Scripture reference: Genesis 1:1-4 (NKJV); John 1:1-5 (NKJV); Isaiah 9:2 (TPT); Matthew 4:12-17 (TPT); John 1:14 (NLT); John 1:9-13 (NLT); 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 (KJV); 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 (TPT); John 17:14-18 (NKJV)
Praise You Lord. Praise You, praise You, praise You Jesus, praise You Lord, praise You Lord, praise You Lord. Thank You, Lord, for your goodness towards us. Thank You that You are so great and mighty in our lives. Thank You that You love us unconditionally, faithfully and with everything that You have You give to us Father. We are so grateful that You gave us Jesus and You give us life. Father I pray that as we continue in the service today, that we will experience more of Your life, more of Your goodness those places within us that desire to change and to be more like You and do more things that You would do if You were in our bodies. We thank You Lord that in the service today we are led and guided by the Holy Spirit to lift high the name of Jesus, to praise the name of Jesus. We thank You for it today Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Hallelujah. You may be seated. Praised the Lord. Wonderful, wonderful sound, and song. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Like I was saying, in the first service, and Garth already mentioned to it, alluded to it. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like to be in heaven, when you are in the presence of the Creator who created all sound and all song? In His presence, it’s like infinitely, it’s always there.
If you consider the fact that actually eternity is without time and it is without measurement and so when you worship for a day, a 1000 years goes by. In other words, there’s no measurement of time. So worship will be endless, continuous forever. You won’t even know that it’s actually already 2000 or 5000 years, because there’s no limit to what you can do. It’s quite some thinking?
I was having this conversation with somebody just the other day. I was saying, you know that if you live in God’s world, you live in God’s world…Jesus died two days ago. But actually in God’s world, there are no days, so He just died. You know, here on earth, we think it’s like, oh, my word. And you know, all the signs of the times, and everybody’s prophesying, because this blood moon this, and because Donald Trump this, and now the capital of Israel has been recognized as Jerusalem and everybody’s prophesying about everything, and Jesus before He left, He said, and so just to be clear, nobody knows anything about the future, in terms of God’s return other than the Father. Even me, son, I don’t know. Only the Father knows. Yet we on earth want to prophesy and tell everybody about when He’s coming.
That’s why I don’t do it. It’s sensational stuff. You know… “Ah the Bible says, and did you see Donald Trump said that? And now the Chinese government said this, and ancient Persia is this, and ancient Persia is Iran and Iran and Israel. That’s why bla bla bla.” Sensational stuff. But nobody knows. Not even Jesus.
Everybody wants to know, when is it going to happen? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. So why getting into all of that? I live in a continual state of, daily Jesus is arriving in my world. I’m going to preach about this in the not too distant future. Hopefully, in the New Year, the Lord will release me to do this because there’s just so much stuff that is so ridiculous.
If you’re living in Jesus every day, and I’m going to preach on the ‘light’ in a moment, but I’m already preaching, but anyway, you know. When you live in the light, and you’re Enoch. Just imagine you’re Enoch and you’re living in the light, and you’re having a relationship with God. Enoch is walking on the earth, and he’s talking to God, and he’s talking to God, and he’s on the earth in this human body, and he’s talking to God and him and God are having such sweet conversation and they’re having such a sweet time that the next minute, Enoch doesn’t even know it, but he’s in heaven. His body just collapsed somewhere, but he didn’t even know that his body collapsed. He didn’t even know it because he was so connected to God, that when his body stopped breathing, he didn’t even know it because he was immediately walking into the spirit realm in the kingdom of God, in the heavens. The Bible says, we must live like Jesus is coming tomorrow, but also like He is coming back in a 100 years.
Why does He talk like this? Because if you live every day in communion with Jesus having an expectation that Jesus is part of your world, then you’re always expectant that Jesus is going to be part of your world. If the time comes when it’s the time, you won’t even know it, you’ll just be walking in a new place with Jesus. What does it matter whether the signs are there or not? My sign is I’m walking with Jesus. My sign is I’m living in the Kingdom of God with Him right now. My sign is I’m doing everything that He tells me to do right now. Well, I’m endeavoring to do that and vice versa, you know, I walk with Jesus. When the time comes and it’s a time that everything’s going to come to a new, whatever that looks like.
I’m going to give you a little teaser, so you come back. There’s a lot of stuff that is being said about a lot of things. It’s not for me to judge what people are saying that it’s not what they’ve studied, and they believe what they say for sure, otherwise, they wouldn’t be preaching it. But for me, it’s a very simple life and I’ve always lived my life like this. I remember when I was a teenager. I said to the Lord, one day, I said, “Lord this is not going to be fair if You come and I’m like, 19 now and I’ve been to the army, and I want to live my life, and I want to meet a girl, I want to marry her, and I want to have kids, it won’t be fair that I’ve lived 19 years, and now You come; and I don’t experience any of that good stuff.
Because everybody was telling me when I was 19, that Jesus is coming tomorrow, Jesus is coming tomorrow. Don’t go to a moviehouse and go and watch movies. This was in my world, the church in my days, don’t even go watch a movie, because if Jesus comes while you’re in the movie, you’re not going with. That’s what they used to preach. You know? So like, you know, “Alright I won’t go to the movies.” I mean, that’s like, everybody lives like Jesus coming back tomorrow. I used to say, “Joh it’s not fair, I got to this whole life like this, and all the good things You promised me I’m not only going to get there.” It was a little bit naive, but innocently, in my teenage years, it was a real thing with God. Now understand that if you live every day with Him, it doesn’t really matter.
The goodness of Him and the goodness of what He is actually is so great and beautiful and amazing. So wonderful, and so much full of life, that actually, what does it matter when He is coming, how He is coming?
I’m already giving you too much information, knowledge. I’ve got to break it down first. And then I’ll tell you all about Daniel’s seventh week and the book of Revelation, and all of that stuff. I’ll tell you the real story. Would you like that? I’ve never really preached on that ever in the church, you know. It’s about time. Yeah, it’s about time. I know it’s time. Yeah, I’ve been telling Sharon, it’s about time. Because there’s so much other stuff there that’s on TV and books and many things that you’d swear the Antichrist is already here.
