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In large parts of the world, the name Reinhard Bonnke needs no introduction – his reputation goes before him. Millions attend his massive crusades. Millions receive Christ. Millions witness spectacular demonstrations of God’s power. And millions receive the Holy Spirit.

Bonnke’s God-given vision of a bloodwashed Africa changed his life, and has brought change to many parts of the world. In just the last decade alone, Bonnke’s evangelistic campaigns in Africa are responsible for over 52 million documented decisions for Christ. His faithfulness in preaching the Gospel to forgotten people in some of the most remote places on the planet has created a modernday revival unknown to the Western media.

Bonnke often says he went from “zero to hero,” which is an accurate portrayal of the youngest son of a preacher from a small village in Northern Germany. Today, his life is a model for generations of preachers to come and his story should inspire Christians to preach the Gospel without compromise. In fact, he’s challenging Christians everywhere to do something great for God.

The Voice magazine sat down with Reinhard Bonnke to talk about his life, his ministry and his advice for others who, like him, have a burning desire to preach the Gospel.

I actually don’t know. It seems that God Almighty does not need to explain Himself as to why He chooses one and not the other. He is Lord. He is God, and somehow He had planted such a hunger in my heart for Him that I didn’t hesitate at all and moved in God’s general direction which then became a specialized direction.

When God placed it on your heart to bring the message of salvation to the entire continent of Africa, was it difficult to fathom? Did your mind struggle with that concept? How did you know for sure that God really called you to do that?

It was a struggle because I was a missionary in Lasutu. That is how I arrived in Africa as a national missionary and I was not at all successful. I was with my back against the wall. I was greatly disappointed that people were not interested in the message that I preached. It was absolutely frustrating. And then in the night I had a vision – it was much more than a dream – seeing all of the continent of Africa being washed in the precious blood of Jesus, cleansed from all its sin and chains and bondages and evils. When I woke up it didn’t make sense to me at all. I said, “My ministry has no impact in this tiny little country called Lasutu and now I hear of a whole continent to be saved?” And I could not grasp that easily.

I had that dream for four consecutive nights, and after night number four I said to my wife, “I think that God is trying to tell me something.” In that dream, I didn’t just see Africa washed in the blood of Jesus. I also heard a voice cry. I still think today that it was the voice of the Holy Spirit, “Africa shall be saved!” It penetrated my bone and my marrow. After night number four, wherever I went I said, “Did you hear already? Africa shall be saved.” My own fellow missionaries from Germany declared it to be crazy. They said, “Lets talk about Lasutu. It’s nonsense to talk about the whole continent.” I said, “You talk about Lasutu. God speaks about Africa.” I left Lasutu and I founded Christ for All Nations and the first crusade was a huge breakthrough and we just took off.

Did you have mentors that helped to guide you, or were you just following the Holy Spirit?

I didn’t know with whom to speak. Who could have helped me? I asked my superiors in the denomination where I was, “When is God saving souls on a large scale?” All they said to me was “Wait for revival. Wait for revival,” until it dawned on me revival can only come when the Gospel is preached because the preaching of the Gospel precedes mass salvation. The preaching is always central.

How did you deal with misunderstanding and rejection in the early days of your ministry?

I learned quite early in life to bless those who hate you. I’ve learned that one basic thing. You need to always forgive others if you feel that you are being wronged so that my own channels to heaven will remain open.

Many times in the middle of the night I jumped out of bed and my mind was full of things of what some people had said about me. I didn’t like it because it was a bunch of lies and I was walking up and down for hours at night in my little home and I prayed, “Lord I bless them that curse me, I bless them that curse me, I bless them that curse me.” And then after maybe an hour or so heaven just pierced my heart and crept into my soul. I had blessed them all and I had my channels open to heaven and the next meeting I saw great results. I think that is a true key point. If we start to defend ourselves and respond to every little rumor, we are actually paralyzing ourselves.

