THE KINGDOM HERALD

We talk and sing about it, but do we really understand what we say? When we talk about the hereafter, or “making Heaven,” some have the idea of a wonderful place somewhere “beyond the sunset,” where we’ll sing praises and strum harps day without end. Well, that’s what we learnt in Christian kindergarten. But as mature men, we should know better. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (I Corinthians 13:11). How many Christians know that the eternal life we talk about so much is going to be spent here on earth? Even among those who do, there’s a blur in the vision. Yes, this great “terrestrial ball” is where we’ll spend eternity with our Lord. But it would have been refined and rebuilt – a restoration of Eden! It will, however, not be just an Eden of flora and fauna, but also of brick, steel and glass structures, of super-highways and other breathtaking creations! It’s a really big pi

It had been on my mind to write about something like this and I was watching out for when to tackle it. Then I came across an article in this week’s Sunday Punch here in Nigeria, Boko Haram: The Challenges of Messianic Movements . You could call it a fire under my seat! For the uninitiated, Boko Haram is a fundamentalist Islamic sect that recently unleashed terror on parts of Northern Nigeria. The incident, according to last week’s editorial of the same newspaper, claimed hundreds of lives and displaced several thousands. In the mind of the writer of the article, Minabere Ibelema, the event evoked memories of some “messianic” groups that have executed similar horrors around the world. Included in the recount was the “Reverend” Jim Jones-led group that took to the forests of Guyana and bared its fangs in 1978. Also recalled was the Armageddon-obsessed Branch of Davidians that reared its ugly head in Waco in the US state of Texas in 1993. There was

He has come a long way and done great things. But when we look beyond the surface of his giant strides and the allure of his homeland – called “God’s own country” with good reason – we discover some amazing portents of “things which must shortly come to pass” on a global scale. It has been said that he is on a decline. He has to, for the real thing he has long prefigured is fast approaching. Let’s consider one facet of his activities that interestingly prefigure an impending and very significant stage in the Almighty’s great agenda for the world – the establishment of the promised earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ . Here’s a nation in anarchy, the making and revelry of a “tyrannical” ruler. Things get so bad till General Sam, the “self-appointed” commander of the global armed forces, would have no more of it. Too bad He doesn’t have a unanimous vote; he is going to carry out his plans all the same! He mobilizes and arms his forces, invades that land and topples the tyrant