Sid: My guest by way of telephone at his home in Orlando, Florida is the famous German evangelist that has literally taken the nation of Africa by storm, Reinhard Bonnke. In one meeting, one meeting he had 1.6 million people in attendance. In a recent 5 month period he had recorded decisions for Jesus of 9.1 million. These numbers become so large Reinhard that it’s hard to comprehend these numbers.
Reinhard: Yes God is doing mighty things.
Sid: On yesterday’s broadcast though we’ll get people real upset if we don’t go right back there. You had a tremendous meeting in the Sudan where large numbers of Muslims were being healed, deaf, blind, and many made decisions for the Messiah. So you were invited back and you got a warning from Osama Bin Laden, a death threat, and you decided “We better pray on this.” You and your staff prayed and what happened?
Reinhard: Yes we prayed and the Lord said “We should ignore this threat and go.” So we boarded the plane with Lufthansa arrived in Khartoum and everything seemed to be fine. The preparations went well, the Episcopalian Church had invited us and also some other churches and all the Christians. You know there are few enough have clumped together and had invited me for the second Easter Celebration as the previous year. So I was very hopeful that everything would go well. All of a sudden there were rumblings I was told we couldn’t… no more juice, no more juice, the green square and that they would give us an alternative sight. So I said “Which site would it be?” I sent my people to check out the new sight and we were flabbergasted because we discovered it was a small field within a very radicle Muslim area, and on all 4 corners of that field was a mosque. They said to Osama Bin Laden’s brother had his house right there.
Sid: Hmm.
Reinhard: So I said “Look I will not move to that field. It is either the green square or nothing.” So you know they were negotiating and negotiating…
Sid: Now when you said that, that strongly, why did you say that?
Reinhard: I said it because it was I felt if I had gone there and one shot would have been fired, we would have been utterly and totally trapped.
Sid: Hmm.
Reinhard: We would have been totally completely trapped. I think it would have also… those Muslims there they would have interpreted my presence there as a very gross provocation.
Sid: So what happened?
Reinhard: So I refused to make use of that square because I thought it would actually trigger off, it would trigger off a riot. To avoid this and to save lives, I mean to save lives. We said “No our equipment is already set up at the green square and we will not move.” The next thing I hear is that soldiers had moved in on the green square and cornered it off, the government had withdrawn the permission for me to use it. To our surprise I must say those soldiers dismantled our own equipment, that never happened before. They pushed my people away and they dismantled our equipment. When the people, the Sudanese wanting to attend the first service of mine and they were pushed back. They said “Now why do you chase this man who has come to heal our sick? We have brought our sick from the ends of the country you cannot do it!” Then fights broke out and a lot of unpleasant things happened, thank God nobody was killed. Later on I heard that the armies they brought minesweeping equipment to check out the green square and I was told that they uncovered there 9 landmines.
Sid: What would have happened if you had had that meeting?
Reinhard: We say thank God that the army had stopped the people from entering in the green square because if they had done it there would have been a great carnage. I left that very night back for home for Germany and I was hardly back again when the Sudanese embassy called my home and made a thousand apologies. They said to me “We hope that we can remain friends.”
Sid: Will you be back in Sudan?
Reinhard: I will. I will be back next year and I’m going to Juba.
Sid: You realize if you had canceled that event yourself probably all these doors would have been closed to you.
Reinhard: That is possible you know it’s true, it’s true (laughing). God willing… we have another invitation now also by some person in the government I don’t know off hand who he is or what he is but they are a contact and I would like to go to the Christian south, the city of Juba. The civil war is beyond that city so I pray as I go and preach in the city of Juba that we will win the gospel of salvation to these hard pressed people.
Sid: Reinhard let’s just be kind of transparent and candid right now. You’re over 60 years of age, you’ve been going strong, you’ve accomplished more in your lifetime than most people will ever accomplish in their lifetime. Why would you go into such a life threatening situation and preach to Muslims?
Reinhard: Oh I am not afraid of Muslims. I must be honest with you where I have been in Africa, I’m talking for instance about Nigeria, I’ve preached to hundreds of thousands of Muslims in a single service and they have responded to salvation in incredible numbers. We as Christians are not at all with our backs to the wall. Some people are afraid that God may have a bad press these days. “Oh how whimsical can we be.” We are not retreating, we are advancing in the name of Jesus. I have a message filled with the love of God and the gospel is God’s message totally indiscriminate. If I tell the people no matter what religion you are from if you need healing Jesus is here to heal you, He is here to help, He also wants to save you but He may even heal you before He saves you. You know because the love of God… God’s love has no conditions.
Sid: Does that happen often when you’re speaking to other people like Muslims they get healed before they get saved?
Reinhard: That happens very often and as a result of the healing they get saved. I tell you as I’ve experienced it a man born blind, a Muslim man born blind, being healed going home that evening without a guide to his clan the next day the whole clan comes and gets saved.
Sid: Boy there’s nothing to compare like that to something like that Reinhard.
Reinhard: Oh I tell the gospel is the power of God and Christianity is growing mightily and strongly in Africa.
Sid: Now the reason I called you is I got wind of this man that was dead for 3 days in Onitsha, Nigeria. I have never ever in my entire life heard of such a well documented, I mean medically in every aspect. Then the experiences that he had when he was dead. Have you ever heard of someone coming back to life that’s been so documented as this?
Reinhard: No I haven’t, I haven’t. I think there is another documentation you’ll find that John chapter 10.
Sid: (Laughing) Short of that, short of that I don’t of another. I know many people that have been dead for short periods of time, less than a day, but 3 days? I mean going to the mortuary and having these chemicals being put in and being in the casket, and ready to go in the ground? I would you, I mean I wasn’t there you were there. You’ve interviewed these people, you interviewed the doctors, the mortician, all these people. Start at the beginning tell me what happened.
Reinhard: Well it was like this. I was in the city of Onitsha to help a friend to dedicate his new cathedral seating more than 10,000. I had no idea that they would bring a corpse into that cathedral. I was already preaching when the hearse arrived and an argument were going on outside. They said “We will not allow him in. There are 12,000 people in the church and they would be frightened to see a coffin being carried in.” And the argument when to and fro, back and forth, then they agreed that the corpse would be taken out of the coffin and would be taken into the basement.
Sid: That must have been quite a counsel meeting going on. I apologize Mishpocha we’re out of time. We’ll pickup right here on tomorrow’s broadcast.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth