The big and small of time and place

It's nice to see you. Stephen did so well last week on

talking about time and place and that we're going to revisit it

again today as as God does his amazing things.

So if you can turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

If you're new here, we are doing a series in Ecclesiastes.

The series is pretty much there. There are many parts to it.

It's a very rich man with a lot of wives, tried everything in

his life. He's coming to the end of his

life and he's writing back to Pretoria 2025 and he's saying,

hey guys, I've been on this journey.

I've tried everything. I've tried women, I've tried

wealth, I've tried to be significant.

I've built farms, I've built dams, I've built buildings, and

I'm just trying to find something that counts.

When I moved to Pretoria 12 years ago, Clint and Ellen, by

sheer generosity, gave me a beautiful coffee machine.

And Clint said to me, go and enjoy the people of Pretoria.

Go and enjoy making coffee for them, enjoying them, celebrating

with them. And for some reason the coffee

machine is never broken after 12 years.

I've just kept it going. It just hasn't broken down,

which I'm sure you meant to service it every while ago, but

I, I didn't service it. So last week it broke down.

Clint, if you'd like to service it for me, you know, minder.

So it broke down and we sent it in to get serviced and, and they

wrote back and said, yeah, I just needed a good service.

It was a bit dirty inside, but just to let you know, there's a

counter on it and you've made 17,000 and 78 cups of coffee.

And I thought, that's Tov. That's Tov.

That means somebody say, oh, you drink too much coffee, please

don't send the letters 12 years. Lots of people in my house.

That's Tov. And I actually phoned Clint.

I said, hey, Clint, do you remember that gift you and Ellen

gave me has made 17,000 cups of coffee?

We've had lots of fellowship and lots of talking around coffee

and meals and food and, and he's kind of saying what's really

important in our lives? What's what really counts?

What's, what are we going to take to heaven with us?

What's going to really, really count?

And actually, I was looking at it this morning or this week and

actually Ecclesiastes, I become small and I let God be big.

So when my kids grew up in my house, if we look at time and

place, they didn't decide where do we go on holiday?

I I just love the Kruger. And so every year in Natal, we

would go and stand in the queues at 4:00 in the morning so that

we could make sure that we could also get some space.

That's kakuza didn't belong to Pretoria.

I know every other camp belongs to you, but, but, but we thought

Kakuza, we could get a little bit of space.

That's kakuza. And in that time and place, we

booked our holiday as Scakusa and our children grew up in the

Kruger. Now our kids love the Kruger

because they actually trusted us to take them on a holiday that

was meaningful, that was educational, that was relaxing,

that was family building. And we, and we still and we

bonded around the Kruger fires. Yesterday, I went to rugby with

my family, with my children and their and their spouses.

And one of the members of this congregation took a photo of me

and said, I can see you at the rugby in the rain.

And it said, it's so nice to be with your family because we

chose time and place well when we were younger.

We still share time and place now.

Amen. And so we have to try and

understand these things. So, but I want to speak

particularly I was I was looking at some as I as I was preparing

this week, just those little boxes that we get those little

boxes. Every time you fill in a little

box, it says a single cross, married cross, divorced cross.

And I was just sitting. I just started to weep.

Remember, I'm not an apostle that's going to change the

world. I'm just a pastor.

I just started to weep. I was sitting in my in my room.

I started to weep. I thought am IA good pastor to

divorced people? Because if you get divorced when

you're young, marry the wrong person or something happens when

you're young and, and and you get divorced at 25 and you never

get remarried. So for 60 years, every time you

fill in one of those forms, you've got to put the cross in

that little box called divorced. It's quite haunting.

And I thought, can I not present?

Can we not present this cross in a big enough way that it

overrides that cross, that this cross somehow doesn't carry the

stigma that's attached to it? I was thinking of you, Dennis,

as, as, as we pull in because the next line down it says

white, black colored or other. Which one do you do?

Other or, or you or is it Asian? But you're not Asian.

You're from Durban. So I was thinking, So what?

