To the glory of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I present this book, “THE LIFE OF APOSTLE SIMEON MOYE OGUNSIKU,” with a heart full of gratitude to God. In this book I present the life of Apostle Simeon Moye Ogunsiku, copioneer and patriarch of Cherubim and Seraphim, Iwopin, who happens to be my maternal grandfather, to every Christian out there. I hope it blesses your heart richly.
My sincere gratitude goes to God Almighty for the grace to write this book. It is all by his grace and nothing else. My gratitude also goes to my dear mother without whom it wouldn’t have been possible to even conceive the book, not to mention writing it. She also graciously granted me much of her time for a detailed interview by which I got all the accounts in this book. Her acute and retentive memory was what made all the accounts of this book possible to all their details. For example, during the interview she had said her father died on a saturday being on the 9th of April, 1969. However, on checking my calendar and taking it back to the year 1969, I discovered that the 9th of April, 1969 was not on a Saturday. When I told her that I checked the day of 9th of April, 1969 and it wasn’t a Saturday, I suggested that maybe it was on the 19th of April, 1969 because that was a Saturday, and because it was just a digit different from what she had said. But as I said it our voice crossed because she said immediately that I should check the 5th. When she heard my suggestion she said again, “no, check the 5th.” And when I checked the 5th it was on a Saturday. So she knew the exact date with certainty and my suggestion would not make her to start guessing wrongly. She gave every account vividly and clearly.
Like this one, my immediate previous book happens to be a biography also, a biography of Joab, the general of the army of king David. Just as that book was born of my fascination for the illustrious life of the great man, so also was this born of my fascination for my grandfather. I didn’t get to hear anything about him directly, that is his life or actions being narrated to me directly, so I didn’t have much knowledge about him. But occasionally I hear my mother talking of one thing or the other which he did or said, maybe while on the phone or in a discussion with someone, and the marvellous things I heard of him made me wonder, “what kind of man was this?” When I heard these things I started having the desire to have these great and marvellous things recorded down in a book, but laziness wouldn’t let me do it.
I had read a book of the ecclesiastical history of England written by the Venerable Bede (c. 673 – 735) where I also read of amazing things done by noble Christians of the English Isles, but not many of them came close to the life of my grandfather. I thought if these things (as well as many others in other books) were recorded down and have been passed down to us from antiquity and have become extremely valuable for our edification, admonition, example, instruction, and guidance, then the life of my grandfather too ought by all means to be recorded down for the immense profit of the present and coming generations. But laziness still wouldn’t let me.
The urge to write this book greatly increased when I began to hear from different quarters extremely silly arguments that the backwardness of Africa is due to the fact that the whites came to deceive us by means of Christianity to leave our traditional mode of worship. By this they try to say that Africa will only move forward when we turn away from Christianity to dumb and wicked practices of idolatry.
I once saw a video that one of such supporters of the foolish argument shared where in one African country (which I don’t wish to name) they took oath of office, not with the Bible, but with a snake hung round the necks of each officer while he recited his oath. He then said this is how Africa ought to do her things. That we are just emulating the whites who brought us Christianity to deceive us, that if men took oaths with a snake round their necks they’d be afraid of going against their oaths unlike when men do it with the Bible. Others said that if people took matrimonial oaths by some idol at a shrine people would be more committed to keeping their matrimonial vow. I laughed at the stupidity of this argument as the very country where this practice was done is so backward. In fact they’re out of the back door for backwardness. I then said to him that at least now that that country practices such things, they’re now more advanced than America, Russia, and every other developed country which doesn’t practice it. Just absurd, yea, indeed devilish.
When we fail in all that we ought to do for the depravity of our minds, of course we’d of necessity need to blame it on something else. When men become thieves, lazy, drunkards, and haters of knowledge, contrary to the admonition of the Bible, we would still somehow find a means to blame it on the same Bible. When we surround ourselves with things and entertainments that wash down morality, we turn a blind eye to them and how they cause men to be depraved, yet we say the Bible’s the cause. If people hate the Bible and Christianity so much, it’s fine, but at least they shouldn’t lose their reasoning faculty to be pouring such absurdities to discredit the Christian faith and the Bible.
I have been hearing these arguments promoting the idea of Africa returning to her vomit (sorry meant to say her traditional ways) was the way forward for a long while now. I do not believe that those who put forward these arguments are unaware of the realities, horrors, and depravity of many African cultures which involve even human sacrifices, many foolish superstitions, and degrading of humans. I say degrading of humans because they debase men into irrational creatures.
