Scripture reference: Psalm 62:5-12 (NKJV); Haggai 2:5-9 (KVJ and NKJV); Colossians 1:9-10-23 (NKJV); Colossians 1:13 (AMPC); Colossians 1:13-14 (MSG); Colossians 1:13 (TPT); 1 Colossians 1:13-14 (MSG); 1 Colossians 1:17 (NKJV); John 18:36-37 (NKJV); John 18:38 (NKJV); John 18:36 (TPT); John 18:36-37 (MSG)
Session 1
How are you guys today? Are you all good? Thank you for coming out today, I appreciate it. I’m grateful that we are a church, we are an ecclesia and we have a biblical understanding of money matters. Amen. And today we will have more knowledge and more revelation and God will be good to us, today. Amen.
I want you just to agree with me that our hearts are focused on Him. Our minds are still and quiet and we do not allow any confusion or any ideas or any philosophies and ideologies to prevent the Word of God from coming into our hearts. That our minds are open our hearts are open our ears are open and we are ready to receive what God has to say to us over today and tomorrow. And you agree by saying? Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I pray that revelation and light are your portion.
You know, I have given a title to this day and this set of teachings and I said Kingdom Economics and Ecclesia Economics. And to some extent, the word is just a title, it’s a placeholder on what I’m going to be talking about, mostly, but economics… to put economics together with Kingdom and Ecclesia is almost the wrong way of talking about it. Because what is the study of economics or what is economics?
So, economics is the study of how people allocate scarce resources for production, distribution and consumption both individually and collectively. There are two branches of economics – one is microeconomics and one is macroeconomics. And focuses on efficiency in production and exchange. Some of these things are valid if you talk about kingdom economics and ecclesia economics because we will be involved in focusing on efficiency and production and exchange. But the essence of economics is really the study of scarcity. And so if you talk about kingdom economics and ecclesia economics the two don’t go together.
If economics is the management of scarcity then there is no such thing in God. And there should not be that in the Church. Because if there is no scarcity in God then there should be no scarcity in the Church. And as we talk about the management of Church life and our view of the kingdom, I trust that we will understand more of what I am going to say about this, that economics really is the management of scarcity. So, that in itself should tell you straightway what the difference is between the world and what the difference is with God. So, does God have any scarcity? No way. So, how can we do anything that talks on economics and put God in the same sentence, cause God doesn’t manage scarcity? He solves scarcity with abundance. So, in that sense economics is really not our subject.
But our biggest challenge is that we will have a world view of the way God provides and the way God sees resources so that we can change our mindset about resources. Amen. Alright. So, I have titled this series of teachings; Crossover Kingdom Economics and Ecclesia Economics, but I needed to tell you that the very act of crossing over means we have to change our mentality about scarcity. Okay? So, that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to change our thinking. We are going to have a different worldview about scarcity.
Psalm 62 verse 5 says; 5 My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. This is the year of expectation, our expectation is from Him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. 7 In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God. 8 Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.9 Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are a lie; If they are weighed on the scales, They are altogether lighter than vapor. (Psalm 62:9 NKJV)
You know, the world will talk about some people that have got that are heavyweight in the financial realm, people that have a lot of money they have a lot of resources they have a lot of capacity and they will call them heavyweights because they have a lot of money. But actually, this scripture says that all men whether they are lightweight men or heavyweight men, all men when they are weighed in the balance of God they are a vapor. They are nothing.
Well, sure, when you die you don’t take anything with you. It’s a fact. You take nothing with you. I tell you what, if there were people whose spirits left their bodies and went across to eternity, if they could have taken some of their wealth with them they would have. Because they love their wealth so much. But they can’t take anything… I mean from Tutu Karmin and all the kings of Egypt and all those guys that die with all their wealth because of the afterlife you’re going to need stuff – nonsense. When you’re gone you’re gone. That’s it.
10 Do not trust in oppression, Nor vainly hope in robbery; If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them. 11 God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God. 12 Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; For You render to each one according to his work. (Psalm 62:10-12 NKJV).
So, right upfront I’m establishing the Word of God here. And the Word of God to us is that no matter what our position in life. If God had to weigh up our works, He would through His love He would have to give us mercy. Because it doesn’t matter whether you focus on the lightweight issues of life or heavy-weight issues, you are going to need God’s mercy. Because all of what we do is just a vapor. It means nothing. In the end unless it is in God.
I want to just remind you that this scripture says 11 …Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God. God has spoken once… Twice I have heard this… in other words, he heard it from God… That power belongs to God. Remember what I said to you, the devil doesn’t have power. He has authority but he doesn’t have power. And authority is the thing that men give him it’s not what God gave him. Amen.
Alright, I’m going to read you another scripture and then I’m going to do some talking. Haggai chapter 2 verse 5. 5 According to the word that I covernented with you when you came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remains among you; fear not. 6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I shall take the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; 7 And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. (Haggai 2:5-7 NKJV)
Are you all with me? I’m just giving you this scripture, reading the part to you that we don’t normally read because this scripture says that God is so powerful that He has the power to shake nations. Most of us don’t think God is that powerful because we see nations continuing as they choose and we think that governments are in charge of the earth, but that’s not what the word says. 7 I will shake nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. Verse 8 says, 8 the silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this house, this latter house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. 9 And in this place will I give peace, says the Lord of hosts. (Haggai 2:7-8 NKJV)
There is no nation that is powerful enough to stand against God’s people. There is no government that is powerful enough to stand against God’s people. At the same time, if you believe that governments and the way that people govern on the earth is a choice for us to make where we want to live. So, if people say South Africa is going to become another Zimbabwe so we have to flee, it’s going to become a bad nation to live in. So, they go to another nation where they think governing is better than in South Africa. I have news for you; when you get there you will find that that government has a lot of problems of its own, they’re just different. So, people will govern differently but they will have big problems. Yeah. Yeah.
So, the best thing is to actually find out where God wants you to be and God needs you to be and where your assignment is because in that place you will experience the glory of God.
You will experience His peace. You will experience the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts is the One who is a military might that guards you and keeps you and keeps you in peace. It’s better to be in a place where God wants you to be than to be in a place where you choose to be. It’s a whole different ball game. Okay.
So, I’m going to just talk to you for a little bit about towns, cities and nations and I’m going to lay and put a framework together here for us so that we can have a conversation. When I was living in the city of Johannesburg, I considered myself to be a big-city person. I thrived on the big city. I had no animus towards the big city. I thrived in a big city. I had the energy of a big city. In fact, it was one of the things that I always felt about Johannesburg is if I would travel around the world and I would go to different cities and I came back to Johannesburg I always had this… I received an energy from Johannesburg. It’s like there’s a dynamic energy of movement, of can-do, of prosperity, wealth, challenges, big city stuff and I always thought there would never be a need for me to ever leave a city. Certainly, I didn’t feel a need to leave Johannesburg as a city because I thrived on the energy of the city. I thrived on the rush of the pull of the life that a big city demands of you and places on you because it does two things. The energy that it demands from you, it also feeds you with the same energy. So, if you’re in a city where there is movement, go-getter, make things happen there’s always this vibe that anything’s possible and just around the corner the possibility is wealth, it’s opportunity, there’s promotions, there’s many things that are available in a big city energy, in a big city dynamic. Not all big cities are like that.