So what does Dennis do? And I'm thinking, do I do I

shepherd you well, Dennis, do I pastor you well?

That, that this cross that you don't know where to put that,

that that society is going to determine where I put that

cross. Is there a bigger cross

somewhere that can override that, that that that little

group of boxes? Don't put me into a box.

And we can see now the Afrikaners fighting for their

independence, now fighting because they're a malign nation

now in this country and they're fighting.

And so we've got these organizations like Solidarity

and every forum meeting with Donald Trump fighting for our

little cross. I want to tell you, Donald Trump

is not the solution of Afrikanadom.

The bigger cross that we preach in the churches of Pretoria is

the solution to Afrikanadom. It's a cross that is bigger

friends than English or Afrikaans or other.

And we don't need to pay for guys to go to America to sit in

Donald Trump's office who at any time can spark a third World War

with all the good daddies. He can start spark a third World

War because he has a personality clash with the Gulf of Ukraine.

And we are dumbing down our existence to what happens in the

Oval Office instead of going to a much higher officers saying

can you put that cross on my heart?

Beautiful. And on my divorce status and on

my black and white status. Can you put that?

Then I started to think about divorce.

Your people in this church are divorced because you're the

victims of divorce. And I realized I love to be the

hero and the victim of every story I tell.

I'm either the hero or I'm the victim.

Something happened to me and it's really bad and I got badly

treated. And then I realized unless we

are prepared to make Jesus the hero and the victim of every

story that we tell, you'll constantly live with

disappointment in your life. You'll constantly live with

disappointment in life and, and go back and look at your stories

and you'll see how many times we think we saved the day or we

were really maligned really badly.

And so I thought of the people that are sitting here that

actually caused the divorce and you're sitting here and for most

of your life, especially in the church, you'll go through life

as a second class citizen. And I thought, but the reason

you got divorced is because you never kept your word.

You, you, you made a phrase at the front of an aisle and you

never kept. And then I just started looking

at my own life and I thought, I just know endless occasions

where I've not kept my word. You won't believe this, but I'm

actually a people pleaser. I'm sure you don't believe it.

I'm getting better, I'm recovering, especially with the

Afrikaans scars and advocates. I'm I feel like I'm getting some

traction, but but most of my life I've been a people pleaser.

And So what I've done is I've over promised and many times

because I've over promised, I've under delivered.

And when you under deliver you cause disappointment.

A guy phoned me and said, hey, can you do my wedding?

Yes I can do your wedding. About 3 months before the

wedding my son got chosen as a rugby captain of his school and

on that day he had a fixture so I found I wrote to him back.

I'm so I'm terribly sorry to do this but I always try and keep

my word. I've always started but but I

feel like I need to prioritize my son.

He's last year at school. I'm going to ask I've got

somebody who can do the wedding but can I say no?

He's never spoken to me again, so I never kept my word.

And it's caused a broken relationship.

And so now we're going to go through life with these broken

relationships. And it's true.

Are you going to go through this life with this responsibility of

not keeping your word? Or can we find a place?

Can we find a place that God can actually deal with that and

actually take that massive burden off us and imprint us

with His cross? Amen.

And So what I would love today for those of you who carry any

guilt, shame, fear, is just to take a step here and then to

walk out. Good morning.

So the second part, remember, this is what it says in the

Bible. If you've never heard this, the

new is in the old concealed. So when you read the Old

Testament, the New Testament is in there, but it's hidden.

So whenever you read the Old Testament, so when you think

about time, like there's a time for this and a time for that,

the New Testament is in there, but it's hidden.

So the new is in the old concealed, the old is in the new

revealed. OK, so whenever you read the Old

Testament, you think, I don't really understand this.

What does it mean? So that the New Testament is

there, but it's a little bit hidden.

You've got to keep reading and and I'll show you in two weeks

time, I'm going to preach about being better.

What? So so Ecclesiastes talks about

being better. It's like hidden in there.

And then in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, it gets

revealed what better looks like. It's the same thing with time.

So time is hidden in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament it gets revealed.

So in Galatians chapter 4, we don't have time to look there

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

because I have to preach quickly.

And Galatians chapter 4 says this in the fullness of time,

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

say that in the fullness of time, Jesus was born under the

law so that he could redeem those who were born under the

law. In the fullness of time, Jesus

got born at just the right time. In Romans chapter 5 it says just

Romans 5 · chapter mention

at the right time. Say that just at the right time.

Just at the right time, Jesus died while you were yet a

Sinner. So he got born at just the right

time, and he died at just the right time.

And Genesis 24 says on the mountain of the Lord, Isaac on

the top with Abraham on the mountain of the Lord, it will be

provided. So the place was set and the

time was set and at exactly the right time and exactly the right

place, Jesus died. And Romans 5 says I was

justified, say justified. That is just as if I'd never

sinned, justified just as if I'd.

So how come we get justified at just the right time and place by

God, and yet we carry a whole lot of rubbish with us for the

rest of our lives? I want to talk about that today

and I want to specifically speak to divorced people and I want

God to set you free today. And I want to speak to Afrikaans

people and say God's got you perfectly under his authority

and control and you don't need movements to meet with

presidents to validate your future.

He's got you time and place. Amen.

So let's read verse 9. What does the worker gain from

his toil? I've seen the burden that God

has laid on him. So you've all these beautiful

times at the end of it. There's nothing friends.

I mean, fortunately there's nothing that you can do in your

human effort that will make any significant change to the world.

You can bring the latest operation, the Whipple that does

something with the pancreas and in 10 years time there's going

to be another operation that does the pancreas.

You think? Well, Christian Barnard is known

for this. In in 20 years time they won't

even transplant hostile just have false hearts that they just

put inside there. I've seen the burden that God

has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful

in its time. Stephen preached so beautifully

about that. He has also set eternity in the

hearts of men. Yet they cannot fathom what God

has done from beginning to end. So we have to trust God.

I'm a child, He is God and he puts my life together and these

parts I don't understand but like my children love the Kruger

and they love coming to rugby with me.

He is going to put us through a process where these people who

went to Canada to plant a church come back 17 years later and

they still love this place in time because God something here.

I know that there's nothing better tov for men than to be

happy and to do good tov while they live that everything that

everyone may eat and drink 17,000 and 78 cups of coffee and

find tov in all his toil. This is a gift from God.

Of course, doctors as you put a knee together or a back together

or lawyer as you win an amazing case.

This is a gift from God. You must remember.

It's not going to have any significant lasting gain, but it

can be a gift. There's a difference between a

gain. It's not going to be permanent

profit, but it is a gift. When I come to work, I see my

workers as gifts. They're gifts from God to me.

There's one called Hannah, There's one called Michaela.

There's one called Michelle, There's one called Maggie,

There's one called Rini, a gift to me, Stephen and Damien.

These are gifts to me. Every time I look at them, I say

I'm not gay and they're not permanent, but they are gifts.

I know that everything God does will endure forever.

Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken from it.

God does it so that men will Revere Him.

Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been

before, and God will call the past to account.

Say that with me. God will call the past to

account. It's very important.

And I saw something else under the sun.

In the place of judgment, wickedness was there.

So remember, Stephen spoke about time and place, but he didn't

speak about this part of it. In the place of judgement,

wickedness was there, and in the place of justice, wickedness was

there. I thought in my heart, God will

bring to judgement both the righteous and the wicked.

For there will be a time, say time.

So time and place, there will be a time for every activity, a

time for every deed. So now he's going into a

different set of time and place. Time and place is at the cross.

Jesus died at exactly the right time, and he died at exactly the

right place. But there is going to be a place

and a time when God brings the past to account.

I will never face judgement because I believe in God.

You will never face the wrath of God.

You're free from the wrath of God.

But there will be a time that God brings justice to every

decision and every activity under the sun.

I've only been to court twice, thank goodness.

