Accompanying Signs and Miracles

with Him, the living God. He wants His church to be a pure bride who radiates His glory.

Chapter 7

When God began working on spirit, soul and body of the crowds which arrived in Mapumulo, that which is reported in the Acts of the Apostles was repeated: signs and miracles occurred. We had never explicitly prayed for such things. Our prayer had merely been, "Lord, rule amongst us, for you are the Almighty God of old." Because we have experienced this ourselves, we can't understand religious people who say, "God worked such things in the first century, but not today." We testify to the fact that God is still the same today, and that He rules on His throne!

We experienced that the sick were healed, many of them without even being prayed for, simply by being there. Some of them were healed suddenly, even before the service had begun, and others the Lord touched during the service. There were people who cried out in their enthusiasm, "We'll never take medicine again! We don't need that anymore." We earnestly had to warn them against saying such a thing. How easy it is to make a vow, only to break it later. When a person is well, he might say that he's never going to take medicine again, but the devil is close by and hears it. He will then come down upon this person with all his hordes from hell and cause him to get such a headache that he finally reaches for the aspirin. In that moment he has broken his vow, and it will be held as sin against him. If God doesn't impose such a law upon us, we shouldn't either. We advised those people, "Rather say, 'If things stay the way they are, then, by God's grace, we can do without medicine.' But don't make any promises which you won't keep afterwards." The trouble is that we often make promises, and, before the sun goes down, we've forgotten about them. But God doesn't forget. On the Day of Judgement He will ask us to give account. That is why the Holy Scripture says, "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee: and it would be sin in thee" (Deuteronomy 23:21). I am mentioning this to show how the Lord was working.

From that time on, the Zulus no longer said that Christianity was the white man's religion. That was the end of that saying. They had experienced that Jesus Christ was their God too.

I remember a blind man, whose eyes had suddenly been opened, walking up and down, shaking his head and crying again and again, "Jesus is my God! He is truly my God!" Sick people would be brought in on stretchers and put on the ground. Sometimes, even before the service started, they would rise and walk around.

Often these people shake their heads and say, "We can't understand it. We heathens become Christians, but we see the Christians becoming heathens again. We heathens get dressed, and the Christians get undressed." Years ago it was difficult to differentiate among the whites between Christian and non-Christian women. Today it isn't difficult anymore, because we can even tell by the way they dress. Some of them are only half-dressed. Thus we can understand why the heathens say this.

Once a man with a huge tumour, which affected him in such a manner that he was lame from the hips down, came to one of the services. Hundreds of people were sitting on the grass around him. All of a sudden the people stood up and went to the other side without saying a word. I asked, "What's the matter?" When I got there I understood their reaction. This man's tumour had burst open and released such a terrible smell, that it was impossible to sit there any longer. The co-workers came and cleaned the wound, washed the man, and, when they had finished, he got up and walked around.

I can only give you a few examples of all the things that happened. I feel as John, who said at the end of his gospel, "And there are also many other things, which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Although several books have already been written about the revival, it seems as if they have just barely touched on all that God has done, because God has done so much more than can be written down.

As God was thus working amongst the sick, we were reminded of the girl who, in spite of our prayers and struggles, had not been healed those six years before. We prayed to God again and said, "O Lord, if that girl and her mother are still alive, couldn't you work in such a way that we meet them again?" We were therefore thrilled when we saw the mother coming into the tent with her daughter while we were holding a service in the New Hanover district. That evening, God, in His mercy, touched that girl, and she was completely healed.

It often happened that a person who was healed or converted would be a blessing for his entire surrounding area. After a few weeks we would usually be asked to come to that area to preach the gospel, and every time we

would encounter many people who were like fruit ripe for the harvest. All this happened because of one person who had been converted and then many others had been touched through him.

Once we were invited to hold a meeting out in the open. We accepted, and promised to hold a service on Tuesday at one o'clock. The Zulus aren't so particular regarding punctuality. If you fix the time for one o'clock, then you can just as well come at two. We were accustomed to things like that. But on that day we arrived at the arranged meeting place at 12:30 and already found three to four hundred people gathered there. Astonished we asked, "Are you here already? When did you arrive?" They answered, "Some of us have been here since six o'clock this morning." Of course that wasn't the time they had left their homes. Most of them had been en route for many hours. But, so great was their hunger for the gospel, that they were prepared to cover a great distance, and even wait six to seven hours before the service began. We therefore decided to begin immediately.

