This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that you can never conquer hate with hate. When we lack the right tool which definitely is love or we have some other agenda ourselves, we tend to apply the implements of violence to achieve our goal. We tend to use the weapons of hatred, deception, sentiments war etc. to secure our investments. When we hide under greed, selfishness and deception, we tend to look for gullible people to instigate to carry out our agenda. When you have nothing physical to protect, love is easier to engender. Jesus was a great example of this. He had no house, no financial investment, no wife or children to bother about so love was so easy to spew out from Him.
Peter in the Bible made the fatal mistake of thinking that violence and hatred could match hatred when he sliced off the ears of the attacker of Jesus. Jesus quickly corrected him because He knew that if Peter were to go with this drive, the church which He was going to die for and leave in the hands of people like Peter, will be heading for a colossal failure. Jesus taught love when the Pharisees taught hate, He taught love when the Jews spoke hate. He never changed His message of love when the Romans broke their own rules by crucifying an innocent man. On the cross, His words of love still sounds loud and clear today as we all hear ‘Father Forgive them’.
Something is therefore critically wrong when we see and hear His supposed disciples drum up hatred and spew kill and destroy as retaliation for hatred. That is terribly paradoxical. No wonder Mahatma Gandhi will say ‘I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ’
When we stand to preach hate and kill with all confidence, it therefore means you do not know the God you are talking about or you have something to hide and you are thus using deception as a cloak for whatever you trying to hide or protect
On a very simplistic level, a story is told about a boss who bought a very wild dog and this dog will rage and bark at the housemaid every day. However, it was the maid’s duty to take food to this dog daily. Gradually the dog got to realize that whenever the maid is around, she brings along with her some food for it. Even as a dog, it was quick to realize that if it should harm this housemaid, its source of livelihood is at stake. The story ends with the dog becoming so friendly with the maid that it became her protector. Many of us have forgotten so quickly the result of the violence perpetrated by Hitler against the Jews. Please ask yourself; where is Hitler and what happened to his legacy and where are the Jews today?
It is high level naivety laced with political antecedents when some Nigeria Christians have no message to the Muslims friends except hate. The message I hear daily is that the Muslims have an agenda to take over the Nigeria. I have always told the Christians who care to hear, to please plan their own agenda as there is nothing wrong with someone planning to have more people join him or her. What is wrong is if the means of the propagation of your increase is violent. Let the Christians watch it because if we continue in our trajectory, the Muslims will not need to use a weapon to take over the nation. On the contrary, if we stand up and preach the message of love which our God sent us out to preach, we will not only conquer the Muslims, we will also conquer the Buddhists, the pagans and every other person who does not believe in our God.
How many of us have heard how the late ace trumpeter Hugh Masakela came about his Trumpet? If you did not know, I will tell you. It was given to him by a white missionary. While many of the other whites hated the blacks and did them evil, another one brought a unique gift to this young man which changed his life. I am an Edo man and my forefathers were known to be very resistant to the Gospel. It took a lot of love to bring the gospel to Edo land. The missionaries had to bring schools, medical dispensaries; gifts to the sons of the chiefs’ etc. The result showed clearly when one of the foremost evangelists that Africa can boast of ended up an Edo man. I am talking about the person of the late Arch Bishop Idahosa.
Enough of the drums of war, kill and hatred. I feel and believe that most of the noises we hear today are laden with political motives in view of 2019. The story of the Muslims takeover in Nigeria was a political locomotive introduced by an agent of the past president of Nigeria who was an executive in the Christian Association of Nigeria. He did not hide his motive then. However, for those who listened to his message in 2015, this man said it was the people that we refused to evangelize yesterday that became the Boko Harams of today. I submit to that statement of his. If we therefore refuse to ‘go’ as sent by Jesus Christ and choose a political platform for our transformation instead of evangelistic platform, I am sad to let the church know that we would have taken a tangential direction which would take us far away from our object. This been said, I want to say again and again that the Church will not die. If we refuse to carry out the order of the master, He will raise up stones for himself. It will be impossible to destroy Christianity in Nigeria as God has preserved his seven thousand who has not bowed down to Baal. Secondly, I believe it and very greatly too that God will raise a man who will lead the work of the Almighty God in Nigeria. He will listen to our cries and soon and very soon our woes will be over. We are facing a phantom enemy when the real enemy is waging a ravaging war against the church.
God Bless you Brethren
