Grace - A Testimony of Forgiveness

Grace – A testimony of forgiveness Date: 24 May 2018
Music playing.
Cars driving.
Grace Dube’s voice: I am Grace Dube, and this is my story.
Music playing.
Grace Dube’s voice: This is Soweto, Johannesburg, where we live. My earliest memories are of my family, how we made music and how my husband preached and talked to the people. My husband was pastor Benjamin Dube, together we sang and preached. Our music witnessed to the people, and the message was that Jesus is the way to real freedom and that we have to repent and forgive. There were other voices too, those days. The Moderates wanted to negotiate, but angry voices was shouting for blood in the war. Many of our people were confused, as violence grew and people died. There was a great desire for peace and end of the struggle. We wanted to share our joy with the people, the joy and the deep peace that only Jesus can give. We all sang and the music was life, bread of life was scattered everywhere in the township. The people loved our music and they came and they listened to my husband preaching.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Preaching….to live peacefully with God, and sow for His service (3:27). So, will you not come to Him now, because tomorrow it will be too late. Don’t postpone, the day of salvation is now. Because tomorrow it will be too late. God bless you all.
Music playing.
Sirens in background.
Grace Dube’s voice: We were used to sirens, to the barking of the dogs at night. And any moment someone may ….(4:18) at your door, and you want to know who may be there this time.
Music playing.
Dog barking in background.
Knocking on door.
Mrs. Roeland: Hallo, can I help you?
Security police officer 1: Are you a Mrs. Roeland?
Mrs Roeland: Yes.
Security police officer 1: We would like to speak to Mr. Roeland please.
Mrs Roeland: He is in his study, is something wrong?
Security police officer 2: Never mind, just call your husband please.
Mr. Roeland: Hallo, can I help?
Security police officer 1: Mr. Roeland, it is you who need the help. We are from the security police.
Security police officer 2: We hear that hmm you’ve been having multi-racial meetings on a Thursday night, we’ve come to warn you.
Mr. Roeland: We do nothing wrong.
Security police officer 1: About that we are to see Mr. Roeland. We’ve got a good idea that you are undermining the government’s policy of separate development.
Security police officer 2: White and black might sing and pray together today, but tomorrow it is underground activities.
Mr. Roeland: Come in, I’ll explain to you.
Security police officer 1: No, no, no, no need Mr Roeland. But we’ll be watching you and your yellow and your black children. We smell some kind of subversive activity.
Mr. Roeland: And what you regard as subversive activity is my way of a Christian businessman to show that, there is no such thing as apartheid in Jesus Christ teachings.
Sarcastic laughter.
Security police officer 2: You watch your tongue Mr. Roland. You might live to regret it.
Security police officer 1: Mr Roeland, being an ex- advisor to the Prime Minister on labour relations, a church man and an Afrikaner, I cannot understand how a man like you could have become a Kafferboetie.
Mr. Roeland: Is that the way you put it? But yes, since Jesus came into my life, I can truly say to a black Christian man. “You are my brother and I love you”. The battle is not between black and white, it is between light and darkness.
Security police officer 2: You’ve been warned.
Security police officer 1: Mr Roeland, I would take it seriously if I was you.
Grace Dube’s voice: Mr. Roeland and my husband spoke the same language, but their road to peace was like a declaration of war to the right and the left.
Playing and laughter.
Grace Dube: Dube, Dube, Dube come to the phone. They want us to go and minister on Friday.
Grace Dube’s voice: To the black revolutionaries, it was too little. For the white conservatives, it was too much.
Music playing.
Gang member 1: I know he’s there.
Gang leader: I can’t believe Spirit gave up his weapons and now he believes like them.
Gang member 2: He is a dangerous man.
Gang leader: He is a sell-out, man. Let’s see what his heart is made of.
Knocking on door.
Gang leader: Yes comrade, remember us?
Pastor Benjamin Dube: I remember you and your gangsters. What can I do for you today?
Gang member 1: Dube, you shut up, and stop preaching your white man’s Jesus, man.