This week, I must tell you, a man, I really respect him, one of a very prominent person, this week got accused in the courts or accused by an ethics committee for praying. Not going to say much about it. Except that he said vaccines shouldn’t necessarily be, nobody should be, what’s the word? It shouldn’t be a forced thing that everybody must have vaccines because he said nobody should have the mark of the beast. So, somebody has told him something. A very, very prominent man in our country said this week on national, national news. Really? Really? Like God is not going to tell you and me if the mark of the beast is in a vaccine? Come on. Listen, I respect that man very much. I do, I have a lot of respect for him. But on that matter he is just wrong.
But that’s because some theologian has told him that story. I don’t blame him for what he thinks. The thing I respect and admire about him is that he, and he makes no apology for his faith and his walk with God. He also made a statement. He said, “Yeah, everybody who challenges me for praying in public.” He said, “Yeah, it’s because I pray in the name of Jesus.” He said, “If I was offering any other prayer, it would be okay. But it’s because I’m praying in the name of Jesus that now it’s a problem.” And he said, “I will not change what I believe and what I pray and who I pray to, for anybody.” I respect that. I respect that. Amen. Hallelujah.
I have to make an announcement to you today. That announcement is, as of next week, we will have one service and it will be at nine o’clock. Everybody say, next Sunday, nine o’clock. One service. [Congregation repeats after Pastor John] Okay. Because people are going away on leave. We’ll just put everybody in one service.
That’s next Sunday. Then, between the Sundays, there’s a very special event that happens. It’s Christmas. On Christmas morning, nine o’clock. What time is church happening, next Sunday morning? Nine o’clock, Christmas morning. You will have a digital Christmas service available to you in your home with your friends, with your family, wherever you might be, at nine o’clock, we will broadcast a special service, Christmas service to all of you. Amen, it’s going to be really cool. I know, I’ve already preached the message. Praise the Lord. Christmas evening, seven o’clock, you can tune into TBN and watch Heritage of Faith, have a special Christmas service with the whole nation, Seven o’clock, Christmas Eve, Christmas night. Christmas night, seven o’clock.
So Christmas, you’re going to have two special services, you’re going to watch nine o’clock in the morning, on YouTube or on the website or Instagram or whatever and then you’re going to tune into TBN. And you’re going to watch another different complete message for the Nation. Amen. Praise the Lord. Okay, so that’s Christmas. Then immediately after Christmas, there’s another Sunday, that Sunday, the service will be nine o’clock and it will be digital, it will not be here. It will be broadcast at nine o’clock on Sunday, I think it’s the 27th. Right?
Then you have, after that you have New Year’s Eve 10h30 you can get onto YouTube or onto the website. And you can enjoy a New Years entrance into the New Year, digitally with every one of us together with a New Year message from your Pastor. That will give you a good momentum to go into the New Year. So it’s only about 40 minutes or 45 minutes with worship with sound and song and with the ministry.
If you want to stay up after that, and watch the new year come in, you will hear in my message what I think about the clock of nine, eight, seven, six, five… You will hear me talk about that. If you wish to stay awake after that until midnight, that’s your problem. You may do so but at least you will have the Word in your heart. You will be established in the Word before you go into the New Year. Amen. Then the next Sunday, which is Sunday, the third of January. There will be another church service at nine o’clock in the morning. It will not be here, it will be digital. So, the two Sundays, the 27th and the third, the church buildings will be closed, but church will be online. Amen. You will enjoy the ministry of sound and song and you will enjoy the ministry of the Word and we’re allowing you to do that from home, or wherever you may be on holiday or anywhere else and you can watch it on your tablet or on your phone, on your television or on your computer, wherever. Hallelujah.
Next year is going to be a very big year for us. We’re going to be big, and we’re going to be bold, and God has already instructed us to do some wonderful things. We’re going to be busy. My staff that make these Sunday services happen every Sunday are going to have a break of two weeks of Sundays. They can just completely rest and they can sleep till nine o’clock on those Sunday mornings, and lie in bed. [Noise on the microphone] How was that? How was that? Lady, she nearly jumped out of her seat, as did most of you all also. I mean woah look at that, it must have something to do with this. [Pastor John touching microphone on his shirt] Oh my word. It was funny. They will be able to sit there in their bed and click on church. Where’s the coffee? Let me sit with my rusk and my coffee and my whatever and enjoy the service. Amen. You only allowed us for two Sundays in the year, you understand? Praise the Lord.
You’ll get WhatsApp messages, you’ll get, you know, on the phones and on your emails and whatever, you’ll get a message about all of this stuff. Moenie worry nie, we won’t leave you behind. If the Lord comes in between we won’t leave you behind, okay? Praise Jesus. Glory to God.
All right. Now I’m going to be preaching on, I Will Take The Children. The subtitle is Light and Dark. If you read in the dictionary, what the word light, how they describe the word light. It says, the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible. So if you study light and the material or the stuff that makes up light, it’s photons, and all different kinds of things that make up light, different things, wavelengths, and things that make up light, a spectrum of things. Essentially, if you boil it down, it’s energy. It’s energy. That’s why they say it like this, it’s the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible. So that’s science is the way they’re describing the natural agent.
You could also say, and that would be accurate if you take this from a human perspective that light is the understanding of a problem or mystery. You could say enlightenment. They also say in the dictionary, spiritual illumination by divine truth. Amen. You live in light rather than in the darkness. Then what is dark? Well, dark, as stated in the dictionary is the absence of light in a place. It’s also hidden from knowledge. And it’s mysterious from a human perspective. So, but when you look at the colour black, it’s not really a colour, you know, it’s actually the absence of any colour. That’s what is black. So when people say black is a colour, it’s not actually a colour. It’s just the absence of any colour. It’s the same with dark, dark there is no such thing as dark. It’s just it’s a state of being where there’s no light. It’s the absence of light. Dark is not actually something that is really worth anything or anything meaningful. It’s just the absence of light. Are you all ready to go on a Word journey with me this morning? You will find this really insightful and beneficial to you as I keep moving along. You are just going to have to bear with me as I preach some scripture to you today. Are you all ready for it? Y’all, y’all. Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Checking you all out, here this morning.
Okay, Genesis chapter 1, I have to go to the beginning to talk about light. But I’m not going to preach the whole Bible to Revelation and become prophetic about everything. Don’t panic. John chapter 1 verse 1 says, 1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep (John 1:1-2 NKJV). So the earth, the earth. So this place, let’s call it the planet, this environment that we now live in, was, yeah, I got to be careful here, because I really enjoy this subject. I really enjoy teaching about this, because it really allows science and the Word of God to live together.
