Keith Daniel Memorial Service

We welcome you today to the memorial service of Keith Daniel from Cape Town, South Africa. And when God takes one of his generals like he has with Keith Daniel, then it's time for us to pay attention and to see what God has for us. I'm gonna share with you in a few moments what I think is a message that God has given us for today. And I know that there are hundreds of you all around the world that would be tuning into this. And so I ask you to pray and ask, what does God want to say to me through the life of Keith Daniel? Coming up here to record today, his son, Roy Daniel, who's here with me now, made a statement and gave me a quote from Warren Weirsbee and it went something like this. What does it feel like when God is bearing you? What does it feel like when you're a seed and you're done and everything is gone and you feel like it's all over? And then he made this statement. God is actually planting you. God is planting you for a harvest and I believe God has planted Keith Daniel for a harvest. I'm going to go into the past a little bit and the present and the future in sharing some things with you. By way of introduction, I would just say, you're probably saying, who am I? And I'm saying, why me? But it's just the providence of God that God would want me to do this for my friend. I have, like you, I have cried in the last few days, sometimes have bawled. Keith Daniel was my friend and he was a friend to hundreds of you, maybe thousands. And his wife, Jenny, and his sons, it's a time for us to comfort them and to grieve with them, but also to rejoice with them. Keith preached over 50 years and many of you have heard his story and gone through the messages and listened on YouTube or wherever or in conferences or in churches. And so you pretty much have heard his life, you've listened to him very much. But I want to connect you a little bit with how I am here. I think that God actually raised up our church to be a servant to Keith Daniel, to his family, to minister to this humble man and wife and children and to just do what we could. I just say, I have just like pour an oil on the feet of Jesus. She had done what she could. I've just done what I could. With Keith's self-sacrifice and all of the ministering that he's done to thousands upon thousands of people around the world, it would be good for us, I think, to pay attention to what God has to say to us. I'm sure his wife, Ginny, is very grateful that in the last year because of the plague that we've had, she was basically able to spend a year with her husband, which I don't think had ever probably happened because he traveled so much. I remember him saying back in 2019, he was only in his home, I think it was seven days in that year. And so we, I think our church, the root of it started back in 1988 and it formed as it grew and we had families and things. But we got involved with Keith Daniel by inviting him to come and speak at our church. And we rented a camp and Dana Kinison was doing the tour at that time. And he said, brother, they'll come out of the woodwork. And they did. They just, we had like 230 something one time as people came to hear Keith Daniel. And we did that for three days. And then the next year we did it again. And because it was cold in the auditorium where we were, basically a big shop, we moved into the dining room. And I think we were there a couple of years and then they remodeled the auditorium. But out of that contact with Keith Daniel, over the years, we took over doing his prayer letters. And then we began to wire money to them in South Africa because of the circumstances there to get money to them. And then I took over the tour, doing the tour from Dana Kinison. And over the process of time, we had quite a bit of involvement. My family, my wife, my son, Josh and Jennifer helped a lot. We did flights and put tours together, bought airline tickets and all of this. And there's been many others around the country that have brought Keith in even before we did. And I'm appreciative of the ministries that have followed along in his life. There's been Sermon Index has put his messages out. And I guess Sermon Audio has done a lot. And Rhinelander Congregation has had a big part in this and other ministries. But there's one ministry that did something back in 2019 that you should know about. And that is they put together Keith Daniel's life as a legacy. And it's along with some others like Otto Conning and Lou Sterritt. And they did a tremendous honor, I think, to Keith Daniel and his family. And it's for God's glory that you could go to IBLP and order DVD series on Keith Daniel's legacy. It's amazing thing that it wouldn't have got done last year in 2020. So it was just of God. So that's sort of how we got involved. And I've spent a lot of time with Keith, sometimes traveling with him to conferences and to some of the churches that he was in. So that's a little bit of a background how we've got involved with this man and his wife who is so graceful. Anybody that's had Keith and Ginny in their home is just such a blessing. They're so graceful and so joyful. And so we have been sort of like just a link to help them out and support them. And the camp, we began to have a camp every year and that became the Keith Daniel Family Camp. And people would come from around the country. I remember one year they were like, I think 13 states represented. And a couple of times we had like 350 people at the camp years ago. So that's a quick rundown on some of the things that have gone in the past. And in getting involved with Keith Daniel and doing all this, we entered into what you would call a new stage of warfare. And that shouldn't surprise you if you walk with God and you're used of God and you know what's going on. And so we took on quite