I recall when Sharon and I lived in Cape Town for a year where my son Brynn was born it drove me nuts at that time. So, remember that’s 40-plus years ago. When I would drive around Cape Town everybody drove like they were on a Sunday picnic. They did. I mean you will drive on the highway and everybody is doing 80. So, don’t these people have a place to go and things to do? You know, Cape Town… [Pastor John acts like he is driving] and it’s still a bit like that today compared to Joburg. Although there are so many Joburgs and Pretorians that have moved down there, now it has become a Joburg city by the sea. Almost you know, not quit but almost.
I remember at the time, I mean when I came from Joburg and I moved down there I was 22 years old and it was like… ahhhh I loved Joburg, I loved the drive of Joburg. Drive down to Cape Town it was like puff puff puff [Pastor John makes sounds of a car going slow] Where’s the energy here? Every city has its own dynamics. Every city has its own culture and I mean you can imagine Cape Town, they’ve made their wealth by watching vines grow. They did. They watch fruit grow and they watch vines grow. And so, everything happens in its time and everything will happen in time. So, wait don’t worry don’t panic it’s going to happen. I wish that we would have that view about God’s blessing on our lives – don’t panic, wait it will happen you know, it will happen. It’s going to happen, be patient, and be at peace. Ja…
So, every city has a different dynamic. If you go to New York, New York has a certain dynamic about it. Los Angeles has a completely different dynamic about it. Their environment, weather, the places that it is, the reason it got started… many of those things come into play when you go to those cities. A couple of years ago we went to Hong Kong and I always had a desire to go to Hong Kong. Because I’ve read many things about Hong Kong and certainly when I did go to Hong Kong I was suitably impressed, I enjoyed the energy of Hong Kong, and I enjoyed the culture of Hong Kong. I wouldn’t want to go there now because it’s completely changed because communist China has taken a position that they are going to dictate Hong Kong.
So, the result of it is that huge amounts of money are leaving the stock exchanges and the capital is leaving Hong Kong and it’s going to places like Singapore and it is going to other places because the government energy is putting a lid on Hong Kong energy. Because it used to be a free hub of capital investment and growth. But that’s all changed now. If I talk like this, does it sound to you like I have a handle on big city life? I have a taste for it. I know what it is. I know how to work with it. Okay.
So, then God said to me, “I want you to go and live in Witbank.” Witbank. Witbank. That’s where people watch coal grow. Never mind vines grow. It’s where people watch coal grow. You know. It takes for ages and forever, you know. All that stuff. Well, I mean Witbank for many years of my life, Witbank was a place I just drove past as fast as I could on my way to the bush. It was. I mean it was just a town that was a marker of how close I was getting to the bush, you know.
So, when the Lord said, first of all, He wanted me to come preach here, then He wanted me to come and take the church here, and then eventually He said, “I want you to move here.” I obviously – immediately He placed in me the can-do so that I wasn’t longing for the energy of the city, but I was completely satisfied in the place that God was putting me and bringing me. But certainly, Witbank has a completely different set of values, culture, energies than Joburg or Pretoria or Cape Town.
Durban, on the other hand, is still a hundred years behind. They still live like the ships are coming into port and everybody’s going to trade off that ship. I mean, the Natal guys are like a whole different breed in this country. They are, you know. They watch for the surf because they want those big waves so that they can go surfing, and they live their life for the tides. You know, desert by the sea. The only fun that we can have is go hit the waves.
Anyway, you know – wherever God wants you to be, whatever nation, whatever city, whatever town, He’s got me and you there for a reason, for a purpose, for His design. That’s important for us to recognize that. Every nation, every city, every town has a culture, and it has its own way of going about things. If you go from one town or one city to another city and try and implement the things that you have traditionally learned from one city to another city, you will be frustrated.
There is a measure of, “Yes, I bring something to the city, I bring something to the town,” but then there is also a component where you say, “I must adapt to this place”, because if you don’t adapt, you’ll die, right? Because you will get so frustrated, you will see everything as negative, you will see everything as bad, and you will see everything that could be better based on other places that are doing it differently. And so you have to have an adapting capacity, which I know God will give all of us as we obey Him and do what He tells us to do.
So, when I came to Witbank, it became obvious to me that the church in Witbank for a long time has seen a lot of division. Certainly, when I came to Witbank and I came from Joburg, all the talk around Witbank was that I wouldn’t last two years, because that was the average lifespan of a big-city person, Pastor, preacher who came to Witbank to start a church, take a church, run a church. It was always the thing, they didn’t last more than two years, because they had a big-city mentality that they wanted to bring to Witbank, and they saw a scope for opportunity to change the church in Witbank. Because if you can bring big-city mentality, excellence, drive, all of those things that exist in a big city, and you bring that to a small town, you have a recipe for success, because all the other small-town churches are thinking small-town. So, if you can think big city in a small town, you have got an advantage.
So, what does that tell you about Pastors who take churches in Witbank? They are coming for the opportunity and the advantage they are not coming because God told them to come – so they didn’t last two years. Then I also discovered that the church in Witbank was an extremely divided church, and over the generations, there is, from the NG Kerk to the AGS Kerk to all of the different churches, they had split. There is Oos and Suid and Noord and wat-ookal and there is downtown Moeder Kerk and other Kerk and everything… and it’s like, so why did that church start? No, because Sinode didn’t agree with that Sinode, and so they had a different view of the way that they must run. And these guys, the Full Gospel church, they believe in baptism, and those guys don’t believe in this kind of baptism and the church was divided. I mean it’s divided everywhere but in Witbank, if you add the layer of the fact that pastors didn’t last two years, it was more complicated. So, that’ll tell you that there’s a spirit of division that is at work in Witbank.
So, when the Lord said I should come and move here after a number of 10-plus years of pastoring the church in Witbank, He had to do the work inside of me. I always knew this, that if God called me to pastor a church in Witbank it was never for a short time. It always was going to be something significant and it was always going to be long. To be fair though, I had my moments where out of frustration I wondered if God had really called me here and out of frustration, and I say that in the human sense, out of frustration I thought that there could be another way that we could do things in the church in Witbank. Well, then God had His say and He clearly wanted a different thing for Witbank.
So, I’m going to shift now from church life to economic life and as we spend time together, these two themes are going to come together, okay? So, if you go to New York and you go to London, I don’t think anybody will argue with you that those two cities are the centres of world finance. London and New York. For the most part, when people talk about significant moves of stock exchanges they will talk about the London Stock Exchange. They’ll talk about the New York Stock Exchanges. There are a couple in New York but essentially New York is known as the financial hub and London is known as the financial hub. There are others.
