Through the pits of Hell
My name is Elly Achok Olare I am a pastor alongside another Elder Geoffrey Isambo, at Gospel Missions Agency Church-Kenya. This church is located in the sugar belt region of western Kenya, in the great county of Kakamega, in a little farming town called Mumias. By the kind Grace of God, He has allowed me the privilege of being the Principal of Wisdom Training Centre-School of ministry and Theology and the lead Convener of the annual Reformation Conference in Mumias.
Such a story as emerges from that brief bio-data was not only improbable 15 years ago, but by all human estimation a virtual impossibility. I had been deceived for many years in a false conversion experience. My childhood ‘Christian’ upbringing and the subsequent religious influences had long dulled my sense of danger and need to seek a saviour who would shield me from the fearful wrath of God. Sin was not a matter i heard that very often in my interactions with preachers, whether at a one -on one level or in a crowd. If ever sin was mentioned in a Gospel presentation, it was more as a hindrance to my well being, the things which keeps me from enjoying life’s best , which God can provide if only i would make a quality decision to clean my act, straighten my life and join up with him in what they called being saved.
As I would later learn, there was hardly any Gospel content in the things which were presented in the marketing of Jesus to me. Thus when a young man came to preach to me in the early 90’s, he told me of how God loved me just as I was, and had such wonderful plans for me. He spoke to me about I was the one standing in the way of the good God wanted for me. If only I would reject Satan, and join league with God, he said, my life would be enjoyable. He told me of the great future I could have in this life if I would accept Jesus into my heart. He pointed at the bad things Satan and my bad ways created for me. The choice was clear, and the deal couldn’t have been better. So when he invited me to make a decision for Jesus; effectively buy myself a ticket to a happy future, i readily yielded and he led me in what i later came to know is called “the sinners prayer” or “the prayer of salvation”. I did not have enough sense then to ask why I was being led in a sinners’ prayer when sin was never the issue in the presentation which informed my decision? Why was I repenting when God loved me just as I was?
After the prayer I was assured that I was in the kingdom of God, a child of God, and that I was to expect a victorious life. As God was now my father, Satan was now consigned under my feet. But my victories would come by struggle and occasional failures because i was a powerless Christian. I was urged to seek to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and be given a heavenly language, the one which Satan and his demons could not understand, the language which would have a direct and secure line to heaven.
It was not just powerful living at a personal level which was desirable after becoming a Christian. I was taught that for me to serve God effectively in signs and wonders, i had to receive that power from above which only comes by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I saw people speak in tongues, cast out demons, pray for the sick and claim that they had received instant miraculous healings. The stories and testimonies came in torrents of people’s supernatural experiences, and they made us long for that imbuing with power, by the coming of the Holy Spirit. This clamour for spiritual power and demonstrations of supernatural experiences is what I later came to realize is the Charismatic movement, which followed what in the early 1900’s was christened the Pentecostal revival. Rapturous stories were told of the great acts and movements of God in those revivals. Books, audio tapes and videos were recommended to us; chronicling the mighty men and women of those movements. i distinctly recall one which was called God’s book of Generals-by Roberts Liardon.
Having so been whipped up into a searching fervour and even frenzy, we fasted and prayed and sought God to bless us with those experiences, to bless us with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Two weeks later, at a holy Spirit seminar, I was taught how to receive the holy spirit and after what appeared to be an agonizing hour; I could now speak in tongues. Now I was told I had become a full compact Christian, that the Holy Spirit had now transitioned from being outside of me as a Christian (with me), to taking up residence inside my heart (being in me). Now I had heavenly license to walk in power, victory and triumph. I was taught that sickness and disease were banished from such a life. Poverty and want were realities inconsistent with God’s children. I would later learn this is the system of theology called word of faith, or health and wealth Gospel, or as popularly known-the prosperity teaching.
Thus, what I became when I joined what I thought of as Christianity was a wrecking ball of Pentecostal, Charismatic and health and wealth zealot. I grew in the movement, and soon became an ardent preacher of those same ideas which were sold so powerfully to me. It was not long before i became a viable crusade speaker, praying for the sick and claiming to demonstrate God’s power to heal and deliver. I was utterly convinced that poverty, sickness and yes even death were unwelcome intruders who had no place in a sanctified life.
But there was a catch
As I had made a wise decision to accept Jesus and launch this victorious life, I needed in the same manner, by all means necessary, to keep my salvation pure and unspotted. This was vital not just for making sure my ticket to heaven was secured by my good record of a life well lived in holiness, but that victorious and miraculous life, in which God answered every single one of my prayers depended upon my keeping a good, even perfect relationship with Him. Works, wisdom and good choices had brought me into the kingdom, into a potentially wonderful victorious life; works, wisdom and good choices would sustain me in God’s good graces and ensure the tap of abundance remained open in my life. I would later learn that this is a works based salvation and life, the antithesis of Grace.
This went on for years and I grew in these convictions ever deeply.
