Despite the title of this article and the content thereof I wish to start by stating once again to those who might have one or two reasons to doubt it, that I am without any doubt a Pastor and a Christian. Sometimes when someone begins to question our religious status quo, the response one would often get would be like “this guy is either backslidden or is not a Christian at all”. I however intentionally titled this article “ONLY GOD CAN SAVE NIGERIA” – WHAT A MYTH! I want the title to catch the attention of the readers so they could question their reasoning.

Thanks to my hyper activeness on Facebook of late, I have come to be a little bit familiar with the mindsets of my people. One of those mindsets is what I want to throw light into today. I hope this is not true, but facts abound to the affirmation that most Christians in my nation Nigeria and all around the world, would rather pray to God to come and fix their country than do something about it themselves.

With all due respect, coupled with the fact that I am a Pastor myself, I probably understand where people who say such things are coming from. But for the sake of progress, I beg to disagree with such a stand.

ONLY GOD CAN SAVE NIGERIA? NO, SIR; THAT IS A MYTH!!!

Even though God rules in the affairs of men, yet the earth is not God’s jurisdiction. He only rules in the affairs of men either by the invitation of man or to save man from some self-inflicted dangers. Otherwise God indeed has given the earth to the control of man.

“The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men.” Psalms 115:16

From the scripture above we can see that the domain of God is primarily heaven. That is where he has limited himself to. He has chosen to make the heavens his jurisdiction while at the same time he himself makes it very clear that the earth has been given to man as man’s sphere of influence. The earth therefore is not God’s jurisdiction. It is man’s jurisdiction. The earth is man’s domain. Man therefore is responsible for what transpires here.

SONS OF GOD WAKE UP!!!

I am however, not overly concerned about sons of men. My primary concern lies with sons of God that is, children of God who are supposed to know better. At least they go to church, they pray to God, they read the Bible. But, ironically, the believers have done worse in exploring the earth than the sons of men who are not even believers have done. It is clear looking at statistics of inventions, discoveries and fortune 500 companies, that it is not the believers that are managing the affairs of the earth. What a tragedy!!!

Why is this so? Is it because believers are a nation of mediocre? No, I personally don’t believe so. But I do know that every man produces only to the capacity of their philosophies of life or doctrines as we Christians call it.

The doctrines that have been preached in our churches in Africa and globally has not been helpful for believers to dominate the earth. We have mainly been taught to just stay in the church, be faithful, serve the church, and serve the man of God. Make sure you make heaven, don’t sin, be holy and you won’t go to hell. Mission accomplished!!!

Even though all these truths have their place, yet we have largely abandoned the second part of the gospel that is supposed to deal with man subduing and dominating the earth for God. According to Gen 1:26 NIV:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

From this scripture we can clearly see that the mandate of God to man, believers and unbelievers alike, is that they should manage the earth for God. God is not supposed to fix the earth, he created man for that. This scripture is talking about managing, ruling the earth, as the sole duty of man.

Now let’s go back to the title of this article “ONLY GOD CAN SAVE NIGERIA”. When you compare this statement to the word of God both in Genesis 1:26 and Psalms 115:16, you see that as good as the intention of people who say things like this are, such a statement doesn’t hold any ground when it comes against the word of God. God is not coming to fix Nigeria or any nation. The most he could do is to raise up a man or a woman who would take responsibility to fix the nation.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? “Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” Isaiah 6:8

God is short of responsible men which explains why he said “who shall I send and who would go for us?”

God is looking for sincere men he could send into politics to manage politics for him.

God is looking for sons to send into the world of business to manage it for him.

God is looking for godly people to send into the world of finances, to subdue it for him.

God is looking for prepared men to send into the world of education, to manage the place for him.

God is desperately looking for those he could send into the world of art and culture, to rule the place for him.

God is looking for gifted people to send into the world of entertainment, to reveal himself there.

God is desperately in search of sons and daughters he could send into the media world, to reflect him there.

God is in desperate search for those sons he could send into the world of sports, to rule and manage it for him.

And finally, God is in need of godly servants to send to the religious world to bring back his kingdom there.

