Foremost Nigerian clergyman and General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has relayed his experience when God took him to heaven 44 years ago.
Church Times Nigeria reports that Adeboye, who was ministering at the church’s ministers’ virtual conference on August 1, said he was taken to heaven while attending a conference in Kenya, East Africa, adding that it was impossible to describe the throne of God in human language.
The ministers’ conference preceded the ongoing convention of the church, which is the largest Pentecostal church in Nigeria.
“I saw myself in a big place. I saw someone sitting on the throne far away. I saw angels, and they were huge. When we say angels are dressed in white it is because we don’t have a word to describe them. If you have a crystal glass with water in it, how do you describe it? I saw millions on both sides of the throne,” Adeboye recounted.
“I looked like somebody naked who had been dropped into sewers, pit latrine and pulled out and put there. Nobody said a word. I didn’t need to be told that Jesus was the one on the throne.”
Adeboye said when he came back from the encounter he made up his mind to live a life holiness so that when next he found himself in heaven he would not appear there dirty again.
On the Kenya conference, the RCCG GO said, “I heard there was going to be a conference in Kenya in 1976. All the Pentecostals in the world were to meet in Kenya.
“Brother Kumuyi (William Kumuyi, General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church) was with us. We were housed in the boarding house of a secondary school. Every evening after the programme, my brethren from Nigeria will be smiling and joking.
“Brother Kumuyi looked at me and said it seems you know why you are here when he saw that I was always studying the Bible and praying.
“I would take my Bible and enter the toilet to read it. Bro Kumuyi and I were both reading the Bible in the toilet. I got to know that when his toilet room opened and I saw he was reading the Bible. It was during that conference that God took me to the throne-room of heaven.”
Adeboye further recounted that God told him so many things personal to him.
He said, “God told me things which are not meant for you. He gave me three passages from the Bible and I have been seeing things unfolding since that time.”
Adeboye urged the ministers to always live ready, adding that death was no respecter of anointing or any person.
“Elisha fell sick and died but he made a tremendous impact when he was alive,” he said.
“We should not be afraid of death because whether we like it or not we will die. You don’t begin to live until you are no longer afraid of death.
“One of the major reasons that Jesus came and died was to set free those who are always in fear of death. If you are still afraid of death, you are not a free person. You are in bondage. The day you are no longer afraid of death, freedom has come.
“The moment the devil discovers that you are no longer afraid of death he becomes afraid of you. The most fearsome of the pilots during the Second World War were Japanese. They attacked with the intention of ramming their plane into yours. Every pilot on the other side feared them because they were ready to die.”