In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of commitment in marriage. He criticizes the modern mindset of only committing to a relationship as long as it is tolerable, and highlights the need for a lifelong commitment. The preacher also discusses the concept of truth and how it relates to the Bible. He mentions the story of David and his zeal for God's house, and how it reflects a balanced understanding of truth. The sermon encourages listeners to seek understanding and to strive for a balanced and committed life.

Remember, I've had some birthday cards. Alright, just to catch up, you're thinking about it. At this beginning of miracles, verse 11, chapter 2, did Jesus, in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him. Where would you say their believing began? You'd better think that out. I want to suggest to you that faith does not only come from hearing, hearing by the word of God. It also comes from seeing. It's a big thing, but I've, if you like, dissertated on that enough. When I said to you that hearing has the preeminence, because you can be quite hidden, and you can hear a voice. Somebody could stand out there and shout, but you couldn't see him. That's the thing. My sheep, hear my voice. It doesn't just rest on seeing, nor yet entirely on hearing. Though faith will begin through hearing, but that's not for me to discuss at the moment. We may have opportunity to look at it a bit more thoroughly as we go through. Each of these words, as you know, deserve a lecture on their own. So, it's a wonderful thing. Here's a manifestation of glory. He manifested his glory, but whether they saw it, I don't know. And if you say, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, it's got to be taken with a pinch of salt. I hope I make you think. You start with knowing a little bit about glory. His glory, then, was a miracle. They didn't say it was glorious. John's put that in. That was a manifestation of his glory, but only a little peephole into it. God wants us to understand this, that we can follow him, be called a disciple, and yet know next to nothing of his glory, or really believe as we should believe on him. It was a start. Like teaching a baby to believe that it should take bread dipped in milk, instead of pure milk. And a great and glorious thing it is for us to understand. After this, verse 12, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother, and his brethren and his disciples, and they continued there not many days, and the Jewish Passover was at hand. Jesus went up to Jerusalem, found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money, sitting. And when he had made a skirt of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple. Now notice, it was the changers of money that he drove out. In the first phrase, and the sheep, and the oxen, he never started on the animals first, he started on the changers of money. Yeah, tremendous. Of course you understand what a terrible thing it must have been. You fancy having animals, or even darling little doves, in God's temple. The stench of it. You think animals He's going to have the temple clean. That's the point. Cleanse the temple. That's what he's come for. A statement, but it's only partial. Like, they had a little glimpse of his glory, but it was only partial, only a little. Takes them to the temple, and he lets them have another glimpse. What he'd come for. The money motive. The money changers dealt with first. Money. He upset all their plans. Money went all over the place. Mixed with the filth of the animals. And so on and so on. You do know, don't you, that one of the great lessons that God taught Israel, this is why he was so vehement, about so much that he did. There are paintings, great works of art. Jesus driving out of the temple. Have you seen it? Sure, you're arty people, aren't you? Haven't you seen all these marvellous pictures? Or am I the only artist present? Here's the thing. I'm talking about a temperament, not an achievement. The thing is, beloved, when God took the children of Israel, think again, John comes from the wilderness. He's restating the position. Really? Not only by what he said, where he tore, really tore Moses' laws to pieces and restated them. He, you know what happened? When they came into Egypt, what did he do? The first place they met was the city Jericho. Okay? Told them that everything was to be dedicated to the Lord. Alright? They were to go into that city and they were to destroy everything utterly, except that prostitute that lived on the city wall. She was to be saved because she, at least in the Enlightenment, she had then received God's spies in peace and hidden them from the wrath of the enemy. Alright? But the test was this. Everything, everything but everything, keep it clear, was to be dedicated to the Lord. Everything, but there was a man named Achan who stole the Lord's property. He was the indwellers of Jericho's peasant people and he was to trample dress underfoot. You mind you do it. The Babylonish road got him. The gold, the silver, all to be trodden under your feet and there was no more advancement into the land, though it's been so marvelously promised to them by God, unless they did that. A man named Achan failed to tread under the riches and the worship for riches because they are, by the ordinary