“He told us that rapture is coming in September and that we should camp in church to receive glorification body to meet Christ when he appears.”
Pastors of the Whole Believers Bible Church, Ondo State, David Anifowose, and his assistant, Peter Josiah, locked up 77 worshippers, including 23 children in an underground apartment in readiness for the coming of Jesus, precisely in September this year, even when the Bible says no human nor angel has that information except God.
The pastor allegedly informed the worshippers to consecrate themselves by abandoning whatever they were doing and camp in the church for a seven-day programme ahead of the coming of Jesus Christ in two months time.
According to the Vanguard Newspaper, as a consequence of the pastor’s directive, school children, workers and their spouses abandoned school and offices to consecrate themselves for the coming of Jesus Christ.
It was gathered that some members who did not believe the prophesy of the pastors and were irked by the development reported the development to the state police command.
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Consequently, the Ondo State Police Command invaded the church and met the worshippers kept in an underground apartment and rescued them.
One of the parents, Mrs Jessica Akintemi, whose two girls and their father,Oluwarotimi, had moved to the church ‘to meet Jesus Christ’ said that her two girls had abandoned school since January because the pastors hynotised them.
“l have been married to my husband for 22 years, he is a mathmatics teacher in a secondary school in Ondo”, she stated.
“He abandoned work and took along my two girls, Ayomide, 15, in SS3 and Olamide, 13, who is in SS2.
“We are former members of the church. I left when the assistant pastor preached that he wanted to rewrite King James Version of the Bible and that he knew the new name of Jesus Christ.
“He told the congregation that Jesus Christ is coming in September and that members should stay in church, abandon sinful life by staying in God’s presence.
“He told us that rapture is coming in September and that we should camp in church to receive glorification body to meet Christ when he appears.
“The pastors also asked students to stop schooling, workers should stop working, wives to leave their husbands and husbands to do same and come to meet their Lord.”
This is the second time police are rescuing innocent worshippers in the South-West states over coming of Jesus Christ.
Recall that the Ekiti police command had in April this year, arrested pastor of Christ High Commission Ministry, Kaduna State, Nouah Abraham, over allegations of asking church members to pay N310,000 to prepare them for heaven.
In an interview, the pastors, Anifowose and Josiah, denied the allegation of hynotising their members’ saying they only preached undiluted words of God to them.
“ We did not tell them to abandon their homes, they came on their own volition and they were accepted”, Anifowose said.
“It’s a lie that we said that Jesus is coming in September because nobody knows the time of His coming”.
Parading the victims and pastors, the police spokesperson, Funmi Odunlami, said detectives received several complaints on the activities of the pastors and swung into action.
Odunlami said 23 children and 54 adults, including wives, husbands and graduates, were rescued.
She added that they were lured and harboured under the pretence of religion.