When Cyril was ten years old, his mother became a Christian. “My mom made sure our family went to church every Sunday, and I grew up feeling confident that I knew the truth,” he says. “I attended one of the Pentecostal churches in Lagos.” His church was patterned after one of the popular megachurches in the United States.
Although he was an active part of this church family, Cyril eventually began to feel an emptiness in his life. Hungering for answers, he felt there was something significant, even essential, missing from his experience. “I wasn’t just a Sunday to Sunday Christian,” he says. “I attended midweek meetings and all the conferences. Sadly, it all felt so shallow and peripheral. It was clear to me that the truth entailed much more than what I got.”
The problem was that Cyril had no clue how to nail down that truth.
While Cyril was struggling with this spiritual emptiness and dissatisfaction, a manager in his office gave him an invitation to a particular meeting. “She sold it in a very interesting way—the meeting would appeal to me as it would be an intellectually stimulating experience. She concealed the fact it was a church meeting.”
Up until then, Cyril had made a point not to regularly attend other churches because there were so many choices and he felt they were all basically the same and could offer him nothing. The one exception was the Catholic Church because it appealed to his sense of sanctity and reverence. So it was only out of very high regard for the manager that he decided to attend the meeting. “My secret resolve,” he says, “was to attend once and be freed from the commitment.”
But the Lord had other plans!
The meeting Cyril attended was a Daniel and Revelation seminar on video DVD, and the speaker was Pastor Doug Batchelor. Here, for the first time, Cyril was exposed to the undiluted gospel of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the series, the message Cyril heard was unsettling. You see, Cyril had never studied the book of Daniel—and he initially found this new light extremely challenging.
“After the first day, I was genuinely upset. I grew up as a Christian and had attended church and Sunday school frequently, but the book of Daniel and the insights from the message were completely foreign to me.” However, it was clear from that first meeting that he had found the cure to his emptiness. Cyril did not need an invitation for the rest of the series but sat eagerly in the front row each day absorbing truth after truth.
Pastor Doug’s messages helped Cyril understand key doctrines. He was especially grateful for the clear insights he received on the subject of speaking in tongues—something he had previously misunderstood. “At some point during the meetings,” Cyril shares, “I remembered I hadn’t been properly baptized, so I approached a friendly person in the church and asked questions.” Cyril was baptized on a Sabbath at the end of the series.
Cyril believes his life has been impacted tremendously by the work of Amazing Facts. He says, “The multitude of messages and interviews I listened to were very important to my stability in the church. I have learned to trust God from day to day. Very important to me is the need to be able to ensure that I can help intellectuals appreciate the veracity of the Bible.”
His favorite program on the Amazing Facts website is the Sabbath School Study Hour. “I love Bible study,” he says, “and it is always a blessing to get fresh perspective that is much deeper and broader than mine.” And he enjoys regularly sharing these perspectives with his Sabbath School class at church.
Today, Cyril feels blessed to be part of a Sabbath-keeping congregation. “I have found people here who have helped my faith a lot,” he says. He is currently active in his church and is happy to be part of an army of young professionals engaged in mission work to reach some un-entered regions of Nigeria. He also serves as an ordained elder.
He says of Amazing Facts: “Your faithfulness in doing that which the Lord committed to you is one of the reasons I am an Adventist today. Thank God for your commitment and sacrifice; thank God for the amazing team at Amazing Facts. You are an inspiration to the body of Christ. We hope that on that day, all of you and us who have been blessed will be presented faultless to our heavenly Father. Remain inspiring.”