Nicholas Bhengu - His Preaching
The mayor of East London might have been disappointed at Bhengu’s sermon in the meeting he had arranged under his mayoral auspices, but in actual fact Nicholas Bhengu was a powerful and eloquent preacher. There were times when he could be dull, but such were few and far between. Walter Hollenweger is the author of “The Pentecostals”, a wide-ranging handbook on the Pentecostal churches world-wide. He speaks of Bhengu’s elegant English and impeccable Zulu. A tall man (about 6ft2in) with a commanding presence, Bhengu could be thunderous and cajoling all in the same sermon.
Nicholas Bhengu addressing the meeting in Greenmarket Sqare, Cape Town.
My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
Time was hardly a factor when he really got wound up. Once I heard him
speak for nearly an hour in a conversational rambling way which I took
to be his sermon. Then to my surprise he opened his Bible with the words “Now
let us turn to the Word of God”. After reading a verse of two of
Scripture he proceeded to preach, perhaps for another 90 minutes. And
yet I remember another occasion when he was addressing a white audience
in one of our assemblies. After a time, one or two of the congregation
appeared to lose concentration and become restless. Almost immediately
Bhengu closed his Bible and rounded off his sermon. So tuned in was he
to the reaction of his audience.
Another time I was with him when he addressed a couple of dozen uneducated
peasants at Livingstone. Our venue was the back yard of a mission house
in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). We had no chairs but squatted
on our heels in the dust while the congregation squatted in a circle about
Bhengu. He spoke to them about “George” who was playing with
a caterpillar. George had made a circle of fire. The caterpillar was trying
to escape. First it went “there” only to be stopped by the
fire. Then it went “there” with the same result. After nearly
half an hour the audience had grasped that they were like that caterpillar,
hemmed in completely. Then “George” took a twig and let the
caterpillar crawl across the fire to safety on the twig. Of course the
twig represented the cross of Calvary and Jesus’ death for our sins.
I marvelled at the condescension of a man who had addressed thousands but
who would decline to use a chair and crouch in the dust on a level with
his primitive audience. Also at the patience of a man who would reiterate
what to him must have seemed a puerile story to make the Gospel clear to
his tribal listeners. Surely this was the love of God in him! And in fact,
a display of his preaching skill.
I saw something similar in Nyasaland (now Malawi). This time he had a larger
audience of over 200. Again there was no church building, no chairs, no
pulpit, Bhengu was then dying of liver cancer though none of us knew it
at the time. He was feeble and distrait with pain. When we dined at the
hotel in Lilongwe he would nod over his food, dozing off until one or other
of the ministers with us, Fred Shabalala or Brother Shongwe would gently
rouse him saying softly “Baba, Baba, here is your food, Baba. Eat
it.” Yet when he came to preach he gathered new strength. For me
the sight of Bhengu standing on African soil, in the shade of a thorn tree,
preaching the Word of God to his fellow Africans in Malawi, is unforgettable.
If there was ever any anti-white feeling in Nicholas Bhengu, he sincerely
sought to transcend it by the grace of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
But I have no doubt that the true depths of his compassion were stirred
by the presence of a group of Africans, his own people, hungry for the
Gospel.
I saw this when I attended a Nicholas Bhengu crusade meeting held in a
tent somewhere on the Rand. As usual, the tent was as usual crowded to
capacity. The people were seated on roughly constructed pews made out of
builders’ scaffolding. There was a single naked electric light-bulb
burning over the preacher’s head. It illuminated like a glow the
haze of fine dust stirred up by the movement of our feet. Bhengu was making
an altar-call. The dust had powdered his face as though it were a mask.
I saw two black stripes on his cheeks as his tears made a rivulet there.
He was pleading with souls to accept Jesus as Saviour. “My girl,
my boy, come as you are. Jesus loves you. He died for you. Come as you
are. Jesus loves you.” As he pleaded and wept over them, my heart
and eyes were weeping too. Such tenderness!
