Senior Pastor, Lagos-based Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo, speaks on the rampaging coronavirus, why it may be punishment controversy and the church. He also attempted an answer to the controversy of pastors not coming out to display their healing prowess at this time. He spoke with Gboyega Alaka.
A LOT of people are saying that the Coronavirus pandemic is a sign of the end-time. What do you say to this?
Well, it could have been the end-time in 1918 when there was a pandemic like this; it could have been a sign of the end-time in 1820 when there was a pandemic like this. This is part of the evolution of the life of man; nobody really knows when the end-time will come and there have been many similar signs and signs. All I know is that God is not happy with man, God is not happy with the state of things and he has permitted this pandemic to happen to tell man a few things. I think the nearest thing to it is this issue of vaccination and the ingraination of man with chips. In places like Sweden and Norway, it’s almost becoming like a lifestyle for people to have chips in their body. If it had not happened for vaccination, it would have happened for currency, for traveling or identification and communication. But what people like Bill Gates are advocating is that men should have a chip somewhere in there body, that they can use for carrying their records and stuff – almost like the telephone that we carry about. People are saying it’s the sign of 666, it’s this, it’s that; yeah, that’s the way the world is going, and very soon, the whole thing will come to an end. So we’re waiting.
There have been stories that Christians should not take this vaccination, that it’s a way of bringing the sign of the antichrist to past…
It’s there in the book of Revelation, Ezekiel and others, that a time will come when people will not be able to buy and sell, unless they have a sign on their heads. But you see, a lot of evil have been reigning in the world for years and a lot of people have been in charge of the world – if you like, Antichrists. But we live with them and cope with them. However, we must find a spiritual alternative and a basis of making sure that we do not co-operate with the forces of evil. And this is not just about rejecting the microchip, it’s about refusal to properly pursue God. So, I do not think the chip itself is evil, if we need it to move about; it is what it represents that we must be careful about. It is what comes with it that we must be careful about. The other time, it was Obama who offered Nigeria aids, if we could change our laws to accept gay rights. That was totally unacceptable. We will not sell our birthright for a morsel of bread. So if this chip is going to come with certain conditions that will negate the worship of God, then we reject it. But if the chip is totally unconditional, and we need it to move about, then why not? You might as well say you want to reject a phone. Who goes about today without a phone? And don’t forget, we even use this phone to propagate the gospel of God. So we need to be very careful and not be too parochial about the way we Christians view things.
You’re saying the development is not antithetical to God’s wishes.
Honestly, I do not think so.
Some people have sighted that part of the Bible, where God got angry with David for counting the people and he lost 70,000 soldiers. Isn’t the world heading the same way with this chip stuff?
There was a reason God told David not to do the counting at that time. Don’t forget that there was a census when they left Egypt and when they were going to cross into the promise land. What God said was that, ‘David, it is not in your place to count the children of Isreal at this time and ascribe to yourself the position of godship and control.’ What happened then is what happening today. God brought a plague that killed 70,000 innocent people because of one leadership mistake. Part of why we are having coronavirus today is because of the various leadership mistakes that we’ve been having and sins that people have been committing.
There is a man called Jonathan Chan; he is what you call a messianic Jew who believes in Jesus Christ. He stood on Capitol Hill about five years ago and told the people of America that America was beginning to go down, that America will go down, because they were doing what the children of Isreal did 2,500 years ago, rejecting God – the God on whom America was built 226 years ago. And this is exactly what is happening in America today, where the economy is going down, where gay rights activists are moving up and down and you don’t know who is a man and who is a woman; debauchery all over the place. So we’ve seen it before. The Babylonians came, they left; the Romans came, they left; the Egyptians came, they left; same for the Greek, the British; the Americans came, they are on their way out. Because each one of them rejected the principles of God. The principles of God cannot change. People should know that if there is a God, God has principles and we must obey them.
There is the 5G/COVID-19 controversy, where some are saying that it is the radioactive effect of the 5G technology that is causing these deaths.
I don’t know who really is against the 5G and where the propaganda is coming from. I do not think that it is 5G that is causing coronavirus, although technology and radiation has its effect on human health. I know that if you don’t manage radioactive ingredients properly, it may damage human health, but not in the manner we are currently witnessing. It causes long term cancer, lung diseases; but this one is a virus, a biological virus that has picked up on men. The radioactivity may affect the immune system of man and make your system weak, but if you don’t contract the virus, it will not get into your nose or mouth and affect your lungs.