You know, a lot of people say, and unfortunately, scientists have used their knowledge, because people that have interpreted the Bible have interpreted the Bible in such a way that they don’t give any scope for the years of light, and eternity. They don’t give any scope between the difference in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void, and the darkness was in the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (John 1:1-2 NKJV) They don’t. People who have interpreted the Word of God like this, in the beginning they tend to interpret day one, day two, day three, so they don’t give scope for any period of time, that might be an eternity of time between, in the beginning God created heaven and earth.
In the beginning. When was that? When was that? That could be a trillion years ago. When was that? In eternity. What difference does that make? In the beginning, God made heaven on the earth. In the beginning. When was that? If we understand that, then, when scientists tell us there were creatures that lived on the earth that were huge creatures, and they’ve got fossils, and they were 100 million years old. It’s possible. It’s cool.
But unfortunately, scientists have disregarded God and have chosen not to look at it through the eyes of God. What they’ve done is they’ve actually said, we will make a fictitious existence that just happened and it’s called evolution. Well, I think you need more bravery and more faith to believe that, that all of this sophisticated stuff could happen from just nothing. Then who made the nothing happened? Well, they can’t explain how the nothing came to be because that nothing wasn’t nothing. It was how particles in atoms came into being, and who made that? They don’t know. They said science will develop and one day, we will be able to tell you, and they never will, because they just disregard God.
I am preaching good already hey. 1… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:2-4 NKJV). When God said, “Let there be light”, what He actually said was, “Let the essence of My being, let all of who I am. Let Me be there.” So here was the earth, and it was dark, and it was without form and void and then He said, let Me be there. Because God is light. So He just said, let Me be there.
I would like you to imagine for a minute, I’d like you just imagine this, that God sitting in the heavens, and this angel that was Lucifer, a being that was created to reflect light and to give off the light of God, and that sound and song was actually created in him. He decided in his own will, that he was going to make his will the same as God’s will. He said, I was going to make my will. There can’t be two wills in the universe. Not because there can’t be but because the one will is the only true will, it is the source of light and life and truth and it is what it is and He is what He is.
You can’t say I will also be what you are when you can only be one source. Do you understand what I’m saying? I mean, you can’t say, it’s just not possible that you decided to become the source when there is already only one source. When he did that, then obviously, he was deceived in himself. The truth was not found in him and the lie was created in him, because he thought he could be equal to God.
When he positioned himself to be equal with God, the power that is God, the light that is God. The truth that is God confronted that mismanagement of his self-image. The mismanagement of who he thought he could be, how great he could be. It just confronted the lie in it. There was nothing that he could do to make himself the source of all things and making himself equal to the source of all things. He was always only going to be a reflected glory. In that he thought he could be the source of all things.
When the source of all things, actually, someone said, I want to be the source of all things, he just couldn’t be. You understand that? You just couldn’t be. Then in that second, he was separated from God, eternally, him and a third of his angels. The angels that believed him. What happened in that immediate moment, light, executed judgment. He had to separate and be separated from light. Then he had to live in the heavens and the earth, and he had to be in a separate place to light.
When he became in a separate place to light, where he became, he became in darkness. He became void without form and everything that was with him lived in a space of absence of light, darkness, in void, and no form, darkness. So that’s how, if you say there’s darkness, there is no place that is darkness, there is just a place that is absent light. God created a place where His light would be absent so that he could be in that place. It’s quite something. That’s the earth was without form, and it was void, and it was dark absent light. Amen
Are you all here with me today? Because this is good teaching. I have to go to John chapter one. Verse one, 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. So the life and the light are the same thing. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5 NKJV).
If you and I are going to live in the light, then we are going to live in this amazing place that is full of beauty, full of life and full of all the good things that God has got for us. Amen. So I need to just read you the scripture here in Isaiah. Isaiah nine, verse two in the Passion Translation says 2Those who walked in darkness have seen a radiant light shining upon them. They once lived in the shadows of death, but now a glorious light has dawned! (Isaiah 9:2 TPT).
In the book of Matthew, in the New Testament, there is this prophecy that is fulfilled. I read to you from Matthew 4, verse 12. 12When Jesus heard that John the Baptizer had been thrown into prison, he went back into Galilee. 13Jesus moved from Nazareth to make his home in Capernaum, which is by Lake Galilee in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. 14 He did this to make the prophecy of Isaiah come true: 15Listen, you who live in the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, along the road to the sea and on the other side of the Jordan, and Galilee—the land of non-Jewish peoples 16You who spend your days shrouded in darkness can now say, “We have seen a brilliant Light.” And those who live in the dark shadow land of death can now say, “The Dawning Light arises on us.” 17From that time on Jesus began to proclaim his message with these words: “Keep turning away from your sins and come back to God, for heaven’s kingdom realm is now accessible” (Matthew 4:12-17 TPT).
Everything that was previously, that you were not able to access it, it’s now available to you because Jesus has come; the light has come a glorious light, brilliant, radiant light has come to shine upon you. Now I’m going to read you John, chapter 1 verse 14. Then I’m going to go back and read the verses before John chapter 1 verse 14. I’ll read from verse 9 to 13. But I need you to see it in context of this verse that I’ve just read to you in Isaiah.
John 1 verse 14 in the New Living Translation says 14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son (John 1:14 NLT). What was he full of? Unfailing love and faithfulness. We saw which you can’t do without light. We saw His glory, unfailing love and faithfulness.
If there’s something that you want to build on about, in life relationally, or any other way, you would want to build on unfailing love and faithfulness, would you not? You would not want to build on a love that is just conditional and might be there today and not tomorrow, because some circumstances have changed. You would want to build on someone that’s faithful or something that is faithful, not unfaithful, because if it was unfaithful, then you wouldn’t know what is going to happen next, isn’t that right? Thank God that Jesus is unfailing love and is faithful. We can trust that, we can trust that.
I am going to verse 9, ⁹The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10He came into the very world He created, but the world didn’t recognize Him (John 1:9-19). Can you all say that with me? Didn’t recognize Him. Come on, say it with me. Didn’t recognize Him. The world that He came into, remember He’s light, He’s life, He’s truth. He created the world and the world didn’t recognize Him. Why not? Because they were living in darkness. They’ve been used to an absence of light.
¹¹He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him. ¹²But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God (John 1:11-13 NLT). So when you become born again, you get born again in your spirit man. This physical body and your thinking may not have changed, but in your spirit you are reborn. Amen.
