Of miracle money, instant weight loss etc

Of miracle money, instant weight

loss and other later day marvels

By Moses Magadza

WINDHOEK - Wide-eyed and with her little heart pounding with excitement, a teenage girl hurried into her house from an all-night religious function in Katutura here recently.

“Daddy,” she said to her father, “you missed out! We saw miracles. Fat people were losing weight through prayer. Some people who had cell phones with flat batteries or had no credit in their cell phones suddenly realised that their batteries had been miraculously fully charged and their accounts had been credited with money and they could make even international calls.”

She was waxing lyrical about miracles, signs and wonders that were presumably performed by a visiting prophet before thousands of hopeful people in Sam Nujoma Stadium recently. However, not everyone who attended the miracle crusade was as impressed as the teenager. One man who was promised miracle cash deposits into his bank account said recently that he believed he had been misled.

“I am still waiting for my miracle. We are living in very interesting times in which we are bombarded by countless so-called miracle workers,” the bewildered man said on condition he was not named.

Are we INDEED living in times of more miracles and marvels?

Dr Ezekiel Kwembeya, founder and leader of Rest and Restoration Ministries which has its headquarters in Namibia, does not think much has changed from the Old Testament times.

Dr Ezekiel Kwembeya, founder and leader of Rest and Restoration Ministries

The only difference, he opines, is that in the past the church demonised everything to do with power and became an organisation in which people just waited to go to heaven. 

Multiple ‘power points’

“In the Old Testament power and the church, as represented by Israel, were synonymous,” he said during an interview, adding that what presents a dilemma for today’s believer is the fact that it is not only the church that can operate in power and miracles. 

“The spiritual world is a real world. You can plug into it from various power points. That’s why people need to know which ‘frequency’ they are tapping into,” he warned.

He may well be right. In the Old Testament Moses burst onto the scene and plugged into the power of God and performed miracles as God strove to free the Israelites from Pharaoh’s yoke. However, the Egyptian magicians also plugged into some other powers and tried to outdo Moses. They could draw some supernatural power from somewhere and perform signs and wonders in convincing fashion.

Wheat and tares

With the average believer now seemingly at a crossroads, Kwembeya argues that signs, wonders, miracles and power should not be the determining factors in what is right and what is not right.

“You need something more substantial than that; something of substance to delineate these two. I believe that it’s the doctrine or the teaching of the word that separates what we believe and what the dark world believes.”

Elder Makenzi Mateta of Forward and Faith Ministries concurs. 

Elder Makenzi Mateta

“Every (Christian) needs to be acquainted with the Bible to be able to test, discern and actually tell false from true. Gone are the days when people couldn’t even quote a single verse; when all they knew of the Bible was what had been preached to them.”

Signs of the times?

The apparent proliferation of miracle workers including those that perform signs and wonders “just to show off” disturbs but does not surprise Mateta. 

“The Bible warns that a time will come when many people will emerge claiming to be or of Jesus Christ,” he says. 

While acknowledging that it is dangerous to prematurely judge people on the basis of the miracles they perform, Kwembeya said believers should be on the lookout for consistency in the words and deeds of people who claim to be able to perform miracles.

“The Bible says you shall know them by their fruit. A tree is known by its fruit more than by how it appears vegetatively.”

He believes that every miracle should have a message or a lesson, lest it degenerates into exhibitionism or mere brinkmanship.

“There must be an eternal principle that God wants to convey.”

Crooks in hard times

Apostle Haruna Goroh of Jesus Center

Apostle Haruna Goroh, the leader of Jesus Center Church in Katutura believes in miracles and says Jesus commissioned his disciples to preach the gospel and promised them that signs or miracles would follow “those who believe”. 

Says Goroh: “Jesus told his disciples that they would cast out demons in his name, that if they drank anything deadly or poisonous it would not hurt them, that if they laid their hands upon the sick, they would recover.” 

However, given the prevailing hard socioeconomic times, Goroh would not put it past some unscrupulous magicians “like the person who predicted the outcome during the recently-ended World Cup in Brazil” to emerge and mislead desperate people.

Stressing that Jesus never repeated the same miracle, Goroh says that some of the miracles that are either being promised or performed these days fly in the face of what the Bible teaches.

“When God created man and put him in the Garden of Eden, he did not tell him that he would eat miraculous food without working… God designed man to work … The Bible says he who does not work should not eat.” 

He reasons that the fact that God created the world through a lot of hard work over six days only to rest on the seventh day “is proof that proportionally, people should do more work than resting”. 

Goroh maintains that miracles only happen during emergencies, “when the supernatural power comes for a season to disrupt or short-circuit the flow of the natural because somebody is in danger and cannot naturally come out of that trouble.”

He said nowadays a lot of dishonest people who are driven by the desire to grow their churches and their personal bank accounts were trying all sorts of things. 

“I know that there are instances in the Bible in which people were anointed with oil. I have also done it. However, the dividing line between when it is man or God doing it is very blurred. Nevertheless, when attention shifts from God to man; when attention is no longer on Jesus but on a human being, you can be sure (that it is all fake).”

Goroh said there was nothing like miracle money. 

“Nowhere in the Bible is it said you will find money in your bank account without working for it. This is fraud and those who are claiming to be making miracle money need to be in jail. Such activities are fraudulent. If we perform those kinds of miracles, we would bring the whole workforce to a standstill; nobody would have to go to work. There is no miracle weight loss,” he said, adding that there were places in the world where some people learn “those things.”

He said there was evidence that some unscrupulous people were using magic to grow their churches.

“Because of lack of knowledge, many people can be caught up in these things. People must read the bible for themselves to find out the truth,” he said. 

While acknowledging that God can perform miracles, Goroh says people cannot live on miracles or off them. God, he said, wants things that are sustainable; things that mould character through perseverance.

His view is that there are many tricksters on the loose taking advantage of people who just want quick solutions and short cuts.

Dr Archford Musodza

Dr Archford Musodza, an expert in church history, said many of today’s so-called miracles are suspicious and self-centred.

“A cursory view of the Old and the New Testament will show that miracles were meant to bring glory to God and not self. They were meant to enhance and save life.”

Musodza said in what some scholars have called the messianic secret, Jesus never publicised the miracles that He performed, possibly to avoid drawing attention from the Kingdom and the gospel to Himself. These days the media rings with advertisements of so-called miracle workers.

“These new miracle workers are dubious, spurious gold diggers,” he said.

It seems that unless and until people acquire knowledge to be able to tell the wheat from the tares, many of them, like the excited teenage girl who believes she saw miracles, will continue to be misled.

-moses.magadza@gmail.com