Reinhard Bonnke

The Threefold Being

I should like to start by answering my own question, “What really is an evangelist?” An evangelist is a man, woman, pastor, teacher, or the whole church together, sent to bring home to the world the works of God and heavenly realities.

The opening words of Genesis are like a Big Bang explosion of truth: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Three realities: God, the heavens and the earth! This is the triple environment in which we humans live. We came from God, we are creatures of the earth, and we are destined for the heavens.

God made the heavens and the earth at the same time, two sides of Creation – the visible and the invisible – in a single act. The invisible is not just God because the Creator is above all created things. At the same time, the unseen world is real. We seem to sense its presence and have experiences of it – both good and evil – which remind us that it is there.

The Mystery Beyond Ourselves

Creation transcends all science, all understanding. What our eyes can see is not the whole show. There is something else, the mystery beyond ourselves. In fact, the mystery is in us; our spirit reaches out beyond the earthly and material sphere. However, it seems that not everything in the invisible world is good. Even angels have sinned and fallen from grace (2 Pet 2:4). Perhaps to our surprise we read that “the heavens are not pure in His sight” (Job 15:15); “from [His] face the earth and the heaven fled away” (Rev 20:11). Yet one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13).

Mankind belongs to God, the earth and the heavens. People are not just flesh, but spirit also. Animals are not morally responsible, but we are. We are the only creatures that sin, because we are the only creatures on this earth that have a spiritual nature. Flesh and spirit co-exist until death, but even then that is not the end of the flesh for we are to receive an immortal resurrection body.

The work of Christ had to do with both realms. He came to deal not only with spiritual evil, but also with physical evil. That is made evident in a short passage from 1 John 3. We are told first that “He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 Jn 3:5); then the physical is also dealt with “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). What those works are is clear from Acts 10:38, where we read that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” Jesus came with concern for people as they are, to be a Saviour for sinners and a healer of those afflicted by Satan. Christ was concerned with people, not just spirits. He forgave sin, healed the sick and ejected devils.

Spirit-filled Evangelism

Evangelists in the New Testament were called to continue his work. In fact it was something Christ commanded them – and us – to do. His work is our work. Pentecostal and charismatic evangelists have carried out that dual command to deal with both the visible and the invisible from the start. In fact, they have given special recognition to the teaching of Scripture on the unseen. Act 2:4 shows that the apostolic speaking with tongues was a unique example of the Spirit at work in the flesh. Tongues are a spiritual and physical work of God: “They began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Some ministers have tended not to concern themselves very much with visible evidence of the invisible that is with supernatural things. Some have even treated such Scriptural manifestations as miraculous healing and tongues as demonic. Yet, Biblical faith is filled with the miraculous and the supernatural. People knew that they were dealing with a miracle-working God: “You are the God who does wonders,” the Psalmist wrote (Ps 77:14). We have a right to ask as Gideon did, “Where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about?” (Judges 6:13). God has not gone into retirement or set aside His miracle-working powers.

Neither have angels been “pensioned off,” even if we are like the servant of Elisha and do not see them (cf. 2 Kgs 6:17). People declare their belief in the Bible, and it contains so many references to angels, but reports of angels are usually treated with scepticism. Even Satan, the enemy, seems more of a background Bible figure. Yet, in Christ’s day, none of this was true. For example, demons were known to interrupt a synagogue service. Perhaps there was something there worth interrupting. Today they never upset the order of church worship, with hymn numbers on a board. How many ministers would know how to handle demon manifestation if it happened? The clash of good and evil in the spirit world is, however, still real today. Devotees of voodoo work hard at becoming possessed; they want special powers to carry out spells and curses. When we preach Jesus they become extremely distressed. In CfaN’s African meetings this is a common occurrence, with as many as 60 people having to be dealt with at a time and unclean spirits expelled.

A Continent Steeped in the Supernatural

Recent times have enthroned reason and encouraged ignorance of heavenly realities. Education and knowledge have been secularised, while demons are dismissed as medieval nonsense. The great maxim has become “seeing is believing.” In other words, only the visible is real. In Europe, science has become the judge of all truth, and has denied what it cannot handle. New authorities have appointed themselves above the Word of God. Faith in material reason has usurped faith in divine reason. God Himself is thought of as the Great Unknowable. Secularism is the modern worldview and nobody escapes its influence. In the West, we were born and brought up in the materialist tradition. We live in secular waters like fish in the sea.