I’m not diminishing anything that happens on the Paris Stock Exchange or the German Stock Exchange or other stock exchanges around the world. I’m not diminishing that, but historically those two stock exchanges have represented, those two cities have represented wealth and the management of finance and the perspective of money. They have represented it.
So, if you go into America you will find in New York all of the headquarters of all of the big banks, all of the investment companies; JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan Bank. If you talk about Goldman Sachs, just Merrill Lynch, many of those organisations, their headquarters are in New York because it’s where the financial hub of the world has traditionally, the money has flowed into the US there. It’s been distributed, and managed from across America.
Of course long before that London was the trading hub of the world. Partly because England was a colonial-oriented country and imperialist by nature. So, many of the Commonwealth countries are called Commonwealth countries around the world, because they were countries that were taken over by England, they were managed by England, governed by England and eventually over time they were no longer governed by England and they got to be governed by themselves. But the Commonwealth is just a reflection of the centre of the trade world that was in London.
I mean if you go further back than that you would have arguments from people in Holland because if you refer to our history as a country, we had a lot to do with our development because of the Dutch-East-India Trading Company, which was essentially a shipping company that would trade goods from around the world. So, if you talk about an economic centre, Holland would say to you, “Well, we were a dominant Navy force over all of these years, a shipping force and that brought us wealth.” Of course, the Germans would also argue with you, because they’ve inhabited many colonies around the world and the French would too because they’ve inhabited many colonies. Are you with me still?
So, I want you to see for a minute that there is nothing that happens on the earth that is not influenced by spirits. So, if you look at the history of mankind, and you evaluate where wars have started and ended, and where economic powers have been evident, you will almost always see spirits that are at work. You will see religious spirits at work. You will see the spirit of greed is at work. You will see great pride and egos are very dominant. For the most part, kings and governments go to war because they want resources or they want to dominate because their pride or their national image has been affected. By and large, are you enjoying this history lesson? Yes. Okay, good.
So I want to say to you that when people nowadays when they talk about a globalist mentality, that a globalist mentality is not a new mentality. This has come from a spirit from a long time ago that wants to rule the earth, dominate the earth and subject all men on the earth to the spirit of antichrist. Meaning the devil, the spirit of antichrist. So, when people talk to you and say, “We need to have a globalist mentality” because a globalist mentality talks about free trade internationally, it talks about free trade amongst nations, it talks about creating policies and rules and having philosophies that will allow us to have a global currency mentality, a global trade agreement, a global interdependence of economies and trade and different things that will work together. Globalist mentality is a very real philosophy that is trying to dominate the earth right now. Do you know this? I’m not telling you something new you don’t know, right? It’s a globalist mentality.
This spirit that’s at work here is not a new spirit. Why is a globalist mentality such a thing? Well, it comes from a long time back, whether it’s an imperialist nation, a colonial-driven nation. I don’t want to talk too much about the history of South Africa, but the history of South Africa is that you have these Dutchmen who arrive in the Cape. Then there’s a war that happens and they govern the Cape, Dutch-East-India Trading Company. They needed a place to stop, resupply their ships, supply their ships, and everything, so they started what is now called the Cape. In those days they called it the Cape of Good Hope. That’s why you have a fought system in the Cape of Good Hope because they needed to protect themselves from other shipping organisations that wanted to come and pirate and take their wealth that was on the ships.
In Europe there’s a war, there’s a war between England and Holland, over what? Territory disputes, wealth disputes, there’s a war. England Navy beat the Dutch Navy and so when they beat the Dutch Navy, they took control of all of the Dutch colonies, one of those Dutch colonies was South Africa – The Cape of Good Hope. Once there was a Dutch governor. How many of you remember Afrikaans history? Who was the first one? Jan van Riebeek.
He was the first colonial, Dutch colonial governor. So, when the war happened in Europe, the next minute there was a new governor that came in and one of the most famous ones was Lord? (Pastor John interacting with the church) Say? Lord Kitchener was more of a military man but, but Somerset. Lord Somerset was the one that really made a move so that’s why you have Somerset West. All of those places because Lord Somerset was one of those. There were many. There were many that actually came here but some made a bigger mark than others. Now you’re learning some history. Again.
So, the reason the English now came to the Cape is because there was a war in Europe and now suddenly this very prized place on the bottom of Africa became a valued shipping lane that would provide a lot of things for people. How many of you know that there is currently a war going on and the Houthis have been bombing and shelling ships and trying to pirate ships in the Red Sea and many, many of the world’s shipping lanes are now coming around the Cape because they don’t want to be targeted by the Houthis. Anyway, this is not a new spirit. This is not a new spirit. This has been going on since the ages of men.
So, if you are having conversations with people and you have a conversation and they say, “Are you a globalist or are you a nationalist?” Then what they’re trying to say to you is that you think more about your own country and the development of your country and all of the government of your country whereas we think bigger than just one country, we think globalist. So, anybody that comes to you and talks to you about globalist and globalism, they’re trying to intimidate you or perhaps impress you with their thinking of how big they think that we have to be global in our thought. We have to be global in our way that we operate. In some way, they’re trying to tell you that if you’re a nationalist, you are inferior in your thinking because you are only focused on your local world. And so you put your local world ahead of a grand big plan that everybody needs to be part of.
I’ll tell you what they don’t realize is that once you’ve handed over power to globalists, the globalists will control you from a global perspective and you become very little in the scheme of things. You become a very small, small player in a globalist’s mind, and so unless you’re in that economic zone, and that power zone of influencing global agendas, you will always be a pawn. You will always be nothing. Whereas if you have a nationalist mentality and you have a culture that you go with and you’re involved with, you have some say. I’m not promoting one or another. I’m just putting the pros and cons to you.
Then, of course, you have tribalists. Now, you might say, “Well, Pastor John, why are you bringing tribalism into this thing?” Because tribalism is not an African thing. It’s not about whether you’re Zulu or Sutu or Xhosa or Pedi or anything like that. It’s not an African thing. It’s not the tribes of Africans. So, when people, certainly in our context, when we talk about tribalism, we tend to think about tribes. But actually, tribalism is as big in India as it is anywhere else because their tribalism is based on cultural norms that are largely based on religious norms.
I’ve got news for you. America is full of tribalism and it’s not the Indian tribes either. If you go to California, Californians think they’re a completely different tribe to the rest of America. They do. And if you go to New York, they will tell you, “We New Yorkers, we’re tough, we are robust, we can handle things.” And they have this whole speech that is the “New York way.” What does that sound to you like? It’s tribalism. And then if you talk more broadly in America, they will talk to you about the American South and the American North, and they have different ways of talking to you. So, to some extent, the states reflected tribalism, but it’s been blurred over the years, but it’s still there. Tribalism is everywhere.
