In this sermon, the speaker recounts a powerful encounter he had with a young married couple who displayed an extraordinary love and tenderness towards each other. He asks them for advice on how they maintain such a godly love, especially in a world where many young people, even Christians, struggle in their marriages. The couple is stunned by the question but eventually shares their statement, which the speaker asks them to write down word for word. The speaker then goes on to share his own testimony of how Christ transformed his life and urges the audience to share the salvation of Christ with others.

Now can we just have a moment of prayer, please? Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our Redeemer, for His blood, for His life, come and have mercy on us, God our Father, and visit us in Your own way now. Use me in mercy like a monster, wash me not in the blood of the Lamb, make me rain, and save me with Your Holy Spirit in mercy, and come visit us now. In Jesus Christ's Holy Name. Amen. Now to those of you that have your Bibles, I'm going to read about ten verses. This is from the New Testament in Ephesians. Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5. Where Paul says these confusing but staggering words, be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. The capital is the Holy Spirit. Now after he says these words, be filled with the Spirit, he gives practical Christianity to stay filled with the Spirit once you are, and then the practical art working of being filled with the Spirit. Verse 21, submitting yourselves one to another. Verse 22, wives, submit yourselves. Very precious words. To your husbands, as unto the Lord. Verse 25, husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. This is one of the most staggering verses in the whole Bible. He asked the wives to submit themselves to such a man. To a man who loves his wife as Christ loved the church and gave, to give his life. To love him with a love that only God can give him. No human can love in his own capacity as Christ loved and died. He so loved the church. He so wanted the salvation of mankind. He says to a man, I want you to love your wife with that love. Now that is only possible to the degree a man yields himself to God. It is only possible with God's love. Agape, there's different Greek words for love. In the English and Afrikaans there's one word, love. But agape love, God's love. God isn't asking you as a husband to love your wife like that in your own strength. It's him loving through you. And you can only do that, God's love is only capable of being witnessed through your life without your effort to the degree you yield yourselves to God. And that's what I believe being filled with the Spirit is. Being controlled by the Spirit is all it means. Nothing more, nothing less. Being filled. It gives us the ability to be in subjection to one another. For wives to submit themselves to their husbands. In other places of the New Testament, wives to submit themselves to ungodly men. But in most places, to be in subjection to a man who loves you. As Christ loved the church. So ought men to love their wives, verse 28, as their own bodies. It's a very precious statement these. Verse 31, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother. Shall be joined to his one. They too shall be one flesh. This is impossible to comprehend. It's impossible to explain. It's one of those statements you have to accept by faith, because we cannot comprehend. God says, when a man marries a woman, he no longer looks upon them as two people. Literally, God is saying, literally, they are one. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. You become one. There's something so holy in marriage, that you are no longer looked upon as two people. God, somehow, says marriage is so sacred, so holy, in his eyes, that man must not allow it to be separation to come. Well, in its context, we have to look at that a bit further today. You are one. You become one. They too are one. That's what marriage is in God's sight. This is a great mystery. The next verse says, a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife, even if himself. And let the wife see that she reverence her husband. Children, obey your parents. In the Lord, for this is right. Read through Proverbs once to see how angry God is with a child who defies his parents. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, that thou mayest live long. You know, my mother's 87 years old. She is so remarkable. She staggers everybody, everywhere she goes these days. Her mind is so clear. She's so meaningful. And she's so loved that I stagger at the amount of people just pouring into her little cottage to somehow be with her. She's so loved. And my brother and I, I don't know if Dudley is the same, but there probably isn't a day that goes by for many, many years that I don't thank God for sparing my mother. She's so meaningful to me and my brother and our families. She has a meaningful life at 87. My mother, when I was a little boy, my granny died, a very young lady. She was killed. We were standing in the spot in Durban, my mother and I, where the bus hit her. But my grandfather was taken into our home. There were nine children in that family, but my mother took her father. And he fell apart in life. His mind went because of his wife's death. But I'll never forget my mother washing him until he died. Cleaning up his mess when he