But at other times he would roar with furious zeal. One afternoon I went
to visit him at Lamontville near Durban. Jim Mullan was with me. Bhengu
was preaching in a tent to about 1000 people. The meeting was prolonged
and we sat outside in my car listening to him over the loudspeakers. He
was winding up his sermon. My heart stirred as I heard him shouting out
fiercely, “Forget about Bhengu! Forget about church! Forget about
the Assemblies of God! Bhengu can’t save you! The Assemblies of God
can’t save you! Only Jesus can save you!” Jim Mullan looked
at me in the car and said, “Old Bhengu’s really giving it stick
today”. He truly was and often did.
How electric were some of our conferences at Witbank in the days when we
would assemble there in a large marquee under rather primitive conditions.
More than once the crowd stood to their feet and even rushed the platform
as he appealed for our consecration to the cause of Christ and the Gospel.
On one such occasion his sermon had been interrupted by cryings out and
prayers from the hearers. A woman began to sob aloud with tears, “Oh
my God, I’ll be that one! I’ll be that one.” Bhengu at
the microphone responded. His voice was deep and vibrant. “Amen,
my sister, you be that one!” It was like a benediction and an answer
to her prayer. It came from the depths of his heart. It reminded me of
the time at Dumisa College recounted by Fred Suter. The lecturer Fred Suter
had uttered the words, “Africa has yet to see what God will do with
one life that is fully given to him”. As Suter said that there was
an uproar. The young man, Nicholas Bhengu, leapt up and over his desk stamping
his feet in a transport of emotion, crying aloud, “I’ll be
that one! I’ll be that one! I’ll be that one!”
Thank God for that woman. Thank God for Bhengu’s reply, “You
be that one my sister”. Thank God for many women and men converted
and taught by Nicholas Bhengu who can yet make a blessed difference in
our beloved land of South Africa.
To listen to Nicholas Bhengu at his most anointed was an elemental experience.
One of our white ministers who had heard George Jeffries, the famous Welsh
evangelist preach in the early days in England said of Bhengu “It’s
like hearing George Jeffries in the Royal Albert Hall. When Jeffries went
into a ‘hwyl’ they would switch off the microphones and he
could be heard in every corner of the vast auditorium.” A ‘hwyl’ (pronounced “hooyl”)
is the state of emotion when a Welshman gets elemental and begins to sing
his sermon.
George Jeffries had a brother Stephen, one of the early Assemblies of God
pioneers in England. Stephen Jeffries visited South Africa in 1928 to preach.
Nicholas Bhengu told me how affected he had been by hearing Stephen Jeffries.
He had coveted such a ministry as Stephen Jeffries had and had prayed for
it as a gift of God to him. In the wisdom of God the blazing torch gets
passed on from one to another, sometimes all unknown to the individual
passing it on.
I have a personal reason for remembering Nicholas Bhengu as a preacher.
I had an adopted sister, Pat, of whom I was very fond. She never went to
church, professing to be an atheist. I think there had been a sadness in
her life and she was wounded in spirit. Unfortunately she had a strong
dislike for Africans.
In the 1950s when I pastored a small congregation in Durban, the church
bought an old YMCA hut in Moore Road which could serve us as a place of
worship. My sister came to the dedication service we held. Nicholas Bhengu
and several others were invited as speakers. Shortly before he was due
to speak I noticed he was jotting down notes on a scrap of paper with a
stump of pencil. I realised he was preparing his address at the last minute
while sitting there on the platform. “You old scoundrel” I
thought fondly to myself. When his turn came, he spoke for about 20 minutes.
He transfixed us all. Afterwards my sister Pat confided to me, “I
like Nicholas Bhengu, John; he’s the only black I don’t hate!” Please
pardon the sentiment. It was she who felt it, not I. Some weeks later she
said to me, “I like your little church, John; you can count me as
a member”. Still later, she asked me to baptise her. Before I could
do so she was admitted to Addington Hospital on the beachfront in Durban.
She never came out. I buried her content in the faith that she was “safe
in the arms of Jesus”. One day I fancy Nicholas Bhengu will greet
her in heaven among the thousands of his converts from all races. She won’t
be hating anybody then!