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How can somebody die in the middle of a service of all places?

I was ministering
at a service at Christian Video Network, Lagos. Suddenly, I observed
that a lady in the second row was fidgety. She seemed very
uncomfortable. Then, she got up and rushed out.

Soon after, someone
came in, spoke to some women, who also rushed out. The service
continued but some thirty minutes later, someone came in again. This
time, she walked up to me and interrupted the service. “We seem to have
a crisis on our hands,” she said. “Mrs. Osanyinjobi had an asthma
attack. We’ve done all we can to help her. I am afraid the woman is
dead.”

Dead on arrival

Dead? I could not
believe it. How can somebody die in the middle of a service of all
places? What kind of embarrassment was this? The whole church
practically moved to the room where she was. There I met the ladies who
had apparently spent the last thirty minutes trying to revive her and
were now resigned to the inevitable.

I knelt down beside
this woman’s lifeless body and started to pray. “Father, she will not
die but live to declare the works of the Lord in the land of the
living. You are the Lord that heals. You took our infirmities and
carried away our sicknesses. By your stripes we are healed. You are the
Sun of righteousness. Arise with healing in your wings. You are the
balm of Gilead. Healing is the children’s bread.”

I went on and on
and on, praying every scripture I could think of. After a while, I
became exhausted. I did not know what else to say or to pray. I was
young in ministry, and could not handle this kind of crisis. So I
stopped praying and cried to the Lord in my heart. “Father,” I cried,
“I need help. I don’t even know what to pray any more. I don’t know
what other scriptures to claim.”

Jehovah-Shammah

And then something
happened. It was something magical; something glorious. The Lord spoke.
I heard him as clear as a bell. “Femi,” he said. “Pray in tongues.”

That solved the
problem. Immediately, I calmed down. I realised I was not alone. The
Lord was there. So I switched to praying in tongues. I prayed and
prayed and prayed. And just as suddenly, something happened again.

Out of the blue;
out of nowhere; Mrs. Osanyinjobi sneezed. Then she opened her eyes and
sat up. Then I helped her to stand up. And everybody went absolutely
crazy with joy.

We went back with
her to the service with dancing and singing and shouting and clapping.
She sat down calmly in a corner. But the Lord said to me: “Ask her to
dance.” So I asked Mrs. Bola Osanyinjobi to join in the dance. And to
the amazement of all, there was this woman, who had been lifeless for
hours, dancing with everybody else as though nothing whatsoever had
happened.

Talitha-kumi

Pamela Momah,
Deputy-Director of Library, Nigerian Institute of International
Affairs, Lagos had a stroke. She was rushed to Military Hospital,
Onikan, Lagos. When we went to see her, we were overjoyed it was mild.
But while still with her, another drama ensued.

A man had brought
his sick child for treatment, but he had no money. Therefore, the
nurses ignored him. Suddenly, the boy died, right there and then in his
arms. He let out a big cry. My colleague, Pastor Sandra Chikan, had
apparently been watching the drama for some time. “This man kept
pleading with the nurses,” she said. “But they refused to attend to
him. Look now, his son has died.”

Without thinking,
Sandra and I descended on the scene. I grabbed the dead child from the
arms of his wailing father, and we started to call upon the name of the
Lord. Sandra and I prayed fervently, confident that God is more than
able to raise the child from the dead.

After a while, God
honoured our faith and answered our prayer. Life flowed back into the
boy and he opened his eyes. Rejoicing, we handed him back to his
astonished father.

At last, the nurses
agreed to attend to him. They took him away, still grumbling that the
boy’s father could not afford the treatment.

About an hour
later, a male nurse came to us with a strange announcement. “The boy
has died again,” he said with a tone of finality. Then he stormed out
of the room, leaving us with nothing left to do than to console his
grieving father.

Jesus says: “I am
the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may
die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never
die” (Jn 11:25-26).

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