GOD’S WAYS ARE PERFECT – Wedding of Nkosinathi Shezi & Nonsindiso Khuboni
M Ngubane
Welcome to you all in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a joy that we can gather for this wedding.
Bridal Procession enters the auditorium
What a great day we are celebrating today. We thank the Lord that He has kept you, the bridal couple until today through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise His Name. Your parents are rejoicing, and above all – it brings joy to our Creator.
Mr Mbanjwa opened in prayer
We welcome all the brethren amongst us. I trust that you will all feel at home today. To welcome people individually can be problematic because you might forget to mention some people.
First of all, we thank the leadership of the mission, and we would also like to welcome them to this wedding, we don’t take it for granted that we can have the wedding here. We welcome the Shezi and Khuboni families.
We are so thankful on behalf of the families that they can witness something so beautiful in this time in which we live. There are so many who have come from different areas that are here. It is our wish, and I am sure also the bridal couple’s wish, that God will bless you as you are in attendance here. In all we can see and hear, may we acknowledge the Lord and worship Him.
M Ngubane
We welcome the queen from the Dlamini tribe at Mahambeni. The colleagues of Nkosinathi from Child Welfare, and those from the Dept of Justice in Pietermaritzburg. It is wonderful that you can attend. The teachers who taught Nkosinathi and some from the Dept of Social Development, Dr and Mrs Lamula from Pietermaritzburg are here too, welcome!
Brethren, what we see here today is the fruit of the preaching of the Gospel. God alone can reach the hearts of men and women that they can live in purity and get married as virgins.
Harding Choir
KSB Choir
Rev J Dube
I greet you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a privilege, and the grace of the Lord, that He has kept this couple pure and close to Him till this day.
Previous Sunday I said it was my desire that I would see my 75th birthday on the 17th of October. God answered my prayer. Many contacted me to wish me a happy birthday and many gave me a gift. I thank you for that, as King David said, bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me. I thank you also for all you did for me.
We are thankful for the rain that we have had.
I also want to thank the Lord that in France services have started, and the brethren are meeting in two places. There was that turmoil that happened, but the Lord has worked, even in Germany in Berlin and Gross-Erlach and in Switzerland there are services now. Next year in March, God willing, we will have a ministers’ conference here at the mission.
The Lord has blessed us with weddings. There are those who say that getting married is something that is not common anymore.
Some people who don’t know our history, so I would like to explain how this work started. In the 1960s, we didn’t sit at tables and eat with cutlery. The work was still small. When there was an engagement or a wedding it took place in a tent. Then when you walked out with your bride, a cardboard box would come past with a slice of bread to eat, and because the bride was shy to eat in front of you, her husband, you would eat alone.
Then the work grew, now when we have a wedding, we can sit like this in the auditorium, not in a tent that can blow away. As we are gathered here, we are black and white nations, at that time of apartheid whites and blacks would marry without the other race being present. Rev Stegen said that there is only one heaven and one hell, so let us have unity in the services and at weddings and funerals.
In 1972 Rev Stegen got married, and he wanted black people to be at his wedding. Baba Khwela and I were there at Mbalane, his parental home, with him, supporting him. That year was the first time I experienced a white person’s wedding. I got married in 1969, where we ate the bread. Others married later when we already sat at tables eating with cutlery.
One bride who got married (Nonto Cibane), Rev Stegen told us her story at her wedding, you who are in a hurry to get married, listen. She was told by her pastor that there was a man who wanted to marry her and she said, I don’t even want to hear who it is, I am studying and I want to become a teacher. It touched Rev Stegen that she wasn’t in a hurry to marry, she first wanted to study and get her degree. Mr Mbhele had to wait a long time, when she finished studying then she said, now you can tell me who the man is. They got married after she prayed about it and got confirmation from the Lord, they are both teachers now. So, you too, don’t be in a hurry to get married. When it is the Lord’s will and time, it will happen.
You saw how big the Harding choir is, those are our spiritual children. Rev Stegen and Mr Dahl at Harding started a branch of the Mission there. In the 1970s we also went to the Mahambeni area and this is the fruit of that work which we are enjoying now. Eventually Rev Stegen became the spiritual father of many children. As you know, today is the wedding of Nkosinathi Shezi and Nonsindiso Khuboni. This is the word that the bridegroom has chosen:
Psalm 18:30 – 31 As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.
31 For who is God, except the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?
God’s ways are perfect. As you see the couple here, they are getting married, yet they have never visited each other. The way we get married is that the man and the woman don’t visit each other before they marry. We have never seen them climb through windows to see each other. Nkosinathi can say, this is the first time that I hold my bride by the arm. This is the way that we have chosen to get married. Young men, there is no shortcut to a pure marriage. You want to get married, but you already have two or three children, yet you don’t want to marry the mother of your child or children because you want a virgin. The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to us, but the end thereof is death. Look at those who have chosen their own ways, they haven’t even completed school, but they already have AIDS. That is why it is so important for a person to choose a way that is right, that is perfect, according to God’s word.
