PROPHET T.B JOSHUA

Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, popularly known as Prophet T.B Joshua was born in Arigidi, Nigeria, on the 12th of June, 1963. He was named Temitope by his mother after he narrowly escaped death. He was a man of great faith who dedicated his life to the Kingdom of God.

Divine Departure

Prophet T.B Joshua was promoted to glory on the 5th of June 2021, just a week before his 58th birthday. Some concluded that his life was cut short, but I believe he had served the Lord and completed his Kingdom assignment. I recall watching his last service on Emmanuel TV. His words still echo in my mind. “There is a time for everything, a time to come here and a time to return home, after service.” His departure from this earth was not ordinary. He died after conducting Sunday service. One of the Emmanuel TV Partners gave a testimony saying he saw angels coming to collect the Prophet in a vision. Being promoted to glory after conducting church service is glorious. Prophet T.B Joshua spoke of his death in parables just as he had promised his congregants. On his last service he encouraged the people of God to watch and pray.

The teachings of Prophet T.B Joshua were mainly centered on love. Most times we would watch on Emmanuel TV as he tried to mend broken homes and restore relationships between husband and wife as well as amongst relatives. Prophet T.B Joshua was an advocate for family unity. There were many families that visited the SCOAN seeking the assistance of the man of God amid accusations of witchcraft, a practice which is still common in some parts of our African continent. I recall one serious case of a woman who was forced to live with her daughter’s corpse for a period of over a year because the community believed she was a witch. You can imagine living with a dead corpse in the house! It was after the intervention of Prophet T.B Joshua that the corpse was buried. Husbands and wives on the verge of divorce went to the man of God to seek advice and deliverance. Prophet T.B Joshua always emphasized the importance of deliverance and hearing from God before jumping into marriage. To many who watched the SCOAN services from home, some of the cases appeared to be a scene from an African movie but it was all real life. God raises His servants for different callings, and I believe Prophet T.B Joshua had a unique calling.

I always looked forward to Prophet T.B Joshua’s Sunday Services because I enjoyed watching the power of God being demonstrated just as it was in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many people frequented the

Synagogue Church of All Nations seeking solutions to very real problems. Visitors from the USA, Europe, Asia, and Africa would go to Nigeria to see the Prophet of God. Those who had the priviledge to visit SCOAN will agree that Prophet T.B Joshua was a simple, humble man. I recall the very first time I saw him, he was walking at the prayer mountain casually dressed in shorts and greeting everyone with a smile. I cannot explain the level of humility, but he carried himself with such simplicity.

Every New Year’s Eve, Prophet T. B Joshua would spend time at the Prayer Mountain asking the Lord to reveal to him what was coming in the New Year. He prophesied of the War between Russia and Ukraine. He instructed Believers to pray for Russia. He prophesied of the unrest of youths due to unemployment and economic hardship in South Africa, he also forewarned of the Power problems South Africa is experiencing today. The man of God used to intercede for the peace of Africa, and he would encourage Believers all over the world to pray for their nations, this is the reason why most visitors to SCOAN would carry their national flags as a point of contact for their nations during mass prayer time.

There is so much to learn from senior Prophet T.B Joshua, his sermons are even more powerful and meaningful after his passing. Prophet T.B Joshua taught that being a Believer is not just about your relationship with God but about how you relate with other people around you too. He always encouraged Believers to do good by taking care of the poor, the elderly, the orphans, and the widows, the disabled and reminded Believers not to forget those who are in prison. He went about doing good just like our Lord Jesus Christ. He paid school fees for the poor, the orphans and those with disabilities through the SCOAN scholarship. He took care of the widows by giving them cash gifts and bags of rice. The day his death was announced, there was a huge group of widows wailing outside his church. It reminded me of the story of Tabitha (Dorcas) in the Bible. He took care of the disabled and gave them cash gifts and bags of rice as well. T.B Joshua would go around giving cash gifts and bags of rice to the elderly in Nigeria.

Persecution

T. B Joshua was one of the most persecuted servants of God in the world. I realized from his ministry that anointing attracts persecution. He was criticized for the anointing water, others criticized him because he said he received the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb, saying it was not biblical, but John the Baptist did receive the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb.

After the Prophet was promoted to glory, his wife, Pastor Evelyn Joshua is heading the Synagogue Church of All Nations. So much was said about SCOAN when Prophet T.B Joshua departed with many predicting the closure of the church however God’s ways are not man’s ways. God uses whoever He chooses, and there is no doubt God has anointed Evelyn Joshua to do His work. The church is flourishing under the capable hands of Pastor Evelyn Joshua, she is being used by God to continue her husband’s legacy with the help of the disciples that are work with her. The work of God is going on as if the man of God was still present. The divine miracles, healings, deliverances, signs, and wanders are still taking place at SCOAN under Prophet T.B Joshua’s wife. She continues doing charity work, donating bags of rice and cash gifts to the poor, the widows and the disabled. Husband and wife become one flesh once married according to the word of God, and true to this word mama Evelyn Joshua lived with the Prophet for so many years and she tapped into the anointing upon the man of God. The wisemen who were raised by Prophet T.B Joshua have been supportive sons to the woman of God. We thank God that the Arena of Liberty is still demonstrating the power of God and we keep praying for the woman of God, Evelyn Joshua for God to continue to use her mightily as she continues to run with the legacy and vision of her husband. We pray for all the partners and the SCOAN team.