So, what has more impact on your life? Tribalism, nationalism, or globalism? What’s the thing that has the biggest impact on your life? Well, I’d like to say that 50 to 100 years ago, I would have said tribalism and nationalism would have had the biggest impact on our lives, but in recent years, globalism has become a very big player in our lives. How many of you know that when the dollar is strong, the rand, generally speaking, gets weaker? How many of you know that when the oil price goes up somewhere else in the world, our fuel price goes up? We have nothing to do with how many barrels of oil they actually decide to bring out of the ground every month, but what they decide somewhere in the Middle East and America when America shut down all of its oil pipelines and all of its drilling and all of that kind of stuff, the price of oil and gas and everything started to change. Didn’t inflation change because of just that one factor? But there were many factors, but didn’t that change? So, globalism is something we’re going to have to live with, but we must not ignore the fact that nationalism and tribalism has an effect on us.
So, Pastor John, why are you talking about all of this and putting this to us today when you’re talking about kingdom economics and ecclesia economics? Well, I’m going to read you some Scriptures in just a little while, and you have to bear with me as I lay the foundation of everything I’m going to talk about because if I just bring the Word to you, you leave here and your mind goes to these questions that I’m talking, giving you information about, but you won’t necessarily look at it from this perspective that I’m giving you today, so you just find one way of looking at it, which is your way. If I bring you a context, then it helps you absorb the information, get revelation, and then make choices that you need to make based on what you get from the Lord. Amen.
So, I’m sure about this thing, that my revelations that I live by are not necessarily yours. It’s always been the biggest challenge for me when people come to me and they say to me, “Pastor John, we want to give this thing away.” I’ve had people come to me who are, let’s just say, less established in life, and they have a small asset base. I’m talking about young, young people. They have a small asset base, and let’s say their asset base is made up of a bicycle, a car, and that’s it. A few little bits and pieces. Then they come to me and they say, “We want to give our bicycle away as a seed.” And I say, “Really? Do you know you’re giving half your asset base away or more because bicycles are not cheap?” Right.
So, if you’re a young person, let’s just say you’re below the age of 23 and you have a car and you have a bicycle and your car is a secondhand car and it’s worth R100,000. and you have a bicycle and it’s worth R50,000. Now you want to give your bicycle away. You come to me and say, “Pastor John, I want to give my bicycle away.” I say, “You do?” “Yes”. “Do you understand what you’re doing?” “I do.” Here’s what I can’t evaluate, is I can’t evaluate at the level of faith.
What I’m hearing is revelation. What I’m hearing is application, but I have no assessment and I can’t make a judgment. So, inevitably what I do, if they come and ask me these questions, and I’m always pleased they do because it means that they are evaluating their own condition of their heart. They’re taking time to make decisions and that’s important to have people speak into your life. Inevitably what I’ll do is I’ll say, “Give me a week or give me some time to pray about it and to think about it.” There are two parts to it. The one thing is I’m asking the Lord, is there anything I need to know what’s happening here that might not be faith, might not be a revelation, might not be something else? It might be a desire to do something, but their faith level is not in line with their seed.
So, contrary to what most people might think, that I’m just happy for resources to be swapping hands. I’ve never done or been like that. It’s always been you need to do what’s important for you and your next walk with God and your next step of faith and then I will inevitably begin to hear a sound that comes from that person. The sound might be I have an urgency, I have a desire, I have a need, I want to do this. My faith is out there. I want to do this. God is working on me. I hear that sound. I recognize it’s in the heart because the mind and the words are in alignment with what’s in their heart. I have more confidence. Oftentimes it will also be how long have you been in the church. How long have you been hearing the faith message?
And if there’s a congruence in that, then I would have some general agreement that maybe their faith is at the level. But how many of you know, I can never ever evaluate somebody’s faith level? At the same time, I can never evaluate your revelation. Because you might regurgitate words back to me that I have spoken, and those words that you give back to me that I’ve spoken might be words that I’m familiar with but it doesn’t mean to say that you have a revelation of what you’re saying back to me. And at the end, a revelation only becomes your revelation when you say I’m going to take this Word and I’m going to live this Word, then it becomes revelation. If it’s not revelation, then it’s only information, and information is never going to change your life. It’s just going to get more knowledge in your head but information will never change your life. It’s only revelation that will change your life. Amen.
And as I read the scriptures to you now, I’m trusting that you will hear that wherever I read the scripture, there’s a word that keeps coming out and it’s the word called ‘truth’. Because there’s only one place where truth can be found. It’s not globalism, it’s not nationalism, it’s not tribalism, it’s not culture, it’s not human understanding of economics or finance or anything else, it’s truth. And Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” There is no other. That’s it. Okay. I need to read some scripture to you and I trust you’ll bear with me as I read the Bible to you, just for a little bit. Colossians 1, verse 9. I’ve been ministering on this on my Crossover Moments, I’ve been ministering on Colossians 1, verse 13. But I’m just going to read the whole scripture to you. 9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will. What’s he praying? That you will have a revelation of what His will is. …in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That’s what revelation is; spiritual understanding. 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10, NKJV). How many of you know, he’s not talking about the fact that you read the Bible and I get to know about God. It’s getting to know God.
11 Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. If you talk words like ‘partaking’ and ‘inheritance,’ those are rich words, because it’s a participation. It’s an act of participation and inheritance is something that you didn’t deserve that someone else gave you. Right? It’s just something you received. So you get to partake of something that you didn’t earn that you just received. You can’t enjoy inheritance if you don’t receive it. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. That’s been our foundation scripture for every crossover moments, every morning. 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood.
If you’re not watching crossover moments in the morning or during the day, I’m coming to look for you. I’m coming to look for you. I’m going to come and question you. What did I say? Ah, well, let me think, Pastor John. 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
It’s important for us to recognize that He is the head of the body, the church. The church. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:11-23 NKJV.)
So, over the last days that I have been ministering, I am going to read Colossians 1 verse 13 from the Amplified. 13 [The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. (Colossians 1:13 AMPC).
So, He has taken us out of the control of a domain. If you have dominion it means there is a domain, it is an area, out of the domain of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Darkness and light can not co-exist, you are either in one or the other. I have been reading to you, if you follow Morning Moments or Crossover Moments, from the Passion Translation, and 13 He has rescued us completely from the tyrannical rule of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom realm of His beloved Son. Colossians 1:13 (TPT).
Make no mistake everything that happens in darkness is tyrannical. In other words, it is designed to rule you. Make no mistake, everything that is in the darkness is designed to rule you, to control you, to determine an outcome that you did not choose, that darkness has chosen for you. If I switched off all the lights here in the auditorium and we had to sit in darkness, there are all manner of things that can happen in darkness that wouldn’t normally happen in the light. It is.
