The former Vice-Chancellor of Ajayi Crowther University, Dapo Asaju, on Saturday disclosed that some prophecies fail because they have been prayed out and thereby averted.
Asaju stated that no prophet should feel bad that their prophecies were not fulfilled when the negative prophecies have been prevented through prayers.
The Professor of Theology at the Lagos State University in an interview with Punch warned religious leaders to steer clear of mundane matters like predicting winners of football matches and winners of elections.
He also warned clerics not to play politics in the church, adding that politicians who run to some men of God to pray for them are wasting their time.
According to Asaju, the electorate decides their choice of leaders in government through the ballot boxes and not the prayers of religious leaders.
Asaju said though false prophets now project their “imaginations and permutations” as New Year prophecies”, genuine prophecies still exist and they are vital as “guide to the future and to know the mind of God concerning the future” in order to avert disasters.
He further stated, “Prophecies are God’s own guidance of his people and for that person to repent and beware of what is to come. Prophecies are part of Christianity. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate through Christmas this season was prophesied thousands of years before. We all dream. The book of Joel chapter 2 says in the latter days (which we are all in now) God will pour his spirit upon all flesh, old ones will dream dreams and young ones will prophesy.
“Prophecy is a spiritual gift that any child of God can have. When you dream, some of your dreams can come to pass, that is a prophecy, God warns you of things in advance. We are a spirit being. Man is comprised of body, spirit and soul that is why we dream, that is why God speaks to us, that is why God wants us to avert danger, that is why we have a conscience and God warns us when we are about to go wrong, that is why we have premonitions, so prophecy is normal.
“When a father blesses his child, he is prophesying. In Africa, when a man is about to die, his children come around and want to hear his last word because they are prophecies. When Jacob was about to die, he prophesied concerning each of his 12 children and they came to pass. Jesus prophesied about the end times; he told us there would be false prophets, there would earthquakes, rumours of war. Are they not happening now?
“Prophecies are part of our lives. Prophecies are a guide to our future; prophecies are knowing the mind of God concerning what happened to us in the future. Prophecies are given so that we would be able to pray concerning them.”
Asaju added, “God would not be moved by any man of God’s prayer, prophecy; God would be moved by His own word and His own will.
“Those men of God who are praying for them are playing politics in the church, they have no reason why they should do that. They should focus entirely on the salvation of the soul of the people and stop telling people to support this, to support that. In Nigeria today, all the politicians are exactly the same thing, there is no difference with the political parties, that is why they cross-carpet at will. All of them have had opportunities and they have failed.
“So, men of God should not be involved in partisan politics. Let us leave the politicians to the electorate to know who to vote or who not to vote.”
Asaju said, “Prophecies are very necessary. The fact that you have fake currency does not mean there is no genuine one. There are genuine prophets and they do it because of what God says not because of their own mechanical prophecy oracle.
“We will not condemn everybody because their prophecies do not come to pass. In Theology, we do know that sometimes prophecies are when you perceive events, you want to gear people to pray about them. With prayers, some prophecies can be averted.
“In the Bible, a number of prophecies were averted. That was the reason Jonah was very angry when he refused to go to Nineveh. He said when I prophesy, and now they plead with You (God) and You change Your mind, they call me a false prophet. There are some prophecies that can be prayed out and they may be averted.
“Another example, King Hezekiah did a very foolish thing by opening up the treasury and the armoury to the king of the Babylonians who came to visit him and God said, ‘I am going to punish you for that.’ He sent Isaiah to him and said, ‘Put your house in order, you shall surely die and you will not live’. It was a double-barrel prophecy: you shall surely die and in case you think you will survive it, you will not live. But Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and cried unto God.
“Before Isaiah who gave the prophecies left the compound, God told him to turn back and tell him (Hezekiah), ‘I have changed my mind. I have added 15 more years to his life. So, prophecies are like that; some of them may not come to pass, some of them may be averted because people have responded.”
This article was originally published on Naija News