That means from your spirit man you can see light. Things that were mysterious to you before, can become revealed to you, because you have light in your spirit. Your spirit is not in darkness. Hallelujah. If your spirit man is in light but your rest of your living is in darkness then, you may be in a place where you’re a Christian and you will eventually go to heaven, but nothing about your life and the way you are living is actually reflecting the goodness that is God. Even though your spirit is full of light, because it’s been recreated, the rest of you is not. To the extent that you allow the light in your spirit to change what you are, will be the change that you can live in and you can receive.
The enemy of God of course, you know, he doesn’t want you to, first of all he doesn’t want you to receive light in your spirit, doesn’t want you to be born again, but secondly he also doesn’t want you to be someone who understands the power of this new life that you have. This light, this glory that you have living in you. He is going to try and keep you in the dark. Literally. He’s not going to just switch off all the lights for you immediately, because if I switched off all the lights in this auditorium you wouldn’t want me to do this in the dark and you wouldn’t want to be here in the dark. Right? Nobody wants to live in that kind of darkness. You know, even when you go to sleep at night and you want, you say, “I don’t need light in my room, I need darkness.” I know people that sleep with things over their eyes, you know, because they want darkness, but they still want some light in the room because, when they have to get up in the night, not absolute pitch black darkness. Because then if you woke up in the night, “Whoa I gotta go to the toilet, what next?” You find your way, bang your toes, knock your head, fall on the floor. Then you try and get up and you have no clue where you are because it’s pitch black. No, most people don’t want that. If they say they want to sleep in absolute darkness because they can’t have light, well ok then, but they normally sleep with stuff on their eyes, you know, [Pastor John demonstrates how they sleep with the stuff over their eyes] like that.
What happens is that the devil doesn’t want you to think of darkness, that you’re in darkness. If I ask the guys to dim the lights for me and just, so they have it nice and bright now, ok, so in this brightness we can see each other real plain, right? But if they start to dim it just little bit by little bit, they start to dim it, you’re not really aware actually that it’s dimming. Right? But the definition around you is disappearing and it’s getting darker, but there is a level of comfort that comes with it, because actually it is just happening slowly, so you don’t really know that what’s happening is your living in darkness.
If they switch off those lights completely, I can’t make it completely dark in here because these TV lights will take too much time to warm up and all that kind of stuff, but you understand that what we see about each other now is very different, I’m seeing, I can’t see too much of you, I certainly can’t see the frown on your face or the smile on your face, or whatever it is. I can’t see that because you’re in too much darkness and I’m in the light. I can’t really see all of that, but if I ask them to bring up the lights again… it is a big difference, hey?
The devil doesn’t want you to actually think that you’re in darkness, so what he does is, he leads you, deceives you, manipulate circumstances and gets people to come and say words and things to you and he just keeps you in a level of darkness that God actually, you can’t see God and God can’t see you. Well, I mean God can see you, but you can’t experience God, you know, and so you can’t see God because you’re living in too much darkness. And a lot of darkness that we live in, is darkness that you received as behaviour patterns from our family, from friends, from society, from things that we’ve been taught, and so you don’t even know it, that you’re living in darkness of untruths that’s been taught to you, that the world says this is society’s way of living, so you must live the way society tells you to live. Praise the Lord.
If I have to take just a plain reference to it. Nowadays it’s like society has said it’s actually normal for young people to have sexual relations with other young people, so that they can find out what they like and what they don’t like, before they get married, right? Nowadays if somebody actually, a woman or man gets up and says, “I’m twenty-five years old and I’m still a virgin.” “You’re what? What? Who’s twenty-five and you’re still a virgin?!” Cause society has said it’s normal and it’s actually a pleasing practice to have sex before you get married or whatever. If I have to say to you that there are people that are making decisions that say they don’t want to sleep with someone until it is the right person, until it’s a God ordained relationship. That’s when they find each other. People will say, “What kind of sex relationship can they have? What do they know?” Well, I’ll tell you what, if you obey the Word of God in the way that you have intimacy with another person, it’s the best sex you’ll ever have. Why? Because it is in God, the way you explore each other, it’s not in lust. It’s in love and there is a huge difference between intimacy that’s born from lust, then that’s born from love.
That’s just an example of how society’s norms have even crept into the church, where even in the church it’s like, don’t talk about that stuff in church and don’t even talk about virginity in church, because who is that? Because it’s almost become like a, it’s almost like an identity thing. You know, everybody has to sleep with somebody before they get married. Don’t shout me down because I am preaching good today. I’m preaching really good, right? Come on.
Society’s way of doing things, that darkness has already brought such behaviour patterns of living according to the dark that we don’t even want to talk about it in the light as light in the church we’re told you’re old fashioned. You don’t understand the new, the newness of life that is in the world. You don’t understand that, so you know, you’re old fashioned. The younger generation have got a different view of things. Quite right, it’s darkness. You can’t even see my light because you live in the dark, because the darkness has already overwhelmed you to the point where you don’t want the light. You want the darkness because it suits you. It suits you to be with all the other people that do that. Come on now.
It’s the greatest, it’s one of the greatest ‘con-jobs’ of the enemy, is to keep the Christian living in a society, cultural, values that are setting what the norms and the standards are and so, we don’t even know it, but it’s dimmed the lights on us and so when the light comes and shines, we can’t even receive it or accept it and that’s how they rejected Jesus as the truth. Cause when Jesus came and He said, and I’m using my example, “Don’t sleep with someone, remain a virgin until you’re married.”
If I was Jesus bringing that message, and the society and the culture said, “You should be sleeping with someone before you get married”, then you would reject the light. Because it’s not part of your society and your culture and what everybody is used to. Don’t come and preach that to me, I don’t want to hear that, I reject that. Well, you reject the light, you reject the light. One example of how you can reject the truth and reject the light, because it’s become normal.
Normalized behaviour is therefore the truth? No way! Normalized behaviour is not the truth. The truth is what the Bible says. The truth is not what normalized behaviour says. Just the same way as normalized behaviour says, you’ve got to bribe somebody in government to get a government contract. That’s not the truth. I’ll tell you what, when you become a Christian that walks in the light and understands the authority that light brings everywhere you go, that light will bring faith in you, and your faith and your light can put a marker on a government contract, and you can have the authority that says, because I walk in light and I have faith, I command that contract to stop until it is given legally without corruption. That’s the power of walking in the light and walking with God by faith. And we need more Christians to walk in the light like that, that don’t accept society’s normalized behaviour patterns.
