Grant me audience so I can reveal the light which God giveth unto his servant. For had they known, I mean, those who are called to be priests and shepherds of God’s people, they would have effectively resisted the great and overwhelming darkness plaguing the church today.

Many years ago, before the advent of Christianity, Satan, demons and various deities were worshipped by people all over the world. Although ignorant people speculate that Christianity is an American religion, the truth, however, is that America and the entire world were in idolatry before the coming of Christianity. The Jews who worshipped Jehovah are excluded.

Because of extreme and firmly rooted idolatry, planting the gospel and building churches was not an easy task for early missionary churches and movements. They had a lot of battles and opposition to their work. The battled demons, demonic customs, opposing men and proved that Jesus is the Lord of the earth.

Pioneer Pentecostal churches are those apostolic and grassroots churches that break the dark hold upon communities using evangelism, preaching, teaching, prayer and a display of the raw power of God. When communities entangled by idolatry and worship of demons get liberated, delivered and shown light, they embraced them and gave them lands to plant churches.

Many of the churches today are harvesting the labour of pioneer churches. They sow on already broken and flourishing grounds without much opposition, battles and trails.

For instance, with good funding, anyone can go to Lagos, Nigeria and establish a church. And with good preaching and solid state equipment, gather men. They may not require heavy-duty power outing, the kind that was used to break the dominion of demons when Pentecostal pioneer churches first arrived to till the ground of ancient Lagos.

Without pastoral power and provable Spirit manifestation, pioneer churches would have failed. In Nigeria, the mother pioneer Pentecostal church that broke many grounds for what we enjoy today is the Assemblies of God Church. On their labour that spiralled out of the move of God, many modern churches prosper. There are other pioneer churches as well.

Planting a church in a dark, remote world where demons, marine spirits, and witches are revered is indeed a commendable task. However, even more commendable is the effort to keep the church alive. Sustaining the church is more important than simply establishing one that may not endure.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Like 14:28-30

Jesus speaks not only as a teacher but as one appointed to carry out God’s plan on Earth. God does not begin a work that He is not certain to complete. While we are eager to labour hard to spread the gospel and establish churches in godless and dark places, we must ensure we can keep that ground alight and burning.

We have heard stories about how churches were planted and established in places that people feared to enter because of the spirits that resided there. Many early churches were established in former shrines and altars of demons, built by men who carried an enduring Pentecostal fervour.

But they not only planted those churches, they also built a structure that kept the defeated forces far away from the church, allowing the church to thrive spiritually and physically. So that in the former days were times when occult forces feared the signboard of Assemblies of God churches in Nigeria. It was reported that occult forces do not attempt to use the streets Assemblies of God Church was planted.

We heard stories that during services, when the angel of God moved, people would jump out of the windows. Those who tried to infiltrate the church experienced firsthand what they had been warned about. In the services, all kinds of sinners were exposed. There was an aura of fear surrounding any building associated with the Assemblies of God. As a result, the church thrived in every aspect.

Yes! Satan’s forces had in the past tried to infiltrate assemblies of God churches, but the structure we had supported God and angelic beings, making it hard to stop what God started through the early fathers and members of the church.

In a later post, I will write concerning this angel whom I have seen in a trance and what he told me. He is the Angel of the great move of God upon the Assemblies of God Church. I call him the Angel of God’s presence. But he was not there because of man, but because there was a structure that supported him.

The structure that sustained the move was implemented by my father, who is a Minister of the Assemblies of God Nigeria, and I did witness strange things under his pastorship. Under him, Pentecost Sundays were a thing. I am yet to witness the presence that I saw under his pastorship in a church today.

During our regular Tuesday Bible class, an occult man visited us. Just as we were about to finish with a closing prayer, he suddenly took off and ran straight into the wall, hitting it hard. He later admitted that he didn’t see the door. That day, he surrendered his life to Jesus.

My father is a revered man of God, powerful in word, missions and church administration. He is not blessed with the miraculous and deliverance Ministry, but he knew a structure, the one he learned from those who were before him, and that which his God put in his spirit. He implemented it, and he saw God in every Church he pastored. He never pastored a church that did not grow so much. In a later post, we will talk about this structure.

So why are witches and demonic forces after pioneer churches like the Assemblies of God? We have a history with them. The early fathers and members took their lands, took their territories, converted their members, freed their captives, destroyed their properties, burnt their shrines.

Even in the Bible, the king of Ammon(Judges 11) and Moab(2kings 3) tried to reclaim the land that had been taken in battle by the Jews long before they were born. But unlike humans, demons and spirits do not forget; they don’t let go, nor suffer amnesia.

Jesus, in his teachings (Matthew 12:43-45), reminded us that spirits do not forget their former dwellings. They tend to return to see if any structure or system has been put up where they used to occupy. However, empty and hollow spirituality, along with spiritual laziness, has led today’s church to the abandonment of the very structures that once expelled these forces. As a result, many of these spirits, forces, kingdoms, and dominions are making their return. And they have come to expel, dominate and conquer.

Why are our enemies succeeding? It is because the structure that was established by the fathers, meant to secure us to the end, has been broken down and substituted by another generation. In pioneer churches today is a generation that knows not their God nor His power, which he displayed in the former age. We do not know the way, nor do we understand how to move the hand of God.

When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel. Judges 2:10, NKJV