Thank you for the lovely singing and the
preciousness of the conscious, the consciousness of His
presence and His very sweet singing, these lovely
hymns together.
Thank you dear brother for leading us and
God bless you all for being here.
It's very, very wonderful.
Can we just bow our hearts before God
in silence.
Come Lord Jesus in mercy, hold us under
Thy blood and by Thy Spirit, minister to
our hearts, have mercy on us all Lord,
that this meeting may be of God, owned
of God, taken up by God and that
God will be allowed to have His way.
Come keep us Lord, in the hollow of
Thy hand, yet tonight, and mould us as
clay in the potter's hands, through Thy word,
in Jesus Christ's holy name, we ask these
things, Amen.
God says in His word, honour thy father,
honour thy father and thy mother.
And I'd like to attempt to honour my
father here tonight in sharing with you, sharing
with you the things that I remember of
his life that I would believe would bring
glory to God.
When my father was ten years old, his
parents divorced.
And for many years, from that time onward,
he was torn, he was torn between father
and mother.
It's a horrible word, torn.
I suppose one could say, ripped apart.
I know some children are affected more badly
than others, but the masses of all these
homes, where most people who married in this
world are divorced now, the masses, the most
children alive today, they're torn, ripped apart.
And for many years my father was torn
between his father and mother, from the age
of ten.
The scar and the wound and the hurt
never healed of what happened there at ten
years of age, for the rest of his
life, it never healed.
I remember when he was an old man,
at the very mention of his father and
mother separating, when he was ten.
After all those years, the mention of that,
and tears would well up in his eyes,
and flow down his face, and would turn
and walk away.
He never spoke of it.
He never, ever recovered.
For the rest of his life, the hurt
never, ever healed, never, ever healed.
No words, there are no words to tell
of the damage and the hurt in a
child's mind, when his father and mother divorced.
And that which is meant by God to
be his security, the two people that can
be his security in God's eyes, was meant
to be his security, his stability, where he
sensed love and protection, and became stable and
conscious of love and care, and the right
atmosphere to grow up in, in God's eyes.
Suddenly, that was ripped apart, ripped apart, and
all I can say is the damage, the
damage and the hurt done in a child's
heart and mind, whose parents divorced.
There is no words to tell.
It is no wonder that God, in the
Bible, says that He hateth divorce.
God says, I hate, I hate, I hate
divorce.
And I think, in my human limitations, that
the main reason, if not the only reason,
that I can cry out now that I
believe God says those words as He looks
at the hurts, as He looks at the
wounds, the repercussions, for the rest of the
lives of those children, who should have known
stability in a father and mother, but instead
found themselves torn apart.
I think that's the reason God mainly cries
out from His heart, I hate putting away,
I hate it, God says, as He looks
at the children and the wounds and the
hurts.
Right to an old man, that child still
weeps, a child that was hurt, then at
the age of 13, depression, an economical depression
came upon the world.
The wealth of nations, within days, was gone.
It's hard to comprehend, to someone who's never
been through that, how suddenly there's no value
to money, how suddenly men, in their millions,
didn't have a home, when they didn't think
they wouldn't be homeless.
Suddenly millions, millions across the West, were without
a home.
Millions and millions without work.
Hundreds of thousands, it is said, committed suicide
in the first few months of the depression,
across the West.
Men who couldn't work, who couldn't bring home
money to feed their children, who were homeless.
Men who had businesses, who suddenly everything was
robbed, and one moment from them they were
left with nothing.
And somehow this is what happens when there's
an economic collapse across the world.
It's a terrible thing.
Suicide was all over the world, as men
couldn't face the hardships and the shock of
having nothing to be able to provide.
Men who were lawyers, men with degrees behind
their names, couldn't find work.
They had to do menial tasks to bring
in some money to survive.
Education didn't help.
There was no money.
Homes went into terrible darkness when children all
over the world left school, couldn't go on
with their schooling, and had to go and
try and somehow find money to bring in
a few shillings to put another loaf of
bread somehow to survive in that home.
And my father, at 13 years of age,
had to leave school along with many, many
children and go onto the streets.
And he worked for hours and hours every
day as a 13-year-old boy with
a spade and a shovel and a pick,
and he worked weeping, weeping for hours as
the hands formed blisters, and in the blisters
suddenly he saw they broke, and it was
blood.
But he just wept silently as his body
hurt for fear of losing his job.
He so needed to take that little few
shillings back to his mother.
But in his heart, in his heart as
a little boy with all his hurting and
all his confusion and all the wounds inflicted
on his whole being already in life, as
he stood there battling through the day and
weeping silently, he began to cry out words
in his heart one day, words that were
to turn the course of his life, turn
the whole course of his life.
He cried out from his heart as a
little boy, one day I will get money,
one day I will become rich.
I don't care what I have to do
in this life to get it, but I
will get rich.
It doesn't matter what I have to do
to get it, I will get rich.
I will not see my children resort to
this to survive as I have to.
I will not see my children resort to
this to survive.
Those words echoed through his heart for the
rest of his life, what he said as
a little boy in all his hurt.
These men that worked with him, rough-hardened
men, they began to drink heavily.
They didn't have ethical or morals concerning children.
They held out drinks to him, and this
little fellow at the age of 13 found
himself lying drunk.
His mother came to search for him late
in the night, seeking out her child, and
when she saw him lying down drunk, she
began to sob uncontrollably.
She wasn't able to go near to lift
him up.
She just realized as she looked at this
boy what life had made already of him,
the hurts of life.
My father looked up in his drunkenness as
a little boy, and as he realized his
mother was looking, he began to curse and
swear language of all the dirty words he'd
ever heard in life.
In his drunkenness and bitterness and confusion, he
began to curse and to swear, and it
broke his mother's heart.
I don't know if my grandmother ever recovered
from what I can gather.
Something died in her when she saw what
life had done to her eldest son by
the age of 13.
Something just died in her.
Well, a few years went by, and opportunities
came more, and my father somehow found a
job that was worth putting his heart into.
And for fear of losing that job, that
opportunity, there was something that he could build
up here.
He poured himself like a slave to prove
himself to the owner of that firm.
He slaved, pouring his whole being in to
somehow excel above the others who were given
opportunities in that same business.
So much did he work that as the
owner of the firm, loved my father.
He loved him.
He respected him, and he guided him.
And there was a future suddenly held out,
a hope for a future, something worthwhile in
life to fight for.
My father began to see something of this
longing in his heart, was in his hands,
was in his grasp.
It was something he could fight for, to
get money, to get position, someone trusted him,
someone loved him in the business world.
But he still, how the problem that started
at the age of 13, I don't know,
it still gripped him, this drinking.
He couldn't stop.
He found himself drunk and drunk again and
again.
Drunk through his teenage years, despite this longing
to prove himself in his work.