Alright, so I’m going to talk about some things this morning that hopefully will help you. I’ve been asked lots of questions about this. I’m going to touch on a few things today. This is by no means a comprehensive teaching on this subject, but I will answer some questions for you today. Okay. And we’ll see how the Lord leads us in the year to come.
Second Corinthians chapter six, verse 14; 14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? God is immediately putting light and righteousness together, darkness and unrighteousness together? Do you see this? So darkness means the absence of light, means absence of righteousness. Righteousness – light? 15And what Concord has Christ with Belial? Or with the devil? Or what part hath He that believes with an unbeliever, an infidel? 16And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (2 Corinthians 6:14-16 KJV).
When you receive God, you become the temple of Jesus. What right does your body or your living life have to do with everything that’s in the darkness? We should not have this attitude that says: we must understand the darkness to preach to the darkness. That’s the wrong way to go about it, you must become light completely, so that it can be a standard for the darkness. That’s why the Bible says that we should be a light on a hill, and we should not be hidden under a bushel, so that people can’t see our light. What does it mean? We should not be cloaked in the behaviour pattern of darkness, so nobody sees our light. Joh, I’m preaching good, I am preaching good. I’ve got more to say, lots more, but I’ve only got one few more moments in this day to preach to you. But I got lots to say. Okay.
16 for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 1Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 KJV).
When you have the fear of God, you’ll walk in holiness. No fear – no holiness. And here’s what the devil wants you to do. He wants you to not fear what walking in the darkness means. He’s going to try and say to you, walking in the darkness is acceptable. The more darkness is in your world, the less you will fear God. If you fear God, you will not do dark things.
Have you watched anybody that actually is aware of, of perhaps their flaws in their face or on their skin? They go and stand in front of a very bright mirror. They look at themselves in the mirror and they think, whew, I’m not looking very pretty or handsome right now. Because look at what the sun has done to me, maybe age with wrinkles, whatever. The brighter the light, the more the flaws in your skin show. Right? People don’t want to get too close to the light because they don’t want to see their flaws. But here’s the thing, the closer you get to the light, God deals with the flaws, and He changes your imperfections, to strength and perfections.
The devil tries to actually say to you: be ashamed and feel guilty, because those are your flaws. And so by making you feel ashamed and feel guilty, he prevents you from coming into the light and facing yourself in the light so He can change you. He doesn’t judge you, He changes you.
That’s how great God is. He doesn’t judge you. He changes you. He doesn’t leave you with your flaws. He says, “Oh, you got that wrinkle on your face? Let Me smooth it out here. You got that mark from the sun? Let Me put some new skin there.” Figuratively speaking, you understand? Otherwise, I’d be getting newer, newer, younger and younger. And I am in spirit, but certainly my body’s still getting older.
I’m going to read that passage of scripture to you from The Passion Translation. 14Don’t continue to team up with unbelievers in mismatched alliances, for what partnership is there between righteousness and rebellion? Who could mingle light with darkness? 15 What harmony can there be between Christ and Satan? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16What friendship does God’s temple have with demons? For indeed, we are the temple of the living God, just as God has said: I will make my home in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 17For this reason, “Come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord. “Touch nothing that is unclean, and I will embrace you. 18I will be a true Father to you, you will be My beloved sons and daughters,” the Lord Yahweh Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 TPT).
And then the next first verse in the next chapter says, 1Beloved ones, with promises like these, and because of our deepest respect and worship of God, we must remove everything from our lives that contaminates body and spirit, and continue to complete the development of holiness within us (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 TPT).
With promises like these, why would we want to live in darkness? Why would we want to live with unclean stuff in our lives? Why do we not allow God to actually continue to make us what we can be powerfully in Him? And so what does darkness have to do with light? This is a very big question, and I’m going to tell you in a moment how big a question this is, because of Scripture that says, If I can read it to you, again, from the King James Version, it says, 14Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness and, and unrighteousness. In other words, you’ve heard people speak about, don’t be unequally yoked? Yeah, come on. Ja? Yes? You’re allowed to say yes, or ja.
John, Chapter 17, verse 14; 14I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world (John 17:14-18 NKJV).
Can you see that Jesus prayed this prayer? He asked the Father, and He said, I’m not asking You to take them out of the world. Because if He had to take us out of the world, we wouldn’t exist anymore, our bodies would have to die. He says, I’m not asking You that when they get saved, the minute they get saved, take them out of the world and kill everybody that gets saved. But I’m asking You that when they are saved, and they stay in this world, I ask You to protect them from the evil one that’s in this world. In other words, I’m asking you to protect them from darkness. Amen.
Okay, so how does this really apply to us in the natural world? Because the scripture says in Corinthians that we must not be unequally yoked. What has a believer got to do with an unbeliever? What is God that is in us, the light that is in us got to do with the darkness? What fellowship have we got to do with unbelievers? It’s what the Bible says, I just read it to you. At the same time, Jesus says, “I’m sending them into the world.” That means we have got to be in a position where we keep getting stronger in the light. So that when we are sent into the world, or the darkness, that we take the light to the darkness, we do not let the darkness overcome the light. How can we be a people that says we want to become like darkness, so we can understand them, so we can preach to them? They don’t understand that, in fact, the people that are in darkness, they don’t want you to be light to them, they want you to be the same as them.
Just check this out. If you are in an environment where you are a strong Christian and nobody else in your environment is a Christian, and they express their lack of Christianity or the darkness that they live in, even though they might be Christians, the darkness that they’re living, let’s just say their behaviour pattern is unrestrained. They drink what they want, they smoke what they want, they take substances as they choose, they behave in a way that is just darkness in every sense of the world. They’re political, they’re corrupt, they’re all kinds of things. Then you’re there in the light. And so you don’t want to do those things. What are they going to do, they are going to excommunicate you, they’re going to keep you out of their circle, because you bring light. So you will find yourself lonely.
The human part of you wants to say, “I don’t want to be lonely, I want to be accepted by the “in crowd”. I want to be part of them.” So they say, “Okay, you can be part of us, but you got to behave like us.” Then you make a decision, “I’m not going to let the light shine, I’m going to cover up my light. And I’m going to live in the darkness with those people that are in the darkness and so I can connect with them, so I’m accepted by them.”
