The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the June 16, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast – Christian perspectives on news and current events.
ON “LIVE LONG ENOUGH”: SOUTH AFRICA, THE WORLD CUP, AND THE CAUSES WE GIVE OUR LIVES TO
I want to begin this morning by engaging with a post I came across on WhatsApp, on one of the platforms I belong to. It is quite a telling post.
You all know that currently ongoing in the United States is the FIFA World Cup 2026 — the 23rd edition of the tournament. Recently I stumbled on a video on YouTube about the history of the World Cup, and I watched it with my daughter. It was quite informative on the origins of the tournament: how, at one point, the global football champion was reckoned by whoever won the football event at the Olympic Games, until it occurred to the then FIFA president — observing the enthusiasm of the crowds and fans for football during the Olympics — that there ought to be a separate tournament to determine the world champion. And of course, as with all laudable initiatives, there were obstacles along the way: boycotts from one region, boycotts from another, until we arrive at what we have now.
This 23rd edition is taking place in North America, the first World Cup co-hosted by three countries — Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It has been expanded to 48 teams, up from 32, the largest field in World Cup history; 104 matches in total, up from 64, a record; 12 groups of four teams each; and running from June 11 to July 19, 2026 — 39 days, also the longest ever. Canada is hosting at Toronto’s BMO Field and at Vancouver, while Mexico and the United States are hosting many more matches. The final, all things being equal and by God’s grace, will be played on July 19 at MetLife Stadium, which is said to straddle both New York and New Jersey.
But from Africa, something interesting happened during one of the early matches. We have a number of African countries representing the continent, including South Africa, Ghana, and Morocco. Now, you would ordinarily expect that when an African country plays a non-African side, other African countries would rally behind it. But it does not happen like that with South Africa. And if you ask why, someone will say to you, “Where have you been?”
Here is the post I came across. This person wrote: “In 1966, all African countries boycotted the World Cup to protest apartheid and how black South Africans were marginalized. In 2026, all African countries supported Mexico against South Africa in protest against their xenophobia. Live long enough.” And he ended with that cryptic line: live long enough.
There is so much to unpack here. First, let us put the facts right. I did some research to verify whether African countries indeed boycotted the 1966 World Cup over apartheid. That turns out to be only partially true. African nations boycotted in 1966 mainly to protest FIFA’s refusal to grant an automatic qualification slot to an African country — but it also coincided, of course, with the African push to end apartheid in South Africa. South Africa had itself been disqualified, as part of the pressure on the apartheid regime. So even then, the boycott was understood as a protest both against FIFA’s refusal and against apartheid.
But the overarching point of the post should not be lost. In essence, the writer is saying: in 1966, African countries were so invested in the welfare of black South Africans that they were ready to boycott the World Cup — even if that was only one of the objectives. So you ask yourself: about 60 years later, what has changed? With South Africa now playing on the global stage, practically all African fans refused to support them, and many were openly rooting for Mexico to prevail. And Mexico did prevail. In my house we watched a video stitching together reactions from football fans across different African countries, and we almost laughed ourselves to stupor — people out on the streets, in their studios, taking selfies, making videos, black Africans all over the continent and across the world rooting for Mexico to triumph over South Africa. They got their wish: Mexico won, and South Africa was reduced to nine men with two red cards, which will make the rest of their tournament quite challenging.
So, what changed? What changed is the xenophobic violence in South Africa that has led to the effective confiscation of the wealth of other black Africans and the forced departure of many. Now, there are nuances. Some in South Africa argue that the protest is against undocumented — that is, illegal — immigrants. In an age of political correctness, people who live in a country without valid papers are called “undocumented,” but they are illegal immigrants. The argument runs that the issue is not other Africans as such, but that there are too many illegal immigrants while the economy is challenging, and that the foreigners — being industrious, setting up shops and ventures and thriving — are seen to be taking over an economy in which the locals feel they are not thriving.
Even if that were a legitimate concern — and it can be a legitimate concern for a country to be suffocated by illegal immigration; that is a fact — the reaction cannot be what we have seen and what has been documented from South Africa: riots, foreign black persons killed, people chased from their homes and businesses, investments confiscated not by due process of law but by mob action. And so many have said: even granting a difficult economy, even granting strong feelings about illegal immigration — for goodness’ sake, think about our shared past.
