I REMEMBER…
A BOLD DECLARATION OF THE WORD OF TRUTH
“According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” (Phil 1:20 KJV)
When I remember the late Rev S.K Beckley, I remember your boldness at declaring the word of truth not minding whose horse is gored. Without fear or favour, you were neither timid nor afraid to tell the truth even when you had to stand alone or be in the minority. People and friends can attest to the fact that you were a man of truth. With full persuasion you declared and stood for what you believed as the truth. It is this attribute that enable you in the declaration of truth to as many as God granted you audience with, both at home and abroad. You didn’t like deceiving people. Speaking the truth was the hall mark of your calling.
On your home pulpit and wherever God granted you opportunity to minister, you never hid the truth under the tongue. You spoke the truth before kings, governors and top political office holders. You were not of them that have respect of persons when it comes to telling the truth. You always said there is nobody in this church that you are afraid of. And the only thing that can make you weak in preaching the whole truth is if you have any secret with anybody. But in the absence of such, you were not afraid of anybody, especially as you are accountable to God. There was nobody you were afraid to correct and reproof when such becomes necessary.
As a steward of the manifold mysteries of the word of truth, you never failed to administer the word of God unto the servants of thy Lord over whom He made you overseer. People and contemporaries always marveled at the level of insight God gave you into the scriptures. Your conviction is: the word of God, which is the Bible, is ever relevant and applicable to every situation and circumstance of life- both within and without the church walls. You believed the Bible as the only panacea to all of man’s problems. This you practically demonstrated by effective administration of the word of God to every situation. You brought the word to bear on every issue. You proffered solutions to family, leadership, business and personal problems by practical application of the word of God. Like the recommendation of apostles Paul to every ministers, you were an ardent student of the Bible who rightly divided the same unto every man and situation as cessions demanded. The prosperity of the word of God in your mouth is evident in the many lives, families, ministries, which experienced transformations. You preached the word as a faithful minister of the gospel.
You were not only bold at declaring the word of truth. You were also bold at confronting life situations. Nothing could terrify you. I remember one of my trips with you: we were coming from Akure town in Ondo State after about a week of Christian ministry to the body of Christ. It was getting dark on the road and I remember you warning the driver to be careful of running over strange objects no matter how small it appears as it could be a disguised trap by the armed robbers. No sooner had you said that than the driver ran over one onion bulb on the road. And lo, and behold, it was a trap onion! The onion had nailed inside it and was set deliberately by the armed robbers laying ambush for the unsuspecting driver. The moment our car ran over the onion, one of the front tyres was punctured and the car began to swerve until it halted to a stop.
Before we knew what was happening, these marauding men like hungry lions sprang on us from the bush, and pointing gun at us, asked everyone to lie face down on the road with the wicked aim of robbing us! We were about five in the car and all were elderly ministers of the gospel except the youngest me who had just finished high school. Everybody was terribly afraid and immediately lied face down but not you! You shouted “For where? It is not possible!” Then you burst into tongues and these armed men began to flee! As they fled you also pursued them! It was an experience I can never forget in my life-time! Meanwhile, as the drama between you and these miscreants was unfolding, the rest of us quickly got up and entered the car, still awe stricken. When you eventually joined us in the car, one of the clergy men in the car challenged you strongly and said, “Reverend, that was too dangerous a boldness! What if you have been shot dead?” He warned you seriously and sincerely of the consequence of such reaction and told you not to repeat such again. But your reply was, “They can only kill me but once. God forbid that I should prostrate at the instruction of armed robbers with God’s anointing over my head. Not in this life!” That was an evident of the degree of your boldness. It was that bold confrontation that rescued us from being robbed by those armed robbers as they had done to many people that same week! You were just a brand of your own.
But you were not presumptuous in your boldness. Though you were very bold, yet you would not willfully jump down from “the pinnacle of the temple”. I remember there was a time the Holy Spirit told you while you were at the church campground with wife and children that some people were coming to attack you and failure to flee would mean the end of your life! Immediately you packed your load and drove away to another location. You were not foolish in your boldness. You balanced boldness with Godly wisdom and acute sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3 KJV).
“When you see trouble coming, don’t be stupid and walk right into it-be smart and hide.” CEV
Rev. S.K Beckley possessed the boldness of a righteous man who the scripture describes as bold as a lion and not the timidity of those who are coward.
The tributes continues, watch out for the next episode…
