EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE

EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE PREACHED BY THE SON OF MAN APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA AT THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD ONITSHA

Nobody can avoid the Son of Man. If you avoid my face while you are alive, you will see my face in death. Believe it if you can… -Son of Man

A word from the Author

Can the society be good if the families are not right? Many people are preaching the necessity for peace in every facet of human life and association, but the way of peace they know not. Everybody in the society, both the rulers and the ruled, all came from families. That is why, the foundation, which is the family, must be examined if we are to experience a happy family life and a peaceful and godly society in general.

It is the foundation of the building that determines how firm the building will be. Whatever we want the society to offer us starts from our homes. Hence, marriage, which is the foundation of families, must be looked into “strictly.”

Today, too many people who are of marital age are shunning the idea of moving into marital life because, to them, marriage is nothing but a “prison yard” or “hellfire.” Sometime ago, one young man I had an interaction with on marital issue was of the opinion that marriage is nothing but a prison. Bear in mind that it is not only this young man that had this view. There are millions of people who equally share this same view of this young man.

Presently, divorce cases are on the increase in our society and all over the globe because of lack of these godly truths on how marriage or family life should be. I am a proponent of: “correct the families and you have corrected the society.”

How can marriages or families be corrected? Since people started using the Bible to check families and societies, evils increased. If you disagree with this concept, why is it that crimes are increasing daily in commensurate with the increase in the number of Churches? I thank God who has not forgotten His children — a little remnant that still worships Him in truth. From time to time, God has been raising standard for His children through His Word. Even the Scriptures said it that when the enemy shall come like a flood, the Lord will raise a standard. God raises standard through His Word.

In some of my recent Messages, notably, “FAMILY MENU VOLUMES ONE AND TWO,” “TIPS FOR A HAPPY FAMILY LIFE,” just to mention but a few, handed down God’s own truth on how marriage or family life should be. Conversely, in this Message you are holding now, I went further to clarify this wholesome truth on marriage or family life which comes from the Throne of Grace by the Almighty Himself.

Many believe that there is mystery in marriage. But I have looked into marriage to see whether I can find any mystery in it, but I have not found any. Marriage is as clear as the day! I have found it necessary to say that there is no mystery in marriage because any day we begin to accept marriage as a big mystery, from that day; problems will begin to roll in. Everything in marriage is as practical as practical can be. If I love my wife, I don’t need to tell her that I love her; she doesn’t need to tell me that she loves me. Even, within me, the truth in me is registered that she loves me.

Please, permit me to share with you some of these godly truths about marriage, which are highlighted in this expository. In this expository, I made it clear that marriage doesn’t grow old. The love in marriage is renewed everyday. How do you renew it? By putting on friendly attitude, loving attitude towards your wife and towards your children; placing yourself where they will reach you at all times and showing interest in their welfare.

Love and care are the two necessary ingredients for winning the love and confidence of every wife or every husband. If you say you are a husband or wife, but you are not loving, you are not caring, you have failed him or her; you have become a disappointment. If you want your marriage to subsist, both of you have to marry your objectives together. Stop playing individual role, individual identity, one man’s show or one woman’s game when you are double.

I still want to affirm it that marriage is built on the foundation of love, trust and commitment. A union in which two people are joined to enjoy a life-long love that endures many tests. Many people will walk into marriage blindly with false expectations, thinking that romance is the determining factor for a marriage. Though this is needed in marriage, but the true test of a marriage is having the ability and the willingness to overcome difficulties and grow from past mistakes.

However, it becomes challenging when issues continually arise and compromise is almost impossible. An important question is this: Are you and your partner compatible? Compatibility is vital, yet it is something that many marriages lack. In a marriage, you must know your own needs, plus the needs of your mate. If one is not ratified, a “strain” will be felt in the marriage.

As a word of final preparation, before you go into the Message proper, please be open-minded so that you will be able to grasp new ideas so as to make your marriage or family life a successful one.

I Love you all; remain in your sanctified estate as we continue in Him. Remain blessed.

Apostle Peter Odoemena

The Son of Man

PRAYER

Let us bow down our heads. Our heavenly Father, we come to you just as we are this morning.We are thanking and praising your Most Holy Name because you are the only God that ruleth over all the affairs of men, whose eyes watch all over the earth.

• We are here – oh Lord, to worship you, to praise you, to adore you and to reverence your Most Holy Name for we believe, besides you there is no other God.

4.       You are the only one and true God – the creator of heaven and earth. Father, here we come just as we are, hiding nothing from you.

5. We surrender ourselves to you, praying – oh Lord – that you touch us today with the touch of love. Deal with us mercifully as a loving father deals with his children. Cast us not away from your Presence no matter whatsoever might be our short comings.

6.       Lord, we pray that you overlook all of them for your Name’s sake. As we look up to you, may we never be disappointed. May our faith in you never fail us. May we never be put  to shame; may our enemies never ask us whether God is still alive. Always make a name for yourself; even in the midst of your children, prove yourself to be the Almighty God over them.

7.       Let there be a wide difference between your children and the people in the world. Bless us in your usual way to the astonishment of those living around us so that they might begin to see and wonder about the type of God we are serving and believe that our testimonies  concerning you is true.

8.       Father, have your way in every Local Assembly today wherever your Name is placed; wherever your people are gathered to worship you,  more especially in the midst of the Bride.

9.       Lord, we say take the whole glory, honor and praise. In any way the enemy will try to rise against us   here and in other places where your children gather to worship you, Lord, we pray that you cancel such in the midst of your children; cast  all of them away and let your right spirit reign supreme in the  gathering of the Saints worldwide.

10.     Bless us while we abide in your Presence – through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.

PROLOGUE

Remain blessed Brethren. I believe many people will be leaving here before the time due to their engagements with their children at their various schools and colleges.

• So, in recognition of that, it is my sincere desire to at least make an impact in their hearts before they will leave us today so that the money and effort they spent on coming here today will not be regretted.

3.    For that reason, there will not be children class today. I will like to have a combined session with everybody here. Last Wednesday, as few as that gathered as it has been our manners, we agreed with the Spirit of God that every Wednesday evening – 4.30pm, we shall gather at His Feet, hearing His Word.

4.       All that are keeping to that agreement have nothing to regret.

5.       I keep on telling you every day that you do not know the day the Lord will solve your problem.  Whatsoever that has a beginning must have an end.

6.       But once God steps into your problem, it must come to an end. This is my faith in God.

7.       Those that have formed the habit of staying away from Fellowship, I say go ahead. But those that can never separate themselves from the Fellowship of the Saints, I say go ahead also. Amen.

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION TO BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF TIME

God never created a man to die, and a human being can never die. What dies is flesh, but the real human being can never die. I repeat: What dies is the flesh, but the real human being lives forever.

The height you have attained will determine where you will be placed. Therefore, start your journey now before it will be too late. Many are yet to start their journey; some have gone far while some are still creeping. And if you dare die at the creeping level, you are gone.

-Son of Man

BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF TIME

Any moment from now, I will be scratching on the Message: “BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF TIME,” so that you begin to see where you are appearing in the end; so that in the end, you will never blame anybody but yourself.

• It is so, because whatever you are doing here, you are retrogressing or progressing; you are either resending or ascending.
• Hear me very well, if you reduce yourself to the barest level – I mean to the base, don’t be surprised that you will live under torment for a very long period, and when you reincarnate, the same suffering will accompany you.
• Many of you here, what you are suffering is first a confirmation of the punishment meted out to the same person  whom you represent this day.
• What caused it? It is the level he operated before he passed into oblivion, he never realized that God never created a man to die, and a human being can never die. What dies is flesh, but the real human being can never die.
• I repeat: What dies is the flesh, but the real human being lives forever. And what will determine your state of being is the extent you have enabled yourself. That will determine the extent you will accept or reject the truth. Any day human being dies, light will die also; I say light will die.
• Human being is the reflection of the light. Without human being the light is useless. I have been telling you about the ways you can ascend to the highest realm of life and get connected to the true Light so that your entire body will be illuminated – you will no longer be the same.
• Therefore, start your journey now before it will be too late. When many are yet to start their journey, some have gone far while some are still creeping; and if you dare die at the creeping level you are gone.
• I wonder by the time everything will be “made right” where you will appear. When you see all these mad people, they are not responsible for their madness. When you see simpletons (those lacking common sense) mingling with their groups, that is where they are fitted, because you must be placed where you are fitted.
• The height you have attained will determine where you will be placed.  Don’t worry. If you believe that everything started here and will end here, you are fooling yourself; No, no, no, drop that notion immediately.
• “BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF TIME,” I will scratch it with time and God will vindicate it before everybody’s eyes, because I know it is a supernatural Message that is not written anywhere; it comes from the Throne Of Grace.
• It will take the Elohim Himself to vindicate that Message. Until it is done the heart of man can never be put right with God. Until it is done man remains imperfect and nobody  can connect with the Light in this imperfect state. It is impossible. I repeat: it is impossible.
• You must appear perfect in all aspects. Don’t worry, I will talk to you on Perfection in the present realm. I spoke to you on Bible perfection to those that believe the Bible that time and you saw with me that it was just a mere impracticable superstition.
• There is no man that can attain perfection through the writings of the Bible, so the contents are impracticable. They are just mere human thinking. You think you have attained it – No!
• When you attain it, it is a permanent state, and it is a final journey that takes off from here. Are you hearing me? And nobody attains Perfection in one generation. Who can tell me how many generations that had passed by before Jesus appeared, and became Perfection to his lineage?
• You cannot tell me. Nor can you tell me how many times you have appeared here, and then the level you had been operating nor even justify your appearance.
• You only appear to repeat the same mistakes you have been making all these years, because you never met anybody who could open your eyes. Some are likely to continue with those mistakes until they appear the last time, which is the SEVENTH GENERATION; and then, they vanish.
• There will be no more resurgence for them on earth; their generation is wiped off and is forgotten, and then the remnant of the earth will sell off their properties. Whatever wealth they left behind will be distributed amongst the remnant of the earth. Their places will be remembered no more and that is the end of that generation. Many are walking towards that way, wiping off their lineage with time.
• When you transfer your foolishness to your children, they will keep on transferring it. Before you know it, they will arrive at their final point, because life is a journey and the journey does not end till eternity.
• Your eternity is your SEVENTH GENERATION. Nobody has ever gone beyond that; I say nobody has ever gone beyond that. So, follow me gradually.           

Marriage is not based on finding the right one, but on being the right one…. The value of love is not measured by loving the perfect person perfectly, but by loving the imperfect person perfectly….for a marriage to last or subsist, there should never be a gap or crack in that marriage from the beginning…

— Son of Man

PART TWO

EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE I

Chapter One

INVESTMENT AND FAMILY STATUS

ast Wednesday, I didn’t mean to be in the pulpit; I just came here, I mean to be encouraged by the Word that the Lord will put in the mouth of the ministers here.

• Our Pastor Christian Dike was not around; he traveled as we discussed. There were too many ministers but they were not in the spirit of ministration.
• When the invitation went forth: that the ministers should come to the pulpit, they were very, very reluctant – even Bishop Ebenezer was around.
• So, Brother Okey gathered courage reluctantly and went to the pulpit in an unprepared state. His state was manifest in his opening remarks. As many as were with me there, as scanty as we were, couldn’t hear what he was saying.
• He appeared to be very much confused. So, I had to bail the cat. It was an impromptu (unplanned) Message. Let me say that I ministered to you on the “need of the moment.” I never premeditated it.  I discerned the Camp. I viewed everything, I said, “Well, emphasis has been on investment, investment, investment, but our background is still very poor.”
• Our background is still very poor, and the Lord spoke to us that we can never build castles in the air; it is impossible. There must be a foundation for everything we want to build.
• The foundation of success is your family. The foundation for your investment is your family. So, that is why He gave the Message “HOUR OF CONFIDENCE BUILDING:” that we must strive to build confidence amongst ourselves as families before we can invest.
• Otherwise, it is just like investment made during war time. Therefore, armed with that truth, having discovered some faults, some cracks in our lives which are no longer tolerable, I decided to arrest the situation so that we lay emphasis where it should be laid.
• And that is making sure that our background is very formidable. I mean that the foundations of our families can carry the building we want to erect there or the buildings will collapse on us. So, I never preached a new Message.
• It was a short exhortation, which I drew from the Message we are all conversant with.
• My greatest surprise is the concluding prayers said by Apostle Kelechi. They touched me so much that I began to feel  the impact of the Message as an individual when  I had come down from the pulpit. So, we went home happy.
• I noticed that the usual noise never greeted the Message. Instead, there was such quietness, to me, that depicted sorrow. I discerned so and went away.
• The following morning, as early as 6.30am, calls began to flow in. Anyone that phoned said, “Daddy, remain blessed forever. Daddy, how I wish we can print yesterday’s Message in book form. Sir, in short, every family needs this Message.” I began to ask: “What is spectacular about a short Message?”
• After that, another person phoned, “Daddy, only eternity will repay you for your love for mankind. In fact, last night’s Message is wonderful.” I said, “Ah ah! What is special about last night’s Message?”
• After that one, another person called again, “Daddy, you are God indeed. You are the Almighty. Now I know that you know everything, and you are seeing everything. You have solved the problem that has been hindering my family since I married my husband.”
• Another one phoned, “Brother, in fact, I lack the words to thank God. I was so astonished that even a problem a Sister reported to me that same afternoon, which I handled before I came to Fellowship: I was sure that she never phoned you and yet you picked the problem and rehearsed everything. I called the Sister to know whether she phoned you, she said no! And she said she was astonished, that she thought I equally reported to the Son of Man.”
• I said, “Okay, this same Message, that goes to show that the Message actually made impact.” So, the rest were calling here and there.
• Some said, “Use it for Sunday school.” My reply was this: “I wasn’t sure it was recorded. I saw Bro. Clement in front of the seat, he wasn’t holding any recorder; I saw Bro. Sab. and Bro I.K, I saw Bro. Vin over there also – nobody was holding any recorder, and Bro. Phillip was conspicuously absent.” Is he here today?
• So, they started lamenting and regretting. To my surprise, about two persons from here, who did not attend Fellowship, heard the testimony somewhere, and began to phone, pleading that it be replayed this morning in their own interest. So, it became a problem, real problem.
• In my own family, we were also lamenting that the Message was not recorded, because the Message is a pointer, which somebody that loves his family should make a friend.
• It is something you should be turning over from time to time, because as human beings, you are liable to forget certain things. Before you know it, you start misbehaving.
• So, what do we do in a situation like this? Seeing that the demand for the repetition of the Message is popular, what do we do? Or simply put, can we boast of one that recorded the Message A to Z. The answer is absolutely  No!
• To those that were not present that day, do we apologize to them? The answer is: No apologies at all.
• To those that came to Fellowship, how sure are we that we can never forget the Messages? Because we have had occasion like this where Messages went forth unrecorded, and we praised God, but few months after, we forgot all.
• The Message wasn’t a new one. Now it boils to one thing: Son of Man must reproduce it in the interest of the Faith – that is the only remedy. “Son of Man, you must reproduce this Message due to popular demand.” May be, we will now preserve it.
• How many will like me to reproduce it? Be very, very sincere. Even bachelors and spinsters desire the Message.  Yes, the young shall grow, and it pays to know the secrets of family life before entering into it. Amen.