Seeds of doubt
Many small things and inconsistencies had caused occasional thoughts of doubt about the claims we were making, and the nature of the supernatural manifestations we were seeing. But these would quickly be swept away as Satan’s ploy to sow doubt and thwart the movement of the Spirit. No matter how seriously our claims had been dented by a failure here and there, the passage of time often seemed sufficient to erase them from the quick sands of our memory. We would rise quickly from such a defeat by saying to ourselves things like “Satan caught me unawares” or ” I had a loop hole in my life” or sometimes “I didn’t have enough people in the prayer chain to hold the line”. The reason were many and varied, but they helped us to overcome those moments of doubt and gave us reason to keep going in what an outsider observe would clearly see is a dysfunctional belief system.
Things fall apart and the centre cannot hold
William Butler Yeats has piercingly succinct lines in his poem The second coming when he writes
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is lost. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity”
The first major thunderbolt to strike strike at the heart of what I had believed and lived for years came with the still birth of our very first baby girl. My wife Lydia and I had been married just a year and were so filled with joy and expectations of having our very first baby. Ultra-sound scan had shown that she would be a girl and so we named her Whitney way before she would be born. It is not just the death of baby Whitney in the womb which swung the deadliest dagger into the heart of our wealth and health, miracles, signs and wonders faith, but how it happened. My wife had a carried a dead baby in her womb for days. The decomposing body had caused unbearable stomach pains, yet because we believed that our baby was secure, we kept praying and confessing health and safety. We didn’t realize what had happened, until she couldn’t bear the pain any longer and was rushed to a hospital. A scan showed a decomposing body, and emergency evacuation procedures ensued. I distinctly recall a pen in my trembling hands, as doctors asked me to sign off on the necessary procedures to evacuate the dead featus and save the mother.
How did we get here? where was God? how was it that I, a preacher of miracles, signs and wonders was conceding to Satan by the stroke of my own pen? Had God failed us because we failed Him? When I laid eyes on a fully mature baby, past nine months in the womb, discoloured and decomposed, it was as if right in front of my eyes was evidence of our forsakenness. How would i look people in the eyes and preach that God heals, protects and only gives good things to His people? would that not by implication then suggest that i was either not a genuine Christian or that there was hidden sin or worse a curse hovering over my life?
Time heals and erases even the worst of memories
We bore the shame of it for a while, until it began to recede in the back banners of memory. This process was helped by the myriad suggestions as to what possibly may have gone wrong. We prayed and fasted, closed whatever loopholes we could think about, and repented of those we could not even think about. prophecies came to our aide as well “God will give double for our trouble and restore the years which the locusts have eaten”. Soon we were back on the same old saddle, preaching as fervently as if no such harrowing experience had happened.
More failures and even more doubts
The bucket was leaking, hardly keeping any water put in it, but we would use it to empty an ocean. This system of faith was failing, or were we failing the system? It was hard to know, because small victories were magnified, and huge failures were explained away in ever creative ways. While we kept plodding on, my wife suffered several miscarriages over a period of years. Some of those miscarriages would lead to such heavy, severe and prolonged bleeding, that I recall fearing I would lose my dear wife in one of these.
I was not a good and godly husband to her in that respect. I brought back to her the pressure of proving faith worked, and our God was not responsible for what was happening to us. I felt she was failing me, that she was dropping the ball, and casting the family in bad light. She would pray and fast, and even sow material and financial seeds of faith, in lieu of God’s intervention in our situation.
So on the night my wife went into labour, prayer networks had been summoned all over to keep vigil. This time we would give no opportunity to the devil, we would cover all possible grounds. We reckoned that we were aware of his tactics and were fully alert and watching. When a baby boy was delivered, the joy was unspeakable. God had lifted the curse (if it was one), Satan had been defeated, loop holes were finally sealed, the weak point of our faith lives had been cured. I named the boy Robin, after an English man who had been a preacher friend of mine, and who had ‘prophesied’ that we shall have a boy. It was a healthy, good weight boy; certified by doctors as having no issues and cleared to go home after only a day in hospital. And so we brought our boy home.
Then we by God’s wonderful mercy we became pregnant, and this time it seemed to be holding. We celebrated this cautiously, jubilant at the prospects of God vindicating our faith, yet also fearful that another massive let down was in the works. It was such a traumatic place to be for the 9 months the bay was carried to term.
Another thunderbolt in a night of pain and anguish
All was going well until sometime after 7:30pm or thereabouts when the boy started crying and would not stop. neighbours and other church folk who were enjoying the moment with us wisely advised that this is normal, stomach issues with a new born is no cause for worry. But i was worried, this moment brought back painful memories of the past, fears that Satan had crept in again and might win. I recall putting up a veneer of a brave face while beneath it was a fearful fore-boarding sense of helplessness. We tried warm water, gripe water and all home remedies which were recommended but as the night grew older, the baby didn’t seem to be finding relief. The crowd around us was thinning as people retired to their homes to sleep. Soon my wife and i were left alone, except for one lady neighbour; who also fancied herself a prayer warrior.
