The Need for National Christian Repentance: Consequences of Christian Compromise

On Monday 6th February 2023, a sister tearfully narrated the oppression of Christian communities in Gombe State. The Christian-populated communities are currently being assailed by Fulani Muslims who are serially removing the Christian village heads and replacing them with Fulani Muslims. She narrated that a member of her family, who is the head of her village, is being forced to go into exile so that a Fulani Muslim can take over rulership of the Christian village. The account was sad and provocative.

However, how did Nigeria Christians get to this sorry state?
Simple: the compromise of some Christian leaders. That has often been the case in the Church, which is why it is only Christian countries that are being Islamized. One rarely finds an Islamic country that has been Christianized. The Muslims are committed to their faith.

A few years ago, the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) raised an alarm, that the Nigeria Church had been infiltrated by “Islamist collaborators” masquerading as Church leaders. What did Christians do? Rather than examine issues based on merit, and conducting thorough investigation into the allegations, those distinguished Christian Elders were uncharitably denigrated and vilified. Not a few Christians complained that NCEF was causing 'disunity in the Church.'

Now, the battle has reached the gates of the Church, and there is no coordinated response; neither is there any plan for Christian engagement. Thank God, we have God to fall back upon, so we cry to Him to deliver us. However, God says that He wants repentance first.

In November 2016, God said, “Nigeria Christians are praying and fasting, but they are not repenting.” Consequently, the National Prayer of Repentance was birthed in 2018. It took three years of that annual program before God spoke from Matt. 3: 8 in February 2020: “bring forth fruit meet for repentance.” In other words, produce evidence that the Nigeria Church has repented.

The question now is: “What should we repent of?” As in Ezekiel 8: 6, the leaders engage in secret abominations that only God can see. Because of those secret abominations of the leaders, God complained, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary?” (Ezek. 8: 6, ESV). The leaders drove God out of His sanctuary.

Some of the abominations alleged against some of our Christian leaders are an open secret. Apart from receiving corrupted money from Muslims, other allegations range from cult membership to trafficking in the powers of darkness to draw crowds, sex rituals, false miracles, merchandizing the Church, and so on.

Who knows the depth of what God has seen in the dark world of some Christian leaders that it “drove Him out of His sanctuary” in the Nigeria Church? As obnoxious as the Muslim-Muslim ticket is, some Christian leaders are fully in support of it. Who knows what God has seen in the Nigeria Church?

What do we do? Where do we go? Where do we start our repentance from? Do we even know what to repent of?

Our plea is the Blood of Jesus. We have no argument; we have no plea. Let us plead the Blood of Jesus to atone for the sins of our Church leaders, like the sins of King David and King Manasseh, which brought calamity upon the people of God. Nothing but the Blood of Jesus...

May the Blood of Jesus avail for us in this season, as we go to God in national repentance. Amen.