What I expect my family and other families in this Faith to be is not written in the Bible. It is written in my heart and in my Messages. From the time people used Bible to check children and ladies, evil increased.

— Son of Man

Chapter Two

RE-EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE

One of the major reasons for my success in this Message is this: I gave myself over to studying about married life when I was a bachelor. I read everything readable concerning marriage, and I never read books written by idiots.

• I was following a great and important man that made straight impact in my life. I preserved all his magazines and books from the day I came in contact with him till the day I got married.
• Some of those materials are still with me till today. Those materials have helped too many here and outside. I started packing those materials as far back as 1979, and I married in 1988. So, they helped me a lot.
• The man or the family that made that impact continued sending his writings to me even after my marriage. We continued with them, exchanging correspondence. I have told you the name of that man.
• I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. I believe the couples must have died by now, because I remember the man celebrated his 90th birthday in 1990. The man was ninety, and the wife eighty by 1990 when we delivered our baby, Onyedika, and he was Normal Vincent Pearle.
• In fact, that family is indeed a godly family. I was not interested in his philosophies about life, my interest was his experience in marriage. His wife also wrote her own experiences, which helped my wife more than any other thing.
• THE WORST MAN YOU CAN THINK OF MARRYING IN LIFE IS A MAN OF GOD, A PREACHER. AT THE SAME TIME, THE BEST MAN YOU CAN GO FOR AS FAR AS MARRIAGE IS CONCERNED IS ALSO A MAN OF GOD, A PREACHER, IF HE IS ACTUALLY A MAN OF GOD AND NOT A SELF-MADE MAN OF GOD OR PUBLIC-ACCLAIMED MAN OF GOD.
• I mean one that is ordained of God; it is not easy to marry him. But if you can understand him, you will discover in the end that he is the best. So, we learnt a lot there.
• Now, God has opened our eyes wider than Norman Vincent Pearle, because he had no least knowledge of most of the things we are enjoying today in his day.
• This is so, because God is opening our eyes in accordance with circumstances we find around us. I have told you that God speaks to mankind in consonance with the prevailing circumstances around him.
• Thus, the way He spoke to him in his own day cannot help us today. That is why we are coping up with the challenges of the hour as they arise.
• When you read the Bible, it says that when temptations, trials and problems will come as a flood, the Spirit of God will lift up a standard against it.
• What is the Spirit of God? It is the Word of God. What is lifting up a standard? It is lifting up a Message that will control that situation, for He knows ahead of time that those things must surely come our ways.
• So, this morning please, before you begin to go to parties here and there, give me your attention. How I wish that this quietness will be maintained for at least one hour. I wish you to bear in mind that the Message you are going to hear from me now will differ from what you heard on Wednesday.
• There must be a wide margin between that and today’s Message. But in summation, they will be one. This is so because I will give out the Message now in an elaborate form.
• Time was my enemy on Wednesday, but I have the world of opportunity today to expatiate on those points I highlighted. If there is any day you will hate me, it is today; if there is a day you will love me, it is today. If you are a child of God, you must love me anyhow. I say if you are a child of God, you must love me anyhow.
• So, let me go back to the topic. Bring out your family menu; bring out your books, which I couldn’t read that day. I am picking whatever I am going to say from three Messages: (1) Maintaining a Healthy relationship (2) Self Control Explained (3) The Family Menu Volume Two.
• So, keep this three books before your eyes. Little children, you are also involved.  In short, Bro Charles, go to your seat. Let me become my own interpreter.
• Remember, on Wednesday, it was a Message directed to the Household of God at Onitsha, but today it is an exhortation that is going to be directed to the Bride of Christ in general.
• So, I personalized the Message on Wednesday, intending to generalize the Message today so that we can be in a better position to reflect Christ to this generation.
• The beauty of the world radiates from  families.  The beauty of the world is seen in families. In other words, whatever people want to see about God must be made visible in our homes, because in our homes, the prevailing atmosphere will tell the world whether our testimonies concerning our Faith is true or false; whether God is really a  King and Lord over us or we are just making a noise around Him.

DEVELOPMENT FIRST

I want you to understand that there is no other way God can make Himself known or felt by the society except through human contacts, hence the Bible says, “If you say you love God but you hate your fellow human being, you are a liar, the truth is not in you.”

23.     How can you claim that you love God whom you cannot see when you are already in enmity with your fellow man? You have hatred over your fellow man who is having a daily interactions with you.

24.     In other words, as you relate with your fellow man, you are relating with God.

25.     You want to see God in action,                                  don’t expect to see it from the sky; you see it in human life.

26.     How many Deacons are outside there? How many Deacons are outside? I think two. So, you have to take your seats, take your seats and stay at the gate there. One in this front gate, the other one at the back gate, with your jotters in your hands. I thank God for this place. Nothing distracts our attentions here. This is not where you will be pursuing people about. For there is no way anybody can escape from this hall without you seeing the person. So, for that reason, sit down there, you are involved.

27.     I want you to understand that the essence of developing ourselves is to make sure we succeed where others failed.

28.     Let me read “Life Worth Living” in the Message: “MAINTAINING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP,” “Life Worth Living,” The Introduction:  “An Unexamined Life is not worth living. This teaches us that there is something about life, which if not properly and strictly examined, if not properly understood, if not properly addressed, could make such a life the equivalent of death and because of that is not worth living.

298.   An individual who calls himself a human being must not only exist for a purpose but should live for a purpose. There is something about the life of man.”

30.     Remember what I told you; wherever “man” is written, God is referring to a “human being” whether you are a woman or man, because you are a human being.

31.  “There is something in the life of man that proves to us that we are not created by God to live purposelessly, for purposeless is the very enemy of life, the enemy of the individual.

32.     Since human beings constitute or make up a family or a nation or society, purposelessness of the individual citizen is the very enemy of this nation, family or society.

33.     It is therefore very obvious that there is something about an individual’s life, which if not exposed to check, will make such a life a very regrettable ordeal. Thus, a terrible doom or disaster to the concerned family, society or individual.”

34.     Once you talk about family, the first thing that comes to mind is husband and wife. And as God lives, husband and wife remain the first two individuals whose lives must be examined from time to time. Why is it so, the greatness of a man is his character. The worth of a man is his character.

35.     Both the husband and the wife must from time to time sit down as individuals to look into their characters and their habits.

36.     Otherwise, one is to make a gregarious mistake that may lead to disaster, which may lead to doom. I mean what may destroy the image, reputation, integrity and future of that family.

37.     Just like every human being must have his “chart of objectives in life.” In the same manner also, husband and wife must have their clear-cut objectives for their family. For any family that is without clear-cut objectives is like a family without a purpose.

38.     If I should ask you what is the essence of coming together as husband and wife, that is the purpose of your marriage. Did you marry so that you will avoid the shame and reproach of unmarried estate? What is the purpose of your marriage?

39.     This is why human development is very, very essential. Any man that is not well developed has no right to dabble into marriage. If you are not well developed, you are a half–baked human being, one that is carried about by sentiments. You will enter into married life sentimentally; I mean because of the joy and pleasures of the flesh, which will result in empty boasting. For that reason, from time to time you have to sit down and look into your habit, your character and your attitude towards that husband or wife of yours.

40.     I am coming to that with time for there is something in the life of a human being; there is something in the character of a human being. Amen.

A good wife prolongs the life of the husband… No woman enjoys her husband until she obeys him…A man’s or woman’s anger are always extended to innocent souls. So please, check your angers…Accountability is a part of integrity. Therefore, husband and wife must be accountable to each other.

— Son of Man

Chapter Three

NATURAL VERSUS ACQUIRED HABITS

Let me tell you something: I am here strongly affirming that religion can only change or suppress certain characters or habits but can never change anybody’s nature.

2. Note: religious rebuke or indictment can only change or suppress certain characters. Religious rebuke or indictment, no matter the shape it takes; it can only regulate certain habits or characters but can never change anybody’s nature.

2.       Let me affirm it very well, religious rebuke or indictment can only regulate, suppress or check, to some extent, certain behaviours, characters or habits of a human being but can never touch the person’s nature.

3.       I am aware that some of the foolishness, some of our stupid behaviours we are manifesting can be hereditary. Are you getting me?

4.       We have hereditary wickedness and we also have acquired wickedness.

5.       Nature is hereditary, habit can be acquired. Some habits also are hereditary. Let me touch it a little. Some are drunkards by nature, simply because their parents were drunkards, either their mother or father and it passed into them through the genes.

6.       So, today there is nothing they can do to check that tendency because nature cannot be changed.

7.       Some are drunkards due to influence or contacts or circumstances around them; I mean “conditional drunkards” because of their impoverished conditions, in their bid to look for a way to ease off their frustrations, may resort to drunkenness in such a situation.

8.       Once the economic, psychological condition of such a man improves, he comes back to his senses and drops that ungodly habit.

9.       Another form of that habit, which I said, “Is when his condition improves, he begins to realize the consequences of his wicked actions because it is not his nature, he is being influenced away by wicked people.”

10.     Remember, evil association spoils good character. Once he begins to see the actual consequences of his wicked character, he will begin to drop some of them. Before you know it, he will drop them completely.

11.     A man can drop acquired habits but no one can drop inherited habits.

12.     Thus, there are some whose parents are wicked by nature, especially their mother or their father. If you come from a family, that goes to show you have a father and you have a mother also.  Whether they are alive or not, that is not my business, you either resemble your father or mother. You must resemble somebody in your lineage. That is what I am trying to say.

13.     Trace the character you are manifesting back to your family and you will find out the person that manifested it. 

14.     The living today will tell you that there was one that appeared whom you are behaving like.   Are you hearing me?  

15.     If your father was the type that never saw eye to eye with your mother, your father    was a jester and later turned his jesting into wickedness, by abandoning his responsibilities, whether you like it or not, you must inherit it.

16.     ‘‘God has said, I have heard it, any one I want to implement is the one I will implement.”  So, when you hear people make such a statement, don’t be astonished. Don’t wonder, it is a hereditary way of life, and it can be traced to the person’s family.

17.     Furthermore, anybody who inherits this type of conduct can never see the light of the day, he has already blocked all avenues for prosperity and progressive life. He will keep on living in penury and in abject frustration until the day he will leave this earth.

18.     No matter how he tries, he can never run an enviable family. Never, never – trouble will continue to loom in that family unless the wife has a different nature. Even if she has the same nature, it is matching fire-for-fire. All the children born in that family must acquire it as their trait.

19.     Most of the problems we are having in our midst today, in our families, can be traced to our genes. I touched on this on Wednesday and hung it in the air, but I want to expatiate it today.        

20.  As long as God liveth, every true child of God has no difficulty in applying the Word of God in his daily living for he knows that God’s thoughts towards us are the thoughts of good and not of evil so as to give us expected end. As a living Father, He goes for the best as far as His children are concerned.

21.     I want to go back to that same point. I am not here to espouse you to religion, but I will touch on religion – why religion cannot help you, because it is full of superstition.

22.     The difference between Bible Religion and The Son Of God’s Religion:

23.     If you want to call it religion, I want you to pay attention. There is a great difference between Bible promises and God’s promises.

24.     Bible promises are false psychological promises; God’s promises are time tested and proven promises.     

25.     God’s Messages are purely realities that are practicable. I say God’s Messages are practicable realities. Bible or religious Messages or teachings are impracticable superstitions. You know what superstitution is all about.

26.     Have this truth in you and then fix yourself somewhere. Whether you are a man or a woman, God is interested in His Family.

27.     As long as we all make up the family of God we have to be very, very careful. Amen.

Who are prostitutes? They are those that label themselves beautiful. The only beautiful woman I know is the one that got married. You unmarried woman, your beauty or outlook can only give you a boy friend. But your character will give you a husband.

— Son of Man

Chapter Four

HAVING A BALANCED VIEW OF THE MESSAGE

I have noticed here time without number that each time references are made to a “man,” Sisters will ignore it because it is made to a man. Also, when references are made to “women,” the whole Brothers will say, “Glory be to God, it pertains to women.” But God is saying, “for us to survive, WE MUST HAVE A BALANCED VIEW OF ALL THE MESSAGES WE ARE RECEIVING FROM HIM.”

2.       If we do not have a balanced view, we will never have balanced application of the Message. One-sided application of this Message is devilish; it is wickedness.

