I consider that Cameroon Conquest started only this year with Brother Emmanuel Bayiha. He has become a restless volcano.
Not just that he has moved to places. But everything has changed!
School of Knowing and Serving God, Yaounde, 29th October, 1997
Brother Emmanuel is a faithful servant of the Lord. I don’t think many of you know how faithful he is. He is a man who exerts himself to the last bit of energy. He is priceless. I will personally fill the car with petrol to begin with, just to say thank you to him and to say that we cannot purchase his contribution even for 100 million or 500 million. Our dream is that one day he will have a 4-wheel drive, so that he can go anywhere in the nation with it. We pray that God will bless his wife and children as they bear the burden of having an absent husband and an absent father, praying that when he is at home, it will be festivity.
3rd 40 day Prayer Crusade 1998 ZTF/EM, Yaounde, 17th June 1998
Partnership with Emmanuel was close to perfect because Emmanuel was a prophet. When Paul and Barnabas parted, both were prophets. Barnabas went with an apostolic aid who failed. Paul took a prophet called Silas, and they went with the recommendation of the church and they succeeded. The best is an apostle and a prophet.
Of course, Emmanuel did not start as a prophet. I know exactly when the anointing came upon him. Accursed people go and look at his dwelling and they complain. Of course, they are cursed. Many people in Yaounde have cursed themselves. If you look at the prophets of the Bible, they were not people who dwelt in palaces. Emmanuel is gone, but the curse still follows those people. They did not know the man. They did not know his ministry. But they dared to speak.
My first translator should be a prophet or a prophetess. I’m not talking about the people who go about telling lies in God’s name. And they are very many.
Yaounde, 4th July, 2001
Emmanuel came into the ministry in 1976 as a high school young man. We have known heart identity since then.
Special Prayer Night, Yaounde, 16th December 2001
For very many years, Brother Emmanuel Bayiha and I have toured the nation. Many times we have gone separately to different places. To the best of my knowledge, we have not said different things about anything. Each one has ministered with the gifts God has given him and emphasized according to his knowledge of God. But nowhere have the brethren been confused about the two opinions. It has held together unusually. It is a remarkable thing God has done. That is what I mean by heart identity.
Special Prayer Night, Yaounde, 8th January, 2002
Nobody has invested in people as Emmanuel has.
12 Hours Prayer Siege, Yaounde, 1st May, 2002.
Emmanuel Bayiha was not proud; no proud person could work with Emmanuel Bayiha.
Emanuel was not perfect. He had weaknesses, but for Emmanuel, Jesus was Lord. If the determinant issue of your life is pride, you have no future. That is the devil. God must smash and crush and frustrate you endlessly.
For Emmanuel Bayiha, Jesus was Lord. Do you want to take the opportunity of his departure to smash that idol in you that wants to be worshipped so that Jesus may be worshipped? If you do, you will have maximum benefit from his home going. If you don’t, you are the great loser, because God resists the proud but He is gracious to the humble.
God resists the proud. Is God resisting you? Is He fighting against you, pulling you down, or He is lifting you? If the taproot of pride is smashed, uprooted, destroyed and replaced by humility, then the God in heaven and the work to which Emmanuel Bayiha gave his life would have benefited.
Special Prayer, Yaounde, 20th August, 2003
Emmanuel Bayiha was not a rebel. Of all the elders, Emmanuel followed most totally. The gap between Brother Emmanuel and the other elders in following me was big. Nobody can rebel against me and not suffer heavily from God.
Also interestingly, Antoinette (his wife) followed Emmanuel. She knew clearly who Emmanuel’s authority was. I was talking with her yesterday. She told me, “Emmanuel always said that what you say would be final. It must remain that”. It is one of those rare cases where husband and wife had one authority. If there is anybody here who was rebellious against Emmanuel Bayiha, you are in very deep trouble. Emmanuel made a choice.
