Come Let Us Build — Erlo Stegen

We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity which you grant us, and for keeping us till this present moment. Many, O many, Lord, have passed on and have died. Please quieten our hearts and open our ears to hear properly what you have to say.

Send your Holy Spirit to lead us into all the truth.

Lord, we have heard your child share with us how attentively we should listen to what you have to say.

Just as children would listen if the inheritance of the will of their father is being read out to them.

Amen. Nehemiah 2 verse 17.

Rebuilding the Ruined Walls of Africa

Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach. We are in great distress in our country and through the whole of Africa.

The walls are broken, the gates are burned.

We are in great distress in our country and through the whole of Africa. We are in great distress in our country and through the whole of Africa. We are in great distress in our country and through the whole of Africa.

We are in great distress in our country and through the whole of Africa.

There are some in China, some in Russia, places like that, sorry, in India, who say Africa is ours. They are already looking beyond their borders in this direction because they can see what is happening, the devastation.

Also, while whites are emigrating, there are people who are ready to move in. And I am determined to speak the utter truth. I have said, pray to the Lord, Lord let my lips rather turn into dust, to mud, than that I should speak untruths.

I have said, pray to the Lord, Lord let my lips rather turn into dust, than that I should speak untruths.

I have said, pray to the Lord, Lord let my lips rather turn into dust, than that I should speak untruths.

I have said, pray to the Lord, Lord let my lips rather turn into dust, than that I should speak untruths.

I have said, pray to the Lord, Lord let my lips rather turn into dust, than that I should speak untruths. Let us no longer be a disgrace to the world. Regarding that dreaded disease referred to just by three letters, it is something that is where Africa leads the world by miles.

Sexual Immorality, AIDS, and the Consequences of Sin

Go to the Indian population and see, are they dying at this rate through AIDS? And they will speak straight, if you try and strike up a relationship with them, they will say, hey I am not your kind. So girls, what are you made of, if you just allow yourself to be abused, you just give yourself up to anybody, you don't know where they come from, where they are going to, but you give them a ride.

While they take you for a ride, it is a known fact that lorry drivers, even from as far as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they drive right down to our ports and they pick up girls along the way, like the tolls along the way near Escort.

Then at the next toll, they will drop them and pick up more, and so this disease is known as a disease on wheels. From one city to the other, where they can see girls standing along prostitutes selling themselves.

The walls indeed lie waste and the gates are burned and there is utter destruction. And anybody walks in and out as they please, but as the Zulu proverb says, you just fly away and do your thing, say I am just going to live my life well, you will bear the consequences later.

Maybe it will only dawn upon you when you lie wasting away, when you are just skin and bone. Some will only wake up when it is the day of that blowing smoke from the pit and when the books are opened and all their works are read out before heaven and earth.

Our creator, the Lord of hosts, must be feared. Now maybe you treat your parents like dirt, but don't do the same to the most high. And how disgraceful if you find the older generation also involved in shameful promiscuity.

I don't say that you should respect people like that and listen to them. And it is known that there is terrible sexual abuse by men within families, uncles, brothers, fathers, who abuse the children, it is an awful thing.

Building With Materials That Will Endure

I will tell you a story about a young man who built badly, because remember this theme is about building.

Some build well, some don't. In the letter to the Corinthians, God speaks how some build with wood, hay, stubble, others with precious materials, but everything will be revealed by fire on that day. Let me tell you about a young white man who built with the cheapest and frailest of materials.

His name was Yanni. He was a constructionist, but didn't build properly.

I think it is 4, verse 23.

Guarding the Heart With Diligence

I want to look at a text, I think it is somewhere around Proverbs 4, could be verse 23. I remember a time back when the province still held prayer meetings and they asked me to speak. This was a text I used where it says here in Proverbs 4, verse 23, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

Now, Yanni did not keep his heart, he was certainly not diligent. Much is spoken about poverty and there are some who are not locked into poverty just because of circumstances. But because they are bone lazy.

And no government effort will ever succeed to create wealth and prosperity in a nation of people who are determined to be lazy. Then wealth just drifts away. Fire will just burn it up as it does the chaff of maize.

