Founder and Pastor of the five-finger church called Salvation Ministries in Portharcourt, Rivers State, David Ibiyeomie has refused to apologise over his claim that Jesus hates the poor despite the avalanche of criticisms that greeted that statement.
Ibiyeomie told his church members on Sunday April 20 that he was not wrong and insisted that no believer should accept poverty..
He said if believers can accept their transition from sin to righteousness they should also be be able to accept a transition from poverty to prosperity
While trying to defend his earlier claim that Jesus hates poor people he said, God was dictating to him in the bathroom and said ‘my son, you’re not wrong..tell them I died for them so they could become rich. So if they don’t accept it that means my death for them on the cross was in vain’
He stated emphatically, ‘nothing should make a believer accept poverty’ adding that ‘believers naturally don’t associate with sinners, why will they associate with the poor. You help the poor, you don’t stay with the poor.’
Since Ibiyeomie made the claim that Jesus hates poor people social media has been set agog with many criticising him for the statement.
Some went as far as citing scriptures where Jesus associated with the poor and pointed out he never had kind words for the rich.
A catholic reverend father Chinaka Justin Mbaeri had tried to educate Ibiyeomie telling him the home of Lazarus whom he purportedly described as a rich person was Bethany which meant the home of the poor..
He wrote, Claiming that Jesus visited Lazarus of Bethany, brother of Mary and Martha, and that they were giving him food, doesn’t mean they were rich.
This reveals Pastor Ibiyeomie’s ignorance of the meaning of the hometown of Lazarus, which is Bethany. Bethany in Hebrew is “Beth anya” (בֵּית עַנְיָה), which means “House of the Poor” or “House of Affliction.”
This is because it is literally known as the ‘House of Figs’ from the Hebrew Beth te’enah, which reflects the nature of the village at that time.
The houses in Bethany (John 11:1-5) as the name implied were associated with fig cultivation – agriculture. Thus, Bethany was not a city of the elite or the rich but was a small, humble village near Jerusalem, known for housing the sick and the poor and Jesus’ preferred resting place whenever He was in Judea.’
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*My Notes*
This is one of the most dangerous battles we fight now – believers teaching heresies, or behaving wrongly, and not having a repentant heart, *even when it’s pointed to them in an attempt to correct.* Rather, they would remain adamant convincing themselves they are right or saying like Ibiyeomie that “God told me I am right.”
We already have that among us, even in our congregation. It’s a battle we must carefully fight to win. We must continue to preach correct doctrine, and win people’s souls thereby.
Let’s each purge ourselves of any secret or inherent or remaining hatred for truth in us. We would through that be usable vessels for God this endtime.
Ibiyeomie has a seemingly large platform and branches to dispense and distribute his errors; let’s determine and pray and work together intentionally that God may help us to continue to preach truth and reach the world with it.
And there are plenty people like Ibiyeomie. Today, those who constantly teach errors are far more than those who attempt to teach correct doctrine.
The battle is intense; but our God is He that is terrible in righteousness Who will win by truth. Remember the word is a sword; we may sometime be brutal in its usage.
Shalom shalom!
Infact these are the heresies we need to fight against in Christianity. There’s nothing like Jesus hates the poor in the gospel of Christ. Jesus came and died for the whole world both the poor and the rich. John 3 :16, His message based on salvation not materialism. We are celebrating the death and the resurrection of our lord Jesus Christ Easter period to show how he was crucified on the cross of Calvary to redeemed us from sins being committed through Adam and Eve so we can inherited eternity. Not materialism. By the way someone can be rich physically and financially but still poor spiritually so we don’t base our salvation on the physical but spiritual as we have seen a lot of rich men even in the scripture that are not born again like Nicodemus in John chapter 3 likewise in Acts chapter 10 on a man called Cornelius so money and salvation were not the same. I it
It’s good to be rich but that’s not the priority of our salvation note this you can be rich and also be poor and still end it in hell fire but the truth of it is to have a genuine salvation
So any preacher that based their preaching on prosperity and materialism are all Antichrist.
Let’s be careful of the kind of message that we hear and the people that we follow.
Peace be unto you all
Ver sad. But you see, prosperity gospel is the death of Christianity. Pentecostalism will never recover from Its damaging effect. Time is coming when many Pentecostals will move back to the orthodox churches. Prosperity gospel is borne out of deep biblical ignorance and a mind crassly corrupted by materialism. Prosperity preachers are shifting the people’s hearts from God to the world. They are teaching what is in their heart and Jesus said, “A man’s heart is where his treasure is.” Their treasure is wealth. Look at what happened with CBEX: I tell you that most of those gamblers are Christians, who believe in prosperity gospel, which is making them greedy and covetous, two vices Jesus and the Apostles strongly condemned. But, of course, the gospel is making the preachers richer and the people poorer and more ungodly.
The founder of the ‘middle finger’ church is a more appropriate appellation for this pastor.