Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s Theory of Masturbation, Alcoholism and Smoking
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome is the founder of Believers Love World
Fellowship which metamorphosed into Christ Embassy International Ministries.
This Church has a regular membership of over 3 million in Nigeria alone and
fans of over ten million people who belong to other denominations but see
Pastor Chris as their alternative pastor. Inadvertently Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
controls over twelve million people in Nigeria especially the youth and middle
aged. His telecast is still the most viewed among Nigerian Christians including
Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists and Pentecostal brethren.
This Pastor
recently stirred the hornets’ nest in the month of February 2012 when answering
a question on how to overcome masturbation said thus ‘’masturbation in itself
is not a sin against God. Satan uses it in oppressing the mind and make them
feel ineffective and inefficient in the sight of God. But once you understand
that it’s got nothing to do with God, its about you and your own body…’’ When
people thought that his position was a slip of tongue, He defended it in
another telecast weeks later and called it a habit which has nothing to do with
God. The same pastor weeks later added that alcoholism and smoking is not a
sin, rather it is just a habit.
This theory
of masturbation not being a sin is not biblical. Masturbation is a besetting
sin. A besetting sin is a habit that sticks to someone as though it is normal.
A sin that has become a habit is called a besetting sin. Some people call it
entangling sin because it entangles a person, thereby making escape difficult.
. In Hebrew Chapter 12 verse 1-2 the scripture says that ‘’ wherefore seeing we
are also compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and sin which easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith’’ In Nigeria now, corruption has become a besetting sin, our religious
leaders encourage it and release anointing for the corrupt Congregationalist to
escape the arms of the law. However, this does not remove the fact that
corruption is evil in the sight of God.
Smoking of
Cigarettes, Indian Hemps, Cocaine, Marijuana or whatever are besetting sins.
They are normalised anomalies. Masturbation is one of them. In Nigeria today,
fornication has become so rampant that it has a besetting sin. People now
discuss their sexual escapades with different people as a status symbol.
The Bible
has a standard. In Matthew Chapter 5 verse 8 Jesus Christ said that ‘’ but I
tell you that whosoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart’’ This implies that sin starts from the heart.
Masturbation definitely involves constant lustful imaginations which the victim
indulges in as a means of vitiating sexual pressures. Students of demonology
have discovered that those sexual images which follow masturbation are actually
pictures from the marine world juxtaposed on the persons’ sub-conscious and he
begins to imagine some sexy looking man or woman. Some persons get initiated
into the company of a spirit husband or wife after orgies of masturbation. In
addition, a masturbator will definitely get tired of the self indulgence and
would want to experiment with actual sex, leading to fornication or adultery.
Smoking of
cigarettes has become a fanciful habit which a lot of persons want to break
away from without success. The late minister of health Professor Olukoye
Ransome Kuti said that he quit decades of smoking the day he was appointed as
Minister of Health by Ibrahim Babangida in 1985. All his previous attempts to
quit the bad habit failed until he made a resolution that as the chief health
officer of Nigeria he cannot be a bad example, which was how he secured his
freedom. If those referred to as unbelievers want to quit smoking, how can a
Born Again Christian justify feeding on what pagans, atheists and animists are
struggling to quit. The producers and hawkers of cigarettes warn that the
substance is dangerous to health.
Alcoholism
is an intoxicant which persons use to feel good and fight depression. A lot of
sicknesses are directly related to it and the manufacturers will always warn
that it is not for those below the age of eighteen. A lot of family
breadwinners have expended all their live savings on alcohol while the wife and
children are left unattended to.
Therefore for a pastor
who directly influences over three million persons in Nigeria and indirectly
influences another twelve million fans that belong to other churches to
encourage these habits, the end has really come. 
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