I mean I could take the opportunity knowing where Brynn was, and I just walk up to him and just give him a slap through the face. Shall we switch off the lights quickly [Pastor John laughing] and all of you sitting in the dark might hear [Hands slapping sound], maybe a bit louder. Hey, what happened? What happened? And that in itself; is just that sound that creates what happened. That doesn’t sound good. Don’t want it to happen to me. What would I have to do to protect myself? All manner of things happen in darkness and they are self-created, but they are designed to rule you.
I am going to read verses 13 and 14 of Colossians 1, from the Message Translation. 13 God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, 14 the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating. (1 Colossians 1:13-14 MSG)
So, I’m just going to remind you that we read the Scripture in verses 17 and 18, verse 18 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead… (1 Colossians 1:17 NKJV) that word church, if you read it in a King James or a New King James Bible that word church, most people will read it as assembly. But if you read it in Greek, the word church is ecclesia.
So, on my notes here I have a strongs dictionary definition of ecclesia. And it actually comes from two different words. Two different root words but essentially it can mean an assembly, a gathering of people. It essentially means a gathering of people. By the very fact that people come together, it is called an assembly. It’s called a gathering. Okay?
But that’s not what was described what was happening. Because what was happening is that on any given day in a town or a city, on any given day there would be a cry that would be to go out and the cry that would go out is, “You are hereby called to come to the assembly. You are hereby called to come and debate the topics of the day. You are hereby called to come and debate on matters of governance. You are hereby called to come on the list today is the trade between our city and the next city. You are hereby called to come and talk and be part of the council that is going to decide on the access of all the farmers into the city and where they should sell their goods.”
So, you are calling an assembly. But you are not just calling people to get together. You’re calling a people to come and listen to a council of people that would say, “We think that actually the farmers coming into this city only use one gate and so the people on the otherside of the city never gets to see that… and it’s going to deteriorate the one gate access and it’s going to cause us other problems so we want the farmers that are from the north to come in the north gate and so we have to widen that gate and we have to close up that gate and this gate so that we can have controlled access.” Right?
So, that was Ecclesia. It was a word that was used in contemporary life where people would be called to come to council, to come make decisions and debate on what’s the right choice and the right decision to make for the city. So, when people like the apostle Paul and others are using the word ecclesia, they are not talking about, “Hey guys, it’s time to get together to worship. It’s time to get together to sing songs. It’s time to get together to come and have a Bible reading.” When he’s talking about the Church, he says, “You, I’m calling you from your ordinary life, from your ordinary way of doing things, from the way that you ordinarily live your life and come and sit in the council of decision-making for the Church.” Haha.
So, John chapter 18, I’m going to finish this session with this set of scriptures and then we’ll have a break. I’ve covered a lot of good ground so far and there’s a lot of more interesting things still to come. I will be talking about inflation. I will be talking about other things and how it applies to our world. Jesus is standing before a king, an earthly governor who is about to decide on the fate of His future. His name is Pilate and they’re having a conversation and Jesus, John 18 verse 36, 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. Notice what Jesus said. He didn’t say, “I am a king.” He said, “You say rightly I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all (John 18:36-38 NKJV).
Well, can you see what’s happening in this discourse between Pilate and Jesus? This conversation is about domains. If you say you’re a king, which domain are you king of? Because everybody that’s a king must have a domain because he would have dominion in his domain. That’s why kings have domains, and dominions, right? So, Pilate wanted to know, “So, if You’re a king, where’s Your domain? What part of this world are You a king of?” And Jesus said, “I’ve come to bear witness to the truth, that’s My domain; truth.” And so Pilate is, “Okay, this is a weird answer because nobody says I’m a king of truth. I am a king of Caesarea or I’m a king of Rome or I’m the king of Egypt or I’m the king of … You have no place that you call Yourself a king of.” And yet Jesus said to him, “You rightly say I am a king because I’ve come to bear witness to the truth. My kingdom is of truth, it’s not of this world because if My kingdom was in this worldly realm, the people that live in this world would fight for My kingdom. So, what I stand for doesn’t require fighting – not in your sense – what I stand for is truth.”
In the Passion Translation, verse 36, John 18:36 says it like this, 36 Jesus looked at Pilate and said, “The royal power of my kingdom realm doesn’t come from this world. If it did, then my followers would be fighting to the end to defend me from the Jewish leaders. My kingdom realm authority is not from this realm.” (John 18:36 TPT). Hey, come on, this should already be good news to you because I can stand in front of the kings of this earth, financial systems, all the different systems of this world, I can stand in front of them and say, “I am not of this realm. I am of the realm of truth. I come from a king who’s the authority of the realm of truth. Therefore, I stand in front of the realm of economics and finances and I declare my realm of truth.” I’m just using one part today because this is what we focused on.
Can I read this to you in the Message Translation and then we’ll take a break? Verse 36 in the Message Translation. 36 “My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.” 37 Then Pilate said, “So, are you a king or not?” Jesus answered, “You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice.” (John 18:36-37 MSG).
Okay, now we’re getting down to the crux of everything because there are different voices. There’s a globalism voice, there’s a nationalism voice, there’s a tribalism voice. There’s a voice that says, “This is the substance of how the world kingdoms run. This is the economic systems that run the kingdom of the earth.” Jesus says, “I am not from this kingdom. If I were from this kingdom, My followers would fight to establish My kingdom. But since I’m not from here, I’m from a different realm, I’ve come to represent My realm – it’s the realm of truth.”
If you and I keep talking back to this kingdom realm of economics, the realm of economic information and all our decision-making is based on economic information that this world gives us, then we are letting them dictate to us their kingdom focus. We are just neglecting to stand up for the truth that is our inheritance. Until we stand up for the truth that is our inheritance, we cannot walk in the freedom of the truth. We will always walk in the realm of what this kingdom says. Now remember when I started, I talked to you about economics and I said economics is the management of scarcity. What is the truth that Jesus comes with from that realm? What is His truth? No scarcity. Absolute abundance. Silver and gold is Mine. The fullness of the earth and everything that’s in it is Mine. Who made it? Who made it? God made it.
So, who owns it? God. Who is influencing it so that they have the authority over it? The devil. That’s the only way that he can control the financial systems of the world; is to get men to believe that they have no authority, that the authority is with an elite group of people that have money, that have power and they want to dictate to us how to live our lives because they want our energy to feed their future. They want our gifting that God has given us to feed their future. And I’m not just talking about Christians, I’m talking about humanity. They want the masses of humanity’s energy and giftings and all of their creativity. They want that energy to feed their future. They are not interested in your freedom.
So, they, and I’ll use this as a segway into the next meeting, into the next session, they will tell you that you have a right to a future who you vote for. So you think the be-all and the end-all democratic right is who you vote for? They have appeased the world by saying; as long as you have a democratically elected government, you’re on the right track. We give you a tick.
