Catching Up to the Third World: Seven Indispensable Keys to Explosive Revival in the Western Church

By Ben R Peters

Why don’t we see miracles and revival here like they do in other countries?

This is one of the most common questions asked by Christians in the West. Finally, here are some real answers to that question, along with practical solutions to the problem. Catching Up to the Third World reveals how God is provoking the Western Church to godly jealousy, to produce a powerful revival in the “First World” nations, so that the resources of the West can be most effectively utilized in the coming global harvest. Many biblical principles are revealed in this easy-to-read manual, including:
* Confessing the sins of our spiritual fathers
* Pursuing biblical unity and divine encounters * Prophetically encouraging and activating every member of the body of Christ to their destiny and function

This book highlights seven major keys that could change the western church forever: the Hannah Key, the Leviticus Key, the Ezekiel Key, the Isaiah Key, the Parable Key, the Kingdom Key—and the Greatest Key of all!

“Ben R. Peters has written a great book on revival, which I believe could be catalytic for the next wave of a great harvest in the western world. I highly commend this book to further inspire and stir God’s saints to bring forth another Great Awakening. God’s heart truly beats throughout this book and I know that you will be blessed to read it.” ~ Dr. Ché Ahn, Senior Pastor of Harvest Rock Church

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben R Peters
• Release date: May 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458187055

Ben R Peters

Ben Peters is a prolific author of spiritually inspiring books, including both fiction and non-fiction. He has been a pastor, international seminar and conference speaker and founder of Open Heart Ministries and Kingdom Sending Center. He ministers with his wife, Brenda, and has five gifted children.

Book preview

Catching Up to the Third World

Seven Indispensable Keys to Explosive Revival in the Western Church

Ben R. Peters

© 2005 by Ben R. Peters

Author grants permission for any non-commercial reproduction to promote the Kingdom of God. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Published by

Kingdom Sending Center

P.O. Box 25.

Genoa, IL 60135

www.kingdomsendingcenter.org

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1983 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Book & cover design www.ChristianBookDesign.com

Contents

Preface

1 ~ What’s the Problem?

2 ~ The Hannah Key

3 ~ The Leviticus Key

4 ~ The Ezekiel Key

5 ~ The Isaiah Key

6 ~ The Parable Key

7 ~ The Kingdom Key

8 ~ The Greatest Key

About the Author

Books by Ben R. Peters

Preface

ISLAM is losing ground in Africa, according to a respected source. Christians are raising the dead, Muslim leaders lament. Through an explosion of the miraculous power of God, millions of souls in many African nations have found Christ in recent years in what used to be called the Dark Continent.

Many nations of Latin America have experienced ongoing revival with multitudes of signs and wonders and miracles over the last few decades. Again, the result is the conversion of millions of souls.

Highly populated nations of Asia, including Communist China, and South Korea have seen phenomenal church growth through the power of the supernatural Christ working in their midst. Hundreds of millions of souls have come to Christ in Asia in the last few decades.

In contrast, the Western Church has seen very little of this kind of revival. It’s not a lack of money, education, technology or faith preaching. Our cup is full and running over with all of these. It has to be something else. It’s a question we have heard over and over again: Why don’t we see the miracles here, like they do over there? We have also heard a lot of possible reasons or explanations, but the analysis usually comes with a deep sigh that says, It’s too bad, but of course that’s the way it is and there’s not much we can do to change the situation.

I’m sure there are many factors or reasons why the Western Church has not seen the revival that other nations have experienced, but we want to focus in this book on several often overlooked, but extremely important factors of revival. These are the keys that we in the western world must use if we hope to see what other parts of the world have already experienced, and if we want to once again take our place as leaders in presenting the gospel to the world.

Chapter One

What’s the Problem?

NOT long ago in a conference in Alberta, Canada, I watched Heidi Baker, a lady who is as Christ-like as anyone I know, as she spent the better part of an hour praying for a lady in a wheel chair, while many other Christian leaders prayed along with her. Heidi had seen many awesome miracles in Africa and other Third World Countries and was involved in continuous revival and amazing church growth, but on this particular night in Red Deer, Alberta, there was no visible evidence that the lady in the wheel chair was physically healed.

Others of us were praying for a man in a wheel chair for almost as long. Later we were told of one very serious heart condition that was miraculously healed during the conference, but for some reason we were denied the privilege of seeing a really vivid demonstration of God’s miracle power, like we had hoped for. It really was a powerful conference, with many of our favorite speakers. We experienced the presence and power of God in many ways, but as has been normal in similar situations, we were not blessed to see the more spectacular healings.

On the other hand, I was privileged to visit Rolland and Heidi Baker in Mozambique and participate in their regional conferences in Dondo and Pemba. There we witnessed deaf and dumb mutes being healed after a brief prayer. Bringing hearing to deaf ears is one of Heidi’s favorite and most frequent miracles. American team members also experienced tumors disappearing and other miracles. To be fair, not everyone prayed for in Mozambique was healed, but it was totally normal for some wonderful and obvious miracles to take place whenever the healing invitation was given.

In one service in Pemba, Heidi gave an altar call for first time decisions for Christ. This was not an outreach into a new unreached village, but a conference for the pastors and Christians. But there were enough visitors that about two hundred streamed forward to receive salvation. A couple of days later, my pastor friend, Robert Smith, and I participated in the baptism of about eight hundred people in the Indian Ocean.

One of the main speakers in these conferences, along with the Bakers and Supresa Sithole, was Dr. Guy Chevreau, a well-known Canadian minister and author, who had just written an excellent and insightful book called, Turnings. He had observed many miracles in his frequent visits to Africa and dealt in some detail with the same question as this book is asking. He eloquently teaches the need for our minds, hearts and lives to be turned in a different direction than is normal for Western Christians.

Three decades ago, I traveled to Argentina with my spiritual mentor, Elmer Burnette. In six short weeks we saw hundreds, if not thousands of miracles, while over one thousand souls came to Jesus. Within a year or two five new churches had sprung up with four of them running well over two hundred members. Those six weeks were the most glorious days of my life.

The revival there was the result of many converging factors, including what was happening in the life of my mentor, and the preparation of the people by the missionary who had invited us. But when we returned to North America, the level of power anointing dropped significantly from what we saw in South America.

In more recent times, my wife, Brenda, and I have prayed for many people in North America for healing. Whenever we hear that someone was actually healed, we get quite excited. It does happen, perhaps more than we realize, but we still see much greater fruit from our prophetic ministry. The supernatural knowledge and revelation that God has often blessed us with has brought many people to Christ and has broken off suicide, depression and sinful habits. The greatest impact though is that thousands of relatively inactive Christian soldiers have been given a sense of destiny and encouraged to become active in the army of the Lord.

But taking God’s power to the next level of the supernatural has been an uphill challenge for us. We have been deeply saddened to see many people lose their personal battles with physical diseases, such as terminal cancer, even though