The world is in an unprecedented mess. All the things that Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 for the end of the age are happening around us. We are being catapulted from one event to another in a never ending sequence of tragic events. This is no longer the page-turning dramas of a gripping novel. It’s for real!
This is For Real!
Through the agency of wall-to-wall television, coverage of the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia wars is creating a traumatised world, locked into a state of emotional numbness. The news is often too terrible to watch. And all of this is on the back of the worst pandemic today’s world has ever seen, without anyone knowing if or when another virus will turn the planet into a global hospital?
Moral integrity has sunk beneath a sea of atheistic secularism and anything goes, causing yet more long-term personal devastation. The anchors of an ordered world are breaking loose and the ship of society is beginning to drift on a storm of uncontrollable, global proportions.
It’s no wonder that fear is gripping the hearts of the young and the mental health resources of the nations are stretched beyond breaking point and, to cope, people are escaping into the attractive unreality of an artificial, on-line world or fall under the spell of social media influencers with many millions of followers. Meanwhile artificial intelligence (AI) is stalking the hearts and minds of mankind. Oh God help! Like the disciples on Galilee we cry out to Jesus, “Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” (Mark 4:38).
So, What Did Jesus Say?
So, what did Jesus say about all this? “See to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24:6-8).
While the world starts to panic, Scripture cries out to believers with the unchanging comfort of words that echo round the courts of Heaven, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:10-11). All is not lost! And it is in the midst of all this that Jesus says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
But, we are living in an era when open evangelism in western nations is a distant memory of the elderly. In the UK, it’s forty years since Billy Graham preached to the nation through Mission England. Many churches are declining at an ever-increasing rate, broadly in line with the declining confidence of its leaders in the Gospel and Scripture. The question Jesus posed in Luke 18:8 is becoming ever more relevant, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
And yet we read in Scripture of an end-time harvest that is waiting to be reaped. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:37). It is hard to imagine how, in the present-day secular society and multi-faith world, that anyone could reap such a harvest. It’s no longer possible to openly preach the full Gospel of Jesus Christ without a societal back-lash. So how can the lost be reached and an end-time harvest be reaped?
How Can This Be?
Come with me to the 18th June 1970 when, at four-o’clock in the morning, I was looking at the crashed remains of my Alvis Speed 20 car. It was a total wreck, but it was then that God whispered to me, “You could restore this broken car, but I can restore broken lives.” In that moment a heavenly vision for both healing and end-time evangelism was birthed in my heart. I suddenly realised that just as Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God to an unbelieving generation by healing those in need (Luke 9:11), we would soon be entering a season of history when healing would once again become a master key to evangelism.
The mission statement of the Messiah was taken from Isaiah 61:1 – Jesus came to preach good news to the poor by healing the broken-hearted and setting the captives free! And, in today’s world, nothing has changed – that is still the mission statement of Jesus and, therefore, it should be the mission statement of the church, the Body of Christ the world over.
Back in 1986, at the beginning of my ministry, I was frequently asked why it was that God was raising up the healing ministry to prominence now, and not in years gone by?. My reply was always prophetic in nature as I explained that there were times coming when the healing ministry would be critical to the Body of Christ and without it, the church would have little to offer the hurting in a broken world. Nearly forty years later those times are rapidly encroaching.
There are many, many people, for whom God’s healing will become the doorway to faith and the key to evangelism – just as it was when Jesus walked this Earth. People were attracted to Jesus and followed Him because their immediate needs were being met – people were amazed at what they saw and heard (Luke 4:36). As has been the experience of many thousands, who have come to faith around the world, through the healing retreats I started back in January 1987.
Just as sparrows will always find a bird-table on which there is food, people who are desperate will go where help can be found. Now is the time for healing to take centre stage and, as a result, there will be a small army of people, like the woman who met Jesus at the well, who went back home and told her friends and family what Jesus had done for her, causing “many more to become believers” (John 4:41).
This first stage of evangelism is often not done by prominent church evangelists, but by the sick, the hurting and the broken who have a story to tell. People like the woman at the well, the Gadarene demoniac and the formerly blind man who told the world, “Once I was blind, now I can see!” (John 9:25).
There truly is a harvest to be reaped amongst the traumatised and hurting people of today’s world – people who are locked into the brokenness caused by the experiences of life. Even as I write these words I am receiving news from Israel, of how God is bringing deep healing to traumatised people through an encounter with Yeshua, the Messiah, right now, in the midst of the war.
Many years ago, we spent hundreds of hours ministering to a very broken lady. Some people complained that it was taking too much time and that I should be paying more attention to the many others who were waiting. But, I had remembered the parable Jesus told about leaving the 99 sheep and seeking after the one that was lost. In God’s divine master plan, it was through the lessons learned from ministering to this ‘one lost sheep’, that brought healing to many thousands as God took the ministry round the world. As the church learns and practices the keys to healing, confidence in the Gospel and love for Jesus grow in leaps and bounds.
God is at work bringing hope to the hopeless and if, in my latter years, I can inspire a generation of believers to proclaim Jesus as the hope of the nations, when my time comes I will die a happy man! I am excited in my spirit by the prospect of seeing the Messiah seek out the lost and hurting and through the Body of Christ bring hope to a hopeless generation.
Jesus said that it is the Gospel of the Kingdom that must be preached in these days. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray “Your Kingdom come on earth, as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). When we bring God’s healing to those in need, we are truly bringing Heaven’s Kingdom down to Earth and, eventually, the end-time harvest of people on Earth, who have first experienced the heart of God through healing, will become the citizens of Heaven! Isn’t that what evangelism is all about?
