Matthew 1:21
"you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”
John 1:29
"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
Acts 19:18
"Many also of those who were now believers came making full confession and thoroughly exposing their [former deceptive and evil] practices." (Amplified version)
(Many teams have gone out in these days to preach the Gospel; in Mthaleni, Doornkop, Mahlaba, Weenen, Swayimane, Tugela Ferry, Groutville, Standerton and various other areas. Rev Friedel Stegen has just arrived back from Potchefstroom, where he held meetings. Dr Peet Botha and others have gone to Cape Town. Dr Botha will speak at a Dutch Reformed conference and in various churches there. John Powys has gone to address meetings in England and Wales. Dr Albu is in America and is addressing a Mission conference in New York. Teams have returned from Angola and Mozambique where the work is growing. Rev Erlo Stegen, Friedel Stegen and other co-workers have returned from meetings in Romania, Poland, Germany and other European countries)
Various people reported back on the meetings held in these various places. The following is a summary:
"If a person doesn't bring spiritual children into this world, he or she must be spiritually dead;
there must be something wrong at the core which needs to be sorted out."
Michael's Muller's mother, one of the co-workers from Germany, reported how her family met with the Lord. She had been in Christian service, but found that she lacked the power of God in the work. One day she was invited to attend a meeting where Rev Erlo Stegen spoke. As he spoke, she knew that the message she heard was the key she was looking for. While everybody bowed their heads at the end of the meeting, she ran forward for prayer. She thoroughly confessed her sins and her life was changed forever.
The following day, as she made right with those around her (her husband and children), Michael, then eight years old, tried to comfort his mother. She replied, "a person who cannot weep properly cannot rejoice properly".
After that the Lord began to work and many young people found the Lord through her ministry and the work is continuing today.
Rev Heino Stegen reported back on the overseas meetings. In many ex-communist countries, like Romania, the old people still serve the Lord, but the youth turn to the pleasures of the world in the West. However, the meetings were well attended, especially by the youth. At some meetings up to 800 young people attended.
God has entrusted us with His precious Gospel - woe to us if we do not proclaim God's Gospel of liberation and freedom from sin to those being destroyed in the world.
In communist countries the conditions are awful, but still the Gospel is the cure. Because of the communist mentality the people have no industrious ambition, but are lazy and lethargic.
However the services were well attended and the people are hungry for the Gospel. In some churches, as we preached the Gospel basics of Jesus coming to save us from our sins, the people exclaimed that they've never heard such a message. After one such message a very old man stood up, and said he had never heard such a message in his life, although he had been in that church since he was small. (The question is, what message is preached, if it's not that Jesus came to save us from our sins.) A popular gospel these days is to accept Christ, but continue to wallow in sin. People continue to gossip, be selfish and loveless, lust, lie, etc. Such a Gospel is worthless.
Sin in a Christian's life blinds him or her not to see the obvious and they head straight for hell with their ' Christianity ' - God's truth is plain and simple - sin needs to be confessed and parted from. Those who gossip should do so no more; likewise those with grudges should confess it and part from it, etc.
In the beginning of the revival I prayed a general confession-prayer with those who came to confess their sins. They stopped me and said that they wanted to name their sins one by one as it was committed.
When you confess Christ, you do not go into your room and confess Him there behind a closed door.
Jesus gave his disciples divine authority concerning sin, saying "if you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven." - John 20:23
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Erlo Stegen (1935 - Present)
Used of God in the Zulu revival in South Africa. He helped found the Kwasizabantu Mission where a few thousand live on the mission doing work for the Lord. He shares a powerful burden for the purity of the Church and revival in the Church.Many ministers have preached in their large conventions through the years namely David Wilkerson who enjoyed greatly the mission's work. They have established over 30 other missions around the work as a work of the Spirit of God.