Do you have an idea where the controversy is coming from?
The world is being controlled by some powerful people for the love of money, people throwing all manners of information to control the mind of people. So I suspect there is a war between the owners of the technology of 5G and the owners of some other technology that wants to bring it down.
You think America is coming up with this 5G/Covid-19 blackmail to wage a ‘war’ against China?
I know America well enough now to know that there is nothing they cannot do. When they want to sell arms, they make Syria fight Iraq, they make Israel fight Jordan. America will go to Sudan and cause a war, go to Libya and kill a Ghadaffi…. They do al all sorts of things. Their own love is money and the control of the world. And they think it is their right to call themselves the policeman of the world. What right do they have to have nuclear weapons and tell North Korea they cannot have it? And they do all sorts of things to bring everybody else down. The whole world is not about America. And that’s why I’m not happy with us Africans, because we cannot come together. We cannot think, cooperate and unite to face the world together. We allowed them to take us into captivity, enslave us, colonise us, change our minds, mess up our people. Africans must wake up and smell the coffee.
A lot of people on the social media are taking a dig at the church, especially pastors, who claim to have healing powers; that they have all of a sudden, gone quiet now that the world needs healing. How would you react to this?
When people criticise you, it is an opportunity for you to look inwards and really search yourself. I think the image that we pastors have portrayed to the world is the issue. When pastors are riding all over the place in expensive cars, shouting all over the place about tithes and offerings, flying around in private jets; when we don’t really care about the poor people. You know there are some pastors who say, ‘I’m not called to the poor,’ and chase the poor people away. The church must go back to true Christian teaching; they must stop empire building. Some of us simply want our churches to be full, so that we can have huge tithe offering and live big life. But this is not to say that the church is not praying against this pandemic. The church is ready to go out and feed the poor and truly heal the sick.
I need you to respond to that part about pastors who claim to have healing powers not coming forth.
I don’t know why they are not coming forth but nobody should be afraid to pray for people; healing comes from God. Any pastor who ascribes to himself the power to heal is telling a lie. The Bible says that even Jesus, when he went to Nazareth where he was born, he could not heal people, because they doubted him. But the same Bible says that he went to some places and the power of healing was available to him. My job as a pastor is to pray as God has led me. It is God’s job to respond to my prayer. In our church, we pray and people are healed; we pray and miracles and signs and wonders happen. And I am prepared to go to those places to pray along with my colleagues, and leave the healing to God.
About palliatives, what is the church doing to cushion the effects of this lockdown on their not so well-off members?
I know that quite a lot of churches are preparing food packs and giving to the needy; our church is one of them. The problem with Nigeria is that it is a day-to-day economy for about 80% of the people. For most people, if they don’t go out in a day to labour, they cannot feed. And this shows the soft underbelly of our economy. So we’re trying to prepare food as palliative to feed those people. The number of phone calls I receive from people who tell me they have not eaten has tripled since this lockdown began. Now I receive almost 30 calls every day. The church is also going to provide medical supplies. It’s my birthday tomorrow (Monday April 6) by the way and we have this plan to, as a church, support the government and the various isolation centres with medical supplies. Finally, the church is praying. These are the three things I think the church can do. But one thing I’m advocating as a leader and a man of God, is that whatever the government has asked us to do, we should please try and do. A lot of people are confused about this stay at home, be isolated directive. And I don’t think the government has communicated properly enough. It is not a punishment, it is not punitive, it is preventative. This virus goes by contact and there are people who carry it, who do not know that they carry it and all they need to do is to come near enough to somebody, touch people or talk into the air and the things goes out and bounces on people. And the more people that contract this virus, the more difficult it is for government to control and the more it spreads. So it is better for people to stay within the confines of a certain zone, so they don’t go about spreading it.
Most importantly, we all need to begin to fear God again, worship God and begin to rid our land of evil. God is a bit angry. That’s why he allowed this kind of thing.
As a pastor, do you see an end to this pandemic soon enough, globally?
Everything that has a beginning has an ending. In 1820, it started, it ended; in 1920, it started, it ended. The plague in the UK started, it ended. I think in about six months time, maximum nine, this thing will be total history. But we would have learnt the lesson and we would have tightened our environment. We would have overcome it probably through medication. And it will be like any common flu that we all do vaccination against. You know there was a time that flu was a problem, there was a time yellow fever was a problem, there was a time cholera was a problem but with the help of God and knowledge of science, we overwhelmed and overcame them and they became part of our lives and we take the necessary control over them.