KAIROS - The season of harvest
The following story is an excerpt from the article "Kairos - The season of harvest" written by Fred Markert which appeared in the Frontlines Volume IV, Number 3, a newsletter published by Heart of God Ministries in Choctaw, OK:
We are living in one of the most incredible seasons of spiritual history ever. The Christian Church is witnessing a harvest of souls far greater than any of the apostles ever witnessed! God’s great zeal for souls is leading His Church to massive victories winning the battles for the hearts of men, women and children everywhere. Yet most Christians in the Western world are unaware of it.
In the original Greek text, the Bible uses a special word for the kind of extraordinary spiritual outpouring we are seeing around the world. This word is kairos, which means an opportune or seasonable time; a special season of harvest. Kairos is not an ordinary word. It is the word used by God in the New Testament whenever He wanted us to know that a particular event was an important moment in spiritual history.
The following reports give every indication that we may be in the midst of a kairos moment of time:
Christianity is growing three times faster than the world’s population. Every day, more than 178,000 people come into the Kingdom of God! · 32,000 new Christians in Communist China · 20,000 in Africa · 35,000 in Latin America
Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world, with a 6.9 percent growth rate, compared to 2.7 percent for Muslims, 2.2 percent for Hindus and 1.7 percent for Buddhists.
In 1900, Korea had no known born-again Christians and was considered impossible to penetrate with the Gospel. But by 1986, South Korea was 20 percent Christian, and today it is conservatively estimated at 40 percent Christian, with more than 12.5 million believers.
In 1950, China had one million believers. By 1980, there were 40 million and by 1992, more than 75 million. The Communist leaders themselves estimate that by the year 2000, there will be more than 100 million Chinese believers.
More people have come to know the Lord in Muslim Iran in the past ten years than in the previous 1,000 years combined. Thriving churches are found in almost every city and village.
Because Christian soldiers shared their faith with Muslims during the Persian Gulf War, more than 100 new churches have been planted in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. As a result of medical missionaries working among the Kurds after the war, almost the entire population of some Kurdish cities have converted to Christ.
In Myanmar (formerly Burma), 37 of the nation’s top Buddhist monks gave their hearts to the Lord at the premiere showing of the JESUS film. Confirmed reports of supernatural visions of Christ have also resulted in dramatic conversions to Christianity. In Algeria, every person in the village of Bugia became a Christian when Jesus appeared to each of them in dreams, declaring His Lordship, on the same night.
During the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991, a number of Nigerian Muslim mullahs (holy men) were praying inside the Grand Mosque, the holiest place in all of Islam, when Jesus appeared to them and declared that He was God. They converted to Christianity.
Outside Katmandu in the Hindu nation of Nepal, 200 people called the police to report seeing a man nailed to a wooden cross in the clouds above their homes. Most had never heard about Jesus, and many became Christians.
Kairos, the season of harvest is here.
Holy Spirit moves on the hearts of the Bhil people
The following report comes from the Global Prayer Digest, Oct. 9:
Yuhanna pulled her sari close, and leaned forward with an earnest look on her face. She said, "Are you sure that Jesus can deliver me from the power of evil spirits? They torment me constantly."
Her friend Pradja confidently wagged her head from side to side and said, "Oh yes, He can deliver you. I no longer live in fear. And I don't have to sacrifice to the spirits anymore now that I know that Jesus will protect me from them."
As the sun sank over the hills in remote Madhya Pradesh, India, the two women continued in earnest conversation. The exciting good news had just recently been brought to their village by Bhil converts from another town. For centuries the Bhils had worshiped ancestral spirits and Hindu deities. Sorcerers kept busy appeasing false gods through rituals of witchcraft and elaborate sacrifices.
But now there has been a fresh move of the Holy Spirit among the 8,000,000 Bhils of central India. Hundreds are coming to Christ, being delivered from the power of evil spirits, and being baptized. Many new missionaries are coming forward, and despite severe opposition, they are ministering to thousands of the Bhil people who have a hunger to know the true Creator, God.
6,500 attend opening night of Kansas City crusade
An enthusiastic crowd of 6,500 people filled downtown Municipal Auditorium last night to welcome evangelist Luis Palau to America’s heartland. Five hundred churches representing 40 denominations are participating in the Greater Kansas City Luis Palau Campaign.