This is one of the devil’s major tactics that he does to keep Christians quiet. Because he says, “You want all the rewards of the world system? You can have it but you’ve got to be dark.” Absent light, don’t bring your light here. Keep your light to yourself. Hide your light under a behaviour pattern that is acceptable in the dark. It’s what they want. They say, “Okay, come and enjoy the fruit of our darkness.” Except, that it fades away. It’s corruptible. It’s changing. There’s no faithfulness there. There’s no unfailing love there. They’re completely unfaithful. Those people are unfaithful, they’re only true to themselves. There is no unfailing love there, they are completely full of themselves. They’re full of themselves and they do everything for themselves, and they say, “We’ll permit you to do the same thing around us.” That’s no way to build anything. I’m preaching good today.
I’m going to address this in a couple of things. A couple of examples of my life, my personal life, as I finish up my message today. When I was at high school, I was fortunate enough, I suppose you could say that or, you know, it was something that just was part of my life. I was a reasonable sportsman. You know, I was accepted in the sporting teams because mostly I was in the A-team or the first team and pretty much most of the things that I did, you know, and so there’s a level of acceptance that you have because of your sporting ability.
Even in those circles, I wasn’t friends with them because my light shined. I made Jesus Lord and Saviour of my life. When the guys played rugby or soccer or whatever it was, club soccer I was involved in and different things. You know, afterwards, they want to go, now we’re teenagers, we’re almost adults, going to have a beer. I’m not talking about drinking, the stand that I made was that I wouldn’t. Okay, and so I wouldn’t drink. I wouldn’t go with them and I wouldn’t go and do the stuff that happens when you do drink. It’s not just the drinking, it’s the stuff that happens while you do the drinking.
You know, I mean, come break time, there wasn’t any group of guys that, like, you know, “Come and have lunch with us, John.” Yeah, I mean, because I was in sports teams, if I chose to go and sit with a group of guys that were playing sports with me. No, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t walk away from me, they wouldn’t turn their backs on me but they weren’t inviting me to come and have lunch with them. You understand? It’s because I wasn’t talking the talk that they talked. I wasn’t talking about the girls that they were seeing and what they were doing with the girls. I wasn’t talking to them about the next weekend’s jol, after the rugby match, where they were going to go jol and so we going, an away game, and we’re going to go and play against this team. And so you know, “Ay, we’re going to have a night after the”, you know, and there’s this here and there’s this there. I didn’t talk about that stuff. I didn’t want that stuff. I wanted Jesus. So they persecuted me. But I wanted Jesus more than I wanted their acceptance. Really, I did.
Then I went into the military. When I was in the military, I had a whole year of training. When I was in my training period, you know, I made a point of doing this, I made a point of every day I would take my Bible in the morning and the evening, I would take my Bible, and I would kneel beside my bed. Sometimes I would sit at the edge of my bed, we used to have a box, we used to call it a trommel. I used to sit on this metal box. I would sit there and read my Bible, I would kneel and pray. Not one of these prayers; ‘Bless mommy, bless daddy and bless a happy day and thank you, Jesus, amen.’ It wasn’t a religious prayer that I prayed. When I prayed, I prayed and I would kneel there and I would pray and speak to my Father and speak to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for as long as I needed to fuel my spirit man with light. I was living day and night in darkness. They wanted their behaviour pattern to affect me. Everybody’s behaviour pattern was impacted because that’s the whole thing of the military, we want you to all behave the same. You put on the same uniform, you march to the same rhythm, you do everything the same and your strength is in the way that you can do ‘sameness’ together. Everybody was in that space. But there was also, internally, there was acceptance or rejection by different groups of people that got together.
I wasn’t accepted by them. Again, if I went and I sat anywhere to go and talk to anybody, they wouldn’t push me away. You know, we went through a lot of hard times together and I was accepted in that sense, you know, that I’ve got my wings. I was accepted. But I was also rejected. Because they wanted me to drink with them and behave badly with them and I wouldn’t, because the light in me wouldn’t. They did lots of things to persecute me; baptize me in beer and do lots of things to me, little things, say words, do things, hide my stuff, do things that just caused trouble for me, persecuted me because of the light. When we went, and we started to get into conflict, military conflict situations, suddenly their lives were on the line and people got shot, and they got wounded, and things happened. Suddenly my tent became the meeting place. Now people were not rejecting me. They were seeking me out. They wanted me before anything we did. Every day they wanted me to read the Bible to them, they wanted me to pray for them. Why? Because they saw that actually, the life in me is real, that they tried to actually snuff out the light in me all those months they were with me in training. I stood in my light.
When the time came and it turned around, and I was now, we were in a different set of circumstances. They came to ask for my prayers and for me to read the Bible, to the point where they asked the commanding officer of the unit. They said, “Please don’t let the denominational’s preacher come and take our prayer parades and our, you know, our reading the Bible parades. We want, can John please do it.” Our commanding officer got permission and gave permission. So every day I would stand in front of the whole peloton, the whole company. I would stand there and I would read the Bible and I’d pray for them. And they wanted it. They asked for it. They petitioned the commanding officer for it. Why? Because when they were in their darkness, they wanted me to become like them. But when the light was stronger than their darkness, when they confronted the darkness of, of eternity, then they wanted the light to be there for them.
This thing that I’m talking about is a powerful thing and the stronger you get in light, the more your light shines in the darkness, the more powerful you become. The devil wants to turn the temperature down, he wants you to actually want to live in darkness, because he wants you because he knows that if he can connect with that cultural and social value system or lifestyle that makes you acceptable, that in your human emotion you crave it. If he can make you feel that and want that, he can get you to extinguish the light, or put a lid on the light, so you don’t show light.
Hey, I’m a truth speaker today, I’m speaking the light and the truth today. I bring you another example today, of my marriage. You know, and so when I got married, I had all kinds of men want to tell me how I should behave towards my wife and those men were Christians but they were also culturally and socially affected. What they did was they lived in their marriages what their fathers did and what their grandfathers did and sometimes that was so bad that they did the opposite of what their fathers did. They were not; I use this because I have all my Bible software in here [Pastor John picking up his iPad], but they were not telling me what the Bible said they were just telling me what their experience said. You know the old statement, “Just keep the bag happy”, the old bag or the old lady, you know, “Just keep the old lady happy and then you’ll be okay”, you know. Every now and again you’ve got to do things that keep the old lady happy then you can keep living your life the way you want to live your life.