a bit of warfare through the years and covering for Keith. Well, Keith was a man of God, the man of God for this time. And it's our great loss, the family's great grief and loss to lose a husband and a father like that. But God must have needed him or he would have left him with us and of course we would have chose to keep him with us. So what I wanna do now is just share with you a message that I think God has laid on my heart. As Roy Daniel and I drove here today, he said it didn't have to be a great message. And I said, don't worry about that, it won't be. But I think it's a message I have from God. This has probably been said many, many times, maybe dozens, maybe hundreds of times about the corn of wheat. So let me read you this passage in John 12, starting where Jesus spoke. The hour has come that the son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my father honor. Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Let's pray. Now Father, if we take a few moments in your word and look at your word and then look into the life of this man of God that you blessed the whole world with. Teach us, Holy Spirit, come and minister to us the word of God. We know our dear brother, he had one book and that was the word of God. And he preached it, he quoted it, he memorized it, he lived it and he loved it. And so we ask that you work in our hearts now and also if there's any without Christ that would happen to listen to this memorial service, I pray that you would impress upon their heart that unless they have Jesus Christ in their heart as their savior and unless they love the Lord Jesus Christ, they will never see heaven and never see Jesus Christ and never be in the presence of God for all eternity. So work in their hearts to draw them to the point of repentance and surrender of their life to Christ, to trust the blood of Christ that was shed for their sins, to cover their sins and to by faith receive Christ as their savior. Now teach us in Jesus' name, amen. Again, that statement by Warren Wiersbe, I think that was just a word from God that Roy gave me that just before I preached on the corn of wheat. In looking at the past and looking at the present and looking at the future, I just wanna take and share with you basically five areas of reality that I saw in the life of Keith Daniel. I call him my friend. We had a lot of good times together. He's in our home many, many times. I think it was 22 years ago when he first came and preached in our church. So I wanna share with you these five areas in the life of Keith Daniel from the corn of wheat. And most all of us would be familiar with the corn of wheat, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. Do you know what happened just before that? In chapter 13 or verse 13 of that passage, they were crying out Hosanna, which basically they were saying be propitious, save us, liberate us, please. They wanted a savior. And here Jesus came. He came to be their savior and also to be the sacrificer. When he went on the cross, he was both. But I want to remind you something that just a few days later, time-wise, they were crying crucify him. Now in the life of Keith Daniel, I have seen Jesus Christ living in a man and in his wife. I have seen Jesus Christ and you have too, and that's what God intends on all of us to be an example of Christ, for me to live as Christ, Paul said. And so these five things I think will be pretty practical, but also there's some really hard things. I've seen Keith Daniel be attacked. I saw one young man not too many years ago after Keith preached, he was so tired and drained as he come down, this one young man attacked him. And we actually had to make that young man leave the camp. I've heard other young men say that Keith Daniel is walking in darkness. Those types of things are pretty dangerous. Here's the principle of the corn of wheat. As the wheat grows, you can't tell if there's weeds there or not. It all looks the same. And this is the thing about Keith Daniel. As he come into churches and conferences, whatever, there were tears among the wheat. You'll all probably know what I'm talking about in our churches. The enemy has learned that the best way to take over something is to infiltrate it. And that's what's happened in many of our churches. Now I know a little bit about wheat. My first church, I started pastoring out in Wyoming in 1975. I had a wheat farmer in there. We had some ranchers and miners and it was really a wonderful place. It was tougher than nails. They didn't pretend to be Christians there and it was just great, hard. But this farmer would let me help him all the way from the beginning to the end. I did everything except plow up the fallow ground because we didn't need to do that. It was strip farming. One year you did a strip, the next year you did another one. And so we would disk it and rod weed it and then you'd get it prepared and then the right time in the fall, you would plant the seed, you would sow it. Then you'd hope you'd get the moisture just right and then about a week later, you would watch for the little green spouts to come up. And then they would get going and then the winter would come in, the harsh cold winds and the snow would pound away on it. But in the spring, you look for that harvest. And as it came up, you would see the green rows. You wouldn't know if there were weeds there, but as it began to grow, you could begin to tell that there were weeds. And when the harvest time come, there was no doubt where the weeds were. The harvest, the golden grains were bent over in their humble position, bearing up. As the scripture said here, to use the word, I was studying on this when it said, bringeth forth. That means to bend over and to endure. Bringeth forth fruit. Well, the weeds, they're not bringing up fruit. They're