That’s a powerful lesson and that’s a powerful truth. The spiritual warfare must be immense. What kind of opposition have you faced in your ministry? Have you faced opposition from denominations, leaders, other religions, demons? How did you press through it?

We are going to areas where there are many other religions, whether they are animists or whether they are ancestry spirits or Islam. We are really in a hot terrain, so to speak, but I’ve learned that the Gospel is the power of God for all who believe. We don’t need to pray for power. The Gospel is the power. When it is preached, it is released and it does its own glorious work. It’s not a struggle. I always feel we are on top of it all.

Oftentimes we are in areas where they told me, “No evangelist has ever come here” and I couldn’t believe my own eyes. I had 400,000, 700,000, 800,000 people in a single meeting and when I arrived there it felt to me, in my spirit, as if the satanic infrastructure in that region had never ever been challenged and that is why all these animism, these spirit worships and ancestry worship and all the occult things were striving and festering and tormenting the people.

Every time I stood up and preached the Gospel, it was sometimes as if I could hear how this satanic infrastructure, as I call it, was crushed and destroyed and how God’s Kingdom began to replace it. To stay five days in a row was minimum. I needed it. And things are truly changing.

A year later sometimes people call me from areas like and they say, “You know, since you were here the occult spirits no more speak. They have fallen silent.” I say, “That’s no surprise to me. We cast them out in the name of Jesus.” You can see there is an awesome change. The tables have turned and Jesus is Lord, and the whole area is rejoicing.

So you pressed through the opposition with the power of the Gospel.

Always with the Gospel. And I don’t go and preach the Gospel because I have all power. I go and preach the Gospel because Jesus said that all power is given unto Me, so He is with us. He goes with the goers and He works with the workers. But He doesn’t sit with the sitters, and neither does He sleep with the sleepers. We go out and preach the Gospel, we preach it together with the One who holds all power and I tell you, He never falls short to chip in.

How marvelous. What do you think makes you different from other evangelists?

I don’t think I’m different. We all have the same Gospel, and there are great men of God. I tell you, I have come to honor the humblest missionary, I’ve come to honor those men who, hundreds of years ago, went to Africa not seeing a single soul saved. They actually have been sowing with tears what we today are reaping with joy. According to the words of Jesus in John Chapter 4, He said, “You have entered the labor of other people.” So we connect with their work. They have been sowing in tears what we are reaping in joy together. One party is in heaven. The other is on earth.

Were there times when you felt like you wanted to give up? How did you overcome your feelings?

There are times where things don’t seem to go so well. There are times where we look at each other and say “What is wrong?” But this has been a great lesson to me. A year or two later I had kicked off a crusade, I said, “Well, it didn’t go so well.” Then we move on. Then I heard reports of what happened in those areas and the awesome manifestations of God’s power and changes in that area.

Oh, we must never judge quickly. We must leave it to God. God’s Word never returns void. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve told my team we will never, never, never say this crusade was not good. Never. It would be an insult to the Gospel and the God of the Gospel. We are now experienced and we know how the rapids run, as we would say in Germany, and we keep plugging away and some places harder than another. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

That’s a wonderful perspective. That’s a way to keep yourself encouraged, knowing that God’s Word indeed never returns void. It will accomplish what it was sent forth to do. What is one of the most surprising things you’ve learned about the moving of the Holy Spirit?

Well I grew up with the truth of the Holy Spirit because my parents were Pentecostal and my father was a pastor and what I learned there was just, I would say, the minimal truth of the Holy Spirit, of His power, God’s fire. In Africa, it suddenly dawned on me and the Holy Spirit Himself started to teach me that God has decided from the beginning, that in the last days He would pour out His spirit upon all the flesh. I thought that prayer for the Holy Spirit was inaccurate in a closed prayer meeting just with some insiders so to speak.

