Keith Daniel delivers a powerful sermon on the painful reality of facing opposition from one's own family when choosing to follow Christ. He emphasizes that true discipleship may lead to division, even among loved ones, as illustrated by biblical passages and personal stories of individuals who faced severe consequences for their faith. Daniel recounts the transformative power of God's grace in the lives of those who have suffered for their beliefs, urging listeners to remain steadfast in their commitment to Christ despite familial strife. He highlights the importance of prioritizing one's relationship with God above all else, even when it leads to heart-wrenching decisions. The message calls for deep reflection on the cost of discipleship and the necessity of unwavering faith in the face of adversity.

I'm so grateful to be here. I am deeply grateful to God for allowing me the privilege of coming back. And thank you each one that did come, every one of you, including all these fine young men. Thank you for being here tonight. What is the name of your school? Thunderbird. Well, that sounds a good name. Good. I'm very grateful you're here tonight. Can we have a moment of prayer, please? Father, wash me in thy blood, the blood of thy Son, Jesus Christ, and we ask thee to have mercy by filling me with the Holy Spirit. Beyond our comprehension, how thou couldst entrust a man, any man. But we ask for anointing upon thy Word, upon this message, for our souls' sake, and for us who are washed in the Holy Blood of Christ at salvation, of all sins pardoned, that there will be no condemnation from God to anyone in the watch that he committed, if it has been washed by grace and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. But, O God, that even those who are saved will be deeply, deeply spoken to tonight. But we will not leave this place. Just another meeting we attended, but perhaps to change our attitudes to the day we die from this night. Come and visit us, therefore, and protect us from Satan, his demons, the multitudes of angels that rebelled with him and swept with his tail down upon earth, a third of the angels in heaven turned against God. And in our desperate demons, at war with his saints, Jesus asked thee, our Father, to protect us all here tonight from our only true enemy, Satan and his followers. Come, therefore, by the Holy Spirit glued upon us, and take these hearts of ours, even the hardest, and break them tonight, even though we might not have that in our heart. Do it, Lord. Because we all unitedly ask these things in the name of Jesus the Christ, the name we love, the name we live for, the name we would gladly die for. And for his honor and glory alone, Amen. I'm going to read scriptures that perhaps you bypass as you read them swiftly, but I'm going to link them up tonight as a stepping stone to this sermon. So I'd like you to listen, not with your ears, that sounds a bit strange, but with your hearts. Would you listen with your hearts to these holy scriptures from God's Word? First will be found, and you need not turn them up, since I'm going to read quite a few, Micah, in the Old Testament, chapter 7, verse 5. Trust ye not in a friend. Why would God say that? Put ye not confidence in a guide. I could preach a sermon on that right now. Keep the doors, keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom, from your wife. For the son dishonoreth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies, a man's enemies are the men of his own house. You've never, ever tasted the cruelty of an enemy in your life until you've tasted it from someone in your own home and family. You've never known what wounds are from an enemy until you find an enemy in your own home. A man's enemies, God says, are the men of his own house. Then, Matthew 10, 32, in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus is speaking, Whosoever, therefore, shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven. Think not, think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's foes, enemies, shall be they of his own household. But he that loveth his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. He that loveth his son or his daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. He that loseeth his life for My sake shall find it. And now Luke chapter 12 verse 51, Christ speaking again, Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth, I tell you nay, but rather division. Henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And then Luke 14 verse 26, If any man come to Me, if any man come to Me and hate not his father, if any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren, brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Then in the Old Testament there's another staggering verse in 2 Samuel 23 verse 5, Although My house be not so with God, yet hath He made with Me an everlasting covenant. I want to repeat that. Although My house, My family, My home, be not so with God, yet He hath made with Me an everlasting covenant. Many, many years ago, when I was a little boy, My father didn't have much money. We were very poorly. But My father had this