JOSHUA’S PRAYER SECRETS

1. START THE DAY ON YOUR KNEES Prophet T.B Joshua instructed Believers to start the day on their knees, in other words first thing in the morning, a Believer must seek the Lord before doing anything else. He challenged Believers to start the day with the Lord and observe how the day would go promising them it would be a fruitful day. The truth is by starting the day with God we involve him in our day to day activities. His Presence will guide us and lead us in all that we do. Luke 1:15 “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit

2. ALWAYS PRAY IN THE SPIRIT In one of his sermons, Prophet T.B Joshua told his congregation and viewers all over the world, the secret to his prayer life. He instructed Believers to learn to pray in the Spirit. He explained that the heart of a Believer is like a prayer room, encouraging saints to learn to pray in the heart and explaining that shouting when praying alone is hypocrisy. The Bible does mention in Matthew 6:5-6 that we should pray in secret. Matthew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”

3. PRAY WITHOUT CEASING He quoted 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “PRAY WITHOUT CEASING” To be honest, this teaching ministered greatly to my spirit because I was given this verse by an angelic host almost 7 years back and up to now I did not know how to Pray without ceasing but Prophet T.B Joshua explained it well. He said Believers must not only call on Christ when they are in a crisis instead, they must always pray to God in the spirit and that was the secret of his life. The Prophet added that when monitored twenty-four hours one would conclude that he did not pray because one may never see him going inside a room to pray. “You will think that I do not pray, it’s not that, I pray 24 hours a day. As I eat, I pray, as I am talking to you, I am praying. If you are waiting to go to the altar to pray, Satan will catch you before you get there. When you have a certain time to pray, the enemy can get you before that time. While you are walking with me, moving with me, eating with me, even giving me water to drink, I am meditating. Meditation is a visit to God.” Prophet T.B Joshua went on to give Believers an anointed prayer:

“Take more of me, give me more of You, more of Your faithfulness, more of Your kindness, more of Your goodness, more of Your self-control.” The Prophet assured the Saints that if they can pray without moving their lips, without moving their body, without people alerting people around them that they are praying then the sky will be the limit. According to Prophet T.B Joshua as Believers we carry an altar everywhere, but we are not making use of the altar. The Prophet further explained that the prayer that is answered by God is not the one he was making at the time instead it was the one he had loaded. “I meditate on the Word of God, day and night.” Prophet T.B Joshua emphasized to the church to take care of their hearts reminding them that the heart is a prayer room. Proverbs 4:23 “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” The Prophet told congregants that when they take care of their hearts, they can hear God directing them. “If you know how much you need God, you will always be in an attitude of prayer. If you do not know just how much you need God, you will always have an occasion for prayer,” Prophet T.B Joshua began to sing the song on prayer, “Prayer is the key, prayer is the key, prayer is the master key Jesus started with prayer and ended with prayer Prayer is the master key!” We do not know how to pray but the spirit helps us to pray.

Christopher Tonge, Prophet T.B Joshua had a habit of walking and praying. He called it “walk & pray”, he exercised his physical body while connecting with God through prayer and meditation.

VLADIMIR SAVCHUK’S TEN LESSONS FROM PROPHET T.B JOSHUA

1) POWER OF TESTIMONIES Prophet T.B Joshua invested so much time and resources to testimonies. His church services could be between ten hours and fifteen hours long, four hours would be dedicated to testimonies. There was so much focus on testimonies. Prophet T.B Joshua would fly people with testimonies into Nigeria just to share their testimonies. Testimonies give birth to more testimonies; it was from this experience that we also adopted a testimony session during our services.

2) DELIVERANCE IS ESSENTIAL I always thought deliverance was for people who practiced voodoo, witchcraft, white magic and black magic etc but T.B Joshua ministry removed that stigma I had. Our whole team went through deliverance and most of them had violent manifestations. At SCOAN deliverance is normalized and we have adopted and normalized deliverance at our ministry. The enemy wants us to normalize pain and suffering but God wants us to normalize what Christ did on earth while the enemy wants us to go through pain and suffering.

3) PRAYER LINE PREPARATION/SCREENING/ PRE-COUNSELING A great amount is given to prepare people who will be going on the prayer line. They want to see medical reports, they thoroughly check the medical reports to make sure that they are signed properly, they record videos before they are prayed for, they hold pre-counseling meeting. They are very intentional about people who come to the prayer. They prepare you a day or two before the prayer line and that is the reason, they get results.

