Introduction Jabulani Dube
We welcome everyone today, especially those who have come for the first time. Feel at home.
Today is Mother’s Day. We want to thank the mothers. Our mothers carried us for 9 months. Mothers are courageous. Some women went to the tomb trusting that someone would roll away the stone. Do we have mothers like this, who trust the Lord to roll away the stone of challenges? When the women arrived at the tomb, the angel had already rolled the stone away. Jesus can solve your problems today as well.
Dietmar Joosten
We greet everyone on this wonderful day in the name of our Lord Jesus. I have not stood in this pulpit for a long time. Sometimes things change when you least expect it.
There are parents who are troubled by their children and yet children do not understand that they have hurt their parents. When you sow seeds, you prepare your future. Make your parents happy (and how much more your heavenly father). Do not listen to peer pressure, listen to God. He has the answer. Listen to his requirements and see how your life will change and become a blessing. You are sowing seeds today for the future. What you sow you will reap.
In 1986 I accompanied the choir on a preaching tour, and we visited a university in PE where Rev Stegen took services. We sang an Afrikaans song that spoke about His love that compels us to preach the gospel. That song was sung almost every time Rev Stegen preached. Many of those students became missionaries because the love for the lost world was kindled. Many people struggle spiritually and do not make progress because there is nothing that drives them to preach. A puddle that stands still is always dirty. A flowing river is clean. Allow that love to compel you and you will see a change in your life. What drives you? Be thankful for all that you can do because one day you will be unable to do it anymore. May God’s love drive us and we will see that our life will change. You are not too young to preach. You can witness what God has given one man, what about you? We were young when we came to the mission and we wanted to preach, sing, present plays for the Lord. This helped us make progress and move forward.
On Mother’s Day we want to thank our grandmothers and mothers. Without them there is no life. Do not get upset if you are disciplined by your mother - she loves you and knows the future better than you do. Mothers know much more than you think. (They will not tell you everything either.) I pray that God will bless our wives, their children, and grandchildren. We want to thank every wife who stands with her husband without murmuring, grumbling or fault finding. We want to thank each mother who does not preach to her husband but rather helps him.
We thank God for His work. God does what He desires. Recently, I spoke to a man who had been coming here for many years. This time, God took hold of him. For three days and three nights he wrote down his sins. ‘I made my life right,’ he said. ‘I went to someone who prayed with me concerning the sins I had written down.’ This man found mercy.
When God comes, He judges the heart and sin. That is where He starts. If you still struggle and things are not as they should be, go back and ask the Lord to show you. If you do not want to confess your sins, it is because you are hiding things and you do not want to bring them to the light. We should confess our sins one to another. King David brought his sins to light. It is not a disgrace, it saves.
O you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified? 3 Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh? Galatians 3:1,3 AMCP
There was a man, before the revival, who had problems with a particular sin. Sin bewitches a person. The power of the strongest witchdoctor is nothing compared to sin. A particular sin troubled this man. He prayed in his room often for an hour or more and asked God to help him. Yet, when he went out, he committed the same sin again. He thought he had not prayed enough, so he reentered his room and prayed even more earnestly. He cried and asked the Lord to save him from this sin - but there were no results. When the revival started, he decided to go to where God had revealed himself and request Rev Stegen to pray. On the way there he was afraid that he would be sent away because he was such a bad man, but he persisted because he knew that whatever happened, he would be relieved of his burden.
When you pray in your room, the devil does not really trouble you, but when you want someone to pray with you, the devil supplies many reasons why you should not do it. All hell is let loose.
He was reminded of how well his father had been received when he came. So, he arrived and poured out his heart. It seemed as if the Lord looked at him and said, ‘What can I do for you, my child?’ This man was saved from his sin. A person who suffers and really wants to be helped, is helped. This man received life in an instant. This is a very significant story.
