Pastor Stephen Rathod, Senior
Pastor of The Covenant Family Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, has known and been
associated with Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed
Christian Church of God and his ministry for over 40 years; long before he
became the leader of the church. He held the congregation seated with rapt attention
in heavy silence on Thursday, the fourth day of 2019 Annual Holy Ghost Congress
of the church at the Redemption Camp.
As a man with Nigerian friends,
through one of who he became a Born Again Christian, he was privileged to
hostsome of the many Nigerians who went to Tulsa in the 1970s for Camp
meetings, which was popular then.
He became the host of an RCCG
delegation, led by its founder, Pastor Josiah Akindayomi (1909–1980).
Pastor Rathod played host to them
regularly and became a close friend of Pastor Adeboye, and even more.
“I have served for 40 years! I am
Daddy GO’s host; I was his bag boy; I picked his bags and put them in his car.
I was his driver, his dry cleaner, and his secretary – calling people, setting
up meetings, “he said on Thursday night.
Rathod was in the hotel room of
Pa Akindayomi in Tulsa, where he solemnly declared that Pastor Adeboye would be
his successor.
He was there when the subsequent
prayer shook the foundation of the hotel to make its management suspect the
occupants were playing some powerful instruments.
The relationship between the two
pastors is known to many but when Rathod, an Indian-American pastor, who
preaches around the world, said he was going to speak about the Adeboye family,
close watchers of Pastor Adeboye wondered how he would take any eulogy.
The surprisingly humble man, in
spite of his towering image, believes that all glory should go to God. He looks
uncomfortable when he is being praised and a source said during such moments,
he transfers the praise to God by praising Him.
Perhaps luckily for him, Pastor
Rathod did not use any superlative language.
He spoke mostly about how
upholding faith and holiness by Pastor Adeboye has caused the church’s
phenomenal growth in Nigeria; and spreadto 198 countries.
He also recalled some of the
challenges Pastor Adeboye faced. There was pin-drop silence as Rathod continued
to reveal the favourite Daddy of the congregation.
And it got very emotional when he
invited one of the children of the Adeboyes to the altar, and said, “In the
early 1980s, all the children who hanged around the Camp, they were rich kids.
They all schooled in England, but my children stayed at home.
“Every morning when we had family
meetings – Mummy GO, Daddy GO, myself and the children, we cried, and prayed.
“Andthis is what the Lord said:
Let us continue to live holy, let us continue to serve God for a day will come,
my children will not only go to England they will go to all over the world!
Look now, what the Lord has done!”
One could hear some members of
the congregation sobbing; some cleaned their wet eyes.
When the cameras picked Pastor Adeboye
and his wife, they looked their usual calm, with no trace of emotions on their
faces.
Rathod also said the couple
donates up to 60 per cent of their income to charity.
Rathod, who held the congregation
spellbound with the story of Pastor Adeboye, ended by asking him for prayers.
He laid his right hand on Rathod
and prayed:”Father, I pray that You will lay Your Mighty hands on your son,
afresh, and anoint him so mightily today.
That he would stand firm on the doctrine of holiness. So that he will
finish well, and finish strong.
“And I commit all your children,
who are also saying; from now on, it will be holiness or nothing! As many of them as would genuinely return to
this foundation, anoint them afresh.
“And Lord God Almighty, as many
as have seen the Fruits of Holiness in The Redeemed Christian Church of God,
and who would say; This would be our own doctrine. Father, let it be well with
them all.
“Please, Lord, send Help to us;
Help us remain strong. Help us to remain Faithful. And let it be well with all
of us!
“Your son (Pastor Stephen Rathod)
has been with us for Forty (40) years; if you delay your coming for many more
years: I pray that together we will keep on preaching the gospel, healing the
sick, casting out demons, raising the dead and doing the will of God.
In Jesus’ Mighty Name, we have
prayed – Amen!
God bless you!”
Some Adeboye watchers noticed a
slight quake in his voice when he commenced. Even though Rathod tried to crack
some jokes during the presentation but it did little to reduce the tense atmosphere.
Guest Pastors
There were other guest pastors
for the night who were warmly received by the congregation. Big names like Dr
Mercy Ezekiel, who spoke and prayed for families; Rev Dr. Feiix Omobude, leader
of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, prayed for the Church in Nigeria;
Prophet S.K. Abiara spoke on evangelism; while Bishop Wale Oke spoke all “All
things become new”
All the sermons and presentations
at the Congress are transcribed by the Discovery Media Crew.
There were varied music presentations
from choirs from other countries and the RCCG Mass Choir.
Amazing miracles were shared by
people and response to the altar call was massive.
Pastor Adeboye
Keeping to the theme of the
Congress, which devoted much time to prayers for turnaround, Pastor Adeboye
spoke on the need for praying when he mounted the pulpit to close the day.
He noted that we pray to God
Almighty because the spiritual controls the physical and what happens in the
physical realm is decided in the spiritual.
And because God owns the world,
He owns all because he made all and controls all: Heaven is His throne and the
earth His footstool.
All those are reasons, he said we
need to go to Him always through prayers.
But he explained that prayers are
in categories:
“There is casual prayer; the kind
of prayer we pray when we are tired or when we are in a hurry.
“There is regular prayer, called
the Lord’s prayer in Mathew 6: 6-13. That is the prayer most Christians pray.
“Desperate prayer is the one used
by people in desperate need for help.It doesn’t follow protocol; it is urgent
and intense.
It is the kind of prayer Peter
prayed when he was sinking during his walk on water to meet Jesus. He just
shouted, “Lord help!”
It is the kind of prayer Jacob
prayed until he wrestled with a spiritual being.
“Desperate prayer is forceful,
violent and it is answered quickly.
It arrests the attention of
heaven; the attention of the one who never fails.
Jesus was leaving Jericho when He
heard Blind Bartimaeus’ Desperate Prayer, and He “stood still”
“Paul and Silas prayed it in
prison and there was an earthquake.”
He gave his own example of how he
prayed it at the Redemption Camp years ago to tell God he didn’t want to be an
ordinary pastor, which caused an earth tremor that was felt in some other parts
of Ogun State.
“In those days, nobody lived at
the Redemption Camp. I am sure some of the elders of the church would remember
when one day an antelope bumped into our Ministers’ Conference. Poor animal, it
ended up in the stomach of some people.
Early in the morning every
Tuesday, I would leave our house in Mushin for the Camp and be there until
Thursday morning when I went to the Headquarters for Faith Clinic. The only
other people in the Camp then were the carpenters who were working, and they
would stop as soon as it is dark and retire for the day.
But I wanted to seek Him; I
wanted to be alone; with no noise and nothing to distract me. One night – I
remember that night like yesterday – I prayed: “Father, I surrender all; it is
only you now; that is all I want. I don’t want to be an ordinary pastor.
Please, I am not seeking anything else. Not seeking for gold, not seeking for
clothes, not seeking for fame; I want you to empower me so I can do this work.
And if you are not going to do it, take me away.”
That day, He answered, and there
was a tremor in the Camp. The tremor went as far as Ijebu Ode where pictures
that hung on the wall were dropping.
When you seek God with all your
heart; when you seek Him in desperation, you will find Him.”
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