Sid: My guest by way of telephone I’m speaking to him at his home Orlando, Florida is Reinhard Bonnke. Reinhard has as many as 1.6 million people in one of his meetings. In a 5 month period recently he’s gotten over 4 million decisions for Jesus. These numbers are so large that it’s beyond comprehension. Reinhard the reason I called you and wanted to speak to you this week is I got the information on this man that died and came back to life. I have interviewed many people that have either prayed for people, or people that it’s actually happened to, but I have never had such a documented case. Tell me what happened from the beginning.
Reinhard: Yes. Well the man’s name is Daniel Ekechukwu, he’s a Nigerian pastor. On Friday he had an accident with his car the brakes failed and the car slammed into a concrete or a stone column. He was not buckled up and the steering wheel struck his chest and he was coughing blood. Blood came out of his ears, and nose, and mouth. The ambulance was there almost immediately, he was rushed to the hospital. In the hospital he came into the intensive care unit and they worked on him but he had great problems to breath. His wife came to the intensive care unit and when he saw her and had regained consciousness he said “Please take me out of this hospital and take me to another hospital.” She said “Honey if I do that you cannot travel you are very very ill. You are sick unto death.” He said “My wife if you love me take me from this hospital to the other hospital.” The other hospital was 2 hours away. They took him back into the ambulance and while they were on the road he said he felt how he was dying. They called his wife come into the back of the ambulance where he was laying and she said he saw… he told his wife “Take care of the church, take care of the children, remember to do this, look after that.” She was crying she said “I don’t want to be a widow, don’t leave me alone” and then he was gone. They arrived at the hospital, the doctor came and certified the death of this man and issued the death certificate with a note at the bottom to be transferred to the mortuary. They took to the home of Ekechukwu’s home. There was the father, there was the family, they all lamented and the wife had the little rest she was so exhausted she laid down for a little rest. She says in her half sleep her husband appeared to her and said “Don’t allow me to be buried because I will rise from the dead.” She jumped to her feet she said Hebrews 11:35 flooded her heart, “Women received their dead back by resurrection.” The body had been taken to the mortuary and the mortician had received it and had started with the process of embalming.
Sid: Now what does that mean in Africa? I know how it works in the US, what does it mean in Africa?
Reinhard: About the same as in the United States they do not remove certain organs from the corpse. They just inject chemicals because those mortuaries, and in particular this one, have no refrigeration and Nigeria is a very hot country. So to slow down the process of decay they inject certain chemicals into his veins and wrapped him in with some chemicals as well. Then put him on a slab and there he was…
Sid: Now out of curiosity he was dead, but if someone is alive and has these chemicals injected into their body could they live?
Reinhard: No! This is pure poison.
Sid: Hmm.
Reinhard: If you hadn’t been dead he would have been dead 10 times as a result of treatment so there was no way out. The father of Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu insisted that he be buried and the wife said “No I have seen a poster about Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is coming to Onitsha to Grace Cathedral to open Grace Cathedral. He is a man anointed by the Lord and the anointing around him is so powerful if I could only bring the body of my dead husband into his immediate surroundings my husband shall live.” It is that woman who had tremendous faith. If anyone on earth had to get any credit for this man to rise from the dead I would personally say it was Nneka the wife of Daniel because she fought against all odds. So she went on Sunday morning to the mortuary and she said a lie to the mortician. She said she wanted the body of her husband for burial but didn’t tell him that she wanted to drive him to Onitsha where I, Reinhard Bonnke, was preaching. So the mortician released the corpse they put it into the coffin and put it into a van, some kind of ambulance or whatever they call it, and drove to Onitsha. Now when she was about a mile from the cathedral where I was preaching she ordered the driver to stop and said “First go and find out if Bonnke has arrived if he is not there I’ll make a fool of myself,” this is what she said. So the driver came back and said “Bonnke is preaching he is there.” She said “Hurry up now is the time to go!” When they arrived with that corpse on the premises of that church they were stopped and she explained what she had come for. They said “It’s impossible the people would be scared by a coffin in the cathedral. A coffin belongs in the cemetery not in a church.”
Sid: She had to be so convinced he was going to come back to life. To lie to the mortician and now she’s being stopped from even bringing him into the church where you’re preaching.
Reinhard: Well I tell you this lady dug in her high heels…
Sid: (Chuckling)
Reinhard: …and was not to be moved. They even touched her physically trying to chase her off. She was performing, she was fighting, she was insisting she said “She had heard that God wanted to raise him from the dead and this was the place where it was supposed to be and she would absolutely would not allow for her to be chased. So some communication went from these people outside with the pastor inside behind my back. I was preaching and I saw it was going to and fro. Then this senior pastor allowed to take the corpse out of the coffin because the people will not know the difference between a dead man and unconscious man, and take him into the basement and put the corpse on the table. That’s where as far as it goes and after the meeting they can go from there straight to the cemetery.
Sid: Big men of faith (laughing).
Reinhard: (Laughing) You know sometimes that is how we all are isn’t it? Yes. So they put him down in that basement, I was preaching up there I didn’t have the shadow of a clue that there was a dead man in the building. I started to pray “In the name of Jesus!” I was praying for the sick, I was praying for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of God. While I was shouting “In the name of Jesus” suddenly the corpse started to breath, the heart started to beat. Those 2 pastors next to the corpse were screaming and they ripped off his burial shirt and somebody had the camera there and filmed it. You could see how his stomach was going up and down breathing regularly, but the body still appeared rigor mortis it couldn’t be moved. It was as they said “Like stock fish.” Then those 2 pastors…
Sid: In other words the body when I hear of rigor mortis I think of something like concrete it’s so stiff.
Reinhard: Exactly it’s like iron they said, like iron. They use stock fish if you know stock fish it’s like a plank.
Sid: Well now I do (laughing).
Reinhard: (Laughing) So then they said they decided to massage and they massaged him and all of a sudden his limbs could be moved, they massaged his neck, and tried to move his neck before they said it was like a piece of iron now it started to move. Little by little and people came down into the basement, the news spread that the corpse had started to breath. All of a sudden while the people were screaming suddenly the dead man jumped up and this pastor grabbed him from behind. The first words that he said when he came back was “Where is my notepad? Where is my notepad?” They said “There is no notepad.” He said “Where is my notepad?” So because people were thronging into the basement and oxygen became scarce they decided to take him up into the main auditorium.
Sid: Reinhard we’re out of time. Can you imagine what happened Mishpocha when the whole auditorium sees this dead man that’s been dead for 3 days, this corpse walking?