And he was keeping company that was dangerous,
bad company, with bad boys, loose morals, the
wrong things that they were all doing.
And it frightened him in his heart, but
he didn't break from these boys.
Somehow he was drawn back to them.
No matter what, he saw the dangers of
good become of life.
He was drawn back to them.
There was something in him that drew him
back.
And then he met my mother and he
felt so in love.
He tried once to tell us of what
he felt for my mother.
He didn't have to.
Oh, he loved my mother.
He treasured her.
He fought for my mother's love.
When he saw my mother and her beauty,
she was such a beautiful lady.
My father fought for her.
He so loved her.
And when she loved him back, he held
on to this for the first time in
his life.
He seemed to find something worth fighting for
in life, something worth holding on for, something
so beautiful that he never knew would be
his or would he put into his, into
his hands to keep.
She wanted his love.
Oh, he loved her.
He loved her.
Because of this love for my mother, he
tried to stop drinking.
He put aside all the drinking.
He tried to stop swearing altogether.
He tried to clean his life out because
of his love.
He wanted her.
He didn't want to lose her through things
that could have lost her love.
He put friends aside, got them out of
his life who were wrong friends, wrong influences.
And he put his heart, shed his heart
on bringing his life to something decent, just
to hold this beautiful, beautiful girl.
But then something happened the world didn't know
would come so swiftly.
War broke out.
The Second World War came upon the world,
and millions, and millions, and millions, and millions,
and millions of young people left home, left
loved ones, left all their hopes, and the
people they held on treasuring for their love,
wanting to build a life with, suddenly they
left, and their millions and millions never ever
to return, never ever to return.
Millions and millions were robbed of all life
held out for them, all their dreams, all
they held on to was taken.
War broke out.
My father did something that was irrational, an
impulse.
Thousands, hundreds of thousands of young fellows of
the age of 18 who had to go
to war took hold of the girl they
loved and got married against the parents' consent.
My mother's parents were against it.
They begged them not to.
My grandmother wept for days and days, but
against the parents' consent they married.
I think it's something to somehow hold on
and know I've got something to come back
to, something to dream of, something to hold
life together, not knowing how long, not knowing
if I'll ever come back, something I at
least had in a moment of life.
And they married impulsively all over the world
at 18 years of age.
They spent a few days of honeymoon before
my father left for war.
My brother was born in that year, that
first year away, but my father and no
one else knew the war would go on
for year after year after year after year
after year.
No one knew that.
My father never saw his son come into
this world.
He never held a baby in his arm,
a treasured moment that God could give a
father.
He never heard his first word.
He never taught him to take his first
steps, which is the privilege of most fathers,
the joy, joy that's worth a billion times
more than any other joy on earth, that
which a child can give you, the joy
watching this child being nurtured.
He never saw that, never saw him growing.
All he had was letters that took months,
sometimes six months to get to him, with
little photographs and my mother writing all in
detail in her love for him, telling of
every little step the child has taken, every
little bit of growth, in all of trying
to somehow give him something of a glimpse
of what he was missing.
Oh, men were robbed of the things that
are precious in life in the war.
Millions and millions never came back to see
their own child, never saw them once before
they were dead.
War is a terrible thing.
My father hated the war.
I never knew a man in my life
that hated war as much as my father.
When the war was over, they started these
moth clubs in all the British allies, all
the countries that stood with England, where men
would meet week after week through the rest
of their lives, right to this day in
their old age.
They can't wait to get back together in
these moth clubs and talk of the great
battles that were forth and all the things
that were done, and they experienced and shared,
and they get excited to this day about
the war, but not my father.
He never went near those clubs, not once.
And when my uncles would speak about the
war, I remember watching my father.
I used to learn as a boy, a
little baby boy, looking at my father when
I heard war was being spoken of.
The others, my uncles, would speak excitedly about
things, and even laugh.
But my father would put his head down,
and his eyes would look down at the
ground while they spoke.
And if they carried on speaking, he always
got up and walked out.
He walked up.
He never ever spoke about war.
I said to my mother when I was
a little boy, why?
Why does daddy never speak about the war?
Why does he always get up and walk
out?
My mother looked at me for a while
before she answered, and she thought, she said,
no one hated the war as much as
your daddy.
No one hated the war as much as
your daddy.
I think it's because he feared losing life.
He so feared losing his life and not
being able to come back to me and
to your brother.
When I waved goodbye to your father, and
I looked at him, and I was weeping,
your father had pitch black hair, Keith.
His hair was pitch black.
When I saw him the next time coming
back from war, his hair was snow white.
He had turned gray, totally.
In his early twenties, totally gray, he aged
in the war.
I met a man who I led to
Christ many years later, who looked me carefully
and said, Keith, I knew your father.
I remember him from the war.
I was with him in the battles.
I remember him so well.
The one thing I will never forget, that
your father was one day, an airplane was
flying over us, unexpectedly, just suddenly appears, and
they had machine guns.
And somehow the bullets were just riddling all
over, and those who made it to the
trench were safe.
But your father couldn't make it, and many
others, and they were being mowed down, just
mowed, and we just, screaming as he watched
them, screaming to them, come, hoping they'd get
it, and they just mowed down, lives just
being wiped out in front of us.
And your father was there, close to the
trench, and they said, try and get, just
come.
The bullets were riddling already.
They singled him out.
They saw he was still alive, as his
plane just seemed to swoop back.
And the bullets were just riddling around him,
missing him by fractions of an inch, just
throwing up things all around him as they
just went on, undetermined to wipe this one
moving body out.
And your father began to laugh.
He laughed and laughed, and I just looked
at him.
I was crying looking at him.
And I wondered as he laughed, and then
suddenly I realized the tears were just pouring
down his face, streaming down his face as
he was laughing.
He was so scared of death.
He must have thought he was about to
be taken away, it was the end of
life.
That moment, oh, war is a terrible thing.
Daddy came home after the war, and that
first year in 1946, I was born.
And my father set out to do something.
I don't know if any man set out
like him in this world.
I would be surprised.
My father did something that left us awe
-struck, in wonder at what he was doing.
Two things were in his heart, only two
things.
One was that this marriage of his would
never end in divorce.
He was determined.
You never saw a man so working at
his marriage as Daddy.
He loved my mother.
He treasured her.
My mother was almost scared to speak of
what she was thinking of, because her thoughts,
Daddy went enslaved, just knowing what her thoughts
were concerning the whole of her life, and
he would slave till she got, before he
had any money.
He did anything to show his mother and
mother that he would do anything to prove
his love, to keep her happy, to keep
her in love, to keep her just wanting
him.
Oh, it was something just, I wondered sometimes.
I looked at him and the things he
did, the way he did it, just to
show his love to my mother, and to
keep that marriage of ever ending in divorce.
The other thing my father set his heart
to do was to become rich.
Right from when the war ended, it was
in my Daddy's heart to get money, because
he believed this would keep sorrows from his
home.
