LET’S EXAMINE PASTOR ADEBOYE’S PROPHECIES

By Akin Ojumu 

During the Crossover Service held on December 31, 2019, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, gave his teeming audience what he called a “glimpse of what God is saying concerning the new year.” 

God told him, the highly revered man of God declared, that the new year, meaning 2020, was:

“…Going to be a year of series of joy…It will be victory after victory, shouts of joy after shouts of joy…”

If you are reading this commentary and you don’t have retrograde amnesia, i.e., the inability to remember past events, the Year 2020 must be emblazoned in your memory and the events of that fateful year must be fresh in your mind. For many of us alive today, 2020 is a year that lives in infamy. It’s a year that will go down in history as one of the most consequential and eventful years of our lifetime. 

Not only was the Year 2020 not a year of a series of joy, on the contrary, 2020 was a year of a series of pain, misery, and death. It was in that year that COVID-19, a highly transmissible and deadly virus, swept across the globe and wreaked havoc the like of which the world had never before witnessed.

As cataclysmic events go, the COVID-19 pandemic was a global disaster that brought the whole world to its knees. In a series of public health measures, nations across the world completely shut down. Business enterprises, schools, sporting events, social gatherings, religious houses were all shuttered. Of the close to 85 million people that got infected with COVID-19 worldwide in 2020, more than 3 million people lost their lives.

As the virus spread across the globe, fear and trepidation gripped our souls. No one was left untouched by the anguish and despair created by SARS-CoV-2. Those who were lucky enough to have escaped getting infected by the virus themselves had relatives, friends, and loved ones who fell victims to the scourge.

Many people watched as their family members suffered and died alone in the hospitals and their dead bodies thrown into mass graves or burnt to ashes with no opportunity to honor them or say goodbye.

Despite Pastor Adeboye’s claim that God told him the Year 2020 was going to be a year of series of joy, 2020 was the direct opposite. It was a year of a series of sorrow for many who lost mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, sons and daughters to COVID-19. 

The Year 2020 was not a series of joy for those who, though have recovered from the immediate threat of COVID-19, continue to suffer devastating long-term effects of the disease. It was not a series of joy for many who lost their jobs and homes and became jobless and homeless.

2020 was not a series of joy for those who turned to food banks to feed their families so that they wouldn't have to starve. It was not a series of joy for those who had to beg and borrow to make ends meet.

To say that Pastor Adeboye’s prophecies for the Year 2020 missed their mark would be an understatement. Yet, there’s no evidence that we can see to suggest that the man of God has been humbled by the gravity of his failed prophecies. There’s no moment, we are aware of publicly, that he stopped to reflect on how he could have been so wrong. Instead, Pastor Adeboye has dug his heel in as he continues to spew out prophecies.

For instance, in last year’s Crossover Service held on December 31, 2022, Pastor Adeboye again looked into his crystal ball to see the events of 2023. What he saw was a world at peace. According to him:

“The world, this year, would be relatively more peaceful.”

As of this writing, the world is in turmoil and chaos. War rages on between Ukraine and Russia. The world is at the brink of being dragged into World War III as a result of the ongoing war in the Middle East between Israel and the Hamas terrorists.

Just like his prophecy about 2020, Pastor Adeboye’s prediction about 2023 has turned out to be another catastrophic dud. The world is not relatively more peaceful. 

For those who’d like to lash out at me in unrighteous indignation and accuse me of besmirching their esteemed daddy-in the Lord, this warning from Moses should give you pause.

“You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

Given Pastor Adeboye’s long record of failed prophecies, it’s safe to conclude that he is a man who presumptuously ascribes to the LORD that which the LORD has not spoken. 

As we approach another silly season of spurious predictions, it’s in your best interest to tune out the presumptuous prophets and their supercilious soothsaying.