in his heart to give us a home. And I shall never forget, as a little boy, on the weekends, Daddy, after a hard week of work, took almost every cent he earned to buy a few more bricks and cement and wood and pipes. And it took him a few years, because I was just a little thing when I became conscious of what was going on. And he built us a home, a beautiful home. He acquired a little piece of ground on the outside of the city that wasn't worth much money, but eventually it became the suburb that affluent people would choose. And he had a beautiful piece of land and eventually a beautiful home, which later on he developed to one of the loveliest homes, I suppose, in the world. As money came and flowed into his life, and he became very wealthy later on, which was his downfall and ruination in life until God saved him. But Daddy built this home. I'll never forget. He didn't want to be near the rest of the cities and suburbs. So here we were on this hill overlooking a valley. I could never let you comprehend with words of mine how beautiful that valley was, this river and the mountains and the rocks and gorges and the trees. Oh, that was a wonder of our back garden looking out over this. Beautiful. We didn't have many neighbors at first, but eventually, within a couple of years, the affluent grew tall around here because of the beauty and the situation only my father knew when he was still very poorly when he built it. But we did have a neighbor from about the beginning, down at the bottom of the lawns, upon lawns and gardens and trees. There was a rooftop that I saw down this steep hill down into the valley. And in this house, which is our only neighbor basically in the beginning, was a man that was a very strange man. Trust me, his name was Roy, Uncle Roy. But not a blood uncle. In our country of South Africa, if anyone is older than you by at least five years, you call them uncle or auntie, okay? It's reverence. It's one of the few countries left in the world that you actually stand up for a woman in a bus or a train. Always. Or you really are trouble. There's respect, okay? So we called him Uncle Roy. He was older than us and we were little kids. He was our neighbor. But he didn't like my father. And my father hated him. My father was without God. But Uncle Roy was every single thing that my father wasn't. Uncle Roy was like an aristocracy. Have you ever seen them? Like a British general. He spoke with his squads or, oh, I don't know. But he walked like he was marching in the Russian army wherever he was walking. He didn't mean to. He was just a very strange man. Uncle Roy would walk like this with his feet going up almost so high. And you saw this. People just stopped and looked, you know. But he didn't feel ashamed and he wasn't doing it. He was a very strange man. This neighbor. Daddy didn't quite like the way Uncle Roy marched past our front fence there, looking at my father, you know. Oh, well, they didn't get on much. They didn't take to each other because I think every value Uncle Roy had was exactly the opposite to what my father had. Nonetheless, Uncle Roy was there. And Daddy, of course, built this dance floor for entertainment. We had people from all over coming on the Friday, the Saturday nights especially. Have you ever had neighbors like that? Where all you hear is this music, pow, pow, into the night when you're trying to sleep. Neighbors from hell, I saw in the newspaper the other day. Neighbors from hell. Nonetheless, I suppose that's what we were in other people's eyes. That's my daddy. He brought us children as we grew a little bit bigger. A beautiful dance floor just for the kids. Oh, the amplifiers and the music. And here we as, oh, well, that was Daddy. Entertaining all the drinking, all the carrying on, all the dancing. Uncle Roy, of course, called the police one night when it went on and on. You do that to neighbors like us, okay? When 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and pow, pow, and all the screaming. Oh, that's what we were. And that's what our neighbors, by the way, quite a lot of other neighbors had come by this time. So, the police come to stop Daddy. Of course, you don't play the fool with my father, let me tell you. He knew who it was. Obviously, only Uncle Roy would have called the police. So, there was a terrible warfare about to explode when they finally did have a little moment. My Uncle Roy told me years later he had a hammer. You know, a wooden hammer underneath his shirt. And he said, if your father was going to beat me up, I was going to take it over and bang him over the head. I was expecting it, I was waiting, and I was going to bang him on the head. Because your father was so outrageous and angry with me all the time, you know? I was scared of your father. But I had to call the police that night. Oh, well, Daddy really was angry for weeks at Uncle Roy for doing that. Fancy the police coming and stopping you from dancing and screaming and drinking. They did it in the gardens too, it was terrible. Nonetheless, that was it. Now, suddenly, Father had to leave that situation and go to what we call the City of Gold. I