This sermon emphasizes the importance of addressing the destructive impact of neglect, negativity, and lack of compassion within families, highlighting the need for repentance, forgiveness, and healing. It stresses the responsibility parents have in shaping their children's lives, the power of God's grace to overcome past hurts, and the necessity of rejecting negative thoughts and words to experience true peace and joy.

Proverbs 18, 14, but the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, God promises, the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, will enable him to survive life's trials and hardships, God promises. You see, God has made us, he's made a man that in his innermost being and spirit he will be able to endure great sorrows, sufferings, wrongs, tragedies. The spirit of a man, God says, will sustain him in his infirmity, will sustain his infirmity, his weaknesses, but the next half of the verse says, but a wounded spirit, a wounded spirit, who can bear, who will survive if that happens. How can a person survive then, if that spirit that God put in our innermost being, as he made us, is destroyed? If the immune system of the human heart and mind is destroyed, who will survive then, if that happens? I was deeply saddened a short while ago, when some family I had known for many years, suffered a great tragedy. You see, the mother of that house committed suicide. She killed herself in a most gruesome way, but my sorrow was deepened a hundred times more, when at the funeral, her youngest teenage son broke down publicly at that funeral, and sobbed, and then rose up in anger at that funeral, and screamed at his father, Daddy, you killed her. You killed my mother, Daddy. You always undermined her. You always found fault with her, no matter how hard she tried, Daddy. You always found fault with her, and undermined her, and complained, until she lost the will to live, Daddy. But you, you, Daddy, did this. Nothing else, no one else, Daddy, you killed my mother. Tonight, I want to address this fearful thought, when we must accept responsibility for the destruction of someone's life, when we must accept responsibility for the destruction of someone's life. My wife and I, when we were first married, 30 something years ago, they positioned us, and allocated us as a mission, to a very beautiful part of our country, to 12 acres of lawns, and trees, and landscapes, and the sea. It was so beautiful, the gardens, and away from the cities of Africa. And people who were weary, and wanted a haven away from the city, and the bustle of life, and the din of the cities, would come there, the godly especially, to stay on those grounds, which were for Christian conferences, and to just find peace, and that tranquility. We met many godly people, who we allowed to come and stay there. For the three years, we were stationed there as a base, as young missionaries. One man arrived, a godly man, with a wife, that this shook my heart, and my wife's heart was greatly saddened. She was like a child, his wife was like, so mentally retarded, and broken down mentally, that he had to lead her, to even get from one room to the other. She couldn't, she didn't know one thing, the left hand from her right, he would lead her, and she would hobble along with this smile, and giggling. Her mind was gone. He had to clothe her, bathe her, feed her with a spoon, wipe, she couldn't feed herself. He couldn't take his eyes off her, even in that circumstance of 12 acres of protection, he had to watch all the time, and look, because within seconds, she was walking onto the roads, just going, just not knowing what she was doing. And of course, he would have been killed, even in our circumstances. But one night, my wife carefully looked at him, and said, Sir, what happened to your wife? Surely, no one would have married a woman in this condition. When did this happen? How did this happen? What happened to your wife? He hung his head down, this man, and after a few moments of quietness, he said these words, it was her children. They so rebelled, they so stood up against her, they caused her so much distress in their rebellion, in their rejection of her authority, of our authority, of our attempt to keep them from wrongs and compromises. And they caused her so much distress, that one day, the eldest child became so angry with her, and she lost control in her distress at her children's rebellion, and rejection of all authority, and her mind just crumbled as she shouted. She just sunk down in a human form, onto her knees, crumbled physically. Her mind broke that night. We took her to psychologists, to homes and hospitals, over the next few years, Christian psychologists, everything we could, but her mind just continued to deteriorate. She became like this, like a vegetable, she doesn't know anything. There was quietness in the room when he said that. Then I said, sir, did she profess to be saved before this happened to her? Oh yes, for many years. Did her children profess to be saved when this happened? He put his head down, oh yeah, oh yeah. Then he said, weeping, but they will never forgive themselves. As they look at their mother, there's not an occasion they don't hang their heads down in shame. When we must accept responsibility for the destruction of someone's life, it's a fearful thought. I was in a home where a young fellow began to shout at his mother, he did profess to be saved, but he had this anger and he shouted and spoke to her in the most ungodly way, and I was so shocked. She said these words as he left the room, he seems to think, brother Keith, he