Cigarette Addict Rescued

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" --Matthew 11:28

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the burden shall be taken off thy shoulder, and his yoke off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing” -- Isaiah 10:27

For a long time, he was a victim of cigarette addiction. He yearned to be free, but the destructive habit remained. Then a friend brought him to the Watchman Fellowship Centre, Oshodi, Lagos, where, as God would have it, the General Overseer of the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Pastor A.C. Ohanebo, was ministering that day.

 A seat was offered to him in the front row. In the course of his ministrations, Pastor Ohanebo came down from the rostrum, walked towards him, pointed at him, and said: “That smoking habit cannot be stopped until you come to the church where a prophet of God is.”

He was shocked that the man of God could point out his problem. But that day marked a clear end to cigarette addiction in the life of Okechukwu Ononobi. And so recently, during a Sunday meeting, he stood before the jubilant crowd of Watchmen and their visitors to share the testimony of the mercy of God in his life, how God set him free from such a terrible habit and changed his life. His testimony:

Okechukwu Ononobi

I am from Oshodi Parish of the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Lagos. I am here to praise God for delivering me from the yoke of cigarette smoking. I was a successful self-employed man until suddenly my work suffered and I fell into serious lack. At a time, I didn’t know what to do again.

 One day, I ran into a friend’s wife. I asked her to give me her husband’s number since I wanted to discuss a very important matter with him. When eventually I called him and requested to meet with him, he told me not to come at that particular time because he would be going to church.

But because I wanted to see him urgently, I still visited his house at that time, and as he said, he was getting set to leave for church. He then asked me to follow him, so   that, after the service, we could discuss. Reluctantly, I followed him and when we got to the church, I was ushered to a seat in the front row.

In fact, before then, I was not used to going to church.

In a short while, there was jubilation and great applause as a man entered and took his seat at the pulpit area. When I asked the person sitting by me whether that was the pastor, he didn’t have any idea himself, since he was also a new comer. However, I got to know later that he was the General Overseer of the Movement.

 When he started preaching the message he had titled: The Difference Between The Prophet And The King, little did I know that he would come down from the pulpit. After sometime, he walked straight to where I was sitting and pointed at me and said: That smoking habit cannot be stopped until you come to the church where a prophet of God is!

I was surprised because cigarette smoking was an addiction I had tried to stop but to no avail. In fact, it had caused serious problems in my marriage. I was wondering whether my friend had gone to tell him that I was a chain smoker, but then, he didn’t know earlier that I would be in church that day.

Well, to cut the long story short, at the end of his preaching, he prayed extensively for all of us that God should deliver us from every entanglement by breaking every yoke of the devil in our lives.

Brethren, I want to tell you that since that day, June 12, 2007, till now, I have never tasted cigarette of any kind again and my life has changed and I now go to church since then. So please help me to thank this God who has delivered me from this habit.

Praise the Lord!”