Or that the fire going through sugar cane. It is a French word where they speak about the leaves, the dead leaves of the sugar cane and that is burnt called the fire and they burn that up and it burns very quickly.

The Bible says he who does not work ought not eat. Now this Yanni, an African young man was lazy by nature. At school he would make a nuisance of himself while the teacher was trying to teach and the other children were trying to learn.

He would be chatting and just causing a disturbance. He was trying to show the others that he was the main O and that he is not the lackey of the teacher. He would pinch others and cause them distress.

Homework was something which he just avoided. And so his marks were bottom of the list. He started drinking alcohol and smoking whilst still at school. And he would boast about it. He would proudly tell the others about his achievements with these things.

He did not know that it was something, he did not realize that it was something bad but he thought he boasted in his shame. He quickly dropped out of school. He quickly gravitated towards street gangs.

Sitting on corners, busy smoking and drinking and going out to steal, that was his life. Well when he was a bit older he got married. Now the white people do not have much trouble with it because they do not pay dowry or lobola.

The customers, just that you ask permission from the parents of the girl, if they agree, fine. If he has got enough money to buy a ring, fine. If he does not, well they go ahead anyway. And so he got married.

But he had no house, had no money. Neither was he forward thinking regarding at least putting some money aside for his future, for his family and his children. No, that was completely out of his mind.

He just was driven by the lust of the flesh and got married. If he did get hold of some money, When he would get a little bit of money, he would ignore his family. He would go to the local shop and buy alcohol and cigarettes and share things with his pals.

Not with his family. His poor wife suffered greatly. She was miserable. She did not have enough money for salt or the very basic necessities. She would have to go and ask neighbours and go and ask if she could get little jobs with the next door neighbours to get some money.

She would have to go and ask neighbours and go and ask if she could get little jobs with the next door neighbours to get some money. She would have to go and ask neighbours and go and ask if she could get little jobs with the next door neighbours to get some money.

She would have to go and ask neighbours and go and ask if she could get little jobs with the next door neighbours to get some money. She would have to go and ask neighbours and go and ask if she could get little jobs with the next door neighbours to get some money.

The Danger of Infatuation and Foolish Marriage Decisions

Remember, it's better to sleep in bed at night, not to be chatting to your pals, than to be asleep in the service. Now it so happened that his wife, Morrie, was a very good and diligent girl.

Now it so happened that his wife, Morrie, was a very good and diligent girl.

I don't know why Morrie got herself married to this guy. She should have had more discernment, but that's what it's like when girls are swept off their feet and infatuated, they don't ask any questions and they just rush headlong into stupid decisions.

A certain wiser girl had a young man coming and trying to woo her and she wised up to him. Remember, there's no one who can lie like a young man who's trying to woo you. He'll promise you the earth, he'll say he'll take you on a plane, world trip, but after that, he gives you a kick.

All he wants is to get you.

That's what it's like when girls are swept off their feet and infatuated, they don't ask any questions and they just rush headlong into stupid decisions.

I was also quite glad because I don't own a house, the one I stay in is just mission property, but nothing came of it, but later on when he was questioned about it, he said, well, when a young man is wooing a girl, does he tell her everything?

Does he tell her the truth? Of course he doesn't. He says, but I got you, can you vote for me? Yes, he got them. And then they say, he's very wise and clever.

And indeed, he was clever, he got them. So when a young man comes and promises you, girl, all the things that he's going to buy you and the special fan, stove and whatever, just don't believe him. But Yanni got hold of Mari and married her.

I've got a number of daughters, I've pre-warned them and said, look, with your sense that you've got, don't just be swept off your feet, pray and seek God's will about marriage. Just accept offers of engagement, yes, yes, let it be a no one day.

But some become too desperate. Remember I told the story of that young lady getting into her late twenties, early thirties, she was now extremely troubled because she wasn't married yet. One day she was so distressed.

She was sitting outside when it was very dark at night and she knelt under a tree, praying earnestly, praying aloud, saying, Oh God, please, you can see I'm getting old now. And perhaps even towards the time when I can't have children, I need a husband.

Please give me a husband. Let me get married, Lord. She, like some, have the practice of psyching themselves up in prayer, where they build up a crescendo of volume and they think that by sheer volume, it must appeal to God.

