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Author: Smith Wigglesworth
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About the Book

"ONLY BELIEVE" by Smith Wigglesworth is a collection of sermons and teachings that emphasize the importance of strong faith and belief in God. Wigglesworth, a renowned evangelist and healer, shares powerful messages about the miraculous power of faith in overcoming challenges and experiencing God's supernatural intervention in one's life. Through personal anecdotes and biblical examples, he encourages readers to trust in God's promises and boldly believe in His ability to transform lives.

Reinhard Bonnke

Reinhard Bonnke (19 April 1940 - 7 December 2019) was a German-American Pentecostal evangelist, principally known for his gospel missions throughout Africa. Bonnke had been an evangelist and missionary in Africa since 1967. In Nigeria’s city, Lagos, in 2000, a single service is believed to have been attended by 1.6 million people. Christ for all Nations (CFAN), an organisation founded by Bonnke, claims he preached Christ to more than 79 million non believers. Early life Reinhard Bonnke was born on 19 April 1940, in the city of Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany, the fifth son of Hermann Bonnke, an army logistics officer in the Reichswehr who fought on the Eastern Front; his paternal grandfather was August Bonnke, the owner of a windmill in Trunz, East Prussia (now Milejewo, Poland), who was healed of an unknown ailment by the evangelist Luis Graf in 1922, but died during the evacuation of East Prussia in 1945. His mother was Metaa Bonnke (née Scheffler). Bonnke had six siblings: Martin, Gerhard, Jurgen, Peter and Felicitas, his only younger sibling and his only sister. With his mother and siblings, he was taken to Denmark during the evacuation of East Prussia and spent some years in a displaced persons centre before settling in Gluckstadt, West Germany. After his own war service, his father became a pastor in the village of Krempe. He became a born-again Christian at the age of nine after his mother spoke with him about a sin that he had committed. He sensed a call from God to serve as a missionary in Africa from the age of 10 and said that he had the experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Bonnke studied at the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, Wales, UK, where he was inspired by the director, Samuel Rees Howells. In one meeting Howells spoke of answered prayer; after this meeting, Bonnke prayed, "Lord, I also want to be a man of faith. I want to see your way of providing for needs." Passing through London, he had a chance meeting with the preacher George Jeffreys. As he walked, he came across a house with a nameplate on the front that said “George Jeffreys”. He wondered if it could be the great George Jeffreys who had founded the Elim Pentecostal churches in Ireland and England. He prayed for the young student and imparted grace to him. After graduation, he pastored in Germany for seven years, including establishing a congregation in Flensburg which met in a former rum factory. African mission His work in Africa began in 1967. He arrived in South Africa and almost immediately encountered the apartheid system, which he developed an antipathy towards, which in turn caused friction between him and the minister who oversaw him in South Africa. Bonnke subsequently accepted a position to oversee three churches in Lesotho, but began again from scratch after he discovered that unbiblical practices had emerged in the congregations he was to oversee. In the first few years of his work, Bonnke encountered poor results from his evangelistic efforts and felt frustrated at the pace of his ministry. Then he had a recurring dream featuring a picture of the map of Africa being splattered with blood and heard the voice of God crying "Africa Shall Be Saved". This ultimately led him to adopt large-scale evangelism, rather than the traditional small-scale missionary approach. He rented a stadium in Gaborone, Botswana, and preached with little cooperation from local churches. The first meetings saw about 100 people attending, but this number grew swiftly. In 1974, Bonnke founded the mission organisation Christ for all Nations (CfaN). Originally based in Johannesburg, South Africa, the headquarters were relocated to Frankfurt, Germany, in 1986. This was done primarily to distance the organisation from South Africa's apartheid policy at the time.