just standing up tall. And so there's tears among us and I've seen tears and you have too. So here's the first lesson. And these five things that I saw in the life of Christ was he didn't appear to die with Christ. He did die with Christ. And this is the misconception. Many people have the appearance of dying with Christ, but yet they're still living for self. And Keith Daniel had died with Christ and it was not self that he lived for or promoted. It was Jesus. And that's the difference between the tears. The Pharisees, many of them were tears. And even today we can see people sing in churches or even preach or do all kinds of things, but it's really not to promote Christ, but it's to promote self. That's the fruit of tears. And we have a lot of that. It's amazing how many people would use God to make money. Keith Daniel did not do that at all. He left that area totally up to God. Here's another area about the corn of wheat. Keith Daniel didn't just talk about the cross. He lived the cross life. And many, they've got to talk, but they don't have to walk. It was real in his life. And that's why when he preached, he was a lion in a pulpit. He was preaching the word of God and power, memorizing it and quoting it to us. And you had Jesus Christ through the word of God coming out of his life. But when he came out of the pulpit, he was the lamb of God, meek and gentle and loving and kind. And so you had the two aspects of the lion and the lamb in the life. Talking about the cross, he just lived the cross. And he didn't avoid hardship. So many today, they want a cushion on their cross. And he served, he came to be a servant. And this is Christ, he's the corn of wheat. He died into the ground and died to himself, died to his future. A lot of men in the caliber of Keith Daniel could make millions of dollars if they wanted, but he didn't care about anything but promoting Christ. And God took him, but he's left us to follow along. There was a third thing. Appearing to be filled with the Holy Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit is a terror. When you saw Keith Daniel, when you saw Ginny and they were ministering, and they are people. We've lived with them. They've been in our home. They slept in our bedroom many, many times. They're human, just like you and me. But they didn't complain. I will say this about Keith. It was the second or third time he came. This is when God began to speak to me that I had a duty, I had a duty and a job to serve this man. He was in our basement. We were living near La Russell, Missouri. And he apologized for his shoes. I hadn't noticed his shoes and I looked down. I said, oh my, you wouldn't even give those to Goodwill or Salvation Army. They were wore out. This is the reality of missionaries. They have needs and so many times they will not say anything about their needs. But God has left it up to us as the body of Christ to notice the needs that each other have. And that's why he's given us the giftings. So I just began to pay attention to see if God would raise up some funds to help them have a little shopping trip and things like that. We did that for years, a real joy. You'll have more joy in serving Jesus than serving yourself. Terrorists like to pretend they're serving Jesus and pretend that they're filled with the spirit, but the fruit of the spirit will be in the life of a spirit-filled Christian. You know, I was in the Air Force and I didn't fly. I wasn't a pilot, but I flew a lot around the world, been in a lot of different countries and all that kind of stuff. But when you fly in a plane, you have to submit yourself to the pilot. If you want to go up there and say, let me take control of the controls and I would like to talk to the control tower. I'd like to explain to you the way I think we should do things. A spirit-filled believer lets go of the controls of his life. Keith Daniel did not have control of his life. The Holy Spirit was controlling him and Ginny in their walk with God. Terrorists like to be in control. They like to promote themself. And so the weak has to endure the envy, the slander and the criticism and all of this, but a wheat, a true piece of wheat, a crop that's been planted by God, a seed that's been put into the ground, will just keep on producing fruit. Won't bother with all this other terror business, just keep on producing fruit. By the way, I did a little math today, the other day. You just take one grain of wheat and my kids had a natural food store and we ground up tons and tons for about nine years of wheat. You take that and plant it. The next year you may get like about 100 grains of wheat. You multiply that on out and in just a few short years and not very long, you can feed the world if you don't take it. So when you put it into the ground, it's gonna reproduce. If you grind it up, it's gonna bring life to you. Either way, when it dies or it's ground, it brings forth life. Is your life producing fruit? There's so many wanna have control of their life. Keith Daniel and Jesus is in control of their life. And let me say this on a fourth thing. In the five areas that I saw in the life of Keith Daniel, as my friend, and I wept, I'm a crier, but these areas he was real in, he was real in appearing to die. He didn't just appear to die, he did die to self. And he did take up his cross. He was filled with the Holy Spirit in this fourth thing. And that's this, dying with Christ is joy. And if you've ever been around Keith and Ginny, they are joyful people. At the same time, I've seen them have tremendous burdens on them, tremendous loads, but just the joy of the Lord flows out of the life of the servant of God that's died to self, the corn of wheat that's fallen into the ground and died. And it's not a burden. It's not a burden to serve Christ. It's not a