And it appeals to others who will say, Amen. And they think it's the spirit. They fail to discern between the soul and the spirit. She got to the fence. Now she as she reached emotional heights in her prayer, she didn't know that there was an owl sitting up there sleepily, like some people do in services, an owl does that.

Now it was up there and it got a fright when she was praying so loudly, it got a fright and said, whoo, whoo. And she thought it was the Lord responding. She said, Lord, anybody, just anybody. Don't make that your first goal.

Girls, ladies, don't let that obsess you. Monkeys get married too. Don't be one that follows around and you're always after the boys or the men. If I see such a lady, I'll say, if I need you, I will speak, but don't follow me around.

I'll come to you. You needn't come to me.

We are created in the image of God, not in the image of animals. So this Maori got married to this washout of a man. And then one day, a married couple, a white couple came to Maori, she had worked for them before she was married, she had been working for them.

She was loved by them, they regarded her with much affection because she was very diligent and very good to them and they paid her well because they were rich people too. They came to visit her to see how it was with her after marriage.

They were heartbroken at what they saw. There was nothing in the house, there was nothing in the pantry. As the husband and wife chatted on the way back, they said, can't we try and do something about the situation, maybe offer her a job?

And so Maori got a job with them. Maori became the breadwinner of her home. At the end of the month, her husband would demand the money and say, where is your salary? And he would go and squander it. He would say, you are so keen to get a man, to get your Adam, but you will experience suffering if you go that route.

Then that couple suggested, how about we offer a job to Yanni? They said to her, well speak to my husband about it. They said to her, you tell your husband about it. And she went home, she was delighted.

She said, my husband, Yanni, they are offering you a job as well.

So Yanni accepted the job, but his heart wasn't in it.

He would just be laid back, still hanging around with his pals. It was evident that his heart wasn't in his work. Now, Maori though was thoroughly diligent. She kept her little home clean, sparkling. You could eat food off the floor, so clean it was.

Yanni’s Corruption and the Illusion of Success

But that couple that were trying to support her, they were increasingly distressed. They said, can't we do something else to help her? Then the boss called Yanni and said, come along. Put him into his car.

Now this man was so wealthy, he had a beautiful home in the city, and he had a farm outside, and he took Yanni into the hills and said, look Yanni, this is my property. I would like to build a beautiful home here.

I'm going overseas with my wife for an extended holiday, many months, and I want you to oversee the building of my house here. He pulled out a big piece of paper rolled up. It was the blueprint of the home.

He said, Yanni, can you oversee this? I'd love to return back from our holiday.

He said, Yanni, can you oversee this? I'd love to return back from our holiday with you having finished the home.

Yanni said, of course I can do it. It's no problem. Easy. And the man said, but Yanni, I want this to be built with the finest quality material. For instance, I want those face bricks that have that yellowish shine to it, those very expensive ones.

And I want you to put in the best windows. And on the floor I want you to put the best boarding. And the best wood. And I want the doors to be of the highest quality. And so Yanni said, yes sir, no problem.

I'll do it. But in his thoughts already, he was starting to think ahead of this foolish boss. He said to himself, I'm going to really fix this man. And the man said, Yanni, I'm also going to pay you very well.

And I'm going to give you half your salary now. When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%. He said, yes sir. And so the gentleman went off with his wife on a trip, on a boat, on an international ship cruise.

And the man said, Yanni, I'm going to give you half your salary now. When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%. And the man said, Yanni, I'm going to give you half your salary now.

When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%. And so the man said, Yanni, I'm going to give you half your salary now. When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%.

And so the gentleman went off with his wife on a trip, on an international ship cruise. And the man said, Yanni, I'm going to give you half your salary now. When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%.

By going for minimum, he siphoned off funds for himself. He wouldn't get the correct amount of cement for the mixture or for the reinforcing. And as a side business, he would sell some of those products to his friends.

And so he was able to pick up a lot of friends. Because they smelt money, he was able to buy them more alcohol and drugs and dacha and all sorts of things. And he would go around with them. He was like a piece of dung attracting green flies.

In the mornings, he would have hangovers. He would have hangovers in the morning because of the heavy drinking the night before, get up only by 10 to go to the work site. And Mari, the wife, was very disturbed when she saw this.