It is important to recall the sacrifices African countries made for South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. Many African nations, especially the frontline states — Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, and of course Nigeria — made substantial political, economic, military, and diplomatic sacrifices to support the ANC, the PAC, and the broader liberation movements against the apartheid regime. In Nigeria there was the so-called Mandela tax: in 1976, while Mandela was serving his long prison term, the Nigerian government imposed a 2% deduction on the salaries of civil servants and public officers to fund the anti-apartheid cause. So this was a sacrifice made not only by the government but by the people of Nigeria. On record, Nigeria is credited with over 60 billion dollars in total support from the 1960s to the 1990s — a consistent struggle. Nigeria also refused to sell oil to the apartheid regime. The frontline states hosted the ANC and other fighters, provided military training and bases, and endured raids and economic disruption — all for the sake of overturning apartheid.
It is in the light of all of this that many black Africans are angry, asking: “We know about economic challenges — we face them in our own countries. We know about disaffection with lax border security and unenforced immigration laws. We know all that. But for you to turn around and become so hostile to other black Africans — killing them, whipping them on the street, disgracing them, forcing them out, confiscating their assets — where does this hatred come from? And even if you feel strongly about your circumstances, shouldn’t our past count for something?” That is the point: shouldn’t our past count for something?
And the writer ended with that cryptic admonition: live long enough. Someone on the platform put it well — the point is, live long enough to see what. He was contrasting 1966, when practically all black African nations were deeply invested in helping black South Africans overcome apartheid, with 2026, when practically all of them are united in their disgust. That is the core insight, and it captures a profound truth about the fleeting and often surprising nature of human affairs.
People have used that line to reference many things. Think of a man who, well past 70 — when you would suppose he should be winding down — instead becomes President of the United States, as Donald Trump was in his 70s, and Joe Biden as well. Some come into greatness when you would have supposed all was lost. Biblically, think of Sarah, who, after she had passed the age of childbearing, was visited by God and received the promise. Live long enough, and you will see things. One would hope and pray those things are glorious. But when it comes to causes — C-A-U-S-E-S — the things we hold dear and fight for, this admonition speaks to us. Everything should be done with moderation and discernment.
I have a dear auntie in this community whose favourite passage is the one that says, in the King James, “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand” [Philippians 4:5]. Every time she referenced it, I would pause and reflect again, because there is great wisdom in it. Why? Because if you live long enough, you could witness the very things you gave everything to turn into things you would not even go near. Have you not heard of institutions built on core Christian values that today champion open rebellion against God and His Word? Go and read the history of Harvard itself. Go and read the history of many of the liberal institutions, denominations, and churches now in open rebellion against the Word of God — read of the men who were inspired, who gave their all, and you will be shocked. Look at the Church of England now: look how liberal it has become, how far it appears to be departing from the sacredness of Scripture. Then look back to the great bishops, priests, and preachers who gave their lives for the cause of that church, who preached great sermons — and you say to yourself, “Live long enough.” The cause you gave your life to can become something you will not even approach.
And it is even more so with political and social causes. If you live long enough and have the benefit of contrasting a bygone age with the present, you are often surprised at how things turn. People who supported a political candidate at one point come, five or eight years later, to ask, “Did I ever support that man?” Many in Nigeria can engage with this. Remember the groundswell of support for the APC in 2015, for the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari — so much so that, with the election due in February 2015, people began writing the hashtag “February” out of sheer love for the man. Well, four years into his presidency, many of us turned coats, and for good reason, and we have no regrets. In fact, we continue to fault those who did not turn away from him at the earliest opportunity. Live long enough, and you may find that the things you gave your life to were not worthy of it. So too in relationships: people who poured everything into a spouse or a partner come, years later, to wonder how they ever did so.
This is the reason that wisdom book Ecclesiastes opens with, “Vanity of vanities, says the preacher; all is vanity” — because the preacher observed how generations come and go, and how dynasties of power, wealth, justice, and legacy so often end in cycles of reversal and frustration. That seems to be the way of the world. And there are noble causes — let us be factual about that: justice, solidarity, national loyalty are noble. But even these can shift dramatically. So what is the overarching point? Moderation and discernment. Be discerning about the causes you give your life, your resources, your effort, and your time to. And be moderate — do not run to the extreme — because you do not always see the full picture, even in the causes you support, and you do not know how things will turn out in the future.