person, they worship riches. Clothes or something would be cast, of course, if they had them in those days. But not till they learned they got to get out the money motive and then after that they could have, I don't know what not, as they went on with God. That's the position. It's the same again. Into the temple, I know the things changed thousands of years ago. There they are, the money motive. Making God out of your redemption. You say, what? Yeah, they were making money. Making that God. Selling the lands and the doves and everything. That's a tragedy. And there was no more progress for Israel until they did that. And he has come to Israel in the flesh. He's come. I know all the twelve tribes were not there. But the tremendous thing is that he led them the same way as he'd led them across Jordan into the land in the pillar of cloud. He was still leading. Perhaps if he'd listened to Mary, I don't know. I've got a lot to learn. You'll wonder how ignorant I am when you meet me in heaven. I've got a lot to learn. The suggestion about Mary's sword, at least a bit of a cut, being administered when he said to her, Woman, what have I to do with it? Wouldn't it have been lovely if he'd have said, Mother? But she wasn't his mother, you see. The Holy Ghost was his mother. And his father. That is, his father sent through the angel and through the Holy Ghost the whole thing. Only stirred a process in Mary. Here is the thing for us to see. He did it. He was under the power of his father the whole time he was on earth. And if he'd have deviated from that he would have lost the power of the spirit within him. Keep that clear. And he would have had to pass down into psychic manifestation of healing. You keep that very clear. Inborn talents, gifts, whatever you want to say have to be strongly disciplined by the Holy Ghost. But that's another point. He, into the temple of God, filling it with stench. Oh, of course you would have smelt some incense and all that. But he wanted pure incense. You will notice if you read in Leviticus that the incense had to be made of pure things. All right. You know what happened after that. He overturned the tables with the money changers and all that. And the disciples in verse 17 remember that it was written The veal of thine house hath eaten me up. You will know, I hope, that when Jesus gave a reason to Joseph and Mary why he stayed behind in the temple when they sought him at twelve years of age he said, know ye not that I must be about the business of my father's house. That's the Greek. He was zealous. You know, twelve. Inexperienced in the ways of human life yet. He would have gone up then and cleared the temple out. He would have done it. But he was in the things of his father. He was in his father's house. His father's business. That's how it's translated into the authorized version. But you and I have to see this zealous Jesus. How many of you are zealous? How many of you are zealous? That's the thing to understand. I've just read that thing by General Booth. His marvellous statement. He's going to fight whilst he's got a drop of blood in him and a breath. That was the success of a salvation in the beginning. He imparted that spirit and imparted the grace and power of God. That's why he called them soldiers. And he was a general. How marvellous, beloved. Don't get into the lackadaisical while we're in a different age. And all this business. God isn't subject to this age. You keep that clear. New age. Here's the thing for us to understand, beloved, what it's about. Take these out. Don't you make my father's house a house of merchandise. Those disciples, they remember something from the Bible. They never had burning in their heart what was burning in his. They were calling themselves his disciples. Have we learned this? The zeal against sin and filth? Have we learned that? Hallelujah. A clean sweep. It was like a wind blowing through the place. Breath of fresh air. Let's go on. They said, zeal of thy house. That's what we're seeing demonstrated. That was David's statement. It was as far as he could go. He was not in the new covenant. Wonderful, commendable. Preach sermons on it. But know you that you haven't touched the truth yet. You see, there's so much which is truth about truth. Think that one out. What you're saying is true. Absolutely true. But it's only about truth. Think. And this is the very big wonder of the Bible. That you said to him, what science you're assigned to see without doing these things. You've got to prove yourself. You know, you're going against the whole of our customs. You're going against the law. You're going against everything. Come on. Like when the man looks at your front door and says he's the gas man, you want to make sure he is the gas man. He might be going in to choose there to take that wonderful picture off the wall that you paid a million pounds for, or somebody did. The thing, beloved, this is what they wanted. You can't blame them according to their light. But the light that was in them was darkness. Be careful about which light you're following. Which light you are in. And it says this. So it's a sign. Destroy this temple, he says, three days, I'll raise up. And you know the whole thing. It was Herod's temple. It wasn't Solomon's. Forty-six years was this temple in building. We'll raise it up