In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about a difficult and painful situation in his family. His young son, Samuel, witnesses the tension and asks why everyone is unhappy. The speaker then describes a scene where he discovers his wife being kissed by another man. He reflects on the importance of seeking forgiveness and grace in moments of failure and hurt. The sermon emphasizes the need to guard our words and maintain love in relationships, as well as the importance of living a life that reflects God's love to others.

I want to ask you all concerning marriage, the one thing you need to do is guard your words, if you have love. You may be right with God, but these things, these words, can take away love that could have lasted till your dying day, and you didn't have to stoop to say those words. You didn't have to. A very famous preacher, you will all know his name, and somehow I was stunned that he stood with me when I was about to be married. And he said these words. He's a South African preacher, but probably the most famous South African preacher in our lifetime. He said, I hear you have found the right person. I said, yes, I do believe this is God's will. Now this famous preacher began to walk along the beachfront with me and away from people, and he said, would you accept advice from another person concerning your marriage? I said, yes, sir. He said, guard your words, Keith. Don't tolerate unkind words to leave your lips. Don't tolerate unkind words to leave your lips. You don't have to, even if you run from a circumstance for a few moments before you open your mouth, run and seek God's grace not to open that mouth. Don't allow, no matter what you face, it's possible, Keith. Because once you allow unkind words, my boy, you will lose that perfect love you begin marriage with and most people never, ever, ever find it again through words that weren't necessary. I stopped and I looked at him. You know why I looked at him for a long while? The tears were just pouring down his face as he looked down at the sand. And I wondered, I wondered as I looked at him why he was crying, but I took those words to heart. Uncle Roy, who we named my son Roy after, was sitting with us when we were first married, and a lot of missionaries who normally, when you're young and preachers, there's so much gravity, so much hurt and sorrow, that when you're together there's jokes. When you're young, God takes the joke out of a man, trust me. He knows how to take the joke out of a man, fast. But I joked with Jenny in front of all these people, and Uncle Roy stood up and shouted. Now he didn't shout, not Uncle Roy. He shouted in front of that room full of people at me and said, don't you dare speak to Jenny like that. Don't you dare speak to Jenny like that. Everyone just gasped in shock. He had tears coming down his face. I said, Uncle Roy, I was joking. You know I was joking. I wouldn't mean that. It's a joke. Don't you even joke with disrespect to Jenny. And he said these words, Keith, you and Jenny have something special. I won't let you destroy it. Even in light talk, don't ever speak to your wife with disrespect again till you die. By that time, everyone in that room was standing on their feet in shock at what he was saying. But then I said these words, Uncle Roy, I accept it from God what you're saying. And by God's grace, I will not even joke with disrespect to my wife in any words I say to her again till I die. By God's grace. Oh, God, your words. One little thing can lead to the next little thing. Respect each other. Always let there be a tenderness and a respect and don't stoop to words. Now, beloved, failure can come. God did something once to me that shook me. He said to me in my heart, in a very strange circumstance, if you're not honest in the pulpit, get out of the pulpit. That shook me and it made me come to a place where I would be willing to say things I'm going to say right now. Failures do come sometimes in moments when you're so mentally tired that you wonder why God would allow such circumstances to befall you when you're not at your best, when you actually have no strength at all and your mind is numb. Terrible failures can come even in godly homes when you don't deal with tiredness. It can become sin. The tiredness can become sin if you don't deal with it, if you sit up when you shouldn't be, because you lose your testimony, you lose your ability to function in the quiet time as you ought to and therefore you will fail. And I remember a circumstance in my home that we never knew such things. Samuel was a small little boy. Noel and Roy were a bit bigger. And as teenagers these things happen, let me tell you, even in godly homes. That will shock you. That you've got to deal with it. And I was so tired, so drained emotionally and mentally from the way I'd been preaching and I was back and I suddenly in this moment there was a confrontation of things I never ever would have believed could ever have happened in my home. And I failed. I failed. I remember raising my voice. I remember our voices in that home raised to a pitch and a tone we'd never ever, ever allowed. Failure can happen when circumstances, not every day, oh god thank you, they're rare in our lives. If we stay tender with God there's victory. Otherwise what can we preach if there's no victory? But what shook me was little Samuel. He stood up never ever having heard these, this tone. Never ever having, I don't think he ever witnessed shouting or anger or confrontation in that home. He stood up with his toys and he walked into the lounge from where he was playing and his mouth is open and he looked at us and there were tears coming down my face, I think Jenny's face, and the boys looked hurt. And he looked at all of our faces, this little