You know. Many people fought Emmanuel because he decided to live in Mefouassi1. By the decision to live in Mefouassi under the conditions of most Cameroonians, Emmanuel was laying grip of the nation. People said Mefouassi was far. For a man like Emmanuel who wanted to win Moloundou2. Eventually, all lovers of comfort will be eliminated from the ministry. Only the true soldiers will make it to the end. True soldiers.
I shared with the brethren how God has systematically removed things from my life. When the Mercedes went, a door opened and I went to China and ministered to the underground church. God promotes people. God said to me “I promote you to travelling by public transport”. That is God’s promotion. Am I going up or down? When you listen to what is happening, as a result of the ministry, is it a decline? Of course no!
The last thing is that Emmanuel was humble. He was not building his kingdom; he was not opposing inside. He was not a hypocrite. He had a loyal heart. He never contradicted, for 24 years. He was not perfect, but he put his all.
If you were not seeing eye to eye with Emmanuel, now, you have a problem. The eldership in Yaounde is very poor now without Emmanuel Bayiha. He was no negotiator. He could be wrong but true, and he had the courage to speak out. Emmanuel was not a politician. Some of you are wicked. You keep quiet. Emmanuel believed the work. Three times he collapsed on a long fast. Once it was in my presence on the 17th day. Emmanuel put everything to the last bit. Emmanuel was given to the simple life so that he may invest heavily in heaven. He saw and acted. His legs might have slipped but his heart was fixed. We ministered counselling to the same people at different times without knowing what the other had said; there was not one instant of confusion. He, going after me, or me, going after him. Let he who has an ear to hear, hear.
Special Prayer Night, Yaounde, 21st August 2003
If Emanuel Bayiha had built a big palace when he was alive, would it matter now? He would have given less to God. He would be poor in heaven but as it is, Emmanuel maximized what he invested in the Lord and the gospel. If Emmanuel Bayiha had cut down his giving to God in order to have a good earthly house, what would he have now?
May God convict you of your sin.
May God convict you of your sin.
May God convict you of your sin.
Emmanuel saw.
Why don’t you cry I am blind.
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I am blind.
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I am blind.
What did he carry along?
What will you carry?
What will any of us carry when he dies?
Meeting with Brother Emmanuel Bayiha’s people
Yaounde, 21st August, 2003
Emmanuel was given to one thing: winning people for the Lord and building them up.
What are you given to?
A person must ask one simple question: I have put my all into what? I have put my all into who?
This message could spark revival in our work.
All the plans of Emmanuel were in the direction of winning the lost and building them.
How old are you? How much time is left?
Meeting with Brother Emmanuel Bayiha’s people, Yaounde, 21st August, 2003
When Brother Emmanuel came into my life, he was in Upper Sixth, I was Associate Professor. I was 31 in 1976, he was 18 years old. But something of God bridged that gap. He was one year in the Lord, I was 20 years in the Lord, but he was an instrument forged by God, and along the years, we went all over this country together and individually, at different ministry occasions. We never contradicted ourselves. Nobody said, “Brother Zach counselled us like this and Brother Emmanuel counselled us differently.”
Emmanuel was a consecrated man. From the beginning, Emmanuel was radical in his commitment to the Lord. God asks for a man’s all. I need one such man.
Brother Emmanuel believed God and Brother Emmanuel believed me. He believed what God was saying through me. You cannot translate with your whole heart if there are breaks in faith or breaks in obedience.
I thank God because I promote people. People who have stayed in my hands for long have been lifted before God, before man and even before the world.
God, give me a young man who will seal his destiny to mine and become through the mouth what Brother Emmanuel was to me and to the French-speaking world.
Without any desire to imitate, what happened in Acts 13 is what took place. They sent Emmanuel and I to go to the churches.
That person must have character and have power, and the word through him must trouble people and change them.
Tuesday Teaching Meeting, Yaounde, 20th April, 2004
Emmanuel was one of my best men.
Return from Bafoussam, Yaounde, 14th May, 2008
Brother Emmanuel, you don’t know who you are and how God has exalted you.
