In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of unity and love among believers. He encourages the congregation to have compassion for one another and to love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. The preacher warns against preaching excessively long sermons and advises to speak only what is necessary. He also highlights the significance of imitating the preacher's faith, but not necessarily the length of his sermons. The sermon concludes with a reminder to have a godly, pure love for one another, rather than a sinful or defiled love.

Lord, take this service into your hands. Lord, that heart which is hardened, as hard as rock, we pray that you'll take your hammer and strike it, that it may break open, that your light can penetrate. And Lord, that broken heart which is wounded and hurt, we pray that you'll pour your oil onto it, that oil that heals. And Lord, the one who is sick spiritually, that you will heal him. Lord, please work in a wonderful, marvellous way. Amen. Amen. In the Bible, in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13, and now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Now we go to our text, 1 Peter chapter 3. Verse 8. Verse 9. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, be tender-hearted, be courteous. We'll stop reading there. I thought I'd take the whole text right up to the 15th verse. But when I read through it and thought I could never speak about everything, there wouldn't be enough time. We'd need a few hours for that. I'd like people to imitate me in the faith. But don't imitate me in the length of my sermons. Don't try and preach for as long as I preach. Just say what you need to say and then you stop. Otherwise, people will just get tired and say that they don't want to go again. But remember, even if the sermon's long, it's still just a quarter of what I would have wanted to say. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers. I don't even know whether I'll get further than just that. In this text, it starts by finally. All of you be of one mind, or as it says there, one heart. Having compassion for one another, brotherly love, and being tender-hearted and courteous. Firstly, being of one heart, one mind. We cannot be of one heart and one mind if there's no love. Remember, Corinthians should have faith, trust, and love, and hope. So if you have faith, you have faith until you have seen. Once you've seen, then you don't need faith anymore. So faith will come to an end. And even hope, once what you've hoped for is come into fulfillment, you don't need that hope anymore. That's why it says, faith and hope will pass, because once that goes into fulfillment, you no longer need the faith and the hope. But love is the greatest, because love will prevail, it will remain forever. Now God is love. In heaven, it's a place of love. In fact, heaven is love itself. Where love is manifested, and there everyone loves God with all their heart. And there's also the love towards one another. Heaven is a place of love. The angels love God, love the brethren, and love their fellow angels. It's a place of love. Blessed the poor in heart, blessed the peacemakers. Blessed the poor in heart, blessed the peacemakers. So in heaven, where God reigns supreme, it's a place of love. That's where God's throne is. Blessed the poor in heart, blessed the peacemakers. Blessed the poor in heart, blessed the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God, they will be in heaven. In fact, heaven is within them, and that is a blessed state to be in. It's a pity one doesn't have a better word to describe it, like in German and in Afrikaans, where it's Zelich or Salach. So heaven is a place of love. Love rules and reigns. But it's the same here on earth. If God's love reigns in our hearts, then heaven comes into your life. When God creates the new earth, there his love will reign and rule. But in this earth, where we still are now, if God's love doesn't reign in our lives, then it will be like hell on earth. And that's in your life, in your family, in your home, even in the congregation. When God's love rules, it's wonderful, heaven on earth. But if it doesn't rule in your life and in those situations, it will be like hell. And remember, love also covers a multitude of sins. If there's no love, then you become very critical of everything. You see everything as a sin and you criticize everything because there's no love. What would it help an earthly king, no matter where he reigns, how great his reign and what crown he's got on his head with how many diamonds and how much gold, if he's got all that, but there's no love in his heart, in his family and in his nation. For him, it will be like hell on earth. There'll be nothing of heaven in his life because love brings that heaven into your life. Even the wealthiest people, no matter how much wealth they'd have, how much money they'd have, but what would it help them if they have no happiness, no love in their lives? Even in his marriage, it'll just be a cat and a dog affair. And the same with the children. Why? Because heaven itself is missing. It'll be hell. If there's no love, you cannot be of one heart. There'll be friction and quarreling. There'll be fighting, disunity and hatred and jealousy. And that will make a person's life full of bitterness. And even if something would have been good and would be good, that root of bitterness or that leaven of bitterness will permeate the whole dough, the whole life. What does it help even if you lived in paradise, but you had no love? If you have no love for your fellow man, that turns your life and your earthly life into hell. But love changes hell into heaven. The new earth, that will be a place of love, love alone. As I've said, where God reigns, where He dwells, that is where love reigns, and that is heaven. Holy love, that is where God dwells and reigns. But where there is no