tie a band around her stomach.
For Ngozi, eating was not a source of joy, no matter the delicacy set before her; she could not even drink water without fearing for her comfort. Instead of having a third surgery, Ngozi decided to visit The SCOAN, where she attended The Living Water Service. “I could only lay on the bed face-up and I had to wear a very tight garment to keep the intestines in place,” she added.,” she told the church as she explained that her intestines constantly caused her discomfort.
Ngozi said that her legs became weak as she tried to climb on The SCOAN Mountain of Prayer. After communing with God and moving to where she would take The Living Water, Ngozi found herself overpowered by God’s healing power and she fell to the floor. “I got up a new person entirely,” she said. “I don’t wear the bands anymore and I now sleep and eat a lot,” she said, beaming excitedly. Treasure Adetola, the child whose birth had worsened her mother’s hernia, thanked God for ending “the problem of 12 years in just a moment.” Ngozi advised people saying, “No matter how you’re your problem might have lasted, believe in God”.
Before Ngozi received her healing that Monday, her husband, Michael, had been in church the previous day to testify about his own earlier healing from insomnia. “For one month I had insomnia,” he began, adding that he had had to be rushed to the hospital from work one morning as he prepared for some crucial meetings.
As doctors subjected Michael to different tests, he became alarmed about the state of his health and when he informed a medical practitioner among his siblings he became even more worried at his brother’s troubled reaction.
In the end, the doctors placed Michael on drugs. Yet, from July 23rd to August 24th 2019, Michael found no sleep! On August 25th, as Michael made his way into The SCOAN and knelt in prayer, a sensation travelled from his knees up to his chest. What happened afterwards was that sleep “embarrassed” him right there in church. Once he returned to his hotel room, Michael slept and slept and slept! He advised people to realise that distance is not a barrier to the Spirit of God.
CHRONIC PILES OF NINE YEARS GONE FOR GOOD!
For a good nine years, Mr George Michael, a safety officer, had chronic piles that not only gave him pains but also embarrassed him with blood stains. In faith, he attended The SCOAN Living Water Service.
As he spoke to God on The Mountain of Prayer, God’s power fell upon him and he began to scratch away at his anal region. Afterwards, he began vomiting the poisonous substances in his system.
To the glory of God, George sat fully on his bottom for the first time in nine years! In his testimony last Sunday, he told of the inconveniences he suffered at his office and that he had to hide his condition from colleagues, knowing they had no solution to it.
However, since his healing, George has been enjoying a new lease of life. George’s wife, Queen, thanked God for saving him from embarrassment. “Trust in God,” she advised viewers and congregants.
JUDI GETS HEALING FOR HER SIGHT DURING MEGA LIVING WATER SERVICE
All the way from Chile, South America, Mrs Judi Jimenez and her husband, Gilberto, were at The SCOAN last Sunday to testify to the fact that distance is no barrier to the move of the Holy Spirit.
For 11 years, Judi had been unable to see, read or drive without using glasses, even after having one of her eyes operated upon. Tired of depending on medicated glasses for sight, Judi began praying along with Prophet TB Joshua on Emmanuel TV. Her healing came during the Mega Living Water Service held in September 2019. As the couple followed the live broadcast, they placed a glass of water close to their laptop. “Son of David, have mercy on me. Let Your mercy speak for me,” Judi prayed. Then she applied the water on her eyes and her sight was blurry when she opened her eyes.
She applied the water the second time and her sight became clear. Since then, she can see, read and drive without her glasses. To prove her healing, Judi read the Spanish version of a printed SCOAN sermon. “Connect to God by faith and you will get my kind of miracle,” she advised people. Speaking on his wife’s healing, Gilberto said he had gone to Cali, Colombia in 2014 hoping to attend The SCOAN Crusade held there but had been unable to enter due to the large crowd. Gilberto said he encouraged his wife to watch Emmanuel TV and follow The Mega Living Water Service so that she could receive her healing. To the glory of God, she did –and the rest is history. He advised people to follow Emmanuel TV in faith.
FORMER DRUGS DEALER HEALED OF PROSTATE CANCER
Until two Sundays ago, he had been known to most people as Justice Andy Nwosu, although his real name was Samuel Otti. During that Sunday Service, Prophet TB Joshua had spoken, “There is a gentleman there – your name is Samuel. The reason why I called you by name is because of what happened to you. You dropped this name because of a lot of things that happened to you in the past.”
The man of God then added that what Samuel needed was deliverance, not a change of name. The man in question had promptly come out to confirm the prophecy. Last Sunday, he was back in church to testify about it all. A Nigerian living in Mozambique, Samuel said he had opted to change his name 15 years ago as an international drug dealer who frequently had to swallow drugs. Due to his constant ingestion of drugs, Samuel had developed prostate cancer. As he could no longer urinate by himself, his doctors fitted him with a catheter.
By this time, Samuel had in fact been passing out blood instead of urine. At last Monday’s Living Water Service, a day after the prophecy, he ministered the water on his private part and he immediately felt a hot sensation in his stomach area. Now he has stopped using the catheter and no longer urinates blood. Neither does he feel pain in his stomach area. He advised the youths to avoid the death trap known as the drugs trade and to resist the urge to make it big at all costs.
PROPHECY BANISHES BLEEDING
“There is a woman bleeding there!” so rang out Prophet TB Joshua’s voice as the Holy Spirit spoke through him on The SCOAN Altar two weeks ago. Within moments, a slim woman came into view as she walked out from among the congregation.
She was Mrs Christiana Russel, a Nurse from Nigeria’s Nassarawa State, and she had stepped out to confirm the prophecy. She then went into the restroom to check herself. To the eternal glory of God, the blood had dried up by the time she wiped herself again after discarding the initial pad. On Sunday, she was in church to testify officially.