4) MASS PRAYER CONFRONTATION One of the reasons why demonic manifestations and deliverance happen in SCOAN is because of confrontational prayer, where there is mass warfare prayer, and the congregants repeat prayer points addressing spiritual entities. The Lord Jesus Christ addressed demons, He instructed us to speak to the mountain, He spoke to the sickness, He spoke to the fig tree, He spoke to the waves. Prophet T.B Joshua and the Wise men would conduct mass prayer and demons would manifest. The atmosphere became electric with demons manifesting and coming out everywhere. This is one of the things we adopted from SCOAN and practice at our church.

5) THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA The Lord spoke to the Prophet when his ministry was just beginning instructing him to get a camera and record. Prophet T.B Joshua started recording his services when his ministry was small. There is so much emphasis placed on archiving and recording. Media is the tool that gets the Word out there. This was the reason why Prophet T.B Joshua had over 1.6million subscriptions on YouTube. This was also the reason why his ministry was known globally. His influence globally was great because he was intentional when it came to Media. Media is very important.

6) PROPHECY

Addresses

THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM The Prophecies at SCOAN were not only short but they were very deep and addressed the root cause of the problems the people faced. At one point, Prophet T.B Joshua called out in the church that he saw two boys who were kidnapped, and a lady came out to confirm the prophesy. The Prophet continued to say, “I saw God causing confusion… they will be released on Tuesday, and you will get a call on Tuesday and on Sunday you will testify.” The following Sunday the woman returned with the two boys to testify. He also prophesied to a couple saying, “I see a daughter”. The husband denied saying “We have no children, that’s why we are here.” The Prophet repeated “I see a daughter.” He finally added “I see a daughter; you made a girl pregnant in school and denied the pregnancy. Until you look for that girl and begin to take care of her, God will not give you children with your wife.” It was a short prophecy but powerful and revealed the root of the problem as well as directing them to the solution of their problem.

7) SIMPLICITY OF TEACHING AND

Preaching

Prophet T.B Joshua’s sermons are short in comparison to the service time. His sermons are very simple that even a child can understand them. They are not complicated but they are powerful. The teachings of Jesus Christ are similar, they were not necessarily 27 points with a clever twist of words that made people say “Wow, that’s deep!”, they were simple teachings backed by power.

8) RADICAL GENEROSITY One of the things that impacted me personally was the radical generosity of the Prophet. The first trip we took to SCOAN we were about eleven or twelve people and he refunded each one of us our air ticket fares and gave each one of us 300 dollars for our expenses. We came with clothes to give to Africa, and he told us to take them back because America had a greater need than Africa at the time. When we arrived back home in America, Prophet T.B Joshua sent 15,000 dollars (fifteen thousand dollars) and instructed me to buy gifts for the less fortunate and other things they needed. We also conducted a conference here in the US, with wiseman Harry. Prophet T.B Joshua flew in 20 people. Our church did not have enough money to rent the premises, we were willing to get loans and use our personal credit cards to secure the building, but we did not tell the Prophet that we could not afford the building. He paid for the building, and he did not allow us to take an offering for the first two days or to sell anything. When we collected the offering on the third day, he instructed us to collect the offering after 7 hours of service and the offering went to our ministry. On top of that they brought a very generous gift to bless our ministry. They did not want anything from us. Twice, our team helped Prophet T.B Joshua on his crusades in Mexico and Columbia. On one of the trips about 30 people flew to assist him, he paid for all their tickets and covered their food expenses and gave each one of them a cash gift in appreciation. I recall another time; I was travelling to Tanzania with a friend for ministry. I went to SCOAN, and someone mentioned that I was on my way to Tanzania to Prophet T.B Joshua. He offered to connect me to one of his V.I.P Partners to help me with my expenses but I refused the offer. He ended up giving me between 5000 & 6000dollars which I gave away to other ministries and charity. Prophet T.B Joshua’s generosity is one of the reasons I started to give generously. It impacted my life.

9) ANOINTING IS TRANSFERABLE The anointing water was a very controversial topic especially in the West. We faced so much criticism and hate for using the anointing water.

People could not fight the results, but they criticized the water. It was just water, there was nothing different about it. The concept came from the bible where anointing worked through objects, for example the rod of Moses, the saliva of Jesus, the River of Jordan. It is the same with how charms work in the evil kingdom. I saw incurable sicknesses cured through the anointing water in the name of Jesus Christ.

10) NOT REACTING TO

CRITICISM Prophet T.B Joshua had more critics than anyone I know. They were websites for the sole purpose of criticizing Prophet T.B Joshua, and ex disciples who criticized him. The Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump prophecies brought even more criticism as well as the collapse of his building, but he continued remained focused on his ministry despite the back lash. You cannot avoid criticism in ministry, if you are creating something and progressing, you will attract criticism. We learnt not to give our attention to critics and to focus on our calling at the beginning of our ministry. This does not mean that we cannot learn from our critics. We must listen to see if there is some truth and strive to improve. We must not get distracted or get into fights, condemn, or criticize thereby losing focus of our mission. This is not the way of Christ, Jesus focused on His ministry, and I saw the same with Prophet T.B Joshua.