[9] Today CfaN has 9 offices across 5 continents. Bonnke began his ministry holding tent meetings that accommodated large crowds. According to an account published by the Christian Broadcasting Network, in 1984 he commissioned the construction of what was claimed to be the world's largest mobile structure - a tent capable of seating 34,000; this was destroyed in a wind storm just before a major meeting and therefore the team decided to hold the event in the open air instead. According to this account, the event was subsequently attended by over 100,000 people which is far greater than the 34,000 seating capacity the tents could have contained. For various reasons, usually due to insufficient capacity, the 34,000-seat tent was only used once, in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1986. In addition to South Africa, Bonnke would also hold many campaigns in other African countries including Nigeria and Kenya and became known as "the Billy Graham of Africa." In the 5 February 2001 edition of Graham's Christianity Today, journalist Corrie Cutrer stated that Bonnke had set "record-breaking attendances" at recent events he held in Nigeria. Bonnke announced his "farewell gospel crusade" to be held in Lagos, Nigeria, in November 2017. Lagos is also the location of a gospel crusade held in 2000 which, according to CfaN, is the organization's largest to date, drawing an attendance of six million people in a 5-night crusade, and as much as 1.6 million attendance in one day. In 2009 Bonnke appointed his successor, Daniel Kolenda who continues to lead the ministry. In 2020, following Bonnke's death, Christ for all Nations launched the CfaN Evangelism Bootcamp. In 2022 Schools of Evangelism were started in South Africa, and Europe and Fire Camps were launched in dozens of nations on six continents. Today, more than 4,000 evangelists have been trained by Christ for all Nations and more than 91-million decisions for Christ have been counted. In 2024, in the 50th year of the ministry, CfaN is conducting 50 gospel crusades throughout the African continent. Persecution Kano riots, subsequent expulsion from Nigeria, and return to the country In 1991, during Bonnke's visit to Kano in Nigeria, there were riots in the city as Muslims protested over remarks he had reportedly made about Islam in the city of Kaduna on his way to Kano. A rumour was spread that Bonnke was planning to "lead an invasion" into Kano. Muslim youths gathered at the Kofar Mata Eide-ground where they were addressed by several clerics who claimed that Bonnke was going to blaspheme Islam. About 8,000 youths gathered at the Emir's palace and after noon prayers the riots ensued, during which many Christians sustained various injuries and several churches were burned. Official reports state that at least eight people were killed, although other research and reports place the number as being as much as 500 as many of the Christians who were killed were thrown into wells and the attacks were spread between multiple locations. Despite the state governor absolving Bonnke of any blame for the incident, Bonnke's subsequent attempts to return to Nigeria were denied, as the Nigerian Embassy refused his visa applications. In 2000, a new civilian government in Nigeria was elected to power, and President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, invited Reinhard Bonnke to return to the country. Bonnke returned to Nigeria and held a crusades in Benin City in the south. He would deny reports that the Northern Region of Nigeria's Council of Ulamas banned him from entering northern Nigeria. Bonnke held many crusades in Nigeria after 2000, and conversion rates were significantly higher than in many other African nations, with one campaign achieving a conversion of 1.1 million people. Nigeria would be where his final international crusade would be held, in Lagos in 2017. Personal life After graduating from the Bible College of Wales and returning to Germany, Bonnke led a series of meetings in Rendsburg. He began receiving speaking invitations from all around Germany and the rest of the world. Bonnke met Anni Suelze at a gospel music festival and admired the grace which she showed when a mistake led to her losing a music competition. He offered to preach at the church she attended and over time they fell in love. They married in 1964 and had three children: Kai-Uwe Friedrich, known as "Freddy", Gabrielle and Suzanne. Death Bonnke died on 7 December 2019. The month before, he had announced on his official Facebook page that he had undergone femur surgery and needed time to "learn how to walk again". Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who is Muslim, praised Bonnke for his frequent visits to Nigeria and described his death as a "great loss to Nigeria". His appointed successor is the evangelist Daniel Kolenda. He would be buried in Gotha, Florida's Woodlawn Memorial Park, with his memorial stone being shaped to resemble Africa.