And so with these two pure motives in
his heart, he worked.
He slaved.
That's the only word I can use.
I tell you, he slaved, that he left
people, he left people bewildered in his own
work.
They stood bewildered at such a man who
poured himself out to work his way up
to the top of his profession.
He took books.
After slaving through the day, he would come
home, and we knew he was tired, and
he ordered books from overseas, and he would
study.
He had no education, and he had to
try and overtake people who had education, in
positions and authority through their education.
He devoured these books right through the nights.
I used to go through in the mornings.
He's still awake, there he's making notes, having
worked through the day, taking where he thought
the business world was heading, hoping that he's
taking the right course, that he's ahead of
anybody, devouring the business world's magazines and books.
And so he fought his way to the
top of his profession in a few short
years, and suddenly we had money, we had
wealth, we had a home, you couldn't believe
the home we lived in.
Vehicles, all the luxuries, anything we wanted was
just there, but there was nothing but sorrow.
Do you know why?
Because as daddy went up, his health went
down, as he slaved.
And the responsibility that came on him as
the position went higher and higher, the authority
went more and more, and the more money
came, but the higher the authority, daddy worked
it so, and it was his own fault
in many ways, he worked that they couldn't
do without him.
He made things, he set up these businesses,
that no one with this couldn't survive without
him.
And so he was there all the time,
the pressures, and through the socializing expected of
him, he began to drink, and he found
in his drinking somehow it helped him to
switch off under all the pressures, until he
was drinking very, very heavily.
He smoked all day, right through the night,
60 cigarettes a day, for over 20 years,
never less than 60 a day.
I used to walk through to the bathroom
in the night, and look through to his
room, and there was a little red glow.
Any time of the night, he was smoking
through the night.
Oh, what responsibility now put upon him, with
all the pressure of life, with all the
drinking, all the smoking, all the pressures, all
the strain.
Suddenly his health went with blood pressure, and
he was living off pills right through the
day.
Going to doctors, going to specialists, as all
his health began to collapse, but he wouldn't
stop.
We saw him nights, struggling in his sicknesses.
In the morning he got dressed, and I
used to say, but daddy, how can daddy
go to work?
Nothing kept my father from work.
He never, it didn't matter how sick he
was, as sick as a dog, he would
make his way to work, determined not one
day would he miss the work.
Nothing was in him that could miss a
day, no matter how sick he was.
He went off to work, but at work
he was drinking right through the day.
He would get into his office and start
drinking.
They didn't put him off, they couldn't survive
without him, they knew it.
He would come home reeking of drink, and
the first thing he does, as he walks
in the door, he would look for a
bottle of drink, and start drinking into the
night.
And of course there was fighting, there was
tensions in the home.
Mummy didn't understand why daddy reacted as he
did under drink.
He, it wasn't, drink makes a man exactly
what he shouldn't be.
Drink brings out in a good man something
that he, he can't believe he was when
he gets sober.
And everything he didn't want to be, suddenly
he was, in his reactions, in his words,
and there was fighting, there was arguing.
Mummy couldn't bear this anymore, and the way
he was carrying on.
My brother wouldn't speak to my father.
For weeks he never greeted him, because of
all the fighting.
I think there was once three months that
my brother never said one word to my
father.
When my father came out the door, my
brother walked away from him.
He wouldn't look at his father.
He began to hate his father.
When he saw the sorrows, and he saw
my mother aging, and my mother weeping, and
the fights, and the arguments.
I used to run away from a little
boy.
I just couldn't take it, all this tension,
all these fightings.
I would run, and for days they would
search for me, looking, not knowing if I'm
dead or alive.
When they found me, daddy would put me
down, and weep, and weep, and say, boy,
I know it's me.
It's my fault, Keith.
Forgive me.
He'd go to my mother.
He'd forgive me.
I've got to change.
This boy's going astray, through all the fighting,
through all the insecurity.
I didn't want this.
I didn't know all this would come on
me.
I didn't know I'd be like, I'll stop
drinking.
We all would look.
We saw soon, he was back drinking, just
swallowed up in the business world.
Somehow he survived with drinking, and smoking, and
my mother filed for a divorce.
She went to the lawyers.
She told us she cannot live like this
any longer.
She's going to die of a broken heart,
and she cannot, cannot live like this, seeing
her children destroyed.
Both my brother and I were wayward, and
that's all I'd like to say of that,
in my shame, and I am so ashamed.
So my father, having worked, I would say,
harder than any other man that I have
ever met in my life, to not ever
let divorce come into his home, to not
ever let his children be unhappy or insecure.
My father now looked at his life, and
the things that he thought would make security
that he fought for, and everything he'd aimed
at to bring security with all his heart,
he looked at his home that was devastated,
broken, wayward children, insecure children, his health gone,
sickly, very, very sick, and his wife leaving
him and filing for divorce.
His whole life lay in ruins, but then
Jesus came, the Savior, man's
soul, the enemy of Satan, the Deliverer, man's
dearest friend, this precious, holy Savior of mankind,
came to my father in such a way
that my father could not fight God.
He could not argue with God.
All he could do, destroyed of life, was
lift himself up and run into the arms
of Jesus Christ to save him from all
life had made.
Oh, he ran into Christ's arms in such
a way that staggered the world, that staggered
the world.
God came through my brother, this boy that
wouldn't speak one word to his father for
up to three months, that wouldn't greet, that
had no love for his father.
God came to this boy, three years older
than me.
Somehow my brother found himself in a church
one night.
He wasn't there to seek God.
He was determined to switch off to all
the fanaticism.
He was somehow in that church, but God
brought him.
No matter what was in his heart, God
brought him, and he knew it from the
moment one of the holiest men of God
that has ever lived on this earth was
standing in that pulpit.
God made sure the right man was there
for this broken boy, this boy who would
have argued against preaching, even the preaching of
the truth, but he couldn't argue the way
this anointed life, this Christ-like, godly, holy
man brought the words of God that penetrated
deeper than any human voice that penetrated before.
For the first time in his life he
heard the gospel of Christ preached in truth
with a man who believed it with such
a passion and such a compassion for the
souls he was preaching to that my brother
trembled right through that whole meeting.
He trembled at the end of that service
when he stood up.
He said he was like a drunk man.
He fell.
He was so drunk in the amazing, amazing
grace that was presented to him from the
heart of God through this man's preaching.
My brother never knew the love of God
until that night.
He stood up and he staggered out of
that building, falling down at one stage, weeping,
weeping as people didn't know what to do
as they looked at him.
That's how God can speak to a person,
you know, who comes to a church.
He's never once in his life wanted to
hear God's voice, never once, and not even
then.
So when God speaks, a boy can walk
out okay with bitterness, hatred of religion, bitterly.
That's my brother was.
He hated religion.