thinks, I'm the only one in the whole world he can vent all his anger upon that will still continue to love him in spite of it. Now listen carefully, child, don't do this. You be careful. Don't make a punch bag of your mother forever to exert all your frustration upon, but let me reword this, to exert all your frustration with yourself upon. One day this could cause you great sorrow, but you will never forgive yourself. Be careful. The great tragedy concerning these incidents is that these incidents happened in professing Christians homes. That to me makes it a unique tragedy. It is fearful that professing Christian, a professing Christian can become so cruel to others in their own home that they could destroy someone's life. I believe God does not command us. God does not command us. He implores us compassionately in his word when he cries out, children obey your parents. Obey thy mother and thy father, for this is right in the sight of God. Honor thy father and mother. Don't break her spirit. Don't destroy your mother. Don't you think that can't happen? Do you think anyone when it did happen ever considered that that could happen? Husbands, love your wives. A compassionate God of infinite wisdom cries to our hearts. He cries to Christians, to Christian children. He cries it out to Christian husbands. Why? Because it's possible you could destroy her. Being a Christian doesn't mean you are going to be what is required for that woman's survival. Be not bitter against them. God implores. It's possible that you can come to bitterness. Bitterness is the deepest form of anger. It borders on hatred. It embolds hatred in its context. You could come to actually be so bitter against your wife as the weaker vessel. God cries out, give honor to her as unto the weaker vessel. You know what that says? In spite of her being weak, weaker than you in its context. Don't destroy her because of that. Don't break her spirit by not listening and considering God's compassionate cry to you of what's needed for the survival of your wife. Be careful, brother. You treat her carefully. You be careful before your son accuses you one day that you destroyed his mother's life. And you think that won't happen. You think that won't happen. In 45 years, you cannot believe what I have seen in Christian home. We must guard ourselves, Christians, from falling into an abyss of negativeness in this life. We must guard ourselves against falling into an abyss of negativeness for the rest of our lives, complaining about everything. You cannot see anything in a positive light. You only have anger at everyone, everyone's imperfections. Christians, it is tragically possible. It is tragically possible. Beware of this, for a Christian to sink into an abyss of negativeness in this life and become negative about everything, which could eventually break the spirit of a loved one that you're always negative to. It is stunning how God tells us from the very first verse concerning a woman why he made a woman. Now, this is not what I said, so don't be angry with me. This is God. He saw this man and said, it's not good for a man to be alone. I memorized 700 verses a few years ago, and every single verse in marriage from the beginning of the Bible to the end, and quoted it. And there was devastation on every aspect of marriage, as God says it, because the Word of God is no longer preached or heard of what God says concerning marriage, from the first verse of the Bible to the end of the entire Scriptures. And you start with this verse, how God looked at man when he created him in Genesis 2, and said, it's not good for a man to be alone. I will make for him, and help me for him. For the Lord God caused the deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and there God created woman, taken from man. For what reason? I will make for him, and help me for him. Now, that word is staggering, that God Almighty had this in his heart in making a woman, the helpment, the encourager of this man. Job was the godliest man on earth, according to God, and Satan didn't challenge that. There's none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil. He hates evil, Satan. Now, when God stood back to do what this world is intended to be, the battlefield between God and Satan, for man's heart of his own free will to choose, and face the consequences for the temple. It is beyond human comprehension what God allowed Satan to do to Job, to prove his faith. But what is also beyond comprehension is the help meat God gave him, the wife of the godliest man on earth, what she said to him. In her negativeness, when things went wrong, and they did go wrong, but trust me, I used to think no one ever knew such devastation as Job. I have been in homes where equal and even worse things happened to Christians. But she turned, and she said in her devastation and negativeness about everything, she told him to do what Satan told God he would make him do, to curse God. Just take away all his privileges. If things go wrong, when things go right, men shout hallelujah, but just take away every privilege, and let's see whether he loves thee for thyself, and not just for privileges. It seems to happen in Christianity, doesn't it? Well, everything was taken, devastation came upon his life, and she turns, and she says to him, were it perfect what Satan said to God he would make him do? She became the instrument of the devil, the helpmate. She turns and says, dost thou still retain thine integrity? Do you still believe that you're righteous? Do you still profess to be righteous when everything comes against you? You must be wicked. Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God! Curse God and die! Here she says, were it perfect what Satan wanted to happen. She told him to do what Satan wanted him ultimately to do. What a helpmate to the godliest man on earth at that time. Be careful, negativeness can make you destroy what you were meant, lady, to help to survive. Be careful when things go wrong. I mean wrong, that you don't become the instrument of Satan, let alone the helpmate that God intended. Continual, continual embracing of negative thoughts and negative statements will affect you mentally. Continual embracing of negative thoughts and negative statements will eventually affect you mentally, even if you're saved. And it could destroy you mentally, till you are self-destructive. And once that happens to a Christian, they see nothing, nothing but wrong in everything and everyone, beginning with those closest to them. You could break down the will to survive of others in your home, if you allow yourself to embrace negativeness in your thoughts and mind, and to make negative statements about everything that happens, when you go into an abyss of negativeness. My son, Roy, is a preacher. He is a missionary and a godly young fiery preacher at that. But he's just got married to a young American lady in Pennsylvania, Moscow, Scranton. Now, that was two Saturdays ago. Roy preached at his wedding, and her father, Jerusalem Hargett's father, an independent Baptist man, he can marry them, perform the ceremony. So the two fathers happen to have that privilege for their children. Now, before they were married, when I was last here, a year ago, in America, I sat in Jerusalem's grandfather's and grandmother's home, godly people. And he said something staggering at the table concerning his granddaughter. He said, Brother Keith, we trust that Jerusalem has been prepared by God to be a good wife to some missionary or preacher, such as Roy Daniel. We trust that we have prepared her for that, for the mission field. You see, brother, her mother, Bethany, she was never ever given any example in this home, not once. She was never ever taught to complain when things aren't perfect by us. She was never ever taught to murmur. We didn't teach our children in this home. We never gave them one incident where they could say we were murmurers or complainers when nothing's right, when things go wrong, and they go wrong in every family, brother. And we believe with all our heart that Bethany, our daughter, and her husband, Tim, they also taught their children not to complain. They also rejected negative statements and negative thoughts and responses when things became negative, as they do. And we believe that Jerusalem will be no complainer, no murmurer. You see, brother Keith, a missionary will face ten times more hardship than any other Christian on earth. A preacher and a ministry, a missionary puts themselves into the position in the front line of the battle where they will have to face ten times more of the onslaughts of Satan than any other Christian on earth. And the last thing a missionary needs is a negative wife. So brother, I hope we as a family have done well for your son in what we have done in our daughter and that has been done in our granddaughter to prepare her to be some good wife to someone who wants to serve God where everything is going to go wrong. It is on the front line of the battle. I was blessed by that. I was blessed by the godly grandfather who gave that one reason as why it's a good thing his granddaughter was marrying our son. Beloved, we must place responsibility on ourselves for the good that is found in others so that they can triumph in the Christian faith beginning in our home. I want to repeat that. We must responsibility on ourselves for the good that is found in others so that they can triumph in the Christian faith beginning in our home. One of the most revered preachers in our country in southern Africa, one of the most truly revered, respected, and loved preachers across the whole of South Africa fell into tragic sin. He left his godly wife for a young woman. After years and years of facing the onslaughts of all the liberal Christianity there is and not compromising and fearlessly preaching truth and gaining the respect of the entire nation's Christian community, true Christians that is. He threw it all away, lost every bit of respect, all his ministry buried. He was deroged, excommunicated, unable, not able to ever be in a pulpit again in his life, all thrown away for a young woman in his older age. And my heart broke because I had been in his home many times and loved them as I preached in his pulpit. Well, I eventually saw his wife after this tragedy and she was broken and bent and her eyes swollen and the tears swiftly to her eyes as she came near anyone who just looked at her with pity. There was a group and I said to her lady, I am so shamed at what your husband has done. I'm so saddened and so shamed and I am so sorrowing for you at the grief in your heart of his betrayal and all he's lost of what he did for God in such a short moment of life, just lost everything. I'm so sorry, but I want to tell you lady, you remain in my esteem as one of the godliest women on earth in spite of him doing this. Your integrity is intact and the love we all feel for you in spite of what he's done remains intact. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at me and she said, come here, come here. I knelt down on the floor in front of her to get down to her level as she was sitting. Listen you, listen carefully to me, boy, listen carefully to me, Keith. I need to tell someone this desperately. It wasn't altogether his fault, Keith. I have had time to reflect, Keith. I have had much time to reflect since he deserted me for that young woman and I have come to realize it wasn't altogether his fault, Keith. You see, I had become so negative for a long time toward him in a subtle way. Subconsciously, it was criticizing him, undermining him for virtually nothing. I had gotten to a negative frame of mind, Keith, and he lacked love, Keith. He needed it as a man. I'm so sorry to tell you that, my boy. He didn't go off looking for sin, Keith. When he walked out of that door that day with his Bible, she wasn't looking for sin, Keith. Her husband had deserted her for some other woman. Her children were devastated and she was devastated, destitute, for a man that just left her to the dog. And there she was in her brokenness and here he comes and he didn't realize he was going to be alone with that woman. The circumstances just suddenly evolved for something he wouldn't normally be in. And in that moment, something happened as he was so incompassionate to her. In her heart, toward this older man, she found an attraction to the kindness, the warmth, the gentleness, and she reached out. And Brother Keith, he had lacked love for so long, for me, that when it reached out to him, he must have found it hard to say no to it. When someone changed, he loved him and wanted him. I don't excuse his sin, Keith. I don't excuse the wrong of what he's done, which is unforgivable, being a preacher and doing that to his ministry and to Christ's name. But, Keith, I have to face Jesus one day and I'm not going to face Christ for the rest of my life lying, by blaming him and letting everybody else judge him like you are. It wasn't altogether his fault, Keith. It is mine. And I realize that, my boy. Accepting the responsibility for the destruction of someone else's life is not easy. On this tour, a matter of a week or two ago, I was with a lovely, godly woman and others in a room that had known her all from childhood. They had grown, now they're all seeking God and I've had the privilege of telescoping with these families, most of which have come from great brokenness and grief and suffering, which I won't go into. But this one woman, who is so godly, she said something with me as I said to her, your husband, of all the years I've been coming here to this town, something's happened to him. He always seemed to not really have his heart and he's missing meetings and he just hasn't got any joy. There was just something broken about him. Now, this time, I see this man ablaze for God, wanting to be in every meeting. She said these words and I asked her for permission to repeat this from the pulpit of God without betraying her or him. But, I asked her then to write down what she said. She said, Keith, my children eventually have left our home, till there was not one, the last one left our home. And I felt suddenly so empty when those children were gone, because my husband, though a good man, he had neglected me in many ways for many years. He had become occupied with his work. He drowned himself in his work and neglected me and the children. I loved my husband and I cried to God daily to turn his heart toward me by reaching him and making himself a reality to my husband, that he could love me as a Christian and not disappear and neglect me and the children. But nothing changed for years until one day, Keith, when my last child left the home and got married and he saw my devastation, he saw my sorrow. I looked at him and said, that our daughter leaving, that there's no one, it's a small thing, the sorrow I feel, compared to the sorrow I would feel if I lost him. If I lost him, I said, I would be devastated, not just sorrow, sorrowing. The following months, something happened we hadn't anticipated in this recession of America and world recession, economically, we lost our home because the work just came to an end and different things caused us to have to sell our home and now we're living in a little trailer. And my husband confessed in brokenness that he knew it was his irresponsibility that led to this. Then he asked for forgiveness. I looked at him and said to him, that he was more important to me than a million homes and so long as I've got him, I don't care where we live or what circumstances we have to face. Something happened, as I said, that in his eyes and in his heart, he began to seek God. He began to function as a Christian and he began to love me in a way I have never experienced since our marriage. He became tender and kind to me. Now, she said, I believe there are moments for wives, windows of opportunity that we can either make or break a man. Those moments are when he is a very low time and ebb of his life, a time when he sees his failure and he realizes others witness his failure as a provider, as a husband, but somehow instead of being negative and condemning him for his failures, but expressing my deepest sentiments of love for him when he was at his lowest, instead of condemning him, it touched the depth of his heart in a way that made him rise up to be everything I've wanted all through these years. And that is why he is now seeking God, Keith. You might be the reason he's such a man. He might have changed if you had changed, but negativeness in spite of failures and wrongs, to show him love and encouragement would have made him and not broken him. But he died a failure. I was overseas in some country at the beginning of this year where I stayed in the home of a very godly family, a very large family, and