I don’t think you are going to find somebody who believes more in the power of godly outreaches than myself.
I was raised in a gospel ministry in which holding regular evangelistic programmes was more than a way of life, it was the very life itself. The life of God radiated through those programmes even though they were held with very modest means. The joy we derived from the experience was simply indescribable, apart from the glorious fulfillment of seeing people we invited getting saved.
The Holy Spirit did a marvelous work through those meetings. Men given to arguments when you attempted to share the gospel with them melted completely accepting Christ sometimes with tears running freely on their faces.
A pregnant woman once came forward to be prayed for during one of our luncheons in Ikeja. She was in tears. I was helping at the altar as our invited speaker made the call for salvation. I asked why she was weeping and she said it was about her father. There had been a serious family feud and she had sworn never to forgive him. So I asked what she was going to do next, and she said she was heading straight to his house to make up with him.
This amazed me greatly. The preacher I recalled said nothing along the line of forgiveness and yet it was on that line that someone had been convicted by the Spirit of God. I was pleasantly surprised to learn afterwards that she was the wife of one of our colleagues in the office.
You can understand why Satan does everything he can to resist the preaching of the gospel of Christ. There is no one who is involved with planning a gospel campaign that can say he or she doesn’t know who the devil is. Whereas he pretends he doesn’t exist to everyone else, you will see him in his fury face-to-face.
Genuine conversion occurs when the gospel is preached with sincerity. The Spirit goes to work when the souls of men encounter the undiluted word of God. Some have taken to enticement instead and produced opposite results. Enticing words of men will not produce God’s results. Enticement through material distributions will not win genuine followers for Christ. Adherents may be won to a denomination as opposed to producing sons and daughters for Christ’s kingdom in truth.
Grand buildings and impressive media gears will draw thrill seekers only. Advertising without the backing of prayer and a genuine desire to see men come to Christ will have this same effect. It at once explains why there are large church movements with very minimal or no manifestations of God’s children.
The word of God alone carries the power to change lives.
You may be surprised to learn that the supernatural manifestation of healing and miracles will not necessarily produce the fruit of salvation. A miracle relieves suffering, sets the oppressed free and establishes the divinity of Christ but does not, by itself, persuade men to change their course to serve Christ! Only a direct contact with the word will do that. Let me cite some examples:
The German evangelist, Reinhard Bonnkie was once in Ibadan to hold a crusade. In the course of that programme, some of his assistants went down into the city, to Dugbe market. There they saw a blind beggar and one of them laid hands on him and his eyes opened instantly! The whole place erupted with joy. Afterwards some follow-up workers went to invite the man to the main event. The man responded in anger and said, “you imagine I will become a Christian simply because you restored my sight? God forbid that a man’s life should take such an ugly turn!” He rejected the invitation.
The Pharisees witnessed many amazing works done by Christ but were not inclined to change.
In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells a parable about a rich man and Lazarus a beggar. The unkind rich man found himself in hell and begged father Abraham to send Lazarus who was in the comfort of paradise back to the earth to convince his brothers to choose righteousness so they wouldn’t wind up as himself. Father Abraham told him his brothers had the law and the prophets with them in the world (implying the word of God and those preaching it). The man insisted that if Lazarus rose from the dead they would be convinced but Abraham said, if the word did not convict or convince them, not even the resurrection of someone who had died would do it!