But what this scripture says, I saw something that was very

strange. Where there should have been

justice, Where? Where should justice take place?

In the courtroom? Where there should have been

justice, there was wickedness. I thought, wow.

I thought of one of the advocates in this church here

today, one of the top advocates in South Africa.

He came out of court where there should have been justice.

He came out of court representing a case, dressed in

his robes, and he got punctured by a man from the side with an

HIV needle that was full of a concoction of stuff.

He punctured him with the needle and pushed it into him.

Where there should have been justice, there was wickedness.

A man fighting against the system.

Every person's got a right to defense.

And so actually as I read the scripture, I thought that is so

wrong in the safest place where law should abide.

And needle went into him and he had to go through all the

antiretroviral processes and it found out that the needle didn't

have HIV. But Can you imagine the, the,

the absolute fear of thinking now I'm HIV positive for the

rest of my life because of wickedness instead of the place

of justice? That same man had somebody

agitated with him because he was defending his opposition and

went to his house to hijack him or to murder him or to kidnap

him or whatever it might be, but went to his house and his son

lives, lives next door to him. And they got the wrong address.

And so they got the right time when you come home from work,

but they got the wrong address. And so they beat his son to a

pulp. I ended up doing his son's

wedding. His son was telling me I was

absolutely broken, beaten up to a pulp by 5 or 6 men is lying on

the ground. And he said to the Lord, Lord

God make me heavy. And those six men could not pick

him off the ground. One had his foot, one had his

foot, one had his two hands and I could not pick him off.

He said glory. I was like a dead white there,

friends. Where there's meant to be

justice, there's wickedness. I'm sorry for those who have

heard the story, but I I went to a school and a boy who came from

my school got drunk on the anniversary of his mother's

death. He caused an accident.

The police chased him. He shot at the police.

He eventually cooped himself up in his house.

Keep shooting at the police, which is like go to jail.

And one of my schoolmasters phoned me and said please will

you represent him in court? I said why?

He said because got nobody else to represent him.

I remember going into that courtroom and this young guy

coming out from the cells beneath and he had been

absolutely pulverized by the police.

Where there's meant to be justice, there is.

You see, there's wickedness. Where there's meant to be, he

said, but he deserves it because he shot.

No, no, where there's meant to be justice, there's justice.

I remember arguing the court case.

I was the only guy in court. I thought.

I thought there were others. I was there and they set the

bail and the lawyer turned to me and he said, will you pay the

bail? And I literally looked behind me

thinking, surely you can't be asking me to pay the bail.

I've never met the guy in my life.

I looked behind me. There's no one.

I said, are you talking to me? He said I'm talking to you.

He said, will you pay the bail? I said like what choice do I

have? He said you've got no choice.

I could see this beaten boy and I went and I got the money and I

paid the bail and I stood, stood in my car with his bail stuff.

And I started to weep when I realized that me beaten and

bruised in a dock, guilty of everything that I'd been charged

for, that Jesus just stepped in with his blood and he just paid

my bail, just paid my bail. And then when I appeared the

second time, he just defended me for free.

And when I should have been called guilty, the guilt got put

upon him. And so I walked out free any

anyway. And so justice and righteousness

and time found its place that I was free.

And yet, friends, we don't let the people off the hook that

have hurt us. We keep them on the hook.

The second time I went to court was next to Pretoria Girls High.

I don't know what that court's called, but the main water

supply had broken. It burst.

And so we had this pipe pouring out water at 1000 gallons an

hour. It was just pouring out water.

And I went there five times to appear in court to represent

what I saw. I saw a domestic violence

situation. I stopped.

I gave my telephone number. I said, if you need a witness

here, I was the witness. The advocate shouted at me for

wearing the wrong clothes. I said, sorry, I've never read

the document that says how I should come to court.

Haven't been there very often. So, so and, and I just watched

this process. I watched people burglars and I

watched all these people coming in and, and, and after five

times at court, they cancelled the case.