But he walked out there weeping, sobbing, broken,
and somehow he turned around and started fighting
his way back, no matter how many crowds
were streaming out of that building, and he
fought right down through the aisles.
He was the only one that knelt that
night, weeping.
This godly, godly man walked down and knelt
beside him, and he prayed through to God,
weeping with his boy as he saw the
brokenness of this boy.
And together they cried out to God to
save my brother's soul from hell.
And my brother stood up.
He stood up, and God says, if any
man be in Christ, if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature.
All things are passed away, and God says
to the world, behold, look, and he starts
writing the home.
As that boy walks back to the home
that night, look, God says to everyone in
the home, everyone that knew him, but he
starts in the home, behold, God says, all
things have become new, if any man be
in Christ, God says.
My brother was in Christ when he stood.
He was saved by God's grace.
Oh, whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved, God says, that's
a promise.
He will in no wise turn away anyone
who comes to him through Christ Jesus, our
Lord.
Ask, it shall be given you.
Seek, ye shall find.
Knock, and the door shall be opened unto
you.
For everyone that asketh, findeth, and he that
seeketh, findeth.
To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
This is a promise from God.
Seek ye the Lord while he be found.
Call ye upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his source, and let him return
unto the Lord, and he will have mercy
upon him.
To our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Oh, God pardoned my brother that night.
God saved my brother.
God made him.
He gave him the witness of the Spirit.
My brother walked back into the home that
night, late that night, and he did something
that no one would ever dream would ever
happen in his life.
He walked in that home and looked at
my father, and he loved my father that
night.
A man with hatred, he utterly forgave in
one moment of salvation.
Every bitterness he had against my father was
gone.
He put his arms around my father.
Do you know what that did to my
daddy, who never believed, he never believed he
would ever see love again in that boy's
eyes.
He never, he had no hope that this
boy would ever, ever love him again.
All hope was gone.
Here was this boy with his arms around
me, asking my father to forgive him, asking
my father's forgiveness, and showing such compassion and
care and love.
And my father was so staggered, he was
stunned to silence for days, days that he
wouldn't speak.
He was so staggered by this love he
was suddenly receiving by the son who hated
him.
In one moment, God does that.
Oh, there's nothing God can't do, brother.
God delights in doing the impossible, what the
devil thinks is triumphing over.
In one moment, one moment, God delights in
showing Satan and the world that the devil
cannot keep him from restoring love between a
father and a son.
And that is a great grief to God,
you know, if you just read the book
of Malachi.
Oh, what grief it is to God.
It is such a grief that I believe
he weeps and weeps at such a poem
as a result of whoever it was that
caused it.
It stunned my father to silence.
My mother looked at my brother that night,
embracing my father.
My mother, who was going through with a
divorce, having seen lawyers for a few weeks,
all sorts of documents being signed, my mother
sat there looking at my brother and she
began to weep.
She couldn't believe her eyes what she saw
that night.
And you know what she did the next
day?
She went to the lawyer and stopped the
divorce.
You know why?
Because she knew no human could do that
in his own strength.
She knew God had come to that boy.
And if God could do that to that
boy, hope flared up in her heart that
God could do something for the rest of
us.
She hadn't heard the gospel.
What she saw the gospel could do in
a life made her stop the divorce.
Oh, God was not too late, you know.
A little bit later and it would have
been too late.
But God wasn't late, not from my home.
I looked at my brother's life.
I had not heard the gospel, but I
was desperate for God to save my soul
by just looking at his life.
I was thirsting.
I was hungering after God, to what I
saw in this boy's life.
I was longing for God.
Within days, I was longing.
I was thirsting for God.
Let thy God be my God, thy people
my people, was the cry of my heart
as I looked at his life.
Oh, I chose God through the life of
my brother.
Will your brother do that?
I came to Christ one night, stood up,
and God in his grace saved my soul
in a way beyond I ever believed, even
at what I'd seen in my brother's life.
Oh, God saved my soul.
Together, the two of us found each other.
Suddenly, we were sitting there just engulfed with
each other.
Two boys who had very little to do
with each other up to then.
That's what sin does, you know.
Brothers are not even friends.
Can you know that's what sin does?
Oh, we found each other.
We were excitedly talking about Christ.
Everything was just excitement.
And Daddy and Mommy had to sit and
behold, these two boys transformed.
And they sat in silence.
Then, one of the godliest women in our
nation came to our home, a missionary who
had won countless thousands to Christ.
He's a household name in the Church of
South Africa.
Oh, she and many godly people came to
her.
I don't know why God did that.
Some of the greatest men and women of
God were suddenly in our home, and they
loved our home.
Suddenly, through these two boys' salvation, they were
godly, godly people.
This godly woman was in our eyes.
She loved my brother and I.
Oh, she loved us.
She took joy as she heard our excitement,
and she taught us what everyone had known,
the times we could corner her and find
things of her concerning soul, winning everything.
And she came to our house, and she
sat there and looked at us one night
as we were full of joy, and she
turned to my father, and she said something
nobody would ever dare to say to my
father.
If you knew my father, you'd know why.
No one spoke to daddy like that.
No one in the world spoke to daddy
like that woman did.
She looked at him and said, Mr. Daniel,
are you lost, sir?
Are you lost, sir?
Mr. Daniel, look at your boys.
Look at what God did in their lives.
Look what God done to them.
How is it that you have not been
saved when God did that to your boys?
What reason can you give me that you
have not fled to this God who did
that to those two boys?
Why are you not saved, sir?
What has kept you from God?
What reason can you give me that you
haven't come to God that did that to
those boys?
My father looked at her, you know.
Then he turned and he looked at us,
and he sat there for a long while
just looking at us.
Then he got up, and he walked to
his bedroom, shut the door.
And he spent hours in that room, hours.
We've never found out.
We never asked him what he'd said to
God.
But when he got up from his knees
in that room and opened the door, from
the first step he took, he staggered this
world.
As a man, I'd never ever known anyone
to stagger the world so as my father's
salvation did.
He walked out of that room and looked
at my mother and the family and those
there, and he said, I've given my life
to Jesus Christ, and I will never take
it back.
I will never take it back.
He took my mother to where all the
alcohol was, and he took all the bottles
and emptied them out into the drain, some
of them, in his anger.
He never touched the drink till the day
he died, from that night.
He took a cigarette, 60 cigarettes a day,
enslaved to them, soaking with inflessing already through
what that did to him.
He threw down those 60 cigarettes a day,
threw them down that night, never touched another
one till the day he died.
He picked up this book, and he read
through it 68 times in the nine years
he lived, from cover to cover.
He took all the commentaries of any note,
Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, I.V.P. He
read from cover to cover, I have them,
page after page, summarized notes right through.
He took all Andrew Murray's classics, made summaries
of every single page, devoured them.
He took all the classics of the great
godly men of our faith in history.
He devoured all those books.