these children of this godly woman and godly husband, they had a tribe, not just a family. They believed in children, but the children loved Christ, and I was so touched at these godly children, at the table, their manners, their conduct, their integrity, their transparency, their humility, and their love for God, and the word, and the things of God. As I preached, I just knew this family stood out, and I commended them, but this lady said something tragic. She said, brother, you haven't met all my children before you commend me and my husband. You see, brother, when I was a preacher's wife, and our first three children were born in a preacher's home with a preacher's wife as their mother, I hadn't sought grace to be able to be in subjection as God's word continually cries out to the wife from the heart of God to enable that man to be the head of the home, to be the priest of the home. I stood up and argued against him on his decisions, on his choices, on his values, and I got my way, brother. I was so strong-willed, but the children witnessed that what God says a woman shouldn't be in a Christian home, what God asks a woman not to be. As my husband has crumbled in one thing after the other, that I won the battle on every issue, because I wouldn't be in subjection. But when I saw the damage going on in that home, and the atmosphere, and even his heart beginning to crumble, I began to seek God desperately to give me the grace to be humble, to give me the grace to not win the battle or have the last word, to give me the grace to be in subjection to my husband that God asks of all women who name the name of Christ, and God began to give me the grace as I sought him desperately. Now brother, from that moment every child that was born after that follows Christ. The three that witnessed my rebellion and my lack of grace to be able to be in subjection, they do not want God, they follow Satan. So I could tell you they just chose to be there, or otherwise I could tell you brother, that every child that was born into this home from the day I found grace to be in subjection and submission, to let him be the head of the home, to let him be the priest of the house. Every child born from that time on which follows God with all their heart, soul, and might. But the children, when I was not obedient to God, before I became obedient to God, as a wife, hate God brother, one even hates me openly, and you won't meet those children. An 87 year old woman walked up to me a few weeks ago in some conference here in America, and she told me how years ago when I first came to America, her godly husband and her were traveling far to come to the convention, this particular convention. He was dead now for seven years, but her children made a special occasion of bringing her after these years that she hasn't attended since her husband's death. She wanted to come and hear my wife speaking to the ladies, and to hear my messages again. So I looked at this godly old 87 year old woman and her son and the children that were there, all grown up, and she began to share all her children. Now she has many children, she's one of these people who believe in tribes, not in families. Every single child is a missionary, full-time working for God on the mission field across the world. Every single child from that woman's womb serves God in a full-time capacity throughout this world. I said, Lady, you did something right. Not every home can testify that, not every Christian home can testify that, every single child. You did something right, she said. No, I made mistakes. It's God's grace, but there is one thing I did do right, seeing as you say it that way, and only one thing that I can attribute to the reason all of my children serve God in full-time capacity with every breath in their body. From young people they started serving God. There's one thing I did right, Brother Keith. I asked God for grace from when we were first married to be in subjection to my husband, in obedience to God's command to me, if I was to profess to be truly saved. And God gave me that grace, Brother Keith. I never once in my children's life as they were in our home, I never once stood up and took the side of the child against their father when the children were to be disciplined. Though he might have made mistakes, Brother Keith, and he did, and I sometimes thought in my heart perhaps it would have been better doing it, but I never challenged him. I never took away his authority and challenged him and humiliated him, took the side of the children against him. I never broke him down, you see. I just prayed and stood beside him, but I never stood up with the children against their father on any decision he made, of any discipline he made. And Brother, I watched my children all serving God, but I looked at preachers all around me over the years, and other Christians, and the rebellion of their children, the anger of their children, the hatred against God of their children. I began to question, and Brother, I asked him straight out about this one thing. And every single home where there was this rebellion said to me that they haven't got the grace to be in subjection to their husband. He is not the head of the home, they are. He is not the priest of the home, they are. Brother, I don't know, people will disagree with me, but I can't think of anything else in my life that I did that I can attribute as to why my children followed God and went out as missionaries and thought of nothing else than that grace God gave me, because I desperately required it from the day I was married. It's hard to accept responsibility