in three days. But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture. That's true. What David wrote is true. They saw a demonstration of it on that level. The only level on which they could see a man named Jesus flourishing a whip, driving out animals, overturning the temple, mixing their money with the animal filth, and all that. That's all. He cared for that. This is the thing. They remembered. But they also remembered what? The word which Jesus had said. In three days I will raise the temple again. You will know, and ladies take comfort now, all these men have better listen twice as well to you. To what I'm saying. Herod had had the audacity to add to the temple basic plan of revelation via David to Solomon. Alright. A wall of partition. Women had to walk on one side. Men on the other. And all the proselytes had to get it all sorted out. He's broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Now you keep that clear. That was an imposition by Herod's own wicked heart. Not the present Herod that was ruling then, but his father. Was it Herod the Great? Not sure. I'm 83, I forget the time. But here is the thing to get hold of into your heart. Because it was God's determination to destroy that temple utterly. He engaged a man named Pompey that he, not that Pompey knew, are wrong to do it. But here is the thing. Beloved. You ladies prick up your ears. And let it get into your heart. Don't go too far. Unless we see whether you've got a rebellious heart or not. But the whole great thing is to destroy it. Destroy this temple, he said. Destroy it. They wouldn't. Even the disciples would say, this is a magnificent building here. You know, I had once a master doctor. He was saved in the early days. And he used to go out. If I ever was with him, he used to say, oh, you've got a stroke. See something. Oh, what a lovely stone. Marvellous, you see. Tremendous. Oh, so it is, you know. But I was looking at trees. I said, I'd rather watch them than that. That's being interested in old stone. Oh, the symmetry. Oh, man can do symmetric things sometimes. Almost asymmetric in these days, usually. This is the ruling idea. You and I have to know the truth. Just a comment. They remembered that only later. And they saw the vast difference between the old covenant and the new. Isn't it lovely? We're in Christ. We're not in words. A statement. The veal of thine house hath eaten me up. Well done, David. I'd rather be a doorkeeper than a king. Or if I have to keep my sovereignty, I'd like to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. That's what David said. Though at that time, it was only a tent. The Solomon of the temple. You see, beloved, I can remember, well, that lovely thing, you know. How lovely are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. That's David. But you do know, don't you, that your tent house must not be a place of wickedness. Not if you say you love the Lord. He didn't say he was living in a tent of wickedness. He was making a comparison between two things. Well, he was living in the palace. There's the temple. The tents of the wicked are over there. But I, I don't know. Sometimes, oh, you'd better fix your eye on me now, a beady one. I wonder whether David was a depressant. You can read some of his psalms. He's always scraping the bottom. O Lord, what's happened to us? O Lord, come and help me. O Lord, I'm on the bottom of a horrible pit. That's the sign of a depressant. This mighty conqueror of Israel. Another time he says, Sieg, Sieg. They would call that a manic depressive. They would in our days. Read the psalms. Don't just read a psalm like the 23rd. The Lord is my shepherd. That's the psalm of a shepherd boy. The wonderful truth. But some people can get wonderful truth, but sometimes they're down the bottom of the pit. And the next time they say, Come on, why don't you all clap and sing? Jesus Christ was, listen, the balanced human being. You know, you'll tell everybody that Mr North wonders whether David was a depressant. Well, tell them what you like. But tell them to get this tape as well. Here is the thing, beloved, to understand. With all thy getting, get understanding. And that's what I understand about David. I love some of his psalms. I read one every morning these days. Just to get it fixed in your mind. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to the hundred and nineteen's. This is if I'm preparing to take meetings. But you do see, beloved, don't you? Do you know, I've got a really shocker now. Really shocker. I sometimes wonder whether we benefited from putting the Old Testament and the New Testament together. Unless we understand we are utterly in the new. Some good things in the old, of course there are. You be New Testament man. You be New Testament man. Sometimes you may acquire some things into your thinking that wouldn't be correct for you to believe. They were correct then. Hallelujah. Perhaps you're not saying that. Perhaps I've gone down in your estimation. It doesn't matter. I've got to stand before the Lord. It was men who put the two testaments together. Not God. Just keep that clear. All right. When he was risen from the dead, verse 22, his disciples remembered that he said this unto them and they believed the Scripture, the Word. Do you know, until certain things happen in your life