Between my brother and I, we share them,
all that I've got, every book has been
devoured, notes from beginning to end.
He devoured the things of God.
Nothing kept him from God, you know.
From the day he was saved till the
day he died, he never neglected his quiet
time.
Can you say that?
His time with God, from the day he
was saved, was the greatest priority in his
life.
I'll never forget becoming conscious of it, when
a few nights after his salvation, we had
visitors, who sat just a little bit late,
just a little bit late.
I can't tell you the time, I fear
to tell you the time, that my father
wouldn't sit past that time, no matter who
was in that house till the day he
died.
He had a time he met with Jesus,
and if the guest had sat a little
bit late, he would get up.
And at times, especially the first time, there
were tears, it wasn't easy to say it.
He said, you have to excuse me, forgive
me, but I have to go to be
with Jesus, and I cannot miss the meeting
with God.
And he walked out.
Through his life, he never ever sat with
anyone again, past that time.
From the night he was saved, he met
with God at that time.
He worked it out, he told me in
his old age.
He worked it out, that if he didn't
have his quiet time then and get to
bed at that time, he wouldn't be able
to wake up at four o'clock in
the morning and spend two hours with Christ.
And he said, without two hours meeting with
God, he couldn't walk as he knew he
stood with God through the day.
So he disciplined himself that he got that
time with God and then bed, so he
could get up and spend two hours before
he said one word to another soul on
earth.
He poured his soul out to God, and
he walked with God as a result.
He walked with God as a result, beloved.
Nothing, no one was more important than God.
You won't miss the meeting where men see
you should attend.
Oh, what will they say?
You're so faithful.
But the meeting that God knows, and God
alone knows.
You can miss it like that.
I mean, no one's watching.
To be seen as men, you won't miss
the meeting, but the meeting that only God
sees, that makes the difference between a hypocrite
and someone vitally real with God.
Oh, you could miss that meeting like that
for anything, for anyone.
And God waits, and you miss him, because
he wasn't as important as others, who you
wouldn't miss, even for religion, but not God.
He turned his back on the business world,
you know.
I said last night, and I'll briefly just
tell you how he turned his back so
on the business world, he forsook it, within
days, forsook it.
Took mommy, everyone went back to our hometown,
away from where all the money flows in
South Africa, the big city.
And he said he wanted time for God,
he wanted time for his wife, he wanted
time for his children.
He never gave them time by diverting to
things that he thought his children, his wife
needed, but for that he neglected the things
that mattered.
Now he wants time especially for God.
And my father took that time.
He turned his back on everything.
They wooed him back, you know.
And they said, we'll do anything.
They held out all these things to him.
My mother said it was amazing what they
held out.
She could not believe that they would, it
was beyond belief what they held out to
one single man to get him back.
But my father said, no, these things made
me poor.
And I pity you all, for I know
how poverty-stricken you are.
I know you all, how miserable you are.
I know your homes are broken.
I know your health.
I know what drinks problems you have.
I know your children's state.
You're in poverty with all these riches.
Get out of it, man.
Come to Christ and find the riches I
found.
Don't die like this, he begged.
And they wept.
All of them wept, because they knew it
was true.
Daddy would not go back to the business
world.
He had time for Christ in those nine
years.
He wanted time, and he knew his time
was not long with his health.
His time was not long.
Then God did something to my father that
shook us in such a profound way.
It's hard to tell you how to put
it into doctrinal terms, what God did.
God took hold of my father and filled
him with the Holy Spirit.
Now, today that could mean anything, anything.
Today there's such confusion.
You will go to holiness movements, and they
will talk of hearts being cleansed by the
blood through and through, resulting in victory, consistent
victory.
You go to the Baptists.
You find being filled with God, the Holy
Spirit, that the fruit of the Spirit can
be seen in your life, spontaneously reacting in
all circumstances.
But I like this term, a term most
people don't like, but I preach it.
I believe a man must have a personal
Calvary after he's saved.
Even my father needed that.
I didn't know that until it happened in
his life, but God knew.
When I saw the richness of what God
brought out of that man when he had
a personal Calvary, a moment when he really
was crucified with Christ.
Oh, not a dead doctrine, sir.
Andrew Murray says it's when a person absolutely
surrenders.
Andrew Murray says unless a child of God
comes to a place of absolute surrender, where
all the fight is over in life, unless
a child comes to a place of absolute
surrender, he cannot be filled with the Spirit
of Christ.
He cannot be filled with the Spirit of
God.
Being filled with the Spirit, Andrew Murray says,
is not a glass.
It's half filled.
The Holy Spirit is a person.
He cannot dwell in you in half a
person.
So what does it mean?
How do you fill the other half, the
empty half?
It's not anything to do with filling the
other half.
The word fill doesn't mean fill up what's
missing.
The Holy Spirit dwells in you in its
completeness when you're saved.
But when you're filled with the Spirit, when
you absolutely surrender to God and the fight
is gone, and you yield to God for
Him to have His way, and that is
a personal crucifixion happens there, then the Holy
Spirit takes control of you.
He's in you, but He's not in control
of you.
And you see it.
And though you want to please Him as
a Christian, you find so much coming out
not of God, bringing this grace of the
winds taken out of you.
Oh, Andrew Murray says when a person is
absolutely surrendered and filled with the Holy Spirit
of God from that moment onwards, there's a
steady growth.
It doesn't make you perfect.
You're not suddenly perfected.
But what does happen here is that God
begins.
Up till then, it's an up and down
experience, he says, with most Christians.
More down than up, if we have to
be honest.
But from then onwards, it's a steady growth,
for God now has control.
And the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit
of the Spirit is seen in all circumstances,
no matter how trying, spontaneously, he says.
Not with our efforts struggling to be Christ
-like, but with spontaneous, because He's in control.
That's being filled with the Holy Spirit.
And that is a message people don't like
to hear.
It presents Christ-likeness.
Do you know what the fruit of the
Spirit is?
Do you know what the work of the
Holy Spirit is?
He shall not speak of Himself, Jesus said.
His whole work will be to glorify Christ.
The fruit of the Spirit is Christ-likeness.
You want one word for all those fruits
you can talk of?
Christ.
That's all.
If it's anything but Christ, it's heresy that
you're preaching.
If it's gifts, it's heresy.
That's not the evidence of the fullness of
the Spirit.
It cannot be.
Read 1 Corinthians 13 to see how he
refutes that.
It is not gifts.
It's the fruit.
Love that suffers long is kind.
Love that envies not is not rash.
All the longings, all the fulfillment, not by
your efforts, but fulfilled through the Holy Spirit
in control of you.
You're not living under the legalistic law of
how to fulfill the law.
I've not come to destroy the law, but
to fulfill it, Christ said, in and through
you.
The law of God is written upon your
heart, not by some legalism of the efforts
of your own to fulfill the thou and
shalt not and thou shalt not.