think it's the only city in the world that's built on gold. The greatest gold mines in the world. The mineral gold mines of Johannesburg. It's an amazing city. But we went there because that's where the workplace demanded my father to be, as he just rose up in position and authority and wealth. So we went up there. And of course, God saved us. After that, he turned to drink and was enslaved and smashed through all the socializing. His life destroyed, his marriage destroyed, his children destroyed. We turned to God as a family. And years later now, I was preaching. Very young, I had a big problem. They said no one could believe that I was old enough to be a preacher. I don't know if you know what that means. Of course, you look at me now with gray hair, trust me, youth doesn't last. Once you're in the school of God, the fires, youth was gone. But when I first started preaching, I was so young looking that they used to call me the boy preacher. So there I was, this little boy, they say, this little youth. I even got into trouble with the police, brother. Who would not believe that I was in my twenties. They said, you're at school. I'm not. They wanted to chase me. I said, I'm a preacher. And I had to deal with the police, brother. Bad policeman. Oh, I'm sorry. Nonetheless, there you are. I was preaching now. And they took me on this little tour around one part of southern Africa, along the coast. In this one town, I was preaching in this very large baptist church, I think. And after the meeting, all the people, you know, lots of them, they want to go home. They want to come and greet you and speak. But all gathering in the front, and all the stragglers around this big auditorium. After I finished preaching, and I looked past all these people speaking to me. Why? Because I saw a man walking as no human being in history could walk. Uncle Roy. Now I was a man. I lost a maestro when I was a little 13, 14 year old, 15 maybe. Well, here comes Uncle Roy. I looked as his legs, you know, couldn't ever get out of that till the day he died. I don't know how that happened. Here he comes down the passage of the church, the aisle. And I, no one could walk like that. As he got closer, of course he had aged. But here was Uncle Roy. And he walks right through the crowd, and I walk towards him. And he's got tears coming down his face. He looks at me. Keith Daniel. It is you. He said they told me to come and hear this boy. And I had to travel a long way. This young fellow that looks like a little boy. His name is Keith Daniel. And I thought, no, no. Could that be that wicked child that used to live above us and threw big rocks on my roof. Wow. When I'm listening to classical music. And I jump up. My wife screams. I scream. We run in circles. We run out. And you knew that your father hated me. And you knew I was scared of him. So you said, sit there and put a tug at me. When I pulled my fist at you, you pulled a tug at me. Oh, could it be that wicked child that used to know I was too scared to moan or do any problems or call the police. Because I was in enough troubles already with his daddy. He says, and it is you. It is you. You're saved. You're preaching. And the tears coming down his eyes. So I said, Uncle Roy, I didn't know you were saved. We never heard that you had come to Christ. I'm just so, my father, my father loves God. He said, I heard in your message about your dad. I just sat there trembling. Your father, I can't believe he's saved. Oh, you need to see him. Oh, him and my daddy became the closest friends. He's worst enemies. One looked at each other when they saved. Oh, they're on their knees together praying through the night. Oh, they became close. That's all God can, that's all you need is God. Nonetheless, I said, Uncle Roy, when were you saved? How many years ago? We never heard. And I'm amazed we never heard that you'd come to Christ. We've heard of others in the neighborhood where we used to live. The boys I grew up with. But how did you come to Christ, Uncle Roy? So he looks at me for a while. Have you time to sit down with me and forget about all these people? Yes, Uncle Roy. Come sit, boy. So we sat. And he said, Keith, just brace yourself. You are going to be deeply shaken as to how God had saved me before he could reach my heart. When you left Durban and went up to Johannesburg, other neighbors moved into your house. But almost immediately, it was the strangest thing. My wife, Keith, you might not remember, but my wife was a lady. I never knew anyone that commanded so much respect as my wife. People would stand wherever she would walk in. People would stand. My wife was an extraordinary lady. Even I stood. When we had visits and my wife would walk in, I stood. There was such a demand of respect by her gentleness. Their upbringing was refined and something unique. But as you folks left, I one day walked there and they were carrying my wife down the street. She was drunk. Drunk to walk home. I just wept in the house. What are you doing? Oh, Roy, just don't think too much. You shouldn't have gone out. And then she's drunk again and again. I would just find her lying