now. Are you listening to me? You won't know what the Scripture says. You will believe that. When he was risen from the dead, they couldn't believe it before. They couldn't. They were bound by texts of the Bible. Am I shocking you? They couldn't believe. They hadn't got a clue what he was talking about. And that's how Christians are in churches today. I find that most people are Old Testament believers. I'm sorry to say, all believers of the Old Testament read it. But understand, you know, I don't know how, say I went around and said, how long have you been born again? I went around and pointed at every one of you. Now tell me what you understand. Oh yeah, I've been born again. Yes, I know. I sing that chorus, I've been born again. Yeah, I sing it. I wish they still sang it. Dear then, beloved, this is a great truth. That's where John ends that particular thing. Now he's going on. When he was in Jerusalem, verse 22, at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, which his name is Jesus, which means Savior. Believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men. Needed not that any should testify of man, he knew what was in man. Now first thing I want you to notice here is that it was the feast day. Now as you go through John, you will discover that most things in John are associated with the Jewish feasts. Alright? They're associated, and all this teaching was around the Jewish feasts that was taking place at that time. Governing much that he had to say. Introducing the truth, like the feast was a shadow of good things to come, he developed things out of that shadow. But, remember this. Long before there was a Passover, verse 23, long before there was a temple, long, long way back, there was a man, his name was Adam. What was in him? For, Adam was, may I say this, molded inwardly upon the image of God. He knew what was in man, he originated the original man. He knew what was in man, and listen, because he knew what was in man, he would not commit himself unto them. They were not in the place to be, couldn't entrust them with the committal of himself. When we read chapter 3, we should read, the only begotten son which was in the bosom of the father. Answer this question, answer it now, whatever you're doing, would he commit himself to you, do you think? And usually, we don't like people that won't commit themselves. We like people to be definite. Would he be to a wedding, where a man and a woman committed themselves unto each other. In the beginning of this chapter, would God, well that happened, and it happens a lot, in these days. But no, if you're the average Christian, I'm afraid to say, in civilized countries, you only commit yourself as far as you can tolerate each other, and when you discover the worst things about each other, we used to think the sunshine out of each other's eyes at first, you go through a divorce. That's what happens. And all civilized people do the same, oh really, up front we are, we're all educated, we're this, that and the other, we've pushed God out of it. And we're all pitying, would you like to live with it for the rest of your life, would you do such a thing, would you do such a thing. Now you're a Christian, I hope, that means Christ's ones. That means to say you're being remodeled in the image and likeness of God. That's what that means. And God's put up with an awful amount of disappointment. You've got to do this. Love is wonderful, I mean human love, marital love and so on, so on, so on, enjoy it, enjoy it. But I've lived 83 years, and my wife's only been dead once, we were married over 50 years. Let me tell you something, why should I dissertate about marriage and divorce? But let me tell you this, I knew a woman in a town in North England where I was, and she came, oh it would be a long story if I told you how she got saved, but she got saved because somebody, a woman who'd been saved and had been an habitual smoker wasn't smoking when they were standing out of a shop together, and she gave her testimony for deliverance from tobacco, brought her along to the church. She was saved the first visit. She was married to a man that forced her to sleep with a gun under her mattress, and said if you dare get out of this bed, including all reasons in it, I'll shoot you. How about that? Now you, of course you're in modern days, we were going to get a divorce, that's what you did, and she didn't. She didn't. But her life was threatened. You see, a woman like that, I could tell you a lot more about it, I won't. I'm not here to tell you stories, that comes in sometimes when I'm preaching, but the thing, beloved, is to know what you're on about. Committal. Or my wife doesn't love me, I found out, or my husband doesn't love me, and we're a cat and dog. We're so degraded, the ordinance of marriage, that even spiritual Christians will dare to break his law, because the country says they may. Where are we going? Where are we at, let alone where we're going. You be very careful. If you are an unmarried person, let me warn you, never to rush into anything. Don't marry, or even go with an opposite partner, unless they're saved, and really soundly saved. Don't think you will win him or her, you won't. Sometimes I demonstrate this by getting the person to whom I'm talking on the table. Go on, get up on the table. They look