OYAKHILOME: Pastors yet to reopen churches are unbelievers

The General Overseer of the Believers Love World Ministries, also known as Christ Embassy, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome has come hard on pastors who have refused to reopen their churches.

According to Oyakhilome, who has engaged in different controversial outbursts since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, such pastors are unbelievers.

It would be recalled that the federal and state governments had ordered the closure of religious centres as part of efforts at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government, through the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF) has however given the go ahead for them to be reopened, with different state governments giving specific dates for reopening.

Some prominent pastors in Lagos however declined reopening their churches, choosing to be more careful so as to not endanger the health of their members.

Read also: COVID-19: Oyakhilome berates Buhari, other African leaders for seeking cure outside

Such pastor include Pastor Tunde Bakare of Latter Rain Assembly; Pastor Sam Adeyemi of Daystar Christian Centre; Pastor Poju Oyemade of Covenant Christian Centre, and Pastor Paul Adefarasin of House on the Rock.

Oyakhilome, while preaching during a worship service on Wednesday, August 19, said such pastors have denied the faith and are no longer believers.

He said: “If you refuse to open church for fear of being infected, you were never a believer. This is a great concern because there were churches that were thought to be churches until recently.

“We find a lot of ministers who were thought to be advocates of the gospel advocating for shutting down the churches because they cannot guarantee safety.

“It is pressure like this that reveals what is a church and what is not. Do they really believe in God, the same God of the patriarchs in the Bible?

“When you get to that point where you are afraid of opening churches for fear of being infected, you have denied the faith. You never believed”.

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