sprawled out in the pavement and gutted up in the park. When I come home, my wife, people are trying to find me to get all the same. But the fear, because I loved her with every breath of my body, boy. I loved her. So we put her in these homes. We took her to all these psychologists and treatments, trying to help her the best I gave her. Keith, I used to lock the door of her room in the end when there wasn't a servant or the domestic at home. To watch over her. And I would hope that, oh my heart, she couldn't get anyone to slip her a drink. And do you know she found people from the streets that somehow she arranged would run through the gardens and pass her alcohol. And she had passed the money. And I opened the locked door and she was lying there drunk to a stupor, unable to talk. Enslaved to alcohol, drowning in alcohol. I said to her, why? Why did you do this? I've been a good husband to you. I gave you the best home. You couldn't find a better home. You have everything. Why are you doing this? And she just looked down and said, I don't know. And then one night, in all our shame and fear and weariness, she walked into the lounge. And she had tears coming down her face. And she said, Roy, I need God. Roy, you've tried everything. I've tried everything. And I really have tried, Roy. Because I know how shamed you are. But Roy, I need God. I know that I need God. And I know in my heart God will stop me. And give me what I haven't got and other people haven't got the ability to do for me. Roy, the neighbors that moved into your housekeep when you and your daddy and them lived. The Baptists. And Roy, they're different. I know you've had nothing to do with them. But Roy, there's been times, circumstances where they were helping me in shame. And they said to me, all you need is God. All you need is Jesus Christ. And they've said things to me, Roy, I don't understand fully. But we haven't got what they've got. But Roy, we call ourselves Christians because we're born Christians in our understanding as a Christian country. But there's something we're misunderstanding about Christianity because we haven't got what they've got. And Roy, I know, I know in my heart what they have is all I need. I want you to take me to their church. They've asked me to come many times now, Roy. But I want to go because I know somehow in my heart that there's what I'm looking for. I want you to go to them, Roy, and tell them that we're coming with them to church, to their church. And I want to find what they've got, Roy. I looked at my wife, Keith, and I said, no. Over my dead body will you become fanatical like this lot next door? I hate them. They talk to me, don't worry. But I abhor them. I turn my face. They're religious fanatics. They're mental. Religion's made them mad. I will not let you become like them. I would rather you die. Then you'll become like these people, and I've got to live with that. I would rather you die. Keith, she looked at me, tears pouring down her face, and she smiled. She turned around, walked into the next room, and took a gun out of the drawer and put it to her head. Pow! Seconds after I told her that I wanted that of her rather than God. When I heard that gun, something in me died. As I slowly, crying out, turned and looked at her body. She was dead. What have I done to the one thing in life? Oh, Keith, the police came. The family. Everyone was brought home. When they all left, eventually, I locked the doors, bolted them on security. And I lay down, and I said to my own heart, I will die now. I don't know how long, how many days and nights. But all I know is that Baptists up there in your old house, Keith, found out in their hearts something's radically wrong. And, of course, they called help. And they smashed our door right off the hinges. They couldn't get through the security. They had a bash up on the hinges. We still have all these guards in Africa, a lot of windows everywhere. And there I was, close to death, in a stupor, lost consciously. I was taken to hospital, put all systems in me to try and revive my body, that I was so close to death. Dehydration and everything. And somehow they revived me. I was very, very, very sad when I realized I had not died. And they had brought me back. And then the Baptist, the man who broke the doors down with the police, to get to me. He came to the hospital. He said to me, Roy, you need Jesus Christ. Roy, you need him desperately before you do this again. And you're going to do this again. I can see it in your eyes. You don't want to live, Roy. Roy, you need God to save your soul. He began to explain salvation. He began to give scriptures of what God said he would do if you come to him. How he would save your soul and make you his child. He began to show how Christ died for everyone, even murderers, Roy. Christ died for them. He tasted death for every man. He will in no wise turn away anyone who comes to him, through Christ Jesus, the Father says. Because he tasted death for every man. How could he turn away anyone, no matter what he did? Well, I looked at this Baptist man and I said, listen carefully. God can't save me like you're