National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Reverend Felix Omobude, has said the persecution of Christians would not abate because it is one of the signs of the end time.<\/p>\n
Omobude stated this while featuring in a programme, \u201cThe Fathers\u201d on Dove Television.<\/p>\n
The programme was anchored by Dele Oke.<\/p>\n
Omobude, who is also the General Superintendent of the Covenant Church, with its headquarters in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, debunked claim that the PFN and its parent body, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have not sufficiently protected believers in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people who hold that kind of assertion in my own view they are not fair to the bodies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumber 1, is there increase in the persecution of the church? Of course, the evidences are there. We have had cases of intolerance against the church. We have had cases of churches burnt. We have had cases of people being killed just because they went for early morning cry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all aware of activities and onslaught of Boko Haram against the church in which many pastors and ministers lost their lives and their churches burnt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we live Godly in Christ Jesus we suffer persecution. It is not going to abate. If you look at end time signs you will know it is part of the mark. We are being persecuted because we are relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking further, Omobude said, \u201cWhether CAN or PFN has come out in defence of the church, I can say to a large extent, yes. I will agree that probably we could do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the people who criticise these organs, if you ask them how much do you subscribe to these organisations. You will be shocked. If every Pentecostal church supports PFN, PFN will be able to do more than we are doing now. If all the churches are loyal to the CAN of course they will be able to do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd again, is CAN going to raise arm against the nation? No. We can\u2019t tear this nation apart. PFN will not. We stand on what is right at all time. This needs the cooperation of everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my friend, Pastor Ayo was there, the immediate past president of CAN, I know over 80 per cent of the criticisms he got were from the church. I think that we cannot all be the same but we must rally round our leadership in these organs and they will be more effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cleric said despite the persecution, Christians in Nigeria would not react violently, noting that believers don\u2019t fight with physical arms.<\/p>\n
He said the church would continue to use established biblical medium to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe church will continue to use every medium to propagate the gospel. We don\u2019t carry gun, we don\u2019t carry arrow, we don\u2019t use gun. We use the Bible, we use the power of the Holy Spirit and persuasion and that will continue. We can\u2019t stop that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omobude, who was recently re-elected as PFN leader for a second term, said he had provided the group good leadership with clear achievement.<\/p>\n
He said on assumption of duty, he set an agenda for himself, the first of which was to unite the group than he met it.<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201cFirst on my list was to try and unite the body more than I met it, to give the Pentecostal a more responsible and respectable image, try to synchronise and harmonise our strength and weaknesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, There are projects that we executed like the Secretariat building in Lagos. It was started before I came in. I have been privileged of completing it and have it dedicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe constitution I met, PFN seemed to have outgrown the constitution and so we reviewed the constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my effort to strengthen our unity, I commenced a tour of the states of the federation. I went round to about 22 out of the 36 states. I have not been to Kano, Sokoto, Nasarawa all the six geographical zones. It\u2019s an ongoing project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is believed that many of the Pentecostal leaders around the nations of the world are offspring of the Pentecostal revival from Nigeria. So we set up the PFN in Diaspora. There is a Diaspora Commission now in PFN. We have started inaugurating chapters. In Liberia, we inaugurated, Togo, South Africa and a few other nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is bringing together all our extended arms and of course some may go into excesses but we try to gospel that we preach. These are some of my humble efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PFN president, however, there are still challenges in the Fellowship.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cWe still have challenges in Pentecostal fellowship. It\u2019s like a kingdom with many kings. This one is Bishop, this one is Bishop. Sometimes I wonder why they don\u2019t chose ordinary pastors (as title).<\/p>\n
\u201cI must commend them for the respect they have for my person. I believe come we should come together irrespective of achievements.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the essentials, we should plead unity, in the non-essentials we should plead liberty. We should work on this and ensure that we minor on our minuses and major on our majors. That is the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Reverend Felix Omobude, has said the persecution of Christians would not abate because it is one of the signs of the end time. Omobude stated this while featuring in a programme, \u201cThe Fathers\u201d on Dove Television. The programme was anchored by Dele Oke. Omobude, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"0","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ministry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}