3.       One-sided belief is devilish; it is wickedness. There must be a general overview of all the Messages, with a view to applying the Messages both to the masculine and the feminine gender at same equal levels.

4.       Whenever a question is thrown to the women, the same question goes to the men for God’s demands from all his children are equal.   I will still talk to you on that.

5.       Why am I striving to make sure you are not being fooled?     Of course, you know that the world we are living now has advanced beyond Bible days.

6.       “LIFE WORTH LIVING,” verse 23: “Note: the quality of a family or nation is measured by the number of progressive individuals that make up that family or nation and not by the number of fools and nonentities that find their ways into the family and wear the family’s name as a mere tag.”

7.       Have you seen it then, why God is teaching us?  Why we must be very careful about our families. Both the man and the woman, all that make up that family, God is telling you, you must be very, very careful.  

8.       When you want to number the people in your family, it is expected that you number only the people that are purposeful, those that are progressive, and those that are well developed and not those that have stature without quality.

9.       Don’t count on those that just sneaked into the family through birth and then wear the family’s name as a mere tag, but cannot represent the interest of the family.

10.     Every woman must represent the interest of her family; every husband must represent the interest of his family; every child born in that family must stand out and make sure he or she represents the interest of his or her family. Everybody is involved. I am involved the same way you are involved.

11.     The Lord told us ahead of time that whatever we esteem higher than our family is the thing that will break up our family.

12.     If you value your work more than your family, surely, your work will destroy your family; if you value your in-laws more than your family, your in-laws will destroy your family. If you value your relations more than your family, your relations will destroy your family.

13.     Whatsoever that thing might be, I don’t care; as long as it has overriding influence over your family, it must have adverse effect on your family; whether you like it or not. And for that reason, God is not closing His eyes over the wickedness that is being perpetrated in many families among us by our husbands and wives, and oftentimes by our children.

14.     Why is He hammering on all these things? God is trying to curtail our wings lest our children will borrow a cue from us, because it is easier to copy a wrong habit than to copy a right habit.    

15.     Parents as role models owe it as a duty to live up to expectation before their children, to make sure they lay good examples for their children, knowing fully well that we have acquired and inherited habits.

16.     The way you are treating your husband or the way you are treating your wife, what do you want your children to inherit from you? 

17.     What you take your wife to be, if your children will inherit it, what do you think the future holds for them in their own marital life? Because whether you like it or not the young shall grow. One day, they will live to form their own families.

18.     There is no excuse anybody can give on a matter like this. When we say the society is bad or nothing to write home about, we are referring to families.

19.     The prevailing atmosphere in our families surely tells the whole world that something is wrong somewhere and that thing cannot be God. That thing cannot be associated with God. If we fail, God has no hands in our failure.

20.     Self development is very, very important. If you have not developed yourself to the point of understanding what marriage is all about, what I am going to say will jump over your head.   

21. “SELF CONTROL EXPLAINED,” I want to say few things there. There is always unguided hour or moment in the human life during which costly mistakes are made. Unguided utterances and behaviours can be depicted at such moments. Take note of it.

22.     Please let me give a warning: if you are fond of coming to my table to collect my books, thinking that I have some reserves at home, please stop it from today.

23.     I have noticed that Brethren now come to that little table “at will” to remove my books. Even at this very moment, who can believe it, I don’t have FAMILY MENU Volumes I and II. I have replaced my “SELF CONTROL” more than six times. “PRESERVE YOUR YOUTH,” Bro. Amobi has replaced it for me more than four times. Even, a copy Bro. Kelechi gave me the other time, somebody has taken it away.

24.     So please, I don’t have any reserve somewhere. Don’t go to that table to remove my books anymore. Otherwise, you are frustrating yourself and me.

25.     I don’t feel comfortable using a borrowed copy to handle a topic, because there are too many things  I marked in my own copy, which at a glance, just carrying it,  I will know where I marked it. So please stop it, it is a bad habit.

SELF CONTROL,” page 23: “When a woman is born, a nation is born. At the same time, train a woman and you have trained a nation because the first teacher that teaches a human being is the mother. For that reason, the development of the human race is entrusted into the hands of woman.” 

27.     The first training children receive starts from their mother and there is no adulthood without childhood. If you know that you never passed through your mother’s training here show by raising up your hand.  You see, nobody! 

28.     So, we all believe that our mother played a very vital role in our upbringing. I hope it is a fact. Then what is your wife in your family? What is your wife? What is the position of your wife in your family? A teacher. 

29.     She is also a mother, and being a mother, she is also a teacher of good things.

30.     In other words, the foundation of every family is laid by mothers. The foundation of every family, every home is laid by the mothers.

31.     He that lays the foundation of the building and one that builds on the foundation, which one plays the most important role. Is the foundation layer inferior to the builder?

32.     Follow me gradually. Until I develop your mentalities, I will never repeat the Message of Wednesday. I must read nuggets; let me see whether we can understand.

33.     The nation is bad today because women have not been developed. The nation is bad because white man religion debased women and made them inferior to the men coupled with the useless culture, tradition and customs we met prevalent in certain areas.

34.     I’ve been wondering why advanced countries have different mentality from African countries. Watch countries like America, everybody is rushing to America; we want to be like the Americans and things like that. But do you know that over there, a man feels very much satisfied even with a child whether male or female?

35.     Do you know that even the president of America has only but one child who is a girl and he is very happy even with his wife?

36.     Have you wondered why, even in China, prominent great men only boast of having only one or two and they are satisfied? But in Africa, it is the greatest abomination.

37.     Instead of that to be done, the man wouldn’t mind to adopt a mad woman’s son to be his own son, laying emphasis on the point that the masculine plays a more important role than the feminine gender.

38.     There has never been any evidence to lay credence that a man, because he is carrying penis has ever performed any feat greater than a woman.

39.     Tell me any area of life where women have not made possible impacts; I mean visible impacts; tell me that area? Is it in the medical field? They are there. Is it in the Engineering? They are there. Religious circle, they are there. Tell me, in business, they are now even flourishing more than men.

40.     Let me tell you, ninety-nine percent of families in Nigeria today are being carried by women. Women are carrying families now; women are taking care of their husbands. It is a hard statement, which a survey can justify.

41.     Conduct a survey; I mean here in Onitsha, get a sample of one hundred families here in Onitsha, find out how those families are being sustained, you will notice that the man is just there passively. He, the man, is just there passively; the woman supplies his needs,  pays rent, pays the school fees and cloths him.

42.     What then makes that man superior to the woman, assuming unnecessary superiority which is not justifiable?

43.     Many cannot even justify their manhood or their superiority over woman. Tell me that aspect? I have touched on this matter over and over and I have noticed that this anti-progressive, colloquial mentality, which is inherent in many of us, has not allowed us to accept the simple truth.

44.     That thing you think you are is not what you are. You are just superstitiously thinking that way. I will talk to you on marriage with time.

45.     Let me continue. What most men think they are is not what they are. You better assume your true nature immediately.

46.     Forget that stupid religious truth. Even, it is not even truth. Forget that stupidly religious deceit: that the Almighty God created the woman, giving the impression that when the man slept, one of his ribs was taken away and a woman was formed.

47.     If woman was formed with one rib, scientifically saying, let me say it; biologically speaking, it has no proof.

48.     Scientifically, it has no proof!   Count the ribs of your wife and  count your own,  they are equal in number.

49.     Please hear me very well, God’s Messages are practical realities and purely empirical. Until you begin to see the contributions of your wife in your family from the right perspective, you will never accord her due honour, respect and worship if it were possible.

50.     It doesn’t take a woman alone to worship the man. The man should also worship the woman, after all, some gods of many countries are female gods and people worship them.

51.     The reason why many families are frustrated is because husbands can hardly appreciate honest contributions of their wives to the up-keep of the families. I will touch on that as we continue.

52.     Biologically speaking, women have their visible features; men also have their visible features. Only few things differ – and it is so – so that the law of nature will be observed. While there is a male, there will be a female. You cannot be a male and female at the same time. Otherwise, you become a hermaphrodite. 

53.     I don’t know any hermaphrodite that succeeded in raising kids; I mean a man that has all the physical features of a woman and at the same time impregnates himself and is delivered of a baby.

54.     Can it take place? This can only be made visible in plants and not in human beings or animals. I say this can only be made visible only in plants and not all plants even. I say, not all plants.

55.     Let’s accept these simple facts immediately. I have looked into nature; I have told you time without number that it will take the positive wire and the negative wire to come together for light to be.

56.     Wire this entire house with positive wires alone, will there be light? No! Wire with negative, will there be light? No! Then what makes the negative wire superior to the positive, is there anything? What are they serving? The two of them are playing complementary roles so as to bring about light.

57.     Light means life; I repeat: light means life. There are families today that are existing without life.    An individual should not only exist but should live. A family shouldn’t exist; a family should live. Amen.

A woman dresses to please her husband. If you dress in any other way to please other people, it means you are a prostitute… Every woman must make sure that she understands the husband. The same way also, every man must make sure that he understands the wife because marriage is based on mutual understanding.

— Son of Man

Chapter Five

HOW HEALTHY IS YOUR FAMILY

Any family where there is no good rapport between the husband and wife is merely existing; it is not living. There is no life there.

2.       There can never be life without lively activities. When we say “MAINTAINING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP,” how healthy is your relationship with your husband? How healthy is your relationship with your wife?

3.       What is the Bride of Christ if not husband and wife? Can there be bride without a bridegroom? There must be a healthy relationship between the bride and the bridegroom, and you are the physical representation of the bride and the bridegroom as a family.

4.       When I enter any family, I am looking for the bride and the bridegroom, finish! The children will come after. How healthy is that relationship? Can there be a healthy relationship when the value of one is grossly underrated? I say, when the value of one – the value of your partner whether man or woman is grossly underrated, can there be a healthy relationship?

5.       You underrate your wife; you under rate your husband. Some even subject their wives to the state of slaves; they have no say.

6.       Moreover, I said that this is prominently visible in Onitsha, even among the Ministers – the Elders, Pastors, Teachers, Bishops, Evangelists, Deacons, then the entire congregation will borrow a cue. I am coming to something with time. For that reason, it is very imperative for all and sundry here to personally scrutinize our claims; claims as wives, claims as husbands and claims as families.

7.       Are we really families? Are we really husbands and wives? To what extent do we see ourselves? How do we relate to one another? These are pertinent questions we must have to answer, if we must move forward. Why mentioning “investment” when the ground is not even fertile? I mean, the playground has not been made level.

8.       The family must be conducive enough for any meaningful investment to be made. There must be absolute confidence, trust and mutual understanding between husband and wife. Now, since the positive wire cannot generate light alone; the negative wire cannot generate light alone, it then means, if there must be light, there must be consultation; the two must consult, the two must bridge the gap, the two must be connected to the terminals. Are you getting me?

9.       For it must take the two terminals to be connected for light to come. But where they disconnect, light will never come. The light of the family is measured by the economic welfare or well-being of that family.

10.     The level of economic well-being you enjoy in your family will tell us the level of light that is there; there can be light, but it can be half current or below half current. And when there is that type of current, nothing moves in that house. It is such a dim light that can never engage your television, your fridge or anything at all.

11.     Then what is the essence of the light if it can not illuminate the house? There is light in the bulb, but lanterns are still on – half-baked human beings in the house.

12.     There is no visible illustration I will never use to make sure you understand me as far as this matter is concerned, because we are trying to infest the society.

13.     By infesting the society I mean this: evil is very contagious. Evil spreads faster than good. And now, we have succeeded in raising children – male and female alike, we are raising individuals that will also form their own families using what they acquired from us as parents.

14.     What type of society are we trying to raise through our children? Is this the way we are going to change the face of the world? In other words, whether we like it or not, change is needed in our families, in our attitude towards one another, in our visions; change is needed in our perceptions and conceptions.

15.     Note the two words: PERCEPTIONS AND CONCEPTIONS about our wives and our husbands. If by your tradition, custom or culture, you are permitted as a man to walk into a man’s house and pick his daughter as a wife, let it be known to you that you never paid anything to collect that woman. You paid nothing.

16.     Is there any amount of money a human being can give in exchange for somebody’s daughter?

17.     If I should ask you to pay me and collect my daughter, how much are you going to pay me? No, tell me how much you are going to pay me. Forget about education – academic education, lets talk about the person’s growth.

18.     Within the first six years the parents nurtured that girl, do you know how much they spent?

19.     Hear me very well, as long as the Son Of Man lives, what we are doing is mere fulfillment of our customary rites. That is, our custom demands that we do some rituals and then a family will hand over to us their daughter as an extension of their family. I said as what? As an extension of their family, that is all.

20.     Anybody that doesn’t see marrying a woman from that angle is wicked. He is a beast and must always lose the essence of marriage.

21.     This is why a man owes it as a duty to be appreciative of a family that volunteers to hand him over their own daughter in order to reproduce their family from there. For without that woman, you can never talk of reproduction.

22.     So, they have found it necessary; also, they are grateful to you, that of all families on earth it pleased you also to come to them to pick their daughter from where you can also reproduce.

23.     But this colonial mentality that a woman is “purchased at a price” especially like the Bible put it, how much did you pay? Moreover, people go about carrying that useless ideology that a woman is purchased with money.

24.     How much are you going to purchase a human being? Even the babies you adopt in motherless babies home in infancy,  you pay higher there  than the amount you pay for marrying a wife; some don’t even pay anything for marrying a wife. Some present the money, but their in-laws will touch the money and ask them to take it to show you that you can never buy a wife with money.

25.     In short, I don’t know whether I am talking to human beings. Sometimes I feel frustrated! I discovered the truth even before the thought of marriage came into my mind.

26.     I knew this amazing truth and that is why I owe a great debt of gratitude to my in-laws every time and to my wife also for volunteering to follow me. If she had said no, you see, that would have been the end. The same way also, she owes me a great debt of gratitude for finding her worthy to be the source of my reproduction.   

