In the recent past, when Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke (German preacher) went to meet his maker, it compelled me to re-read one of his heroic books. I first read it when I was a fledgling first year student at the university. The book fanned me into flames. Indeed splendid, the title is appropriate: Evangelism by Fire.
All passionate preachers should read it ravenously. I recommend it to people who have sharp pangs for revival. For I like what he says at the prolegomenon: “The temperatures of this book run hot. Its flames will scorch. Some who read this book would do well to take fire insurance, for many old concepts will be set to the torch.”
Without fire there is no gospel. The New Testament begins with fire. John the Baptist says that when Christ comes, He will baptise people with Holy Ghost and fire. Some sermons are like lectures on embalming the dead. Yet, Jesus, Peter or Paul left congregations sitting like marble statues in a museum. Without real zeal and trenchant zest, church activities will be humdrum. Pulpit essays, homilies, moralising sermons – void and devoid of vim and vigour – are all glacial work.
What does your spiritual thermometer read? Does it even register? Are there cold altars in the church? Worship without warmth? Doctrines only heated by friction? There are theologies as fireproof as asbestos. Then, there are religious books that only provide heat when put in a bonfire.
The gospel is not good news to those who do not hear it. The gospel must be preached. To preach the gospel is to unbind, but to withhold it is to bind. Failing to preach the gospel means that we are hiding medicine from the patient in a critical condition. Christians must act. Acts of the Apostles was written because the apostles acted, said Smith Wordsworth.
The church is a life boat, not a pleasure boat. Entertainers are not needed. Preach to convict and convert. Your job is not to entertain and make people smile and go home feeling cosy. Salvation is not a soothing syrup. Save souls.
Do not preach for spectacular pulpit displays: to charm, excite, or scare folk. Aim to dazzle, and you dim God’s glory. Preach for personal admiration, and people who come to see God will only see the preacher.
Christ’s business is not busyness, but witness. The Good News cannot be news at all when it is not announced. There had never been revival without aggressive evangelism. The church that does not seek the lost is ‘lost’ itself. Christ did not die to give people a career but to save the lost. We have only one generation to save a generation. Every generation needs regeneration. When a young person gets saved, both a soul and a lifetime are saved. God specialises in salvation. As medicine to a doctor, as music to a musician.
In case we plan, preach, witness and evangelise as men, Satan will foil us. The church should not save money in bank accounts, but save souls. Hell must be plundered. And heaven populated. Hallelujah!
A man with a mission needs a vision. To be called by God costs nothing, as God does the calling. To birth the call is another matter entirely. When God puts His hand upon us, He does two things. First, he gives us a ministry. Then, He opens a door for service. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, wrote St. Tertullian 1800 years ago. We are reaping where gentle giants sowed with tears.
To build God’s eternal Kingdom means mortal hands do something that will be immortal. That which is of faith in God can never die. Christ has promised believers rivers. Not sea without water. Sun without light. Honey without sweetness. Bread without substance. God moves with movers. He never sits with sitters. It is not about striking while the iron is hot, but striking until the iron is hot. Faith works for workers. The Great Commission is ‘Go Ye’, not ‘Sit Ye’.
Atheism is intellectual vandalism. Why fear a man, whose breath is in his nostrils? John Wesley succinctly said: “I am too afraid of God to be afraid of men.” We are big, but only in God. Fear is forged in hell and issued by Satan as a standard weapon to all demons. Fear is a paralysing force. Demons are full of fear, like scorpions are replete with poison. Fear is Satan’s venom. He wants to sting us all, leaving us sick and weak with fear. The devil does not fear the man who fears. He knows that such a person is harmless. But Satan trembles when we remain firm and fearless.
Fear is a negative force. Its sign is a minus. Fear is the dark room where people develop their negatives. A trembling saint makes a triumphant Satan, but faith frightens the foe, and puts him under your toe. We are not called to tremble, but exercise authority. The opposite of fear is not courage, but faith. By faith we move from minimum to maximum. The mightiest resource in the universe is the Arm of God. Faith moves mountains. Do not play with stones, yet God called you to move mountains.
Evangelism without intercession is an explosive without a detonator. Intercession without evangelism is a detonator without an explosive. Our intercessors are the detonators that bring down the walls of Satan’s stronghold. God does everything by prayer and nothing without it. The greater the saint, the more he will want to pray. People in Bible days did not have a ‘quiet time’, they ‘called on God’. Though, it is not just the loudness, but it is the passion and compassion which prompts prayer. In Christ, the least distinguished people carry Kingdom status.
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