The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the September 18, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
And it’s good morning to you once again. It’s Friday, the 18th of September 2026, and this is On the Lord’s Side, Christian perspectives on news and current events. My name is Olufemi Oguntokun. You can follow me on X at @OlufemiOG, and you can follow GospelBells Radio on X at @GospelBelsRadio. I want to begin this morning by taking you through some of the stories I’ve saved in my history folder on X and my bookmarks on Instagram — commenting on them as we go, because many of them are quite instructive.
ON RELIGIOUS ENTERTAINERS
First, a post by Pastor Judah — one of the younger Christian voices many of us on X in Nigeria respect, a man whose heart and mind are, I believe, in the right place: in the Scriptures, and set on glorifying the Lord. He wrote this, and I’ll read it verbatim: “Just because modern music trends in the club doesn’t mean Jesus is becoming famous. Just because ‘God movies’ trend at the box office doesn’t mean Christianity is winning. Just because modern ‘apostolic’ sermons are enjoyed by the ungodly doesn’t mean the church is prevailing. Sometimes it may just be that we have lost our convicting power and are no more than religious entertainers.”
Did you hear that? Read it again slowly, because you cannot but agree with it. And it speaks to something that concerns many of us who watch the culture closely. I was recently on a platform where someone made the point that one of the challenges to evangelism today is that everyone around you already appears to be a Christian — not the openly Muslim neighbour, but the general culture, which looks Christian. People listen to gospel music, they dance to it, they speak “Christianese,” they attend churches. So when you go to broach the gospel, the answer is, “I’m a member of this church, I’m a member of that one.” The culture appears Christian. And I now understand — and have confirmed from those who serve — that gospel music is even played in nightclubs now, because so many songs by those who present themselves as gospel ministers have exciting beats and high-spirited melodies that people can dance to.
So this pastor is saying: just because gospel music trends in the club, do not imagine Jesus has become famous there. I often notice the same thing at parties — the live band plays a song confessing “You are the Lord over my life, I have no one but You,” and people raise their hands and dance; and seconds later the same band plays something sexually suggestive, and the same people gyrate to that too. Which makes you ask: are they responding to the words of the song, or only to the excitement and the melody? And let us be honest about the nightclub itself: what exactly does a Christian go there to do? The night serves as a cover for all sorts of wrongdoing; a nightclub trades on sexually suggestive dress and the so-called freedom — which is really bondage — to do all manner of lasciviousness. Open a club that offers “only Christian things” and you will close down within the month. So when gospel music trends in that setting, it does not mean Jesus is famous there.
This word is not for the secular culture, nor for Christians in name only. It is for those serious about the faith and the commission Christ has entrusted to us. And Pastor Judah hits the nail on the head: perhaps we have simply lost our convicting power and become no more than religious entertainers. This should shock no one who has watched how new churches are planted today — the training, the philosophy, the way sanctuaries are built and services formatted and songs and sermons tailored to excite people, to get them glued, to get them interested. Many churches, preachers, and gospel singers now start from the wrong question: “What will interest the audience? What will bring them to me?” — rather than, “Lord, what would You have me say?”
To use the words of Frances Ridley Havergal’s hymn, a Christian preacher, a Christian singer, should be able to pray, “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak… O lead me, Lord, that I may lead.” But the modern church does not start there; it starts from, “How do we get people interested in us?” That is the wrong place to begin. Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” The Holy Spirit has told us that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, and has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. The work is the Lord’s; we are His agents, and an agent must always return to his principal and ask, “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak. What message would You have me deliver?” Because the modern church starts from the wrong place, it is quite true that we appear to have lost our convicting power — because we set out to entertain, even to entice; to look good to the secular world, to be the sort of people the world wants to associate with.