At that time we made the services as short as possible, because very often there was no need to hold a long sermon. They would tell us what they had to do as they had been mightily convicted of their sins and had a great desire to confess them. I therefore went into an old farmhouse to prepare a short message and said to the co-workers, "Before we pray for them, we will give them a chance to settle their affairs with God."

At this point I would like to say a few words about healing. As a rule we don't pray for healing before the persons involved have settled their spiritual lives. Divine healing always begins in the heart. The Bible teaches us in James 5:16, "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed." Healing of the soul is put first. So if one person says, "I suffer terribly from arthritis," and another complains, "I get dreadful headaches," then we say to these people, "Very well, thank you for telling us about your physical needs, but let us begin with your spiritual illnesses. How do things stand in that respect?" There are people who have anger in their lives. Anger is a terrible thing. Actually, God doesn't allow us to pray if there is anger in our lives. For this reason Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:8 that men should pray, "lifting up holy hands without wrath," without anger. So it is contrary to God's Word and Will for any man to pray if there is wrath or anger in his life. The Word of God has quite a lot to say about that. It even says that a man's prayers will be hindered if he nurses bitterness against his wife, so he might just as well spare his prayers. We are living in evil times in which everyone prays, whether his life is in order with God or not. The Lord Jesus goes so far as to say, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:23-24). We must ask ourselves whether we are lawbreakers, or whether we obey what Jesus tells us.

When people come for counselling, we tell them that physical needs are secondary, and that spiritual illnesses must be treated first. A spiritually ill person might be afflicted with irritation, anger, resentment and many other things. To be liberated from them is a thousand times more valuable than to be healed of physical ailments. In times of revival it isn't even necessary to tell people such things. They will come and say, "We are sick, but we won't worry about that! Pray for us that we may be healed spiritually." In such meetings it sometimes happened that not one person left the place without having cleansed his life and made peace with God. Sometimes the sun would go down and we had to tell the people to go home. "No," they would say, "what is the use of going home? For us that would mean gaining the whole world, but losing our souls. We want to get right with God." Very often people had to wait for several days before they could get an opportunity for counselling, but they wouldn't go home. Patiently they waited until they had a chance. "We can't carry on living in sin," we would hear them say. "We must bring them to the light. We need forgiveness of our sins." That's why we wanted to keep the services as short as possible.

As already mentioned, I was busy preparing a short message, when a co-worker suddenly came to me and said, "There's a Hindu woman outside who would like to speak to you." "But that's impossible," I answered. "These people have been waiting for so long, let her tell you what she wants and report back to me." So he went to speak to her, but she was adamant and wouldn't confide in him. The co-worker returned and explained that she would only see me. I sent him away again to let her know that I was too busy. This went on for some time, so eventually I said, "All right, I'll come. It doesn't matter if things don't go the way I like."

I found her together with her sixteen-year-old daughter, and she told me this story: "Do you see my daughter here? She has been mentally handicapped since birth, most probably due to brain damage. I've taken her to see many doctors, and they all said that she was incurable, that she would be like this till the end of her life. So I went to the Hindu temples, but even our gods couldn't help her. Two weeks ago I met a black man, a Zulu, who said to me, 'Why don't you take your daughter to Mapumulo? There are Christians there who serve the Lord Jesus. If you take her there, they'll pray to Him and He will heal your daughter.' When I heard that, I said, 'That is the God I want to serve!' The moment I said that, my daughter was healed and was in her right mind. Here she is, you can speak to her."

I greeted her daughter, I spoke to her, and she really was perfectly normal. "From now on, I want to serve your God," she said. "Our gods failed, but your God has healed me."

We should shout it from the mountain tops and proclaim it to all the world: There is no God like Jesus Christ! When will the nations acknowledge that there is no Lord but Him: the Lord of all Lords, the King of all Kings?