"In a modern world where religious differences lead to war and devastation, pulling these people together for five days could have a lasting effect on this city long after the bumper stickers have faded," columnist Tom Jackman wrote in the Kansas City Star.
All week long Kansas City’s major radio and television stations and the Kansas City Star have featured the crusade as a top local story. KSMO-TV has broadcast Palau's live call-in television program, "Night Talk," the past three nights. Four people have prayed on the air committing their lives to Jesus Christ.
On Wednesday, Oct. 9, at
Municipal Auditorium 109 people responded to Palau's Gospel invitation.
Palau spoke to 1,200 women Thursday at a luncheon. The crusade was to continue
through Sunday, Oct. 12.
(IMB, Oct. 3) Cloaked in leafy shadows, two followers of a famous martyr meet comrades-in-arms in the rain forest. A swinging footbridge bounces dangerously underfoot as they lug equipment across a gorge to a waiting team of pack animals.
On this muggy August evening, the squad of Americans and Hondurans has a re-education mission in the mountains of Olancho, Honduras. They’ll try to implement a global strategy--one that has long-range implications.
After a 90-minute ascent to a mountain-top village, the band of revolutionaries drop backpacks full of propaganda to the ground. In a matter of minutes, a huge tarp goes up, along with a movie screen and a crude table for the projector. A generator roars to life. Nimble fingers thread film through a maze of cogs and reels.
Then the JESUS film begins. So does the rain. So do the tears.
Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionaries Sam and Rosalie Jones--Texans who live in Olanchito, Honduras--melt into the background, watching the crowd of almost 200 people.
"I couldn’t help but notice several men, with faces marked by an obviously hard life, openly weeping and wiping tears from their eyes," said Sam.
"Several accepted Christ and it was obvious that they were all deeply moved by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus," he added.
The converts joined with their village neighbors who comprise the Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) Baptist Church, one of five churches in the Jones’ off-road circuit.
All that identifies the church is the members themselves. The congregation owns no property or building.
"We’ve applied for a grant from our Honduran National Baptist Convention (through International Mission Board Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds) to buy a piece of property. Then we’ll need about $1,500 for a building built mostly of natural resources and some concrete," Sam said.
Dr. Paul Pilai is the founder and director of India Inland Mission, which plants churches among Hindus The mission also runs orphanages and a Bible College for training evangelists and pastors. Formerly a Hindu lawyer, Paul was converted when healed through an Indian Christian's prayer. During his thirty years in India, he has seen God’s mighty hand at work. Consider the following stories, as told by Dr. Pilai.
One village did not have drinking water, only salt water. We prayed for pure water and the Lord provided pure water. The whole village came to Christ.
The chief in another village became blind for three years. His eyes were opened through our laying on hands and praying. The village came to Christ.
Another village suffered from constant attacks of a tiger from the nearby forest. No police or gun men could spot it to shoot it as it came at unexpected times around midnight. Some of our team members preached the gospel in that village and went around the village seven times and claimed the protection of the village by the circle of the blood of Christ. Since then for over eight years the tiger has never returned. Before that, every week someone used to be attacked and killed. No more now.
At another place a witch doctor had cursed a man and his animals because of enmity. The man’s seven milking buffaloes stopped giving milk. Our workers rebuked the curse in the name of Jesus. Suddenly the buffaloes started giving milk. Half of the villagers came to know Christ through that.
A large gathering came to hear the gospel in another village. A militant Hindu group organized a riot against it and tried to stop the meeting. Our people started praying together in the spirit. Suddenly thunder and lightning came. The leader of the gang which attacked us became totally blinded. That stopped the riot and the meetings continued for five days. On the fifth day the leader of the riot who was blinded came forward for healing. Jesus healed him and he accepted Christ and was baptized as a believer in Christ.
In one place during the monsoon season the Lord stopped the rain for three days just in the area of our tent and surrounding places. People were amazed at this. This was at a time when all other places were flooding with rain. Even buildings were washed away. Our tent meetings went on at the top of a mountain. Many were healed, delivered from demons, and touched by the Holy Spirit. Hundreds were convicted of their sins and accepted Christ.