Everything became a contest of wills in marriage between what men want and what women want. Therefore, men always said they don’t understand women, and women always thought that and still do in many places that men are egotistical, chauvinistic, and don’t understand women. I’ve never said that about my wife. I’ve never said that I don’t understand my wife and don’t understand women. The minute I say that I allow darkness into my heart. I don’t want to walk in that darkness that I don’t understand her. Why would I want to live with a person I don’t understand? I want to understand her. That was my confession. That is what I saw in the Bible. The Bible said that I could understand her, because the wisdom of Christ lives inside of me. I live in the light and He makes all things known to me in the light. Truth is in the light, and I can walk in all truth. If that’s the case, I don’t have to walk in a place where I don’t understand my wife. I can understand her. I can understand the emotional her.
I mean, I can understand the emotional her. I can understand the needy her. I can understand the demanding her. I can understand the spiritual her. I understand her. I’ve never said in my life, I don’t understand her. She doesn’t call me egotistical, chauvinistic, maniacal, stupid male that doesn’t know what he’s doing. You know what a lot of women say, “Just hand over the running of the world to a woman and all will be well”, because they think men’s behaviour is just terrible. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is egotistical. If we have this attitude, you know that we can’t live with the other person then actually that’s darkness. When all my friends were telling me, you know, this is the way you treat a woman and this is what you’ve got to do, put your foot down, you’ve got to make the boundaries, you’ve got to set the rules, and you got to let her know who’s boss. I didn’t want that for my marriage I wanted to look at the Bible and say, what does the Bible say I want for my marriage. My Bible told me something exactly opposite.
My Bible said love your wife as Christ loves the church and give all of yourself up to her and for her, so that you can make her a beautiful thing, glorious and splendor without spot or blemish or wrinkle, present her to yourself with glory and splendor. Well, that’s what kind of woman I want. That’s the kind of marriage I want. Then that means I’ve got to give myself. Most men say, “I want to take for myself.” They certainly were living like that, my friends, I want to take for myself. “I’ll set the boundaries of what I’ll give her.” That’s what women do, too, “I’ll set the boundaries of what I’ll give him and I’ll use the boundaries of what I give him to my advantage so I can get what I want, because I know what he wants, wink, wink. Huh. Then, everybody’s in a contest of what I can get, and when I can get it, and when I, and how much, and what, and all that kind of stuff instead of doing the will of God.
That’s the light you see. If I allow the darkness of social norms and cultural value systems to overshadow my light, then I’m a Christian that’s got the light but everything that I’m experiencing is darkness. And so now we’re confused people, because we have the life of Christ in us but actually, we’re living in the darkness of our social norms and our cultural systems, and all the things that we’ve been imprinted with in our identity system that is actually unraveling the very light that can give us freedom. I said, “No, no, no, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to find out what the Word says and I’m going to live that.” Then, you know, when they would all get together, and they would talk about this stuff, and we, you know, it’s like I said in the first service, and I say to you, as well, you know, it’s like men. You know, when the men and women come together, the women in the kitchen, and the men stand around the cars, and they kick the tires, and they talk about the engine. What are the girls talking about? It’s all a skinder about what the men don’t do, or about other women, or about other stuff while they’re cooking.
Come on, you can shut me down because I’m preaching really good today. I said “No, I don’t want either of those things in my marriage, where the girls stick with the girls and the guys stick with the guys, and everybody’s having conversations about what they shouldn’t be having, and there’s this big separation.” I said I want the life of God, so obviously, when I started coming around those guys, and they kept talking about the old lady in the bag, and all that kind of stuff, I don’t talk like that about my wife. I talk about her. I have since then, ever since, I’ve been nearly married to her for 40 years. I still have a wonderful loving, intimate relationship with my wife. It gets more beautiful and wonderful every day, because I still talk that way about her. I still talk the Word of God over her, and I still live the Word of God with her. It gets better, not worse. It does, it gets better because God keeps changing me and keeps changing her. We don’t get into this comfort zone of living together and nothing is new anymore. Now you get old and stale and then you look for something else that’s new. I’ve not been tempted by any other woman to go and look for ‘new’ with some other woman, because I keep changing, she keeps changing in the light. The light that’s in us makes us different all the time. I keep discovering new things about her and she about me, and that’s a wonder and a marvel and a great thing.
Then they would want me to enter into the conversation and I’ve refused. My wife is great, she’s wonderful, she’s amazing. I have a wonderful relationship. “Ah, John, you just haven’t got there yet.” Then enough time went by and I wasn’t getting to them. Then, “Hey guys, I’m having heaven. My marriage is sweet, man.” Then, you know, eventually we couldn’t have fellowship anymore because I wouldn’t talk the language and my light kept shining up the stuff that was going wrong in their marriage. All of those guys, they were all Christians. All of those guys that I was connected to then, they’re all divorced, more than once some of them. All have got chaos in their lives. My life is sweet. What’s the difference? I let the light actually dictate my future not what they said married should be. Hey, hey. This is what the light does, this is what the light does. Everything you dream of you can have it in the light. Hey? Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
I’ve got one more thing I want to talk to you about and it’s about, how does fellowship, light and darkness work in business. You understand now, because of the information and the knowledge I’ve given you about light and dark, that you can be a Christian that has light in your spirit but you can have your whole life hidden under a bushel, cloaked under the light. Your body and your thinking can be under the light so that you live in darkness, even though you have light. Yes?
Many people have asked me this question about business. On this question of be not unequally yoked in business? How can a Christian businessman be in business with a person that’s not a Christian? I mean, it’s like this. If you get a Christian that knows he’s a Christian, and he can speak christianese, the Christian talk, you know, “Praise God. Hallelujah. Amen” you know, he can speak the speak, but he’s not living the life. I call him a skeef Christian. His life is this way and then it’s that way, and it’s this way and it’s that way. He’s not a straight Christian, you know, because he doesn’t live by the light that’s in him. He lives in the darkness that dominates his body, and he’s thinking and he’s world, you know.
The way life used to be in certainly in the early years of my life, certainly, definitely my dad’s life would be like, if you were going to do business with somebody, and if it was Lettie, and I was going to do business with Lettie, and we came to an a business arrangement, we would shake hands. Say, we have a deal. We say, “Yes, we have a deal”, then my word is my word and her word is her word. We don’t need a contract. We understand that we have a deal. You give me a service, I pay for the service, or we do a service together and we both get paid and we share the profit. Whatever the case might be, we do a deal then our word is our word. That’s a straight, up and down honest business arrangement.
Maybe she’s not a Christian, but she’s got the light of the way a person should live as a Christian, but now I’ve got another Christian, that’s skeef. You know what I’m saying? He is not bound by His Word. It’s all about himself making a profit and manipulating circumstances for his convenience. Now someone that’s not saved but has got the light of what it is to walk in the truth of a deal, versus someone that’s got Christ in them, but actually they are dishonest ugly people; ugly in behaviour pattern.
