/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/KYUXAXY2UBCIJGG37EX7VP5GEU.jpg "Luis Palau, an Oregon evangelist who built a worldwide ministry to ‘get people right with God,’ dies at 86")
“Bring your doubts.”
Therefore, he recommended a promotional poster for one of Luis Palau’s sermons, and the seekers did so.
The evangelist in Beaverton, known as ‘the hot gospel’, responded to people’s doubts with wisdom and clarity and understanding for decades, gaining thousands of followers in the process.
“The evangelist is the bridge between the world and the church, between the lost person and brings them into the position of salvation,” Palau told The Oregonian in 1985.
Palau, one of the world’s leading Christian advocates, died of cancer on Thursday. He was 86.
“With a mixture of sadness and joy that we share with you, Dad passed away early this morning,” his family said in a statement. “He died suddenly and very peacefully, just as he had hoped. This is hard news, but Luis experiences the beauty of the Lord face to face. ”
Palau, a native of Argentina, revealed in January 2018 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He suffered from what he thought was a cold on his chest “that would not go away,” his son Kevin said. He is now the leader of the Luis Palau Association, a ministry based in the Portland area but achieved worldwide.
At the time of the diagnosis, Luis Palau admitted that it was a shock. I have not been to a hospital one night, except when I broke a leg back in 1984 after the mission to London. “But he declared that he was ‘ready’ to go to heaven.
“My wish and my desire,” he once said, “is for people to get on with God, resolve the big question, and die happy knowing that they will be with Jesus.”
Luis Palau meets young people during a national congress on evangelism in 1980.
Palau was born on November 27, 1934 in Buenos Aires, the son of a real estate developer who expected Luis to either do business with him or become a lawyer.
When Luis was 10, however, his father died suddenly, leaving the family in dire financial straits. A year later, a summer camp counselor introduced Luis to evangelical Christianity one evening as they sat on a stump in the woods and thunder echoed in the air around them. Luis wrote to himself later that evening: “Feb. 12, 1947. I received Jesus Christ. ”
Palau received Jesus, but it took him several years to realize how God wanted him to spend his life. He was working at a bank in Cordoba when he heard a sermon by Billy Graham on the radio and felt called to evangelism.
“In a way, I often think the Lord had to take my father home,” he once said, “so that I would leave the country and go international to preach for millions.”
Luis Palau in 1999. (The Oregonian)
In 1960, Palau came to Portland to study at Multnomah Bible College, where he met fellow student Patricia Scofield.
Palau is attracted to Pat’s cleverness and beauty. He added: “She was dedicated to missionary work, and that’s what I’m really looking for: someone who sees the same thing as life preaching the good news.”
Luis and Pat soon married and began both their missionary work and a family. (They would raise four boys.)
At the height of his influence, in the 1970s and ’80s, Luis Palau reached millions of people through his radio sermons and worldwide tours. Many Christians consider him the natural heir of Graham, with whom Palau worked closely early in his career.
Luis Palau, photographed in his Beaverton office. (The Oregonian)
“Unlike Graham, the powerful and graceful elder-statesman of mass evangelism,” wrote The Oregonian religion writer Sura Rubenstein in 1985: familiar passion of the one good friend who calls the other to do the right thing. ”
This winning style – and his inclusive view of Christianity – helped make Palau a popular figure in his adopted home of Portland, a city known as one of the most churchless in the country.
In 1999, attendance at his two-day faith festival in Rose City was above 90,000, more than twice the turnout he expected.
Crowds like Luis Palau spoke at a festival in Portland. (The Oregonain)
“There are thousands of people in Portland who are hollow … who smile on the outside but cry on the inside,” Palau said during the event. “Many of you have been to astrologers and healers, but I’m going to introduce you to Jesus Christ, the only spiritual guide worthy of knowing.”
Sam Adams, the first openly gay mayor of Portland, spoke at one of the local faith festivals. “Regardless of our differences, we came together,” Adams said.
Throughout his life, Palau’s missionary work remained his leading passion. After receiving his cancer diagnosis, he immediately returns to his preaching.
“In many ways, I feel that the Lord envisions much more for me,” he wrote on his website shortly after the diagnosis. ‘But whatever tomorrow is, I’m totally at peace. Both me and Patricia are. Looking back, we praise the Lord. Fifty-seven years of marriage. How many places have we been. How many people have reached us with the Gospel. ”
– Douglas Perry