In my early days as an evangelist in Africa, I observed that missionaries were taking a non-supernatural Gospel to a continent steeped in the supernatural. Africa was – and still is – a different world from the West. Missionaries were orientated very much to the sphere of the visible, but Africans took full account of the invisible in their day-to-day life. Africans lived in an environment of witchcraft, demonism, possession, spirit worship, ancestor worship, tribal gods, and animism, in fear of haunting, curses and spells, and dark forces that lived in trees, rivers and graves. Missionaries believed it was all unscientific and primitive, while Africans shared their world with the spirits of the dead. It was the mysterious East, incomprehensible to Westerners. Although Western missionaries spoke and sang of the “unseen things above,” these things remained very much “above,” divorced from everyday human experience. Those missionaries were mentally limited to material existence, suffered from tunnel vision, and were manacled by scientific theory. Africans had leaped that boundary and knew both the physical and the spirit worlds.

However, that was not necessarily a good thing. To them the spirit world was unfriendly, even dangerous, a dimension of ever-present terror. Witchcraft flourishes in many countries even today. For example, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe was reported in the press as supporting the witchdoctor alongside western-style medical practitioners as part of the African culture. The witchdoctor is apparently needed because so many people seek protection from spirits, spells, and curses. The people need to be released from this oppression.

New Answer to Life's Questions

In those early days of mission work in Africa, what Africans heard from ordinary missionaries did not fit the mould of their thinking. The missionaries preached about God but He was in a far distant heaven. His works were “spiritual,” but not in any actual or realisable form. There was no evidence, no demonstration of divine power. A non-supernatural Gospel bore no relation to African religion.

Far from adapting, the missionaries simply treated African experience as unreal and imaginative ignorance. Confrontational in approach, they attacked its very basis. To be Christian at all, converts had to think like Europeans and change to a secularised religious worldview. But, that was a near impossibility, as it is to this day. Africans can never be persuaded that the spirit world is not there; they know it is. To them the dimension of the spirit is as real as the physical. Africans have enjoyed modern education at Oxford or Cambridge, but it has not changed their mindset. Indeed, even at an international football match in Kenya one side accused the other of bewitching the goalposts. It was useless to try to persuade Africans not to believe in spirits and spells.

The answer was not confrontation between West and East, but the presentation of a true Biblical perspective. Jesus offered a new answer to the questions of life – the power of the Kingdom of God. Expelling devils was the sign of His messiahship and the hallmark of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, “If I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20).

The Cross of Christ Defeats All Evil

Africa is like Biblical times, in which people had a natural acceptance of the supernatural, angels and demons. Christ did not deny the reality of these things that oppressed multitudes. He came to bring deliverance.

My job as an evangelist is the same. I preach the glory of the Cross of Christ and the defeat of all evil forces. Casting out enemy spirits is part of the Gospel package I deliver in Africa. You cannot get rid of the devil by denying his existence, but you can overcome him in the power of the Cross.

“Jesus! the name high over all, in hell or earth or sky.
Angels and men before it fall, and devils fear and fly.”

Neither Angels nor Principalities

The people see this demonstrated. Demons are cast out, the blind see, cripples walk, the deaf are healed, and the sick are made well. Here is a far more effective remedy than anything offered by a witchdoctor. That is how we at CfaN approach the spiritual needs of Africa. We come up against all manner of devilishness, but we ride forward everywhere in a procession of victory, proving the power of God to defeat all the dark forces of the enemy. Some evil people have even tried to put curses on me, but the curses have boomeranged back on themselves.

“In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, demons will have to flee.
In the name Jesus, in the name of Jesus, we have the victory.”

This kind of approach speaks to the African heart. Our God is no inactive God of the past, but a God of might who bares His arm in the sight of the multitudes.

Of course there is much more in the Gospel than dealing with demons, but power signs confirm the Word. When the strong man is overcome by the strong man armed, it opens African hearts in gratitude to faith in Christ, and the message of full salvation. With their own eyes they see Christ overcoming the witchdoctor’s curses, and they know that Christ can save them from the curse of sin. They surrender the paraphernalia of the witchdoctor and we public burn the fetishes, charms, and amulets. The people find true protection in Christ because no spirit can harm a man who is shielded by the blood of Jesus.

The Lord is a refuge, a rock, and a Saviour. He who saves from magic spells can save from the wrath of God. The curse of mankind was born by Christ on the tree, bringing release. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature none can pluck us out of His safe hands. No witchdoctor can save a soul, but Jesus saves. There is a Deliverer, almighty to save to the uttermost, to take us from the dunghill, and set us among princes, to lead us to the very throne on which He sits.

to be continued...