Now, do not mistake me — I am not saying we should be repulsive. But the first and most important call in Scripture is, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.” We should not start from, “I want this music to resonate with the culture,” or, “I want this gospel movie to resonate, so let me put some controversial themes in it,” or, “Let me shape a sermon so that people will be interested in it.” That is the wrong foundation. In the days of the apostles — and they ministered in a world no less secular and decadent than ours — Acts 17:6 reports what was said of them: “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” Their reputation preceded them. They were contrarians, aligned not with the world but against its grain. So the take-home for you and me is this: we have our work cut out for us — the work of reconciliation — and we must not be lulled into indolence or indifference about evangelism simply because gospel music, gospel movies, and “apostolic” sermon clips are trending everywhere. Let our approach always be that of the diligent worker who asks, “Lord, what would You have me do, and how would You have me do it?”
ON WHO YOU WERE CREATED TO BE
Next, a quote attributed to Lee Kuan Yew, the man generally regarded as the founder of Singapore. When he spoke these words he had no Christian point in mind, but the truth of them is something this global culture needs to reckon with. In an old clip he says: “I may speak the English language better than I speak my Chinese language, but I’ll never be an Englishman, not in a thousand generations. I have not got the Western value system inside; mine is an Oriental, Eastern value system. I use Western concepts and words because I understand them, but I also have a different system in my mind — and I know this danger.”
We live in a culture that supposes a person could be someone other than who they were created to be. JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has made a similar point about the sexual revolution — that you may present as a man all you like, but you will never be a man if you were not created a man. There are people born male who now elect to live as female, and who, through surgical and cosmetic means, have so transformed their bodies that you might take them for female, even desirable. The wisdom behind Lee Kuan Yew’s words applies here too: you may learn to speak and appear a certain way, but if you were not born a man, you will never be a man — not in a thousand generations, not in ten lifetimes. People apply the same to naturalisation: you may take on a country, speak its language, be regarded as one of its own, and yet in a certain fundamental sense never become one.
There is a truth here that all of us who are Christians must preserve. There are things that will never change, even if the whole world should agree that they have — and one of them is the assignment of gender at birth. Even if the best surgeons and the best cosmetic interventions make it appear to have changed, it has not. You can only be who God created you to be, and the truth of that the Christian world must continue to affirm — never being persuaded to accept a thing simply because the culture accepts it, simply because everyone around us believes it.
ON LAUGHTER IN THE PLACE OF CHRIST
Then someone posted a video captioned, “Imagine you say you are going to church, and this is what you are listening to.” It was a clip — a much-imitated one — of a preacher of south-eastern Nigerian origin whose services and “ministrations” tend to make people laugh rather than think about Christ. In the clip he interrogates a young man in an almost cartoonish exchange about what he has been smoking, and the congregation laughs their heads off. And this ties directly into the first story: everywhere you look you see “Christ” — in the music, in the movies, in the sermons — but He only appears to be there; often He is not actually there.
Now someone will say, “What is wrong with people having a good time and laughing in church? It’s just entertainment.” The point is that we must not get it inverted. We are not called to be entertainers. When that preacher draws people forward for that kind of comic interaction, and viewers online laugh along and share the clips, and others build sizeable followings simply by imitating him — we have to ask the harder question: is Christ in our churches? Is Christ in our preaching? — especially when people begin from “How do we get people interested in our church?” instead of “How does Christ want to reveal Himself to the world today?” 2 Timothy 4:3 warned us, so we should not be shocked: “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” We have more entertainment than conviction in our churches today, with people deliberately tailoring their ministrations to amuse — reasoning that laughter brings people back.
And one listener wrote something insightful: “It’s deliberate — a lukewarm church.” That is a truth worth sitting with, and a point we have made again and again at our Readers’ Club. When you see people diluting the gospel, or preaching something other than Christ alone, do not merely say, “They are misguided,” or, “They just have some pecuniary interest.” That may be so — but behind it is the devil at work. He wants a lukewarm church. He knows he cannot easily walk up to you or to this culture and say, “Stop going to church”; so instead he says, “By all means go — but the churches you attend will be ones where you are merely entertained.” That is the danger. We have comedians who pretend to be pastors; business coaches who imagine they can serve two masters at once. But you can have only one master and one objective; the moment you suppose you can have more than one, you are deceiving yourself.
