God has an appointment with you

S Khumalo

We thank the Lord that He has granted us another day where we can meet again and for all the blessings on the work here at KSB.

Many of the preachers are not here, they have gone to various places to preach. Some are at our branch in Virginia. We thank the Lord for that school, Diepfontein Christian School, which is celebrating 30 years since it started. Others have gone to various branches of KSB.

We cannot stop thanking the Lord that He still draws people here. We remember that Rev Stegen said that revival is where people are drawn to Him and where He is at work. We have had guests over the past few days. There is one group from Kempton Park, from the Iron Rod ministries. They proclaim the Gospel wherever they go. They wanted to come to KSB to learn from what God has taught us here by His grace. Some were here before, but others in the group are here for the first time.

On 3 – 5 March there will be the Ministers’ Conference here at KSB.

There are also others here, you will see them as they come forward. They are the SA Singers. They will come and sing 2 songs for us. One of them is Master the tempest is raging. Indeed today is a great day because you are all with us.

Today is also a wonderful day because it is my youngest daughter’s birthday – and we thank the Lord for her. After the SA Singers we will ask the KSB Youth Choir to sing.

SA Singers

KSB Youth Choir

Dietmar Joosten

Thank you to all the choirs that sang. I am glad Sbusiso (translator) is standing next to me. We also thank the Lord that he has kept Mrs Dube who is with us today. We pray that the Lord will give you renew your strength.

I would like to address the choirs. It is written above me: “Lord, abide with us!”. There is nothing more important than that, we can preach, we can sing, but if the Lord isn’t with us, we are wasting our time. Thank you so much for those words, we will take them to heart, Lord abide with us. If He is with us and in us, He will show us the way that we should go, walk, dress. There is nothing more glorious than that. Then you don’t have to say to your brother, don’t do this or that because the Spirit of the Lord will teach him what to do.

Young people, I am so happy for what you sang before us all, these words: Lord send me. We are witnesses to these words, and we will watch you whether your life testifies to the words that you have sung.  I want to encourage you that as you serve the Lord, and it happens that you stumble on the way, get up and continue. Our enemy the devi is trying to trip you, and when you lie on the ground, he wants to keep you down there and to give up. No, call to the Lord Jesus, He will stretch out His hand and pull you up.

I encourage you, stay true to those words, I don’t mean you necessarily have to go somewhere to preach, whatever God gives you to do, may He be with you so that the world will be blessed.

God needs young people, so don’t let the thought of the money or position that you will have to give up stop you from obeying His call.

Many people have gone out to preach from here. I would like us to also pray for a group going to Paraguay this month, please don’t forget them when you pray. The words: Lord, send me, can come at a great cost, but the joy of being obedient surpasses it all. So, pray also for the group that will preach in Europe. God is starting something new, may we respond with the prayer, Lord send me.

Luke 8:1 – 3  Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.

Jesus knew what it meant to say, Send Me, My Heavenly Father.

Here we read of people who were also prepared to be sent and they walked with Jesus who went through the villages, meeting with throngs, preaching the Gospel, changing people’s lives, healing them from their sin, even delivering them from evil spirits.

When I was a young boy, I heard the Lord calling me. I heard Him say, Go and preach the Gospel. I thought, must I go to KSB and preach there? I came because I felt God telling me to do so. And from day 1 God got me preaching. Not the way I thought, I started preaching to the vegetables and trees, do you hear what I am saying? That was my beginning, and I am still doing that today. I wanted to help Rev Stegen and I found that this was how I could do it. The work has grown greatly and till today I don’t regret doing what I am doing. Can I tell you a secret? It had not been my aim to do this farming, but I learnt to be obedient to what older people advised, and I never said that I hadn’t felt the Lord calling me to do that specific thing. One day I tried the response: I will pray about this. I was driving and we were at a certain place when Rev Stegen said, “Who will do this work?” I responded with a spiritual: “I am going to pray about this”. He looked at me and said, “Dietmar, I have already prayed, you are going to do it.” Can one go against that? I couldn’t.

In the verses that we have read, we find people that were very different in character and ability, but they all with the Lord.