The nurse said that she would have body pains, constant dizzy feeling and would be unable to sleep well but all that is in the past now. “Believe in God; there is nothing He cannot do,” she advised.
DELIVERED FROM SPIRIT OF LUST, SMOKING AND DRUNKENNESS
“Where is your mum,” Prophet TB Joshua had asked Ms Palesa Tswai. “She is in South Africa,” she answered. “What happened?” the man of God probed on. “Erm…,” she hesitated, and God’s servant filled the gap by telling her she was being raised by a single parent. He then went on,
“What you are facing now is you are not satisfied; it is an attack.” With a wave of the hand, Prophet TB Joshua ordered out the evil spirit in Palesa as she thrashed briefly on the floor. That was in April 2019. Last Sunday, Palesa came back to The SCOAN to glorify God’s name, unable to hold back her tears of joy. She told the story of her troubled growing-up years and how she had sought comfort in smoking and promiscuity. She said her father might have been physically around her but he had shown no interest whatsoever in her and had failed to provide for her. For 14 years, right from her school days to work life, Although she had a praying mother, Palesa had remained under the power of booze, smoke and lust. Finally in the bid to find meaning for her life, Palesa had turned to Emmanuel TV. She said that one night in 2016, while Emmanuel TV was on in her room, she felt a male figure scream itself out of her body. “I felt light when I woke up the following morning,” she recalled. And since her physical presence at The SCOAN in April for deliverance, Palesa has gained a free spirit, no longer encumbered by lust or the urge for smoke and booze. More important, she is no longer suicidal. She advised people not to limit God but to believe in His reality. “I feel like I know God now,” she asserted.
PROFESSORIAL BREAKTHROUGH AFTER MINISTRATION OF ANOINTED ITEMS
But for his visit to The SCOAN and the subsequent ministration of The Morning Water and Good Morning Sticker that he took home, a certain Dr Inetiminebi Ogidi who would most likely have remained an Associate Professor. For 17 years, he had been stagnant in his career even though he had studied in Nigeria, the USA and Russia, where he bagged his PhD and worked for several years before taking up a lecturing job as Senior Lecturer at a university in Bayelsa, southern Nigeria.
Apart from his career stagnation, Dr Inetiminebi had also been trusting God to heal him of prostate enlargement. Years later, he became an ardent viewer of Emmanuel TV, when he visited The SCOAN. He received his instant healing after being prayed for at the church and Inetiminebi trusted Jesus Christ this time around regarding the promotion that had unjustly been denied him since 2006.
He decided to minister The Morning Water on his documents before sending them off to the promotion committee, even as he also inserted the sticker in the envelope. Two months later, the documents returned with a stamp of approval and today Inetiminebi is Professor of Plant Breeding and Seed Production.
Moreover, Professor Ogidi won election as a Member of Council and later became Dean of Faculty of Agriculture by appointment. Speaking in a lighter vein, Professor Ogidi’s wife said she had trusted in God’s delivering power through the New Morning Water and Stickers. She therefore advised people to believe in God’s anointing on The SCOAN’s spiritual tools. “Delay is not denial; your time is coming,” Professor Ogidi advised the church and viewers.
MAN ON BRINK OF SUICIDE SAVED THROUGH PROPHECY
“There is a gentleman here – you have a pill. Can I call it a tablet, a drug? You have suicidal thoughts…. You have made an attempt in the past but you dropped it. This time around, you are very close to the grave…. You want to go; you are tired of everything. Please come forward; this is an attack.”
That prophecy, given by Prophet TB Joshua, was for Mr Simon Izekor, an Edo State indigene who had planned to end it all by overdosing on a prescription drug. Last Sunday, he returned to church with his wife, daughter and family members to testify about the impact of the prophecy on his life. The estate agent said he had piled up debts running into millions of naira as he began to suffer spiritual attacks of eating and making love in the dream. Frustrated by his financial predicament, he became violent and would batter his wife at the slightest provocation, transferring his aggression to the daughter who sometimes dared to intervene. Earlier this year, his wife moved out of the home as relations broke down between them. Realising the error of his ways, Simon approached his wife with an olive branch. “Please let’s return home,” he begged.
The situation worsened when robbers broke into their home and brutalised his wife, who subsequently moved out of the place with her children. An evil voice would creep into his head saying: “Leave that woman now and go and kill yourself. After all, you’re a nobody now. Just end it all.” He obeyed the voice, went home and fetched the gallon of acid he had tucked in a corner. “This one will be too hot for me,” the voice of reason spoke through him. Instead, he went for the prescription drugs in question and shook out the 40 tablets in the can, each being 500mg. His mouth filled with water, he was now ready to gulp down the tablets and send himself to eternity. But a divine phone call stayed his hand. And who else was calling at that fateful moment but his estranged yet loving and forgiving wife?
After hesitating for a few seconds, he picked up the call, swallowed the water and alarmed his wife: “Take care of my children.” She brought him back to reality, “What are you doing? Are you trying to kill yourself? Do you want to go to hell fire?” Simon repeated his instruction and then cut the call. But his wife gave him no rest and called back again telling him, “If you kill yourself, you will go to hell fire!” And a divine calmness descended upon Simon. He would no longer be killing himself, for God had taken control! His wife drove down within minutes and took him away. She then got him the sum of 20 thousand naira and sent him off to The SCOAN. Luckily for the family, God’s servant discerned Simon’s problem and he has now entered into a new beginning. He advised people to believe in God’s power to solve all problems. His wife advised people to move close to God.