thing. He says, why are you shouting? Why are you crying? What's gone wrong? Why is everybody unhappy? And tears started coming down his face. What's happened? And we all just looked at him. No one could speak. I didn't want to share with him what was going on. He says, I know what to do daddy. I know what we must do. Let's just pretend this never happened. Now we're all listening. Because no one really had any advice in this circumstance, so out of the mouth of babes, God speaks. Let's just start from the beginning. And this time, now that we know what can happen, this time daddy, mommy, no, let's say the right things. Let's do what Jesus wants from us. Beloved, be sure failures in a Christian home can come. And in most godly homes and happy homes do come, but don't let that be the beginning of the end. Don't let one thing lead to the other, and bitterness and hurt and unforgiveness come. Be careful if failures come to ask for forgiveness sincerely, in truth, immediately, no matter who you are in that home, for then love will not be broken down even though failure came, isolated failure, in a weak moment, under undue stress. Everyone respects a person that can honestly say, I'm sorry, I failed, please forgive me. Your children will respect you more than ever before in life. If you fail, and when you fail, you are able to say, forgive me, even to a child, in such a way they know. They know this from your heart and not the lie. It's utterly sincere. Forgive me, I failed. I failed God, and I failed you. Your children will love you even more if you're capable of that. But it can be the beginning of the end if you can't ask for forgiveness when failure does come. There's no such a thing as failure that can't be forgiven. There's no such a thing as failure that destroys everything, apart from failure that you cannot find the grace to say, I'm sorry, forgive me. I was in a town many years ago where a man whose home I stayed shook me at the love of that man to his wife and his children, the happiness in that home, and the way he was regarded throughout the whole town as the godliest man in that town. Everyone, even the ungodly, respected him and listened. He was revered throughout the town. I became conscious of it. And one night he was watching me, looking on the fireplace, all the photographs, and there's photos of this and that of his father and mother, her father and mother, then the brothers, the families. And he looked at me as I was watching this one photo of his father and mother, and he took it from me, and tears came on his face as he said these words, oh, how they loved each other. I remember as a child, making up my mind, I want their God. I want to be a Christian. I want what they've got for my children. I remember as a child, coveting what I saw. Oh, I never heard an unkind word in my life in that home, Keith. I never heard an unkind word in that home. I never heard an unkind word in that home. I never heard a fight or an argument, Keith. And that is what made me give my life to God in a way that I've never backslidden. I gave everything to God because of what he made of my mother and father's marriage. I wanted it, Keith. They're the reasons I chose Christ, their love. And he held that photo and looked at them with such love, such love. When I was in America a number of years ago now, they put me into a home of old people, rich but old. Now, they were so old, they were old. And I was a bit staggered to be in these old, I mean, they were old. I hope you understand that by now. Lovely gardens overlooking the city where I was preaching, open this hill, very wealthy, beautiful home. I stayed upstairs, the whole upstairs. It's like twice as big as my whole home. Mine, chandeliers. Well, they love Christ. I noticed at the table when we were having meals how this man couldn't take his eyes off his wife. Now, this was not a show off. This was not something that just was for me. Normally, in every home I go, they want to ask me, the visiting missionary from the other side of the world, everything about South Africa, everything, oh, talk. This man hardly could look at me. He was just, his wife, you know. And they were talking together, and they laughed together, and he touched his hand. Oh, and they got excited. Every now and again, they remembered they had a visitor. Oh, you know, I wasn't the center of anything. You know, I'm the visiting preacher. I marveled at the tenderness and the way, honestly, this man was excited with his wife. And she was excited with him. They look, oh, everything was, goodness me. I was really touched. Well, I did a terrible thing. One day, I was upstairs, and I was supposed to come down at a certain time, and they take me down in the car. You know, he's very old, but down to the church. And I came a few minutes early, 10 minutes early, either one, go down to the kitchen, perhaps, just look. Well, I walked down this beautiful spiral staircase coming down, and I walked, and I stood as I got to the bottom, and there was the most horrific scene. He was kissing her. Now, I don't want to offend you, and I think some people might be offended, but he was kissing her. In a way, you know, you expect young people, and you get embarrassed, and wish they would just behave themselves. But here, this man was alone, so it wasn't wrong, so don't think I'm saying that such things happen. He was kissing her. Now, I said, you know, you don't expect this. And I thought, let me, what can I do? So, I try to get up the steps, and I put my foot, and what happens on these lovely, suddenly my foot, you know, squeak. And so, I look back. Here, now they see me that I've seen. And they look at each other. And then he said, and she laughs, and they giggle and run away. They were caught. Well, now, I had to sit in