Some days ago, I spoke at a funeral and my theme was the same as the one of today - God’s appointment. In life if you go somewhere, you make an appointment first and you are given a time when you should come. However, God has an appointment with us anytime of the day, any day of the year. Do you realise that God has an appointment with your personally. His appointments are different to a doctor’s visit, He wants to build us up and help us.

We read in verses 2 and 3 what Christ had done for the least, for the worst of society, but not only done for them, but He used those very people that were most probably despised by people. There is no such thing in God’s Kingdom where one is too small and insignificant to be of use to Him. The ones He cannot use are those that are proud and unteachable. God resists the proud. So, there were important and unimportant people amongst Jesus’ followers.

If you seek a closer walk with Jesus, make His Word, the Bible, your most treasured possession so that you can learn from it and the Lord can speak to you through it. If other things are more important, no wonder sin wreaks havoc in your life because then you will find that you have no time to read or study God’s Word anymore.

God has an appointment with all of us. The Lord Jesus is waiting, He says, My child, I am here, are you listening?

I’d like to read you a story which touched my heart. It is about a young couple that wanted to go out and preach the Gospel. Sometimes Christians endure difficulties and trials and encounter baffling, hindering circumstances as they earnestly seek to do God’s work. The fight grows the hottest when you are determined to follow the Lord.

Barnabas Shaw and his wife experienced such difficulties. Appointed as Methodist missionaries he had hoped to serve the Lord in Ceylon.

Our forefathers, when they left Germany, thought they were going to Ethiopia, when their ship anchored there, they were told they couldn’t enter, so they came to South Africa instead.

Suddenly there was a change in plans and the Shaws were directed instead to South Africa. Take note, one’s own plans and ideas, even the way one thinks one should serve God is crossed out. When they arrived in Cape Town, the governor forbade them to preach the Gospel. They were so disappointed. They wanted so much to serve the Lord and preach as He did, but twice in a few months their high purposes and plans had been frustrated.

Now listen, maybe we would have given up or been confused, saying but where is there Lord, we would say – why is it when I want to serve Him everything seems to go wrong, but they did not stop there. With their little money they bought a yoke of oxen and a cart. Loaded up with goods, they headed for the interior.

It is sad when in tough times our knees grow weak. Who among us will say, with this little that I have I will work for the Lord, the porridge I have, I will share with my neighbours. How sad if we only want to look out for ourselves. It should end right now, today, that you say – oh Lord I am poor, I have nothing.

On the 27th day of their journey they were met by a company of Khoisan people on their way to Cape Town. These people said they were searching for a missionary who, they were told, was being sent to teach them the Word of the Great God. It is incredible that their paths crossed in that great expanse of land. The chief of the Khoisan led the Shaws another 200 miles into the interior where they established an outpost. Imagine, here were people where God had said to them, I am sending missionaries although they didn’t know what a missionary was, and they met this couple in God’s ordained place and time.

Their disappointments had really been the Hand of God overruling their plans in a divine way. Often disappointments and hardships are appointments with God in your life. And the Lord speaks to you, and He rubs you up a little bit, you only see the people who are speaking or confronting you and you don’t understand. Yet God wants to say, child, my boy, my girl, this is my appointment with you.

It reminded me of Rev Stegen. When the revival started, he had no place to establish a mission. People were coming in their numbers, and he went to the local Nkosi to ask for a piece of land. Nkosi Ntuli from Maphumulo area took him, with his indunas, and showed him the area where Vukile is today. That was the place they wanted to give to him. Rev Stegen said, I see this place, and thank you, I appreciate it, however, the Lord has shown me things that will happen in the future, that I need to do and this place will be too small. Do you see - the servant of God had a vision.

When the Nkosi Ntuli passed away, Rev Stegen was there at the grave, he assisted with the burial, something that white people never did, and that touched the people who attended the funeral.

About three years later this farm came up for sale. A family member of Rev Stegen bought it and offered his brother a piece of this farm, one day, he said, if you have money, you can pay me back. Can you see how it started, how God works? Nobody had planned it that way. May our lives be such that we can be led by God and His Spirit. Rev Stegen never dreamed that one day he would bottle water here in water factories. He didn’t know that this climate, this area, is so good for planting vegetables and trees.