One of the hottest spots in South Africa is the country around Tugela Ferry. For over a hundred years a war had raged there, in which countless people were killed. The revival also soon broke out in that area. We had scheduled services there one weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the place was packed to capacity. After the services, many people stayed behind for spiritual counselling. Before the revival broke out, I usually asked the people to come forward to accept Jesus, but after the revival broke out, it proved to be unnecessary. The people stayed of their own accord. We read of the apostles that they didn't call anyone forward at Pentecost either. In Acts 2:37 it says regarding Peter's sermon, "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?'" And then they were told what to do. I don't want to say that it is wrong to call people forward to accept Jesus. If God leads that way, then one may do it.

After one of the first services at Tugela Ferry, several hundred people stayed behind and declared, "We can't go home without having made peace with God." I was very tired and said to the co-workers, "I absolutely have to lie down and sleep a bit. If there is anything you want, please come to my room." Around midnight, they came and called me, "There are still a couple of hundred people that want prayer for healing." I asked them, "Have these people been counselled and made peace with God? Have they done what James says in his letter, 'Confess your sins one to another, and then pray.'" "Yes," they answered, "we were able to speak with every one of them. But now there are still more than two hundred left who should be prayed for in particular." We knew that we couldn't pray for all those people individually, so we decided to pray for them in groups. When there were so many people, we usually took two or three percent of those seeking help, selected the most difficult cases and prayed for them individually and then for the others collectively. This time there were ten blind people there, and the co-workers asked, "Couldn't we pray for these blind people separately?" I agreed to that. As we were going through the door into their room, most of the blind people began crying, "We can see! We are healed!" So mighty was His presence there, that the Lord Jesus had already touched them before they had come into contact with a single human hand. All ten blind people were healed.

At this point I would like to add an extraordinary event, which is closely related to the healing of the ten blind people. On that Friday afternoon, a white co-worker was on his way to Tugela Ferry with his lorry, which was jam-packed with people who wanted to come to the services. Forty or fifty kilometres away from his destination he discovered a blind woman with a child standing at the edge of the road, her hand raised to try to stop the lorry. The driver pulled over and asked her what she needed.

"I have heard," said the blind lady, "that there are services being held here somewhere, and I would like to go, too. Could you please take me along?"

"I'm sorry," answered the driver, "but I haven't got any more room for you, the lorry is completely full."

Some people can't understand that there should be no more room on a vehicle, as long as there is still a small bit of space free somewhere. They don't understand or care about weight limits, but in this case the lorry was hopelessly overloaded. The brother attempted to explain the situation to this lady. When she began to weep, he thought of a possible solution.

"The only possibility is if one or two people get off voluntarily. Then you can come along."

But nobody was prepared to stay behind in that unfamiliar wilderness. They finally had to leave the old woman behind, weeping.

That was on Friday afternoon. On Saturday evening, late at night, the ten blind people received their sight at Tugela Ferry. And then a further miracle happened. On Sunday afternoon, as the white co-worker with his overloaded lorry again passed the spot where they had left the woman behind the other day, they didn't find a blind lady, but an overjoyed and radiant woman, who also could see again. Rejoicing, she proclaimed that Jesus had healed her.

"When did it happen?" "Yesterday, Saturday." "What time?" "Late at night," answered the woman.

They compared the time, and discovered that it had happened at exactly the same time the Lord had touched the other ten. The Lord had seen into the heart of that woman and healed her in His grace. Can one understand now why these people say, "There is no other God but Jesus!"

Another incident during that weekend in Tugela Ferry will remain unforgettable for all who experienced it. A girl on a stretcher had been brought to the front near the pulpit. I noticed her during the services on Friday and Saturday evening. She lay there like a corpse, immovable, with her eyes closed. Not even her eyelids flickered. She couldn't move her fingers, except for a single finger of her right hand, which could only be moved with an effort. Later I heard her tale of woe:

She had been completely paralysed for eighteen months and had been treated in five different hospitals, but the doctors could do nothing for her. Her relatives brought her back home, and took her from one witch doctor to the other. One of them used dreadful 'medicine'. He caught frogs and fried them in a pan until they were boiling hot, then put them on the girl's head, scalding her skin and hair, but the girl was not cured by this frightful 'therapy'. Finally she was brought to Tugela Ferry by her sister, who was a teacher. The co-workers told me that this eighteen-year-old girl, whose name was Anagreta, had asked that we pray for her.