And I thought where there's meant to be justice, there's

just this water flowing every. It's an absolute dog show,

absolute dogs. I said, can I bring a plumber in

here? I'll pay for the plumber to stop

the water, to save the water for the city.

They say only the city can fix the water.

And I just looked at the and I read the script and I thought

some of our lives are like that. Just like the main lines are

broken, they're pouring out. We're appearing in courts.

Our case gets that reminded and reminded and reminded and

reminded. And we're just trying to find

justice. And God says, I want to tell you

this, my son died on the cross at the right place.

But there is going to be a time when I'm going to recall the

past to a place and I'm going to sort it out and I'm going to

make it beautiful. The person who was the victim of

the divorce, Yep, I'm going to take your victimization.

And I'm going to take And the person who caused the divorce,

Yep, I'm going to make that beautiful too.

How? I got no idea, but he said I'm

going to fix it. If that's the case and that's

going to happen, then then you and I, by God's grace, can bring

it forward and allow it to happen.

Now, there's a phrase, friends, called prevenient grace.

It's a theological phrase. Prevenient grace is the grace

that God gives us before we get saved.

I was in a motor car accident when I was 14 years old.

I didn't know Jesus, and as the car was going down the hill like

this, rolling six or seven times, the car that was so

written off that we never ever recovered it, as it was going

down the hill, I felt the prevenient grace of God where he

pinned me to the chair. I felt completely safe.

I didn't feel rattled. I wasn't scared.

The car bumped and when it eventually landed, I opened the

door. I got out without a scratch.

And me prevenient grace, God was working in my life before I got

saved. This friends that I'm talking

about today is there is going to be an activity in the future

which if you understand it and you make it active now, you can

live with unbelievable freedom over your life and your choices

now. Amen.

Completely and utterly free completely.

There is a place and there's a time.

I wrote a list. Let me read it.

Broken characters. Just broken characters.

I had a man who got bipolar. You can see a little thing.

I'll read it. The new broken characters

jarring and just keep this don't put my face on just keep it at

jarring interruptions. Stephen Kathy serving God,

loving God planted the church, built the church, gave money to

the church, fast and pray hours in the word preaches hearts out

built from the pulpit, loves his wife looks after her parents

unbelievable thing. And in one moment boof their

daughter wakes up completely sick and takes them on a six

month journey of life and death, life and death.

These jarring interruptions. You say God, it's not fair.

No, no, no, you small and I'm big and you'll never understand

it. But I want to tell you, Stephen

and Kathy, one day there's going to be a time and a place where

I'm going to bring the story of Gemma and I'm going to settle it

in your heart. I'm going to settle.

You say, oh, Rory, it's fine for you to be fine, for you to be

protected when you were 14 years old driving a car.

What about my 14 year old child that died in a car accident?

What about that, Rory? There's going to be a time and a

place where God brings justice to your life and where you will

understand that he is big and you are small.

And you say, but no, that is faith.

There will be a time and there will be a place.

You say, Rory, you've never understood divorce.

No, I haven't. I've spent my life trying to

save marriages, but you can't live with second class

citizenship for the rest of your life.

You've got to understand this cross and God has got to do

something on this cross. Relationships caught in

unresolved tension. I remember that first on Broken

Characters when a man had bipolar and he started drawing

money from his bond. He had a mutual bond with his

wife and he started drawing money, spending 100,000 random

month on movies and meals and magazines.

He's spending 100,000 in a month.

And his wife came to see me and said, Rory, he's just, he's

signing this bond and our bond is just going through the roof.

And I had to step in. And when I stepped in to fix it,

he became fixated with me and he started to harass me only 5-6

hundred times a day, send messages to my telecom line.

Used to be able to do that in the day.

You have access to my wife. I want access to your wife.

It's just this horrific. But he was sick.

But that brokenness broke me. I remember sitting in my house

once he drove into my house and I had my son with me, my who led

worship. Today, he was still a little

boy. I picked them up over my

shoulders and I ran the house. I threw him.

Those things have effect on you. They have effect on you.

