YEMI ADEFARASIN HAS A MOUNTAIN OF INFLUENCE TO SELL YOU

“Summer Discount: Buy One Mountain, Get One For Half Price”

By Akin Ojumu

On Monday, September 14, 2026, House on the Rock, Lagos, Nigeria, published a post on its official Facebook page featuring Yemi Adefarasin, brother of Paul Adefarasin, the CEO and head of its sprawling religious enterprise.

According to the post, Yemi Adefarasin made the following assertions:

“We are called to possess the gates of society, influencing what comes in and what goes out, and bring Kingdom values into every sphere of influence. As salt and light, our spiritual growth and development must remain a priority, because God’s process prepares us to be firmly established, immovable, and effective witnesses of Christ. Know that whoever possesses the gate controls the influence. Hence, we are called to penetrate our spheres, establish Kingdom culture, values, and principles, and allow heaven to be demonstrated through our lives. Therefore, as we bring our diverse giftings into synergy, we can transform our cities and spheres of influence to reflect the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Apparently, these remarks came from a sermon Yemi Adefarasin preached at House on the Rock on Sunday, September 13, 2026.

A video containing clips from that sermon is attached to this commentary.

Now, if in all your years of reading the Bible you have never encountered this doctrine of Christians being called to “possess the gates of society” and “penetrate spheres of influence,” do not worry. You did not miss it. It is not there.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the Church commissioned to seize the commanding heights of secular society, capture its institutions, possess its cultural gates, or establish Christian dominion over political, economic, educational, media, entertainment, and governmental structures.

Nowhere.

If cultural conquest were the mission Christ entrusted to His Church, one would reasonably expect Him to have mentioned it when He commissioned His Apostles.

He did not.

Jesus did not tell Peter: “Go and capture the Roman Senate.”

He did not tell John: “Take over the educational mountain.”

He did not instruct Paul: “Penetrate the entertainment industry of the Roman Empire.”

He did not gather the Twelve together and announce: “Gentlemen, your assignment is to infiltrate the political, cultural, economic, and governmental institutions of Rome until the Kingdom controls society from the top down.”

Nothing remotely resembling this appears in the Great Commission.

Instead, Jesus said:

Matthew 28:19–20

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

That was the mission.

Preach the Gospel. Make disciples. Baptize converts. Teach believers to obey Christ.

There was no appendix containing a Seven Mountains strategy. There was no footnote instructing Peter to capture government. There was no addendum telling Paul to possess the gates of entertainment. There was no secret apostolic blueprint for institutional conquest.

And when we examine the lives of the Apostles themselves, the theory becomes even more difficult to sustain.

The Apostles did not “possess the gates” of Roman society. By Roman standards, they possessed virtually nothing. 

They were not senators. They were not governors. They were not military commanders. They were not captains of industry. They were not influential aristocrats dining at Caesar’s table. They were frequently despised, persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, driven from cities, and in several cases executed.

Paul describes the character of God’s calling:

1 Corinthians 1:26–27

“Brothers, consider the time of your calling: Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

Yet these socially insignificant, politically powerless, culturally marginalized people turned the world upside down.

How?

Not by capturing Caesar’s palace. By preaching Christ. Not by possessing the gates of government. By preaching Christ. Not by conquering seven mountains. By preaching Christ. Not by engineering Christian control of Roman institutions. By preaching Christ.

The power of the early Church was not institutional conquest. It was the Gospel.

When Paul arrived in Corinth, he did not arrive carrying a blueprint for cultural domination.

He declared:

1 Corinthians 2:2

“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

That was Paul’s strategy.

Christ. Crucified.

And the Kingdom the Apostles proclaimed was not another earthly political empire competing with Rome for territorial or institutional control.

Jesus Himself said:

John 18:36

“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

That does not mean Christians should withdraw from society. Christians should serve faithfully in politics, education, business, medicine, science, law, media, technology, agriculture, entertainment, and the arts.

A Christian may be a senator. A Christian may become president. A Christian may run a corporation. A Christian may teach at a university. A Christian may produce films, practice medicine, argue before the Supreme Court, conduct scientific research, or own a newspaper.

And wherever Christians find themselves, they should live faithfully as salt and light. But Christian faithfulness within society is not the same thing as a divine mandate to conquer society. Those are two very different propositions.

The Great Commission is not the Great Cultural Takeover. Christ commissioned His Church to make disciples of the nations, not to capture seven allegedly strategic “mountains” so Christians could control civilization from the top down.

That ideology belongs to the heretical theological ecosystem of Seven Mountain Dominionism, not to the apostolic mission laid down in the New Testament. 

And once the Gospel proclamation is displaced by dreams of cultural conquest, something fundamental has gone wrong.

The Apostles had no Seven Mountains strategy. They had no Kingdom takeover blueprint. They had no Christian political action committee. They had no program for capturing Caesar’s institutions. They had no mandate to establish Christian control over Roman culture.

They had something infinitely more powerful: Christ crucified.

The Church does not need to seize the gates of secular society in order to establish the reign of Christ. Christ is already King. 

His sovereignty is not waiting for Christians to capture television stations. His throne does not depend upon believers winning elections. His dominion is not suspended until Christians control universities, banks, movie studios, legislatures, and corporations.

Our assignment is not to manufacture Christ’s dominion through cultural conquest. Our assignment is to proclaim the King.

Preach Christ. Make disciples. Teach His Word. Live faithfully. And leave the building of His Kingdom to the One who said:

“I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH.”