I listened to my neighbour (at the time of writing these lines) whose father also got converted to Christianity from idolatry tell me about the practices his father told him they were into. He narrated many devilish oppressive ways by which young men were initiated to the cult of their village, but one that struck me was the fact that before you could join the cult they’d put your life on the line and force you to declare what you know is certainly false. How this happens is that they will lead a young man who they wish to initiate into a dark room where he would see a masquerade. When he comes out they’d put a sword to his neck and ask him, “what did you see?” If he said the truth that it was a mere man dressed up as a masquerade that he saw they’d kill him on the spot. Many of the initiates into this had an evident mark of a cut on their necks because the sword came in contact with their skins and cut them. So to save their lives they must be debased with their lives on the line to declare what they know is false, which is both irrational (something only an insane person should do) and morally wrong. What else could move men to these things than malign spirits which they worshiped as part of their traditions? What else is the practice of forcing men to tell lies if not forced adoption into the sonship of the Devil, the father of lies?
I thank my God that it was in the course of writing this book that I met a number of people who had firsthand experience of traditionalist’s barbaric traditional rites and who narrated these things in details. Considering them, I realised they all had so much in common. They were all fiendish and nothing is fitter for those who practice them than eternal flames of hell. But despite these things, these advocates of African traditions are ignorant of the fact that Christianity did save us from these dumb and foolish idols and from the powers of malign spirits. This they are wilfully ignorant of in trying to do the errand of the Devil. It is written, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.” (2 Peter 3:5). Just as men of those days exhibited wilful ignorance, so do these people choose to be ignorant of these things that God is our Maker and Jesus Christ is his Son. Playing on the minds of the gullible, and people who wouldn’t take their time to give these things of vital importance close considerations, they try to score cheap points for the Devil.
In my casual observation, it seems to me that the Devil doesn’t have many ideas of how to corrupt the Christian individuals and their systems. He repeats a lot of his schemes. He just picks up an old scheme that he has used in the past successfully, cleans it up, tweaks it here and there, and then reuses it on humanity again. For example, the same scheme he used in Eden, in which he successfully convinced the woman that she could be better than what God made her and so used her ambition to introduce sin into the world, the same scheme is being used again through feminism to destroy the home, church, and state. At the beginning she wanted to be like God, several thousands of years later she can’t even be a man.
Seeing that is the case, we would save ourselves a lot of stress by acquainting ourselves with the triumphant Christians of bygone years because the battles we shall face shall not be way distinct from their own battles because though we be many and varying from age to age, the enemy is but one and the same. We may not even need to fight him but only remind him of the defeat he suffered at the hands of our triumphant predecessors and that would be all we’d need to do to win another victory. The more we know of triumphant Christian field marshals the better we’d be in waging our own wars triumphantly.
It was therefore needful to present the life of my grandfather that men may be reminded, by means of vivid first hand accounts and not mere hearsay, of all the dimensions by which Christianity both came and was held. It came with power subduing the powers of these dumb gods and men witnessing the great power of Christ turned from darkness to his marvellous light. Not only did it come in power to dispel the darkness from the minds of men, but it also subdued the gods which all crumbled and fell at the feet of Christ like Dagon. As it is written, “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:15). The case is no different in Africa as it was in the Roman world of then. Christ’s entry into Africa was and is a triumphal entry. He made a shew of his victory over principalities and powers openly so that to pretend not to see it is to pretend to be blind. As blind as the blind gods traditionalists are advocating. Dagon is fallen at the feet of Christ, it is futile to try to raise it up. Save yourself the stress. The account of the life of my grandfather proves all these in the clearest and most vivid terms.
It may seem as though the mission of traditionalists to pull Africa back to her vomit is a harmless agenda that is doomed to fail from inception anyways, so why do anything to resist it? Well, the truth is that for the people who came out of diabolism into the glorious light of Christ, knowing what they came out from and tasting of its vileness, the idea of going back is unthinkable to them. But I do not think the scheme of the Devil is for them, it is for this “Indomie generation” who have little or no idea of the gross darkness of idolatry that this snare would be effective on. For these don’t know what it’s like and so can be easily snared by the idea that African traditional idolatry is the way to go seeing the clerks of the Devil are well trained in making bad look good. As the apostle Paul wrote, “we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:11). We too ought not to be ignorant of the modern devices of the evil one but watch him closely to know his schemes and prevent him from taking advantage of us and the coming generations.
Furthermore, this practice of casting slur on the Christian faith is nothing new. It’s like a stubborn weed that has grown with the plant from the moment it sprung up, and this stubborn weed will remain with the plant till the day of judgment. As it can be easily observed through the writings of the apostles that in their days they had such people who spoke vehemently against the faith to discredit it. Of such people the apostle Paul wrote, “For a bishop must be blameless… that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” (Titus 1:7 – 11). Today it’s not they of the circumcision that oppose us but shameless traditionalists. The same advice given by the apostle Paul holds true for the circumcision as for the traditionalists. Having such accounts of how our fathers turned from the gross darkness of idolatry to the marvellous light of Christ is a great way to frustrate this wicked scheme being put into execution by the clerks of the Devil in human flesh.