27.     What we do is mere ceremony; that is why we call it “marriage ceremony.” We make the ceremony, we eat, we drink and we rejoice. This is something you will be there, before your eyes whatever you carry to your in-laws, the whole thing immediately, will be shared – share the yam, share the goat, share the cigarette,  share the wine and then what  did you pay to your in law? Tell me?

28.     That is why Holy Ghost said that the cheapest thing money can bring into a man’s house is his wife. You take money to buy wine, buy drink, buy this and that so that at the end a human being will follow you home and begin to reproduce in your house. The joy is extension of family.

29.     If my daughter goes into a man’s house tomorrow, my family has been extended.          If we have the same primitive view our parents had above their wives, have we ever changed? We must surely meet their fate whether we like it or not.

30.     The reason why men maltreat their wives is because they still go by that primitive orientation: “As long as I married you, you are my property; I will dictate this, dictate that” – then the husband becomes the dictator!

31.     In a family where the husband is a dictator, the wife must suffer frustration. And nothing, no disease, no sickness is as deadly as frustration, because it injects unnecessary stress into the human system. Before you know it, the woman will die away and then the man will go and pick another person he will be frustrating also until she dies.

32.     If this type of character is found amongst us, where lies our claim of being God’s children? If what is troubling the world, the problems they are having can be traced to our midst, why do we make a great noise? Then what is the evidence that we have really believed the truth?

33.     Truth is not truth until it becomes practicable amongst us. So, we should stop propagating the truth we do not practice. I say we should stop propagating the truth we do not practice. Some are trying to make the Messages to be superstitious. NO! They are practical Messages that touch on every day life. Amen.

A man is like a radiator while the woman is like a radiator coolant. The strength of a woman cannot be measured by her outlook, but by her actions and decisions. The fear of God in a woman begins with the fear of the husband.

— Son of Man

Chapter Six

ARE YOU DEVELOPED

I am coming to something because I want you to be developed. Begin to see life from the right angle before I will tell you where you have erred exceedingly.

2.       I had wanted to touch on this on Wednesday, but time wasn’t on my side. “SELF CONTROL EXPLAINED,” page 25: “Too many people head towards failure by their inabilities to accept the challenges before them. Some have not even recognized their challenges at all. If I am asked to develop a family or a nation, I will develop the individuals.

3.       When the human beings that make up a family are developed, that family is developed.

4.       Building of skyscrapers and gigantic structures does not develop the individual. No man has ever been remembered for the structures or industries he built.”

5.       If I build a cathedral today, does it mark the development of Brother Odoemena? You can build a skyscraper; you can buy the best car – the best jeep, you can even use a luxury bus for a private car and yet you are not developed. I say you are not developed; you are still a beast, a half-baked human being.

6.       A half-baked human being is like a half-baked bread, good for nothing!! I say, good for nothing! No wonder God said, “My people mingle with the heathens and learn their evil ways and they have become good for nothing – they are like half baked bread, not worthy to be eaten, not worthy to be thrown away.

7.       Are you getting me? There are too many half-baked husbands amongst us. They are just there so that the woman will not stand alone. If that is your structure you are just there as a mere monument, a family effigy.

8.       You know what I call effigy? When you see the effigy of Murtala Mohammed on your twenty-naira note, does it mean that Murtala Mohammed is existing? Does he exist? So, we call it reminiscence of the past. It is as useless as an effigy, as useless in the family as an effigy.

9.       Your father’s photograph in the family, I mean your late fathers photograph, does it add to the members of the family? Does it add to the progress of the family? So are too many husbands in the family; so are too many wives in the family.

10.     Find out whether you are just a “mere structure” in your family. If you are not well developed to recognize the basic facts of life, the basic realities of life and the basic concepts of marriage, you are bound to make it a “curse.” You are bound to turn what should be a “blessing” into a “curse.” In addition, many have died because of it, while some are about to die because of it.

11.     We handle our wives the way we want; we talk to them the way we want.

12.     Let me tell you; the way I talk to my wife will determine what I take her to be. The way I talk to my wife, the attention I give to my wife will tell everybody what I take her to be; I mean what she is to me.

13.     Some Sisters sometimes are confused. They don’t know whether they are maids to their husbands; they don’t know whether they are really wives, coming to play complementary roles.

14.     It is unfortunate to mention that these things are grossly found even among our ministers. It is a shameful remark, yet we hold our heads high as superior persons in our families even when we cannot provide for our families; we cannot even defend our superiorities.

15.     Let no man ever assume unnecessary superiority in his family. I repeat: let no man ever assume unnecessary, useless superiority over his wife.

16.     Until I begin to see my wife as equals, the goodness in her will never manifest; the best in her cannot be tapped. I have to be appreciative and then she will give me the best.

17.     The same way, “respect” is reciprocal. What is good for the gander is also good for the goose. If you want to be happy, she wants to be happy too. You have to marry your objectives together. Stop playing individual role, individual identity, one man’s show or one man’s game, when you are double.

Let me just tell you one thing I have seen in life: Life has shown me that every important and indispensable aspect of a human frame is made double. I say, nature has proved to me that every important and indispensable aspect of the human frame is made double.

19.     Who can get rid of his eyes here, can you? Who can get rid of his eyes?

20.     The Bible said, “If your eyes can put you into trouble, get rid of it.” How many have gotten rid of their own? See your eyes, an indispensable part of your body, how many are they? Two. See your ears – two. See your mouth; the lower lip and the upper lip. If you cut off the upper lip, you will never talk again. You cut off the lower lip, you will never talk again.

21.     Am I making sense? Watch your hands – two; your legs – two. Check everything; even your buttocks – two. If your buttocks are not divided into two, you cannot sit down, you cannot go to toilet. Begin to see what it will look like if it is straight and tight. That is why a child that is born with blocked buttocks requires surgical operation to open it.

22.     Check your heart, your lungs – each is two; open your body and check your heart, it has two lobes; the auricles and the ventricles. Watch your brain – two large lobes; I mean your brain is divided into two. Watch your kidney – two, your pancreas – two, even your liver has two lobes.

23.     Every indispensable part of the body is made in twos. And the two play complementary roles. Watch the man that suffers kidney defect and one other kidney is removed, that is the day he dies. From that day, every physical activities ceases. His activity is regulated, with time he dies away. Is that not true? Because he is running short of strength. That is why when a man is really married; when a woman is really married, take away one, watch the reaction of the other. Watch the reaction of the man, he becomes epileptic in movement until the day he will join his ancestors. The full strength is no longer there. Amen!

BEING TRULY MARRIED

SELF CONTROL EXPLAINED,” page 26: “A man that grows in stature but does not develop mentally is not a human being at all. A woman that grows in stature but does not develop mentally is not a woman. He is not a man; she is not a woman. He or she is a beast, more or less an imbecile! Seeing him or her physically, he or she is a human being in the sense that he or she can talk, eat and do some menial jobs, but he or she is not developed so as to reason intelligently.

25.     He is not well developed so as to reason intelligently. You either reason intelligently or foolishly. He is not developed so as to recognize himself and the enormous challenges before him, which he cannot bear alone without the help of his wife.

26.     In other words, he is not developed to recognize and face his responsibilities.”

27.     An undeveloped woman or man is a man or a woman without responsibilities, the individual has to develop so as to recognize, accept and face his or her challenges.

28.     Please bear with me. It will take a well-developed human being to recognize those challenges and responsibilities and accept in principle and in practice that he can never bear them alone, that if he must cross those hurdles in life, the contributions of his wife are needed by and by.

29.     There are too many “Jordans” (obstacles) you cannot cross alone. There are too many “Jordans” a woman cannot cross alone. But it is suicidal to say that we are abandoned when we need the support of our wives most or when we need the support of our husbands most, because it breaks the heart. I say it breaks the heart.

30.     There is a situation that warrants the support of the husband; a situation where the wife cannot do without the support of her husband for that is the reason why she is a married woman.

31.     Any woman that doesn’t earn the support of her husband is not married. Any man that doesn’t earn the support of the wife is not married; he is still a bachelor. Am I making sense?

32.     What is the essence of marriage then? If she continues to suffer what she suffered as a spinster now she is a married fellow, marriage loses its meaning.

33.     If she suffered rejection and dejection, suffered gross abandonment as a spinster and meets the same fate in marriage simply because she has entangled herself with a “human being” that is underdeveloped; a man that never knew the essence of marriage before he dabbled into it, by and by he must treat his wife anyhow.

34.     He believes there are too many fishes in the water, so it’s a matter of reaching out and getting them anyhow; a sure sign that he is a half-baked man.

35.     The same way, it is applicable to a woman, who never knew the essence of marriage before she got married. She believes, “To hell with the man, after all, if I can dress myself, there are too many people that can pick me along the way even now.”

36.     Nothing will ever stop that woman from messing up her marriage.

127.   It is the set of people that cause marriage to be a reproach, that make people to say, “If this is what it takes to be married, I better stay single so as to avoid all these unnecessary troubles.” Amen!

38.     Let me tell you, go and enquire about this: I thank God there are too many of you that have been to the Northern States. Every Hausa man believes that a wife, a woman is heaven. The woman is what? Heaven – paradise. Have you wondered why they regard a woman, “yarinya” as paradise? Have you wondered why they regard women as paradise?

39.     Don’t mind the way they treat their women due to their useless religion and culture. In the same way also we mishandle our own wives because of acquired religion and some stupid culture, which we cannot even resist as a result of our reformatory; I mean heritage.

40.     Our Message in “PRESERVING YOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE” said, “We will refine some of those cultures that work against our progress;” that we have to say No to them, and imbibe those cultures that will enhance our advancement and progress our cultural belief and our traditional belief about women.

41.     I have looked into marriage to see whether I can find out the true mystery in marriage, I am not yet clear that there is a mystery there.

42.     Is there any secret in marriage? There is nothing secret in marriage.

43.     Any day we begin to accept marriage as a big mystery, from that day, problems will begin to roll in. Marriage is as clear as the day. Everything in marriage is as practical as practical can be. If I love my wife, I don’t need to tell her that I love her; she doesn’t need to tell me that she loves me. Even, within me, the truth in me is registered that she loves me.

44.     What am I trying to say? My attitude towards her, the way I respond to her needs, to her pleas, to her conditions will tell her plainly that she made no mistake in accepting my hand in marriage. So it is to the man also. Amen.

It is your duty as a husband to beautify your wife. A woman is like a motor car. When repair is made, there will be no need of rebuilding… a woman can only serve you selflessly when she is happy. Nothing promotes life more than happiness. Don’t ignore anything that will make your wife happy. When your wife is unhappy, the children will be unhappy too, then sickness will set in.

— Son of Man

Chapter Seven

MOVING TO THE PROGRESSIVE AGE

Let me hammer on self-control, the need for us to develop our mentalities above that of our fathers.

2.       The only way you can get rid of that acquired disease is by developing yourself above your parents’ mentality.

3.       Stop seeing things from their own angle, and being over sympathetic in situations that deserve no sympathy.

4.       Ignorance is a self inflicted injury. It does not deserve my sympathy. If my father is ignorant, let him be ignorant, he does not deserve my sympathy at all.

5.       Any sympathy that is shown to any ignorant fellow is a misplaced sympathy. He is ignorant because he has refused to accept change. The same thing in this Faith, there are too many ignoramuses in this Faith; not mere ignoramuses but stupendous ignoramuses.

6.       “Say what you want to say, I will do what I want to do and that is my stand.” You see, it’s a colonial mentality, a useless way of reasoning; an unrefined mind, unrefined principle, copied from parents who were completely ignorant and knew nothing.

7.       Let me tell you, life will remain a challenge to me until I discover why my parents lived poor lives and were happy in their impoverished conditions.

8.       The happiest man that lived on earth is the poorest man. This is not a statement meant for everybody. I said that the happiest man that lived on earth is the poorest man.

9.       I can be happy but I cannot be the happiest man. There are things that are bound to upset me; are you getting me?

10.     There are things that check my happiness and keep them within limit, more especially when I cast my mind and see the enormous challenges placed before me by my stupid parents who refused to accept the wind of change.

11.     When you refuse to accept the wind of change in your day, you will remain the same and you are bound to be worse even than your parents.

12.     When you get home, do you ask your parents why they are still living in thatch-roofed house? Does it mean there were no cement and roofing sheets in their day?

13.     Do you ask them why no king has risen from your kindred? Was there no motor car in their day? Was there not a bicycle owner? Is trekking the best means? Who brought the suffering? 

14.     Why was there not even one who could boast of breaking the chalk in your family until you were born? Why are you the first that went to college? Was there no school in their day when no school fees were demanded? Why didn’t they go to school?

15.     What has kept your parents in this condition? If you have not discovered the truth, your guilt will be worse than your parents’.

16.     If you are feeling comfortable with the state of affairs in your father’s compound, something is wrong with you; you do not reason intelligently! And these are the things that will keep on to upset you and make you uncomfortable until you find a lasting solution.

17.     Until a man devises a lasting solution to his intractable problems, he rests not.

18.     This is a task before us; but we must first of all identify those intractable problems so that when we solve them we can heave sigh of relief.

19.     But a foolish man lives anyhow; he doesn’t think of heaven or hell, nor think of prosperity. Neither does he think of poverty. All he knows is that he is a human being; he has come, one day he will die. “Man comes into this world; one day, he will go.” Such a material is not found in this Faith and should not be found in this Faith.

20.     This gathering or last gathering for God’s people on earth is not meant for nonentities. This gathering is the gathering of “the progressives.” I have said it time without number; we have shifted the emphasis away from the Message to the progressive age.