Difficulties drive us to our knees. There can be disease in your life, hardships, even financial problems, but it is God’s appointment with you. Ask God what He wants to teach you. God never makes a mistake. If you are full of demons and sin, Jesus said, I am here, I will help you, but it doesn’t end there, He wants you to follow Him. Think of Mary Madgelene, here a whole verse is devoted to her, she was special because of what God had done for her.

These difficulties and hardships happen to us to get our attention, the quicker we do what God wants to teach us and mean it with all your heart – as we heard last Sunday – He comes to change our lives and even our names.

Now the Lord says, I stand at your heart’s door and I knock. If He would just stand there without knocking, you would not know He is there. Because He is knocking you know He is there. God uses someone you least expect, and not in the way you think He should come. Maybe somebody says something to you, he makes a comment, no bad intentions, but your heart reacts negatively, yet it was God’s appointment with you. God wanted to deal with things that are not pleasing to Him in your life, but because of the negativity, you have missed out, you stand at the station, but the train has left you behind.

Friends, let us examine ourselves, forget about the next person and their faults. Your sins need to be dealt with. Don’t you know that if you point your finger at someone else, that 3 fingers point back at you, showing that you are 3 times worse than that person? How does God see you? Let that be your main objective as you have your appointment with God. May we learn to be the least and never use the race card. If you still look at the colour of the skin of the next person you will be led astray.

Verse 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.

Here were women who had money, but they realised that their money could be used to help Jesus. Your life doesn’t belong to you, it is more important than this world’s money or anything else in the world and it is the best gift you can give to Jesus.

These days I received a message from someone. He wrote to me: God has spoken to me. Money and time spent shows who you serve. (The way you use your money and time reveals whom you serve.). This person said, God had an appointment with me. When I read these words, God touched me deep in my heart.

Why are you where you are, maybe on a mission station or in a church. Why do you preach the Gospel? Do you do it your way, where it is most convenient for you and your family? Are you willing to deny yourself going out to do shopping because of God’s work?

Look at the fruit of your life, what is it like? Do you ever stop and ask the Lord what His plans are for your life? Mr Shaw and his young wife met up with things which few of us would experience but look at the legacy of their work. Look at the end of Rev Stegen, he never planned that God would do what He did. Should we not also support what Christ is doing?

Rev Stegen said to me, I prayed, you go and do it. I am so happy and thankful that he could speak to me in that way. Imagine if he had said, ok Dietmar you pray and do what you think you should do. I don’t know what the result would have been. Friends, many things go wrong in our lives at such a point. I may have parents that fear God that help me and advise me, but I think I know better than my parents. When my mother speaks I backchat because I think I know better.

Jesus took His disciples, and others – maybe those least regarded, some were of high position – but He said, I want you to come with Me. It is good to know this – he who suffers most has most to give. And not suffering because you have a hard head, that is stubbornness, let’s follow the Lord with all our heart. Have an ear to hear what the Lord Jesus says to you. In Revelation it often says, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. We’ve got to cleanse ourselves, that is the most important task. It’s not what I or you preach or do, the critical thing is what God can and wants to do. That is why He took His disciples along with him for 3 years, to teach them His ways. That was His time with them.

Now we have the same Book, the same Words. Let’s consume them, that they become a part of us. Time is running out. When you look at the world today, the wars, how God’s children Israel is being attacked, and you read the Bible, you can see that the end is near. Let’s use every second we have to serve Christ. We won’t be able to do everything that must be done, He will do what He does, but we must do what we are commanded to do.

Baba Dube

We are thankful for all we heard. He who has an ear has heard.

Next Sunday there will be a wedding here. People said, Rev Stegen is not here anymore, there will be no engagements or weddings anymore. How wrong they are!  I am also thankful that my wife is here with us, that her health is improving.

The Lord Jesus went with Mary Magdelene from whom 7 demons were expelled. A white lady came and requested prayer for someone with 300 demons. She was prayed for until all 300 left her. But we don’t know, once these demons have been expelled, where they go.