love, that is where the devil lives. If you have no love for your fellow man, that turns your life and your earthly life into hell. Over 90% party, yanyanyega le taisifuni. Do you know that love? Now when I speak of that love, that love is not just a love that people talk about, because even the guys, lesbians, claim to have love for one another. As you know, just these days, the government has passed that legislation. They have approved it, that gays, lesbians can marry one another. Even though, at the hearings, 90% of the people said they are against that law, but the government, just at the last minute, just pushed it through parliament. I'm not talking about the 12th or the 15th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or the 20th or look, I don't know what you who voted for these people, voted them into office, what do you say, of it now. I'm not involved in politics, yet when things go wrong, I need to also sound a word of warning. So I'm not speaking of this filthy, defiled love, where once, I was a man of God. I'm not involved in politics, yet when things go wrong, I need to also sound a word of warning. So I'm not speaking of this filthy, defiled love, where once, I was a man of God. I'm not involved in politics, yet when things go wrong, I need to also sound a word of warning. So I'm not speaking of this filthy, defiled love, where once, I was a man of God. I'm not involved in politics, yet when things go wrong, I need to also sound a word of warning. So there's sinners also love one another, like people who go stealing. We've had lots of problems recently, and I prayed and I said, Oh Lord, help that these people are caught. And fortunately, two were caught. I had heard the dog barking, they found them in the container, they caught them red-handed, so they were transferred to the local hotel here, the prison. So when we speak of love, we don't speak of an evil love. We speak of a godly love, holy love, pure love. Caesar Augustus of Rome, he ruled over the whole Roman Empire. In his palace, many things were built of gold. He ruled the earth, so to say. He ruled the earth, so to say. Then his wife poisoned into the food of her stepchildren, in other words, the king's children, which he had before that, from other wives. Was that a blessed situation, where the wife poisoned her own stepchildren? Was that a heavenly situation? There was royalty. There was royalty, there was gold, and plenty. But was there any love? There was no heaven in that situation, where she killed her own stepchildren. At that time, the Roman Empire, so to say, ruled the earth. They had an influence everywhere, a bit like America today, even though many people are against America today, but that's the type of influence that the Roman Empire had. But in that same palace, then, also lived Nero, who was the one who tortured and killed many Christians. He lived there with his lover, or one of his wives. He lived there with his lover, or one of his wives. And when they were pregnant, expecting, he would kick those children to death. In the mother's womb! Can you imagine such madness? That's the absence of love, when there's no love, then you can't go so far. He kicked them, not only that the children died, but that his wives died. If you turn your back on the gospel, on God, you surely invite hell into your life. Could you call those people blessed? Can you see heaven in their lives? That's hell. King David, King David, King David, King David, King David, King David, King David, King David lived in a palace built of cedar wood, same as we have now in this college here, the Cedar College. Now his son murdered his brother, Absalom. He murdered his own brother. Was there heaven in that family, in that situation? Absalom turned against his own father and wanted to dethrone him, become king in his place. Is there blessing? Is there zeal? Is there the life of heaven in such a home? So where there's no love, like there was no love in Absalom's heart, you'll find a person going against his own brother and against his own father. That's why King David cried when Absalom died. He said, Oh Absalom, Absalom, if only I would have died in your place. Because he knew where Absalom had gone. He had ended in hell and he had said, well it would have been better then that I had died. No one has the right to call himself a Christian if he doesn't have that love. But then there was a woman, her name was Naomi. Her husband died and her sons died. And she was left with her daughter Ruth, who had become a widow at a very young age. And she was left with her daughter Ruth, who had become a widow at a very young age. We don't have time, you probably know the story, but you know how she didn't just lose her husband and her sons, but even her fields and her home, eventually she became like a beggar, just living like in a squatter camp with her daughter-in-law Ruth. And even when Naomi said to Ruth, Ruth, go, you are young, go to your people, get married again, start your own new family, she said, Mother I can't do that, I'm staying with you, where you live I live, where you die I'll die, I'm going with you. You see that love? And she said, your God will be my God. Who is your God? All of you, who have you chosen to be your God? And maybe that's why you are the way you are, because you haven't made God your God yet. I even said to the school children, I said, children, if you go and leave this place without God, if you go without him, you bring a curse upon your life. Unless you get converted at a later stage, then God can have mercy on you. And even the students of the college, if you don't go with God, you take a curse with you, and it won't go well with you. The curse in hell will stick to you. So Naomi and Ruth lived together in that very poor state, and they would survive because Ruth, the daughter-in-law, went to the fields of people where they had harvested, and all that was left