the car with them all the way to town, and they're looking at me. No words. When I got to the church, the minister, I told him, I said, you can't believe what has happened to me. So, he laughed, you know. He really laughed. And then I said these words to him. I said, you know, I wonder if I'm going to love my wife like that when we're old. I go to my knees that night, and I said to the Lord, God, I don't know why most Christian homes don't have this love, but it's possible. God, by thy grace and mercy, let me, when I'm that age, love Jenny that she knows I'm more excited about her company than anybody in the room, that we don't lose the love and the attraction, oh, that she knows I'm excited with her and love her. I want this, God. I want to ask every one of you a question. Do you honestly believe it's God's will that as we get older, we just lose the excitement of being in love? That old age takes it out the door, and we, do you think that's God's will? Now, I'm going to really shock you. My mother and father-in-law, I noticed something about them, the way they loved, the way their love became more and more refined over the years I've known them. It didn't ever die, it just became more beautiful. They showed me something that I needed to know, that if you are godly, and you stay so tender with God as what God can make a man or woman, and give them the grace to daily, love doesn't grow less, it grows more. That's Christianity, that I believe is God's will. And now I'm going to shock everyone because Jenny's not here, I hope she's not here. When I first saw Jenny, I couldn't believe there was anybody so beautiful in this world. I lost my breath, I lost the ability to function for days, I couldn't recover that there was such a face that wasn't marred by sin in this world, just purity, godliness, a beauty that was beyond physical beauty. I said to my father-in-law when I asked him if I could court her, I can't promise you much, but I tell you this, I will love your daughter as few men ever have all my life. That's all I can promise you. We are married now for quite a long time, and I'm saying this in the sight of Jesus Christ. I love Jenny much more now than I loved her when I first met her. She hasn't got perfect skin, there's little wrinkles, there's grey hairs now, but I love her more now than I loved her then. I love her for bearing the children she gave me and being the mother she's been to them, no matter what sacrifice, I love her for the sacrifice of her life for me to never bury my ministry and never wants to say a negative word, never wants to stop me and be angry with me for leaving her to be father and mother to those children. I love her for being so positive and full of joy where others would say it's sacrifice and a waste of life, but I put her through that I could preach to so many multitudes that God gave me the grace to. I love her more now than I ever loved her before. Now not one of you will tell my wife that I said that, please. I'd appreciate that, but she knows it. She just doesn't know I preach it. I want to end with this. How can I deal with the tragedy of ruining my marriage, my testimony? How can I deal with this in life? Andrew Murray, who I believe was the godliest man this nation ever knew, I've really weighed that up before I say it. We were honored for such a man in our history and our history would have been very different without Andrew Murray. He said these words, if a Christian, a child of God, does not come to a place of absolute surrender, whereby God works a personal calvary by his grace in their hearts, and whereby he fills them with the Holy Spirit, that means takes control of them because they're absolutely surrendered. He's in them but not in control. If a child of God does not come to a place of absolute surrender whereby they have a personal calvary and are filled with the Holy Spirit, they will become a grief to God and man, beginning in the home, though they saved. By absolute surrender, I do not mean perfection, Andrew Murray says. Before absolute surrender, it's a life of ups and downs as a Christian, if we're all honest. At absolute surrender, a consistent growth starts, a consistent growth onto perfection, which comes the day we die, total. God takes us to total perfection. This is maintained by never missing God, he said, once you've absolutely surrendered, never neglecting God or the time of meditating the scriptures and being devoured in a life of prayer daily. You cannot lose this position in Christ if you never neglect the quiet time again, Andrew Murray says. You will only grow more and more like Jesus daily. If a child of God does not come to a place of absolute surrender, whereby they have a personal calvary by the grace of God, worked in their hearts, and they die to self, and they are filled with God, the Holy Spirit, which means control. God takes control. He's in them, but not in control, that's all. He or she will become a grief to God and man, beginning in the home, because if it doesn't work in the home, it doesn't work anywhere. When I went to Glenmore, I thought I was going to be with angels. I thought it was going to be heaven, but I found out it was terrifying. Putting it mildly, from the night I arrived, and the first person who shared a room with me, but I also found out something about myself. I found out that I had a temper that salvation hadn't taken care of. I found out that I got angry with people that weren't perfect. I got so angry, I found out that I fled up and screamed, oh God had taken me from sins that are so shameful, I don't want to think about them. But I was so ashamed at the way I reacted to other people's failures at Glenmore. I heard the message of holiness, of absolute surrender, of coming to a place where God fills you