In this sermon, the preacher shares a personal experience of visiting a man named Marvin Strubar and his family in Wyoming. The preacher recalls the joyful times spent with Marvin and his sons, engaging in outdoor activities. However, the tone shifts when Marvin's sons come to the preacher's door one day, urging him to come quickly. The preacher then reveals that Marvin confesses to being a sad man who is physically abused by his wife. The sermon emphasizes the importance of prioritizing family and fulfilling the call of God, while also addressing the issue of domestic violence.

Can we bow for a moment of prayer, please? Father, we ask Thee that in these last moments Thou will bless our hearts, wash me in the blood of the Saviour afresh, and, because of that mercy, by my faith, auctionize me with the Holy Spirit, and anoint my mind and words and every one of our minds and hearts. In Jesus the Christ's name. Amen. The day that my father died, and he died a young man, I went on my knees, and in my daily devotions, I opened the Word, my daily readings, to where I was to begin, and follow off where I had left the day before. And the first verse I read was this. The day that my daddy died. The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come, in italics, to come. Isaiah 57 verse 1. The righteous, someone rightly related to God, and, not exactly speaking about imputed, but imparted true righteousness working in his life, perisheth, die. No man realizing or thinking of this. Merciful men are taken away. Now that word merciful in the Hebrew is really confusing, because it has three meanings, the same Hebrew word. I was told it by the greatest Hebrew scholar alive on earth today, acknowledged across the world. Sorry, he died a little while ago, but thank God I knew him long enough to learn a lot at his feet of the vital verses. It means godliness, kindness, and merciful. They are so close in meaning, godliness is so close to the meaning of kindness, that it could be referred to as the same meaning. You and I think of godliness, but in the Hebrew a number of times this particular word comes out. It literally means men of kindness. You could say, oh this godly man, godly. I hope you realize godliness is so close to kindness that if you haven't got kindness written across you, sir, you are not godly. And merciful, merciful, is so close to this word. The translators, it seems, want to choose one of the three. The King James, and I believe there was some incredible protection by God over this particular version. I believe it with all my heart. After great study, I pray concerning these new translations. The King James, I believe, was correct in saying merciful men, because that was what daddy was. I could give you one sermon now that would leave you weeping, every single one of you, sobbing, I guarantee you, at that one aspect of my daddy's life. The righteous perisheth, no man layeth it to heart, merciful men, men of godliness are taken away, non-considering, no one grasping, that the righteous is taken away from the evil, who stop but, the King James added in italics, to come. From that which is evil, only at death we are delivered from the presence of evil. I want to repeat that. Only at death we are delivered from the presence of evil. But, John 17, 15, the Lord prayed this staggering prayer for all who would follow him, not only the disciples, but right to this day, in its context. Don't doubt that now. He prayed this staggering prayer. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world from the presence of evil. Just because they're saved and want to follow God. I pray not that thou shouldest let them die, now that they're saved, to protect them, to take them from the evil. Christ prayed this. But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. God prayed, not for something that's not possible, for he wouldn't have prayed for it, but something that was his will and gloriously possible, or God was mocking in his prayer what wasn't attainable. But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. The next verse says, they are not of the world. But, even as I am not of the world, that is, in the world, but not of the world, once you're saved. And if that isn't written across your life from the day you're saved to the day you die, there's something radically wrong. Let everyone that knows you read. They're not of the world, even as I am not of the world. The next verse says, sanctify them. That is, keep them from the evil of the world. Keep them separate through thy truth. That's the word. And then he says these words, thy word is truth. Keep them from the evil of this world. See what God would put in our hands that was being already written in the hearts of men as Christ spoke. The heart of God is the Bible. Sanctify them, keep them from the evil of this world through thy truth. Thy word is truth. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. The Greek here is Paneiros, for moral evil. Though the newer translations have some other thing to say. Beloved, we will not be delivered unto death from the presence of evil, but we must believe that God wills to and can deliver us from the power of evil while we live. I want to repeat it. We will not be delivered unto death from the presence of evil, but we must believe that God wills to and can deliver us from the power of evil. Christ urged us to seek God daily in faith, in prayer, to deliver us from evil, to ask God to do that daily. Sanctify them, keep them separate from the evil of the world through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Now, beloved, from the day I am born again to the day that I die, there is nothing more important or vital than the meditation of the word of God in my life daily. From the day I am born again to the day I die, there is nothing more vital for my survival, for my well-being, than the meditation of the word of God. Not to