talking about. And I told him, and I hadn't told anyone in the world, what really happened that night. I couldn't. And why she killed him. She wanted what you are holding out to me. Telling me I can freely take my faith. She wanted, I didn't. He wept. And after a while of walking around the room just weeping, he sat again beside me and said, Roy, what you did was terrible. But you were unsaved. In darkness. Roy, even though you did that, God will forgive you. Don't both of you lie without God. Even if you did that to her, Roy, God will save you. That's why God spared you. Now, I'm not leaving this bedside until you give your life to God. And I prayed, weeping. As he quoted verses and said, tell God you put your trust in what God promises you to trust. In that, he will save you. He will not turn you away. He will save you. I prayed verse after verse about what he was saying about the blood of Jesus Christ, the death of Christ, and by grace to be saved through faith in his death. I prayed. And there was an amazing peace that flooded my heart suddenly as I was praying that verse after verse. I was astonished at this peace because it couldn't be mind over matter. It was an amazing peace that just flooded my mind. It was tormented and self-abhorrent and self-destructive until I prayed that prayer. Now, Keith, God saved me. I got back up on my feet. I got purpose to live. And I found enormous peace. But, Keith, there isn't a day in my life since all those years ago that I do not sit down and groan in my heart as I think she wanted God. She wanted God to save her. I didn't want God. I stopped her. I'm saved. But where is she? Where is my wife, Keith? The one who wanted God. Oh, they tell me the grace of God looking in her heart and her mind and circumstances and her whole damaged way of thinking and heart and mind that God may have saved her. Keith, I find no peace in that. I want to, but all I think of is every day. I didn't want God. She did. I stopped her. I found Christ. But where is she? Where is she, Keith? He bowed his head and wept in front of me. I just sat there stunned for a long time just looking at him as he silently wept with his head broken after all those years. Broken. I was in a preaching appointment in a very large auditorium in a very big city. In the front row sitting just below this very high pulpit was a little boy with his mother. Both had a Bible open on their laps. Why I remembered them was the way they drank every single word. The slightest thing that was able to be grasped. The joy as they looked at each other excitedly just, oh, they were grabbing every single word. Not moving. It's lovely to see people like that sitting in God's house when you preach. That lady loved God and that boy, but there was just the two of them. Well, one night I was preaching and I looked over to where they sat every night and I stopped preaching. Because I saw her whole face was blown up. Her eyes closed, bruised, black, and tears. I looked at the little boy, his face was all swollen. His eyes, one eye was closed. I couldn't preach for a while. I held on to the pulpit and I said, what happened to these people? They weren't smiling, they weren't enthralled with every word I was saying. They looked up every now and again. They had no ability to be through with anything. I struggled to the end of that sermon, didn't worry about anybody in the building. Just got down, walked straight before anybody to this woman who stood up with her son. I said, who did this to you, lady? Who did this to you and your son? Why? Because of you, sir. I said, I cannot understand that. Sir, my husband hates God and Christianity. He hates God. And he hates me for loving God since I found Christ. He treats me with abhorrence. Sir, all the children follow my husband in wickedness. I won't even want to go into what they do with his condolences in the house. They break my heart. This is the only child that follows Christ with his mother. That chose God. He went home last night after your sermon and he was so excited about what you preached that he sat the other children and began to share with their excitement. The other children got interested and sat there listening enthralled at some of the things you were sharing. My husband walked through and looked at this. And he grabbed my son and threw him down like an animal and punched him with every bit of strength in his fist in the face. And he screamed at him, I will beat God out of you. I will beat God out of you. You will not become like your mother. You will not become religious. I will beat, he beat him and I tried to stop him. He beat me down to the ground and did this to me. It was a while later, a very godly old man walked up to me and said, Do you remember that woman? Yes. I know her husband. That boy has grown up a little bit. He's in jail. Drugs, selling and stealing cars, all sorts of things, some gang related things. He's in this juvenile place now. And then I heard again and again, he was just in prison all the time as he grew up. And then I heard a strange statement that his father said this publicly in front of religious, godly people. He