The only thing that can change the world is the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Asked to pastor a church at 18, just three months after starting Bible College, and holding my first Tent Mission a few months later, I have seen the Power of God and miracles of healing from the very beginning of my ministry.
After 10 years as a full time pastor and evangelist in Britain, my ministry to Russia and Europe began in 1961 when I organised the first ever overland expedition to Jerusalem, travelling behind the Iron Curtain through the Arab countries and into Israel. I had heard that there was to be a World Pentecostal Conference in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost! Full of expectation of what God would do, I determined to be there! I had no money to go, but was challenged to do the impossible – set up an expedition, go by road!
Why did I do those things? Why do I carry on with such passion? It is because I believe that all the Power of God is in the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! (Romans 1.16).
But before the Gospel can change the world, it must first change you! Be filled with the Holy Spirit! In Acts 1, we read about the Day of Pentecost, how fire fell on the upper room and transformed those early believers. Who gave the inaugural address of the Church? It was Peter, who only days earlier had denied Christ. Now, filled with the Fire and Power of God, 3000 people were converted through the preaching of the Gospel.
Do you know what God wants? He wants His glory to be seen in the whole world, He wants to use YOU as the demonstration of His power to the whole world. God wants to see fire in YOU, that is why He sent the Holy Spirit to revive YOU! The church should not be cold and dead, but on fire! Receive the Holy Spirit NOW – if you are already baptised in the Spirit, do like me and ask for another Pentecost NOW, ask for a baptism of FIRE!
Acts 3:1 says – ‘Peter and John went up to the Temple… and a man, born lame, was carried who was laid daily at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple to ask money from those who entered… He saw Peter and John about to go into the Temple and asked money from them. Peter said, “Look at us.” He expected to receive something from them but Peter said, “I’ve no silver, no gold but what I have I give you. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk,” and he took him by the right hand, lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and leaping up, stood and walked, and entered with them into the Temple walking and leaping and praising God.’
Look where this crippled man – who had never walked, never worked, never married – is sitting. Behind him is the big Temple, the centre for all the religion in Jerusalem; in front of him just two simple fishermen, but men who know Jesus personally. The power did not come out of the Temple despite its splendour, nor out of its religious ceremonies, but out of Peter and John, ordinary men full of the Holy Spirit! This miracle happened in Acts 3, but Chapter 4 says that as a direct result of this one healing miracle, five thousand new believers were added to the church! That’s even more than the three thousand on the Day of Pentecost!
One book in the Bible is not yet finished. Every new convert, every person healed, every miracle that happens today, is a new page being added to the Acts of the Apostles – which you and I are still writing today!