couldn't control himself on the floor and never complaining. She was unsaved. She would not have him go to a home. None of the other children had any thought of him. But mother watched after him in such a way that it staggered me. And I was a child. She never, ever shouted at him or got angry with him. There were times she wept as she picked him from the floor. And I, as a little boy, tried to help when daddy was still in the work. And now I look at all her brothers and sisters gone, apart from one. And I look at her meaningful life. And that just didn't happen by mistake. God doesn't say words that don't happen. Did you honor your mother and your father? In a way, God is obliged to honor his word here. He hits on every aspect of the home. Husbands, wives, children. Obey your parents. Honor thy father, mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with thee that thou mayst live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. It's possible he's writing to Christians now. He's not writing to unsaved. Don't, through your failure, make your children become angry. You can do that as a Christian. You can turn them from God as a Christian. Provoke not your children to wrath. But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Bring them up with God controlling you. With God controlling you. If one has to dare to say it, let God nurture your children by being so yielded to God that his love by the Holy Spirit will be seen toward your children. The nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now, I have one more verse that I want to read to you. On my marriage night, when all the people were gone, and I was finally alone with Jenny, we were honored. We were given a beautiful hotel room in a five-star hotel, and it was just given to us. Our first night of marriage. And we started marriage by walking in that room and opening the Bible and praying and reading the Scriptures. And I turned, as I had done all through the years, to my daily reading. I put a mark where I ended in the morning, and I turned to that in the night, and continued the next page. And I started my married night, our marriage in that night, on our knees, and I opened the Scriptures to where I had ended. And I didn't really know this was coming. I didn't know. I had been through the Bible many times, but I didn't really perceive now and think about it, what's coming. But the first words I read on our marriage night were Jeremiah 32. A very lovely verse. In its context, different, but in reality, Rima, when God speaks, when it isn't just reading, and suddenly you know God speaking. This is what I read on our marriage night. Jeremiah 32, verse 39. I will give them one heart. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them. I will give them one heart. I stopped. I took the pen, which I always do when God, I know, you get to know when it's God, not just a chance. And I marked and I put the date and the time. Now we've been married many years, and I have looked at this promise that I got the night I was married, and I see God has fulfilled it in the most amazing way. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them. I want to preach tonight, looking at this verse and in the light of Ephesians, the verses we've already read. There are some pages here I'm going to read and some illustrations, but listen carefully now. What fruit, fruit is usually expected from a marriage? What fruit is usually expected from a marriage? I would say, I would say children, children. I'd like to reword this question now. What fruit can be expected from a happy marriage? What fruit can be expected from a happy marriage? I would say stable, happy children. Stable, happy children. What fruit is usually expected from an unhappy marriage? Usually unstable, unhappy, complex, hurt, scarred children. The greatest gift you can give your child in life is not a good education. It is not a beautiful home. It is not a wonderful inheritance. These things will make him curse you one day, if one gift lacks of what you gave him in life. The greatest gift you can give your child is a happy marriage. A child's stability, a child's stability is gained more from seeing his parents truly love each other than anything else he sees them achieve in life. I'd like to repeat that. A child's stability is gained more from seeing his or her parents truly love each other than anything else he sees them achieve. Someone once said to me, and this is a very famous someone, who I never knew I'd had the privilege of standing with, that he believes stability is achieved in a child's life more from discipline than any other thing we can do. And instability comes through lack of discipline. I was standing with a lot of people, not just alone with him, and I said, I disagree with you. You're wrong. You're wrong. I believe that a child's greatest source of security is from seeing and witnessing true love in its parents. Most problems in the character and life of a person stem from an unhappy home. Can I repeat that? Most problems in the character and life of a person stem from an unhappy home. I have sat, I would say, with thousands over the last 38 years of preaching, of youth, some as young as 11, with terrible problems, terrible sin. The first thing I asked them, tell me about your home. Just talk. Just talk. I don't know one that at that point didn't pour out what they weren't thinking they were going to pour out, of the unhappiness