said how shamed he was of that boy. What shame came onto the family through that boy. So I wrote a letter, a note. And I said to this old godly man that told me about what he said, of his shame in this son. What did you expect? What did you want? When you said, I'll beat God out of you. And you beat that boy's face to a pulp. What did you want? You got what you wanted. What did you expect from his life? When you beat out of him the desire for God, the pursuit of God, the most noble thing a human could ever come to in life. To find the highest form of nobility and decency. You said you didn't want it. You hated it. You got what you wanted. Don't tell me in a word you're shamed. You did it to him. Years later he lay dying. And they told me he had said something about me. He wouldn't let me near him though. Is there anything you want to write him? I could read to him because he's close to death. Yes. So I wrote another letter. I will not share what I said to him in that letter. But they read it. And the gentleman said to me, it was about three, four minutes before he just closed his eyes and died, that they read it to him. And as he died he said these words, after listening to that letter, Oh God, Oh God, what have I done? What have I done? He died saying those words. The last I heard of that young man, his son was dead. He's still in prison. Looks like it's his whole life. No good sending him out. He's back in pain. I was once when I was young, very young, as some say, before I went to theological seminar to learn to preach and to be prepared for preaching and serving God in full time ministry. I was attending a very godly prayer meeting continually and there was a little lady there. She was dressed so graciously. She had her Bible that was worn. She loved God. But every time I looked at her in that prayer meeting she had tears pouring down her face. Now that unnerved me as a young Christian. So I walked up to her one evening and I said Lady, can I ask you a question? Why are you always weeping? Why is there tears always coming down your face, Lady? She looked surprised at me and then said, Sit down my boy. I haven't said this to anyone here so she said, I come from a very wealthy family. I come from an extraordinarily wealthy family in my upbringing and I married a very wealthy man. That was the thing to do because wealth was everything. I married a very, very wealthy man. One day we were sitting in a meeting unexpecting to hear the truth of God's word and I heard the gospel in a way that I never heard before. I never knew God said that or knew these scriptures. Though we used to go to churches but I never heard this gospel and I was so broken at the thought that I'd missed this. Childhood going to church. I never heard the truth and I was so broken by the way, the gentleness and the way this man was preaching from God's word calling out to us and he died for us and so they made an appeal. I never knew there was such a thing. Come, those of you that know you have dealings with God and God himself, not me. A voice is reaching your heart through a base vessel but it's reaching where no human voice can reach and you know you have to do with God not with this man and you would say yes to God with your whole heart but how? I got up as I had all got up to go forward and my husband pulled me down. Don't you dare. Listen carefully woman. You destroy everything we have in life. Don't you dare go forward with these people. I turned to him after a while and I said what if I die before I get another chance to find out what they're speaking about and I got up and walked and went my way through to Jesus Christ. He saved me that day. Within a week or two maybe three weeks, I can't remember it was a few weeks he said he looked at me and said listen carefully woman you make a choice right now be careful what you say you will never ever have a chance to make a choice again in my life. You make the choice either God or me either God or me if it's God I will throw you out of that door like an animal and I will never allow you back in this house to the day I die. I will never want to see you again and I will fight that you don't even get the children near you and I will get my way you know me you make the choice but be careful because I mean nothing. I said well then I choose Jesus Christ no matter what the consequences. He took me like an animal physically pushing me and throwing me that I rolled down the staircase of cement without any sorrow in his heart or shock he had never ever touched me physically hitting me he had been good to me but when I gave my life to God he hated me more than any human could ever possibly have hated me in my entire life one moment and he as I tried to lift myself up down there sprawled out and bruised and wounded and shocked and weeping he said I'm divorcing you and I will make sure you never get the children near you I said to him no I will not allow divorce it has to be two sides I will not let you divorce me I will pray for you until you come to God but you will not get a divorce oh yes I will woman I will get my divorce from you don't you doubt that he took me