And then the Lord spoke to me, right at the beginning. He said, “Tomorrow I want you to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” I said, “Lord, this is not for a stadium, this is an evangelistic crusade, to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit is for a church service.” And the Lord said to me, “I‘ll give you a good reason why that is not so. On the last day, my Spirit bled on all flesh.” I could see there was so much flesh around. That promise would never be fulfilled if we just think in terms of churches, and then I started to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the biggest meetings whether I preached to a million or just to 50,000 and the Lord has been faithful. I can honestly say He has been saturating all nations with His glory and with the Spirit of God. It is something so powerful that exceeds anything we could ever produce, whether it’s our good preaching or good communication or something in the natural. The real heart of real success is in the Holy Spirit.

That is so true. You’ve met State Presidents and addressed Houses of Parliament. What role should the Body of Christ play in world governments?

I only represent myself and what I say is my opinion. I stayed of out politics when I was preaching wherever I went and I’ll tell you why. The moment I would identify with a political party – let’s say the same party as the president – I would be politically tainted and would only be acceptable to that section of society that happened to like that party. But the Gospel is for all. So I always refuse to endorse politicians and when their election times came I sometimes made enemies because I didn’t endorse anybody. I am not the servant of a handful of rich people. I’m not the servant of a political majority. I am a servant of God. I have a Gospel that is for each and every one and anything that could taint this message, I will avoid. That has kept me on the road until today. This is my personal approach and my personal opinion. I thank God for Christian politicians. I truly thank God. I pray for them. But I as an evangelist, I have to remain neutral sothat I’m acceptable to the whole spectrum of society.

I can see the wisdom there. What advice would you give to other evangelists? What can you impart that would help them along their way?

Anyone who preaches the Gospel has true greatness in their mouth and it’s the greatest thing that we could ever speak because it is God’s eternal Word which is confirmed as we preach it by the Holy Spirit.

I would say to anyone don’t be timid. Don’t be intimidated. Keep storming the gates of hell. Jesus says unhinge them. And we will plunder hell and populate heaven as we keep preaching the Gospel and bringing those who got saved in contact with Biblebelieving churches where they can be nourished and where they themselves can become preachers of the Word of God.

I think we often don’t like to offend people, but we don’t mind to offend God. We must preach the Gospel as it is. If we preach what the apostles preach we will get what the apostles got. It is no secret. It is as simple as that. So to anyone who wants to launch out to preach the Gospel, I would say preach the cross of Christ, teach the blood of Jesus Christ, make a clear, clear call for a decision for Jesus and don’t forget to pray for the sick because this is part for the Great Commission and that is part and parcel of our job. We pray for the sick to be healed and Jesus does the healing. All glory and honor goes to Him.

Looking back over the past 35 years and all you’ve witnessed of God’s glory, what has left the greatest impression on your life? Ah, there are so many. You know I have seen how in one meeting well over 1 million people receive Jesus as their Savior and completed a decision card that they got from the counselor. The number is not an estimate. It is a proper count from these cards. But one thing I will never forget, when I left that huge crowd there were 1.6 million people – an ocean of humanity.

When I lead them into prayer of salvation, I felt as if I heard an echo from heaven. I really felt I heard an echo from heaven. And that was so profound, so awesome, so fantastic. I realized my mortal lips preached the eternal Gospel, my mortal hands build God’s eternal Kingdom, and all heaven is involved when sinner’s get saved on earth. I mean, we’ve seen fantastic manifestations of the power of God. But that, I would classify as number one.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the Body of Christ in this hour and how do we overcome them?

I do not want to use a big brush because there are always fantastic exceptions. The Church of Jesus Christ, in very many countries, has become sleepy, self-concerned, preaching a Gospel of self-affirmation instead of salvation. These are things I’m sure which don’t please the Lord. It reminds me of the parable of the 10 virgins. Five had trimmed their lamps and five had forgotten some extra oil. They all fell asleep. But soon thy will come. Behold the Bridegroom. May the Lord help us. We can rise with burning lamps to meet Jesus in the clouds of heaven. I believe it’s time for God’s people to shake up and wake up and speak up and never shut up, when called upon and even when not called upon. We preach the Gospel in season and out of season.