over they were allowed to then pick up. And that's how they could survive. So even though they lived in this sheikh, no husband, no sons, no father, no mother, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no mother, no father, no father, no father, no mother, no father, no father, So God feels nothing but this sheikh, the two of them together. But it was wonderful the way those two lived together because there was love. God was with them and it was a wonderful life that they could spend together even though they lived in such conditions. What a difference love can make! The real love. Love is the sign of the disciples of the Lord Jesus. By love you will recognize the disciples of Jesus Christ. Now this is really just an introduction concerning love. Now here we have described to us what children of the Lord and the Church of Christ should look like. The Church of Christ is constituted of people that have met with God. The Lord is their Father, God is their Father. If I remember correctly I think it's Galatians 4 verse 26 where it says that Jerusalem is the mother. It's our mother, strange, we've got a father, God, and we've got a mother. The Jerusalem up there, and you know what the Jerusalem symbolizes, the saints up there, the children of God up there, the Church of Christ. In other words, the Church of Christ is like a mother to us. There are people that say, oh we don't really care about the Church, we've found God, we've got a relationship with Him, we don't need the Church, and they go their own way all on their own. Well there are such children that just forsake their parent or their mother. When God has brought you into being, you're born again, you're born into the Church, and the Church is like a mother to you, feeding you, breastfeeding you, giving you the good milk, having fellowship, keeping watch over you. You're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're born again, you're And so you find children, they say, no we don't need the Church, we can just go our own way, we'll go to church here or there, we'll go to those who just accept anything, anything goes as far as clothing and everything goes, that's where we will go. You become like a child that just turns its back on its mother. Now Paul writes to this congregation, he says, you should be of one mind, one heart, just like the early church in Jerusalem, they were of one mind and one heart. You can even say one soul. The very first thing of the church, the first thing, one soul, one heart. That will be one in the things of the Lord. And that will be one, even in humility, being humble and accepting God's word and taking it for ourselves, not going against it. One heart, one soul, because we serve one God, one saviour, one faith, one heaven. One heart, one soul, because we serve one God, one saviour, one faith, one heaven. We cannot be and claim to be of one heart when there is division and we're going in another direction, then we're a stranger in the midst. We are one because we have been forgiven our sins. There cannot be division, we are one and if we are not united, then there is something wrong. I trust that you realize that I'm really just touching the hem of the garment here. There's so much to this, we could go on for a long time, but I hope that you'll take this to heart and go home and digest it, think about it, chew the cud. One heart, one mind, even in their thoughts they are united, they think along the same lines, they have the same attitude. They even are united in the things which they hate and are against. Now a person who has love in his heart, how can there be hate in his heart as well? If there is no hate in your heart, you're a rotten Christian. You're a tool of the devil. There must be hatred in your life or you are no good for everything or anything. What do you need to hate? You have to hate sin. And you need to hate the world, abhor it, despise it. This gospel of love, love, love in the wrong way is a thing of the devil, love. Your child sins and goes the wrong way, just love. It's not that the Bible doesn't teach us that. You've got to hate the wrong and hate evil and hate the world. You need to hate the world and the things of the world, the lust of the eye. The lust of the flesh. And haughtiness. Are we one in this? Or not? In Corinth, in the church, there was a man who sinned with his stepmother. And Paul said to the Christian, he said, Be united with me in reprimanding this person. We cannot tolerate this in our midst. If we just tolerate everything, things will go wrong. We need to be united against our battle, our fight against sin, against evil. We need to be of one heart, one mind in that. Fight the good fight of faith. That means we are all one in our fight against the devil, the world, and the works of darkness. If we have such an attitude, then that will drive away hatred, jealousy, quarrel, and disunity. If we are of one heart in the love of God and also in hating evil. Look at the Lord Jesus who was love and see what he said about those people that walked the sinful way. After the Lord's resurrection, he commanded his disciples to go to Galilee. That is where they had come from originally. And when they were there, Peter said to the other disciples, I'm going fishing. And all the disciples said, well, we're going with you. Isn't it lovely to see such unity? People are being of one heart, one mind, one soul. That's nice. Very nice. Yesterday I was down at Groutville. I was at Groutville and a young girl walked past and greeted me and said hi. So I said hi. So there are people that say hi and then there's also those that say nice. It's lovely when people have love for one another, not when men have lust for one another like in a gay relationship. That's of hell. I don't like that. I wouldn't speak of it in that way if I loved it because that's like prostitution. And in a way, even prostitution is better because this