When we come back, I’ll use this as an opportunity to talk to you why the World Economic Forum doesn’t like dictatorship, that’s a governing country dictatorship. They want dictatorship to be through economics. They want all of the boundaries of geographic control to be bowing to a one-world system of economic government because it will control everything in your life. Then governments have no say. I’ve got news for you, when you come back I’ll tell you, that your government has very little say as it is. And all of that stuff you think is coming your way, sorry. Sorry.
Did you get something out of this? 11 o’clock let’s go again. 15 minutes, is that good for you? Amen.
Session 2
Scripture reference: John 17:6-23 (NKJV), John 17:15-16 (TPT); John 17:18-19 (AMPC); John 14:10-21 (AMPC); John 14:10-21 (TPT); Philippians 3:20 (NKJV); Philippians 3:20 (TPT); Phipippians 3:20 (MSG); Ephesians 4:11 (NLT)
You people are wonderful and amazing. I’m happy to say that you are my people, I am your people, you are my people, we are our people, Hallelujah. Thank you. Well, you know, I mean you guys when I think of you, I always think of you with great affection and fondness because you guys are amazing, amazing, wonderful people. I really do believe that we have the best church in the whole world, the whole world. There are no other people like these people. There might be other good people somewhere else, but not like you and all of those people that come from other parts of the world that come here, they think the same. A lot of them say, “If we had an opportunity we’d come and live here.” They do. Julle is goeie mense ne (You are good people) Afrikaans sê, julle is gawe mense (Afrikaans says, we are good kind people) Praise the Lord. Are you ready?
I’m going to talk a little bit about governments in a moment but I’m just going to read to you John chapter 17 verse 6 to 23. It’s a big passage of scripture here, Jesus is speaking to the Father and He says to the Father 6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, they are always His, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. 8 For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. 9“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. 10 And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I 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. (John 17:8-14)
Would you say this with me please – I am not of this world. This is a very important revelation that you and I must eventually get to, that we are not of this world. Our kingdom realm is not this world, and whatever pleasure and joy we might have in certain aspects of this earth and this world, we are not of this world. Verse 15, 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. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me (John 17:15-23 NKJV).
I’m going to read verses 15 and 16 from the Passion translation. 15 I am not asking that you remove them from the world, but I ask that you guard their hearts from evil, 16 For they no longer belong to this world any more than I do (John 17:15-16 TPT). So, I have a question for you; do you think Jesus had to leave this earth to make this prayer? He was in the flesh on this earth when He prayed this prayer, He had not yet died and He had not yet been crucified and risen from the dead, right? So, when He says, “I’m not of this world and neither will they be.” Then He was talking from a position that even while He was living in the flesh on this world, He’s not of the world. He was making that point to Pontius Pilate, He was saying, “My kingdom is not of this world, it’s the kingdom of Truth.”
The Amplified Bible is a little more complicated but it needs to be read Verse 18 of John chapter 17. 18 Just as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify (dedicate, consecrate) Myself, that they also may be sanctified (dedicated, consecrated, made holy) in the Truth. (John 17:18-19 AMPC)
So, what is the realm that we are supposed to live in? Is it not the realm of Truth? Jesus is saying, “I sanctified, I consecrated, I dedicated Myself to living in the Truth while in this world. So, I can honestly say, I’m not of this world even though I’ve been living in this world, I’m not of this world because I live in Truth. I live from a realm that is above this world and I live in this world with a different realm.” Now I ask you; if Jesus could do it, do you think we can? Because He showed us how. So, Jesus is saying, “I’m not in this world, I’m not of this world and He prays for His disciples saying, I’m not asking that the Lord take you out of this world. Why could He not pray that prayer? Because if He prayed that prayer, the only way that God could have taken them out of the world is that they would have to die. There would be no other thing, but He was saying, I’m not asking you to kill them or to take them to You permanently. I’m asking to protect their hearts from the evil one, protect their ways from the evil ways. That they may live in truth as I have lived in truth. Yes?
Okay, are you ready? Are you sure? Praise the Lord. Economics. Economics; It’s the study of scarcity and the implications of the use of resources. Production of goods and services, growth of production and welfare over time and a great variety of other complex issues of vital concern to society. Managing scarcity. What’s the truth of God? Abundance, no scarcity. Which realm do you want to live in? The realm of abundance and no scarcity, or the realm of scarcity? So, then the only way to live in abundance is to live in truth? Yes.
So, bear with me now. I’ve given you a little bit of a history lesson in the first session. So, now we’re going to talk a little bit about money. How many of you know that South Africa, when a new government, a representative government of the people took over South Africa about 25 years ago, a little less than that but just let’s say that. South Africa’s economy in terms of how much money we had and how much we could pay off debt and the state of our services that we provided to the people was in a reasonably good condition. We were able to pay our debts as a government because we had decided to take the high road and include everybody in a voting system. The world began to smile at South Africa. So, currencies were opened up, and trade was opening up. The world began to see us as a good society because we now allowed everybody to vote.
So, we had a different government take over. I will say that in the 25 years since the new government has taken over a large majority of our institutions have declined and are at the point of failure. They’re just hovering around the place of failure, completely collapsing. Our government is doing whatever it can to try and stop the corruption from destroying our way of living completely. So, we have a fairly negative view of the way South Africa is as a society. Just generally. If you will talk to people across the board, they will generally say they’re dissatisfied with services, they’re dissatisfied with power. You don’t have to be rich or poor, everybody is in the same boat. If you don’t have power, if you don’t have health services, if you don’t have services generally speaking you are being affected. Amen.
The same applies to other countries in the world. Other countries in the world have got major, major challenges, major problems. There is no country in the world that doesn’t have problems. Just the level of corruption and the level of degradation is the only thing that you can begin to talk about and measure on. There are some countries that are quite successful in the way that they have a culture and a society. So, for example, Singapore is a country but it’s actually just a city, and it has a very good system of managing its people, and the people by and large are very compliant people. They love the law and as a result of that the government is actually able to do its job and by and large those people buy into that form of government and they want that form of government. So, what they want and what they’re getting is very close together so it’s a very well-maintained society. There are a few of them around the world like that. I suspect that Switzerland is in that same category, and there are a few other societies around the world that have that kind of system. But by and large, the majority of the countries on the earth are wrestling with cultural issues, they’re wrestling with economic issues, they’re wrestling with governing issues, they’re wrestling with immigration of foreigners into their countries. Around the world, this is a problem.
What is the most valuable resource that the earth has? What is the most valuable resource that the earth has? Is it not people? Huh? Is it not people? Can you tell me what is the biggest sin that is being perpetuated against people? Abortion. Abortion, it’s a big sin. It’s a big issue. It’s not just one country or a few countries that have this great sin. It’s most countries on the earth have this great sin. If people are the greatest resource that the earth has, what is it about people that is so desirable? Is it not the energy that they have? Is it not their skill? Is it not their labour? Their creativity? What they can bring to the earth? I don’t subscribe to the way he thinks. But Elon Musk thinks that people should have a lot more children. He’s hard at work to make that happen all by himself. He has 10 kids from 10 different women. I suppose he’s trying to improve the genetic pool, I suppose I don’t know, but he has 10 kids from different women.