of their mother and father. I'm talking about the children who, from small, many in their later teens, are somehow involved and trapped in terrible sin. I begin by asking them about their mother and father. I don't know one that didn't break down weeping. When I was a young boy, I befriended a young fellow. I had no idea where this friendship was going to lead me. I had no idea of what the consequences of that friendship were going to do in my life. But I befriended him. He was wild. And we got into an awful lot of sorrows and troubles and brought an awful lot of sorrows to my mother and father and his. Our lives were in so much sorrows and so many problems. As a boy, he landed up in a drug addict's home, first hospital, trying to keep him alive, what he did to himself under the influence of drugs, that he didn't even know what he was doing. He didn't even know why. Somehow they spared his life. God in mercy helped them. He was put in a drug addict's home. I'm talking about a young boy, a young fellow. We separated as friends. I didn't see him for a long, long time. Because our lives were both destroyed, putting it mildly, I don't want to go into it with my life. But one day, Jesus Christ reached out to my heart in a way that I remember kneeling before God and giving my life to him forever. I remember kneeling before God and giving everything I am into God with every breath in my body to save my soul. God so changed my life. There was no one in this world who wasn't totally staggered to the degree God changed me, not in one year, but in one moment when I stood up from my knees. I looked at this world through different eyes the next second after I'd asked God to save my soul. Every value changed. What I had never ever considered in life is worthwhile I was now willing to die for. I went to Glenville Bible School soon after that. God took hold of me even concerning the rest of my life. But when I was home in Johannesburg, people would flock to our home. And certain people said to me, you must find that friend of yours. You need to tell him what Christ can do with a life in one moment. You need to share. He'll listen to you. Don't think he'll listen to anyone else in the world, but he will listen to you. You owe it to that boy to tell him of the salvation of Christ procured in your life. You know, I had nothing in me to go and ever see him again. I had nothing in me. It was like dead. You die to things that you don't want to go near. I didn't feel that I had to get to every single wicked place and wicked person. I wanted to stay away. I had new friends. I wanted to win the world, but not necessarily go back to people that destroyed my life and places that destroyed my life. I didn't have that in my. So I didn't go. A day or two or three passed. And suddenly this burden came that is beyond comprehension. I could never put it in words that anyone here would understand. But such a crushing burden that I couldn't think of anything else but this boy. To find him, to go and find him and tell him of what God has done for me and that God can do for him. So we didn't have cell phones those days. I was young. We tried to phone the various people that knew where he lived that wanted me to go and see him. They were all talking about, I have to go while I'm up there to see him before I go back down to Glenville and Cape Town. I couldn't get hold of anyone. And I thought, well, Lord, I only have today. I'm leaving tomorrow. The term begins, I can't, I don't have another day. And in my heart, something said, not an audible voice, but I knew it was God. Go. I was so confused. I remember getting in his little car and driving a few hours to get to this town where he lived, where I had heard he lived. I had no address. When I got to this town, which I hadn't been to for at least five or seven years, I couldn't believe the growth of the town. It was like a little city now. There were robos, there were buildings, it was just traffic everywhere. And as I looked at the size of the town, I thought, Lord, what am I doing here? How will I ever find his name's not in the phone book, his address, I can't find anybody. I have no address. What am I doing here, God? I was so confused as I was just driving along this one road, just driving on any road I was in. Suddenly, something within my heart said, stop the car. It was so vivid, it was so real that I put the brakes on and skid. I stopped the car. I was shocked at myself. I got out the car, not quite knowing what to do, and I walked to the door of where I stopped the car. And he opened the door. Then I knew it was God. Then I was so stunned at the power of God and the perfect love of God and guiding me without address, without any perception of where to go, to his door. I knew it was God. When he opened the door, I just found the tears just pouring down my face. And the tears just poured down his face. I walked in. He was married. He was very young to be married, and he had been married, obviously, a good while. He had children that were able to talk and play and playing on the floor there. His wife was so beautiful. I was stunned at the refined beauty of this woman that had married him. And I said to him, you know, if ever God wants to speak to anyone in this world, it's you. That God brought me, and I told him, and he was staggered at what I told him. There he just sat, even the children just looked up at me. But the wife, her eyes were looking at me. And then I told him how Christ had saved my soul. How Christ had set me free. And free indeed. How Christ makes you a new creature. If any man be in Christ. If anyone in this building be in Christ. There was a moment this happened. All things pass away. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. All things pass away, behold, all things become new. I told him my every single value in life changed. Every perception, every value is changed. My priorities, my values, every single thing has changed in one moment. God did that. And I said, I believe God wants to save you. That he so burdened me to come here. And that he so showed me it was him in sending me here. In a way I can't doubt it was him. Then he stood. And I remember him saying words that his wife will never forget for all eternity. His children will never forget for all eternity. And I will never forget for all eternity. He said, Keith, you're the one person I will never lie to. I come from a Christian home. From a young boy, all I remember is early back, my early remembrance of being told there's a heaven, there's a hell. And unless I'm saved, I'm going to hell. I remember as a boy hearing this. We were dragged to every single meeting in the church. Never did we miss. I grew up in church. Every prayer meeting. My father and mother prayed the loudest and the longest. They were the pillars of the church. They were the faithful ones. Every time there was testimonies, time for testimonies, my mother and father got up. They were the ones that always, oh, God's done something wonderful in his faithfulness. That made everybody shout, amen, hallelujah. But Keith, I remember from a little boy until I left that home, Keith. When they got home from church, they were different. I just remember the fighting starting most nights as soon as the door was shut. They were like different people, totally. They fought. They seemed to fight about everything in life, Keith. They fought that I remember as a child, weeping. Fearing where it's going to head, where this is all going to head tonight. Just fearing where it's going. The fear in my heart. Keith, when I left that home, about the time I met you, Keith. It was almost about exactly the same time as I met you. I remember saying to myself as a boy, I will never become a Christian. I will never want this. I will never want this for my children. I will never ever become a Christian. And Keith, I said it in a way that you only could understand knowing me. I said it in a way, I can't change my mind, Keith. Now listen, Keith. You don't know how much it means to me that you've come here. I want you to sit here. I want you to get to know my wife. I want you to sit here. But if you want to say one more word about Christianity or God, I want you to get up now and I want you to walk out that door and go. And never come near me again. I've had enough of Christianity, Keith. I've had enough. You know, I got in the car and I wept as I drove. I wept all the way back to Johannesburg. I remember weeping sometimes months later, just weeping on my knees about what he said. But as I drove in the car, I remember groaning to God, Oh God, don't let my children ever say this of me one day. Please God. Beloved, the greatest miracle you will ever witness in your entire life is not if you see someone raised from the dead. If you want it. That's not a great miracle. Don't ever look for it or hope you'll find it. The greatest miracle you will ever witness in your entire life is not if you see someone raised from the dead. No, there's a greater miracle than that. It is if you see your child seeking God and truly getting saved. If you fought and argued as a husband and wife while you told them to follow your God, your religion, to follow his father and mother. It is to see your child ever seek God one day. If you ever see that, you have seen the greatest miracle you will ever witness on earth in your life. There's a passage that I touched on this morning in 1 Peter. It's a lovely book. I memorized the whole book and I preached it hundreds of times across many, many towns, many, many thousands of people. But that chapter 3, where it starts off with the wives being in subjection to their husbands to win the unsaved husband by their life, by their godliness. Starting with looking for grace to be in subjection and not to argue or fight back, but to reveal Christ's likeness. It goes on to the husbands, likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, using your common sense, literally, quickened by the Holy Ghost, of how to keep the testimony, how not to lose the testimony. Giving honor unto the wife is unto the weaker vessel. Yes, she may be weaker, brother, but don't become bitter against her because she isn't as strong as you or capable as you. God made her weaker, so that you can be the priest of the home. You want to see an unhappy man, show me a man whose wife is not the weaker vessel. You can thank God as a man if your wife is the weaker vessel that needs you to survive, needs you to draw alongside even if she wants the dishes when she can't cope. Even if you're tired, yes. So here it's the wives and the husbands to keep the testimony, but why? It ends with this word, that your prayers, that your prayers, that your prayers be not hindered. Cancelled out, ineffective, worthless. That your prayers, the whole thing here, full stop, they change the subject, Peter does, goes on to a