iwo jima and the monumental sacrifice

“Some people wonder all their lives if they made a difference,” Ronald Reagan once said. Then he added, “The Marines don’t have that problem.” That was certainly true of the Marines who fought and died on a little island called Iwo Jima seventy years ago now. In the final phase of the war in the Pacific, Iwo Jima was strategic and essential to America and Japan — and it would cost them both dearly. Two out of every three Marines on Iwo Jima were killed or wounded before the Americans took the island. The fierce, heroic struggle was captured in what would become the most famous photograph of the war: Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945. Joe Rosenthal’s photograph, like the larger-than-life men he captured on camera, became the basis for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. Though dedicated to the service and sacrifice of the Marines in all of America’s wars, it is still often referred to simply as the “Iwo Jima Memorial.” It is the tallest bronze statue in the world. The soldier figures are each over thirty feet tall, and the rifles are sixteen feet long. Photographs, to use Lance Morrow’s phrase, “imprison time in a rectangle,” but they can never tell the whole story. Raising the flag on Mount Suribachi wasn’t the moment of victory — a triumphant point between war and peace. Three of the six men who raised the flag on February 23 would be killed in action on Iwo Jima in a battle that would rage on for another month. The flag represented hope when it was raised — it did not represent victory. Worthy Sacrifices The last time I visited the Iwo Jima monument, it was a lovely evening in Arlington. Visitors who walked around the base of the great bronze spoke with hushed voices. Even the selfie-snapping was reserved. The bronze giants basked in the warmth of the last light, and the flag snapped in the wind, much like the first time. It made me feel proud and humble at the same time. From the bluff, I could see across the Potomac the tops of America’s other monuments huddled along the great expanse leading to the Capitol. Marble and bronze — the stuff of enduring memory — worthy of the sacrifices they commemorate. At the time I was at Arlington, Christians were being shot, beheaded, even crucified by the Islamic State, and whole Christian populations were being utterly obliterated in Syria and Iraq. I thought to myself, “Where’s the monument to their sacrifice? What’s left for the generations to follow to remember?” Tragically, all that remains are smoldering ruins, bloodstains, and boot prints, as their killers move on. Sometimes, even less than that remains. In November, a Christian couple in Pakistan were incinerated. Here’s their story. The Barbarians Are Back Debt peonage has long existed in Pakistan, keeping generations of Christians in slavery working in the brick kilns. Once I walked through such a slave colony near Lahore when the master was away in order to hear the workers’ stories. Little children stacked bricks, men tended the massive furnace firing the bricks, and women washed clothes in a stream that doubled as the sewer. It was in this same area last November that two brick workers, Shahzad Masih and his wife Shama, were killed. They were in a debt dispute with their owner, and in order to settle the score, he accused them of blasphemy, of burning pages of the Koran. The blasphemy law in Pakistan is a convenient way of dealing with inconvenient people and usually works like this: kill first, then maybe ask questions later. The setting was readymade for a mob. Bricks were handy for stoning, the legs of the husband and wife were broken so they couldn’t escape, and then they were thrown into the furnace. Shahzad and his wife, who was five months pregnant, were burned to ash. This didn’t happen centuries ago in barbaric times — it happened in November. The barbarians are back. Tragically, the murders of Shahzad and his wife are just more of the same. In the past three years alone, between the work of ISIS and other al-Qaeda franchises, the number of Christians killed or displaced in Iraq and Syria is in the tens of thousands, including hundreds of girls taken as sex slaves for the fighters. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than seven thousand Christians have been killed by Boko Haram and al-Shabaab in the past three years. When We Hear of Persecution It’s understandable that these al-wannabes tend to sound alike — their handiwork certainly tends to look alike. After more than a decade in the new world disorder, they are just names and numbers on the news crawl, accompanied with a blur of blood and bombs, of gun-toting “spiritual leaders” doing selfies on YouTube as they crow about their latest kill. I think of the lines from a Patty Griffin song, “There’s a million sad stories on the side of the road. Strange how we all just got used to the blood.” The unspeakable seems unanswerable; and so we shrug. What can we say? What can we do that would make any difference? As Christians we must not look at persecution as just “bad things happening to good people.” And we shouldn’t look away either. Christian persecution is tied to the very work and nature of the gospel. Here are three truths to remember when we hear of Christian persecution, whether in distant places or when it comes to our own shores. 1. We are vitally linked to our suffering brothers and sisters. “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). This is why we pray, why we speak, and why we hurt alongside suffering Christians — they are family. Through the power of the gospel, our lives are forever bound up in Christ’s life and, therefore, forever bound up with all other believers as well. 2. God is glorified, and his gospel advances, when his people demonstrate trust, love, and grace as they suffer for him. “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear” (Philippians 1:12–14). Persecution has many outcomes — sometimes they don’t make sense to us. But clearly, one of the outcomes is gospel advance. Saul-the-Persecutor-turned-Paul-the-Preacher was a powerful demonstration of this truth. In our day, he would have been the equivalent of an al-Qaeda commander; so his conversion was the talk of the town. “They only were hearing it said, ‘He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me” (Galatians 1:23–24). Samuel Zwemer, the apostle to Arabia, with his “Big God, Big Gospel” perspective on the long campaign of Kingdom advance could write, When you read in reports of troubles and opposition, of burning up books, imprisoning colporteurs, and expelling workers, you must not think that the gospel is being defeated. It is conquering. What we see under such circumstances is only the dust in the wake of the ploughman. God is turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus comes. He that plougheth should plough in hope. We may not be able to see a harvest yet in this country, but furrow after furrow, the soil is getting ready for the seed. 3. Persecution is linked to Christ’s persecution. “God is turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus comes.” “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). Suffering that comes for the sake of his name is Christ-like. And so there is, in fact, a monument to Christian sacrifice — it is the cross, in all its blood-stained splendor. Unlike the inspiring flag-raising on Iwo Jima, when the cross was raised, it seemed to symbolize only defeat and death. Yet, secured by Sovereign Love and the empty tomb, Christ’s work was so complete that everyone who comes to him will live forever. This is the reward of the Lamb’s suffering. Only he could heal the hurt of his people, turning their sorrow into song and their death into life.