	Angels, Heaven, Satan, Demons Part I
	Written by: Reinhard Bonnke 01 June 2009
	The Threefold Being I should like to start by answering my own question, “What really is an evangelist?” An evangelist is a man, woman, pastor, teacher, or the whole church together, sent to bring home to the world the works of God and heavenly realities. The opening words of Genesis are like a Big Bang explosion of truth: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Three realities: God, the heavens and the earth! This is the triple environment in which we humans live. We came from God, we are creatures of the earth, and we are destined for the heavens. God made the heavens and the earth at the same time, two sides of Creation – the visible and the invisible – in a single act. The invisible is not just God because the Creator is above all created things. At the same time, the unseen world is real. We seem to sense its presence and have experiences of it – both good and evil – which remind us that it is there. The Mystery Beyond Ourselves Creation transcends all science, all understanding. What our eyes can see is not the whole show. There is something else, the mystery beyond ourselves. In fact, the mystery is in us; our spirit reaches out beyond the earthly and material sphere. However, it seems that not everything in the invisible world is good. Even angels have sinned and fallen from grace (2 Pet 2:4). Perhaps to our surprise we read that “the heavens are not pure in His sight” (Job 15:15); “from [His] face the earth and the heaven fled away” (Rev 20:11). Yet one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13). Mankind belongs to God, the earth and the heavens. People are not just flesh, but spirit also. Animals are not morally responsible, but we are. We are the only creatures that sin, because we are the only creatures on this earth that have a spiritual nature. Flesh and spirit co-exist until death, but even then that is not the end of the flesh for we are to receive an immortal resurrection body. The work of Christ had to do with both realms. He came to deal not only with spiritual evil, but also with physical evil. That is made evident in a short passage from 1 John 3. We are told first that “He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 Jn 3:5); then the physical is also dealt with “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). What those works are is clear from Acts 10:38, where we read that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” Jesus came with concern for people as they are, to be a Saviour for sinners and a healer of those afflicted by Satan. Christ was concerned with people, not just spirits. He forgave sin, healed the sick and ejected devils. Spirit-filled Evangelism Evangelists in the New Testament were called to continue his work. In fact it was something Christ commanded them – and us – to do. His work is our work. Pentecostal and charismatic evangelists have carried out that dual command to deal with both the visible and the invisible from the start. In fact, they have given special recognition to the teaching of Scripture on the unseen. Act 2:4 shows that the apostolic speaking with tongues was a unique example of the Spirit at work in the flesh. Tongues are a spiritual and physical work of God: “They began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Some ministers have tended not to concern themselves very much with visible evidence of the invisible that is with supernatural things. Some have even treated such Scriptural manifestations as miraculous healing and tongues as demonic. Yet, Biblical faith is filled with the miraculous and the supernatural. People knew that they were dealing with a miracle-working God: “You are the God who does wonders,” the Psalmist wrote (Ps 77:14). We have a right to ask as Gideon did, “Where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about?” (Judges 6:13). God has not gone into retirement or set aside His miracle-working powers. Neither have angels been “pensioned off,” even if we are like the servant of Elisha and do not see them (cf. 2 Kgs 6:17). People declare their belief in the Bible, and it contains so many references to angels, but reports of angels are usually treated with scepticism. Even Satan, the enemy, seems more of a background Bible figure. Yet, in Christ’s day, none of this was true. For example, demons were known to interrupt a synagogue service. Perhaps there was something there worth interrupting. Today they never upset the order of church worship, with hymn numbers on a board. How many ministers would know how to handle demon manifestation if it happened? The clash of good and evil in the spirit world is, however, still real today. Devotees of voodoo work hard at becoming possessed; they want special powers to carry out spells and curses. When we preach Jesus they become extremely distressed. In CfaN’s African meetings this is a common occurrence, with as many as 60 people having to be dealt with at a time and unclean spirits expelled. A Continent Steeped in the Supernatural Recent times have enthroned reason and encouraged ignorance of heavenly realities. Education and knowledge have been secularised, while demons are dismissed as medieval nonsense. The great maxim has become “seeing is believing.” In other words, only the visible is real. In Europe, science has become the judge of all truth, and has denied what it cannot handle. New authorities have appointed themselves above the Word of God. Faith in material reason has usurped faith in divine reason. God Himself is thought of as the Great Unknowable. Secularism is the modern worldview and nobody escapes its influence. In the West, we were born and brought up in the materialist tradition. We live in secular waters like fish in the sea. In my early days as an evangelist in Africa, I observed that missionaries were taking a non-supernatural Gospel to a