Adeboye Sends Strong Warning To Young Pentecostal Ministers

Says don’t let pride rob you of tremendous benefit from the elder

The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God has sent a strong warning to new generation Pentecostal Ministers to learn from the old ones before they passed on.

Pastor Adeboye sounded this warning at a conference by a group of New Generation Pentecostal ministers. The programme that has a great expectation to boost the morale of the organizers turned out to be a serious warning and advice from the humble servant of God.

Although the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God could not physically minister at the event but sent his fatherly advice through Facebook streaming.

In his words, Adeboye made it clear to the new generation Pentecostal ministers that they should not totally condemn the older generation, rather tap from their wealth of knowledge and experience which can never be thought of in seminary schools. The man of God revealed that, although those elders may not have gone to universities or learned Greek they have what could be of great value to them.

“There is no doubt about it the older Pentecostal ministers might have one or two issues but remember also that our parents, our old parents, our mothers, biological and fathers, biological are not modern, but we still value them because they did not go to the universities, they don’t know about Greek, they don’t know about Hebrew, but they have certain information that you don’t get in any university.”

Pastor Adeboye however admitted that they will soon leave this world for them but quickly admonished them to tap from what they had through the experience on the journey so far.

“I am one of them and they have experience, there are certain things you don’t learn in any Bible college, certain things that can only be learned as you travel this way. There’s a lot you can gain from them. Please in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, don’t let pride rob you of some tremendous things you could gain from this older generation. Believe it honestly, whether you know it or not, they are going. If the lottery is now, many of us will soon be gone and if we are gone, we are gone forever. So, before we go, now that particularly, we these older brothers have humbled ourselves in reaching out to you, respond; you have a lot to gain.’’

Adeboye told the group never to look down on the elders and if they needed to correct anything, it should be with due respect and honor. He recalled how he led his mother to Christ though the mother was at first reluctant to understand the principle of steps to salvation;

“When I wanted to get my mom to be born again, she was telling me that; ‘look boy, before I married your father in 1910, I had been a Christian.’ I wasn’t rude to her, I didn’t tell her to ‘look’ mama things have changed, the Christianity you said you understood in those days is different; I did not say that, but I humbled myself before her. I told her to tell me a little bit about her experience as a Christian and she told me some very wonderful moving stories about how they used to fight all those idol worshipers who will bring charm to the front of the door and the Catechist (that all they had then) will come with his Bible, wave the Bible over whatever charm was placed in front of the church and then kick it out of the way then set it ablaze. I listen with all my attention to some of the experiences that she shared with me, but then very humbly I ask; can you remember a particular stage where you said I do to Jesus. Because he is the husband of the church and for a woman to be married, she has to say I do to the husband. I used wisdom and God helped me finally, she understood what I was talking about and she gave her life to Jesus and very humbly I began to talk to her about baptism in the Holy Spirit, and when I found out things were getting a bit slow, I had to use other people to help me reach out to her.”

He, therefore, encouraged them to learn from one another adding that, they should encourage the elders and take from them before it would be too late.

“Whatever you want to say is wrong with the elderly ones; they’ve played their part, God is going to judge them on the fact that they did the best they could, based on their limited knowledge but many of them are on the way out, grab them now; you will need to respond positively before it is too late.”

He however prayed the Almighty God will bless their meeting, he will be with them at the gathering, he will prosper their ministry as he has been doing, he will take them higher and higher, and on the last day in the kingdom of God, we will all be there.”