with the Holy Spirit, where it's no longer effort of your own, struggling to attain a standard. It is a spontaneous reaction of God's Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, spontaneously seen in every reaction, not by effort of your own, but because you're yielded. It's not your struggles to be holy that will ever make you holy, it's the yielding, the absolute surrender. I remember seeking God many times, but one day I sought God with my whole heart and soul and might in such desperation. I used to get upset with those students, especially the students that failed concerning one or two brothers who were a bit slow in how they mocked them and did things. I got upset and stuff, that I failed more than them. I used to get angry. But when I sought God for a heart made clean by blood, where they were filled with the Spirit, their hearts being cleansed by faith, their hearts being cleansed. When I sought God for a heart made clean by blood and I desperately sought him to take control, full control, as I absolutely surrendered. And like Jacob at Peniel, I gave in the fight and I died to self that night. I just remember yielding everything to God and I would not let him go until he had his way, no matter what the cost. I had an absolute surrender. I didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel emotion. I started shouting hallelujah or become emotional. I felt nothing. But what did shake me was the next time I stood with the brothers as they failed, as they did the same things that used to make me explode. I suddenly looked and I thought to myself, that's strange. I'm not getting angry. They're doing the same things, but I'm not angry with them. I'm not angry. I looked at them with love while they failed. Suddenly they were looking at me with love because I wasn't failing. Suddenly there were those seeking God for what I'd found who were arguing about the doctrine of being filled with the spirit and holiness of life and were seeking God for what they saw in someone that didn't know it until a moment where it was evident. Evident. Of course, there were other victories on issues where I sensed there was a need. I never went back to the moral wrong, but there were things in my heart that I didn't understand, little thoughts. God dealt a death blow to so many things. But the great thing that I saw when God filled me with the Holy Spirit was that I suddenly had the ability not to become angry at other people's failures, but to love them, to love your enemies, to bless them that curse you, to do good to them that hate you, to pray. I want you to tell me that's happened to you if you haven't had a personal calvary, child of God, beginning in the home. I want to ask every one of you something that might not make you feel, no, wait, but I want you to think of the cost. If you're not willing for the cost of seeking God here tonight, think of the cost of the rest of your lives because you wouldn't seek him. I want every single one of you that know that God is speaking to your heart and you know this human voice through this frail, weak man is not the voice you're hearing. Somehow this voice, God, the Holy Ghost, his voice is taking it to where no human voice can reach to the innermost part of your being and conscience and heart. And you know you have to do with God, not with an old preacher. And you know God is asking of you to do what will prevent you from becoming a grief to God and man beginning in your home. To absolutely surrender. To seek him by grace and faith, to work by the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit, a personal calvary in your heart, and to fill you, to take over, to take complete control, whereby no matter how trying the circumstances, your every reaction will not be by effort, or struggle, but spontaneously the fruit, the evidence that the Holy Spirit is there in control. Love suffereth long in his kind, not by struggle, just spontaneously. I want those of you sitting here who know you need to ask God for forgiveness for the failures as a Christian beginning in the home that have made your life such a grief to God and man beginning in the home. Those of you that know you desperately need tonight to absolutely surrender that what's left of life will stagger the powers of hell beginning in your home. I want those of you who desperately need to seek God and know that God requires of you at this moment and would have God take complete control no matter what the cost, but you're seeking him tonight with all your heart to do this as you absolutely surrender and trust him. I want those of you that know God requires this of you and you desperately need this to stand right now, please. And everyone that stands I'm going to lead them in prayer that I know not every single person who stands and prays these prayers find that this work, but I'll tell you something that I found the majority do. I believe that with my whole heart. Come, let's come forward. I have no altar here for you to kneel, but come let's make this an altar. Let's not make this a hurry. Come, let's seek God here tonight. Just walk as close as you can to the front. You don't have to kneel. If you want to kneel, you may, but it's not the kneeling. It's what God sees in a bowed heart, a bowed life. Just keep coming forward, please, and right over to that corner, right over to that corner. Let's get as many close as we can. So we're part of this as an altar. And those sitting, you pray for these. You just pray for them with me. Now, all of you, will you bow your heads, please? You might not be able to kneel in the situation physically right where you're standing. It might not be possible, but I know your whole being is bowed before God. And I want you to pray a prayer with me that I'm going to lead you. God does