The wise person, however, will pursue the one cause that no one ever regrets championing: the cause of Christ. Paul said in Philippians 3, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.” If you champion Christ — His gospel of grace, His justice, His mercy, His reconciliation, and the advance of His eternal kingdom — that is the one investment immune to reversal. All other causes can turn around, and you will look back and ask, “Did I ever support that?” — just as black Africans now look back at the 1966 era and ask, “Did we ever sacrifice for these South Africans who have turned on us?” I am not saying there should be any regret about overturning apartheid; that remains a good cause. But you can be disappointed in the beneficiaries of your sacrifice. There is only one cause you never regret, and only one Person — Christ Himself — who will never disappoint you.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of God stands forever. The grass and the flower are a figure for all other things in the world — all causes, however noble, can wither and fade. And when the flower has faded, you look at it and ask, “Was that what I gave my everything to?” If you devoted your whole life to tending one garden, the time would come, in the course of things, when that flower fades, and you would look at it and say, “This is what I gave my life to.”
The point I am extrapolating from that post is this: whereas in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s practically all black Africans were rooting for, supporting, and sacrificing for black South Africans, in 2026 — made plain in that South Africa–Mexico match — it has become evident that black Africans are deeply unhappy with them, even rooting against them. Live long enough, and you will be surprised at how things turn. For some, living long enough means seeing things they thought would never be — God crowning them with grace and glory, so they say, “In my 40s and 50s I did not think I would amount to anything; now, in my 70s, I have.” For others, living long enough means discovering that what they gave the best of their devotion, time, and resources to proved utterly unworthy of it.
Is the admonition this morning, then, that you should not give your best to worthy causes? No. The Bible says, “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand, for you do not know which will prosper.” The admonition is not “give your life to no cause”; it is “be discerning, and be moderate.” Moderation and discernment are the hallmarks of Christians engaging noble causes in the world.
But there is one cause where you need no discernment and no moderation — give of your best, give your all. As one writer put it, “spend and be spent” in the cause of the kingdom: spend your resources, spend your time, and be spent yourself. Give it all, and you will never regret it. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. The glory promised to those who give their all to Him is sure. As Paul wrote, “there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness — and not only for me, but for all who have loved His appearing.”
I hope we have shifted our hearts from that South Africa–Mexico match at the World Cup to thinking deeply about that cryptic admonition: live long enough, and you might be surprised at how things turn out. The only One who will never spring a surprise on you is our Lord, in His solemn promise to those who diligently serve Him. You may find “vanity of vanities” written over everything in this world — but, as the gospel song says, “the longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.” That is what all God’s children have found: the longer they serve Him, the more they know Him, the more of themselves and their time they give Him, the more faithful they find Him to be. Glory to our ever-faithful God.
ON THE WORLD’S FIRST TRILLIONAIRE: WEALTH, REDISTRIBUTION, AND BIBLICAL GENEROSITY
Next I turn to the story that, just last week, the world minted its first trillionaire. And do you know who? Your guess is as good as mine — Elon Musk. Musk, who since about 2021 has been crowned the richest man in the world, has now, on the back of the initial public offering of one of his companies, been adjudged the world’s first trillionaire.
I was listening to a programme where the anchor challenged us to imagine how much a trillion dollars is. Count from one dollar to ten, to a hundred, to a thousand, to ten thousand, to a hundred thousand, to a million, then two million, ten million, a hundred million, five hundred million, a billion — and keep counting until you reach a trillion. How rich is a trillionaire? That is a question only Elon Musk can answer. Of course, it is not cash; it is the valuation placed on his assets.
This gives an occasion, purely for education, to look back at the milestones of wealth accumulation. Who was the first dollar millionaire? That would be John Jacob Astor, a German-born fur trader and real estate investor, widely regarded as the first American millionaire, who likely reached that status in the 1820s through his investments in New York real estate. And many at that time must have wondered, just as we wonder now, “What on earth is a million dollars?”
Then came the first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, whose name still endures through institutions like the Rockefeller Foundation. He became effectively the first billionaire in 1916 through Standard Oil, which dominated the refining industry; at its peak his fortune was equivalent to a remarkable share of US gross domestic product He later became a major philanthropist. Then came the centibillionaires, with net worth above 100 billion — Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos (who was the world’s richest before he was dethroned by Musk), and others, reaching that milestone late in the 20th century, driven by tech and globalization. And now, as of June 2026, Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire, primarily through his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. SpaceX is the vehicle through which Musk and his company are attempting to fully commercialise space travel.
