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28.02.2015 Feature Article

Another Prophet To Sue God?—The Repetition Of Prophet Oppong's Case; Satan Is Using Some Pastors To Blaspheme God

Another Prophet To Sue God?—The Repetition Of Prophet Oppong's Case; Satan Is Using Some Pastors To Blaspheme God
28.02.2015 LISTEN

It will be remembered that in the mid-1990s, one Prophet John Kwadwo Oppong who was in his late 50s went to Metro TV on a Sunday evening and strangely spewed out some damnable blasphemies against God on account of some harrowing and troublesome experiences he had encountered in his 'Godly job'.

On the TV, one could clearly hear him saying: 'Onyame ye bad paa' (God is too wicked). Thus, he had preferred some 47 charges against Him, all to be adjudged by a competent international court of justice in Israel, 'the seat of God'. And jointly to be charged was God's own son, Jesus Christ. And these charges ranged from fraud, breach of contract, armed robbery, assault, arson, down to contempt of court and conspiracy to murder him. Just last week, I heard another 'man of God' preaching the same blasphemy against God, and I marvelled at these ludicrous accusations too.

This new pastor by name Rev Sammy was almost rehearsing the troubles he has gone through since he became 'a man of God', and his proclamations were like those of Prophet Oppong. The queerness of Pastor Sammy's case compels me to restate what I wrote on Prophet Oppong's so-called 'Court Action Against God' since both of them run on the same parallel lines, even though his charges are 30 as against Prophet Oppong's 47.

Let's look at the essentially interesting ones -only five of them. First, the fraud charge. God is accused of appearing in a vision to him (Prophet Oppong), asking him to stop his work (he describes himself as an ex-policeman), and then take on a new 'job' as a prophet, which would assuredly make him lead a better life in which perhaps 'honey and milk would be flowing'. Can God make such a promise?

He obeyed God's call; but contrary to his expectations, for all his several years of God's work as an 'odiifo' (a prophet), he has not seen a whit of the promised prosperity in his livelihood. Instead, poverty and sufferings have been his lot. And his living conditions have gone from bad to worse to worst.

To him, his present poverty and agonising deprivations constitute a case of fraud; for God has tricked him into a dirty, money-less Bible job, in exchange of his regular, prosperous, cash-earning police work. He means to say he has been short-changed or deceived by God. And that, to him, is fraud. Not a mad piece of logic?

The second charge -assault! According to the prophet, in spite of all his poverty and hardships, he has now lost most of his teeth. Of course, he speaks with a lisping lilt of a toothless man whose words are difficult to discern clearly.

His loss of teeth is attributed to God's own doing. The obvious inference here is that God had assaulted him with an unseen slap on the cheek to make him 'toothless'. An 'assault' case indeed!

Another charge: arson. The 'prophet' says he often lit candles on his altar during prayers. And at one time, before he could open his closed prayerful eyes, there was a blaze of fire in his room -one of the candles had caught fire.

But for his smartness in applying the teachings of the Fire Service in putting out the flames, he might have been burnt to death 'free of charge'. And this incident in itself amounts to God's conspiracy to kill or murder him, which is a criminal offence worthy of prosecution in the law courts.

The other criminal charge is that by wilfully depriving the prophet of all he had, God has spiritually robbed him of all his possessions. And such daylight robbery is liable for prosecution. It's a case of 'armed robbery'.

Last is the contempt of court charge. The contention here is that in so far as the Pope, who is a man of God, has refused to have anything to do with those charges, it amounts to contempt of court -punishable by some months' imprisonment of the Pope.

And the Pope himself is liable to the charge of negligence of duty for not subpoenaing God with a writ of summons. Oh Pope! Why?

Space cannot allow for any nit-picking analyses of those numerous fanciful charges. But from the queerness of the court action being instituted against the holy, invisible, inerrant God, and from the funnily surrealist day-dreaming nature of those charges, one easily gets the impression that the prophet is either suffering from a mental disease or is being used by satan to propagate anti-Christ doctrines to destroy the unflinching faith in God of lots of believers who are similarly faced with hardships in life.

Some people describe the prophet as 'insane'. But to me, he is not all that, precisely. For, indeed, his general behaviour or comportment on Metro TV did not reveal him to be so. He is more of a psychopath suffering from schizophrenia (mental delusions) born out of long-standing hardships, stress and manic depression; and he suggestively needs the attention of a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist to cure him before it's too late. In the same way should Pastor Sammy receive psychological treatment.

However, the light-hearted, laughable oddities of his case apart (like God's supposed assault on the prophet's cheek which has blown out his teeth), one comes up to two controversial questions from the court action saga. The first is: was the man really called by God? If so, need he suffer extreme poverty and deprivation?

There are three conflicting opinions in regard to the first question. Some argue that the man was called by Satan or some demonic forces, judging from the fact that he could pray and the Bible on his table could lift itself up and remain suspended in mid air. This is considered to be the magic of some dwarfs or demonic occult spirits. But others think this could be a miracle from a powerful prophet. The question is still arguable. Which is which?

The other opinion is that he was indeed called by God to do His work; only that, in the course of his divine ministry, he sinned against God, possibly through extortion of money, womanising, or dabbling in juju, which drew God's punishment. Thus, he fell from grace to grass.

But what could be a nagging question here is that if so, why are some extortionist prophets, or womanising or juju pastors prospering and not being punished by God to suffer as this prophet?

The third opinion is that the man was truly called by God, except that he received no training at any Bible College or Seminary, or by personal teachings of a senior pastor (on-the-job training) for at least three years, which could have oriented him towards understanding and absorbing the 'shocks' and quirks of temptations in the divine ministry.

It is argued that without this training, the uneducated prophet or pastor quickly becomes disappointed in life in the face of temptations. Thus, he backslides, develops negative volition against Bible doctrines, and hatred against God. This state is called theo-phobia. And it is speculated that the untrained Prophet Oppong is now a 'theophobian'.

But the second issue as to whether God's own chosen pastors need to suffer such poverty, deprivations and hardships is an open question. Need they suffer such extreme hardships?

Meanwhile, it is to be argued that if Prophet Kodwo Oppong is really level-headed, he must be advised to face the problems of life with manliness and equanimity. He must therefore stop spewing out this 'court action, court action' nonsense, and rather repent of his blasphemous sins with fasting and prayers for God's forgiveness and mercies. And he will be raised back into God's favour and be comforted like the repentant prodigal son in the Bible. After all, did the biblical Job make any such comments in his more numerous and excruciating sufferings, hardships and pains? The story of Job must be a lesson to them.

'DUM-SO' (NOT DUMSOR)

It is most unfortunate that the Akan word 'DUM-SO', which has now become very popular in Ghana, is wrongly spelt as 'DUM-SOR'. The correct spelling of it is 'DUM-SO', in both Fante and Twi (in Akan), and never is it spelt 'DUMSOR', which means 'put out and worship'. In both Fante and Twi, to put out light is 'DUM', and to light it is 'SO'. The moment an 'r' is added to the 'SO' to become 'SOR', it becomes a Fante word meaning WORSHIP. In Twi, to WORSHIP is 'SORE'. So Akan-speaking journalists must immediately correct 'Dumsor' to be 'DUM-SO' (two words which mean an act of putting out and lighting). In our present context of seeing electric lights being put out and lighted again, the correct expression is 'DUM-SO'.

By Apostle Kwamena Ahinful

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