go to fifty meetings a day or listen to twenty messages on the internet a day. That's wonderful. Not to read books about the book, but the book must never be neglected. Wesley said, Luther said, as he died, his last words, I regret having written over sixty thousand documents about the word of God. If I could, before I die, burn them all, I would. Why? Because I have seen something is started now where men will bury the word of God for books about the word of God. And that is anathema. Basically, almost word perfect, what he said. Books are wonderful. Pray God keeps you to the right books or you can be diverted by one book for the rest of your life, seeking emotional trash. Be careful what you read and what you buy, but there is one thing you don't have to be careful about. You only have one thing to fear in the rest of your life if you are saved. You only have one thing to fear for the rest of your entire life, daily, if you are saved. That is if you miss your quiet time. I'm going to say that again so that you never forget it. And if you forget it, you defy God blatantly and deliberately and callously without any care of the consequences, even the grief you will cause him. You have only one thing to fear for the rest of your life if you miss your quiet time. For then I guarantee you will face grief as a Christian in every aspect of your life. Miss anything and face the consequences, but don't miss the quiet time. For the consequences you will face will be far more grave and hurtful to you and everyone near you in your life. Miss anything and face the consequences, but don't ever miss the quiet time. For the consequences you will face for the rest will be far more grave and hurtful to you. If you do, I don't know how many sermons you've heard of mine on the internet. It seems most people have heard just about everything I've preached that I've come to, so I'm left with very little that you haven't heard. But I have preached of a home in America, in Wyoming, a man called Marvin Struber and his sons, and the family, and things that I brought in of that home that you might recall in some of the messages that staggered my heart. When I first went into that home, I didn't quite know how to handle this gentleman, Marvin. His wife was Linda Struber. Lovely people. Now at the table at the first meal, I was of course looking around and they were looking at me, and we all size everyone up, don't we? Somehow you pick up everything about a man's character very, very fast. But this man now, at some point in that meal, he looked at me with such gravity on his face that I was stunned. He says, Brother, I'm going to do something here that I need to do. I need to share this with somebody, and I'm going to take this moment. I need someone to help me. You see, Brother, I'm a I'm a sad man in some ways. My wife beats me. I am beaten by my wife, Brother, and he put his head down. Now that's not nice. The first meal in the home you're going to stay. But a wife says that. But a man says that in front of his wife and children at the table. I could hardly look. I didn't want to look at her face to see what she's doing. But I tried to keep my eyes on him, and there was this grey face. He says, She beats me up every day. I'm a woeful soul. But I thought, so I looked across, and I saw she was looking as if to say, oh, you know, smiling. The children didn't look too worried. He says, Don't worry, Brother. She beats me up every morning to the quiet time. So I thought, well, there you are. He's got a sense of humour, you see. That took a little while for the slow old man to understand what he's talking about. But anyway, she gets up every morning. There's no such a thing as me ever beating her. When I get up, she's been up a long time meditating the word of God. She beats me up every day. That was quite a stunning thought, but a good thought. When I was saved, I had, and I say it shamefully, been saved from much sin. And I don't want to go any further. I'm too ashamed to think, let alone talk about these things. But I found out how many people had been praying for me, some up to five years every single day. One church on its knees once a week would get down, and the first family, they would cry out to God. One of them was for my family to be saved because of the consciousness of the shame and the hurts sin had brought upon my home, my daddy, mommy, my brother and I. Well, one man, his name was Seasby, he was a preacher, a Baptist preacher in the town we lived. And I heard that he had prayed daily, crying out to God, and on many occasions wept for my salvation. And I, after a while of salvation, decided I want to visit this man, to look him in the eyes and thank him from my soul. You see, if you're saved, someone prayed for you. That's quite a thing to say. I remember preaching something like this in a Methodist church somewhere in Port Elizabeth, and the minister went home and said, Brother Daniel said someone prayed for him, that's why he was saved. No one prayed for me. I know no one prayed for my salvation. No Christians knew about it. So his mother-in-law, Andrew Murray's descendant, she stood up and said, you're wrong. I prayed for you. I prayed for you every day. I groaned to God for you. For the man that would marry my daughter. I didn't know your name, I didn't know where you were, I wasn't watching you, but I cried to God that the man that would come near my girl would not destroy everything we've put into her life, but he would be made into a man of God. They would not destroy her, but protect her and lead her higher with God. So I prayed for you. I groaned and agonized for you. Well, this man, Mr. Seesby, who prayed for me in such a wonderful way, I had done some terrible wickedness while he was preaching, believe me, that the entire church came to a complete stance when my friend and I were so wicked. The last time I'd seen him. But I found the town