I Was a Burned Out Missionary, Then Jesus Walked into my Room…
We are soul winners because of what we have experienced. During our mass evangelism crusades for so many decades in over one hundred nations, the response has been the same.Our most recent crusades and those of our daughter, Dr. LaDonna, have been the same as those conducted during our early ministry back in the forties and fifties—the same strategy, the same messages, the same hunger, the same multitudes, the same miracles, the same results.Even though we human beings come and go, the Gospel is the same in any generation when proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit.Around the world, we have proven that people of all races, religions, and creeds want to know that:
- God is real;
- Jesus Christ is presently alive; and
- the Gospel is real today.
Although people have many forms of worship, superstitions, ideologies, and religions, their spirits remain unsatisfied without Christ. They search for truth but are unable to find the peace that they yearn for. They pray in many different ways, but do not receive answers. They seek God but do not experience Him in reality.We have proven that once people are offered an opportunity to hear the Gospel in simple language and in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4), they are eager to receive Jesus Christ.In nation after nation, we have proclaimed Christ and His love. We never preach against superstitions, other religions, or against other gods. We lift up Jesus Christ and His loving power. As people learn of Him and how to receive Him into their lives, they embrace Him and become His followers, abandoning superstitions, witchcraft, and other faiths.Sometimes we have had to carry bags of charms and fetishes away from the campaign grounds and burn them, as Paul did (Acts 19:18-19). When the people receive Christ, they no longer cling to fetishism and idolatry; they no longer trust in graven images for protection from evil spirits. Jesus is enough.
Our Dilemma Among Eastern Religions
Daisy and I went to India when we were only twenty and twenty-one years of age. We did not comprehend the miracle part of Christ’s commission. He had said to go into all the world (Mark 16:15), and we had obeyed. But His words these signs shall follow them that believe (Mark 16:17) were beyond our grasp because we had not yet learned that miracle faith is simply acting on God’s word of promise.Supernatural confirmation of our preaching was not witnessed. We led a few souls to Christ, but for the most part our mission was a disheartening experience for us.When we preached or taught about Jesus Christ, Hindus kindly accepted Him in theory as another good god to worship along with their other deities—but no change resulted in their lives.Muslims reasoned: “How do you know that Jesus Christ is God’s Son or that He was raised from the dead?” They believed that He was a good man, even a prophet with some healing power, but not that He is the Savior of the world, that His blood was divine—and certainly not that He is risen from the dead.We did our best to convince the Muslims that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and that He shed His blood and died for the salvation of everyone who would believe in Him.“Can you prove those things?” they asked.“Yes, we can. Look at these Bible verses,” we said. “Listen to what they say.”“What is that book that you are reading from?” they asked.“The Bible, God’s holy word!” we replied.“Oh, no,” they retorted, “that is not God’s word. This is God’s word!” And they showed us their Koran.“What is that?” I asked.“It is the Koran, the word of God as given through His holy prophet Mohammed!” they responded.“No!” I said. “That is not God’s word. This is God’s word!” I insisted, indicating my Bible.Who was right? Which holy book contained God’s message? The Bible or the Koran? How could we know? What was the proof? Both were beautiful books. Both were bound in black leather with golden titles embossed on their covers.
Preaching Without Proof
Without miracles, there was no way that we could prove to people of other faiths that the Bible is God’s word.We felt helpless, incompetent, and embarrassed.Facing that dilemma, we made a wise decision. We returned to our country demoralized, discouraged, and broken in spirit.But we had seen the masses of the beautiful people in India, and we never stopped in our search for the solution to our problem until we had found God’s answer.We fasted and prayed. We could not forget those underprivileged millions. They needed Christ. We desired to win them. We felt compelled in our spirits to find the answer.God saw our bewilderment and began the process of revealing to us His solution to human need. We heard a remarkable woman of God, Revelation Hattie Hammond, preach a great message at the Assemblies of God camp meeting in Brooks, Oregon. Her theme: “If you ever see Jesus, you can never be the same again.”Daisy and I wept as we listened. We drove home to McMinnville, Oregon, where we were pastoring a wonderful church, wiping tears to see the road.