not look at the words that proceed out of the mouth. God looketh at the heart from whence they come. He's looking at your heart, but I want you to pray with your mouth, loud, as I lead you, as best as I believe the Holy Ghost has taught me and impressed on me to lead people to pray in the light of all the scriptures and experience. I want you to pray in my language. Most of you Afrikaans, I'd say, many of you, but even if it's another language, if God sees it in your heart, you are saying this with all your heart, these words that another man is leading you, but it's your prayer. If he sees you praying in such a way that it is your prayer, this is your words, this is what you want God to do, he will answer this prayer. God is perfect. He won't turn away his face and say, no, thank you. I don't want a life absolutely surrendered. Only the devil would tell you that, so don't believe the devil. You believe God tonight. Don't doubt. Have absolute perfect trust in this God that won't turn away his face from you, wanting to give everything over to be Christ-like from now on, beginning in the home. Trust him as you pray. Don't doubt him, but pray aloud with me, please, every one of you. Oh God, I come before thee in grief at the failures of my life, though I'm saved, beginning in the home with my family. Forgive me, and by the blood of Jesus Christ, make me clean, wash me, wipe away every sin, every failure, every word, every unkindness, every unnecessary word that was sin. Wipe away every sin, things I've forgotten in my baseness to even confess. Let me be clean in thy sight, and have a new start, because of my faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son that cleanses us from all sin. I have nothing to bring thee but Jesus Christ's blood, but I believe thou will cleanse me through my faith in nothing but the blood. Let the blood go deeper. Wash me through and through, and through, and through, and through, and through. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me, a steadfast, consistent victory, living in obedience to thy commandments and thy word. I absolutely surrender. I lay my life totally on the altar of God. Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. What I dedicate God consecrates. I dedicate my whole body on the altar of God, that I may prove what is that perfect and acceptable will of God for my life. Lord, by thy grace, through the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit, work within my heart a personal calvary. Take over complete control of my life. Fill me with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, and let the fruit, the evidence that the Holy Spirit is in control, be seen in my every reaction, spontaneously, no matter how trying the circumstances, from this night forth to the day I die. Give me the grace to never miss the quiet time. From this night to tomorrow morning, every day, till the day I die, keep me true, that I may miss other things that the devil will tell me are important, but never miss God again, to meditate the scriptures as the greatest delight of life daily, and the devil cannot touch me. I believe according to thy word. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Give me the grace to abide in thee, which is the result of the discipline of a quiet time. If failure ever comes, when there is such stress and tiredness, if failure comes, help me not to let it be the stepping stone to further failure. But to keep short account with God, to confess that sin with all my heart, as an isolated sin, before many more come, and to ask thee for grace to keep me from further failure. Through the circumstances I suddenly find myself. Give me the grace, if failure ever comes, to ask for forgiveness from those who witness me failing, even if it's my child. Where there has been hurt and wounds, in my home, give everyone the grace to forgive me. And through what they see in my life from this time forth, win them to seek God also with all their heart, soul, and might. Live out thy life within me, through me, and win the world to thyself by what they witness in me. In Jesus Christ's name, for his glory, and out of love for him, I ask these things of thee, my Father in heaven. Amen. Now, beloved, I do not believe that every single person of the many, many thousands that have come out in meetings where I've preached, I do not believe that every single one finds perfect Christianity. But I am stunned to what degree God did work when we prayed this prayer in many, many, many churches. It is beyond comprehension that so many have walked up to me, or phoned, or written, or brought their families to my door to say, from that prayer, many dumanis have come to my door to say, from that prayer, I now have the right to preach, because I can live it. From that prayer, it worked, brother. So I have no doubt many of you will say the same. I hope everyone, but I have no doubt many, if you meant this with all your heart, and if you never neglect God again, morning and night, the devil will never take this away from you. Never. Holiness doesn't perfect you. Being filled with the Spirit doesn't perfect you. It just puts you in a position that God can take you on to perfection now, daily, more and more like Jesus. But don't neglect the Word. Make that your great delight, and the devil will never be able to touch you, to hurt you, with his testimony. You're as safe as your quiet time, as your golden life now. Can we all stand please? I do believe the dear Lord Jesus is here in a very special way, right walking between us, loving us as his people, for wanting him to have everything. Everything. Just take it. What's left of life, have God. I do believe Christ is glorified and filled with joy at you. And so my heart is filled with joy also for his sake.