She said, Yanni, I'm going to give you half your salary now. When I come back and see the completed house, you'll receive the rest, the other 50%.

And he got his pals to come in and help along. But not properly, not building in the right way. He would say, look, don't worry even about putting cement between the bricks here and there. It's fine because I'm going to cover up anyway.

And so with the extra materials, he'd sell off cement and siphon the fungs to himself. And with plastering and painting, he was able to try and make a pretense of it so that when his boss would return, he wouldn't notice.

And then the day came when his boss returned. He asked him, Yanni, have you completed my house? He said, indeed. It's a marvellous house, sir. And Yanni tried to appear accountable, pulled out receipts and said, sir, just look at these receipts and here are one or two that are not paid, that you'll have to fix up.

Here it is all. So the gentleman put Yanni into his big expensive car and he drove him up to where the house had been built. And as they parked outside, he said, Yanni, I can see you've really made a good job.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I congratulate you. And he took out some notes and he gave it to Yanni, some papers. And he said, Yanni, these are the title deeds to your house. This is the house that I present to you.

The gentleman said, Yanni, your wife served us so faithfully over all those years. And we wanted to reward her and give you and her this home. Yanni was utterly horrified. His knees turned to water. His intestines went cold.

He was dazed. He said, oh, what a fool I have been to himself. He had not kept his heart from which the issues of life spring. He thought that he was fixing and punishing the rich man, but in fact he was punishing himself.

And so Yanni lived a miserable life in his home. Any wind that would come up, any storm, he would tremble. He would hear the roof fluttering there because he hadn't bounded properly to the walls yet. Come let us build.

Laziness Punishes the Lazy, Not the Teacher

You defy your teachers. You don't know how to respect older people. Well, you are punishing yourself. You are the fool. Don't think you are punishing your teacher by being lazy at school. He or she has already got their degree.

They are already settled and they've got their earnings and their wages. You are the fool. You are the one who will come out without a proper education and be able to speak English properly. You will suffer.

But what's your favorite dish, miss?

You might become like that one beauty queen who is on record as having been interviewed after winning the beauty contest. She was interviewed over TV and they said, now, you miss beauty queen, what is your favorite dish?

She said, tapoe. She didn't understand the language. She hadn't been diligent at school. She hadn't listened. She hadn't studied languages properly at school. If you are just distracted by the opposite sex, no wonder your marks are so dismal.

Education, Language, and Employability

A certain white lady came from the Salvation Army in England to come and do work here in Zulu land. She came not knowing how to speak Zulu. She ended up staying in my home. She told me many a story. Now, she ended up having to do anything and everything.

Although she was a nurse, she had to do things like even pulling teeth. One day, she told me a big Zulu man came with a very generous stomach which he would touch with pride and he had a bad tooth that needed pulling.

She came with the pliers to extract it and this gentleman, Zulu man, was seated in this chair with his mouth sitting there and she, not knowing Zulu, spoke in a funny galore and said, open your mouth.

He just sat there with his mouth shut tight. She said again in funny galore, open your mouth. Now, she was a young white lady at the time. He thought that she was just being cheeky and she thought that now she is really going to use the strongest language to get his mouth open.

Now, she didn't know Zulu and she said, she thought she was rebuking him but she said, I love you in Zulu thinking it was something opposite and he broke out in a smile. And so, she called another Zulu person to try and translate for her.

She said, I don't understand. When I try and rebuke him with a strong nasty language, he smiles all the more. And this person asked her, what are you saying? She said, I say these words, I love you. And she didn't know what it meant.

And she said, oh, how embarrassed I was when I discovered my language mistake. Now, that just goes to show, learn languages. Study hard, young people at school. Study languages. It will help you to be more employable.

Otherwise, you'll find yourself the victim of unemployment. A certain lady told me, she's so sorry she didn't learn, she didn't want to learn Afrikaans when she was younger and now she's nursing older Afrikaans people.

And she has to start trying to learn the language from the beginning. She said, it's so difficult to try and learn a language when you're old. But back to this gentleman, Zulu, who smiled broadly when she said, mistakenly, I love you.