You just find you don't.
When you yield it to God, when He's
absolutely in control of you, the fruit of
the Spirit, Christ has seen.
You know, when my daddy got up from
his knees in a meeting weeping after that
salvation, that mighty salvation, that he came for
forgiveness and for the deliverance from the things
that were destroying his life, now he came
to a place under awful conviction, somehow swiftly,
that he needed to yield totally to God.
He had a personal calvary.
When my mother looked at my father, she
began to weep.
You know, when my father was saved, my
mother was stunned.
She was stunned.
But when my father was absolutely surrendered to
God and filled with the Spirit, my mother
began to sob through the days.
Has your wife ever sobbed of your life,
sir, nothing else but your life?
Will she ever?
You say you're saved.
Has she ever wept?
And what she sees, do you know why
she wept?
I found her weeping one day and said,
Mommy, what is this?
You've got to speak to me.
She said, Oh boy, it's your daddy.
Keith, I know this man.
I don't know anyone else that I can
say I really know, boy, but I know
your daddy.
He's the only man I ever loved in
my life.
He was my childhood sweetheart.
I never knew another man.
I never loved another man but your daddy.
I know your daddy.
I know everything about him.
I know his reactions.
I know every thought in his head.
But Keith, since he's come to God and
especially since this last meeting out there and
those meetings you took him to, my boy,
I'm living with a total stranger.
I can't speak.
I don't speak to your daddy.
I look at him.
I don't know what to say.
I haven't got anything to converse.
I don't know anything about this man.
He's a total stranger in my home.
He's so changed.
And she's weeping while she's telling me this.
She said, I just walked out now and
you found me weeping.
You know what I said to myself, Keith?
I looked at him as he was...
I said, Who is this man?
Who is this man in my heart?
And I turned and fled and I'm just
thinking, Who is this man?
Who is this man?
And I looked at him and said, Mommy,
do you know who this man is that
you're weeping over?
Christ.
She looked at me.
She wiped her tears.
What are you saying, boy?
Mommy, listen to this verse.
This verse that's written across daddy's life, not
coming out his lips.
I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
Through me, literally.
Did you know that?
Is that written across your life, sir?
To such a degree, your wife doesn't even
recognize you anymore.
She just recognizes Christ.
Is Christ so revealed through you?
Do you think that's going to take 40
years, sir, before someone sees Jesus in you?
No.
That's the fruit of the Spirit.
And you're made more and more like Christ
through the fires and the soaking grease up
in the scriptures, in the school of God.
But when you yield, oh, God comes.
Do you know, I came to God because
of my brother.
My father came to God because of my
brother and I, especially this poor boy, who
daddy never could believe would ever be healed
from all the harm done to me.
My mother came to God through my father,
only my father.
It wasn't us only.
When she looked at my father's life, my
mother couldn't argue anymore.
She wept her way to Jesus.
She wept her way to Jesus through my
daddy, his life, his life.
And then something happened that staggered our home
beyond all belief.
Suddenly daddy had a heart attack, a terrible
heart attack.
We thought we were losing him for days,
much weeping, but suddenly he revived a bit,
and strong enough to go home, but so
weak that he was suffering, terrible suffering.
He had emphysema now, bad emphysema through all
the smoking, battling to catch his breath.
And here was the heart problems, and we
thought every time he was choking like this
for breath, his heart would just stop.
But all these oxygen things now are saved,
but not healed physically.
It's all caught up with him now.
So he was saved.
And our home went into darkness as we
began to reason, Lord, we've only found him.
Don't take him from us now.
We've only now found all we wanted him
to be.
Don't take him now.
We looked at mommy and daddy together and
the love between them.
I looked at my brother and said, Daddy,
look at what we could have known all
our lives, if only they'd been saved from
the beginning.
Look at what we could have known.
We wept as we saw what God could
do now, that God does this, which we've
all longed for and didn't even dream could
happen.
Now God, it seems, is going to take
him away.
We went into a lot of sorrows and
griefs, reasoning with God, weeping on our knees
as a family about my daddy's health just
being deteriorating, and he's just hanging on to
life virtually.
I was preaching by this time.
I went away, came back.
My mother said, Oh Keith, you've got to
go speak to your daddy.
He's sobbing, he's weeping and sobbing and sobbing.
I walked past this room where he prays
all day.
I walked in there, he is sobbing.
I heard him sobbing, his heart out, my
boy.
I know he's suffering, boy, but I can't
even help him when he's sobbing.
I can't even go back in that room.
I can't go and help.
I can't even take him a cup of
tea.
I went into his room, sat beside him
and said, Daddy, mommy said she found you
sobbing.
I know you're suffering, daddy, but mommy can't
see that.
She can't even help you, she loves you
so much.
He looked at me and tears came down
his face and he said, My boy, I
never knew your mother would find me.
I'm so ashamed she walked in that door,
Keith, and found me sobbing like that.
I would never want her to see that.
I was shaken that she opened the door
and saw me sobbing like that.
But Keith, I was not sobbing because of
my suffering.
I thought you knew your daddy better than
that, boy.
He said, Keith, I was sobbing for another
reason.
Can I tell you, boy, do you want
to know why daddy was sobbing like that
when your mommy found me?
Keith, I'm dying.
I'm dying, Keith, and I have not one
single soul to show Jesus.
That's what's breaking my heart.
I know I'm dying.
Keith, I have prayed for souls, I've begged
souls, but not one thing I've done has
brought one person to Christ, Keith.
Oh boy, you're young, you can win the
world to God, and I pray that you
will.
But my boy, my time's gone and I'm
gonna stand alone with nothing to show God
of others, only my own soul.
That's all I can show him, nothing I
ever brought part of myself to God.
That's broken my heart, boy.
That's why I'm weeping.
He got on his knees right then and
put his head down and he started sobbing
again.
You know what I did?
I got on my knees and I put
my head down, I sobbed with him.
But there was someone else weeping.
Don't doubt this.
Someone who, when he stood on this earth,
he wept.
As he could weep then, he can weep
now.
The Savior of man.
Do you know why I know he wept?
Because I've become conscious that he has to
look past millions and millions of Christians to
find one that weeps for souls apart from
their own soul.
Tell me, sir, have you ever wept for
anybody else's soul but your own?
Have you ever groaned that you're not a
soul when you stand alone without souls to
show God?
Oh, your own soul is there, your soul.
Tell me, can the devil take and make
a ring around you, and he can really
do it tonight, a circle around you and
say, outside of the circle, every prayer, every
groan that came from the heart in prayer
to God was not for anyone else but
himself.
And if he did pray for anybody else,
it was just because they affected him immediately.
That's the only reason he would pray for
anyone else.
Any tear that ever left his eyes, any
groan of compassion that left his heart was
for himself, outside of the circle.
I've never prayed like that for anybody, but
may all God cease tears when you pray
and weep for yourself and your problems.
