General Overseer of Christ Apostolic Church (Myriad of Miracle), Egbe, Ikotun, Lagos, Pastor Augustine Afolabi Adeniyi has disclosed how his encounter with the devil took changed his life.
Speaking to Sunday Vanguard on how he became a minister of God, Adeniyi said he had no intention of becoming a pastor. All he wanted was to travel out of the country until he had the near death experience.
“I had an encounter with the devil. It was a serious encounter. I visited so many hospitals. The last place was University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and they could not cure the sickness. As a result of that, I went to a herbalist, they still couldn’t cure it until finally when somebody introduced me to CAC in 1967. A sickness we could not cure for almost 16 years was cured within a week. It was a divine intervention.”
Explaining how he was healed, Pastor Adeniyi said, “When I got to the church (CAC), they prayed for me and asked me to go into a seven-day fasting. Since I had not been doing it, the day I started, my legs were shaking, my head was aching, my body was something else.
“Before I got to the place, for about 9 days, I couldn’t sleep, but the first day I fasted and they prayed for me, I was able to sleep. So I stayed in the mission, the fourth day of the fasting, in the afternoon, I dreamt that I saw an old man who came down to me and said: ‘My son, they told me about your plight. I said, ‘Thank you, sir’ and he said: ‘Open your mouth’. I opened my mouth. It was around 1pm. As I opened my mouth, he put his hand into my mouth and removed a very big stone. I cried such that the people around heard and ran to me. They asked me what happened and changed my room. I slept again and saw the old man in another dream. He said, ‘My son, it remains only one thing’. I said, ‘What is the thing again as the first one was really painful? He said, ‘let me do this one’. He put his hand into my mouth again and removed a husk of maize, he removed it from my tummy. As he removed it, I cried and blood gushed out. People around came to me. When the pastor saw it, he said the work had been done, that it was the work of God. That’s how the sickness vanished and I became a strong believer in the power of God.”
Speaking on how he started his church, Adeniyi said Christ Apostolic Church, Myriad of Miracle was planted in 1986. “We started the second service on October 2, 1986. I have been in the ministry since 1967. I started as a member and I was ordained as an elder. While I was an elder, I was working in the Federal Ministry of Commerce, former Ministry of Trade.
He spoke of the goal of his church, which he said was winning souls for Christ.
“We want to win souls for Christ, evangelise the whole world. And we are moving to every part of the country. All we need is God’s assistance and assistance from people. We also need finance to back it. You may have knowledge but you also need what it takes to carry it out, which includes prayer, finance, etc.
Pastor Adeniyi also spoke on the church’s harvest which he said was significant as a reminder that “there will be a day that the whole world will be harvested based on whatever we have done. There is somebody awaiting us, to whom we would give account of what we have done. Then, the chaff shall be separated from the seed. The upcoming harvest will bring blessing by the grace of God.
He also advised Nigerian leaders to always acknowledge God, while he advised Christians to pray for the country’s survival.
“Also, I’ve travelled and seen a lot. Our leaders should follow the example of the developed nations,” the cleric advised.