continent steeped in the supernatural. Africa was – and still is – a different world from the West. Missionaries were orientated very much to the sphere of the visible, but Africans took full account of the invisible in their day-to-day life. Africans lived in an environment of witchcraft, demonism, possession, spirit worship, ancestor worship, tribal gods, and animism, in fear of haunting, curses and spells, and dark forces that lived in trees, rivers and graves. Missionaries believed it was all unscientific and primitive, while Africans shared their world with the spirits of the dead. It was the mysterious East, incomprehensible to Westerners. Although Western missionaries spoke and sang of the “unseen things above,” these things remained very much “above,” divorced from everyday human experience. Those missionaries were mentally limited to material existence, suffered from tunnel vision, and were manacled by scientific theory. Africans had leaped that boundary and knew both the physical and the spirit worlds. However, that was not necessarily a good thing. To them the spirit world was unfriendly, even dangerous, a dimension of ever-present terror. Witchcraft flourishes in many countries even today. For example, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe was reported in the press as supporting the witchdoctor alongside western-style medical practitioners as part of the African culture. The witchdoctor is apparently needed because so many people seek protection from spirits, spells, and curses. The people need to be released from this oppression. New Answer to Life's Questions In those early days of mission work in Africa, what Africans heard from ordinary missionaries did not fit the mould of their thinking. The missionaries preached about God but He was in a far distant heaven. His works were “spiritual,” but not in any actual or realisable form. There was no evidence, no demonstration of divine power. A non-supernatural Gospel bore no relation to African religion. Far from adapting, the missionaries simply treated African experience as unreal and imaginative ignorance. Confrontational in approach, they attacked its very basis. To be Christian at all, converts had to think like Europeans and change to a secularised religious worldview. But, that was a near impossibility, as it is to this day. Africans can never be persuaded that the spirit world is not there; they know it is. To them the dimension of the spirit is as real as the physical. Africans have enjoyed modern education at Oxford or Cambridge, but it has not changed their mindset. Indeed, even at an international football match in Kenya one side accused the other of bewitching the goalposts. It was useless to try to persuade Africans not to believe in spirits and spells. The answer was not confrontation between West and East, but the presentation of a true Biblical perspective. Jesus offered a new answer to the questions of life – the power of the Kingdom of God. Expelling devils was the sign of His messiahship and the hallmark of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, “If I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20). The Cross of Christ Defeats All Evil Africa is like Biblical times, in which people had a natural acceptance of the supernatural, angels and demons. Christ did not deny the reality of these things that oppressed multitudes. He came to bring deliverance. My job as an evangelist is the same. I preach the glory of the Cross of Christ and the defeat of all evil forces. Casting out enemy spirits is part of the Gospel package I deliver in Africa. You cannot get rid of the devil by denying his existence, but you can overcome him in the power of the Cross. “Jesus! the name high over all, in hell or earth or sky. Angels and men before it fall, and devils fear and fly.” Neither Angels nor Principalities The people see this demonstrated. Demons are cast out, the blind see, cripples walk, the deaf are healed, and the sick are made well. Here is a far more effective remedy than anything offered by a witchdoctor. That is how we at CfaN approach the spiritual needs of Africa. We come up against all manner of devilishness, but we ride forward everywhere in a procession of victory, proving the power of God to defeat all the dark forces of the enemy. Some evil people have even tried to put curses on me, but the curses have boomeranged back on themselves. “In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, demons will have to flee. In the name Jesus, in the name of Jesus, we have the victory.” This kind of approach speaks to the African heart. Our God is no inactive God of the past, but a God of might who bares His arm in the sight of the multitudes. Of course there is much more in the Gospel than dealing with demons, but power signs confirm the Word. When the strong man is overcome by the strong man armed, it opens African hearts in gratitude to faith in Christ, and the message of full salvation. With their own eyes they see Christ overcoming the witchdoctor’s curses, and they know that Christ can save them from the curse of sin. They surrender the paraphernalia of the witchdoctor and we public burn the fetishes, charms, and amulets. The people find true protection in Christ because no spirit can harm a man who is shielded by the blood of Jesus. The Lord is a refuge, a rock, and a Saviour. He who saves from magic spells can save from the wrath of God. The curse of mankind was born by Christ on the tree, bringing release. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature none can pluck us out of His safe hands. No witchdoctor can save a soul, but Jesus saves. There is a Deliverer, almighty to save to the uttermost, to take us from the dunghill, and set us among princes, to lead us to the very throne on which He sits. to be continued...

Written by: Reinhard Bonnke 01 June 2009

Written by: Reinhard Bonnke
01 June 2009