for other people's failures, destruction, spiritually, even our own children. It's very, very hard to come to that place just once in your life before you die. Oh, how I met young men and women on this tour alone across America, broken, smashed, crushed, destroyed, complex, hurting creatures from Christian homes, preacher's homes, and every single one of them. This is staggering to me. When I asked about that home, they said, no, it wasn't a happy home. Why? Almost word perfect. One place after the other, one young man or woman, I said. Mother and father are both saved. The only trouble is one wanted conservative Christianity, the other wanted compromise and liberal Christianity. In this conflict of standards, we were so confused. I won't say it, but I'll say it for them. They didn't say it. We were destroyed. Or don't you think that's the reason they're all like that? Most anyway. There is unique occasion. Let me tell you, we're very godly homes. We're not responsible for the destruction of their children. In our mission, they have wanted to get rid of quite a lot of missionaries over the 45 years I've preached, the 44 years this year. And I've said, no, give them more time. But they're doing damage. They're such problem personalities. They're so problems. There's just destruction. They're not doing the will of God. It's not right to allow them to stay and destroy the work of God and destroy the mission's credibility being in our mission. I said, listen, I have been in their parents' home because I travel so broadly and I've stayed in so many homes a few days. If you want to know where 99% of the problems you're facing that you want to get them out of our mission because of those problems, if you want to know where it comes from, come into those homes, their father and mother's homes for a day or two or three, and you know where 99% of the problems we're facing are not their choice to be with. You know where those problems come from, just being in the home of their parents for a day or two. You give them time for God to undo the damage their parents caused in their personalities and characters. Wise don't break your husband's spirit with an abyss of negativeness toward him that he crumbles of self-respect and hope. He cannot rise up to be the head of the house, the priest of the house because of you that will destroy him spiritually and your children. Would you think God asks these things for no reason of you other than that you just obey him? If there's no deep compassionate cry to you before you destroy others' lives that you brought into the world and tried to bring to Christ, by being what you shouldn't be, lady, the priest and the head of the home, no matter what hell you put them through, you won't submit. You fathers don't break your child's spirit. You can. Oh, how many have. Don't be so bitter with life that you always speak to them with negativeness and reveal negativeness to everything in the home. You will destroy their life. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. He's writing to Christians. Sorry. You can do that. That word, lest they be discouraged. You want to take the Greek? Don't break their spirit. You do that, fathers. If you're negative when you shouldn't be toward them, always negative. Be careful. You will break their spirit till the day they die. Provoke not your children, fathers, to wrath, to anger. Don't make them angry, not because of their sin, but because of yours and the way you bring them up. Bring them up in the nurtured admonition of the Lord. Let Christ bring them up through you to the degree you are yielded to Jesus Christ, to that degree you can live the life Christ asks of you. Don't reject your children. That is tragic. I met a man who was such a disaster in self-destruction and negative about himself and everybody that he couldn't function as a Christian, and he put his home through a taste of hell on earth through the years. When he died, three weeks before he died, he prayed with me, and for three weeks he lived the Christian life after attempting to live the Christian life for something like 40 something years with all his heart, and he couldn't function. When he died, I said to his sister, who was also very godly, I said, there's always a broader picture of why a person would be like he was, one total mess of a human. There's no such a thing as there not being a broader picture. There's a reason if someone's life is destroyed like this, if he couldn't function as a human and be just one big total tragic mess. What's the reason? She looked at me for a while, her eyes welled up, it was my mother, she said. She showed no love to him, only condemned and criticized everything he did from a little boy till she died. Why? No one knows. Father, as he was dying, said, I think it's because she was in labor for so long and so suffered and nearly died herself in the labor bringing him into this world that she hated him. But other than that, I cannot think of any reason why she so hated that boy. One night he thought she was being positive and kind to him, and he stood up and smiled, mother, and she said, not you, stupid, and he crumbled physically onto the floor, and he remained crumbled from that night to three weeks before he died when after he prayed with you, brother. She destroyed her son by being unable to be positive toward him in any aspect, whatever the reasons, no one knows. I sat with Satanists, two boys with this mohawk hairstyle, big metal things all over them, rock under the word of God, one crawling on his face, sobbing so violently that I became fearful. I prayed with