ON GOD’S THOUSAND WAYS TO CATCH A SINNER
Here is a story I came across on Instagram, reported by Instablog9ja: a viral 1980s-photo AI trend has helped police trace a woman roughly 45 years after she allegedly stole a gold chain in India. You may know the trend — you upload a recent photo and ask the AI to reimagine you as someone from the 1980s, and it produces strikingly convincing images; many have made them their profile pictures. My wife took part, and a friend urged me to, but I have not, and I don’t think I will. In this case, according to the report, a woman allegedly walked into a jewellery shop in the early 1980s, stole a gold chain, and fled; she was never traced, later changed her name, and lived elsewhere under a different identity. The case lay dormant for decades — until she joined the viral AI-photo trend, the shop owner came across her post, recognised her features, and alerted the police, who located and questioned her. She reportedly admitted to the theft.
Reflect on this. First, the shop owner never forgot the face of the person who robbed him — 45 years on. There is a saying among the Yoruba of south-western Nigeria — I’ll render it as faithfully as I can — that the one who relieved himself in the open may forget, but the one saddled with the sorry duty of cleaning it up never will. In its wisdom: the one who did the wrong may forget it, but the one impacted by it rarely does. The woman has probably long forgotten — perhaps repented without making restitution, perhaps told it to friends as one of the foolish things of her youth — but the man from whose shop the chain was taken never forgot, because he bore the loss. That should serve us well: when we have done wrong and moved on, the people we wounded have not moved on, because they carry the injury. That is the case for apology, and the basis for restitution — because sometimes the person you cheated was left somewhere they may never fully recover from.
Second, you simply cannot hide. Let this be a proverb to any wrongdoer who imagines he can escape God. See how circumstances unravelled — a case thought forgotten made live again by the most harmless thing. Put yourself in that woman’s shoes: someone knocks on your door and asks, “Were you at that shop in 1982?” That is the kind of moment when your life flashes before you. And how did it happen? Simply because she hopped on an AI trend. The lesson is not really “avoid AI trends” — though there is a word there about unintended consequences — the lesson is that the Lord has a thousand and one ways to catch a sinner. On Saturday at the Readers’ Club we were reflecting on the opening of Psalm 139 — “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me” — and we asked whether God’s complete knowledge of a man is a comfort or a terror. It is a comfort to His child, and a terror to the sinner running from Him. The same God who has a thousand ways to deliver His people from trouble has a thousand ways to bring the unrepentant to justice.
“Agree with thine adversary quickly,” Jesus warned — make peace with those you have wronged as soon as you can, and above all make peace with God. This is exactly why the Lord’s word “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” is a comfort to those who have been wronged: not only has He said He will avenge, He can — and He has a thousand ways to do it. So do not take the law into your own hands. Even that shop owner must have been astonished at how things turned out after 45 years. Let it move us to be careful about those we have hurt, and to apologise — because they never forget. And if you have wronged and not yet been brought to account, it is only because the Lord is still giving you room to repent.
ON PRESUMPTION AND THE HUNGER TO BE EXTRAORDINARY
Finally, an historical story, brought back to remembrance by an Instagram handle called History Cool Kids. Alongside the well-known image of Daniel in the lions’ den, it recounts this: in 1991, a Nigerian preacher named Daniel Abodunrin, inspired by the biblical story of Daniel, entered the lion enclosure at the University of Ibadan Zoological Garden, believing God would protect him as He protected Daniel — and he was killed by the lions. I remember the story, because in those days my father bought the Sketch newspaper — long out of circulation now — and I read it there as a much younger person, and it stayed with me.
