The Working of the Holy Spirit
"Erlo, didn't you pray for revival? And now you're saying, 'I can't go on like this.' Okay, then leave it. I won't come. You asked me to come down, and now I am coming down, and want to start, but I begin at the House of God and not with the outsiders!"
Maybe you can understand now why so many people pray for revival, but so few experience it. Why is that so? The reason is that many Christians are only playing with words when they pray for revival. And when revival comes, they turn against it and become enemies of that which they prayed for. As to the reason for this, experience has taught us the following: if someone resists the working of God's Spirit, then it is only because there is sin in that person's life - and often it is fornication! There is so much filth, even in the lives of so-called children of God. That is why the Holy Scriptures teach us that judgement must begin in the House of God, in other words, in His church.
There were so many things which God had to clean up in my life, I can't recount them all. Again and again I tried to bargain with Him, to dictate how He should work among us, according to our ideas and concepts. And God answered thus: "Am I a schoolboy? I am God, and I move as I will. You cannot fit me into some pattern of yours, and unless you are prepared to accept that, don't expect me to come, for 'I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour!' I don't need an advisor to tell me what to do."
That was quite a hurdle for me, and I put up a fierce struggle until I finally got to the point where I could say, "All right God, Your will be done. Work as You like!" The next problem was that I was afraid things would get out of hand. But God is a God of order and as long as He is in charge, nothing gets out of hand.
Although I had no knowledge of it, God was also busy working on the congregation while He was working on me. He began to convict them of their sins. One would go to the other and ask for forgiveness. Husbands would reconcile themselves with their wives, and wives with their husbands. Children would say to their parents, and friends to friends, "I said evil things about you, please forgive me. - Forgive me, there was bitterness in my heart towards you. - I gossiped about you behind your back. I'm sorry, I should have come to you first." For Jesus teaches us, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone" (Matthew 18:15). If we gossip behind our brother's back, we are in danger of hell fire, just as he is because of his sin.
The Zulus, who had been calling me 'Mfundisi' until now, began calling me 'Baba' (father). A Zulu usually doesn't do that. Nobody but their own people are called 'Baba'. I marvelled that they should do that, because they couldn't know what had taken place between me and God. They suddenly treated me with greater respect than ever before and were willing to give their lives for me. Surely this was because, spiritually speaking, I had lost my life when I surrendered to the Lord. I am a witness to the fact that God's word is true: "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." That is also applicable in regard to the possibility that our very lives might be demanded of us. Some people have advised me, "You must flee. We don't want you to be killed by communists or spies." It could be that I will be the first whose life will be taken. But, even so, I will testify to the fact that "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." To me it would mean the Crown of Life to die in such a way. The greatest thing that I could do for my Lord and Master is to have my blood shed, as a small token of thanks to Him Who gave His last drop of blood for me.
Chapter 6
The Working of the Holy Spirit
The day came when God rent the heavens, as it were, and came down while we were gathered together. Suddenly we heard a noise like a great wind. I can only faintly suggest what happened and attempt to make it clear with a small example. It was similar to pressurised air escaping from an air pump, and as if that wind were blowing right through every one of us. The Spirit of God came down and nobody had to explain to anyone else, "Look, God is in our midst." Everybody was conscious of the presence of God without anybody saying a word. All I could do was to bow down and worship the God of heaven.
What happened then? The Spirit of God came over that place, over the whole area, and brought the people. The first person to come was a witch who lived seven kilometres away and was in charge of a training school for witches. God began at the very strongholds of Satan. To use the prophet Isaiah's words: "The mountains flowed down at Thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth." The fire burned as if everything were made of dry brush-wood. When I asked this witch, "What is it you want?" she answered, "I need Jesus. Can He save me? I am bound with chains of hell. Can He break these chains?"