to court some brilliant advocate stood there and said things that I did say that any Christian would say I don't believe there's a Christian born of God that would not say such things and I had to admit I said those things and then he said to the judge judge this woman religion has made her mad it's turned her mental she's mad this man has to have a divorce you can't force him to stay with a mental woman like this religion's turned her off her head he has the right for a divorce the judge said as he stood I agree this woman's gone off her head religion's turned her mad he has his divorce oh no maintenance required from his side again a woman who had no workplace no experience she was wealthy thrown out Isaiah 59 15 he that departeth from evil this is a prophecy concerning the gospel dispensation he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey the Hebrew says will be accounted as mad this is what God says in the many prophecies of what would happen in the gospel through the gospel that turns from evil because of God's requirements and God setting him free to become godly will be accounted as mad this is what God says 500 years before Christ died God says this is what happens this is what will happen to people who turn through the gospel of Christ being preached to them they will be accounted as mad by the godless who hate God beginning in your home Christ says God doesn't want you to hate your father and mother but to hate what they are the evils they will resort to against God's people you do not hate them in the context in the light of all the scriptures which is the only way you are able to read this and understand Christ is saying with a broken heart this will happen to multitudes it isn't all going to be your come to Christ and serve God and that's it most families I believe find what we find they are totally thrown away totally ostracized and the heart lost toward them because the others in the family do not require to stop the sin the evils oh don't you doubt it there is a verse in the Bible God forbid that I should glory Paul says save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I and if you say this happened by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world they die to me the world in your home not out there in the wicked evil places of the world beginning in your home those who will not have God by whom the world is crucified unto me God says if you truly save by faith through the cross of Jesus Christ his death the world will die to you because of how you die you cannot enjoy their sin while daddy sits there writhing and grieving at what he used to look on the box with you of moral decadence exalting evil blasphemies depravities oh yes all in the name of what entertainment yeah now you can't sit there anymore now they know daddy is there weeping on his knees how can they enjoy it and they die towards you because you have taken away the ability to even enjoy sin that you used to sit with them no convictions no fear that this is wrong everything that your work every way that begins in your home God says not every home just turns to God sir not every home does that I was preaching in one of the most amazing wonderful opportunities Andrew Murray's greatest pulpit the Khrutakak of Adelaide Street Cape Town where God really mercifully allowed me to stand and preach to preachers from all over Africa and other parts of the world thousands of them in the galleries where those who were not preachers but it was a preacher's convention and I was very honoured to speak at last evening after many of South Africa's and Britain's preachers had stood there preaching they let me close with a sermon that had repercussions all to this day but the next day you know just two or three days later in my home in Cape Town there was a knock at the door two men stood outside poorly clothed not with this beautiful like clothes you know just humble people and two men they said Brother Daniel we were in the meeting in the Khrutakak we attended we were up in the galleries we found seats there and we came to just thank you for that but we came to your door for a reason and we brought this an envelope and I looked at it it had money in it a substantial amount now I was a bit shaken because these look like poorly people I said are you sure that you can do this I appreciate we came to your door we knew we had to bring it to you in person God so put it on our hearts now please accept this from God and don't say no now we have to go I said please don't do that to me I want you to come in my house you came all this way honour me by not walking away come and have tea with me there is no one of my family here but I will be honoured if you come in you obviously love God in an extraordinary way I'd like to just get to know you without your walking away please honour me and come in my home they did I saw them looking at all our antique furniture that we didn't buy a thing that's all inherited from generations bequeathed down into our home also we didn't have anything I'd never coveted a thing I'm sentimental because it was great great great grandparents but who bestowed all these