Gang leader: Your preaching makes people soft. We want them to fight and kill, that is the only way to freedom.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: The only way to freedom is through the cross of Jesus Christ and not….
Gang member 1: Bullshit man, freedom is through the mouth of AK47.
Gang leader: I say amen to that Dube, if you go on preaching you know you are against the Struggle.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: The Struggle would be won through God’s help, not violence.
Gang leader: You’ve got a big mouth preacher, but you know nothing.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Two of your members have found the Lord Jesus Christ recently.
Gang leader: So, they sing, did they? You know what happen to the singing canaries? An accident happens to them.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: I think I can help you too, to find the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gang leader: Sarcastic laughter. I’ll see you and your Jesus in hell and stay away from me and my gang.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Are you perhaps afraid that they’ll expose you to the light?
Gang leader: This is your last warning, Lemo bimbi (…). (8:36)
Clapping of hands.
Mr. Roeland: Praise the Lord.
Congregation: Praise the Lord, amen.
Mr. Roeland: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome, it is good to have you all here. It is wonderful to be in the house of the Lord. Thank you, it’s good to have you here. I want to introduce a very precious friend of mine tonight, a friend from Soweto.
Congregation: Yeah, clapping.
Mr. Roeland: He has come a long way to visit us, Pastor Benjamin Dube. I want to tell you he is a precious man of God. He preaches Christ and Him crucified, and hmm, he does not mince his words. Let me tell you, he suffers persecution in Soweto for what he preaches, because he preaches Jesus. The answer to the country is Jesus, not so?
Congregation: Yeah amen, clapping.
Mr. Roeland: What is the answer to this country? Pastor Ben. Amen, amen, amen.
Congregation: Clapping hands.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: My answer to all the threats and the problems of this country, is Jesus Christ.
Congregation: Amen. Clapping hands.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: My wish, and my, my spirit are pleased that actually Jesus Christ if accepted, He can solve all our problems.
Congregation: Amen. Clapping hands.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: The word of God says in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against its rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the special forces of evil in the heavenly realm.
Mr. Roeland: Amen, that’s true.
Congregation: Clapping hands.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Thank you, thank you. I just want to introduce my family to you. My wife Grace, and my sons and daughters.
Congregation: Clapping hands.
Mr. Roeland: It’s a pleasure for me now to ask the Dube family to sing a song for us, and hmm, if you know the song you are welcome to sing along or otherwise just sit and enjoy it. Thank you very much. Welcome them.
Congregation: Clapping hands.
Dube family sing: “We are gathered in this place, we call upon His name, and worship Him. We are gathered in this place, to call upon His name, and worship Him. We are gathered in this place, to call upon His name, and worship Christ the Lord. I say worship Him, Christ, the Lord”.
Congregation: Clapping hands.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Listen then, what the word of God says, we need in this present life, and the life thereafter, abundant life. And that abundant life, we can get it by accepting Christ as our personal saviour. We need to repent from our sins and our evil ways and ask God to forgive us. Then we need to forgive those who have wronged us. Obvious it is very hard to forgive those who have wronged us, but since we have Christ in our lives, He gives us victory to forgive even the unforgiveable people. And so, if we don’t forgive or have the spirit of forgiveness, God will not forgive us.
Voice: Amen
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Real peace, and real freedom, is to know Christ, and Him crucified.
Voice: Yes.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: And to love Jesus. And if we love Jesus, it will be very easy to love …….
Grace Dube’s voice: I will always remember Dube’s words, and especially the statement that he will give his life if he has to. But there will be no compromise in presenting Jesus Christ as the total answer to our problems.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: In the name of Jesus.
Music playing.
Gang member 1: That is the man who is talking too much.
Lady in shop: He is my mother’s friend, Ben Dube. He’s a good man.
Gang member 2: Good for softies.
Gang leader: He makes everyone soft. Now two of our members have taken this Jesus nonsense into their hands. Dube must be stopped.
Music playing.