21.     If you want to continue with that ancient nonsense, there are people there; go there. This Family of God cannot condone any sign of foolishness and any unprogressive stands in any family at all. I will resist it with all my strength. Publish it wide. I shall stamp you out of my Presence forever because you are rejecting the truth that is tested and proven by everybody as the only thing that can move us forward.

22.     I don’t care the way you look at life. Nothing can be truer than the truth. I repeat: nothing can be truer than the truth whether you accept it or not.

Keep on adjusting before I will come to the Message of Wednesday. I am talking on human development, the need for a human being to begin to reason properly.

24.     “SELF-CONTROL EXPLAINED,” page twenty-eight: “Circumstances do not make you what you are but only reveal who you are and what stuff you are made up of whether you are developed, underdeveloped or an imbecile.” 

25.     Circumstances you have found yourself do not make you what you are, but rather reveal who you are and the material you are made up of, that is, your quality.

26.     There are some wives that have qualities, good qualities and good charisma. There are some men also that have good qualities. Let me tell you, a businessman that knows his work goes for items that have good qualities. Am I making sense?

27.     A manufacturer that wants to move the market must produce goods and services that have very high qualities.

28.     People talk about education – education of the children, education of the adults everywhere, school and colleges everywhere, world and things like that, but God is not emphasizing only on “mere education” but on “qualitative education.”

29.     There are too many foods in the market, one that wants to improve on his health will desire to eat quality food, but one that wants to eat anyhow will die anyhow and will go for any kind of food.

30.     I am trying to hammer it down. There are some men that do not have good quality, they are not numbered or graded amongst men with high qualities. They are not even numbered among the middle class quality.

31.     A man without quality is a man without reputation to protect. Any human being that calls himself a human being is a human being because he has a reputation to defend and protect. He has integrity to defend and protect whether it is a man or a woman.

32.     As a married woman, as a spinster, you have a reputation you must protect and defend in all situations. No matter the circumstances around you, you recognize that you are a personality, that you possess something, you occupy a position that demands protection and defence.

33.     A man without quality has nothing to protect or defend, and that is why he mingles with every Tom, Dick and Harry. Everything influences him whether good or bad simply because he has no integrity to protect; that’s a man without quality.

34.     It will take a man without quality to understand or debase his wife. It will take a man without quality to assume unnecessary superiority over his wife. A man with quality is appreciative.

35.     A man with quality has a balanced view of what marriage is all about.

36.     Marriage is a union and a fusion of mutual understanding and tolerance.

37.     Watch all the men that assert unnecessary authority in the home, that make the greatest noise, even in the neighbourhood; they are fools living with women. I say fools that are living with women, every day, they are disturbing the yard. If they are not nagging, they are fighting.

38.     But here you may not nag openly, you may not fight openly, but you may do it inside the house, you are worse than the person that fights openly.

39.     You may stay in the house and become a tyrant, a despotic leader or ruler over the family, making dogmatic assertions, dogmatic decisions, dogmatic threats, always threatening the woman.

40.     She is no longer your wife any more: “That woman, don’t mind that woman, I will teach her a lesson.” You think that he is referring to a woman in the blues; his reference is being made to his wife.

41.     Well, I thank God, that by the knowledge we have acquired, when you call your wife “that woman,” she will call you “that man;” you refer to your husband as “that man” he will call you “that woman.”

42.     But sometimes, these remarks can be appropriate titles we deserve. When you give your wife a wicked treatment that is not even supposed to be mentioned among the heathens; automatically, you are a stranger to her. You are “that man;” you don’t earn that title of husband any more and it is vice versa.

43.     For that reason, our youths today, be very careful. Don’t make the mistakes your parents made due to ignorance and stupidity that was in them.

44.     They went for beautiful imbeciles; I say “beautiful imbeciles” – their daughters went for ‘handsome imbeciles.”

45.     Have you not seen a handsome imbecile? Too many handsome imbeciles are everywhere; they are found everywhere – very handsome, very beautiful.

46.     There are too many of them in this Faith; I am sorry to say that.

47.     And God said, “Before I can talk to you on investment, I must first of all be able to transform you from miniature human beings, then I can entrust money into your hands for investment for an imbecile doesn’t know the value of investment.”

48.     The investment of an imbecile is always in his stomach. If you accept it, say yes. I say if you accept it, say yes.

49.     You did not understand me: I say, the investment of an imbecile is in his stomach. Amen.

50.     Development is very, very essential. For us to accept the truth, we must develop ourselves; have the right attitude towards the Message that contains truth.

51.     I go further, “Many people keep saying they are victims of circumstances. Whether a victim or a victor, it takes circumstances to reveal an individual.

52.     However, when circumstances reveal who you are, have you developed yourself to the extent of recognizing yourself through the circumstance?

53.     It is a question we have to answer now.

54.     In conclusion of the passage, I am developing individuals, intending that the nation of God that is entrusted into my care will be strengthened all round to be over-comers in all challenges because the extent an individual can achieve victory and success in this life depends on level of his mental and spiritual development.

55.     A mentally and spiritually retarded person is always a victim of circumstances.  A mentally and spiritually retarded person has always been proven to be a victim of circumstances. Every circumstance defeats him, his mouth is always full of excuses, always trying to excuse himself where   excuses are not needed, always dodging responsibilities or shifting his responsibilities or even passing the ball. It’s a pitiable condition.  

56.     God is saying that THE EXTENT A MAN CAN GO IN THIS LIFE IS DETERMINED BY THE EXTENT OF HIS SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

57.     You can develop physically without developing mentally. Anybody that cannot reason intelligently is not developing mentally.

58.     When you reason intelligently you will be in a position to discern between good and evil; what should be proper and fitting in every occasion, the proper conversation and the appropriate Words to be used.

59.     If you are not well developed mentally, you may have something else in mind because you are not well developed.

60.     A man that is underdeveloped mentally can always cause trouble through the Words of his mouth. That is why from your speeches people will know how organized and how harmonized your thoughts are; and these are functions and will determine the way you organize your speeches.

61.     A well developed individual selects his Words, but an underdeveloped individual speaks anyhow. They don’t even pick appropriate Words for the right occasion;  they don’t even know what every situation calls for. Always having excuses and that excuse is ignorance. No wonder Saint Paul said, “let he that wants to be ignorant be.”

62.     God is teaching us here,  developing us so that we can help to develop our children.

63.     What a man has is what he will offer to his children. If you do not allow yourselves to be touched by this Message, will you blame your children tomorrow?

64.     When you do not surrender to this Message, will your children surrender to your Words? They will not. I will touch on “Temper and Pride” before going to that Message properly. Amen

Marriage is based on mutual trust and mutual love. As a wife, your husband must provoke you at one time or the other. The same way, you as a husband, your wife must provoke you at one time or the other; but let there be willingness to say, “I am sorry;” and “I have forgiven you.”

— Son of Man

Chapter Eight

YOUR PRIDE IS YOUR FAMILY

I know people are thinking that I have overlooked the Message “TEMPER AND PRIDE;” they are all the same Message.

2.       One of the reasons why tyrants have emerged in the   families, instead of Brothers and Sisters, is pride.

3.       Where there is pride, there is arrogance.

4.       Understand what I mean: I said, “Ahabs and Jezebels” have emerged from too many families instead of husbands and wives, instead of Brothers and Sisters.

5.       The reason is traceable to pride and unnecessary arrogance. I say PRIDE and unnecessary ARROGANCE!

6.       Tell me your pride? What are you proud of? What do you pride yourself about because for you to go about arrogantly there must be a basis for your arrogance; man or woman alike.

7.       If your pride is not your home, your pride is useless. If your pride is not your family, I say your pride today is useless, absolutely useless!

8.       My pride today is not my certificate, my pride today is not the mansion I have erected; my pride today is not the cerebrated office I occupy in government office or in the society; my pride today remains my enviable family.

9.       The greatest success a man or a woman can attain in this life is family success. Also, the greatest failure is family failure.

10.     If you believe it, say “Amen.”  

11.     You can fail in your business and rise up through the help of a friend. You can fail in the examination and then you retake it, by God’s grace you will pass. Nobody has ever failed in family life and then made amendments, If you know any, tell me; is there any? The answer is NO. 

12.     Is there any you can think of, he failed, then he woke up? It has never happened and you cannot create history by being number one.

13.     There are reasons why a family that crumbles can never wake up again. God said the spare parts are not found in any market. It’s a living organism that has no spare parts, for that reason once it crumbles, every thing there is mere management until the two will die away. For that reason, I don’t want to be another Alexander the Great or another King David or Prophet Samuel or Prophet Moses who were able to rule nations very well but lost control of their families.

14.     How many will like to be such foolish examples? Like Solomon, of all his wisdom, he couldn’t command a respectable family.

15.     The respect you earn as a married woman is nothing but the success of your family. So it is with the man.

16.     That is why God said, “No matter the situation, let it be known to you, if your marriage breaks up, if your marriage crumbles, your reputation as a child of God is dragged to the mud. No excuse to give.” If that is the case, all hands must be on deck to ward off all those evil forces that are likely to cause the marriage to break up or the reputation to be dragged to the mud.

17.     That is why the woman must be a woman of high quality; the man must be a man of high quality so as to be able to detest, that is, say no to all those evil tendencies – whether they are emanating from you as a man, through your foolish and unguided thought or they are emanating from your wife through her pride and arrogance, say no to it! Develop the right attitude and then bring the situation under strict control.

18.     That’s why even the Bible said it, that you must be able to cast down all foolish imaginations and subject every thought that will raise its head contrary to the Word of God under strict authority to obey the Will of God.

19.     But what if somebody has said to himself, “Whatever they want to say, I will not obey. Any one I want is the one I will do; go and tell them.” 

20.     To begin with, the person is not even worthy to be found in the gathering of the children of God, for he is a spot in our feast of love. I say a spot, a filth in our feast! Amen!

21.     Listen to me very well, let no man ever make a mistake concerning this matter; don’t carry it too far. I have been shouting and screaming, not because I want to; it is touchy, it is painful and agonizing, even in spite of the level we have attained in this Faith, some men among us still treat their wives as second class citizens or as maids.

22.     Some wives still ridicule their husbands and then treat them with contempt, not only with contempt, with recklessness and abandonment. There should be godly contentment in marriage. Such that will be the envy of those living around us. Husband and wife must close ranks; I say husband and wife M-U-S-T – must close ranks at all times, in all situations. Why?

23.     They must see themselves as role models to their children and even to the entire society. But some are thrown apart, some are walking one million miles away from each other.

24.     They only unite in the bed. Unity is mentioned in the family when the woman is only good in the bed. That’s all. If she becomes pregnant, she is abandoned to fate. If God will help her to deliver safely, “praise God!” She is abandoned to her people and to the society. Yet, there is a man who calls himself a “superior being” in the house.

25.     Until I come to that place, if I call your name, I love you; if I hide you away, I hate you. An individual that is not well developed does not know the separation line between his responsibilities and others’ responsibilities.

26.     The point being made here is this:

(i) develop yourself first.

(ii) Be mentally alert,

(iii) and then you will succeed so as to be in a better position to help others. It is the responsibilities that await a human being that put him into desperation.

Where there is no responsibility, there is no desperation. Finally, from this Message, “What is contained herein is a revelation of your dispensation. Your father never knew of it. People living in your day are blind to it. It is more than “Church Message.” It is more than what? Church Message. 

28.     I do not indulge in fooling the ears and hearts of people. What I give is far above mere church Message and it is free! God weighs a man’s heart, but man weighs the outward appearance.

29.     The worth of a man is not in his height or stature. He might be a giant but empty headed and spiritually empty. A man who is not developed mentally and spiritually will always fall victim of dying for the welfare of those who are not interested in him.

30.     Every true seed of God must try to develop himself or herself by taking in the Word of God, which is able to raise his awareness and expand his vision so as to recognize and accept his personal responsibilities, which are nobody else’.

31.     Anyone who recognizes his mistake but refuses to correct it and rather continues in it has made double mistakes.

32.     Discovering your mistake is a sign of victory but the victory is not real until correction is effected. Amen.

PLAYING SUPPORTIVE ROLE

FAMILY MENU volume two, Section Six and Seven. I am going to preach to you on Section Six.

33.     “Raise Your Family Above Poverty Level.” I think that is what brought about the Message. 

34.     Now another problem that will face you is the challenge of raising your family above poverty level. Amen.  I am reading ‘un abridged.’

35.     How can you achieve that without co-ordination with your wife? Is there any human being who can succeed in raising his family above poverty level without the contribution of his wife, morally, psychologically and otherwise?  

36.     If you can succeed in doing it, you have succeeded in canceling the adage that said and I quote, “Behind every successful man, there is a supportive wife.”

37.     In other Words, behind every successful family; behind every family that has succeeded in raising their children above poverty level, there must be a supportive wife.

38.     A very intelligent and understanding wife is one that plays a supportive role; one that esteems her family above her personal considerations; one that passes sleepless nights because of the welfare of her family.

39.     The same way, there can never be a family that is raised above poverty level without the contribution of the man; without the man also playing a supportive role or you call it a complementary role.

40.     Are you not aware that there are some families where the woman is the provider? Are you not aware that such families exist where the entire children are dependent upon their mother, when their father is yet alive. And yet, no matter how infinitesimal his contributions might be, if he is a man with quality, whatever that might have brought about his condition, he appreciates the contributions of his wife and supports her.

41.     Hear me very well; one pillar can never carry a building. Nobody uses a pillar to erect a building. For a building to be erected, two pillars must be involved. I hope I am talking to intelligent people. Now I am in your Message properly and my Message is titled: “EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE.” Amen.

PART THREE

EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE II

Chapter One

THERE MUST BE PROPER CO-RDINATION FOR THE ENTRANCE OF PROGRESS IN THE FAMILY

Examine your family life. You say, “Brother, what do we call all you’ve been saying all this while?” I say, it is just a mere foundation Message. I used those commentaries to lay a foundation but my topic for consideration now is: “EXAMINE YOUR FAMILY LIFE.”