But there's going to be a time where God will take his bipolar

and he will take my intervention, which I thought

was good, but to him it was bad. And he's going to make it right.

He's going to make it beautiful. And so either I can live with

regret against them for the rest of his life, or I can bring that

prevenient grace back to now and let people off the hook, let

them go, set them free. Amen.

Let's keep going through it. Unexplained unanswered

questions. Spoke to a lady today.

Yeah, before the service. He said, Rory, I can't answer

the question. I said, you know, the reality is

you'll never answer the question, friends.

The book of Job, Job eventually went and stood on that big cross

on the stage. He's still on that cross.

And he said, God, all these unanswered questions, I don't

understand it, but you are God and I am on earth and you are in

heaven and you have eternity and I have a limitation of time.

And So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make peace at this

crossroads. What about prejudice?

We are going to constantly see Pretoria girls fighting a system

that we can heal in the church because one day God is going to

take all prejudice. Whether it's prejudice against

you because you're Afrikaans in post apartheid South Africa and

fighting for some kind of an identity or because you're a

black person trying to make it in the job market.

God is going to take all of that.

He's going to make it right, time and place.

Can you put the picture up of Michelle please?

Michelle in those tears. This is one of our staff ladies.

We had a meeting last Tuesday. She's trusting God for one of

her family members and she doesn't understand.

She's prayed, she's loved God, she's served the church, she's

done everything that she can and it just doesn't seem quite fair.

She's an amazing mum, she's an amazing wife, she's an amazing

worker. It just seems like she's got a

bit of a raw deal. But she stood on the cross and

she just cried. Maybe today we can just stand on

the cross and say, Lord, I don't understand.

You know, the first thing we learn in relationships when

we're young, it's not fair. It's not fair.

Lord God, you know one of the greatest things I deal with is

wills. When a father or a mother leave

a will and the children don't agree, it's not fair.

One day it will be fair. I do not understand to this day

why my dad gave his Land Cruiser to my sister.

It's just not fair. It's not fair.

You can talk to me, you can shout at me, you can stand in

the box at me. And when I see my dad, I'll say

Dad and then I'll see Jesus and he'll just say, are you stupid,

idiot? And then a girl who lost her dad

in a car accident came to Home group for the first time this

week on a Tuesday. She came to Home group.

She just bought a whole lot of hot cross buns to Home group and

said I had a choice when my dad died to be really angry with God

or to know that one day he'll explain it to me.

You know, I don't stand on the stage often

and I'm not sure if I've been a good pastor of divorced people

or a good pastor of people have lost children, car accidents.

I've got one son leading worship today.

I've got another son preaching in Durban.

Some of your sons are sitting in rehab fighting for their lives.

I understand that, I know that. But not only is there a time and

place at the cross, but there's going to be a time and place in

the future. What seems unfair?

The questions you don't know how to answer, The prejudice of not

getting a job promotion because of the colour of your skin or

being treated as a second class citizen because you're a woman.

One day God is going to settle it and all the loose ends of

your life are going to be put together into a beautiful

garment, time and place in the law court of heaven with the

Judge of righteousness and the advocates called Jesus.

He's going to put it all back together.

Whether you've been pained or whether you have caused the

pain, I pray today that you can pull the future forward and

stand here free. Free.

I don't want to call divorced people here because I don't want

to embarrass you, but I pray today that a stigma gets lifted

off you that will never come back to you.

And every time you make that cross on that piece of paper,

white, black, colored, other, male, female, single, married, I

pray that this cross will be bigger than that one in Jesus

name. Heavenly Father, you'll be with

these people. I don't know if some of you have

to come here during the week and stand on that cross in the

middle of the stage, but some of you think you can never stand on

that stage again. I want to tell you, if you've

got to come here on Tuesday, you can phone me.

I'll say to that. If you just come here by

yourself, stand on the cross, God will put you all center

stage because there will be a day.

There will be a day. There will be a day when God

makes everything beautiful in His time.

God bless you.