things down but I saw them looking at these things that they obviously never saw in their lives and then I said tell me about your life how did you come to Christ he said one man I was Islamic and I heard a young Christian in our workplace a man working in the factory and he was talking to me about Jesus all the time and sharing scriptures with me and eventually I couldn't sleep and I said to him one day listen I can't sleep anymore I want what you've got I want this Christ I want Christianity not Islam but Muslim faith and I knelt with him in the workplace on the cement with the machines going and others watching I knelt I was so desperate and God saved my soul I went home and I was so filled with joy at the consciousness that God had died for me and that he had saved my soul from hell and damnation and judgment and I just knew something had changed in me every perspective every value everything just seemed different to a degree that no human could just change I knew God had saved me and I shared this with my wife my children my mother and father in the house and the brothers the sisters everyone everywhere I was just telling them about what God had done how God had saved my soul through Jesus Christ within days the imam that is like the priest of the Muslim faith in their community and other imams all arrived in the house with every uncle auntie everyone all men so it's uncles and all the men of all the relations and they stood there and said to me you make a choice my father was there listening to them you reject Christianity you embrace Islam again or you will never be allowed in this home again till you die and if you try and make contact with your children your parents your family your wife you will die you will never see them again be careful of what you say now or you will not be allowed and they all agree and will be in full agreeance with me he looked at his father and he knew they were true and it wasn't one of his relations including his wife and children they were going to argue they would adhere to this I said then I choose Jesus Christ I cannot but choose Jesus Christ now that I found him I cannot I wasn't allowed to take clothes not even a suitcase I was just marched out of the door down the street by the imams and other religious leaders and said you come near your family or try and make contact with them you will die you will die sir you don't play the fool with these people so I never made contact with any of my family again from that day to this it was many many years ago sir this man with me he did the same he lost he has the same testimony thrown out lost his workplace because everything is related to family thrown out it was nothing and he said so I never saw I said you never ever saw your family again oh yes I saw them over the years I would drive on my way to a workplace that I eventually found in the years I would stand at the bottom of the street where our house was and I would watch through the years as they were taken to school as they walked from the house to the vehicle I would watch all my children from that age just growing up until the last one at school came out and then they're all gone different places oh yes I saw I would stand at the street corner and watch everything and watch them until they were taken to school did they know you were there sir did they ever see you oh yes they knew I was there every day through the years did they look at you only one my youngest son once in all the years looked at me no one else looked at me not once again he said and you were willing to pay such a price for Jesus Christ he looked at me in my shocks then he stood and he said sir when you look at what Jesus Christ did on the cross for me to have eternal life nothing we do is sacrifice David Livingston said that and I agree there's no such a thing as sacrifice in Christianity for God when you look at his sacrifice and what it acquired it would be very foolish sir to reject eternal life even if up to as long as the family is not for the rest of your life that would be the first truly foolish deed I ever did in life can we stand dear father take the message and help us to realize that many millions have paid a terrible price of all faiths to come and find Christianity and help us to realize that perhaps we haven't made any sacrifice if that's the right word that could be applied we're not even willing to be embarrassed to even mention Christ to be even facing the slight awkwardness let alone lose things like our whole family help us all to be willing to never deny Jesus Christ before me when we look at what others paid for Christ of their lives that we would share it unashamedly and whatever the cost to death never to retract even if we have to weep pain at our loss humanly but never to consider retracting our faith for our stand no matter what men would do to us and that there's those here who do not know that Jesus these people were willing to make such sacrifice to find help us to seek thee and find thee in Jesus Christ's name amen we are dismissed please come tomorrow night thank you so much sorry i spoke a little longer than i should have you you