Paul says to the Galatians, Who has done this to you. Who has bewitched you? What has happened to you? A bewitched person criticises and finds faults with everyone - but never himself. Something stronger than the person has taken hold of him - which he himself does not even recognise. If someone came to you and said that you were bewitched, you would be highly offended. Here we find Paul saying it to the Galatians. Paul said you are foolish and silly and thoughtless and senseless. If someone said to you that you are silly, you would be highly offended. The Greek word used for these explanations means: someone without understanding; someone who cannot control himself – the lusts of the flesh, his carnal appetite takes over, his desires take control of his life; greediness – he is greedy for his own longings and desires, he yearns for what is carnal and evil. It mainly means the lusts of the flesh. Your desires. Everything has a sexual connotation. It starts by looking at porn. It makes you uncontrollable, not only with your eyes but your whole body. You think about this and then act upon it. Admit that you are bewitched and under a spell of evil, then you will be helped.
What are your eyes like, where do your eyes wander? What do they fall upon? Which boys do you follow? You are bewitched by this thing, but like this man I have told you about, come as you are. Your body burns unnaturally against what God created. You become hardheaded. Your thoughts are all over. This has bewitched you. Suddenly you have issues with your clothing. You are not content as you are. You think you are a queen and you’re a little girl of 15, 16. Ask your mother to tell you how you walk. Ask your father to watch how you walk, he will tell you the truth. Sin has bewitched you. Your own heart has bewitched you and you cannot see it. It breaks a person’s heart if a child thinks they are so important. Your father - if he’s a good father - will tell you clearly how you should conduct yourself. If you are bewitched, you will bewitch everyone around who looks at you and whose heart is not clean. A clean girl does not attract evil eyes. You can sense a clean, pure girl. Ask the Lord Jesus to help you. Remain a child of the Lord. There are so many people in the world who are dying and need help, but you might just be focused on marriage. You have nothing to your name, but you can only think of marriage. But if Jesus is in your heart those who look at you will want to be as pure as you.
The lust for things of this world bewitches many people. Fashion. A boy who has his hair cut in a certain style thinks the world of himself. Ask your grandmother what she thinks about your hairstyle. The lust for money, is another thing. You spend money on shoes and dresses. You do not give the Lord what is His. Because you love money you neglect this. You are uncontrollable. Many people who leave the mission say that they are free now. Free from what? You have no more freedom than I have, you are bound by sin. It is a lie.
It is a terrible thing to say that someone is bewitched, but it is the truth. You say you do not go to the witchdoctor; I am a Christian now. However, you are busy with sin. You are bewitched and you are bewitching others. It is unfathomable that such a thing is possible. It is possible and it does happen. People are influenced for the good or the bad by your life. Be careful with whom you associate. Be careful who lays hands on you. Paul warned Timothy not to lay hands on people too quickly. If someone lays hands on you and you are not clear about his life, the demons in him enter you (and that is especially sexual sin). Go to the one who can give you life. When God uses our Zulu brethren and you oppose that, you will never be helped, and you will enter destruction.
Disobedience. There is nothing that influences and bewitches a person like disobedience.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. 1 Samuel 15:23
The sin of disobedience is like witchcraft. If you want God to work and be blessed, start to obey - no matter your age. One day you can tell others what to do but listen now. The problem with the modern generation is that they feel more educated, but they are also more confused than ever. Be obedient. I love Rev Stegen. When I went to him, I would say suggest something, he would respond and say yes, but then say, ‘Let’s do it this way.’ However, you do not even seek advice from an older person. You think you know everything. If an older person says no, you say yes. Listen. The sin of disobedience is like witchcraft.
I am worried about children. I wonder where the parents are. What do the parents tell the children? My heart goes out to these little ones. Who teaches, helps and reprimands them? Recently I was at a particular place where there were many children. In the service, a little boy was sick and coughing. His mother just kept on covering his mouth with her hands. Who taught you to handle your child like that? That will not help the child. The child is sick. Instead, he needs a bed and a mother who will look after him. Where did you learn to do that? Who taught you that? Luckily, I did not have a mother like that. Your poor children. Parents do not teach them properly. A child should not be naughty and wild, but the parents have failed.
Another sign that a person is bewitched is that he does his work and God’s work negligently and deceitfully. When we started many years ago, we showed growth by the way we did our work, not the way we talked but rather how obedient we were. That is how we were taught. We had to wash the car – these practical things Christians have lost, just doing things around the home. If you clean or cook, it must be done carefully. Your faith is seen by what you do and how you do it. We had to do things carefully.
The Bible says cursed are people who do God’s work negligently.
The one who does the Lord’s business deceitfully is cursed, and the one who withholds his sword from bloodshed is cursed. Jeremiah 48:10.