Jesus Appears
The next morning at six o’clock, Jesus Christ walked into our bedroom. When I saw Him, it seemed as though all physical strength left my body. I lay there as though paralyzed, unable to move a finger or a toe. Water poured from my eyes, though I was not conscious of weeping.I do not know how long I gazed into His penetrating eyes before He faded from my sight, nor how long it was before I could move from my bed onto the floor where I lay before Him, face down, until the afternoon.When I walked out of our room that day, I was a new man. I had beheld my Master.He did not represent a religion. He was Life! He was real.He became the Lord of my life that day in a way I had not known Him before.My attitude toward life and toward the ministry was transformed.Denominational leaders would no longer be the primary influence in my life.Aspirations for influence in our denomination were gone.The passion of my life was to please Jesus and to do His bidding.Following that experience, a man of God came to our city, preaching and ministering to the sick. We witnessed hundreds of conversions and instant miracles of healing.As we sat in that auditorium watching Christ minister through that humble man, ten thousand voices whirled over my head, saying, “You can do that. That’s what Jesus did. That’s what Peter and Paul did. That proves that the Bible way works today. You can do that because that’s the way they did it in the Bible.”
Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba
We turned once again to the unreached peoples of our world. The Lord visited Daisy and gave her a choice. He said to her, “I am going to take your man around the world with My Gospel. You can stay at home and you will have a fine home, your children will have the finest education, and you will lack for nothing. Or you can go with your man and have a part in the ministry.” Daisy chose to go! (See her booklet I Chose to Go.) By now we had two children, Tommy Jr., age two and a half, and LaDonna, nine months. Daisy counted the cost of international travel with two little children, without the security of home and family. Her decision was final. She desired above all to serve her Master in bringing His Gospel to people.We began in Jamaica. During thirteen weeks of ministry in Kingston, over nine thousand souls accepted Christ. Ninety totally blind people were healed. One hundred and twenty-five deaf-mutes were restored. Many hundreds of other miracles took place as the Lord worked with us, confirming His word with signs following (Mark 16:20).Next, we went to Puerto Rico. The crusades there were massive. Our message was simple. The people wanted reality. They believed on Christ and embraced Him as their savior when they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased (John 6:2).Our next crusade was in Haiti where the same results were repeated. Multitudes of people, too large for any building, filled the big compound and the adjacent roadway as we gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon us (Acts 4:33).After those triumphs in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Haiti, we went to Cuba. By that time, we realized that we were experiencing more than a spontaneous spiritual visitation in a few countries. We were recognizing a pattern—a biblical pattern.
The Caribbean Challenge
These historic mass crusades in the Caribbean area were being heralded across the world.But tradition in the church is strong, and sometimes unrelenting. Well-meaning ministers began to console us and to prepare us for inevitable failure. We were told that we must not expect such things to happen everywhere we would go.Some counseled us that God may show His power in a certain area, for a particular reason, but that we should not expect similar results in other nations.We were told to expect defeats as well as successes; that this is how God keeps us from spiritual pride that would eventually thwart our usefulness in His service.All of this sounded traditionally pessimistic to us. We continued believing that the Lord would confirm the Gospel wherever we proclaimed it. We were convinced that the great commission that Jesus gave was for every nation and for every creature. He promised confirmation unto the end of the world, and He did not mention any exceptions.We believed that any people of any nation in the whole world would believe the Gospel message if they could have the opportunity to see it confirmed by signs, wonders, and miracles.We were not prepared for failures then, and we never have been. We believe in success. Christ does not fail. He is faithful to confirm His word. The Gospel cannot fail.When we arrived in Cuba, spiritual leaders counseled us about the wisdom of balance and patience, that we should not necessarily expect great crowds in Cuba just because of the successes we had experienced elsewhere.Their logic asserted that, “Jamaica was traditionally Christian already; Puerto Rico, of course, was so influenced by the United States that religious opposition was not a factor there; in Haiti, the cultural traditions of the people had always influenced a strong tendency toward spiritism.“But here in Cuba,” they solemnly counseled us, “the people are staunchly devoted to their traditional religion and we should not anticipate the same results.”Despite such negativity, the Cuban people were just as responsive as those of the other nations had been.There was tough religious opposition, but it only tended to promote our meetings. An organized procession of one hundred religious leaders marched in the streets to dissuade the public from attending our mass crusade, but many thousands came and turned to the Lord.
Victory in Latin America
Our next mission was Venezuela. I still remember the counsel we received there: “T.L. and Daisy, it’s different here. In Cuba and in Puerto Rico, religious opposition is mild because the people are influenced by the United States. But here you are on the South American continent. You could be arrested and incarcerated, or even stoned.”But ministry in beautiful Venezuela was exactly like it had been in lovely Jamaica, in dynamic Puerto Rico, in responsive Haiti, and in wonderful Cuba. Multitudes believed on Christ and received Him into their hearts as they witnessed the miraculous confirmation of the Gospel. The people of Venezuela were no different.From Venezuela we went to Asuncion, Paraguay where thousands jammed the big ball field on the opening night. The results would have been the same as in other nations but religious opposition was raised and the authorities refused to allow the meetings to continue.So we proceeded to Santiago de Chile where we preached to multitudes at the national stadium for four weeks and terminated the crusade with a parade of people who had been healed. The parade was so long that it took over an hour to pass a single point.