I couldn't believe my eyes and ears! For twelve years I had tried in vain to convert witches, sometimes for
weeks at a time, and they had always claimed that their powers were a gift from God. And now, suddenly, right out of the blue, a witch stood in front of me and told me that she was sick and tired of her life, and was bound with chains of hell. "Who spoke to you?" I asked her. "Nobody," she answered. "Who preached to you?" "Nobody!" "Who invited you?" "Nobody!" "But I can't understand this. Where do you come from? What happened?" "Why do you ask me all these questions? Don't waste my time! If Jesus doesn't save me right now, I will die today and go to hell! "I had never seen the likes. I continued by asking, "Are you prepared to open your heart to the Lord Jesus and let Him come into your life?" "I am prepared to do anything." "Are you prepared to confess your sins?" "Yes!"
After she had done all that, she said, "Pray for me, that Jesus rids me of these evil spirits." And she called the spirits by name: Izizwe, Indawo, Indiki - these aren't just imaginary concepts. If a person is possessed by the spirit of Izizwe, he can speak in foreign languages which he has never heard or learnt.
I didn't know how to pray for a witch. I had tried it once before, when a possessed person came to me, and I had commanded those forces in the name of Jesus to be gone. The result was that I became the laughing stock of the devils! I couldn't understand it then. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that they even took Paul's handkerchiefs, to lay them on the possessed, and the evil spirits left. But I came to nothing and became the laughing stock of the demons. Now here I stood and was supposed to pray for a witch. I called five or six co-workers together and we sat in a circle with this woman in the middle. She was illiterate, a woman from the heart of the country, who had never worked for Europeans or English-speaking people. We sat on chairs around her and began by singing an Easter hymn with the cry of victory: He arose - He is the mighty victor - He overcame the devil - He conquered sin and death - we need not fear - He's paid the price with His own blood!
As we repeatedly sang that hymn, the woman suddenly jumped off her chair, threw herself down on her hands and knees, and began to move around like a wild animal. She looked like a tiger preparing to pounce on its victim. Her eyes had such an inconceivably terrifying expression that one of the co-workers bolted and ran out of the room in panic. We had to call him back, calm him down and tell him that we have no need to fear, since Jesus has broken all the powers of the devil. The woman then began to speak to us in English, a language she had never learnt at school. Suddenly many dogs began to bark from within her. Even people outside the door could hear it. My brother owned a large dog which came running from quite a distance to jump up against the window in search of the other dogs. Now it might be possible to imitate just one dog, but by no means an entire pack. When that was over, a herd of pigs began grunting and squealing from inside her. We then commanded the powers of darkness in the name of Jesus, whose Name is above all names, to leave. "We are three hundred strong warriors, and we won't leave this person," they cried out. That was no woman speaking! Other forces were using the voice of a human being. We prayed, "O Lord, set this person free!" Suddenly these demons made a remarkable statement. They said, "We knew of God the Father, and even of God the Son, but since the Holy Spirit has come, we are burning. His fire is too hot for us."
That reminded me of the Scripture: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). In Ephesians 6:12 it says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." For years this Scripture had been a mystery to me. How can one wrestle against spiritual forces? Now I realised that it wasn't a battle of flesh against spirit, but of God's Spirit against these spirits of darkness.
Then the first hundred demons left with much shouting and screaming, then the second hundred, and then the third hundred. Up to that moment the face of that old 'sangoma' (witch) had retained a dark and horrifying expression, but the instant the evil spirits left her, the expression on her face changed abruptly. She looked like a saint who had been living in the presence of our Lord and Master for many years. With the glory of heaven shining on her face and in her eyes, she cried, "Oh how marvellous, Jesus has set me free! Jesus has broken these chains of hell!"
After that witch came the witch doctors, then the possessed, one after the other, day after day. For two or three months we hardly had any sleep at all. Day and night we were so busy that we sometimes didn't even have time
to eat or change our clothes. The Spirit of God would literally go into the peoples' homes and bring them to us. We asked every one of them, "Who brought you here? "Nobody!" "How did you know that we were here? Who invited you?" "Nobody! "Over and over again we received the same answers, heard the same story.
