We spent three days at a church in Owa, an out-of-the-way place near the town of Agbor, Nigeria. This church was one of those places that you find throughout Africa that has a walls and a roof but little else. The pastor also runs a church in another town where I had ministered in a week or so before, and he had witnessed the excitement in those services. He was so excited that he had told everyone here to bring the sick, crippled, and lame to the services because I was going to heal everyone that came and would pour out blessings on the whole church. (Sigh) Money and miracles.
While I am flattered by his exuberance, that is not what I have come to Nigeria to do. The Lord had told me concerning Nigeria, “No miracles. If you do the miracles, they will not hear the message.” Revival is not something that drops out of the sky for free. There is a price for revival that begins with broken-hearted repentance, and as long as we are focused on getting blessings and miracles, we will not hear the call to repent. It’s a matter of focus. Either our hearts are focused on ourselves and what we can get from God for free, or it is broken over our departure from the call of God to give ourselves for others. It is the same old trick Satan has used for centuries to woo us away from true revival.
The first service was full of people from the surrounding area. Their normal congregation usually numbers around a few dozen, but a hundred people or so had come to hear the white man from America bless them and bring them their miracle. My opening declaration, however, was, “I am not here to do miracles!” You could hear a collective sigh go through the room. This was not what they had come for.
As I launched into my opening message of how the Church had fallen and how the Spirit of God had disappeared from their once vibrant services, evidenced by a dearth of miracles and empty altar calls, you could feel a pregnant silence fill the church. The cold presence of stark reality has a sobering effect, and it is hard to argue with the truth when it is accompanied by the piercing conviction of the Holy Spirit.
They sat there staring at me with eyes wide open. Few were moving and nobody was talking. But as the Spirit of God began to roll over the pulpit and settle on their hearts, you could feel their spirits begin to open up. Gone were the clamors for superficial miracles as their hearts began to rise up and grasp an understanding of what revival really was and how far they had fallen from it.
When I had finished, the entire church rose up to answer the call for prayer. It was loud and strong, and when we were done, something deep had been accomplished in their hearts. They left with a miracle – not the one they had expected when they came, but one far greater. They had changed.
When we came for the next service, the place was packed. This was no longer about miracles – this was about revival! Word had spread. This white man was not like the usual Americans who come with money and blessings. This was a call to the Church that resonated deep within their souls. This was what they were really hungry for – not the superficial call for blessings, but the call of the trumpet of God for revival.
The third service was so packed that there was no room to hold everyone. Over 400 people had shown up! You can just imagine the electricity in the air as the power of the Holy Spirit ran up and down the aisles! There was shouting and crying as God convicted, converted and healed the heart of this church. Revival was in the air! The altar call was packed with souls who were ready to make a full and lasting commitment to answer the call of God. Even the security guards that were guarding the outside perimeter came in to get saved.
This is what I had come for – to ignite another church that had been lying beside the pool of Bethesda, making excuses of why they had laid there so long, but which was now ready to rise up and ring the bell of revival in the land. What they will do next and how they will take what was given them to spread the fire is up to them. That will be the true test. It is doubtful that I can return – there are just too many places to go and not enough time or money to revisit them – but something was ignited there. There will be others who will carry the torch and light the fires across that area. I will move on.