Jubilation in Japan
Then we traveled to Japan. When word was received that we were contemplating crusades there, letters were rushed to us: “Don’t come here. Japan is difficult. Miracles are not for this nation. The Japanese people are only interested in academic enlightenment. They look to their ancestors as their spiritual source.”Nervous church leaders were apprehensive about us expecting miracles to confirm our preaching in Japan. They argued: “There are many healing cults among the Japanese people. Christians here do not want to be identified with these superstitions. Besides, miracles will never convince the Japanese people about Jesus Christ.”Others said, “The people of Japan are Buddhist and Shintoists. People in the western hemisphere are easy to reach. They already believe the Bible. They believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that His blood was shed for our sins. But the Japanese would never believe this. You won’t find it the same here. These people are not emotional. We can only appeal to them on intellectual and academic levels.”The pattern of success in our crusades seemed to pose a threat to the predominantly Japanese church traditions.At that time, it was unheard of to go to a non-Christian nation, to preach out in open public places, and to reap thousands of souls for Christ. Some contended that our success was the result of emotionalism, that the converts of this new mass evangelism hysteria could not be authentic and would not endure.Missionaries and church leaders had not done things that way. They had labored patiently for years, sometimes with little success. Although they may not have won so many converts, those they had won were solid and genuine. Those who claimed to receive Christ in the Osborn-style meetings could not be transformed people. These so-called converts would not endure.Daisy and I had heard all of this in India when we had been young missionaries, unable to win people to the Lord. Senior missionaries there had tried to impress us that we should not expect to convince people about Jesus. One of them had told us: “I’ve been a missionary here for five years and have never won a Hindu to Christ. That’s the way it is in India. You must learn patience.” We left India because we refused to succumb to that kind of negativity.Now, the years had passed and we had proven the power of the Gospel in many lands. But in Japan, we were once again confronted by the same pessimism that had caused us to leave India. Our evangelism success seemed to pose a threat instead of a blessing. Established missionary thinking was discounting anything that might precipitate change in instituted policies.
Buddhists and Shintoists
God wanted to show His people everywhere that there are no exceptions in Gospel evangelism, that His great commission would prove effective wherever the Gospel would be proclaimed with living faith and action.Not all church leaders in Japan were pessimistic. Some wrote, “Come and help us too. Modernism can never save the Japanese. They must see miracles and we believe that they will respond positively to the Gospel when they see it confirmed by signs and miracles!”I still recall the logic of a Baptist pastor who wrote: “Japan is full of phony healing cults. The Japanese must see the real thing. Our modern churches lack miracle power. Come and help us. You have what we need to win this vast nation for Christ.”We accepted their challenge and Japan proved to be just like Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and the nations of South and Central America. When they saw the miracles, the beautiful Japanese people screamed, wept, and repented with as much or more emotion than we had seen in other nations.We went to the religious heart of historic Japan—the famous ancient city of Kyoto. There on a large field not far from the enormous Shintoist temples of the city, thousands of enthusiastic Japanese people were spellbound by the Gospel message of Christ. Forty-four deaf-mutes claimed healing during that three-week crusade.Many remarkable miracles were wrought in Kyoto. Blind people were healed. Paralyzed and crippled people walked again. Those with incurable diseases, with fevers and other painful infirmities were made whole. God confirmed His word in miraculous ways to show the Japanese people how He loves them and wants to bless them.Then we followed with other wonderful crusades in the cities of Nagoya and Matsuyama. In each crusade, the results were the same.Those Shintoists and Buddhists acted just like the peoples of the Caribbean islands or of Latin America. Thousands believed on Christ.