now, I'm a young preacher, and I'm going into this town, but I could just pass, and I knew he was the Baptist minister now in his old age in this particular town. So I stopped at the man's church next to the church, knocked on the door, his wife stood there, and I explained. And I said, I want to see him. And I'm in a hurry, but I'm desperate not to pass this town and not look him in the eyes and thank him. Please won't you call him? No, you can't see him, sir. I know about you, Keith Daniel, but I'm afraid you cannot see my husband. You see he's busy with his quiet time. If you are willing to wait, and she said a time that I do not want to mention here, for fear of bringing some people into bondage, but that it would take before he would be finished, then you can see my husband. I have been married for over 50 years to this man, and it is my duty from the day I married him to this day that I will never let anyone disturb him when he's alone with God. I will never allow anyone to, I protect his quiet time with my life, my boy, and even for you, I will never allow one day to come in my husband's life that he was disturbed in his quiet time. I drove away, but over the years I remembered that because every preacher that I ever was called to go and sit with when they were exposed in sin and shame and disgrace and excommunicated and robbed said these words to me when I spoke to them. That is why I fell into sin, I neglected the quiet time. I neglected God for God's work, and God's work was sin. You see, I said, your sin wasn't that woman that made you fall into this wickedness, sir, you had a greater sin, a sin that you committed that was the result of that sin was these other sins, including that woman, that's brought you to shame. That woman would never have happened if you hadn't a greater sin. Your greater sin was you neglected God for God's work. Man after man, some of the most well-known preachers in our nation that I sat with and was flown across the country to sit with that Sunday, God gave me a ministry I didn't want, but God forced it on me. And I said those words and they looked at me and one after the other said, brother, that is it. From the time that I started neglecting God's word and God himself for God's work, that's when my sin started. Never before. So I think that woman was right. I think that woman was right. My children, we have three children, Jenny and I, and we adore them and we thank God for them. When they were small, my two eldest boys, that is, Noel and Roy, I left them alone a lot. And when I would come home, I would say to them, give daddy one day to recover. I mean, I really need that day. But if you do, I will make up with undivided attention that you will never find another daddy that gives so much undivided attention to their children as this daddy will give to you. While I'm home, you're not my second mission, you're my first mission. I'm not neglecting you, and if you don't get angry with daddy fulfilling the call of God upon his life, I will give you more undivided attention than daddies that come home every night but are too tired to give them one minute that's really worthwhile. So we used to do things, you know, we used to go up on the mountains. We had the most beautiful city in the world, they say, in the mountains just outside there. So we would go up the mountains in the woods, and I used to teach them to throw stones. You see, when I was a child boy, I was the best stone thrower in the world. I hope you don't take that literally in the context of some of the scriptures. But all the boys envied me. I don't know how with a sling, you know, David, marvelous! Well, I didn't try and emulate David, but I could take a sling and I could hit anything, and I could take just in my hand and throw that size rock, okay? I said to the boys, you see that tree? Now watch. Now you're going to do, daddy's going to teach you, that all the boys envy you. Well, the boys don't envy other boys anymore, of course, don't. The world's changed. It's all computers and rubbish now, but anyway, we used to go up on the mountains and have wonderful times and make little fires and put potatoes and go by the streams and make little dams. We did wonderful things. Oh! But the boys of course wanted to get out the next day. And they would come to my door, but one day they came and yes, daddy, it's late. Come, we've got to go. You see, no, daddy's not finished with God. Daddy, please, come, come, we've been waiting. You can't keep us waiting. And so I looked at them when they were small and I said these words and I found it hard to say to them, but I had to. Listen carefully, because I'm never going to say this to you again. Don't you ever come to this door again in my life till daddy dies. Don't you dare ever knock on this door. I don't care. Unless it's a matter of life and death, don't you ever come and try and interrupt my time with God. Do you understand me? Let me tell you why, my boys. If I miss this time, you will begin weeping through your daddy, even though I'm a patriot. Your mother will begin weeping because of your daddy. The only reason I can be what God wants me to be to your mother and you is this time. If I miss it once, if I shorten it once, it gives me the right to think I can do it again. I've never done that. Don't make me or you will begin weeping and your mother will because outside of this time I will never be able to be what God wants of me to be to you and your mother. Do you understand me? Now leave me and don't ever do this again in your life or you will weep. You'll begin to weep through my life. I guarantee you that. They never, ever knocked at my door again. I preached a message once in Chicago. Was it Chicago? Indianapolis in some conference where Mr. Bill Gothard was there too. I preached in that same building where Wesley Jewell and many of the great preachers of America who are loved across the world were