burden, and here's the thing about it. When you're a servant of Christ and he does things in your life, like I don't understand why God had me do this today. I really didn't, because I know there are many that could have been in this position to do the memorial service for Keith Daniel. I don't understand why, and many times they've gone through trials and sorrows and gone through the fires, but all I've ever seen is this principle in their lives, is that they glorified the Lord in the fires. Isaiah 24, 15, glorify ye the Lord in the fires. And so dying with Christ is a joy for the seed that has been buried for the glory of God. Not a burden. We don't understand everything, and there's some hard things that go on in our lives. And then this fifth thing, a corn of wheat that is buried into the ground that will grow, die to self, it's a miracle. But this fifth thing, the true corns of wheat of God are not gonna use Christ to advance themselves. Being in dozens of churches and all kinds of places all around the country and some other countries, there's so much promotion of self. The tare principle, many times you can't tell if a tare is a Christian or not, but it's significant. No wonder the world doesn't want to have anything to do with Christianity, anything to do with the church in our country, it's because they see the world in the church, they don't see Christ. Who do they see in your life? When Keith and Jenny Daniel came into your lives, you saw Jesus Christ in human bodies. And that's what God intends on us reflecting Christ, using Christ to advance ourselves. And we have all this entertainment. When Keith come into the pulpit, you knew you were not gonna get a sideshow. You were gonna get what? The word of God. The word of God. And so this is what I saw in Keith's life. The reality of the corn of wheat. He didn't live for himself, they had needs. I have many times wondered how they could minister to so many people and at the same time have so many needs themselves and never say a word about it. I guess one of the things I do is sometimes I observe, I started back when I was about 10 years old, just observing pastors. And Keith and I are about the same age, I'm about six weeks older than him. So I have observed in conferences, I've observed here and there and I wondered sometimes why there's so much appreciation for his ministry and for the word, but yet there seem to be sometimes so little given back in return. I'm just, I'm saying this and I went through this yesterday with God, God I don't wanna talk about that kind of stuff but that's what I said I saw. Now the reason I'm saying that is because Keith is gone but he's got a young man called Keith Daniel and he won't be a Keith Daniel, he's gonna be a Roy Daniel. So he's following on in his dad's footsteps to preach the word. So use him, invite him in. I have seen him, we were down in Arkansas a couple months ago and were invited into another church and I saw the spirit of God work in a group of young people in power. We've been trying and praying that we could get back in, using him and so support in prayers. Matter of fact, I had these three things in the future that we should do as far as the future. These four things basically. We should care and we should share and we should have prayer and the fourth thing is we should not forget. We should not forget. One of the things in my observation on life starting pasturing in 1975 is I would watch the widows one year later when the husband died in a tragic accident or died of a disease or whatever. Everybody's around and everybody is around right now and it's wonderful and everybody is pitching in and praying and calling and helping out. I guess there's a GoMe fund and they have a mission fund. PayPal is wonderful. Don't forget, life goes on next week, next month, year after year. So let's care, let's share, let's have prayer and let's don't forget this family. I'm gonna close up with this little statement from Warren Rearsby again. I don't have fancy stories but I do have this thought that I think God gave us. Why does it feel like when God is burying you and the family might feel like this right now and you're a seed and you're done and everything is gone. You feel like it's all over. Remember, God is planting you to produce a harvest. I wondered if we could get one of Keith's coats and I've seen sometimes his clothes would be really pretty wore out. It'd be a blessing to have some money put in it. We didn't have much money. Our little church, we didn't have much but God would somehow channel through. We could take them to the mall and they could buy some clothes and things. I'm sure many of you South African missionaries have been blessed by them sharing their blessings, sharing their finances. If we would take one of his coats and cut it up into a hundred pieces and it would be the representation of Elijah's mantle. Who would want a piece of that mantle? Who would want to give your life to Christ as Keith Daniel did and continue on? It doesn't matter that you're a nobody. Matter of fact, you do need to be a nobody if God's gonna use you. All he's looking is for availability and he's gonna produce a harvest through those that will die to self, become a corn of wheat, die to self and grow up. Let's pray. Our Father, what an honor to have known this servant of yours, Keith Daniel and his wife, dear Ginny and his family, his sons. Bless them, Father. Help us not to forget to care and to share and to pray and just to continue to support them. What a ministry this man of God has had to this world. We were not worthy, Jesus, you were not worthy for you to die on the cross for our sins. And so again, if there's anybody listening, that they would trust their life to Christ right now. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.