"We can't explain it, but it must have been God! A power within us has driven us to come here. We can't sleep anymore, can't recover our peace of mind, all we can see are our sins!"
It was as if the walls of Jericho were bursting asunder. The possessed came and identified the spirits that were in them by name and number. Many of the things that occurred at that time we do not even talk about, because people wouldn't understand them, they would seem like fairy tales. But there is more between heaven and earth than our human mind can grasp. Such things must be experienced before we are able to comprehend what they are all about.
Hundreds of people flocked to where we were in Mapumulo. We could go out the front door of the building at any time of the day, any day of the week and there would be a hundred, maybe two hundred people standing outside. Hardened sinners would be weeping like little children. "What's the matter?" we would ask. "We are sinners!" was the answer. God's Spirit had convicted them of sin, of God's righteousness and their own unrighteousness. It was as if the Day of Judgement had dawned.
I remember one raw, heathen Zulu, a man from Msinga, who sat weeping in a room as if he had been beaten with a club. Because he was making such a noise, I went into the room to see what was going on. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "There is just one inch between me and hell - just one more inch, and I'll be in that place," he cried. Again and again we had to reassure those people and say to them, "The blood of Jesus can wash away all your sins." "You can only say that," they would answer, "because you don't know how grievously we have sinned." The conviction went so deep, that some of them couldn't believe that Jesus could forgive them. A general confession didn't suffice either. Every one of them had the urge to confess their sins individually and to call a spade a spade. Then the light broke through and they received the assurance that Jesus had forgiven their sins. Their faces shone like those of angels. They had come with tears, and they left with joy in their hearts. Their lives had been changed, and all things became new. The women returned home and their husbands declared in amazement, "What happened to you? You have become a new person! You used to wear the trousers around here, you always had the last word, and now, suddenly, you are submissive."
There was one man who ruled his house with a rod. He didn't act like a human being, but more like a wild animal. The change in his wife's life was so remarkable that he asked her in astonishment, "But what's happened to you? When I used to come home drunk, there would be a quarrel. Now you remain quiet." Instead of harshly calling her husband to account as usual, she was now friendly, brought him warm water to wash his feet and would fold back the blankets of his bed. He couldn't understand such a transformation and said to her, "But what has happened to make such a thing possible? You used to get angry, and now you don't say a word. I feel like a king. Have you been to see the Christians at Mapumulo and become a Christian? Have you accepted the white man's God?" Then he added, "If the white man's God has managed to tame you, although I couldn't accomplish that with a rod, then it must be worth something." Many years ago, a famous circus-director and lion-tamer here in South Africa declared, "Bring me any lion and I'll tame it, but my wife I cannot tame." So you can imagine how surprised a man is, when he suddenly finds his wife completely transformed. It was such a mighty testimony for the Lord Jesus that this man, whose wife had become a Christian, also came to us and got saved.
Children were also converted, and when they returned home, their parents would ask them, "Children, what has suddenly happened to you? You used to argue all the time. You grumbled at your homework and your chores, and constantly back chatted. Now you are obedient and so eager to do everything. What has changed you so much? Have you become Christians?" Then parents would come and give their lives to Jesus.
God had kindled His fire, and it spread through the valleys and the mountains, so that thousands were saved in one week, yes, even in one day. That happened among the Zulus and the Xhosas in South Africa. There is no limit to what God can do. The Lord Jesus once stood up in the midst of a crowd during the Jews' feast of tabernacles, and cried with a loud voice, in spite of the fact that the people wanted to kill Him: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." May God grant that everyone who calls himself a Christian is a real Christian, as the Scripture says. I don't believe that it is necessary to pray for revival. Revival is the result of a life according to the Scriptures, which we should be living daily. This means constantly progressing in intimate fellowship