Raising the dead is quite a feat. More and more stories are coming out these days that make it look like a piece of cake. I encourage you, if you have the time and will, to trace these stories down, too.

But supposing they were all true, I ask you, which is the greater work, to raise a man’s body from the dead, giving him the opportunity to live on earth, mess up his life, and go to Hell, or to preach salvation, and see a man raised from spiritual death, literally born a second time, to die no more?

Jesus raises from the dead in this way everywhere the Gospel is preached. “You has He brought to life, who were dead in trespasses and sins.

Which is greater, casting out demons from a man, who may forget to fill his house back up and be overcome by demons again, or bringing a man to the point where He truly desires for Christ to enter his life, freeing him forever from Satan’s grasp, and assuring that his name will be written in Heaven?

Jesus already answered that when His own disciples were getting carried away about exorcism and losing the focus of Heaven. “Don’t rejoice,” He said, “that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven.”

What is a greater tragedy, leaving “Trophimus at Miletus, sick,” as Paul had to do once, or leaving the masses of the lost untouched by the Gospel, and therefore without a chance of being forgiven from their sins? No healing, or no forgiveness? The answer is obvious. Miracles and casting out demons, fine, but salvation from sin, totally essential. Think eternity!

The great revivals of history surely have had their manifestations, for better or worse. But the great characteristic of the true revivals was the total change of entire villages and even cities. Holiness. Right conduct. Change in behavior. Repudiation of sin. Fear of the Lord.

We hear of revival in our own day, and we go to see it. Much excitement. Great music, if one cares for the volume and speed of the songs. But where is the next-day fruit? How effective are the one-night or one-week stands in bringing people to repentance? I contend that if we are to see true revival we must go back to the true Gospel, the Gospel that confronts sin with something better than sin. That confronts the world with something better than the world. That makes a man so miserable he must find Christ or die.

Multitudes of saved, regenerated, changed men. That is the “greater works.” Not bigger miracles. Not louder sound systems. Not fonky music. Not rock stars, human personalities, human methods. Sales pitches. Rather, much, much prayer, followed by Peter-like confrontations of the masses with the truth.