The most frustrating thing about our doctrine in the modern church is that the unbelievers who have never been to church, the agnostics, those who are out-rightly atheist, don’t have to fight with whether they are supposed to dominate the earth or not. They just go ahead and do it. While we Christians are bound hands and feet, sitting down in the pews instead of going out to explore the earth for the Son of God, king of kings and the Lord of Lords.

Permit me to say here that I am by no means castigating the heroic men and women of God who have served God faithfully and have brought the church to where it is today. While we thank God for them and their efforts, we must also know that our generation of believers have the responsibility to take the gospel a bit further. To conquer some more territories and to expand the influence of the kingdom to a higher horizon.

It reminds me of the story of Moses and Joshua. While Moses did a wonderful job liberating the children of God from Egypt with signs and wonders, God had a stunning message for Joshua, when they got to the land of Promise. God said to Joshua, no more miracles, it is time to build.

“Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year.” Joshua 5:12

The same analogy I see with the body of Christ today. Our fathers of faith have done a great job delivering our nations from the clutches of idolatry and witchcraft through signs and wonders. Today however, a new generation must arise that will take their works further. This generation must rely less on signs and wonders, but rely more on developing skills and building industries.

This generation must spend less time waiting for manna from heaven, but spend more time in the fields building and producing. Even though this generation still believes in the miracle working power of God, they must no longer wait for God to bring water from the rocks, but rather construct dams, water systems, subdue the power of the ocean thereby giving glory to God almighty. As it was in the days of Moses and Joshua so it is in our days.

Therefore, the messages coming from our altars must change. We must have a shift! “CHURCHSHIFT” is around the corner!! It is time for us to move on to our promised land!!! It’s time to begin to believe that with God on our side, we can build a prosperous nation and continent.

The gospel that has been preached in our churches has not been fair to the African continent. It has left us in a beggarly state, waiting on God for things we could produce by and for ourselves. Our churches are full of people during work hours, morning, noon, evening, praying instead of being in the factories, libraries, laboratories, facilitating economic growth. We need a shift in our message and in our pulpit.

Some would disagree quoting Psalms 127:1-2:

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, and to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.”

Well, it is true and I believe this scripture. God needs to bless the works of our hands, but you still need to do some work for God to bless it. You need to step out to build before God could bless what you are building. You need to guard the city before God could protect it for you.

However, in our own case we no longer produce laborers, we would rather pray to God to send laborers to come and build our cities. We refuse to put guards on duty, we would rather pray for God’s protection.

My brothers and sisters prayers and faith in God does not negate professionalism and dignity of labor. It is only the man that has done his best that qualifies to ask for God’s protection and blessings. This message must return to our pulpit.

Yet others might quote Dan. 4:17:

“This decision is by the decree of the watchers, And the sentence by the word of the holy ones, In order that the living may know That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, And sets over it the lowest of men”.

We see that God rules in the affairs of men as a lesson to Nebuchadnezzar who tried to remove God all together from his affairs. We must not fall into this trap either just like many nations in the world today. They are saying they don’t need God and everything depends on them only. No, no, no, no!!! In such cases God would show up sooner or later to make them know that no one can bypass God. We should however not seek to abdicate our duties to God, asking God to come and do what we are supposed to do. We can’t ask God to come and fix our nation while we have not done our absolute best. This ought not to be so!!!

“Only God can save Nigeria”? Hmm, maybe…

…but not before we the citizens of this country have done our best to fix Nigeria. God indeed could show up, but we must first show good stewardship by taking good care of our land. We must prove to God that we have done all that depends on us. Then what we cannot do, he would come and do for us.

“And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilisation”. – Chauncey Wright

Chauncey Wright is trying to tell us that nothing progresses by itself. In this he concurs with the great English scientist Sir Isaac Newton that says there is no effect without a cause. If there is progress anywhere, it is because there have been people who worked for it not just prayed for it. The earth is not supposed to be developed and civilised by prayers alone, the earth is supposed to be civilised by hard work, labor and diligence.

Now don’t get me wrong, prayer has its place but that is a topic for another day.

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