By the accounts, Abodunrin arrived in a flowing red robe carrying a large Bible, reciting verses and calling on the God of Daniel. Some say the zoo workers refused his request and he slipped in; others that he persuaded them. The lions at first moved away from him — which he apparently took as proof that his faith was shielding him, and he moved closer — and then one of them mauled him, and he did not survive. I can understand why the lions first drew back: they must have been startled by a man walking in where no one comes, and wondered what power he had over them. And we have to ask what would make a man do such a thing. He has long died; we cannot interrogate him. Perhaps he was mentally disturbed — his name was Daniel, he had read of Daniel, and perhaps a voice in his head said, “You are Daniel; you will be protected.”
I have always said: anything that leads people to death, to destruction, to robbing others, is of the devil, whose mission is to steal, to kill, and to destroy. The mission of our Lord is to give life, and to give it more abundantly. So whenever you meet an idea in the culture that leads to death — abortion, euthanasia, so-called “medical assistance in dying,” the normalising of suicide, or the seizing of what others have legitimately worked for — know that anything which promotes and eases death, or robs people, is of the devil; whatever is of the Lord gives life, here and eternally. So if this man acted on a voice telling him to enter that enclosure, it was not the voice of the Holy Spirit; it was the voice of the one who wanted to lead him to his death.
But it could also have been a genuine misunderstanding of Scripture — and I raise this because one of his probable inspirations still troubles the body of Christ today: the desire to do something extraordinary, to be seen as exceptional. This ties back to our first story. Many set out saying, “I want to do the extraordinary; I want to be seen doing it” — and the mistake is that it begins from the wrong foundation. The right premise is always: I want to call attention to Christ, to bring people to know Him — not to call attention to myself. People persuade themselves that “by doing the extraordinary, I’ll be calling attention to God.” No — simply seek to please God, and if He wishes to do the extraordinary through you, He will. As someone rightly said, Christianity is not a place for you to be “creative” in that sense: we replicate the patterns of Christ and the apostles; we do not invent. But the heart deceives — “the heart is deceitful above all things… who can know it?” — and it will tell you to go and do a spectacular thing so that people will glorify your God.
Look at how miracles actually happen in Scripture through the apostles. Nowhere do we read of them setting out one day to “go and perform signs and wonders so that people will believe.” They set out to preach the gospel — to go, and teach, and proclaim Christ, not themselves — and as they went, the Lord accredited their witness with signs and wonders. They were not the ones who manufactured the marvels; it was the Lord who marked their faithful ministry with them. And that is crucial for us. Even the devil tempted Christ this way: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you.” In Luke 4, the devil set Him on the pinnacle of the temple — and note, it is the devil who talks like that: “If you are truly the Son of God, prove it.” Our Lord answered, “It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” That is the doctrine of presumption. You cannot say, “God saved Daniel, so He will save me,” when He has not told you to go and do that thing — to be presumptuous of what God will do is to put Him to the test.
We recall this not to mock that young preacher, Daniel Abodunrin, who stepped into the lions’ enclosure in 1991 and was killed, but to learn again: any voice leading a person toward something destructive is of the devil, whose mission is to steal, kill, and destroy; and anyone merely desirous of doing extraordinary things, persuading his own heart that spectacle will glorify God, should think carefully. We are not called to do the extraordinary. We are called to one thing — to proclaim Christ, to lift Him up. He said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself.” And as we lift Him up, He in His own wisdom may choose to do extraordinary things through us — the ones He ordains, not the ones we manufacture; and He ordains them by our faithfulness in what He has actually committed to our hands. His family — his mother, father, brothers, sisters, friends — may well still be with us, and this story will revive the sadness of 1991 for them; let us remember them in prayer, that the Lord will keep them comforted, in Jesus’ name.
I want to thank you most sincerely for joining us this morning on On the Lord’s Side, Christian perspectives on news and current events. I hope to be with you again on Monday, by the special grace of God. Whatever you do this weekend, please remain firmly on the Lord’s side.
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