During a recent podcast, evangelist Chris Mikkelson gave a tribute to the late evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. When people follow in Bonnke’s footsteps, he says, they will help bring our world closer to the return of Jesus, who says He isn’t coming back until everyone has heard of Him (Matt. 24:14).
“I believe [evangelism] will usher in the coming back of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Mikkelson says. “I believe we are a part of this end-time harvest in Jesus’ name. … Reinhard said something years before he passed. He told all of us a story. He had a dream one night, and in the dream, he was in the streets of Germany, and the streets were full of people, and there was revival breaking out in the streets of Germany. And he remembers seeing this from a helicopter view. He remembered hearing in the dream two entities.
“He never saw them; he doesn’t exactly know who they were. But there were two entities that were talking to one another. They were spiritual beings. One entity said to the other, ‘Whatever happened to Reinhard Bonnke?’ And all of a sudden in the dream, his ears perked up. And the other entity said, ‘Oh, Reinhard Bonnke. Yes, yes. Reinhard Bonnke was just a forerunner of a whole new breed of Holy Ghost evangelists.’ And he woke up from the dream, and he knew that meant it was time for him to start training and equipping evangelists to go to the nations and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Mikkelson, who got the privilege of working with Daniel Kolenda on the Christ for all Nations crusades (which Bonnke began and led before passing the baton to Kolenda), says revival is going to occur in this generation in nontraditional ways. It’s going to happen in familiar one-on-one settings in the workplace and hospitals, he says on the Salvation Today podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.
“I believe we are in this generation where we will see revival spread, and it won’t spread the way that it did before,” Mikkelson says. “But I believe it’s going to happen through you at your workplace, telling people about Jesus, sharing the gospel with them, praying for them, commanding broken bones to be healed, praying for the sick, seeing miracles, manifesting the kingdom of God. It’s time for us to take that anointing everywhere we go and see the harvest come.
“But it’s not going to happen because one person becomes the next Reinhard Bonnke. No, my friends, we need thousands of Reinhard Bonnkes. We need Reinhard Bonnkes at your work, we need Reinhard Bonnkes at your kids’ schools, we need Reinhard Bonnkes in the hospital, we need them on TV. We need them in sports. We need Reinhard Bonnkes everywhere. We need people who would say, ‘I’m going to use the talent God has given me to do a good job, to really be a blessing in my society.'”
To listen to the entire episode titled “The Passing of the Baton,” click here.