Triumph in Thailand
One of our next missions was to Thailand—the strong Buddhist monarchy of Southeast Asia. Again we were advised: “This won’t be like Japan. The Japanese Buddhists have been influenced by the post-war occupation of the Americans. They are responsive to western ideas. But here in Thailand, ancient Buddhism is intrinsically woven into the social fabric of Thai culture and religion. They have never been ruled by a foreign power and are indifferent to the ideas of Western religions.”When we first ministered to those stoic Thai people, there were fewer than a dozen people in the entire country who had received an apostolic baptism of the Holy Spirit—and they were mostly Scandinavian missionaries. And even most of them (with the notable exception of one couple) were hesitant about the idea of proclaiming the Gospel out in public places. It was assumed that this would violate Thai culture.Being such a serene and sensitive people, a public crusade like we proposed would be too aggressive. It was felt that any Gospel approach in Thailand must be in keeping with their traditional poise and reserved stoicism.I am thankful that I can report that when the Thai people witnessed blind people receiving their sight, cripples walking, lepers being cleansed, and the deaf hearing again, their response was no different than it had been among the Jamaicans, the Puerto Ricans, the Haitians, the Cubans, the Latin Americans—or the Japanese. They believed the Gospel when they saw it confirmed by miracles, and they received Christ into their hearts and began to follow Him exactly as people were doing in other nations.Today, there are thousands of Spirit-filled Christians all over Thailand. Great soul winning ministries are flourishing there. National pastors are building strong and vibrant churches that are spreading the Gospel in other nations of that burgeoning part of the world.
Islamic Indonesia
After this, our next challenge was Indonesia, a nation that is the largest Muslim nation in the world.We had heard how difficult it was to persuade Islamic people to believe the Gospel and to embrace Jesus Christ as savior. The helplessness we had experienced in India where we had first gone as missionaries almost haunted us. But by the time we reached Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, things were different. We had learned to proclaim the Gospel with apostolic confirmation of signs, miracles, and wonders. We firmly believed that Indonesia would be no different than other nations had been.The first night of our evangelism crusade in Jakarta, we estimated that around 40,000 people had converged on the great field to hear what we had to say. After completing that first message about Jesus, I was impressed to do something quite unusual.I told them that I did not expect them to make a decision about Jesus Christ until He proved Himself to be alive by undeniable miracles. I expressed our feelings that a dead Christ could do them no good.I emphasized the fact that Jesus Christ was confirmed by miracles two thousand years ago (Acts 2:22) and that if He is alive today, then God would confirm this fact by doing miracles like those He performed before He was crucified.I knew that Muslims are aware of the existence of a historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth. They know that He was a good man, even a prophet with healing powers. They are aware that He was crucified. But they are persuaded that the Christian teaching of His resurrection and of His blood being shed for the remission of the sins of the world is unfounded.We learned during that great crusade in Jakarta that there is only one way to convince the Muslim world about Christ.If Jesus is alive, let Him do the miracles He did before He was killed.If He is dead, He cannot.If He is risen and unchanged today, He will.I offered to pray for those who were deaf in the audience. I explained that I would pray in Jesus’ name. “If Christ is dead, His name will have no power. If He is alive, He will do what He did in Bible days.”
The Muslim Hadji
The first person to come to the platform for prayer was a Muslim hadji about fifty-five years old, wearing a black fez, which indicated that he had been a pilgrim to the venerated Islamic city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.He had been born totally deaf in one of his ears. He explained that he had never heard a sound in that ear.I carefully witnessed to him about Jesus Christ, then told him how I would pray. I explained that God was looking down upon us. I witnessed to him that God had raised Jesus, His Son, from the dead. I explained that God wanted people to know that Christ is alive and that He would, therefore, confirm that He had raised His Son from the dead. I emphasized to the man, and to the multitude, that God would give evidence of these biblical facts by miraculously opening this ear that had never heard a sound.Then I said to the audience: “If this man does not hear when I have prayed for him in the name of Jesus, you can say that we are false witnesses of Jesus Christ and that He is not risen from the dead. But if God does answer our prayer and creates hearing in this man’s ear, then you will know that Christ is alive, because a dead Christ cannot do such a miracle.”I looked at that Muslim teacher, and then made another strange decision. I decided not even to pray for his healing but to just speak in the authority of Christ. Neither did I ask the people to bow their heads or to close their eyes. I wanted them to see everything that I did. Furthermore, I decided not to even touch his deaf ear with my hand because I wanted the people to know that there was no magical power or mystical touch involved.I spoke these words with calmness and authority: “That it may be known that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, risen from the dead according to the scriptures, and that only through His blood can anyone be saved; give life to this deaf ear so it can hear—in Jesus’ name!”