Grace Dube’s voice: My husband was very busy and there were many places where we performed. We would go out in the streets and evangelise the gangsters. We never could guess how our lives would change soon afterwards.
Music playing.
Dube daughter: Good night daddy.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Good night my girl. Sleep well, see you tomorrow.
Grace Dube’s voice: We were a happy family, with lots of love for one another. What went through Dube’s mind that night, perhaps we’ll know one day.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: I had a terrible dream last night and I don’t know how to explain it to you. It seems to me as if the Lord wants to take me home.
Grace Dube: It’s just a dream Ben.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Grace, I love you. You must carry on with the work of the Lord even if, whatever may happen to me. Please.
Grace Dube: Nothing will happen to you Ben.
Grace Dube’s voice: It was a morning, like any other.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: There is a dream which I would like to tell you about.
Grace Dube’s voice: We were having breakfast, and it was getting late.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: It is a terrible dream, but yet, it is actually wonderful.
Grace Dube’s voice: He then shared the shocking news to the children, but they did not really understand it. There were too many things to attend to, and we didn’t have much time to think on what my husband has said that morning. And yes, when things got too much for Dube, he would go to brother Roeland to get things off his chest.
Mr. Roeland: Laughing
Pastor Benjamin Dube: From outside the church we get persecution, and inside hmm...
Mr. Roeland: It’s like you know brother, it has been like that always. Persecution from left and right, inside, outside. Jesus was persecuted, you know.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Yes
Mr. Roeland: .(16:34) (Mumbling something). I heard you had a dream.
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Yes hmm, I dreamed as if hmm the Lord is calling be up yonder. That hmm, I should hmm, actually hmm, greet my wife Grace hmm, hmm, hmm farewell, and the children as well.
Mr. Roeland: You mean you’re going, the Lords gonna, calling you home?
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Yes
Mr. Roeland: To be with the Lord?
Pastor Benjamin Dube: To be with the Lord for all eternity.
Mr. Roeland: Laughing, No
Pastor Benjamin Dube: Well, I believe it is true. It is a fact, if it happens you should know that I’ve told you.
Music playing.
Car hooting.
Music playing.
Grace Dube’s voice: I didn’t even think of my husband’s farewell to us, there was this wonderful peace over me. Life just took its course and I had no fear. Dube and the boys were late for band practice that afternoon.
Music playing.
Car door banging.
Music playing.
Car screeching to halt.
Angry voices and shouting.
Music playing.
Car speeding away.
Crying.
Music playing.
Grace Dube’s voice: The men who killed my husband were gangsters, they were afraid because too many members of the gang came to know the Lord through Dube’s ministry.
Playing organ and singing.
Grace Dube’s voice: Every time my son sings this song of forgiveness, the sun looks brighter to me and the dark thoughts towards the murderers go away. I praise God because he gives us grace and His love gives me power to love my enemies.
Music playing and singing forgiveness song.
Mr. Roeland: Lord, we stand on this word, that says unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it abides alone. And Father we think of Benjamin, Lord how we love him and how Father God we, we won’t see him until we see him up in glory Father God. But we pray that this seed that falls into the earth today, will bring forth a beautiful harvest of souls for your Kingdom Lord, for your namesake, for Your glory because we love You.
Crying.
Music playing.
Singing forgiveness song.
Crying.
Gang leader: Forgive me, forgive me mommy, I am the one, who killed your husband.
Crying.
Grace Dube: You are already forgiven.
Grace Dube’s voice: My throat felt constricted and sore, but I forced my voice to obey my heart. You are already forgiven.
Music playing.
Grace Dube’s voice: Alfred had the guts to say he was one of the murderers. He looked his sins right in the eyes and new that he badly needed forgiveness. Do you have the guts that murderer had to confess your sins that will bring you out of the darkness into the wonderful light of the love of Jesus? Alfred, the ex-murderer is a happy man today. He knows his Maker in a personal way, so Dube’s dead saved at least one life. I am Grace Dube, and this is my story.
Music playing.
The end.