He is of the opinion that the earth needs a thousand more Einsteins. So, that the earth can change its course and its direction because of the genius and the brilliance of people that are yet to be born. If there are more people that would get born on the earth. There would be more genius on the earth and the more genius there is, the more solutions we can bring to the earth because genius and creativity will bring those solutions to the earth. In that sense, he’s not wrong. It is the essence of the human being that the human being is genius. God gave intellect, creativity, and all things to humans. So, when humans are born, we bring something to the earth. If we’re killing off our geniuses, then we don’t have a future. So, in that sense, he’s not wrong. But he’s wrong in the way that he thinks about things.
So, if humans are the biggest resource on the earth, then it is also the place where worship is going to be the biggest thing that everybody’s going to be looking for. So, people bring energy, they bring creativity, they bring resources to the earth, but they also bring a desire. They bring a desire for purpose, they bring a desire for assignment. They bring a desire for activity, they bring a desire for work because those things that are in the humans are put there by God. So, these resources that are in humans are highly desirable. They’re not just desirable to other humans, they’re also desirable to spirits.
So, evil spirits around that have lived with men for centuries now. Evil spirits desire and want to be around men because men can give desire to them. The more men give their desire to spirits, the more they revel in the worship of the desire. The desire is the worship. If you don’t have a desire to worship God, then I question whether you love God because then you don’t know God, that He is worthy of worship. How do I worship God every day? I express my gratitude to Him. I express my thanks to Him. I express my adoration and my love for Him, appreciation for Him. I also receive what He says to me about Him, so that I can be more like Him. Right? That’s how I express myself to Him. That’s how I worship Him.
Well, how do other human beings express their worship of idols? How do other human beings express their worship for other things? What they do is they have a desire and they give expression to their desire. So, how does that happen? Through words and through actions. They talk about stuff. They do stuff that indicates their desire. If you give your desire through worship to God, then God says, “My abundance, My everything that I am, is yours. It’s your inheritance”. If you give your desire to the worship of idols, if you give your desire to the worship of things that you desire to have, then you are worshipping darkness. You won’t say that, no one says that. No one actually will acknowledge it, but the more you give yourself to the desire of other things, the more you are not worshipping God, but the things. The creation, the creatures. You worship those things.
So, if you are an antichrist spirit, which means you are a spirit that is against God, if you are an antichrist spirit, then your whole eternal drive is to have the worship of men. Now if you just go around and say I’m going to get men to worship me, if you are a spirit, and they get to see who you are, well they’re just going to say, “No.” Because if you reveal yourself if you are a spirit, then you will be revealing your intention to steal, kill and to destroy. They are not going to reveal themselves. So, what do they do? They mask themselves. So, what are the masks that are in the world today? Well, there is a mask that is the security and the benefit of money, and this is our subject today. So, this is what we are talking about more than any other thing. So, please don’t get this bent out of shape. This applies to lots of other spiritual things, but I’m just focusing on money today, okay?
So, money is a mask and all of the things that relate to money are going to look like this is of benefit, and this is what we must have, and this is what we must pursue. Why? Because money is scarce. Just hear the line now: Money is scarce. So, the more you have of it, the more you are able to combat scarcity. So, the worst thing that you can have in your life is scarcity because you never know what scarcity might bring you. If you are afraid of scarcity, what is ruling you? Fear. It’s this whole mentality, I must get more so that I don’t find myself without. An entire system has been designed to deal with this one thing.
In times gone by, how did they value money? They valued money originally by how much silver and gold you had. So, the amount of money that you could exchange would be dependent on the reserves of gold and silver that you had. At some point in time, economic theorists and people that brought up theories to change money management systems said, ”We are not going to make hard assets the basis of our future. We are going to measure money in something else.” So, what they did was, they said “We’re going to measure money based on the ability to manage scarcity.” Essentially that’s what it was. So, they’re going to manage it on the basis of any country or any person’s ability to repay any given money. So, a whole credit system was born based on a person’s ability to repay money and a country’s ability to repay money. Are you all with me?
So, the world started to evolve and they said, “Why do you want to wait until you are much older, until you’ve worked really hard and you’ve paid rent and you’ve paid other people, till you get to a place where you have enough money to buy a house, to buy things? We will give you credit to buy things then you can live at a standard and you just take the time that you would have paid to save it, you will just take the time to pay it back.” So, what is the thing that’s driving you? Desire to have things so that you don’t have scarcity. Yes? It’s the desire, it’s the desire. So, now people want to buy things. People want to buy things, governments want to buy things. People are now more demanding on governments because governments have to keep pace with everything that’s happening around the world. So, now governments have to have more job opportunities, they have to create growth, they have to create productivity, they’ve got to create all these things.
So, now in times past governments would actually say and if you take any government you’ll have a party that’s in power and you’ll have an opposition party and one of them wants to be in power. So, predominantly in times past people would say, “Vote for us because we have a better solution for you on how we’re going to run the economy.” I’m going to just speak in general terms. So, if you go into marginal issues here, you will find a counterargument. Not that I can’t talk to you about it. It’s just I don’t have time to go into those details. Are you all with me? Just in general, broad terms, people would say, “We are going to make sure that we spend, as a government, we’re going to spend money based on what we produce as a country. We’re not going to borrow money.” The other side of the equation is, “We’ll borrow money to stimulate growth, then when the growth comes we’ll pay the money back.” But government is one of the most inefficient, if not the most inefficient way of managing money on the planet. Because inherently, government is self-serving. It’s not people-serving. They will make it sound like they are people-serving and to some extent, they must be otherwise they will lose power. So, they must provide services, but they want to keep in power to provide services. Government also becomes a very big source of employment. So, it feeds itself and it feeds the economy, and it keeps things working that way.
As globalism began to come into the world, globalism began to affect currencies and it began to affect the way people see trade around the world. To a large extent people began to say, “If we want to grow our country we have to export, and if we want to get better services, we need to import things that are cheaper than we can make for ourselves.” So, the basis of export and import became a very big factor in governments, and so you become a trading partner to the rest of the world, and your credibility as a trading partner becomes everything. Are you all with me? To this extent, governments have a role to play. As this system began to develop and mature, there were trading blocks that began to say the US dollar, for example, has too much power in the earth’s economy. So, the European Union, for example, came together, because they wanted to be an economic block that could be of a similar kind of influence to the USA. Then you have other co-operations of countries that would come together to create alternative economic opportunities. How many of you know of one that’s recently… it’s a more modern economic block, that’s trying to be an influence in the earth? BRICS and the BRICS is an attempt to have a coalition of countries that will be an alternative trading partner to what America’s economic system is to what the European economic system is, etc. You’re with me.
