08/01/2024
How it all began as told by the Founder.
The Liberation Mandate is what we refer to as the Commission, because that was where everything began. It was delivered on a most dramatic and awesome platform. The following was how the mandate was delivered:
I was on a trip to Ilesha, now in Osun State of Nigeria on May 1st, 1981, on the look-out for the welfare of a Christian friend that I had not heard from, for some time. I was concerned, not knowing if he needed any form of attention. This was how I came into my place of encounter.
I got to this brother’s place, but he wasn’t there. There was a note on his door announcing that he had travelled. Something gracious came out of me – “All things work together to the advantage of them that love the Lord.” It was soothing; I felt no disappointment at all!
Then the Holy Spirit said to me, “Look out for a quite place, I want to talk to you.” This was a timely instruction, because I had quite a lot of Christian friends in that town and I could have had a lot of fun being with them that day.
However, I obeyed the voice of the Holy Spirit, and asked a passerby if there was any hotel on the outskirts of the town, where I could lodge. And that was how I met with destiny!
The quiet place I found was one International Hotel, Ilesha. It was a ‘great’ hotel, and I disliked the state of both the building and in particular the room. But I knew from my inside that I had to be there. Behold, as I knelt down to give thanks in that wonderful room, the encounter began! This lasted for eighteen hours. In that great vision, I saw a lineup of the afflicted and oppressed, broken, beaten, battered, the blind, the lame and the wretched. I saw all kinds of deformities, that I was greatly bewildered. I heard their wailing as they filed past me. Their groaning was so intense that I could almost feel their pains.
I could not help it, and so I began to cry and sob along with them. “Lord, what is this?” I asked. I heard God say to me, And from the beginning it was not so. I broke down the more in tears. In the midst of all that I kept asking, “but why Lord?” And I heard God say distinctly to me, And from the beginning it was not so and now, the hour has come to liberate the world from all oppressions of the devil, through the preaching of the Word of faith; and I am sending you to undertake this task.