them, but then I called a friend who had brought them. I said, listen to me, tell me about these boys. Something made them like this. It was their father, sir. He never showed them love. He never showed them affection. Though they craved for it when we were younger, that made them become these monsters they are now, you see, in the eyes of everybody else, just monsters. Oh, by the way, he said, their father is an evangelical preacher. They grew up in an evangelical preacher's home who couldn't show them love, who wouldn't, for whatever reason. And he had Satanists, but he was responsible. You think not loving your child won't destroy them, even if you preach the gospel? The Bible speaks on three occasions of the same incident where Christ warned in Matthew 8, 6, Mark 9, 42, Luke 17, that whoso shall cause one of these little ones, which believe in me, to offend, to offend one of these little, it will be better for him to have a millstone hanging around his neck and he drowns in the depth of the sea, the judgment that will come upon him. But I want to look at these words, who shall offend. This means here in the Hebrew, who causes to turn to sin, who is the cause of someone seeking to pursue a life of sin and reject goodness, obviously. Who is the stumbling block that caused them to sin, who was the cause and stumbling block. Now, you might think of some imbecile, some perverted man who does something indecent. I want to ask and suggest, perhaps it's a father who caused that child to reject Christianity and become Satanists, even though he was a preacher. I want to suggest this tragic repercussions of not being what you should be, according to God's word, and you would have been if you were really rightly related to God. Don't reject them, be careful, and don't neglect them. This is as evil as rejecting them openly. You will, by neglecting them, do irreparable damage. I'm talking about anyone in the hall. Don't you neglect. I was with a dying man, who I loved so dearly, who shared with me of his son that came to him as he lay there in a dying condition, and he said to me that his son, a godly boy, said, Daddy, Daddy, my wife has betrayed me. She's been with another man, Daddy. Brother Eileen, he died as he said it. He said, I just can't believe it. Daddy, I kept myself. I waited for God's choice. I didn't jump around. And I prayed, Daddy. I was so faithful in seeking God to keep me and keep whoever it was for me that I made no mistake. And when she came, Daddy, I was so convinced this is God. I had no doubt, Daddy. And now she's betrayed me with another man, Daddy. What am I going to do, Daddy? Forgive her, my boy. Ask God for grace. He'll give you the grace to forgive her utterly that you never ever mention this again to her in your life. And ask God for grace to love her in spite of this, till she dies. But, Daddy, what about me? What about my feelings? Don't I count? No, you don't, boy. You don't count. You don't matter. It's God that matters. It's what God wants when you name the name of Christ, no matter what you face in life, that you do. My boy, you're leaving her, divorcing her in your anger and hurt. Do you think you'll be happy? Do you think she'll be happy? No, my boy, you won't be. You won't be, my boy. You ask God for grace to forgive her. You go and tell her you forgive her. And you ask God to give you grace to love her till she dies and never to bring this up to her again till she dies, never to mention it. And one other thing, my boy, when you've done that, stop neglecting her the way you have, pursuing your ambitions, or you might lose her forever if you do. Stop neglecting your wife. When suddenly we're aware it was our fault. I know a woman prayed with me. Her husband stood up shortly after she had prayed of her hurting heart and the children hurting because of the husband's pursuit of his work. Saved, yes, but now the next thing I heard was the husband stood up after the prayer. I didn't speak to him, she didn't speak to him, and said, I have neglected you and the children. I've wasted what we could have known as a family pursuing my career and money, and I didn't need this money. And I see I've hurt you people. I'm giving everything up. Turned his back on all the money making. Three days later he died. It was too late. You see, you might think you've got a lot of time to still make up for the loss and the neglect. You have so little time. If you've neglected them, you might be stunned if you're dead within minutes of saying, I'm going to change. I know preachers who neglected their wives and children so much for serving God, they say. I met one of the most famous preachers. Renowned, revered across Southern Africa. Wife took a gun. Days later, son. What do you say to him? If I could just start again, I wouldn't have neglected them like I did. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I was wrong. Even if it was preaching the gospel. Keith, my wife said to me, they're your first mission, Keith. You win the world, you lose your family, you're a failure. Don't lose your children, Keith. The gospel's over. Let's leave all this. Staggering verse in Isaiah 66, the last verse of Isaiah. They shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that transgressed against God. They were, their bodies will never, ever perish, neither shall the fire be quenched. It is eternal fire. The smoke of their torment is in the forever and ever. They have no peace to all the eternal damnation of God. They should go and look upon the carcasses. Now it's a controversial verse, but it's the last verse of the most important book in the Old Testament. The gospel, according to Isaiah, which proves more than any other book that Jesus was the Messiah. Indeed. Now, he ends with this. Some believe only the new earth, those on the new earth will be required to go continually through all eternity to look upon those lying in hell. Because this is literal, what will happen. But many believe that every one of us, including the angels, will be required for all eternity to go and look at every single soul lying there for eternity in the lake that beneath the fine brimstone. I don't want to be that controversialist to suggest this, that this is really going to happen, that you might see your Shalme again and again. I might be in trouble with some of you, suggesting that this is in the context. But because God put this verse in the Bible, would you forgive me to suggest that you consider that you might see your son again? Maybe he can't speak to you and accuse you because you're in heaven, but his eyes will cry out everywhere, Daddy, by the grace of God, you're there. In the interest of you, Daddy, I'm here. You, Daddy. You, Mommy. Let's leave all this. I know a father that put his head in his hands when his children challenged him of all his failures, as they rejected God. And he put his head between his hands and sopped in front of his wife and said, I surely have been the worst father that ever lived. And his wife said, no, we're going to get down before God and ask forgiveness for our failures in front of them. And then we're going to ask their forgiveness. But we're not going to stay like this till the day we die. And then we're going to ask God to heal in spite of our failures. We must believe as we pray for them from this time onwards that God is greater than our failures. I was with a man whose father was so evil that he was jailed for life. And he said to me about two weeks ago here in America, as I looked into what his father did, how can a father be like that? My heart broke. And he said, listen, Brother Daniel, we can hide behind our parents' sins and failures for the rest of our lives and blame them for our failure, for our rejection of God, for the mess we are. But brother, there comes a time you must just grow up and stop. And you need to look to God to heal you. And he will to heal your wounds. Because Brother Keith, God is more than great enough to undo all the damage and heal all the wounds that our parents inflicted upon us by their failures, to deliver us completely from the wounds and scars inherited from generation of sin. He said I could say his name, but I won't. I sat with a woman on this tour. Oh, her son is godly. All her children are godly. Her father had prostituted the children. Forgive me. I don't want to hurt you. But the world is in such a tragic state, don't doubt it. They will find out this soon. He was jailed, of course, for life. He died in the prison. I looked at this godly woman, her face shining out joy and peace, and I said, but God healed you in spite of that. Oh, yes, brother. There's nothing that comes on your life that if you don't really seek God for that God won't heal you totally and take away all anger and bitterness. You don't hide behind the wrongs inflicted on you, no matter how evil and uncomprehendably evil they may have been. You do not do that because you die a miserable wreck. None of us, no matter what was inflicted upon us of wrong that made us could have caused us being destroyed and broken in spirit to the day we died. None of us, sir, if we seek God while we can with all our hearts when he speaks to us of his salvation will not be totally healed, totally healed. You see, you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers by the blood of Christ. When Jesus stood up, he said, quoting Isaiah, what the Messiah would say in Luke 4.18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, that is, the poor in spirit. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, he's talking about spiritual things, to set at liberty those that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the year. To deliver you from every hurt inflicted on you. The moment you believe, he can, and stop drowning in self-pity because of other wrongs that came on you. There's not one of you in this building, not one of you listening to me, that God will not heal totally and give you peace and joy, that you won't even have the slightest anger at the past, no matter what came on you. But you've got to discipline yourself from that moment till you die, when God heals you by his blood. To devour the scriptures because from them come peace, great peace, have they which love by law. That was when there was just the law, now we have the whole Bible. Uncomprehendable peace is actually what it's saying. Peace that passes all understanding is yours, and you have to discipline yourself to reject negative thoughts and negative words until you die. By the grace of God you will, and you soak yourself in the Bible, you're equipped daily, renewed to be able to do that, and you will live no matter what hurts you have in life. You will live with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and it'll be written across your life. Otherwise the other alternative, that's your choice by the way, is to die a miserable wreck of a human because of the wrongs inflicted upon you. Can we stand please? Father take this message and heal the broken-hearted, the bruised and wounded, the captives of their own misery through the past, if they let thee. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen. Sure we have two meetings left, tomorrow morning at the barn.