2.       So, there is no way we can raise our families above poverty levels without the contributions of our husbands or wives. There must be a proper co-ordination.

3.       I repeat: there must be a proper co-ordination between the husband and the wife in all financial matters for us to realize this noble objective. Where the man plays an individual role because he is the one holding the money or the wife plays an individual role because she is the one holding the money, the money can never yield the right fruit. This objective will be thrown to the fowls of the air. It can never be realized till eternity.

4.       Any program or plan a man is proposing to achieve in life must be executed by his wife or else it will never be executed.

5.       A bachelor will never know the amount of money and effort he has wasted until he is married. Until a man is fully married to a very intelligent and purposeful wife, he will never realize the objective or he will never know what it takes to convert excess waste to use. He will not know what it takes to convert excess waste into use for this has always been the primary aim of an ideal wife – to convert excess waste into use.

6.       By nature, every man goes about with excess waste; I don’t mean only excess waste but toxic waste also. Man goes about with the foolish intelligence that destroys his objectives in life, foolish reasoning.

7.       Any reasoning or intelligence that is toxic is destructive. The woman is always the neutralizer. Men carry poisons about, almost all that made shipwreck of their careers in life are victims of the poisons they carry about in the name of knowing all things – high intelligence. Once a man begins to think that he is more knowledgeable or more intelligent than a woman, his downfall has started because one of the reasons why men find it difficult to pay heed to their wives or reason with their wives is that they believe their wives have nothing to offer; “What have you to offer me? Are you not reasoning like a woman? Just common woman, common woman!”

8.       And when you look at the man that is referring to a woman as common, you begin to wonder what makes that woman common. THE COMMONEST BEING GOD CREATED IS A MAN. I am a man; I am not a woman, so I am inclusive.

9.       The only being that is proud of something he should not be proud of, is a man. Everybody can accept his mistake, but not a man because he is by nature foolish, arrogant, haughty and unreasonable; yet he can hardly accept it. That is why great failures have been associated with people with such low mentality.

10.     They have wrecked havoc even in their marriages. If I cannot reason with my wife, why is she in my house?

11.     If I cannot sit down gently, friendly in love and then discuss things over, reason things out, before we begin to implement them, how do I accept her support? Will she understand the role she is expected to play? If I want to win her support, I must be prepared to reason with her on equal terms. After all, whatever might be the benefits will come to us. Whatever might be the havoc, we might be fearing, will equally befall us.

12.     Hear me very well, reasoning with your wife before embarking on anything reduces the chances of failure to the barest minimum. A man that finds it difficult to reason with his wife before embarking on anything increases his chances of failure. This is a hard statement, only the wise will believe it.

13.     I have heard many Brothers here saying, “What is the business of my wife in it? What has she to offer in it?” See their reasoning!

14.     There is no problem. One day, you will know the importance   of your wife in that thing. You will know the importance of your wife; go and start a project without the support of your wife; I bet you, it must stop halfway. But win her support, you must accomplish it in your life; I mean in your life time because as long as your wife is behind you, you will never be tired. I say you will never be tired. She is there, encouraging, energizing, devising new ways of approaching it, comforting and cheering you up.

15.     But when you want to do it alone so that you can tell her that you can stay without her; you can achieve whatever you want to achieve without her, I bet you, you must mess yourself up.

16.     I am coming to something; follow me gradually. “There must be proper co-ordination in the family if the family must move forward.

17.     FAMILY MENU volume two, chapter eight: “Now, let me leave raising your children above poverty levels and go to the back ground – A word of advice.

18.     Now, let me give you a Word of advice by asking you a question.” Are you sure that the woman you are calling your wife is your wife?” – Are you sure that the man you are calling your husband is your husband? I am saying here that we go through Messages like this, but I have observed that our Brothers can hardly give this Message a balanced view.

19.     Do not believe any one sided Message! You must “strike a balance” between the two! For God speaks to us as a family, and as a family He is seeing the husband and the wife.

20.     From the day “Brother” wants to separate, you will be hearing, “God said! Son of Man said! Holy Ghost said!”

21.     Let me show you, are you sure that the woman you are living with is your wife? Otherwise, why engage her in the unhealthy argument? “The woman’s money is for domestic purposes, the man’s money is for investment. Let me show you, it is written.”

22.     Now, granted it is true, what have you invested out of your money since then? Since the man’s money is for investment, can you please tell me how much you have invested and where you have invested the money and what you have collected as dividends or results for those investments?

23.     Because your wife’s money is for domestic purposes, you are enjoying it on a daily basis. At least, you go out, come back, and ask for food when you never gave out money for it. Sometimes, you don’t even ask whether your children will pay school fees or not. Anyway, school fees is not investment; I don’t know where to place it.

24.     Tell me where you have invested that money? Your wife has invested her own in the kitchen and in the clothing of the family. Sometimes, she pays electric bills without consulting you. Where is your own investment?

25.     Tell us how much you have invested and where? The truth is that the answer is zero!  You invested it in reckless living; you invested it in your stomach and yet you are making a noise.

26.     Listen to me very well; when God is referring to the woman, he is conversely referring to the man.

27.     Moreover, God is asking a question: “Madam, woman, Sister, wife, how are you sure that that man, whom you are living with, is really your husband?”

28.     This is a big question, because, some men who are wicked in nature – subtle and crafty in nature, capitalize on certain statements and begin to unleash unnecessary wickedness to their wives and their children contrary to the Faith. Amen.

Some wives are more intelligent than their husbands. Any attempt by the woman to put sense into the man, they will label her devil, that she wants to exercise authority over the man. The ability to accept truth from your wife is to love her. The greatest love a man can show to his children is by loving their mother.

— Son of Man

Chapter Two

PLAN AHEAD TOGETHER FOR THE PROGRESS OF THE FAMILY

If we are talking about investment, there must be a conducive atmosphere for it, and it will be the family atmosphere. There must be confidence, tolerance, peace, harmony and good understanding.

2.       For a man cannot do any investment, which the wife wouldn’t know; otherwise, who is he investing it for?

3.       If I make any investment, which my wife shouldn’t know, who am I investing it for?  I think the essence of investment is to protect the future of my family. If that be the case, why should I keep it away from my wife? If I am keeping it away from my wife, it goes to prove that I have no confidence in her; I am still afraid of her, I am not yet settled in my mind that I am really married. I am not yet settled that the marriage will subsist to the end. I am nurturing the fear that we may stop halfway.

4.       I want you to understand that any family where the man is hiding away his investment, where he is hiding away his finances from his wife, that marriage can never thrive till the end. That marriage can never follow Christ till the end. The man himself will not follow me to the end; he must stop halfway and must fall by the wayside, because what God is saying is FAMILIES.

5.       Salvation is for families; I repeat: salvation is for families. If you want to be saved, you must identify with a family. Because you are hiding your money away, hiding your programs away from your wife, you don’t want her to know everything about you, is another indicator that she is a stranger in your house.

6.       Some of you can reveal your programs to your parents, even your good plans to your relations. Some can even keep custody of their precious certificates in the hands of their relations – a sure sign that you are afraid that your wife might run away with them.

7.       If you are nurturing such fear, what then makes her a wife? Let me tell you, you are keeping a prostitute for you can only be afraid of a prostitute who is coming for a pay; who comes to your house to satisfy you, then collect your money and run away. She can even carry your property in your absence and run away. But it is not so with your wife. You are part of your wife: your wife is part you, for you have no family without your wife. Your purpose for that family can only be fulfilled in your wife.

8.       Take away my wife, the purpose for establishing the family is completely defeated!  Take me away from my wife, the purpose is also defeated.

9.       If I have the same purpose with my wife, the same mind with my wife and we have come together, oh! Where lies then the spirit of fear? Where lies the intolerance or lack of confidence?

10.     Let me put it in my own way: marriage is nothing but a union of people with identical purpose. Marriage is not marriage until it is a union formed by individuals of like purpose.

f you want your wife to honour you, she had already honoured you by coming to you. If she had never honoured you, she would have said “NO!” to the marriage.

11.     By saying “Yes” to the marriage, she had started honouring you. Am I making sense there?  Let me tell you, respect shouldn’t be preached as far as marriage is concerned.

12.     What will earn us the respect of our wives is the way we handle them. What you take your wife to be is what will make her to respect and honour you.

13.     If you place your wife as a maid in your house, don’t ever aim at getting her respect and honour. Are you getting what I am saying?

14. Some are even treating their wives in such a manner that is so horrible that maid servants now deserve respect more than their wives. Some esteem their maids more than their wives. When a man can go out without telling the wife where he is going to, but he will reveal it to the maid, is he not esteeming the maid more than the wife? This is sure and certain!

15.     If your wife is not qualified to know your whereabout, but your maid is qualified, surely, your maid is higher in your eyes than your wife.

16.     God is asking it as a question: “Oh man! How do you know that that woman you call your wife is really your wife?” What a woman is looking for in marriage is not necessarily the money but one that will love and care for her. Amen.

The greatest manifestation of love is forgiveness. If you want to be at peace with yourself and with everybody, does not harbour grudge. Be the first to forgive.

— Son of Man

Chapter Three

APPRECIATE EACH OTHER

Let me tell you, love and care are the two necessary ingredients for winning the love and confidence of every wife. If you say you are a husband, but you are not loving, you are not caring, you have failed her, you have become a disappointment.

2.       She regrets the day she came into contact with you.

3.       We want to be comforted. A man needs a wife who will comfort him the same way a woman needs a husband who will comfort her.

4.       Let me tell you, what you desire from your wife is what she desires from you.

5.       You have to balance it: your wife is a co-owner of the family; and in that family nobody has any individual money, what you hold is family money. So, it must be jointly handled. I don’t care your role in getting the money. You cannot play that role and get the money if your wife has failed in her position.

6.       Let me put it this way: Permit me now to use another example other than myself. Let me use Brother John Chukwunonso who is always saying, “Obu eziokwu.” (It is truth). In the morning you go to your shop, the aim is to work and see that you get enough money to run the family, will you be there and in the family at the same time doing domestic work?

7.       While you are labouring there, your wife is labouring in the house, taking care of the family.

9.       You provide the money; she goes to the market, enters the kitchen and does every other thing.

10.     If time permits, she would go to her shop about her business, the whole aim is to keep the family going. If you undervalue the role she is playing simply because she is not dishing out money like you, why not quantify her labour in the family in terms of money and know how much she could be making compared to what she is doing.

11.     If you doubt me, go and hire a labourer to do the work your wife is doing at home; find out how much you will be paying every day and that is your wife’s real income. You can also make it monthly. Hire the services of somebody who will do the work of your wife in the house, then find out the amount the person will ask you to pay every month.

12.     Can you be in the shop and in the yard at the same time? I am saying that what she is doing is relieving you of those duties so that you can concentrate your attention on that thing which you are doing.

13.     Hear me very well, the moment a woman fulfils her domestic obligation, she has fulfilled all that is needed in her marital life. Thus, engaging in any other thing like civil service or trading is what I call EXTRA LABOUR, I call it over time. And that is what it is; it is over labouring herself only to make sure that   the family does not crumble.

14.     If she is really your wife, she deserves your appreciation. There are many ways you can appreciate her; I say, there are many ways you can appreciate her.

15.     But unfortunately, I have noticed that even if our wives here will work until they kill themselves, some husbands can hardly appreciate them. Rather, they will come home and begin to bully them about, begin to use harsh words and begin to talk to them in a manner that will demoralize them.

16.     Since you don’t want to be demoralized by your wife, why do you demoralize your wife? If you deliberately demoralize your wife, she is not your wife.

17.     Let me ask this question: Woman, who among you will feel happy to encourage her husband that disrespects her, that treats her or gives her unfair treatment, that neglects and abandons her at will, and doesn’t care; I mean her husband that doesn’t listen to her, that doesn’t  even reason with her?

18.     How many will be happy to encourage such a husband in this Faith, anybody? The answer is “nobody!”

19.     How many will feel happy when she is being appreciated by her husband? Always appreciating every little contribution because God says, “Be prepared to appreciate every little contribution which will make your partner feel happy.” Almost everybody!

20.     Your wife cannot support you to finance anything you did not disclose to her. You hide your motive, but you collect money from her, the first day, second day and so forth. Any day she discovers it, no more; individual game will start. I say, individual game will start, more especially when those monies were being wasted on things that have no relevance to the up-keep of the family, I mean no meaningful thing to prove that the money was invested somewhere.

21.     Any woman supporting such a husband is a fool!  I repeat: any woman supporting such a husband is a fool!! To my own knowledge, the woman is not married, she is living with a man. The same way a man can live with a woman; a woman can live with a man!!

22.     If am open to my wife in all matters, nothing stops her from being open to me. If am very much reserved, she must be very much reserved. It is this lack of confidence that is bringing about our poor state. I say our poor state is due to lack of confidence. Why are people afraid of running joint accounts with their wives even when heathens know this secret and practice it?

23.     I don’t care to know what your profession might be. Whether you are a trader, civil servant or a worker, I don’t care! As long as you are married, anywhere you open bank account, your wife, not only as next of kin, her signature and her photograph ought to be there: she is a co-owner of that account, I say it is a MUST!

24.     Check any business a man is running outside his wife, any day he dies, the business crumbles! Money might be there in the bank, but the family will be suffering a set back because the man is dead! Or when he is in such a terrible condition that he cannot go to the bank, simply because he kept the wife away from all his finances, the family suffers.

25.     “Every money in the house belongs to him.”  Why is he feeling that way? How much did he pay to marry the woman? Let me tell you, whether you like it or not, nobody in this Faith is being owed by his wife in terms of money.

26.     Our wives have paid us back one million times! Tell me how much you paid and let us call your wife to tell us how much you have collected from her directly or indirectly.