at me and they think he's a strange fellow, well I am. But don't you see, I help them up, now I'll stand. I'll stand in front of them. Now you try and lift me up to you, will you? And they can't. I just go like this, and they're down to my level. Just let common sense teach you, will you? You don't need to know a great deal, beyond that. God wants us to move into these things, and understand what we do. I think you ought to have a notice, Prentice, my dear sister. And no, it's not your fault. Suggest it to the boss, or I may, over lunch. Silence. Lectures in progress. Soon as they come in the door. But you don't take notice of my advice, do you? The thing is this. He didn't need anybody. He didn't need anybody to tell him about me. So if you go to prayer and I say, oh that man North, he doesn't lecture properly, he doesn't even want to take any notice of you. You see, he doesn't need anybody to tell him, he knows all about it, whether I'm right or wrong, now. I told you at the beginning, we're more concerned with your soul, than your mind. That's the main thing. What a wonderful thing it is. He knew what was in man. He knows what's in you, son, daughter. If you're born again, he's going to talk about that, within a breath or two, we'll be in that third chapter. He commits himself to the born again person. Really, soundly, born again, out of your first birth state, and you'll enter into a new birth one. Not just a state of believing. They believed in him when he turned water into wine. You can believe on Jesus Christ for any kinds of reasons. You've got to have something born in here, engendered, whatever word you want to use, in here. You've got to be like that, because you want Jesus Christ above your daily food, and you want him above breathing, and you want him above friends, and you want him above your first family, your natural family. Yeah, you will. You might want to see them saved, of course. All right. I'm talking to all of you. What have I to do with the harmony of the Lord? Do you see, what have I to do with thee? Nothing that death won't sever, or the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ won't sever, that is if you are worldly. You've got to see, may I say that here, that the whole of John's Gospel, I know it's in the other Gospels, but not so markedly, is based on relationships. Sheep to shepherd, or a disciple to leader, branches to a vine. It's all based on relationships. Perhaps that's why I like John. What have I to do with thee? Write that on a piece of card somewhere, and read it out again. What have you to do with the things you are in or out of? If I was born, I didn't choose my mother and father. What have I to do with that? Well, my mum and my dad, I can bless their memory, a memory album, but all that, it can't help being born into a family, can you? If there is a family, but you can choose your friends, can't you? There are lots of things that you can have choice in, but in birth, you have none. It would be wonderful if you had a lovely father, mother, brothers and sisters. Jesus had to grow up with the firm statement in the seventh chapter, that neither did his family believe in him. His brothers, it says. Brothers, of course, by common usage of the term, that they were all in the same home. But you must understand this, beloved. In the end, it will all turn around the spiritual relationship. Everything. May God help us to see what he wants of us and go for it. An uncommitted person is about the most tantalizing person you could ever live with, you know. Is that right? Supposing, let me take it on this marital level, supposing, my dear sister, you loved a man till you couldn't stand up for love and he never committed himself to you. What would you think? You could die a broken hearted woman, unrequited love or something like that. He wouldn't commit himself. Just keep that in your mind. Uncommitted, there are some people I know, they never commit themselves to a church, they never commit themselves to do anything, they never commit, oh, they're the most aggravating people you could ever have if you're a pastor of a church. Uncommitted people, butterflies. The Lord wants us to move in the real, real truth. And I know I'm preaching and not teaching at the moment. Would you like to tell me, I'm not going to ask you to take too long, to tell me what you are committed to, who you are committed to. Oh, Jesus Christ, yeah. But do you know what commitment meant to Jesus Christ? Death. Torture. The cross. That's what commitment meant. God help us. Hallelujah. You do know, don't you, let me put it in, I would think I perhaps not complete what I would like to say about you, I know the time's almost gone. Do you know that hell will be full of believers? Won't be one unbeliever in hell. Because they've all got to meet God, all these so-called unbelievers. They've all got to bow their knee to Jesus Christ, I'll believe, alright. But it will be too late. Full of believers. Do you believe in God? I believe in God. When he said, you go there, and you see other people, you go up. They'll all be believers in hell. You'll meet them all there. I hope you don't go there. But if you want to find a crowd of believers, go to hell. You didn't expect me to say that, did you? That's a marvellous thing. I've finished. Perhaps you're glad.