is perverse. But it's nice to see how these people were all united. When he said, I'm going, they said, well, we're going coming along. And they went fishing and that's where they experienced the Lord. They had a meeting with him. And when the disciples were together, John who was the youngest, he was there in the bosom of the Lord, leaning against him. But others weren't envious. They didn't complain and say, oh, why does the Lord treat him like that? It's as if he loves him more than he loves us. There's no envy, no jealousy where God's love is. They knew that even though he was so close to the Lord, it didn't bother them because they all had a relationship with the Lord themselves and they knew he loved them just as much. Time flies. It's actually, time's actually up. Let me just mention one more point. Be compassionate for one another. Have compassion for one another. If you have compassion on someone, you feel for him. When he goes through difficulty and experiences hurt, you experience it together with him. Someone else goes through difficulty, you go through that difficulty with them as if you are the one that's suffering. In Corinthians 12.26 it says where one member suffers, all the members suffer. That is having compassion. Because that suffering your brother's going through affects you as well. The church in Jerusalem was big. And there were some poor people among them. They didn't have enough food. And then the people that had money brought it to the disciples and they pooled it together and they went and bought food to help the poor people in their midst. But eventually even that ran out. When I'm Christ So when they ran out of money, some of the Christians started selling their own houses so that they could generate funds in that way to again buy food for these poor people. Tell me Christian, would you be prepared to go to such lengths to help them? God worked through those people, through that church. And one isn't surprised if one sees the lives that they lived. To see how they did things. No wonder God could reach people through them and use them to that extent. And Paul, when he traveled, going to Macedonia, to Asia, other places, they heard that the Christians in Jerusalem were in need. They had collections and they sent their gift together with Paul back to Jerusalem. You see they had compassion on one another. They weren't like many of us. They didn't have a coffee shop. They didn't have a store. They didn't have food. They didn't have water. They didn't have food. They weren't like many of us. They weren't like many of us who have an abundance. We have so much. And we go and we spend it in the coffee shop, in the shops, and we go buying here and there and everywhere. We don't have compassion for the people in need. We just think of ourselves and eventually we even are overweight. Not because of a disease. There are some people who are sick and that's why they're overweight. But others are so because they're greedy. And that's why they end up in that way. While there are others who have nothing. Not like this child who was given money to buy some cool drinks, some coke or whatever, said, No, I'm not going to spend it on that. I'll put it away for the people in need. You have compassion for one another because of love. Because your brother is like in your heart. When he suffers, you suffer with him. If you have love, if your brother is hungry, you give him to eat. If he's thirsty, you'll give him to drink. If he's clothed in rags, you'll clothe him. Is that what we are like? Are we such a church, you young and old? But we speak about love and love and love. But such love is not worth anything. And there's that brotherly love. And that love extends to everyone. Not that you suddenly just love one person and that person only and you become a church within a church. Because it just is between you two. It must be for everyone in the church. If someone is sick, you'll visit him. If someone is sad, you'll comfort that person. If he mourns, you try to quicken that person. But if you meet with people who come across people who are living in sin, persisting in their sin, you will punish that in their midst. You will say, oh my dear, oh my dear, oh my dear. That is a pavloom. Everyone has a pavloom. But you don't have a pavloom. God, that's what the bible says. But you say you love the child. One of you two, you or God are a liar. One of the two. If you are right, well then God is wrong. But if someone is lost, doesn't know which way to turn, you help that person and help him get right. If someone has fallen into the mud, you will try and help him up. Your brother's sorrow becomes your own. Maybe I should stop here, because maybe you can't concentrate anymore. The Bible says, finally, be of one mind, one heart, one soul. Have compassion for one another, and have brotherly love as Christians. If we don't have that, then we are not members of the body of Christ. And if you're not a member of his body, when you die, you won't end up in heaven. Even if they had to put the most beautiful roses and flowers on your coffin, and say the most beautiful things at your funeral, they'll say those things while you're burning in hell. Say, oh, you Jerusalem is my mother. Nonsense. If you don't treat her like your mother here, there she'll say, no, I don't know you. Blessed is the one who hears and does what he is told. Spoken of love, learn what that love means. Learn what it means, and live according to that love. If you don't do that, you're not on God's side, you're on the enemy's side. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, work through your word, may it not be in vain to us. He who does not have this love, let him realize that he is outside the kingdom of heaven. He's not part of the church of Christ. And he who is on his way to destruction, open his eyes, that he won't continue in that way, but that he'll repent. Amen.