But tell me, since you've been saved from
hell and entrusted with the gospel and the
light and the knowledge of the gospel, how
many people's blood is on your hands, sir?
How many that you walked past, you didn't
even say a prayer for them, let alone
a word, you didn't have a compassion, you
didn't go to, you went to bed without
blinking an eye, without thinking I've done anything
wrong, though you could have brought people to
Christ, you could have shared, you've never groaned.
And here was a person who groaned and
wept and sobbed that he had no one
to show and he thought he had only
moments left to live.
I went again away to preach and suddenly
a message was sent to me that Daddy's
dying and he's calling for me.
Oh, I rushed back to that town, begging
God not to let him die.
I arranged with two men, two godly men,
to be at the hospital, two of South
Africa's holiest men, let me tell you.
They came and there in the hospital beside
my father's bed, as he lay with all
these things in him, hanging on to life,
I gave them a bottle of oil and
I said, I want you to anoint my
father with oil and I want you to
ask God to heal him now.
They just looked at me they looked for
a few minutes without a word, just stood
there looking at me.
As I stood there weeping, I didn't shut
my eyes.
They anointed him with oil, they laid hands
on him and they prayed gently and softly,
not insisting or demanding, but asking if it's
God's mercy and will.
Three hours later my father sat up.
The next day my father got out of
bed.
It was God.
The doctor said, but this man was dying.
He wept.
I don't understand.
He said, oh, we knew.
We knew why God comes.
You see, God had to heal my father.
I say that carefully.
I've become conscious of God's integrity and perfectness
and holiness.
He is so perfect that he has an
obligation.
There's some obligation toward people praying.
Do you know how obliged God must be
when he can't find in millions of Christians,
anyone praying, begging, weeping for souls, and he
finds one man who's dying?
Do you think God had no obligation in
his holiness and integrity to answer that man's
groaning prayer?
Do you think God could have turned his
face away and say, it doesn't matter that
I finally found a man here weeping about
souls, where others only weep for themselves?
Oh no, not this God.
How do I know that it was God?
How do I know that God healed him
for this reason, to answer his prayer?
Because when my father got out of bed,
beloved, when my father got out of his
bed, having been dying the day before, he
got out of bed for this reason, because
he knew why God had healed him.
He went to the next bed, and he
led that man to Christ, his first soul.
And you know, when you taste what it
is to lead a man to Christ, it
just brings more thirst.
You become to realize what it is to
lay up treasures in heaven.
You believe, you suddenly become conscious of the
value of what you've done in God's eyes,
of what God has enabled you to do,
what God gave you, the grace, and through
you, brought light to a soul.
He went to the next bed after that
man, and led the next man to Christ.
He went out of the ward and went
into the next ward, and he led every
single man in that ward to Christ.
Some of them died a few minutes after
he led them to Christ, they died.
But with Christ, he went through that hospital,
he led the nurses to Christ.
In the end, one nurse said to me,
it was a stunned silence and awareness of
God in this whole hospital, through one man,
who wanted one thing only, to lead the
next soul to God.
And that's all he seemed to be living
for.
As you know, my father won so many
souls to Jesus that one of our greatest
evangelists in South Africa, probably the most well
-known preacher for many, many, many years of
our land, he stood up and he said
these words that shook my heart.
He said, I do not know another man
in this country apart from that man there.
And he was weeping as he said this,
who I can say this on, that it
seems every step he takes influences men to
seek God.
You might think that's an exaggerated term.
You should have seen how they came to
Christ from that day, till the day he
died, streaming to God.
You could not believe, as souls in the
middle of the night, that all the neighbors
were putting their lights, and as souls came
running up, people who had beaten their children,
smashed their wives in their drunkenness, running up
to him, falling on their knees, crying out,
all the neighbors thinking things going wrong, you
know.
Didn't want to come in.
Daddy on the street there, outside of the
home, leading him to Christ.
And that man went through with God, never
touched a drink.
His wife and child came to God after
all that drunkenness.
Souls were saved at midnight.
Daddy was waiting for the next soul all
the time.
Just like every step, this man said, influenced
men to seek God when they became aware
of his life.
Oh, it is precious, at his funeral, at
his funeral, I sat there with my darling
mother.
And my mother, I don't know, she leaned
hard on my daddy.
She didn't find that easy.
But I was trying to console her.
And I looked across that church.
There was no room.
It was a very big church, let me
tell you, this memorial service for my daddy.
As they stood around the walls, all these
men, women, children, from all over the land,
as they stood around the front, all in
the foyer, just standing, unable to move into
the church, just wanting to be there.
And I looked, and I realized most of
these people he led to Jesus.
Most of these people have come to his
memorial service to pay their respects to the
man who brought them to Christ.
Will that be said at your funeral, sir?
Will one attend your funeral that will thank
God for your life, because he's been saved
from hell, because you cared for his soul?
At the door, this man took me away
from my mother.
And I was reluctant, but he says, you
come with me, boy.
And I walked away from mommy under this
tree outside the church.
And this wealthy man said to me, I
tell you why I wanted you here.
I want to tell you about your father,
because you're a preacher.
And I want you to tell the world
about your father, my boy.
The world needs to hear about such a
man, what a Christian can be in this
world.
And I want you to say this when
I tell you, boy, when your daddy was
with us, as he went around in this
sort of advisory capacity in his older age,
while he was with us, he had a
deep, profound effect upon the whole firm.
But one day we were having a meeting
upstairs in these glass panes, overlooking all the
factories and all the sales areas, all over
the business.
And I had all the heads of the
department, the managers all over, were in my
office having a meeting with me.
And suddenly we became aware something terrible was
happening down there in the firm, in the
factory area especially.
So we cancelled the meeting and said, let's
all get down and sort this out, whatever's
going wrong.
We went down and there was a salesman
advertising tiles that he'd come in trying to
get us to buy or somehow propagate his
tiles.
And so he stood with all these men,
but he had a transfer, a photograph that
would put against the tile in your bathroom
or somewhere.
You pull it off and there's a perfect
photograph of a woman.
I won't tell you any further.
It was wicked.
I don't want to defy you, but it
was wicked.
These men, as the salesman was giving this
out with glee, because he saw how excited
all the men were, and these men lost
their dignity, their decency, their honour, in moments
through a stupid photograph they were carrying on
like animals.
And I looked at them, and I looked
at this photograph, and I threw it down
and said, how evil, how wicked.
I looked at this man, but he didn't
divert, he just kept giving him out, smugly.
And the men were clamouring like animals to
get them, putting them in their pockets.
And then suddenly, while I was standing there
grieving, I looked and I saw your father.
He walked in, Keith.
I saw your father walking into the factory
and I thought, oh God, oh my God,
what will this man do now?
What will this man do now?
And your father walked in oblivious to what
was going on, looking at all these men
carrying on.