Missions with Miracles
The entire audience gasped when that hadji could hear the faintest whisper and even the ticking of Daisy’s tiny mechanical wristwatch.Thousands raised their hands that night indicating that they were convinced that Jesus Christ is alive and that they wanted to receive Him as their Savior. How different this was from the embarrassment that we had suffered several years earlier in trying to convince Muslims and Hindus in India about Christ.The Indonesians responded exactly as did the Japanese when they saw miraculous proof of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.If we take miracles out of Christianity, then all that we have left is another ceremonial religion.The Islamic people know that their prophet, Mohammed, is dead. Christian believers know that our prophet, Jesus, is alive. When that is proven by miracles, it has been my experience that people of other religions no longer adhere to their former beliefs but become eager followers of Christ who gives proof that He is risen from the dead.This is why Jesus commissioned His followers to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15) promising that supernatural signs would follow them that believe (Mark 16:17)—among all nations (Matthew 28:19) unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). He knew that miracles would always be necessary for the world to know that He is alive.When we had been in India as young missionaries, we were challenged: “Prove that your Christ lives!” We were unable to respond. So we opted to leave India rather than to acquiesce to the status quo that seemed to us to engender little more than slow but sure spiritual stagnation, without the joy of bearing fruit in our ministry. But now in Indonesia:We were different.We had been transformed.We had proven that the living Christ wants to give proof of His word.
Jesus for a Hurting World
Around the world we have seen that people want Christ when they see evidence that He is the same today as He was in Bible days. They are ready to believe when there is proof that He lives.God made all human beings in His image and likeness. He has made of one blood all nations of people for to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26). People are made to walk with God. They instinctively seek Him. This is why every unevangelized tribe or people on earth practices some kind of religious ritual or ceremony in their desperate search for a living God.The Gospel, presented directly and in simple terms—not explained, but proclaimed—reveals this living Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).People want to know the true and living God. Our task is to preach the Gospel, to witness of Christ, to tell of Him, and to confess Him everywhere—to crowds or to individuals, in public places or in private homes. People want what Bible believing Christians have. We have proven this worldwide. This is why we are soul winners.
Europe’s Response
The cynic may argue, “What you report may be true among the peoples of emerging nations, but it is not true in the modern, industrialized world!”One of our greatest crusades, where audiences numbered over a hundred thousand people nightly, was in the capital city of orthodox, traditional Holland, in the city of The Hague.When sophisticated Europeans witnessed the miracles of Christ as He faithfully confirmed His word with signs and wonders in our crusades, multiplied thousands of Hollanders and of people from other European nations received the Lord for the first time in their lives.The results have proven to be the same wherever we have proclaimed the Gospel, either in large auditoriums, out on open fields, or under the canopies of huge tents all over Europe, Great Britain, and North America.
Outbreak in Soul Winning
We first published these Seven Reasons Why We Are Soul Winners in our magazine Faith Digest that we mailed monthly for decades, free, to hundreds of thousands of Christians and Gospel ministers in well over a hundred nations.From around the world, communications poured into our offices acclaiming this series of articles as among the most challenging material on soul winning that they had read. As a result, hundreds of believers, preachers, missionaries, and national leaders recommitted themselves to minister to the unconverted with a fresh passion.Tens of thousands of Christians are taking Gospel literature, anointed digital messages, and other soul winning tools out into market places, streets, homes, jails, hospitals, etc. They are active in face-to-face evangelism, praying for the sick and leading the unconverted to Christ—sharing God’s love and life to a world in despair!This is what the first-century Church did and this is what is happening again in this century—among those who really believe what is recorded in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles. This is what we are encouraging believers to do around the world. This is why we have edited, revised, and enlarged this book on soul winning. The material it contains is producing fresh motivation in the lives of thousands of Christians worldwide.When we first published this book, we sent gift-copies to more than 125,000 pastors, missionaries, preachers, and national leaders worldwide as our investment to motivate an international renaissance of the biblical evangelism.Then we wrote the sequel to this book under the title Outside the Sanctuary, which we also circulated worldwide. (Later we combined the two books into this one enlarged and revised edition of Soul Winning).Sharing this vision on a world scale has motivated thousands of anointed and committed men and women to launch all kinds of soul winning programs. Their leadership has resulted in the reaching of multiplied millions of unreached, unconverted, and neglected people with the message of Christ who had never received the Gospel.Sharing Christ with people is the greatest opportunity on earth for believing Christians. Many soul winning organizations today offer evangelism tools and literature that are dynamic and powerful. They are available to you; let them open the door to fresh new ministries of reaching people with the Gospel witness of Christ—not only in your own area but everywhere that new possibilities arise.We are soul winners because we know that people want Christ and because we have proven that fact worldwide.The seventh reason we are soul winners—because of what we have experienced.T.L. Osborn
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