Every day people are set free from demons, when they leave, we don’t know where they go. It happened once here that an Indian person came who was demon-possessed. Rev Stegen said to him, continue to confess your sins, we’ve prayed so much and the demons haven’t left you, so he continued to cleanse his heart and then he was touched and set free. There were two ladies in the hospital who had come for prayer, the demons entered into those two people. We phoned Rev Stegen and he said, I will not pray for them, they have let Satan enter them. Inform those ladies to make their lives right. They did so, they were prayed for and the evil spirits left them. I am not trying to frighten you by saying this. Satan is out to destroy all over with the evil spirits which are demons.

This amazing thing happened to Mary Magdelene. When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He revealed Himself to her. And He revealed Himself to the other Mary – who then went with them. We despise witches and witchdoctors whom the Lord has helped – but the Lord walks with them as He did with Mary. She was the one who informed the disciples that she had seen Him, that He had risen. But do you see the spirit the disciples had? They did not say – who are you to tell us these things? A woman, demons were cast out of you. No – they listened.

Many people don’t hear God speaking in a service, because they look at who is bringing the message. And they criticise Dietmar and me for shouting. As the revival began in 1966 – God is still at work, even now. People are still helped and set free by prayer.

Mark 7:20 – 23 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

Sin starts with a thought, with an evil idea. We cannot take that portion out. Jesus taught His disciples, if people say you did this and that great thing, say you did nothing. When you are haughty and raise yourself up, God will do nothing through you. Even Satan, who was an angel, was cast out of heaven because of pride. There are those who are proud in the way they walk, how they speak, you can hear the pride. If you want God to work in and through you, be nothing, then you will see God working. Even if we look at the one man where the demons were driven out and went into the pigs, he was only helped when he expressed it himself, I have evil spirits. We were helped when we said, I have a demon of anger, of stubbornness, of lust; when you bring out the root, that is when you are helped. God wants to work through you. But when you are filled with pride, whom shall He use?

The prophet Isaiah realised he was a man of unclean lips and that he lived among people of unclean lips. The miracle happened – God sent an angel who put a burning coal on his tongue. That which does not happen with man, happens with God.

Jesus can set you free, even though sin might trouble you. There are those who are troubled by evil spirits that come in the form of owls, baboons, things that visit them. Some would say – the owls are there for mice – but witchdoctors make use of them for their sorcery. People come for prayer, saying that an owl even came into the room while they were sleeping. We are sharing the miracles that God is doing, as instructed by His word. Even though you might have aborted numerous babies when you were a prostitute, the Lord can still work through you if you have repented of your sin.

Some told me they saw a mother crying on YouTube because her child was sleeping with a snake. She had chased after boys and now a snake got hold of her. Some people are visited by the tokoloshes, they are troubled by them. Poltergeists opening and closing their cupboard doors at night. Jesus is still working – you can also be set free from lesbianism and homosexuality.

Parents, you who have children who are troubled by lust, they have to cry out to the Lord, but then they should not come and sing here before us with that lust in their lives. The Lord can set them free.

Luke 11:24  “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’

Some people are controlled by lusts – flames of hell licking at them, here on earth already. You need the Gospel. What kind of Gospel is this which hasn’t cleansed or washed your heart? When your clothes are taken and washed, whether in the machine or by hand, you can see it is clean. What blood of the Lord Jesus has worked in your life, when in the service you have evil thoughts.

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Maybe you have not yet got to that point where the Lord has transformed and renewed your mind. If you have accepted the Gospel, it will transform your mind.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Why are you not transformed yet? Is this word in the Bible a lie? No, never!

The Bible is so sweet to me, better than any other book. Once Rev Stegen said this and I prayed, Oh Lord, may it be like that to me. Yes, the Word of God is sweet.

When the Gospel has done its work in your heart, things are transformed. Your neighbours and others will see that you have changed. I love that person who draws close to those who are nothing in the eyes of the world.

Carl Stegen

I want to thank the Lord – this past week it had been my prayer that Mrs Dube would get better again. I want to thank the Lord that He has answered that prayer.