on the program. But on that particular occasion, I preached on the word of God and I gave my heart concerning the vital necessity of the meditating of the scriptures. And I brought a lot of God's word in it. From Psalm 1 to Psalm 119. The longest single chapter in the Bible which every verse virtually cries out why you have to never neglect God's word and put it as the most disciplined part of your life and what the repercussions will be if you don't. So I preached it, the word of God. Mr. Gothard was leading the meeting and he said these words I started as a young man serving God with fire in my heart and I'm now in my seventies and there has been much I've written about books that have circulated across the world on much that's in the Bible and about Christianity but I want to tell you I know this beyond any doubt everything was the result of the meditating of the word of God everything God ever did in my life gave me the grace to accomplish and then he said these words which I had said but he didn't know I had said but it was lovely, it was word perfect nothing is more vital to a Christian every day of his life than the meditating of the word of God and then he added these words if anything is more vital to any Christian in any day of their lives than the word of God, the meditating of the word of God that Christian will bring disgrace upon God you remember this I guarantee you, you remember my father was fifty when he was saved he lived for nine years he read through the Bible sixty-eight times from cover to cover in nine years he devoured the word of God he read every single Andrew Murray classic and every classic you could name that is truly something that God ordained of the books that were written by the Godliest of men, he devoured the books from Matthew Henry's commentary to Adam Clarke's every page is summarized, every page of every book, he didn't neglect the Godly books but this book was the greatest love and discipline of his life daily sixty-eight times from cover to cover and that is lovely he took this world his world our country has never recovered from one man who lived for nine years and this world countless thousands of people have found Christ since he died he being dead yet speaking why? I'll tell you why no one would have remembered daddy if he hadn't done this full stop no further expounding on that Mr. Will McFarlane the Godliest man I ever knew in my life and I have no doubt even now I would never ever come near a man who could stand in the shadow of Will McFarlane I was privileged to know him and to seek God to emulate him I never recovered from being with Will McFarlane I met a man in Canada that said to me no one can recover, his conscience won't allow him if you ever stand for a few moments with Will McFarlane once in your life he read through the Bible way over four hundred times that is why, full stop no one would recover not even me who stood with him your conscience won't allow you Denny Kenniston founder of the mission that reaches out to the Amish, Mennonite and Hitherite, the Anabaptist colonies across America that are quaint and very much a drawcard to the tourism industry and books upon books make the world interested in the Amish well this man reaches these groups who are deeply religious but lost nothing is dangerous as religion without a vital encounter with Jesus Christ there you will find such darkness you won't believe it so Denny Kenniston did everything required that they would listen and look at him and his wife and has won countless thousands across that nation that he is hated and abhorred as a name across the colonies of these people because they have lost so many people who had to be silenced, excommunicated and disassociated disinherited from their families and thrown out because they were saved through Denny Kenniston's ministry a godly man greatly misunderstood and greatly condemned because he did great things you not condemned because you didn't do anything or very little the more you try for God the more you will find the world condemns you, the church will and they'll look at where you dot your I they will look at everything you want to find something to condemn a man oh you the devil will give you a lot the charisees couldn't find a thing but they did in the end, even of God if you really want to find something to crucify and kill somebody so Denny Kenniston he allowed me to preach in his conferences to thousands of people and many of the great movements there over many years not so much now but now it's more these other conferences but Denny Kenniston, Jenny and I went to his home, Denny and Jackie and we loved them but we were preaching in their big main convention of the year and staying in their home and we stayed upstairs and I heard this voice in the morning oh just what is that, so of course I'd gone down to get my wife two cups of tea which was the only condition she would marry me if I till the day she died brought her two cups of tea otherwise she would not marry me, that was when I proposed to her, she said no well I can't unless you are willing to guarantee me that there's something you will do every day of my life otherwise I can't marry you, I said whoa I've waited so long I've tried so hard, what more that you bring me two cups of tea every single morning of my life before I get out of bed anyway believe it or not she holds me to that, to this morning Jenny will not get out of bed until she has her tea anyway that is wonderful but we were there and I was getting tea coming up and I heard this voice and I began oh and I looked up the staircase into what I thought was it, I do that but I'm not praying he said I read through the New Testament twice a month aloud I've done this close to 30 years every day it's 11 chapters a day he said I retain that's just one part of his quiet time no wonder he is one multitudes to God he so devoured the Bible in a most vital way