"But how can we pray for her, if we don't even know her spiritual condition?" I asked them. "Has she straightened things out, made her life right and made peace with God?" "Yes," said the co-workers. "But how can she do that, she can't even speak!" I asked in amazement. "We did it by whispering into her ear, and asking her whether there was sin in her life."

At this point I must emphasise that there is no use calling upon a person to accept the Lord Jesus, if he doesn't know that he is a sinner. What's the use of trying to send a person with cancer to the doctor, if he doesn't know that he has cancer? Show him that he has cancer, and he will go to the doctor of his own accord, without being told. He will even be prepared to go to a hospital and surrender himself to the knife of a surgeon.

I didn't give in and continued to press my co-workers: "Does the girl even know that she is a sinner?" "Yes!" "How did you find that out?" "We mentioned various sins and asked Anagreta whether she had ever been disobedient to her parents, or whether she had been unfriendly, angry, unloving, or whether she had ever lied, etc. By the way she moved her eyelid, we could understand whether she meant yes or no. Finally we asked her, 'Would you like us to pray with you and ask the Lord Jesus to come into your life to take your sins away?' Again we recognised by the way she moved her eyelid that she agreed. We prayed with her, and now she would like us to pray for her physical healing."

Then we experienced how God's power was also revealed in that girl. It happened in the same night, in which hundreds of other people were prayed for. We saw how the bones of her body began to shake like the leaves of a tree when a breeze goes through them. An unseen force took hold of her, lifted her out of bed onto her feet, and she started running! In an instant the Lord Jesus had completely healed this girl.

Within a few minutes, hundreds of people had gathered there. Nobody knew where they had come from. There were no church bells ringing, no telephones. Many people who hadn't been present at the service were suddenly there, among them three ungodly men who worked at the magistrate's court in Tugela Ferry, and they asked, "Where is the girl that has been healed?" We pointed to the girl and they explained, "We wish to speak with her alone, without any Christians. Would you allow us to ask her a few questions?" We agreed, so they took Anagreta to a room and cross-examined her. After a while they brought the girl back and said to her, "The God who has healed you can kill the living and raise the dead. He can do what nobody else can do. Be faithful to Him to the end!" That was the opinion of unbelieving heathens.

The news of this event spread like wildfire throughout the entire area. For a few days it was as if the very air was charged with the presence of God. One must experience such a thing to understand what I am talking about. People would come to that place and be convicted of their sins, just by encountering the presence of the living God.

Next morning, the co-workers asked me if they could take Anagreta to the Pomeroy prison, because her father worked there. They took the Land Rover and drove there with her. When they knocked on the prison door, it was her father who opened up. Astonished, he saw the co-workers and then his daughter, who was walking towards him. At that moment he thought it might be just a ghost, and he cried, "Is it you?" "Yes, father!" He was so filled with joy at what he was seeing, that he forgot to close the prison door, and the co-workers said to him, "You'd better lock the door, or your prisoners will escape!" Then they told the happy father what had

happened.

In conclusion, let me bear witness to the fact that there is no greater power than that of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was no lie when He said that all power in heaven and on earth was given unto Him. That is what he called out to His disciples before His ascension into heaven. What happened then? Some worshipped Him, but others doubted! It is difficult to believe that all power is given unto Him, but it says explicitly in Matthew 28:18, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." For this reason His disciples are able to carry out His command, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." What a God and what a Saviour! May God grant that our lives do not bring dishonour to His name, but are such that people may recognise that the Word of God is the Truth!

Epilogue

Over 32 years have passed since the beginning of the revival in Mapumulo and yet the rivers of living water are still flowing, indeed, they have constantly risen. The Word of God, from which this mighty revival was born, continues to spread and is going forth in power locally and internationally.

