Wednesday 2 August 2017

Life of APOSTLE JOSEPH AYO BABALOLA

(A must Read for all Who are hungry for more and to do more in God,  by God,  with God, for God and through God in This Generation,  beginning from today)

Joseph Ayo Babalola was born at Odo Owa, Ilofa, a small town near Ilorin in Kwara State in 1904.

His parents were Anglican and he grew up an Anglican and attended the Anglican Primary School at Osogbo.

After his elementary education, he took up appointment as a dispensary aid in a private hospital.

A couple of years later he took interest in mechanical engineering and became an apprentice in a mechanical workshop.

With this background he took up appointment with the Public Works Department in 1928 as a steam roller operator assigned to work on the construction of Igbara-Oke Road.

From September 1928, Babalola started having strange experiences which disturbed his sleep for a couple of months. It was clear to him, however, that these meant God’s call to him to become an Evangelist, but he refused to react positively to the voice he heard repeatedly.

On October 11, 1928, he heard the audible voice again and immediately his steamroller refused to function any longer.

Babalola interpreted this event as an unmistakable signal to heed the call.

He abandoned his work for the missionary assignment.

From then on, Babalola was never without divine guidance.

Armed with a Bible and a large school bell, he began his evangelistic campaign. Back in his hometown, Ilofa, Babalola organised a prayer band which was meeting in the local Anglican Church.

The prayer meeting did not last long because Babalola was excommunicated for his operation of the gift of prophecy, insistence on prayer to heal and profuse use of water.

In spite of the excommunication, Babalola’s prayer band, which shifted to the house of Elder Olayemi (a lay-reader who was also excommunicated), continued to grow.

The ressurection of a child, who was being taken to the cemetery by Babalola, served as the signal for the outbreak of the great 1930 revival.

Babalola, wearing white shorts, shirt and a pair of white canvass with a Bible and a hand bell in his hands preached to the people.

He particularly asked his hearers to renounce evil practices andwitchcraft.

Thereafter, there was MASS healing.

The news of the revival was so widespread that many people from other towns, cities and nations trooped into Ilesa. The heavy throng of people cleared the bushy crusade ground with their feet beyond the areas which church leaders had anticipated.

As the population on the revival ground increased, the River Oye, a few metres from the revival ground, was consecrated and used to cure the infirm and the sick.

Even the sick in the hospital were reported to have been carried to the revival ground.

It was gathered that the District Officer had to intervene by calling Babalola and charging him for disrupting hospital services.

All these experiences of God’s move, then triggered persecutions and uprising from various angles, part of which we are also considering.
In Ilesa, some of the leaders of the Faith Terbanacle, which were associates with the Apostle, were detained in police cells and later arraigned before the court for the alleged criminal offences committed by Apostle Babalola.

They were discharged with caution.

In Ekiti area where Babalola worked for a considerably long time, the government published a six point charter: banning

(i) “consecration” of water;

(ii) witch hunting;

(iii) challenging other cults;

(iv) condemning other religious faiths;

(v) keeping the neighbourhood awake by vigils, and

(vi) conducting open or public revival meetings.

As if that wasn’t enough, Babalola, the man at the centre of the controversy, was picked up and jailed for six months at Otu in Afermai Division while he was conducting revival meetings in Benin.

Babalola’s revival meetings were always characterized by salvation, renouncing of membership of evil associations, miracles, healing and deliverances.

He carried the power of God to confront all powers that were indigenous to the lands wherever he preached. At a particular time, he was offered space to build his church at the center of demonic activities in a particular land, as a way of destroying him, but through the irresistible power of God upon his life, he was able to successfully dislodge the powers of darkness from that land.

Everywhere he went all over the country, during those days, he turned the areas upside down, or rather let’s say he turned them around for Christ.

NB:

Now that you have known What a mortal man Like you,  Who was also subjected to Like passion has done for God during his LIFE time on earth..... What decision are you now making regarding impact?
  COUNSEL;
#Pay  the price,  lose the weight,  quit the Friends that are Unprofitable and Sell out.... God will use you.
  .....See you at The Top both in LIFE and MINISTRY.

.....PST. MICHAEL GREAT,
   #EMETMISSIONS

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