THE MAN - Part 1 (A short documentary movie on the early days of God's Servant Bishop David Oyedepo)

[Music] greatness always comes in seemingly unlikely packages like the acorn seed that grows to a mighty oak tree or the tiny mustard seed that becomes one of the greatest among trees when planted so is a man that carries the seed of greatness in him he may not look it but his bold and confident steps of today are the foreshadow of what lays ahead in the words of john milton the childhood shows the man as morning shows the day [Music] as the story goes i arrived into this world in a church building as the story had it my mother a very religious woman was always in attendance at the early morning prayer meeting fell into labor on this wonderful day she gave birth to me right in the church building this was on september 27 1954. while in the primary school in those days being a mission school i heard lots of stories from the scriptures many of these religious stories talked about the beauty the joy the peace and the splendor of heaven on the glorious day in 1964 at the age of 10 i said to a childhood friend the heaven we sing about is very close so what are we doing here there is no sorrow or weeping or dying in heaven look pointing to the horizon heaven is just touching down not very far from here come on let's go [Music] so we took off on a humorous trip to heaven running as fast as our small legs could carry us however the farther we went the father heaven seemed to become as the horizon kept stretching out in front of us then we met an old man on his way home from his farm and he asked us children where are you going to heaven we replied what the old man screamed in consternation get back no way we said we must go to heaven we actually believed that the man was satan who would usually want to hinder people's access to heaven in the long run the old man succeeded in chasing us back what did i intend to do when i get to the gate of heaven you may ask simple i was going to knock on the door and say to god here we are we prefer to stay here than in the world the story of my life cannot be complete without a mention of the great foundation i had from my grandmother's upbringing she was rachel adeyola or detundung i miss her my growing up was surrounded by a number of people from whom i drew a lot of lessons but the most remarkable of them all was my grandmother can you imagine learning the dignity of labor as a child because i also saw it in her it made a lifetime impression on me i earned my first money at the age of 16. while still in the high school in those days such was not common every student depended absolutely on their parents or guardians for their requirements of course i had no business going for anything such as manual labor because both my parents and my granny were comfortable enough to provide whatever i needed however during one of our holidays i joined the labor force in digging the foundation of the general hospital project in my town i had blisters on my hands but i felt like a man from that money i bought myself a pair of shoes called apollo that was the first thing i ever bought for myself just by riding on the principle of dignity of labor you can now see that i was a serious child not a loafer [Music] i got saved at the age of 15 while in high school we had a teacher from a missionary organization sudan interior mission who was instrumental to my salvation she was one betty lasher who taught us christian religious knowledge one of the subjects offered in school she was a very kind and lovely woman miss lasher noticed that i was very active in the bible classes but perceived that i needed the experience of salvation you know i was like paul very zealous in the christian religion it gave me joy more than any other thing however with my strong religious background it was difficult for me to accept that i was not saved because i had always been in the church all my life remember i was born inside a church building i started my primary school in church the first class i attended was in a church building who then could be more saved than i was i thought i also thought that to be well behaved was enough but betty lasher loved me into being born again she would call me after classes saying david come over here how are you doing are you fine how are you finding your classes [Music] cuddling me the way my grandmother always did then she would say you know david you need a definite experience of salvation right good works won't take you to heaven [Music] she would give me pieces of tracts literatures pictures and anything just to get my attention finally with love and patience betty lasher introduced me to christ the 19th of february 1969. i gave my life to christ and became a child of god immediately i could feel the new life surge through me from then on reading the word became a delight no longer a religion mislasher gave me a little new testament bible of only the four gospels and the act of the apostles my intention was to read through it in one day if i could so every little time i had i would read it sometimes i would recite many verses off hand i was really eating it the new testament came alive to me so much that i used the revelation of my encounters in it to deal with tuberculosis tb as a victim of tb one day in september 1969 i woke up in the night to discover that all the students had moved their beds away from my side of the dormitory i had been coughing terribly i felt so ashamed i went out and stood on a little rock behind the dormitory and called out to god saying jesus if it is true that you did all those miracles that i read about in the new testament matthew mark luke and john do it again or that was it the terrible plague of tuberculosis ended that night and never to return and that was some 52 years ago now one day in 1970 something amazing happened i was home on holidays and suddenly my only surviving younger brother came down with measles it was so serious that at dawn of the following day he died my mother wanted to start wailing but i said to her if you cry he will be gone forever don't cry put him on your back and let's go to my father's building project site which was close to her house she put the dead four-year-old boy on her back and i walked closely behind her covering her up so that passes by that early morning wouldn't notice the dead child's dangling legs we went to the place and i asked her to lay him down on the planks then i began to pray i can't remember the contents of the prayer but i remember screaming jesus jesus jesus and bless god the boy came back to life i embarked on a three-day mission to imo hill in elisha studying the book of ezekiel with craving to access the unction of the prophet ezekiel it was a unique experience for me the first day i arrived at the mountain it was a serpent that welcomed me as it fell before me i smiled that it must be the garden of eden when i was not about to be