The little Zulu congregation has become a large mission with headquarters at Kwasizabantu (meaning: the place where people find help) - not far from Mapumulo. Countless people continue to seek and find help for spirit, soul and body. Since the revival began, there hasn't been a day on which people haven't been convicted of sin, converted and found a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The mission, though it has buildings to house about 4,500 people, constantly has the problem of too little accommodation because of the constant flood of people seeking the Lord. Hundreds, often thousands, gather for daily services. Not only locals come for help but people from all over South Africa and from other countries and continents as well. One visiting minister remarked that it is like the first Pentecost. When asked what he was trying to say he declared, "I went around counting the people's different nationalities and arrived at 14 languages - and that at a single service!"

By God's gracious guidance and miraculous provision an auditorium has been built to seat 10,000. Besides regular Sunday meetings this massive structure is also used for special conferences for youth, ministers, etc.

The revival centre now has about 140 out-stations. Some of these out-stations have become mission centres for their local areas. At Tugela Ferry, for instance, Pastor Barney Mabaso heads a mission work with 28 full-time co-workers, a school and a number of community development projects.

Erlo Stegen is assisted by a team of over 130 co-workers and about 150 temporary helpers at Kwasizabantu. Teams are constantly invited to preach at schools, youth groups and to many different denominations.

Although Kwasizabantu mission is not a church-planting ministry, (if people are blessed, they are encouraged to return to their own denominations to shine for the Lord,) there are a number of groups in many countries officially associated with the ministry. Centres have been bought or built in Germany, France, Rumania, Switzerland, the Netherlands and elsewhere and are run in fellowship with Kwasizabantu brethren.

Since 1986 an immensely successful private Christian educational institution, Domino Servite School, has been training children from grade one through to grade 12. Over 500 children attend this school at the mission and most of them are boarders because of the distance which many of them have to travel. Besides DSS there are a number of other educational projects at the mission, including:* Cedar College of Education - a private Christian college with a four-year course to train teachers. It is accredited by Potchefstroom University of Higher Christian Education.* Thabitha Adult School - a centre for training illiterate adults to read and write and for giving further education.* A University of South Africa examination centre - for those students and members of the local community who are studying with this correspondence university.

Over 20 other projects are being run to generate funds. Kwasizabantu mission has a principle not to solicit funds or send out letters appealing for donations. The 340 hectares of land are used for intensive farming for use at the mission and to sell. Some of the projects include:- a green house project of a huge hothouse and plastic tunnels produces vegetables of the highest quality.- Kiwi vineyards produce fruit for local and international markets.- a printing press to print locally produced pamphlets, newsletters and books.- a jam factory which turns out tens of thousands of homemade jams and pickles for mission use and for sale.- a bakery which bakes a minimum of 400 loaves a day and which sells bread and confectionery.- a dairy and yoghurt production plant. Yoghurt is sold to shops, hospitals and airline companies.- a water factory (Ekhamanzi) which produces bottled water and juice for the South African and international market.

All this is to the honour and glory of Jesus Christ, Who is working so mightily in His resurrection power in spite of the fact that there are times of great opposition, negative assessments, misinterpretations, and sometimes defamations (according to Matt 5:11). This should come as no surprise, as wherever God is at work the devil is also there to do his dirty counter-work. He is always upset when his prey is snatched from him and his kingdom interfered with. Erlo Stegen and his fellow co-workers are determined, by the grace of God, to stand on the principles of the Bible alone despite opposition or praise.

Let the godly reader be inspired to intercede for this precious work of God that it might continue to go forward in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The sceptics we challenge with words of Philip to Nathaniel: "Come and see!"(April 1998)

Published by Kwasizabantu Mission, Private Bag 252, Kranskop 3268, South Africa E-Mail: [email protected]

Printed by: Khanya Press, Private Bag 250, Kranskop 3268, ISBN 1-875026-17-7

Note This newly edited text is based on the four original sermons which were recorded on cassettes in English. A few passages have been taken from German recordings.

This new edition is accompanied by our prayers with the wish that the mighty deeds of the Holy Spirit in the revival at Kwasizabantu may be revealed to the reader. May this publication serve to glorify the One Name which is above all other names!

A number of books have also been written on the revival at Kwasizabantu by Kurt E Koch. These are mostly in German. To enquire about these books, write to:

Khanya Press Private Bag 250 Kranskop 3550 RSA

Tel: (032) 481-2512

Fax: (032) 481-2507

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