And what an endeavour! Are you looking forward to it — to hopping on a SpaceX rocket, just for the fun of it, to go to space? I have a dear friend turning 50 in July who is thinking of a special trip — perhaps she can reach out to Elon Musk and ask whether she can hop on a rocket. I am being light-hearted, of course. The point is that this is one of SpaceX’s ambitions: that a day will come when, for the holidays, people might say, “This year we are going to the moon, or somewhere in space.” It is an ambitious attempt to commercialise space travel, and the IPO appears to have been widely successful.
Now, this has provoked many reactions. Some look on and say, “Wow, the first trillionaire, amazing,” and leave it there. But others, on the far left of the political spectrum, say, “This is the problem with society: we have so much poverty, and now a single man becomes a trillionaire.” If you have listened to far-left activists — and to many people, even Christians, who support these liberal parties; the very far-left politicians in the Labour Party in the UK, or in the Democrat Party in the US — they keep repeating it: the problem with society is trillionaires and billionaires having so much while others barely have anything.
And if you do not take time to sift the issues and distil the nonsense from the sense, you could be persuaded. “Look at these stinkingly rich people, with access to everything money can buy, while some have nothing — some woke up this morning not knowing where the next meal will come from, some without a roof over their heads.” That is abject poverty. And even beyond abject poverty, there are people who are not abjectly poor but are financially challenged — and anybody not at the very top faces some financial challenge here and there. So the far-left politicians say the solution is wealth redistribution: wealth has been concentrated in a few hands, so take it, confiscate it, and give it to the poor, until we are all equal on the wealth spectrum. And many are persuaded.
I want to engage that argument: is it truly just and biblical?
Jesus told us, “You will always have the poor with you.” The reality of a fallen world is that fingers are not equal; you will always have the wealthy and the poor. But it is also the duty of a Christian society — of people moved by Christian impulses — to keep asking: how do we help the poor, how do we lift people out of poverty? That is a godly and noble concern. One proposed solution is to confiscate the wealth of the super-rich and give it to the poor. Another, proposed by economists like Thomas Sowell, is this: if you are concerned about poverty, think more about wealth creation than about wealth redistribution.
Look at the Elon Musks of this world. Yes, you may say they had advantages here and there, but the source of their wealth can be traced to human enterprise. I was reminded on a podcast that Elon Musk, now 54, was already at 34 — about 20 years ago — appearing before committees of the US Congress, championing private commercial space exploration. So this is not a man who stumbled into money by luck, or merely by associating with Donald Trump, as some would have it. We are talking about people who engaged in profitable ventures and took risks. Even Jeff Bezos, who made his money from Amazon, blazed the trail of digitising retail. He took a risk, and good for him, he did not fail. But there are many who took similar risks and failed — society focuses on those who succeeded, but plenty of entrepreneurs attempted marvellous things and did not make it.
The point is this: when we are not talking about politicians who help themselves to the commonwealth, but about industrialists, investors, and entrepreneurs, we should respect them for their industry and for the risks they took. And to confiscate wealth from those who took the risk and made the investment is, in truth, theft. The solution to poverty is not to confiscate from the rich and hand it to the poor; it is to create an enabling environment for wealth creation — for employment, for people to create wealth.
That is the duty of government: create the enabling environment. Do not confiscate. Once you start confiscating, you become counterproductive, because everyone will reason, “If I invest my life and resources in a business, the government will simply come and take it” — so no one invests, no wealth is created, and poverty doubles and becomes endemic. The right thing is to create the enabling environment for wealth creation. And then the Bible goes a step further: it speaks to the rich, the super-rich, to everyone who has more than his daily need — and what does it require? Generosity.
This is where we must contrast the far-left prescription with the biblical one. On one hand, the far left says, “Confiscate from the super-rich and give to the poor” — which is stealing, taking what people own and giving it to others. That is not how God wants it to work. When a person is super-rich, has more than enough, and has the Holy Spirit, what does the Bible require of him? Generous giving — not for the church to confiscate, not for the government to confiscate, not for anyone to coerce. God does not want coercion. Generosity, caring for the poor, tithing, cheerful giving — that is the biblical way. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he told the rich of this world not to put their trust in earthly wealth, but to be generous with it. The early church in Acts shared voluntarily, out of fellowship; they did not confiscate the wealth of the well-off among them — those gave it freely, and the group then shared it.
