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By John Abiola
In Luke 10:1-2, Far more than 12 people had been following Jesus. Here, Jesus designated a group of 70 persons to prepare every town and village for His visit later on. These disciples were not unique in their qualifications, they were not better educated, more capable, or of higher status than other followers of Jesus. What equipped them for this mission was their awareness of Jesus Christ’s power and their vision to reach all the people with the gospel.
It is important to dedicate our skills to God’s Kingdom, but we must also be equipped with His power and have a clear vision of what He wants us to do. In Luke 4:1-19. After Jesus had received a clear vision and mission on earth, He went alone to a solitary place for the power of God, and was there for 40 days, fasting and praying, day and night. When He finished praying, He went to the temple to begin His ministry of redemption of humanity.
He said, “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound]. Luke 10:18-19- [Isa. 61:1, 2.]
After my call into the ministry in the 90s, my passion for the evangelization of the world grew more intense. This was immediately after my successful completion of Bible School. However, during the course of completing Bible School, I read a book on soul winning by T.L. Osborn. This book ignited in me a fire of Christ’s love, compassion, and passion for the salvation of lost souls, more importantly, the authors’ prayer life changed me and set me on course for destiny.
*T.L Osborne’s life and legacy*
T.L. Osborn was a world-renowned missionary, evangelist, and church leader.
T.L. Osborn went home to be with the Lord in 2014 at the age of 90.
Google states that “The ministries of T. L. and Daisy Osborn have made an unprecedented impact on the world in our time. They are valued among the great soul winners of this century.
Married at ages 17 and 18, the Osborns were missionaries in India at 20 and 21. In 1949 they instituted the OSFO International Gospel Center-a world evangelism and missionary church organization.
Their life commitment: to express and propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ to people throughout the world.
Their guiding principle: the top priority of the church is the evangelization of the world. The Osborns have conducted mass crusades in over 70 nations, preaching to audiences ranging from 20,000 to 250,000 nightly and more. They have sponsored over 25,000 national preachers as full-time missionaries, reaching their own unreached tribes and villages. They have published gospel kinds of literature in 132 languages and dialects.
They have produced documentary films and crusade tapes for public evangelism in nearly 80 major languages. They have provided airlifts and huge shipments of soul-winning tools for gospel missions and workers worldwide. They have furnished vehicles with films, projectors, screens, generators, P.A. systems, audio cassettes and cassette players, and great quantities of literature for evangelism abroad.
T.L Osborn book I read
The Osborns have probabilistically reached and led more unreached souls to Jesus Christ in non-Christian lands and may have witnessed more great healing miracles than any other couple who has ever yet lived. Their team efforts in world evangelism are truly pace-setting as they proclaim the good news to the world: that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8).”
In T.L. Osborn’s book, I read and understood that during his early ministry. He and his wife heard about a missionary need in India and went there to labour for seven years but without as much as a fruit -no single soul won for Christ. So they packed their things and returned back to their home in America in frustration. While going through the streets of his City one day, T.L. Osborn saw the advertisement for a meeting by William Braiham and heard that miracles were happening there. He felt he should go there and see. By the time he got there, the auditorium was already packed full. He testified that at about half a kilometer away from the ve
Venue of the meeting, He began to feel some supernatural sensations that he couldn’t understand or explain. According to him, on entering, he lost his balance as the sensation was too much.
When it was time for the man of God to minister, Braham had just said, “Glory be to God” two or three times and miracles started happening. His wave of hands “performed” wonders as he moved around the auditorium. Here was an example of one who displayed rare, genuine anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. His gifts of the word of knowledge were both extraordinary, exceptional, and accurate. Braham was such a man that even medical terms and names of new diseases, he mentioned by the Spirit’s leading.
On the first day of this meeting, T. L Osborn saw God’s power manifested, he said to himself, “a fellow American like me, calling on the same Jesus, using the same Bible, doing all these! I must have missed it. I must have this power too”. As the meeting was about to close, a rainbow of glory settled on the auditorium, this was even apparent in pictures/ photographs taken during William Braham’s ministration.
T.L. Osborn watched these for three days. On getting home, he told his wife that he had seen the Jesus of the Bible in practical manifestations and would experience that Jesus himself. He didn’t go to the man of God to lay hands on him to get his power, nor did he ask him to show him the secret of his power, nor did he idolize him. He literally decided to pray for seven days in his room and told his wife not to open the door for him until he had broken through to God.
He prayed for an average of 13-14 hours every day, asking for the power and glory of Jesus to manifest afresh in his life to win souls for Christ. His motive, desire, and aspirations were according to God’s will. Then one night, at about midnight, a sudden flood of divine light engulfed his room, and God came and empowered him.
It was then he called his wife to open the door for him. Some months later, they sailed back to India. The first outing was terrible. They could not count the number of blind people that received their sight. Many Hindus gave their life to Christ. The Hindus were shouting ” Jesus is Lord” all over the place and T.L. Osborn became a mighty evangelist from that day, ministering and winning souls for Christ in over 70 nations of the world.
I sought the face of God
Now back to the book, After reading about this encounter. I said to myself ” If God answered T.L. Osborn’s prayer for power, He would answer me if I do what he did. I told my wife that I have got the secret of ministry and that I would lock myself up for seven days, fasting and praying for God’s power and direction in my ministry,
She agreed with me. At this time, we were living in a one-room apartment, and there was no way I could get my privacy, so I journeyed to my eldest sister’s house, took one of the rooms there, and stayed for seven days. And like I read in that book, Jesus came to my room dressed in a pure sparkling white robe and accompanied by angels, with Him was a white robe similar to the one He was dressed with.