And he found one of these photographs, and
within seconds the tears streamed down his face
and he groaned like a hurt from within.
He groaned so loud, everyone stood in silence.
Keith, within a few seconds I looked and
every single man was weeping.
I looked, not one wasn't smitten, deep in
their hearts, convicted to the presence of one
man of God.
In seconds they were weeping.
He said, give them to me, give them
to me.
And I watched, Keith, no man tried to
hide a photograph, no man tried to slip
one away.
Every single one just screamed forward, trying to
push past each other, saying, take it, Mr.
Daniel.
Forgive me, sir, forgive me, sir.
They were shamed just by one look from
one man of God.
That's how we should be, salt of the
earth.
Are we?
Do we stop sin?
That's what salt does.
The advance of evil cannot go farther than
salt.
Salt stops corroding, stops corruption.
The moment it's there, it cannot advance, it
stops.
Do we, as the light of the world,
stop evil men?
For their sin, they cannot go on.
And then Daddy took all his pile and
put it into the man's hand, the salesman,
and said, get out, sir, get out, go.
The man says, it's my job.
What am I supposed to do?
I've got to make a living.
I don't choose what to sell.
They tell me to do it, I've got
to do it.
My father looked at him weeping and said,
oh, I would rather starve and die before
I did this to make money.
I would rather starve and die than do
this to make a living.
You're going to hell, boy, he said.
Don't you know you're going to hell, boy?
And you deserve it, unless you come to
Christ, unless you come to Christ and repent
from this.
Get rid of your job, even if you
starve.
Unless that happens, get out and don't ever
come back here.
Don't ever come back here.
My daddy wept.
Suddenly, this man shook everyone.
He fell down on his face and wept.
He wept.
And when even your daddy couldn't take the
way this man was trying to help him,
he said, no.
He wouldn't allow anybody to lift him up.
He was so ashamed of himself.
No one could believe their eyes.
The man crawled, not on his knees, but
on his face.
He crawled out of the door.
Why, everybody stood there groaning for him.
Even your daddy didn't want that.
Do you think that is going too far,
sir?
Do you think that's what God doesn't want
us to be in this world?
Do you know how brave and evil men
are who fight to legalize depravity in the
name of art and freedom of speech, no
matter how defiling it is?
Do you know the millions of children that
cannot stay pure because of evil men fighting
to legalize evil?
They have no guilt.
Do you know what the salt of the
earth will do to those men in seconds
if we were what we should be?
Do you know how fast things won't be
legalized?
How fast people will stop fighting as if
it's nothing to be ashamed of?
In their shame they won't whisper the things
they're fighting for today.
But where's the salt of the earth?
Do you think my daddy was the only
one God wanted to make sinful evil men
crawl in moments?
It might sound pitiless, but it wasn't.
That's how wicked men should be on the
ground weeping, sir.
If we were what we do, pray for
revival, what do you think will happen when
revival comes to you?
Do you honestly think the unsaved won't be
affected in seconds, weeping, when they, embracing wickedness,
oh, the salt of the earth stops, sir,
believe me, when it's real, when it's effective
and hasn't lost its flavor, and good for
nothing, God says.
I wrote on my father's gravestone words that
my mummy said, I have to show you
before you go, boy, when I was home.
And there, this tombstone, given by men who
loved him of the business world, they had
written these words with all the other words
we prescribed, but they had written these words,
and when I saw the size of the
tombstone that stood out as you were walking
over the hill, that's it, fit for a
king.
Can you believe what they did for him?
As you know what they did on that
tombstone, they wrote these words, he walked with
God, he walked with God.
What will they write on your tombstone, sir?
Ask yourself, will they write anything, though you
say you're saved?
Will they be forced, will they be forced,
everyone who knew you and loved you, forced
to write such words?
They had to.
I said to my mother, these words had
to be written on my dead, these are
the only words that had to be written,
without us telling them.
My daddy came to me before he died
and said, my boy, I haven't got long,
I'm going soon, but I have one real
burden, Keith, you're not married, boy.
He said, Keith, I've watched you, you live
out of a suitcase to the next town,
that's your whole life, that's all you have
on earth now is a suitcase, and I've
watched how content you are with that, you
don't want anything more, I'm thrilled at it,
watching you, just looking for souls, all you
see is souls, Keith, I don't want that
to change, boy, but I have this in
my heart, I don't want to die until
I see you married, and I've asked God
to get you married before I die, and
I haven't got long, Keith, I want to
see, I want to see who God's kept
for you, that I've been praying daily, God,
keep her pure, whoever she is, for this
boy, keep him pure for her, please, God,
I want to see the one I prayed
for, Keith.
He turned and walked away, and three days
later, you know, I saw Jenny, I never
saw anything more beautiful in my life, I
never saw anything, I never believed anything was
so beautiful on earth, I never could have
believed my eyes, I stood there trembling at
the beauty of this girl, I've never seen
anything more beautiful since, it wasn't a vain
beauty, it was an inward purity, a godliness,
that just somehow shone through her whole being,
it was so beautiful, but when my father
knew that this girl loved me, and knew
it was God in her heart, he said,
please, fly her home to us, we want
to see her, I want to see her.
So, of course, we flew Jenny, she got
off the airplane at this airport, and daddy
stood back from the rest of everybody that
was there, my big family, to meet and
to see this girl now that Keith finally
found and fallen in love with.
Daddy stood back, and I turned and looked
for him, there he was, weeping, when he
saw what God had given me, he stood
there in the airport, and he wept, and
he wept, and he wept, and he wept,
he didn't speak to Jenny the first day,
you know, he just wept through the day,
and when God had answered his prayers and
given his son, then I got married, and
three weeks later daddy died, and went to
Jesus, and he's there with Jesus now, safe,
I don't want him back here, I would
be cruel to ask such a man to
be back in this world, though I so
miss him, but I know I'm going to
see him again, and I thank God for
that, when I see Jesus, I will be
so taken up with Christ, I don't know
how I'm going to find this possible, but
I know Jesus is going to make me
look for my daddy, and I know I'm
going to sit with my daddy again, and
I know I'm going to have eternity with
daddy.
That's the consolation that God tells us to
console, we're going to see them again, brother,
and we're going to know them, we're going
to talk of the things that God did,
we're going to stand and turn back and
look at Jesus as we talk of those
things, and worship him, the angels won't be
able to, only us who are washed in
the blood, who lay in our drunkenness at
13 years of age, who wouldn't speak to
fathers for months in hatred of them, who
filed for divorce against men who fought harder
than any other man to keep his marriage
intact, who lost everything in life, including his
health, trying to prove something that was without
God could happen in his life, oh, we'll
turn and look at that savior, and we're
going to worship the songs you've never heard.
There's such praise that he could do that
to my father, and my brother, and my
mother, and me, and my children, all three
love Christ.