27.     Am I making sense there? If you know your wife still owes you dowry, raise up your hand and tell me how much you paid.

28.     Even indirectly, your in-laws must have refunded everything without your knowledge. Even if they never gave you money, the worth of one child is worth more than one million naira!

29.     Let us accept that we are all indebted to our wives! We will remain debtors to our wives until we win their confidence, and the only way to win the confidence of the woman you call your wife is to trust and confide in her. I say, trust and confide in her. You must surely win her confidence.

30.     You don’t run away and begin to complain about. No! Well, that is not your problem. Of course, only fools complain, wise people know what to do. Idiots complain, when they should correct their mistakes!

31.     If your wife is really your wife, convince her! If your husband is really your husband, convince him! Some of the characters we manifest towards our wives are so horrible that they need not to be mentioned! Amen.

Husband and wife living together are like working engine. They shouldn’t work iron-to-iron, otherwise the engine will knock. They should lubricate the relationship from time to time.

— Son of Man

Chapter Four

THE UNITY IN MARRIAGE EMANATES FROM LOVE AND CARE

Watch a situation: somebody you call your wife, whether she is dying or not – you don’t care if she is sick, you simply go about your business leaving her like that. The highest favour you can show is to drop money for hospital and allow her to go alone. But if it were you, would you be happy?

2.       I told you last time, though I don’t normally go to hospital but I’ve never gone to hospital without my wife following me.

3.       Imagine how your wife will feel, when you are leading her to the hospital. Following her alone is another medicine, another healing! The joy that her husband is accompanying her to the hospital will even make her to recover quickly without drugs.

4.       But it is unfortunate to say that at this point when our love is needed by our wives, that is the time we fail them! How then can we claim to be husbands when we do not even show interest and concern when it is needed? Some will even be bullying the woman about when she is complaining to be sick; some might be thinking she is pretending, while some might be shouting on her.

5.       Watch a woman that is having pregnancy, her condition is always very discomforting.

6.       How many husbands can take up such responsibilities? If you are a husband, and your wife is passing through those horrible situations; ideally, the only way to help her out is to take up all the responsibilities because you are a husband. I mean an ideal husband.

7.       Love and care are two necessary ingredients to cement the love in marriage. The unity in marriage emanates from LOVE AND CARE: “No other factor impelled your wife to be with you other than love.”

8.       If what makes you a man is because you are carrying penis, you are stupid! I say, you are stupid; you are not a man until you recognize your responsibilities towards your family and assist them as they rise.

9.       Even if there is no money, you ought to go out to source money so as to solve the problem with the consent of your wife. As long as it borders on your finances, your wife is not needed: where is she needed then?

10.     I was hammering on those who have become so callous, so satanic in behaviour that will go a long distance to take somebody’s daughter only to maltreat her.

11.     A woman that is out from the labour room resurrected from death. I repeat: any woman that goes into the labour room and comes out alive, rose up from the grave because many have gone to mortuary from there.

12.     But your own wife came out alive, together with your child that is bearing your name. You go about making a noise that your wife has given birth, “My wife has given birth.” What have you done to your wife in appreciation to show that you are happy?

13.     Even before thanking God, the first “thank you” must go to your wife there in the bed in the hospital. I told you my attitude to the birth of all my children, even those that were in private hospitals or public hospitals.

14.     Go there at Court Road, the whole nurse

s there know me for one thing, I don’t care. Simply tell me that my wife has given birth. Immediately, of course, I normally stay around no matter the time of the day; once I see her in the ward, before nurses could give me the information I am already there dancing, I say dancing. Before you know it, I will grip her, begin to kiss her. With my money, I will begin to splash her there so as to show that I am grateful.

15.     It is better for me to splash her the money there, than to go and buy one pint of blood and finally carry her to the mortuary. I am happy; I will splash the money around her first, in appreciation before rushing to the super market for the best tea, everything – best, best, best.

16.     If it means buying it on credit, I will buy it to show her that I am really very happy; and if you check my heart, I am really very happy. That is not all, I normally go to market ahead of time, buy special fish and special meat because my mother-in-law will never enter kitchen for me during the first week after my wife’s delivery – “na me go do am! Lavish the money on cooking assorted foods.”

17.     Let me tell you, she is still in this Faith, so you may verify from her; you don’t tell lies against the living, she is still alive and kicking in the Faith. My work never hindered me. I would abandon work, abandon everything, and you would see me sweating in the kitchen, saying “praise God.” And it was not in vain! Are you getting me?

18.     When you have your wife as precious as precious can be, you cannot afford to lose her. I can’t forget my experience, when we had Onyedika; I was coming from somewhere only to be told that the doctor said that he had waited for me, so he operated on my wife and brought out the child. I asked why? 

19.     They said, “Eh- eh, don’t talk!” I said, “Okay, where is my wife?” I was not interested in the baby again. I got there, I thought she was dead, my legs where shaking, every part of me hot! Before they knew it, I slumped down and fainted! They gave me drip on two hands; my wife was lying in one bed, I was also lying in another bed! Nurses said, “We have never seen this type of love, so if this woman were dead, this man would have died also.”

20.     Let me tell you, your love must go to that lady that volunteered to abandon her parents, her relations, everybody and then cling to you to raise children that will be called your children!

21.     But unfortunately, the reverse is now the case! Our Brothers are now interested in their children as if the children came from the sky and not from somebody. They now want to muzzle the golden hen that lays the egg to the point that they find it even very difficult to bring out money to take care of their wives that gave birth newly.

22.     If she demands money, the man will make an unnecessary noise. They can have money for drinking, for useless spending, but no money to take care of the wife!

23.     We don’t want to talk about other things. A situation Brothers now can hardly even give out money for their wives to plait their hairs or to buy their cosmetics. You don’t buy for them; you don’t even want them to buy.

24.     What type of wickedness is that? Is it not unnecessary slavery?

100.   Are we managing our wives or our slaves? Is it the Message we received?

25.     How can you win the love of that wife of yours when you are maltreating her?

26.     You are happy that a child is born to you and you want to bring your children to dedicate before God, whereas buying of clothes becomes a problem; the woman will use the money people presented to the baby to clothe herself and the baby. And even, the man will make unnecessary noise – “Oh! So you have money? Oh! So you have money?”

27.     Moreover, I am of the opinion that even the poorest man on earth, if it means borrowing, will borrow to make sure that he lives up-to-date. I mean that the poorest man in this Faith can afford a piece of clothe as a gift to his wife for putting to bed a baby alive. Your wife deserves it; so, telling your wife to go to functions with the old dresses she has, to me, is a naked manifestation of wickedness! Real wickedness!

28.     Why are you alive? What are you alive for? If not for this Faith and sometimes my intervention, some of our in-laws would have embarrassed us because of the way they see their daughters we are marrying.

29.     Some are trying but many are wicked – desperately wicked. If they hear that their relations have given birth, their sisters, you see them buying every kind of thing and rushing. However, if their wives are delivered of babies, it becomes ABOMINATION.

30.     Their parents are sick, you see them running; their wives or children are sick, you see “I don’t care” attitude. Where did we learn this? Is it our Message? Was it what we collected from God? Have we any excuse to give even when He that is teaching us is living a shinning example before us?

I thank God; I am no longer a civil servant. When I was telling you about my life, some were saying, “Because you are a civil servant with your wife.” Now I am a trader. Everyday I come back from my business site, it is my duty to give my wife report of how we fared.

32.     Once I come into the house and she serves me a cup of cold water, first thing is a report of how we fared: “We did sales. Look at what we sold; look at the result we got, and look at where I invested it. Look at how much we have in the factory; look at the amount I borrowed from the bank; look at the people that are owning us, see the amount.”

33.     Why am doing it? She is a co-owner of the business, and without her, the business will never prosper. If the Lord will stop my breath today, she will know where to take off. Moreover, from time to time, I invite her to the shop: “Come and stay with us and be acquainted with the salesladies and neighbours there so that they will know you. You must know how we sell those things and know their prices. If I travel out, you can come down and stay with them.” In addition, they are desiring that she should be coming there.

34.     Even till this very day, they were phoning her, “Mummy, wouldn’t you come

 over and do your shopping at Iweka Road?” She said no; it will be “Ose” this time.

35.     But I know that many of you will never like your wives even to near there or ABOMINATION has come! If they force themselves and come, you can hardly introduce them to what you are doing.

36.     I know many who cannot even give report to their wives about their business. Where they want to give, they will give a false report. They can never give honest report. Why? You do not trust your wife, you are still afraid of your wife, the same thing that made your fathers to be poor.

37.     One of the reasons why our fathers were poor was that they never trusted their wives.

38.     Watch any man that really married his wife and trusted his wife, from time to time, he commits all his money into the hands of his wife.

39.     If your wife is not your treasurer, your money is useless: your money will yield no fruit. Entrust it into the hands of your wife because money in her hands can never come out without a rational reason.

40.     For you to collect the money, you must tell her why you need that money. But when you keep it somewhere and don’t want her to know, you will lavish that money, which would have been used for some other useful things.

41.     Why is there no mutual tolerance, mutual love, mutual understanding among husbands and wives? Moreover, why are we talking about investment? Who are you investing for, what are we investing for?

42.     There is no woman that is wise that ever jokes with the future of her children. Any wife that plays with the future of the children is not their mother.

43.     Any woman that does not plan a future for her children is a useless woman!

44.     Why is it like that? Where the man has failed the woman, she reclines to make the children her comfort.

45.     For that gap which her husband could not fill in her life, her children will fill it if God grants them life. For that, she struggles to raise them above poverty level.       

46.     Let me tell you one risk you are running: if you hate your wife, be courageous to tell her t

hat you hate her and give her reasons why you hate her, peradventure you may win her.

47.     If you hate your husband, tell him and give him reasons, peradventure, you he may change. But where you allow the situation to continue, you are running a risk; by and by, the hearts of the children are easily won by their mother.

48.     By the time they will grow up and then be aware that you maltreated their mother, the treatment you will receive from them will be worse than what Papa Ikweagwu is receiving from his ch

ildren.

49.     Papa Ikweagwu has grown ups. One of his sons is a director in Power Holdings. At the age of ninety-two, among all his sons and daughters, nobody cares for him. Nobody sends a dime as relief. The man is only surviving through gifts from friends and Brethren.

50.     I told Brethren when the report came to me that this must be as a result of the way he treated their mother when she was alive and the children knew about it and decided to pay him back in his own coin. So, we are running a great risk if we do not show GENUINE LOVE to our wives.

51.     I am going back to that same Message. How am I sure that the woman that I call my wife is my wife, that the man you call your husband is your husband?

52.     That woman that is living with you legitimately or illegitimately and you are calling her your wife, how are you sure that she is your wife?

53.     Whether she has children for you legitimately or illegitimately, you are calling her your wife, how are you sure that she is your wife? How do you know a woman that is your wife and one that is not your wife? 

54.     How do you know a man that is your husband?

55.     The husband esteems his family higher than any other consideration; the upkeep of his family, the future of his children is the most important thing in his life and he recognizes his wife as his all and all in the family.

56.     If you do not read it this way, you are holding a one sided Message. Wherever you see “she,” put “he,” for it will take a man and a woman to be husband and wife.

57.     Whatever the woman is suffering in the marriage, the man is also suffering it, so the problem is not peculiar to any gender.

58.     A man can suffer rejection; a woman can suffer rejection. A woman can suffer depression the same way a man can also suffer depression.

59.     Nothing depresses a woman more than the attitude of the husband towards her; nothing depresses a woman or renders her hopeless more than the husband’s attitude towards her, especially when the husband is manifesting a feeling of nonchalant attitude towards all the problems bedeviling the family.

60.     He shifts responsibilities to the wife; in doing so, he depresses the woman.

61.     Another is unappreciative behaviour. Even in her honest labour, the man can hardly appreciate. Instead, he makes a hell of noise and the woman feels dejected.

62.     Let us stop bullying our wives or treating them as slaves. It is very improper for us to allow our wives to appear tattered.

63.     If you want your wife to look like your old mother in the village, it is colonial mentality; you do not believe our Message. Rather, you believe the old-fashioned way – the old way, old-fashioned religion.

64.     If you are poor and you cannot provide for her, convince her that there is no money to buy those things; but don’t condemn something that is noble and proper, something that is of honest report because you don’t have the money.

65.     Am I making sense there? How I wish our Brothers will behave like me. I say, how I wish our Brothers will behave like me. I don’t say it so that you clap hands for me; I say it so as to provoke you to jealousy because I know my testimony is true and my wife cannot deny me.

66.     If she denies me, my children will not deny me. The grown-ups are so much fascinated about what they are seeing that they wonder if a Brother can even meet their demands in marriage, for I have raised a standard that will make it impossible for them to marry anyhow.

67.     They must marry a Brother that is spiritually up-to-date. I say, spiritually up-to-date, for everything pertaining to marriage is spiritual and not canal.

68.     If you are not spiritually up-to-date, your eyes will always be on what your wife will do for you. Your eyes will never be open to see what your wife needs from you, and that is selfishness – self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement; I mean extreme materialism.

69.     Get rid of those foolish behaviours, valuing money more than your wife! Who then is the essence of the money?

70.     How many of you in this Faith can joyfully enter the market without even consulting your

wife and then come back with precious gifts: your wife will open it and all of them will be cosmetics, which she uses – her brand of cosmetics from powder, perfume to the one they call wet-lips or roll on. How many can do that?

71.     How many in this Faith can enter the market and come back with a dozen or half a dozen of under wears including “Ok bra” (accurate) — I mean “Okay.”

72.     How many can go in the absence of their wives and pick their bra according to the make, size, etc? You pick the pant, “okay” because you noted it in your diary, any day you get to the market, without her knowledge, you come back with cellophane bag, throw it on her and she opens it.