I heard someone on the radio, relating how a bridegroom had gotten the cattle for his dowry payment as he wanted to marry his bride. On the way to the bride’s family, the police caught up to them and informed the men that those were stolen cattle. The cattle had to be returned to the rightful owner. That bride thought the full dowry was on its way, but with stolen cattle… The young man thought it was an easy and good way to get hold of what he needed to get married. However, it was an evil way as it was stealing. In the same way, you may be known for your anger or lies or whatever sin and people have the attitude of saying; oh, that’s just his way.
There are people who hijack cars and sell them – that is an evil way of getting money. Some murder people for money – that is an evil way. For some people the only way to get food on the table is to steal, others prostitute themselves to get money. They have chosen evil ways to get money. The Bible says that the end of those ways is death. Repent, return to God, turn from those works and turn to God. He will then help you.
Having chosen this way of purity, this bridal couple before us saw it as the perfect way of God. It is a biblical way.
Isaiah 55:6 Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
We need to seek the Lord – if you are someone with anger, lies, stubbornness – you need to seek the Lord for deliverance.
Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
Everyone knows what that wicked thing or thoughts are that you haven’t yet parted from. It is time for you to return to the Lord, for our God will abundantly pardon. How do you return to Him? While you have that desire to make restitution and to cleanse your life, take hold of it, for the Lord is waiting for you with compassion and forgiveness. He will abundantly pardon you while the flesh and spirit are still one and you part from your wicked ways which were the cause of Him departing from you originally. When the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses a person and you have a sweet relationship with God, that is the perfect way of God.
The way that people conduct themselves shows that they have been saved. We must remember we have a great cloud of witnesses around us. Our children, our families, our neighbours look at us and see that we have truly parted from our old ways. Then the urge to commit suicide will not even come. A lady came to a service on a farm, in her bag was a rope which she intended to use to hang herself after the service. But her soul was touched during the message, and she confessed afterwards that she had been ready to commit suicide, but now she had hope and she repented of the intention she had had to take her life.
When a lady comes to her boyfriend or even her husband and says, I am expecting a child, and the young man says, well abort it. Oh, what a sin it is to abort, the man may be flippant about it, but the mother lives with the torment of constantly thinking of her unborn child she killed and comparing it to other children she sees who are the same age her child would have been.
Isaiah 55:8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord
Our ways are not like the Lord’s. It is so easy to say that two people should get married, but we don’t choose for people. We have been accused of that, but we don’t do that. The man must know for himself that he feels led to marry the lady, he shares it with his pastor who then speaks to the lady who should also pray whether it is God’s will, and she can respond with a yes or no, as she feels led by the Lord.
Maybe you believed and loved the Lord before, but now you have no more love for Him, you can’t pray, can’t read the Bible, don’t even want to go to services. Look and see where you lost God – maybe it happened through your eyes, what you looked at, maybe you were tempted and stole, seek and you will find. If you have lost money or your phone, you will retrace your steps until you find it there where you lost it. So, wherever you are, call out to the Lord, seek Him and His Truth.
People often do not understand that the Lord Jesus is the Way through which we get to Heaven. God is the One who ordained it like that. If you say, it hasn’t come to me yet to believe and you continue in your sin and filthy ways, that final day will catch up to you. The Lord Jesus died for us, we are cleansed through His blood and that is why He is the way through which we get to the Father. You cannot get to heaven through preaching or going to church or being born into a Christian family. It is only through accepting Jesus Christ that you can be saved. That is why the Bible says work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
A person must have a fear, the fear to do wrong. The Bible says we need to abhor sin. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If that fear is not there, your conscience gets seared and you will easily tell lies, deny that you have done something that you have done. Children easily lie and deny doing things because the devil has taught them to lie. However, when the Lord has transformed us, He makes us into a new creation and there will be the fear to sin against the Lord you love. It will be the end of living immorally too.
The Lord Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth – if we take shortcuts our way will end up in death. We see the evil state of the world. If we choose the way of the Lord Jesus and we make Him the ruler, then He will be our refuge. The bridegroom has understood that the Lord Jesus is his Refuge, the Rock on which he can stand.
The Lord Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life – nobody comes to the Father but by Me. That’s the way where you are kept safe, rooted in the Gospel. You will speak truthfully, walk a straight way and talk without hurting the people that listen.
There are many who deceive themselves. They say once they are in Christ there is no condemnation for them. It is true, if you believe that, you will not be condemned. But the important thing is that we must forsake our sinful ways, then there is no condemnation. Don’t ever believe that you can sin freely and just see to it that you confess some sins, there must be a complete break from one’s sins. We may never make a habit of sinning and deceive ourselves that we are saved and headed for Heaven.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. If you see a man, woman, boy, girl living for the Lord, is it evident to those who see these people that they walk in the Way of Jesus, they speak the Truth and their lives are a living testimony to a life overflowing with God’s peace and joy.
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Has this happened in your life?
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
If the young man or woman used to live in the world, through the work of Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are transformed and created into something new. You too can be saved and spiritually you are made into a new creation.
(Bride and Groom rise)
Do you believe and say before the church that it is God’s will that you marry each other (He says yes, she does too. Rev Dube prays for the couple.}
M Ngubane
We thank Rev Dube for his work. We rejoice greatly. These two have now become one, may I introduce you to Mr and Mrs Shezi. You have started this new life together. We have a hope that the Word of the Lord will guide you in everything.
We put our hope and trust in the Lord – that His blessing can rest on this marriage and family.