different doctrine. The whole concept of why you must submit, why you must love her and show patience and not become bitter and angry, and honor her as unto the weaker vessel, even though she's weaker, honor her, don't become bitter. That your prayers be not hindered. I want to ask every one of you, how can God answer our prayers for our children if we're the reasons they don't want God? How can God look at our prayers, crying out for our children's salvation when they begin to rebel, or be angry with you, or disrespect you, when your life is the reason? That God can't answer your prayers, that's tragic. How can you expect God to answer your prayers for your children to be holy, and Christ-like, if you didn't show them it's possible through your life, in marriage. If Christianity doesn't work in the home, it doesn't work anywhere. The rest is a lie. You are as real as you are in your home. If your children have no regard of your testimony, you don't have a testimony of any worth, in the light of this book. And your children know, don't doubt that, how real you are. I preached once in a hospital, to the staff. They had a lot of Christians there in Cape Town. This was many years ago, and a lot of husbands and wives were in the staff. Doctors, and just a great group, I'd say about 200 of them gathered there. Then they had a time they wanted to ask me questions, and they brought up this thing about marriage. And how many marriages end in divorce? Even Christian marriages end crippled in divorce everywhere, beginning in the pulpit all over the country. Divorce, divorce, marriages are just crumbling. Well, there was a lot of questions, I gave answers to the best of my ability. And then there was a young doctor sitting there. He had his little wife sitting beside him, and he was young, very young. But he said, I believe one must just hold on, no matter how hard it is. He said, I believe that the first year of marriage is the worst. It's terrible. But if you can get through two years, he says, because the first two years are terrible. Then I believe things get better. So I said, how old are you, how many years have you been married, I said. He said, we're married six months. So I looked at him, and his wife looked a little bit stunned, and everybody else, because obviously he's going through a terrible time. Well, that is sad. I want to read something from one of the godliest homes I've ever been in my life. They're missionaries now in South America. But I watched this girl grow up over the years in America. Marrying a godly boy from a godly home. And God gave them a house paid off to come back to whenever they came on furlough. God really honored them. But their lives are on the altar. But I was in that house, and I watched the love and the tenderness and the gentleness and the sincerity between this young man and his wife, with his two little babies now. As they were giving me a meal. And after a while I realized these two have got something very holy, very precious. This isn't showing off to me. This is how their marriage is. There's a tenderness, there's love, the gentleness, the respect, the love that's between those two. And I said to them, What would you say if I asked you for a statement of how you can be so in love as a young married couple for a few years, with such tenderness, with such reality that I'm sitting here stunned at how much love there is between you both. How godly your love is. If I asked you for a statement that I could preach all over the world to many multitudes of people, I'm not going to old people or to great big commentaries. I'm asking you. Where most young people, even Christians, fight and are scarred and hurting. What statement would you give? You know they looked at each other stunned and they said these words and I said write them down. I want word perfect what you've just told me. Will you listen carefully to the advice of young married couple who are in love after a few years. Tender, gentle, godly. We have found that all Christian couples have drawn a line somewhere in their marriage. On the one side of the line is the behavior that they allow. And the other side are the things they would never consider doing. For example, most Christians would never ever strike or beat their spouse. Such sinful actions are beyond their limit of tolerated behavior. That is an enormous mental roadblock they would never cross over. They would be crushed by remorse if they ever were to cross over the line into physical abuse. Yet they think almost nothing of speaking unkind words to each other. Of humiliating one another. Publicly or arguing. Why? Because they have drawn their line at the point that tolerates such behavior. It may be close to the line and yet it's allowed. And expected. We believe that God's standard for the children who bear his nature is much higher than those human limits. In our renewed minds the same enormous roadblock that keeps us from striking one another will keep us from speaking harsh or angry words. When we truly put on the mind of Christ, unkind words are just as unthinkable as violent blows. A failure in word will bring the same crushing remorse to our hearts that we would fear if we were to commit acts of physical violence. You see, the new line that we have been given and cannot cross over is what we receive from Jesus Christ in our hearts. By the Holy Spirit. No matter how trying the circumstances we may face in life, together.