Wonderful blog, the first three chapters summed up our world so succinctly but then you went on to proclaim such a profound message of hope. I am one of those who has benefitted so much from the ministry that God planted in your heart and I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for you now. God bless you
Alleluia and Amen!
Thank you for the your inspirational word.
Now to the hard task; how does an introvert do the business?
Maybe, by the Lord putting the people he wants me to connect with right in front of me.
Father, I am slow on the uptake, so please put the people you want me to share your good news, right, bang in front of me.
Dear Peter,
Thanks for your blog words. Yes, the world itself began to crush, many workers (healing ministries) needs.
And as you, Peter, mention, Yeshua who run after the one lost sheep, I think now, Israel is the lost sheep, and Yeshua run to find her, to hug her, to save her.
We are looking for His miracles .
Be blessed, Peter.
Michaela , from Israel.
Hello Peter,
Thank you so much for this recent post
It’s so encouraging to hear these words. These are exactly the things I feel the Lord is saying to mys also. I have been discouraged of late so these words are so timely. Love and blessings in Christ
Amen!! Thank you for your faithfulness to our Lord and Saviour and God’s calling on your life. May God continue to bless you and Fiona!
Many many thanks again Peter for your encouraging words in these dark times, God bless you richly
Thank you Peter for the reminder and challenge and the encouragement for us to be people f Hope and Healing
Thankyou for this. I loved the identification of the churches mission statement. I have always thought this to be the case.
Hi Joanne Hartley, have you thought of contacting prayer on the streets organisation. They may have something in your area that you could join. It is good to join with others who have a similar heart.
Or you could pray that God will give you opportunities to share how God has made a difference in your life.
Thanks Stuart for your helpful comment and questions. The answer is much longer than a blog response would allow. May I suggest you get a copy of my book Discover Healing and Freedom, published by Sovereign World Ltd?
Thank you Peter: great article. To see the traumatised and broken (ie everyone on the planet, though most are unaware of their own brokenness) as a mission field to be reached by bringing the Lord into their deep heart as Healer and Comforter and Shepherd first, and have them commit to follow Him later… this is the Lord’s way to reach many who will not respond to “preaching” and “apologetics”, valuable as they are.
Keep going and keep rallying the troops!
Peter. You speak of healing in a very general way. Could you define it more precisely. Physical, emotional, spiritual?? All of the above. From my experience healing is a very gradual process. There are many Christians who in fact are not healed of their affliction but rather the Lord has a greater plan. Thanks for considering my comments.
So true , agree with everything you have written . Do enjoy all that you say . Thank you .
Thank you so much Peter for your words of Wisdom. What hope they bring to my heart! When all around us seems like chaos you bring a calm within the storm and encourage us to ‘keep the faith’. I have experienced first hand what God can do to transform lives that are broken! Through the work of Ellel my daughter received healing from alcoholism and depression!
I long to see others set free as she was!! So many lives are broken and twisted by life!
I pray that God would use me to bring healing and wholeness and Gods perfect peace to those who are hurting!
Thank you so much for your encouragement. May God continue to bless you and the work of Ellel.
Greetings Peter!
It is Apparent that everything you have Experienced from The Lord; Everything you have learned, has placed you in a “Senior Position” in The Army of Jesus – for “such a time as This”! The Consequences of your work in this Capacity – WILL be Eternal!
Have a look at this link: https://chuckholton.locals.com/
You will see that God is working Miracles for the IDF in their battle against Unprecedented Evil! He is demonstrating that He is Absolutely In Control!
And I see that the YouVersion Bible App is up to almost 625 Million downloads; absolutely free, now in over 2,000 languages!
Thank you SO much for your “Postings”! We are Deeply Grateful!
Be Encouraged!! Romans 16 : 19!!
Amen very encouraging and eye-opening word God bless you with more wisdom and strength in Jesus’s Name
Amen and amen! Thankyou Peter for the sane and sound perspective on life in 2023. No matter what the news says, no matter the twists and turns of living, Almighty God is in charge, His word is true, and there is hope, healing and life in Him.
Peter…. Thank you! I was transfixed by your blog/message today. You made so much sense and you put it all so succinctly . But, most of all you message was full of hope! It is sometimes really difficult to raise your eyes to see over the gathering gloom and madness that we are faced with each and every day but the words you wrote achieved this and for me, brought back a sense of purpose and dare I say it…. Excitement!
The Kingdom has not changed.
It is just that an unevangelised world has lost the capacity to separate truth from lies and both exist on social media.
Praise God that there are so many of us, like yourself, ‘who have heard, who have seen, who’s hands have touched.’
I live daily in the expectation of divine appointments, of hearing testimonies of those who have been saved, healed and delivered, and much of the faith that I have has been nurtured by the ministry you founded. Thank you so much. I honour the man who was kind and humble enough to cook me a bowl of tripe all those years ago.
Powerful, encouraging and true! Thank you Peter!
Inspired and refreshed…. ????♥️
Thank you, we are in tumultuous times, you are helping find our way through.
Thank you for this encouragement Peter. Having received much healing from Ellel, I am pondering how the Lord may raise up healing in Scarborough, where I live, and how I might be a part of this. There are workers here equipped and keen to go out into the harvest fields here ????????
Dear Peter,
I well remember those early pioneering days. They seem so far away now, and yet the memories are so vivid. They were not easy days, but eventually the fruit came. Thank the LORD for your steadfastness, and praise God for all those who were moved further in their journey into wholeness. If one people would learn that JESUS is the only one who can heal. I feel very privileged to have been part of the team in those days.
Amen wonderful truth darkness means The light is coming. Thanks jesus for having your saints ready to go. Exciting times. Dont look at the mountains look to jesus. All ie well in kingdom. Thanks jesus for doing. We pray for lost in darkness to see light eternal in life with you jesus.