A fire broke out in a village where about 10,000 people lived in small huts almost wall to wall with thatched roofs and mud walls. We established a church with ten believers in that village. There was no fire engine or help available for the villagers. Smoke filled the whole air. The people could not see anything anywhere except thick smoke.
Our pastor and our believers called the whole village to stand around the village to call upon God in the name of Jesus to stop the fire. Thousands prayed. Our pastor kept shouting through the microphone to keep calling upon the name of Jesus. The fire started in the morning about 8:30 am. The smoke filled the village till five that evening. All that time people were calling upon Jesus.
Then the pastor declared that the Lord would clear the smoke and that no lives would be lost. The smoke went away. The villagers found only two huts burnt where the fire started. The other houses were not destroyed. No one was hurt. The village accepted Christ.
Reprinted with permission from Renewal Journal
Good News Briefs
· The largest crowd ever to attend a Franklin Graham Crusade in the United States filled the W.H Lyon Fairground Stadium in Sioux City Falls, S.D., on Sept. 21. The crowd of 30,200, one of the largest in the state’s history, packed the 12,500 seats and sat on the ground in the closing day of the three-day crusade. A total of 67,090 people attended the crusade from a four-state area including Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. · Missionaries Clyde and Carol Schulz had a fruitful week with a recent evangelism team in Brazil. The team divided into smaller groups and worked in eight churches. They recorded around 540 decisions, of which 220 were professions of faith. · The End Time Zion Church, one of more than 2,000 Christian churches in Madras (recently renamed Channai) in southern India, is growing quickly. It has grown to 2,000 members, 640 families and 15 daughter churches in 10 years. According to pastor David Sundermoney, 400 of the families are from non-Christian backgrounds. One of the keys to the growth are the prayer groups, led by seven women, through which many non-Christian women are saved. · David Mabanza is a very special Angolan. Following his desire to spread the gospel in his country, he has traveled more than 400 kilometers (around 260 miles) in the last 3 months. Bandits have stolen everything he owned, but that did not stop the 59-year-old Baptist evangelist trekking from village to village to preach. David has planted 69 churches since starting his travels. · A Thai couple asked evil spirits to protect their son as he grew up, but the child suffered from epilepsy. When a Thai missionary visited the village, where the gospel had never been preached, he prayed for the child. After God healed the boy, most of the villagers burned their amulets and idols and turned to Christ. · Anis Mansour, a prominent Egyptian columnist, bought a copy of the "Jesus" film and a New Testament at a Cairo book fair. He was so moved by the film that he praised it in his back-page column in Ahram, the most widely-read newspaper in the Arab world. · On September 7, a team of 23 medical professionals from the Assemblies of God’s Health Care Ministries entered Paraguay’s National Penitentiary in Tacumbu. Each morning team members were searched and documents checked before they were allowed to enter the prison gates. The prison is designed so that its 1,500 inmates are free to walk about anywhere within the prison confines, so the team members were instructed to not lag behind but to walk directly to the chapel area. "During the clinic we were able to attend to more than 650 of the inmates," reported missionary Mike Files, "and 399 of the inmates prayed with us the sinner’s prayer."
Sources: Religion Today, Joel News, Dawn Ministries, International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention
Published Weekly by Christian Word Ministries (c) 1997
A 100-year-old woman who dreamed a man would tell her about Jesus Christ became a Christian when a missionary visited her village in India. The Hindu woman in a remote village in the Tripura region had never heard of Jesus, but one night she dreamed that a man came and told her about Him.
Shortly afterward, a native missionary who was preaching in the area came to her village, according to Gospel for Asia, a missions organization. ..."I am sent by the Lord Jesus to come to your house," he told her. The woman excitedly told him of her dream and the amazed missionary immediately told her how to become a Christian. She was baptized that day and has begun sharing her faith with others in the village, the agency said. More than 20 people in the village have become Christians as a result of her testimony.
Religion News Today Copyright (c) 1997 All Rights Reserved Media Management, P.O. Box 21433, Roanoke, VA 24018 Telephone 540-989-1330