It seemed the issue with the baby was not abating, but growing worse as he cried in what felt like heart wrenching pain. At some point in the course of the night, I took the baby in my hands and travelled in the dead of the night for about 10 kilometres, to the coast provincial general hospital. I arrived there a few minutes past 3 am in the morning. As I laid the baby at the emergency room counter for the doctors to start work on him i did not feel life in him. But it was the slow and laboured gaze of the nurse towards me, meeting my anxious, expectant , but fearful eyes which confirmed my worst fears. The baby had died in my arms even as i travelled with him.
Strength left me at once and I felt drained of all of life’s juices. I know I screamed out loud, but to date cannot recall what i said. But i clearly know at that time, I was so angry and frustrated at God. I felt he was to stringent on us. Was there no mercy in Him at all? even if we had sinned against him, could he not find it in his heart to forgive us? If our faith wasn’t sufficient, surely why would he punish that with such devastation? Thinking back at how hard we had tried, how frequently and intensely we had confessed and repented of known and unknown sins, broken possible ancestral curses and linkages, planted faith seeds and tried our best to do our best for Him; would he not be just a little merciful? I know the façade was crumbling, because when my brother Barnabas who was my pastor then came to comfort with words of faith, I cried in desperate frustration “I am really tired”.
I took my dead baby clutched in hands and boarded a bus going back home. The nurses were merciful to let me take the baby back with me, since we would have had to incur mortuary charges had the baby been detained. But it also meant I could not tell the people whose bus I boarded that what I was carrying was a dead baby, they would not allow it. Words cannot tell of the dejection and frustration, fatigue and unbelief which numbed every part of my being. I travelled like a zombie back home.
Upon hearing my footsteps entering the house, my wife leapt up with eager expectation, with hands outstretched, i can still hear her words to date, as clearly as if she was saying them now “bring him to me now, he is okay, let me breast feed him”. Whatever strength was left in me vanished, and I crumbled to the ground, and her onto me; and we struggled, as she tried to wrestle the baby from my hands. Now things had truly fallen apart and the centre was not holding. How would we recover from this? how would I preach again? How could I believe a God like that? i believe at that point I had thrown in the towel and whatever vestiges of religion left in me were for reasons other than faith in God. My brother Barnabas would later write an excellent and insightful article around such traumatic deception in the faith movement. he called the article “The death of faith in the word of faith” which you can read by following this link.
When the church people led by my pastor and blood brother Barnabas heard of it, they quickly filled our little house. They didn’t just come to comfort, but to wage war against the work of the devil. The image would never leave my mind; of my brother, and then pastor Barnabas, kneeling over the dead body , himself broken and devastated, yet still believing that God would raise the boy from death. I recall him quoting in his desperate prayer the words of John 5:25
“verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God: and they that hear shall live”
The baby remained lifeless, and all eventually resigned to this grim fact which stared at us and mocked our pretensions to faith. The burial of that baby the next day, was in my mind, a terrible testimony of either God’s cruelty or the triumph of Satan. I didn’t know better, I had no solid Biblical teaching to help interpret these events. My whole life had been built on a false understanding of the Christian faith. These were the bitter fruits of that horrendous twisting of the scriptures to perpetuate what I would later learn were unbiblical assumptions on God. Not only was I incurring unnecessary mental anguish in what Scripture clearly addresses itself to in a very helpful way, but I was tittering on the brink of practical atheism. On this trajectory, not only was I suffering in this life, but if I had died then, even as a preacher i would spend my eternity in Hell.
But i know now that God had chosen me for salvation, that even these heart wrenching pathways were being woven in His wise and all knowing counsel to bring me to a place where i would discover Him in a whole new way, in a wonderful way in a truly saving way. God would not let me perish in such unbelief. He would not allow me to remain in such assumptions and presumptions. God had his hand on me and even though he slew me, it was what it took to railroad my life to an eternal journey, a journey which as you should see shortly is as heavy in the weight of glory, as the crucible of its manufacture was intense in its affliction. He would have to kill me, in order to raise me to new life. He would have to lay to waste my folly in empty religion, in order to show me the richest excellences of the glory of Christ in the true Gospel. It is this treacherous, and rough terrain of His frowning providence, which would guide me to the bosom of my saviour.
It is that wonderful story I wish to tell you about. It is the story of ashes to Grace, death to life. It a story which makes all that I have shared with you this far exceedingly wonderful and not heart wrenching. This is a story of how after 15-17 years of running in those circles of self delusion and deception, God broke through my life truly, and took hold of its reigns. I understood why he brought me through all that, it all makes perfect sense now, and makes my God so merciful and Gracious. You see it is a story which demonstrates that sweet song of true saints “Jesus does all things well” and.
I hope you can find time to join me in that ending of this story, in part 2 of how God saved me from the emptiness of a vainglorious religion