scared by the serpent the sky turned blue rain fell heavily and i was drenched after the rain from heaven fell the rain from the trees started falling it was piercing like a needle but i was full of joy and expectation i was reading the book of ezekiel with a torchlight prayed read and sang the following day the sunshine came and dried the water off my body and clothes on the third day as i was winding up god said to me behold i have touched your tongue with a coal of fire and from henceforth as you say it you will see it that was when god placed authority on my tongue as i continued to study the word of god after my salvation my understanding of scriptures grew stronger by the day with new depth from these same scriptures there was nothing about god that didn't turn me on you may not get my attention for any other thing but god i was so deep in the things of god that from 1971 as a student leader in the school i organized special meetings during the weekly students social gathering program of the school so that while the social gatherings were on i would gather some students to a nearby bush within the school premises to pray prayer was indeed like food to me while others were having parties we were out there in the bush with lanterns praying and saying father we thank you in the name of jesus let your move take over the school save the lost heal the sick we cast you out satan you have no foothold in this school i was a prayer addict we were done praying i would ask them i hope there's nobody here that is not saved because just coming to this prayer meeting won't take you anywhere one your prayers will not be answered and two you stand to be attacked by the devil you are trying to cast out it was such a blessed time in god's presence as i was getting set to return to school in 1973 i heard about an opportunity to take up a teaching job to relieve a teacher who had gone on maternity leave i quickly jumped at it because every open door for evangelism excited me i was to spend just about 70 days or so on the relief duty in a village called dumaji in shanga local government area of kwara state i met one of the teachers by the name of abraham kuranga whom i supposed must be a christian going by his name are there any churches in this village i asked him he said none not even catholic church i asked in disbelief i asked this not to disparage the catholic church but because the catholic church had a very wide spread in the country when i got to my heart i knelt down to pray saying to god lord let me never leave this village the way i met it lord put your name in this village we began to hold fellowships at the entrance porch of the compound where we lived nupe was the language of the people and my new friend abraham spoke it very well so i became the preacher and he the interpreter weekly the number of worshipers grew we're engaged in strategic evangelism visiting the parents of the students to pray for them at about the same time they would have been going to the mosque because teachers were held in high esteem then every scheduled appointment in their homes was considered an honor and was treated with such respect and expectation that was how we literally led the whole village to christ on the 72nd day which was my last sunday in the village the church was packed full with the village folks then something prophetic happened one of the elderly men in the church was asked to present a farewell gift to me on behalf of the church he stood up and said we have heard that wherever the church gets to civilization gets there too thank you for bringing civilization to our village he had a bushlap a lantern in his hand he held it out to me and said silver and gold we have not but we give you this land let this light you brought to our village shine round the world he then presented the lamp to me a prophetic symbol indeed while attending and conducting fellowships back then sister florence albiola ulutayo had always been committed and dedicated she was very active and vibrant i had a most awesome encounter which i still consider the greatest discovery of my life as i read the book the man god uses by oswald j smith [Music] one scripture exploded in my spirit and that was matthew 6 33 i had the holy ghost interpretation of the scripture and that truth has controlled my life till date the spirit of god said but seek ye first the kingdom of god and its fullness and all other things men are dying to get shall be added unto you what seek one thing and get everything it got such a hold of me that i entered into a covenant which i titled sailing under sealed orders that is sealed today and forever i got my wife who i was in courtship with at the time to sign the document the following day monday 13th september 1976. what a master key for us and what a blessing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] really the holy spirit inspired this project it was a beautiful experience it was a very very interesting experience it was like kind of like a challenge to make sure we bring towards the screen um exactly what we promised to do we needed to create a rain scene the weather wasn't the weather was so sunny and even getting water was something else [Music] [Music] we had all we needed for that scene on the side and we knew that god really was backing us in this project we wanted to do something a bit different from what we have done in years past [Music] and we started to think about different ways that we could bring the encounters of bishop oil to life in a way that people can relate with i haven't done anything of this magnitude before and i was so happy to just give it my all [Music] and [Music] um directing this project [Music] um god was evidence [Music] we kind of started talking about different ideas and putting our heads together gathering a team and working with people who actually bought into the vision and then it's even stronger because i'm seeing it from the beginning how we started on the table and you know we're seeing you know the broad point to seeing all the different moving parts come together on screen in a quality that delivers the full emotions and the full range of you know how powerful this story is there was so much warmth and set the um the actors the journey back to and fro god was faithful always he was just um just giving insight on what to do part time a lot of things that happened you know technically speaking he really granted us creativity he granted us insight he helped us with the script helped us with favor direction with the people that were required for this project so it really came out in a way that we knew that it was god that god was for it at the end of the day [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Living Faith Church Worldwide

Views: 64,594

Rating: 4.9536066 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: HX1S5aVL4NA

Length: 27min 18sec (1638 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021