Now, this lady related to me how, when he had She smiled broadly and she got stuck in with her pliers to extract his tooth. She was a little lady. She just couldn't work up the strength to get it out.

So this man, a very big and strong man, took his two hands over hers and he helped her extract it so that it shot out and hit the wall on the other side. Now, Yanni thought he was extracting his revenge on the owner, that rich man, but he was only punishing himself.

Diligence, Obedience, and a Hopeful Future

Now, maybe you're at school and you just want to be out hanging out with your pals and you don't do your homework, you don't study properly. And when you do get homework, you just copy from others. What does it help, really, in an exam, if you only have copied?

If you think you're punishing your parent by disobeying them when they say, stay at home, don't be promiscuous, and you say, I'll fix them and I'll go out anyway. Well, who's going to suffer? You, the one who's going to get AIDS.

You, the one who will suffer, for you have not guarded your heart from whence the wellspring of life springs.

You, the one who will suffer, for you have not guarded your heart from whence the wellspring of life springs.

You're not punishing your Sunday school teacher, your parent, your teacher, by not listening to them or your preacher, but you, the one who is finally going to have to pay the consequences and you'll suffer.

We want you to have a blossoming future. Get educated, study properly, be diligent, but if you don't, you're the one who will be the beggar, the drunkard, while others prosper.

We want you to have a blossoming future. Get educated, study properly, be diligent, but if you don't, you're the one who will be the beggar, the drunkard, while others prosper. We want you to have a blossoming future.

Get educated, study properly, be diligent, but if you don't, you're the one who will be the beggar, the drunkard, while others prosper.

Now, we want you to prosper, we want you to go ahead. If you disobey and disregard these things, you're going to suffer. If I think of the drugs and the alcohol and the things that you go out to do, I think of the many young white men who come here, they've toasted their brains.

They have smoked so much dacha and marijuana, they cannot think properly, they are permanently damaged. They cannot work, they can't do anything. And so you find such people becoming drifters from one thing to the other, and we say in a proverbial way, well he's got ants in his pants, he can't stick to one job, they're just up there and there and they're just drifting.

And so you find such people becoming drifters from one thing to the other, and we say in a proverbial way, well he's got ants in his pants, he can't stick to one job, they're just up there and there and they're just drifting.

And so you find such people becoming drifters from one thing to the other, and we say in a proverbial way, well he's got ants in his pants, he can't stick to one job, they're just up there and there and they're just drifting.

And so you find such people becoming drifters from one thing to the other, and we say in a proverbial way, well he's got ants in his pants, he can't stick to one job, they're just up there and they're just drifting.

And so you find such people becoming drifters from one thing to the other, and we say in a proverbial way, well he's got ants in his pants, he can't stick to one job, they're just up there and they're just drifting.

We want you to succeed, we want you to go forward and prosper, that's why the theme of this conference is come, let us build.

We want you to succeed, we want you to go forward and prosper, that's why the theme of this conference is come, let us build.

Repentance, Righteousness, and Building a New Life

The other side of it is also true that you might end up in prison, but let it not be for criminal reasons, let it be for righteousness sake, because then you know that you are there with the Lord. Or if you end up as poor as Lazarus at the gates of the rich man, knowing where you are spiritually, rather than to be in the shoes of the rich man who went to hell.

How can you be properly employable if you have on your conscience the fact that you have raped other girls, you have abused others, or you are in the sin of homosexuality, it's Sodom and Gomorrah, even if they allow you to get married, it becomes Sodom and Gomorrah.

Where are the Yanis who say, I repent, who say, I have been a Yani in the past, in that I have squandered my life, but I want to change today, I want to give my life to the Lord. I want to start afresh with the Lord.

It says guard your heart, talk to your heart, and say, Lord Jesus, I want this heart to belong to you, I have been a Yani, I want to surrender this to you. Let's bow our heads. That the light would dawn on the Yanis amongst us who thought that they were punishing others, who come to their senses now and realize that they are only destroying themselves.

That they realize that they haven't been building their lives, but instead they have been breaking it down. Where they say we have burnt our own gates so that anyone just comes in. Lord, those who are remorseful before you and turn their hearts to you, wouldn't you open your book, record their names in your book of life today.

Amen.