He dressed me up in it, my hands were literally on fire as I felt it physically. With a mighty sword in one of the angels’ hands pointed to the Bible in my hands, I looked to see, it was Luke 10:2 which says “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into the harvest”. Then Jesus Christ said, “GO” and I saw the world in total darkness.
However, before this encounter, I taught I would be an evangelist like T.L. Osborn, Billy Graham, Reinhard Bonnke, and many others that were winning souls for Christ through crusades worldwide. Little did I know that I was far from becoming that.
A few days after this encounter, I got the advert “World famous Morris Cerrullo school of ministry now coming to Lagos, Nigeria! Which lasted for six days. I attended this school and on the last day, as I stepped out of the auditorium and headed home, my eyes struck a small book a vendor was advertising, titled “Prayer Diary”, containing daily prayers for each nation. I paid for it and as I got home, little did I know that something spectacular, one that would define my life thereafter was about to happen.
I took the small book, opened it, and read in brief the spiritual conditions/status of the world and the urgent call for the greatest input of prayer for revival that will result in a greater percentage of gospel laborers to be released by God for a great harvest of souls in the world of Islam, the Buddhist world, the Hindu world, and the Heathen world. I was greatly burdened for the salvation of the unreached millions in the world, I rejected the food I was about to eat and wept for a long time in prayers and intense agony for God’s Spirit on the souls of the nations. This book helped me a lot as it guided me and my wife who joined throughout my intercessions for Nigeria and other 10/40 window Nations of the world, and afterward the whole world… for prayer each day.
I accepted my call into the ministry of Intercession and ever since then, I cry to God daily on my knees, agonizing for great outpouring of God’s Spirit and revival on the Church and the nations for many more laborers and harvest of souls into God’s Kingdom.
Prayer that birthed revivals in Africa, America, and the world:
I remember my birthday in 2010. (my birthdays are always celebrated with fasting and prayer, crying out to God for revival in Nigeria and the world). On this day I laid down flat in my prayer room worshipping, praising, asking God for mercy, and sending down revival.
After long hours of travailing prayers for Revival in the churches in all the nations of the world. I heard Jesus speak these words twice to me ” what do you want me to give you as your birthday gift”. At this point, I thought to myself, “I have urgent needs such as money to complete my house, money to pay my children’s school fees, money to buy foodstuff, money to change the worn-out clothes and shoes worn by my family, a car and many more, but that is not where my heart is, these are material needs, so I told God that the only gift I need is the revival in the Churches in Nigeria, Africa, America, Asia and all over the world, and harvest of souls into the Kingdom of God.
Then I continued paying earnestly and after a while, I was convinced in my spirit that God had granted my request. Surprisingly, He directed me to Zachariah 8:1-3 which says,” Again the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous with great fury. Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain”.
Furthermore, on Sunday, 15th of April 2019 I was on my knees alone in my prayer room, travailing in prayers with a great burden in my heart for revival to engulf my nation Nigeria… Check the links: Good Friday: A Global Day of Fasting and Prayer for World …
*Mercy drops…*
Abundant testimonies abound, showing that God’s Spirit has descended mightily and revival has broken out in many countries of the world as regards unceasing and persistent cries over and over the years. Supported by a continuous flow of many publications, most especially “Revive Us Again series; a global prayer movement; online publication for revival in Nigeria and the world with the aim of giving Christians the knowledge and understanding of biblical revivals and prayers, (how they started and how to replicate this revival)
inspired by historical accounts of the Holy Spirit’s move in revival power… to help us seek God in genuine repentance and fervent prayers for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for revival in our personal lives, churches, communities, and nations, and for a great awakening and unprecedented harvest of lost souls of the world into the Kingdom of God in readiness for the rapture of His Church-bride by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To the goodness and mercy of God, amidst the ongoing terrible shaking in the nations, and great persecution of Christ’s followers, there has been an increase in the work of the gospel in many nations of the world. Internet and other social media are broadcasting/ spreading the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ, and many laborers -missionaries are being raised, and many Bible-believing churches are springing up. More souls are coming to the Lord Jesus each day.
Millions of people living where it is most difficult to be a Christian (10/40 window Nations) which are the most difficult nations to be a Christian are coming to Christ through visions, dreams, and other supernatural encounters.
There is an increase in the work of intercession and prayer movement for the churches, leaders, communities, and nations, etc.
The messages of the need for genuine repentance, revival, Intercessory prayer, God’s coming judgement, and rapture are beginning to penetrate the Church in Nigeria, Africa, America, and Europe, after decades of deep sleep, with the gospel of materialism in high rise within the Church.
I read this morning that a mighty revival has broken out at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky in America on the 8th of February this year, the very place where revival broke out 70 years ago and the resurrection is spreading like wildfire across the country, and around the world, people were confessing and repenting of their sins, worshipping and praying. Charisma news states that “7 days ago · The revival fire continues to burn brightly at Asbury University, even after 133 hours, and now this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is please check this links for details, www.charismanews.com Culture.
I read further that,” revival is spreading to Uganda-
Revival in Asbury-2023.
Revival is spreading across the world. Revival has spread to western Uganda where over 200 people have accepted Jesus and over 300….m.youtube.com> watch.To me, these are mercy drops.John Abiola.Revive Us Again series 75Contact me today:If you’re been inspired by any of the series of revive us again and you wish to share your testimony or need a word of encouragement or two. If you would like to have all the Revive Us Again series, remember, our Nations are terribly shaking, the Church is dying and we need repentance and the greatest input of prayers and intercession for many more laborers for the remaining closed-door nations to be opened, for the entrance of the gospel, and for end-time revival and harvest to continue till the return of Jesus Christ for the rapture of His church- Bride. Please do not hesitate to write to the author.
