“I Left Deeper Life Church Because Television Was Called The Devil’s Box” - Tunde Bakare

General overseer of The Latter Rain church Pastor Tunde Bakare was once a member of Deeper Life Bible Church some years back, but he left because of what the church believed. He had risen through the church rank until this hilarious incident…Read more from the interview he granted to "TheNewsNigeria" when you continue please...........
Below are the excerpts from the interview: 

You were in Deeper Life and The Redeemed churches. At what point did you decide to open your own and why?

"But one day while I was ministering and a brother was interpreting, I was giving example of the “faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of God” and I said, ‘Supposing you go to a supermarket to buy soap, you might not know what soap to buy but because you watched the advertisement of Joy soap on television, then you would look for Joy soap because you have been hearing about it.’ 

And his interpreter said: “If you have been watching the devil’s box … “ I told him I didn’t say devil’s box but television, and he repeated saying the devil’s box and Brother Kumuyi was behind us. I said I didn’t say devil’s box and that the normal interpretation is amu ohun mu aworan, (the box that captures both the voice and the visuals). Anyway, he still said what he said.

“The following Sunday, Brother Kumuyi came up with what he called “Sunday Exaltation”; he said that even if you repair television, you are a child of the devil. Then I took my Bible and left. I went home and said I would serve my God, but was not interested anymore in church.
 

So I returned to Surulere Baptist Church. And one day, my photographer came to me and said I should not just sit like that and that I should come and join his church because I would enjoy it. I asked, ‘What is the name of your church’ and he said The Redeemed Christian Church of God. I said okay and that I would come one day since I was not interested at that moment.

 

The first Sunday of March, 1984, I invited my wife and said we should go (we were not married then). I borrowed a car because I had no car then. We drove to that church and I discovered I had been to that church before. That was the place Deeper Life was doing their Bible study in 1978. Then there was this gentleman who walked up, they called him G.O. He is still G.O. today, but they call him Daddy G.O. He was the one who preached that day and the message was titled: “The Mercy of God.” I said this seems better than the background of what seems I was coming from, because, in fairness to Brother Kumuyi, he himself eventually went on television. He must have changed his mind, because that time he was very hard on such things. 

By the way, looking back today, there is a lot of evil on television. It is not the television that is the devil’s box, it is the programmes that people put on it. So you can choose what you watch.

 

How would you react to what is happening in the churches now, including how pastors now buy private jets? 

It is not wrong to buy private jet, but that is if you can afford it and it is not at the expense of the work. I like to be upfront and don’t sweep anything under the carpet. In 1993, for example, this ministry and some other partners in this church, two captains in this church – Captain Sambo and Captain Benson – brought a proposal to me and they wanted me to invest. I brought Chief Oluwole Adeosun (of blessed memory) of First Bank and we bought a Boeing 707. 

You could see the logo of the Latter Rain Assembly on the Boeing 707 and it was christened the Latter Rain. But it was for cargo business. I entered that plane only once in my life with my wife to take photograph and they were carrying cargo to Saudi Arabia, up and down, to East and to West. And when they banned Boeing 707, we stopped the business. 

But all these things they are doing now…Look, that is why they run into trouble; when fuelling it and parking it would almost run you into bankruptcy. I am only volunteering the information to you. I don’t take glory in such. 

Let me tell you, in America there is a pastor who has two jets. He preaches in Atlanta one session. By afternoon, he would be in New York for another session. In those economies, you don’t even need to put capital down; you can wet-lease, you can lease a jet and if you have a private jet, you can pay for it like you pay for a mortgage. 

Life is not that miserable and the interest rate is not as high. But in a depressed economy like ours, the jet represent three things: number one, a tool of business for the likes of Dangote who could afford it because they have many places to go and things to attend to at the same time; a toy for the money-miss-roads who would just think because A bought it I must buy it; or a trap from those men who would buy you and shut your mouth. So, you would have to judge which one it is. Is it a toy? Is it a tool? Or is it a trap?

TheNewsNigeria