Now just because one is born again and the other one is not, I must do business with a borne again one. Not a chance I’m not doing business with that Christian. I’m not putting my money into his hands. He will just whisk it away. [Pastor John makes a gesture of something flying away in a flash] Gone? When you go look for your money. [Pastor John makes a gesture of something disappearing in a flash]. “Oh, no, you didn’t say that. I thought you meant that. Oh, no, no, I was under the impression we agreed on this,” but you know, both knew what was meant, but he is skeef, dishonest, he is swervy. He is a swerve Christian. Hallelujah.
The best thing of course is to do business with Christians that have the light working in them. If you have two people, you’re doing business with, one is a Christian and one is not a Christian and they have the same light about how to do business, with honesty, with integrity, and with proper values. Then you do business with the Christian, than rather than the non-Christian. Unfortunately, Christians have developed such a bad reputation. You know because they’re swerving all over the place. They are all changing the rules of the game, all the time to suit themselves. Hallelujah. This is a, this is an opportunity for us to walk in the light.
When it comes to our children, the devil wants our children. What does he want from our children, he wants our children to live in the future with the baggage of their parents? What you learn from your mother and your father becomes the thing that creates your future. What you learn from the kids at school becomes what you identify with for your future. You learn from school and you learn from parents, and you learn from society, and you learn from cultural values. What’s acceptable, and not acceptable behaviour pattern, rather than looking at the Word of God and seeing what the Word of God says, is an acceptable and unacceptable behaviour pattern.
If you learn to live by the truth of the Word of God, and in the light of the Word of God, you keep walking in more freedom and more freedom and more liberty and more power, not less. Society and the devil wants you to think that the more you live as a hot, full of life, powerful Christian, on-fire Christian, the less you’re going to get things done because getting things done, you have to live in the world.
No, I am living in the world, and it is because I’m on fire believing Christian, that I can command business deals not to happen if they are corrupt. I can command business to come into my hands by God. That’s what Jesus meant. I mean, Jesus gave the disciples an absolute clear indication of this. They were fishing all night. What, what? What is night? They were fishing all… in the darkness, all night. Jesus comes and say, “Hey, you’re in transition from night to dark. Now I’m mending my nets, fixing my nets that went wrong in the, in the dark.” We all got to fix things in our lives that get wrong in the dark. That’s the messy part of life, right. But He’s got some marvellous things for us. They’re not in the dark, they’re in the light, and He gives them a clear indication, the difference between the messy of the dark, and the marvelous of the light is a transition where you sit mending and fixing, and you do some things. Then you’re also listening to the Word of God, while you’re fixing things.
Isn’t that what they were doing? They were listening to the message that Jesus was preaching from their boats, and while they were preaching, light was coming. Then Jesus says, “Okay, you’ve heard enough Light, and you’ve done enough fixing of the nets. Come, let’s go fishing in the Light.” So, when you go fishing in the Light, He says, “Now, what you did in the dark was you fished on that side. Now you’re going to be in the light, fish on the other side,” and you’re thinking, but what is the difference? The difference is one was in the dark, and the other is in the light. It’s got nothing to do what side of the boat you’re fishing on.
He gave us a prime example. When you fish in the light, then you get such big catches, you got to call all your friends to come and help you, because of what happened in the light. The power of walking as a light Christian, rather than a dark Christian, is worlds apart, because of the dark Christian, you fish all night, you catch nothing. You just come away with broken nets and baggage that you got to fix.
God’s come to take the children, the grown-up children, and the little children. He says, “Come it is time to walk in the light. Come and be separate from that system, that’s damaging you. Let’s walk in the Light, together with wisdom and understanding, and I’ll show you some more in the New Year. We’ll talk some more about this. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
How we can live in the light as children of light, and because God has sent us into the world, not so that we can become the world, not so that we can try and identify with the world. But so that we take the power of our light living life, we take it to the world, and you say, “Look at what we can catch when we walk in the light.” They become so envious of what you catch in the light, they say, “How can we be part of this light?” Or they become so envious, they want to kill you. In which case, you have to take your protection factor. You know, protection, ‘sunscreen factor’, and protection. You have got to put on your protection, called the armour of God. You have got to put on your protection and then you take on the fight and then you win every time because you walk in the light.
Come on this is good preaching. This is great preaching. Hallelujah. Let me tell you if the devil thought he had us as Christians in a bottle because of COVID. Let me tell you what, when he looked in the bottle, we were gone. How did you manage that? Well, we didn’t let the darkness overtake us. We walked in the light. Hey, how cool is this. What the devil wants you to do, is he wants you to give up on fishing in the light, because big catches come when you fish in the light. He wants you to come, continue to only see yourself in the dark. Hallelujah.
Who wants to live in a place absent of light? [Pastor John makes movements as if he is blind, feeling his way with his hands.] Hurt yourself. Break your knee. Break your toe. Fall over, hit yourself, on the head, on the ground and you wake up discombobulated. Which way do I go? This way? Or that way? I don’t know if I’m up or down, where the door is? It is all in the dark. Bang, bang, boof. Nothing. Who wants to live like that? When you can, “Oh, there’s where I’ve got to go. Okay, turn here, turn there. No banging, no knee breaking. No toes hurt. No, bang, bang, boof. It’s just bang, bang, Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Come stand on your feet, everybody.
Praise the Lord. Did you enjoy this service today? Did you get something out of this? Praise Jesus. Glory to God. Praise the Lord. Put your hand on your heart. Say, “I’m the son of God, and I walk in the light. I do not let the darkness run my life. I walk in the light, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah.” Come on. That’s a cool thing to be. Just to know I’m a light walker. I’m a light bringer. I’m an agent of Light. Try and stop me. I’ve got light like lightning. You come across my path like kaboom, like a lightning bolt. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Glory to God.
I just want to pray for you. Father, I pray that You will bless Your people. You’ll give them peace. I pray that if they’re going away or staying at home, whatever they’re going to do over this period, You will protect them and You will surround them with angels of light. You will surround them with Your Word. You will protect them, Father. No weapon formed against them will prosper. I pray Lord, they will live in peace over this period of time. All their needs are met in Jesus’ name. Thank You, Father, that You bring them back in the New Year, safe and sound and ready to do more things for You. In Jesus’ name. Everybody said, Amen.
Thank you for coming to church, bye, tot siens, Sala kahle.
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