We hope you enjoy today’s Bible Study with Daniel Kolenda. -Reinhard Bonnke
Most of the time character flaws hide below the surface invisible to the casual observer. People take great care to make sure no one sees their problems or shortcomings. But if not dealt with, these invisible infections mature into very public diseases.
How does a man, so mightily used by God, fall like this? It happens one pea patch at a time, one unprotected, seemingly insignificant area of life that is not consecrated to God at a time. A little compromise here, a lustful imagination there. Every concession seems so inconsequential. Sin begins as a cute little pet, but it grows into a beast that is never satisfied. As it is fed, it only becomes bigger and hungrier; gratification becomes more difficult, and soon the pet has become the master. In the end you will either kill the beast or it will kill you. The devil is very patient. He is willing to wait, sometimes for many years, while sin matures. Once the enemy has established a stronghold in someone’s life, he will not stop until he has destroyed that person or until that person destroys the stronghold.
Imagine if this minister could have heard himself delivering that speech many years before this public scandal took place. Imagine if he could have looked into the future and seen himself on that fateful Sunday morning telling his tearful congregation, “I am a deceiver and a liar. . . . ” Imagine if he could have seen the pain and the heartache that would grow from those small, early compromises. What if he could have seen the tears in his wife’s and children’s eyes? If he could have seen the end from the beginning, I think a righteous anger would have arisen in his soul, and he would have stood his ground and fought for every inch of territory.
I’ll never forget a sermon I heard when I was in seminary from our college president, Michael L. Brown, PhD. He preached about a fascinating word that appears in the Hebrew Scriptures sixty-one times; it is acharit (pronounced “a-kha-reet”). There is really no single word equivalent for it in English, but the literal meaning of it is “the final or ultimate end.” It speaks of the backside or hinder parts, the part that is to follow, the part that is to come, the final end. We find this word used in Psalm 37:37–38: “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end [acharit] of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end [acharit] of the wicked shall be cut off.”
The German monk Thomas à Kempis is well known to have said, “Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes.” But if he would have been Hebrew, he probably would have said it this way: “Happy is the man who hath the hour of his acharit [his final end] always before his eyes.” This would have been a better quote anyway since there is a final end beyond the hour of our death and beyond the grave.
I heard someone say recently that he was shocked when he picked up the newspaper and found his own name in the obituary section. Apparently another guy in town had the same name as this gentleman. But when he saw his name among the deceased, it really made him think about the end of his own life. Imagine that you had the opportunity to write your own obituary. What would you put in it? How would you want it to read? Have you stopped to think about your acharit?
Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke once told me that as a young man, he was kneeling at the altar in a pastors’ prayer meeting next to an elderly servant of God. He overheard the old man weeping as he asked God to please forgive him for the unclean things he had allowed into his life. This moved the young evangelist deeply. Reverend Bonnke said he moved away to another spot where no one could hear, and he cried out to God with a prayer of his own. “Lord,” he said, “help me to mind in the beginning what matters in the end.”
As I write this book, Evangelist Bonnke is seventy-two years of age and has never been involved in a scandal or a fall. I heard someone ask him once, “Is there anything in your life you would do differently?” “No,” he said, “I have no regrets.” What a wonderful example for the next generation!
Oh, my friend, may we purpose in our hearts to live life in such a way that we will not have to weep in the acharit over uncleanness and sin that we allowed into our lives. “I urge you,” Paul said, “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Eph. 4:1, NIV). Let us determine to live a life worthy of the calling, a life of integrity, minding in the beginning what matters in the end.
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Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is known for his Great Gospel Crusades throughout the continent of Africa.
Reinhard, a pastor's son, heard the call to the African mission field when he was still a boy. When he was 19 he enrolled at a Bible college in Wales and, on completing his studies, spent seven years as an ordained pastor in a Pentecostal church in northern Germany.
Reinhard's deepest longing was to work on the mission field. In 1967 he, his wife Anni and their one-year-old son Kai-Uwe set off for the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa. It was many years, however, before his missionary activities took on greater dimensions and he purchased a tent which could shelter 800 people from the wind and rain. As more and more people came to the evangelistic meetings, that tent was soon not large enough and was replaced by the yellow tent with space for 10,000 people. In turn, that tent became too small and in 1984 the largest tent in the world (according to the entry in the Guinness Book of Records) was built with seats for 34,000 people.
The international mission organization Christ for all Nations was founded in 1974, by which time attendance was even exceeding the capacity of the largest tent and the meetings were being held in the open air. The largest single meeting to date during the campaign in Lagos (Nigeria) in November 2000 was attended by some 1.6 million people.
Over the past 22 years some 120 million people have attended the vast evangelistic meetings. Since the year 2000 more than 75 million people made decisions for Jesus and documented what they had done by completing decision cards. These cards are used in the follow-up work and help to ensure that people are integrated quickly and smoothly into local church fellowships.
Reinhard Bonnke is also known for his Fire Conferences in many different countries of the world. The aim of these conferences, which have a major impact on the life of the church, is to train pastors, evangelists and spiritual leaders in evangelism so that this generation can be reached with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The theological basis for the clear, Bible-based proclamation of the message of salvation through Jesus is reinforced by Reinhard Bonnke's books and booklets, 190 million copies of which have been printed in 143 languages. Millions of them have been given free of charge to new converts as well as to Bible college students to help them in their evangelistic studies.
The Reinhard Bonnke School of Fire study program and the professionally produced eight-part Full Flame Film Series also serve the same purpose to inspire disciples of Jesus to evangelistic ministry and to make them as effective as possible.
As a registered charity, Christ for all Nations has its headquarters in Orlando, Florida in the USA. It also has offices in Africa, the USA, Germany, Canada, England, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.