73.     Tell me why the woman will not lavish her love on you; I say, tell me? If I give her money to buy, she can buy one or two. But when I enter the market for her, she will know I have entered the market. I can come with six, six, six, all of them, without her knowledge so that they will be changeable.

74.     How many can even get home and study their wives very well and then go to market, come back with the special pant they use to wear during their menstrual period. You come with a dozen and with a dozen of real, original Indonesian sanitary pads.

75.     How many can do this: go to the market, buy those things, come back and throw it on your wife as a gift? She will appreciate it. If you do it, is it a crime? I do it; I have done it, and it has been my nature.

 76.    When you are doing it you are filling a gap in your wife. In your absence, she will be rest

less; if anything happens to you, she is in trouble. Her prayer will be every time, “Keep my husband, keep my husband.”

77.     The wickedness in your heart will even tell you that it will mean serving your wife; it will then mean she will look down on me.

78.     Any woman that looks down on the husband for taking good care of her is a stupid woman. And no woman can ever try it. Are you getting me?

79.     It is only now that I don’t have the chance and she usually has chance in the evenings. Before now, she doesn’t care, nor do I care who washes our underwear. Once they are soaked there with bleach over night, she can wash all of them; I can wash all of them to keep the family going.

80.     But to you, how many can do it? I know only one Brother in this Faith who can attempt it, but he has been influenced away by foolish people that are living around him. He was behaving very well when he was a bachelor – he was behaving like a father, and I knew he must be a very good husband.

81.     But today, he has allowed himself to be influenced by idiots who are eating meal around him.

82.     Anybody who allows his virtue to be eroded by influence is a fool.

83.     There is a wish you know will beautify your family and cement the love and grant you real success, but you allowed influence to influence it away from you, are you not stupid?

84.     Listen to me, this is truth. I don’t say it so that you clap hands for me. I earn no credit! When a man does his duty, he earns no credit. I don’t deserve her “thank you.” I know it is my responsibility towards her!

85.     Can you visualize a situation where your wife will dress  in the morning or in the afternoon, after, you just purposely call her and say, “Darling, let me close your zip.” You just close the zip and admire her; won’t she will feel on top of the world?

86.     But a situation where a wicked man will even threaten the wife for using powder, common powder, when I am laying emphasis on the need for our wives to beautify themselves, remodel themselves so that they will look fresh, younger, attractive and live longer!

87.     But somebody is being so wicked. Don’t clap hands for me.  

88.     Nothing can be truer than the truth! Are all the perfumes in the market not for us? The powder is for us and I have approved it in this Faith that our Sisters should use the powder that suit their complexions. 89.     My wife is dark in complexion whereas Sister Chika is fair in complexion. The one that suits Sister Chika is the one she will use; my wife will use the one that suits her. The same way, Sister Mike will use the one that suits her.

90.     Whether perfume, powder, cream, wet-lips, roll-on or anything, anybody threatening the wife or condemning it, is he believing my Message?

91.     He is indirectly against this Faith. He is causing division; he is causing offences contrary to the Faith.

92.     In other words, he is a lawmaker. I don’t care the circumstances; I don’t care about your financial condition. One thing is to say I don’t have money to buy this thing for you, it is different from saying, “I don’t want it.

 Any day I see this and that, I will do this and that; obey me!”

93.     Why must she obey you? How much did you pay? Is she a wife or a slave?

94.     Elders, watch out immediately. To deviate this Faith is very easy, and it starts with gradual and simple things. When a man is shying away from his responsibilities, it is very unacceptable by the Son of Man.  Amen.

To give birth to children is good, but to train them is better. When you train your children, you will reap the good fruit thereof. But how can you train your children when you have not trained yourself?

— Son of Man

Chapter Five

PLAN AHEAD TOGETHER FOR THE PROGRESS OF THE FAMILY

As long as God lives and I live, any man that debases womanhood henceforth is my enemy! Anybody that debases manhood is also my enemy!

2.       Both the womanhood and the manhood must be seen from the complementary side playing the complementary roles.

3.       Above all, why is there gender discrimination? Can a man carry pregnancy? Can a woman impregnate herself? Are they not playing complementary roles?

4.       All this nonsense should stop: the beauty of the Message we preach is seen in our families. Every Brother, every Sister is a reflection of the Message, you have to see it from that angle. Anything contrary to it is unacceptable. Moreover, I said it sometime ago and I quote: “This Message does not need making a noise. It requires action. I will monitor it; I will supervise it because it requires real action. “

5.       Maybe you do not know your wife has the right to approve expenses even in your absence

. I remembered when I traveled, my children at Enugu needed money, they tried my line but they couldn’t get it; they tried my wife, and they got her. She just approved expenses for them immediately. What if she had waited till I came back? A great havoc would’ve been done.

6.       If she cannot approve expenses, why is she a signatory to the account?

7.       Even if she does not deposit one kobo in that account, the money belongs to her. The money there is the security of the family.

8.       If you hear that money offers security, it only offers security if it is jointly owned! But where it’s not jointly owned the money might be there whereas the said security is not there.      

9.       So, don’t talk about investment! It is said that money is involved in getting money. Though you have not put your family in order.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

10. Do you believe that money  is required for investment when you have not put your family in order?

11. if you are making a noise when your wife asks you for money, are you not even a hooligan? If she doesn’t request money from you, to begin with, from who do you want her to request?

12.     My wife can never come to me asking for money because she is the one holding the money. The highest thing she can tell me is, “Daddy, the money has finished or what we have cannot see us through this weekend.” I will say, “Okay, how much do you have? Go there and get so, so and so amount.” Once I come back, she will bring it and say, “Daddy, look at the money.” I will say, “Okay, keep it now.” If I have need for money, I will say, “Okay, give me this amount of money from there,” that’s all!

13.     Why then will she come to me for money when she is the one holding it and disbursing everything? I don’t know.

14.     Let me tell you, if you are not sincere in matters concerning money, you will never be sincere in any other thing.

15.     Brethren, let me tell you, we are poor not because we don’t get the money, we are poor because we keep our money away from our wives.

16.     I repeat it: It is not that the amount of money you make in a day that makes you rich. You may make millions and still be poor. We are not poor because we are not making money; we are poor because we keep money away from our wives. We don’t want to invite them to our monetary decision making. Everybody is playing individual game as if one pillar can hold a house. Can it?    

17.     How I wish that many in this Faith who are having and reading some of my Messages will rethink and know that what God is hammering on is for our own good: That unless the foundation is right every investment is useless; you cannot even invest.

18.     In the real sense, what is investment? Investment is not far from what I did the other day; I called my wife and said, “I wish to invest on my son. But when I got there they said he is not up to eighteen years and I said I didn’t want to use my name for it. So, use your name, when the boy is up to eighteen you will then hand it over to him.”

19.     She was overjoyed that I have entrusted the future of her son into her hands. Then I called my son and explained to him, “Whenever you are eighteen go to your mother, your academic career has been taken care of up to university level.” Finish.

20.     Let me tell you, assuming you have this mind that is in me, if you have provision for your children so that your attention is always on them, you are curing your wife of fear and hypertension. You are even consolidating her stay.

21.     Nothing is as enjoyable as a peaceful home. A man that keeps money away from his wife is inviting trouble to his home; he is inviting suspicion. Your wife knows you are making the money; as long as long as she is seeing it, suspicion is in her heart: that by and by this money is going out somehow.

22.     What is wrong? A wise man plans for the future; a foolish man limits himself to today. I say this so that you borrow a cue from me because a leader leads by example.

23.     But if and while I live that shining example before you, you see it as  if I am trying to bribe the conscience of my wife; even at that, every man must try to bribe the conscience of his wife. Amen.

24.     I am trying to tell you one thing: she supported the idea; she did not query me because we reasoned, and I convinced her:

25.     “Looking at Nigeria the way things are going, I know my age, in the next ten to fifteen years, look at the ages of these boys and look at what I intend doing for them.

26.     You see these three boys; I want to invest in their names so as to secure their carriers.

27.     Talk of the females; they have no problem, my strength will see me through. But at that time when I know I will be going down in strength I will be feeding on pension, I don’t want any of them to suffer set-back because of finance.

28.     Let me use this very hour to place them where they should be so that nobody shall disturb you at old age,” and she said, “Amen.” Then I decided to forfeit the pleasant pleasures for the future glory, finish.

29.     The glory of the family is noting but the children. I say, the glory of the family is noting but the children: “My son is now a medical doctor, this one is a nurse, the other is so and so.”

30.     This is the glory of the family.

31.     But by the way, you are treating your wives, by your wicked intentions; do you think your wife will even survive to see those days materialize?

32.     By the way you handle your husband, do you think he will be encouraged even to raise your children for you?

33.     Let me tell you, the training of your children is a venture. The training of your children is what? A joint venture! And you must be responsive to it.

34.     I know there are many in this Faith who will counter this Message. Even while I am talking, some are countering it already while some are thinking the other way. Let them continue that way. After all, the truth is not for everybody.

35.     The truth is for those that know the value of truth. That all! Therefore, I am appealing to all that know the value of truth; anywhere you have found your mistake, correct it.

36.     Let me read something there. I am giving you indicators; God is my witness. I don’t know how you are living in your homes; I don’t  know how you are managing your finances. I don’t know what is happening. But I am speaking the truth in Christ; I lie not.

37.     If what I have described so far is seen in your family or in your house, you will never, never see any ray of success in this life. You cannot prosper in anything because the executor is not there. You have muzzled and frustrated the executor; she has lost confidence in you. She is now regretting marriage – that the day she came into contact with you is now a cursed day in her life.

38.     What she saw in you that made her to follow you is no longer what she is seeing. You see what makes marriage a regrettable ordeal.

39.     Initially, she saw you as a fine gentleman, very thoughtful, very purposeful, very quiet, very much unassuming and then she gave her consent, thinking that what you look like outside will be what you are outside. But as time went on, your real nature started appearing and finally, the whole hope was lost.         

40.     Once marriage is mentioned, anybody whose marriage is not stable sighs. As I keep on mentioning about my marriage, I am not afraid of what the devil will speak about it tomorrow because I have grown above the devil and his temptations in marriage.

41.     Having tempted me for roughly twenty years and I have become an over-comer, I don’t think at this age he can get me again. I think I now  have the victory in Christ; I have survived it.

42.     Therefore, I am in a better position to advice you. Once I talk about my success in marriage, my wife smiles but her fellow women who are not enjoying it sigh.

43.     That’s why some are “married” while some are “living with men.”

44.     It is applicable to the men, if I begin to extol the good qualities in my wife, some men will begin to adjust themselves in their seats. Are you getting what I am saying?

45.     Every man that has a growing family should not regret. You are having a liability which is in the power of your hand to convert to assets, if you don’t have that wisdom, you will live with the liability endlessly.

46.     That is why there are some families that have their sons and daughters who are of the age who should take care of the parents and yet they are still depending on the parents. They remain liabilities even at the age of forty, fifty. When are they going to be assets?

47.     Hear me very well; a man has not started enjoying life until he has reached the point where his children start paying him homage. Did you get what I am saying?

48.     Your children cannot pay you homage if you do not bring them up in the way that will place them above poverty level.

49.     Wherever there is quarrel in the family between a man and his children, go and look into it, they are living under poverty level.

50.     When families are living under poverty level, property will cause trouble, land will cause trouble: “Eh, let us share our father’s land; let us share our father’s property.” If you possess your own, is it a crime? It is because you are living below poverty level.

51.     The problem of a growing family is the inability to recognize what lies ahead of the future. The moment you recognize it, you will always be happy.

52.     By the time I will come to number two, “Understanding the behaviours of your children,” I have not seen a Sister I will say that is too high or puffed up with pride. They are all humble Sisters.

53.     I have not seen one that is too ostentatious for us not to bear with her excesses; I have not seen even one. They are all moderate.

54.     Some are even living below moderation. So, what is the noise about then?

55.     Any man who cannot manage a Sister in this Faith; I mean live with a Sister as a wife and provide her needs can never marry anybody in this world. The cheapest wives are found in the Bride of Christ. I don’t say it to praise them; I say it because I know it is truth.

56.     Go out and marry a groundnut seller on the street, she will tell you the cost of lace in the market, tell you the cost of wrist watch in the market to show you that she is not a novice.

57.     But today, instead of praising God, we are turning wicked. Can we repent of this wickedness or do we carry it along when we know that wickedness impairs prosperity? Yet we want to prosper.

58.     What is expected of us? Change of heart and change of attitude. When are we going to change? Now! I say now!

59.     Let the evil man turn away from his wicked ways and then begin to do good. Begin to appreciate your wife and your family, and begin to learn how to sit down and talk things over with your wife, eat together and take your bath together.

60.     Some are laughing at me now. Is it a crime? If it is a crime, I will remain a culprit. Any day my wife takes her bath without me, she is in trouble.

61.     Up till this very day, I don’t say it to praise her. Go and find out from her.   Sometimes, I will be her pillow, carrying her in my hands while she is resting on me till day break! Yes! What am I saying? The older your marriage, the stronger the love and more renewed the love.

62.     But if while marriage is growing older, you are writing off your wife; to begin with, you never loved her.

63.     Marriage doesn’t grow old. The love in marriage is renewed everyday. How do you renew it? By putting on friendly attitude, loving attitude towards your wife and towards your children, placing yourself where they will reach you at all times and showing interest in their welfare.

64.     Stop treating your wife and children as outcasts or strangers. Have a plan for the children and you will win the love of everybody in the house.

65.     When your family is peaceful, you will be peaceful. Once your family is troubled, you will be troubled.

66. What am I saying in effect?  In conclusion, I will still conclude it the same way I concluded it; whether you believe it or not it is a practical Message that requires practical approach.

67.     As many that have read or heard this Message, from now, consider what I have said so far and let the Holy Spirit of God give you perfect understanding and insight into the Message.

68.     Remain blessed for now.