Some far-left politicians point to the early church and say, “That is the model we should follow.” But understand that in that era it was not confiscation. When Peter rebuked the couple who lied about the proceeds of their land, he said, in effect, “While you had it, was it not your own?” — meaning even the early church recognised personal ownership of wealth. I bring this up so that when we as Christians meet such arguments, we can hold them up against what God actually wants from the super-rich. There is no godly rich person who should take his eyes off the suffering and poverty-stricken of the world — and not only the super-rich; no one who has more than his daily need should be a Christian at peace while he has not helped someone in need. But what God wants is not for a headmaster in the form of government, or any such institution, to seize it.
The one who steals, kills, and destroys is the devil. So any policy built on stealing and confiscating is a wrong policy — you can find no biblical justification for it. Generosity, yes; confiscation, never. But some will object: “This teaching is not effective. If you merely ask people to be generous, they will not be — we have to force them.” And the moment you reach for force, know that you have stepped away from God’s way. God is not interested in things done by force. And besides — take everything from Elon Musk and give it to the poorest of the poor, and you will still have the poor with you; they will exhaust what was taken from the rich, and then everyone becomes poor. That is the futility of such an approach. It is what Jesus pointed to: when someone gives generously to a worthy cause, do not protest, “But what about the poor?” — for you will always have the poor with you.
If you want to align as closely as possible with biblical prescriptions, you want a society that champions wealth creation and upholds the principle that the one who will not work should not eat. A society that genuinely wants to lift people out of poverty does not confiscate from those who have invested their time, effort, and resources. Instead, first, it encourages generosity — and that is a Christian duty. A government cannot manufacture generosity; it can offer tax incentives for charitable giving, and many do. But the heart itself — rich people truly wanting to be generous — that is the task of the church, the task of Christians, who must evangelise the world. When those who already know the Lord come into wealth, they understand that their primary duty is to be generous with it. As Jesus said, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, and so lay up treasure in heaven.
Second, society must create the enabling environment for wealth creation. Nigeria, for instance, is not a society that encourages it: you want to create wealth, but you have no stable electricity, no reliable energy supply. Those are the things government should focus on — not, “We are going to give 5,000 naira to the poor,” which only makes them poorer and disincentivises work. This is the mantra of the political left: “We have 200 billion naira; let us share it among the poor, give them 10,000 each.” Because the poor are desperate, they may not see through the folly, and they receive it with gratitude — but they exhaust the 10,000, or the 100,000, or even a million, and then return to their poverty. A right-thinking government invests rightly in infrastructure, in power, in affordable housing — so that people have stable electricity, affordable energy, and somewhere to live — and then they go out, invest their time and resources, become entrepreneurs, and create wealth. That is how a society is lifted out of poverty.
So: the far-left class says, “Confiscate from the super-rich and give to the poor”; the Bible says, “No — let the super-rich be generous, and not keep everything to themselves.” And the super-rich should be reminded of that profound observation we all should keep before us: we came into the world with nothing, and we will take nothing out of it. Which brings me back to where we started — to John Jacob Astor, the first dollar millionaire, now long dead. We still remember him as the first millionaire, but go and check his grave: it holds only bones, and no one looking at those bones would ever guess they belonged to him. The same with Rockefeller, the first billionaire, whose name endures through his foundations — go and check his grave. And Elon Musk too will be remembered. But this is not only about them; it is about you and me. A hundred, a hundred and fifty years from now, someone will look at our bones and never imagine they once belonged to a person who owned this or that.
Even if no government confiscates your wealth — and none should, for that is theft — and even if you never heed the gospel’s call to generosity, you will still be parted from your wealth. The Americans say a fool and his money are soon parted — meaning if you give wealth to one who is not wise, he soon loses it. But even the wisest man will soon be parted from his wealth, because death will come, and then of what use will it be?
So let us end with Paul’s admonition to Timothy about the rich. In the Berean Standard Bible, 1 Timothy 6:17–19: “Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and ready to share, treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”
That is true for the world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, and it is true for you and me in respect of whatever we have more than enough of. It is true for the world’s richest, and it is true for all of us: to be generous in distributing, and so to take hold of that which is truly, truly life.
Thank you most profoundly for staying with us this morning on Gospel Bells Radio for On the Lord’s Side — Christian perspectives on news and current events. I hope to be with you again tomorrow, by the grace of God. Whatever you do today, please remain firmly on the Lord’s side. God bless you. You are listening to GospelBellsRadio.com, the Christian Internet Radio with a mission to engage the culture with the mind of Christ. Keep listening, and invite others too. God bless you.