The sad trend however is that in recent centuries is that the damage done by unopposed slur cast on the church has been greatly underestimated by Christians in these periods. It has happened in the past and I’m afraid it is happening again. When Europe and America were sound in the faith and the doctrine of our Lord, critics of the faith went unopposed by men of the Christian faith from my casual observation. One of them was Edward Carpenter (1844 – 1929) who wrote a number of books presenting arguments on various subjects but through it all consistently threw punches at the church and the Christian faith. In one case he wrote, “To-day we seem at the outset of a new era, and preparing in some way for the rehabilitation of the Pagan conception of the world. The negative Christian dispensation is rapidly approaching its close.” And in another place he writes concerning prostitution, “There has been a time in history when the prostitute has been glorified, consecrated to the temple-service and honoured of men and gods (the hierodouloi of the Greeks, the kodeshoth and kodeshim of the Bible, etc.) There has also been a time when she has been scouted and reviled. In the future there will come a time when, as free companion, really free from the curse of modern commercialism, and sacred and respected once more, she will again be accepted by society and take her place with the rest.” To his many direct and indirect slurs he cast on the Christian faith I’ve not heard of anyone who ever sought to stop his mouth (as we were commanded) on grounds of religion, things which are primarily assignments of bishops. Oh how contrary such complacency of today’s bishops is to the life of the blessed fathers like Athanesius of Alexandria, Bishop Aurelius Augustine of Hippo, Bishop Hilary of Poitier, and so on, who would have taken the foolish arguments of this Edward the pagan Carpenter, put it under the spotlight in the view of the whole world, and as they look on rip it to pieces before their eyes.
Today such ideas have been the ruin of religion in the West. So thoroughly evil and godless are the things we hear coming out of the West. And if you’d take it, the war going on in Ukraine as I currently write these lines has a strong religious undertone, the West willing to risk dragging the entire world into a catastrophic world war just because they wish to pull Russia down for its unflinching national devotion to moral values. So such schemes against the church and the Christian faith aren’t doomed to die a natural death. They were born in hell and won’t go away until it has fulfilled its hellish purpose unless otherwise these evil are cast down, and all these things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and bring them and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Only then can their sinister designs be diffused.
So, when I considered these things and saw the immense importance the account of the life of my grandfather would have in dispelling these godless and damnable fantasies, the urge to have it written was even stronger. Seeing these series of benefits of having the life of my grandfather documented in a book, by God’s grace I got off my lazy bed to work. And my! What a blessed endeavour this has been. So that was how this book was born.
That said, it is important to note right early on that this book is not meant to endorse or speak against any denomination in particular. My grandfather was the copioneer of Cherubim and Seraphim church in Iwopin and ought to be identified as such, but it doesn’t mean I endorse the denomination in any way. To endorse a denomination for any reason and at any time seems to me to be foolishness. A church in good standing today (if indeed we know what good standing is) may be in bad standing tomorrow. I have witnessed churches in good standing backslide to a pitiable level of compromise. I remember when I was a child, our church was to be considered a church in good standing, but at that time my late father was posted to serve in Pakistan and we went with him and lived there for about five years. However on our return we couldn’t believe what our eyes were seeing. Everything the church ever frowned at before we left was now fully practiced, and believe me it has only gotten worse since then. Shamefully worse. Churches compromise all too often. And not that only, sometimes you could see a church take a firm and good stance on one thing doctrine-wise then go against it in practice. To therefore endorse a thing as unreliable as a denomination that can be standing today and prostrate in dust and ashes tomorrow is an unwise thing to do. I endorse Jesus, that if you hold his hands he will lead you to heaven. The same my grandfather did.
Also, as it will be explained to a greater depth in the book, the title apostle is a title given to church leaders in the Cherubim and Seraphim church. It doesn’t mean my grandfather made any claim to have seen Christ in person or to have been directly sent forth by Christ. The title apostle is the equivalent of the title of bishop in other churches. I decided to use the term patriarch because though he was the equivalent of a bishop the title wasn’t used in his church. I therefore thought it better to address him with the more general title of patriarch. I hope these put the title of the book in proper perspective.
So, dear Christian brethren, one and all, I present to you “THE LIFE OF APOSTLE SIMEON MOYE OGUNSIKU.” I hope it blesses you. Thank you and God bless you.
—Ayomikun
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