Years ago, God showed Rev Stegen that He resists the proud. That he was fighting God, not the devil. How have you done your work? When someone reprimands you about your service, your attitude, do you respond positively? Are you serving the right way? Learn to do it straight and properly. How do you treat your teachers? Parents, how do you bring up your children? If you do not do it God’s way, you bewitch them and later they give you trouble and are wild. You do not teach them when they are small.
When it’s suppertime, a mother asks her boy, ‘Do you want to still play? Dad is at the table.’ Obviously, the boy will say that he still wants to play. Then the mother praises him about how good he is. No, the boy is a little devil. He should have come inside immediately. How do you stop this? How do you ask the Lord to change your life? Be obedient to what you have heard over the years – in the things where you think you think you always know better. A wise parent builds his house on the rock by doing what he has been told to do.
Come and listen to what Jesus says to you. When the Israelites were bitten in the wilderness and they complained, a bronze snake was raised and when they looked at the snake, which is Christ, He helped them. Sin makes you like a person who has been bitten by a snake, you are different to what you really are. The man who waited at the Pool of Bethesda was asked by Jesus, ‘What can I do for you?’ He had many excuses, but the Lord has not come to listen to those, He was helping the man and He will help you. Go and ask Him. Like the man in the story who was afraid. Whatever happens, the Lord saved him from his sin. He wanted to be free. Always remember that sin in its evil form bewitches you. Make right your life, take the antidote, otherwise that thing will grow in your life. We marvel if a witchdoctor is converted. How much more a person who is saved from being bewitched by sin. The Lord wants to change your life.
Conclusion Jabulani Dube
Thank you for all we have heard. The Galatians were bewitched by Satan. When you find yourself doing things you should not be doing, it is the result of bewitchment. This is why Paul used that language.
Dr Koch taught us that there is occult power used to make people do what they should not do. There are Christians who call themselves by the name of Christ, but their lives show they are bewitched. For example, people are bewitched by porn. What happens in your mind when you expose yourself to porn?
We have seen this happening here. People who say that they had been called to God’s work, but another spirit enters them, and compels them to leave. They have been bewitched.
There is a spirit among young people who crave marriage. A husband buries his wife while she is alive because he wishes to marry another person. That is a spirit working in that person. Ask for prayer so that you can receive help. Your parents may reprimand you and suddenly you will want to leave because it is too difficult for you. Be prayed for, because there is a spirit at work in you. Married and unmarried people are ruled by rotten, filthy things in their minds because they have been bewitched. Go and ask for prayer for the ideas that have come to you. Ask for help.
A girl once imagined that she was pursued by many men, her mind was confused that the young men had bewitched her. Even if the men were not present, she was afraid of ‘men who chased her with spears’, as she put it, yet no one else could see these men except her. Someone asked for prayer on her behalf and then she no longer saw those ‘men’. She had been bewitched.
Wherever you may be, you could be bewitched. You wake up and get dressed, your attitude is to have people notice the way you are dressed. Women want men to notice them and vice versa through their clothes and the way they walk. Naomi Bosman told me about a boy who saw ‘men with guns chasing him’. His mother received prayer and the boy was set free. He was troubled by evil spirits. You will also experience amazing things happening in your life, be prayed for.
In conclusion, I prayed for someone that the Lord would curse the evil spirits troubling this man, but his response was that he did not have evil spirits. After that the devil was let loose in his life. He did terrible things which can only be explained by evil spirits, which was confirmation that he had indeed been troubled by these spirits.
Imagine if the Galatians had responded in the same way to Paul, but they did not because they knew it was true. If your mind is rotten to the core - full of images of porn - you have evil spirits, but you say you are a Christian. You might be offended by what Mr Joosten has said. He has said what God revealed to him. Repent, Christians. If you are bewitched, Jesus will set you free and then you will become a wife who is submissive, a husband who is upright and children who are obedient to their parents.
Jesus said, ‘Get behind me Satan.’ Your response might be that you are a child of a God, not a child of Satan. You can be offended. Brethren, can you be so spiritually blind that a message enters one ear and exits the other. You can put a stone into a deep pool, crack it open but inside it is dry. People can be in a revival, but do not see God at work because they are blind. May God open our eyes that we may experience God’s love and His working.