So, this is a globalist mentality that if we’re going to trade globally, we’ve got to have protection against certain forces in the global mentality. We’ve got to have a better foundation and springboard so that we have more influence, better leverage in the future. What is the one thing that will always hinder economic growth? Is it not war? There are some industries that actually will say to you we love war. Well, those are the people that make ammunition, and they make military things and they grow wealthy on war. Right? So, over the years you will see when world wars have happened and when big wars have happened the world’s economies really struggle because people are spending money on wars rather than spending money on growth.
The world doesn’t like war, people don’t like war. Governments and leaders like war but people don’t like war. How many of you like war? No, no one likes war because war creates devastation. It’s really bad but governments like war and ideologies like wars and philosophies like wars. So, out of all of these things over the years if you remember I was talking to you about colonialism and imperialism and this thing is not even a thing that’s happened over the last 300 years. This thing goes back to the Egyptians, it goes back to the Romans, it goes back to Genghis Khan and all of those guys. The desire to dominate the world and to be the biggest and the only cultural influence and economic influence on the earth is a spirit thing. It goes back forever.
So, just bear with me as I move along on what I’m going to say now. Over the years, government has been the supply of currency, so when you are in South Africa, South Africa’s government will print Rand currency and they will print the Rand currency, equal to what it’s able to evaluate as the strength of its currency. It used to be gold, it’s now based on our ability as an industry, and various things that we have as a country. Certainly minerals and things that are in the country provide us with a base of what our economy is valued at. So, our ability to have an income and to produce an ongoing generated income. So, now we have this currency. Our currency has relative capacity within ourselves. But our challenge gets to the point where we want to import goods and pay for goods and so other countries in the world say, “Well we don’t want your Rand.” “Well, why don’t you want our Rand?” “Well, your Rand doesn’t have much value in our country. So, let’s agree to exchange on a mutual currency that we all agree on.” It’s been the dollar. So, my Rand will buy so many dollars. You want so many dollars for your goods. We all exchange on the dollar.
What’s the dollar based on? The dollar is based on the power of the American economy and the ability of the American economy to uphold the strength of the dollar. Right? So, now we’re getting firmly into moving from nationalism to globalism and the trade around the globe. So, the American economy has a big influence on everything that happens around the world. China hates it. Other countries hate it because Americans if they can’t tell you what to do through force, they will tell you what to do through the power of their dollar. Yeah. Now what happens if America is making decisions in its government and its way of doing things? What happens when they’re making decisions? Their decisions affect the world because everybody’s trading on dollars.
In the last 15 to 20 years, America’s budget deficit, or the debt that they are making, has gone from about, you can correct me with the figures depending on the age here, but it’s about 5 trillion dollars in debt with an economy that was generating approximately, inflation has to be taken into account here. But let’s say over that 20-year period their economy was generating anything from 25 to 30 trillion dollars. They had 5 trillion dollars debt. They were generating between 25 and 30 trillion dollars. If you got 5 trillion dollars debt, and you’re generating 20 to 30 trillion dollars, you can see how easy it would be to pay the debt back. But the government in America, because it has such a quick political cycle the next politicians always want to get into power. So, they’re always making compromising decisions about paying debt back, versus making sure that their country’s people are living a lifestyle that would want to vote their government back into power.
In the last 20 years, 15 to 20 years America’s debt has gone from 5 trillion dollars to 33 trillion dollars. What’s their GDP right now? America’s GDP is 33 trillion dollars. Every year their debt is going up by 1 trillion dollars. If they spend no more money their debt increases by 1 trillion dollars for what? Interest payment on 33 trillion dollars of debt.
So, let me put it to you this way, if you want to go and buy a house, you go to the bank for money and you want to buy a house, they will ask you to please give them a balance sheet, an income and an expenses. They will say, “Okay, you want to borrow money to buy the house.” They won’t give you more than about 25% of the income that you have as a repayment on the home loan that you’re going to get. Right? Because they say if you’re paying 25% on your home loan that’s about average of what you should be paying based on all of your expenses that you have in a month. So, if we give you more money that you have to repay, you won’t be able to repay it. What happens if you can’t repay it? They come and fetch your home. So, if you think your home belongs to you, it doesn’t. If you just don’t make a payment, you’ll find out quickly who owns your house. Because after about three months, they might go through a process and say, “Let’s try and restructure your debt. Let’s try and see if we can.” If you go another three or four or six months, eventually they’re going to say, “Sorry, you have to leave your house. We have to resell the house so that we can get our money back that we’ve invested in you.” Right?
So, what happens when a government can’t pay its debt? The first thing that happens when a government can’t pay its debt, is that credit agencies, for whatever they are – credit agencies of government, start to degrade or downgrade their rating. What does that do? It says, “You’re becoming an increasing risk.” The higher your risk, the more money you have to pay. The more interest you have to pay when you borrow money. I ask you, what is South Africa’s credit rating right now? Is it not officially junk status? So, what does it mean if your credit rating is junk status? It means if you as a government want to borrow money you are going to pay interest on that money at a fairly high level.
What happened to America when COVID happened? Suddenly there’s no economic engine happening. People are staying at home. People are not travelling. Hotels, industries, entertainment people, no one’s making money. Everybody’s staying at home. I mean there’s still being money made but it’s at a much lower level. So, what does America do? They say, “We have to fix this problem.” So, we’re going to give everybody money from the government so that they can continue to live and spend money. Where does the government get money from? They print it. That’s what America did. It printed money to give to the people. So, what happens if you just print money? What’s the basis of printing more money? It’s not gold anymore. Although America has the largest gold reserves – well, one of the largest gold reserves on the planet. It’s not just gold reserves, it’s based on the strength of the economy.
The more money you print and the more money you put into the system; and people have this money in their hands, and they want to buy stuff. Now there’s no goods to give them. So, they have to import goods. First of all, there’s all this money and they’ve got nothing to spend it on and they’re going to spend it on their lifestyle and they’re going to spend it on things. Eventually, they get to spend the money and as they’re spending the money there’s a demand for more goods. The more goods that come into the country, the more goods that they have to provide for the people to spend the money, the more the system is flush with all this extra cash. What happens is the value of the money starts to deteriorate. People have to say, “Wait a minute, we’ve got a problem here. There’s a mismatch between goods and services and how much money there is in the system. So, we’ve got to stop the people from spending.” So, they up interest rates. Yes?
I’m just giving you a little bit here. Just bear with me, I’m not trying to give you an economic lesson. I’m helping you to get context. So, when they say we have to up the interest rates it starts to cause inflation. When you start to cause inflation, prices go higher. If they bring the inflation into check, let’s say they set an inflation target which America has, an inflation target of 2%. For many years South Africa set an inflation target of 3%. If they get to their target inflation, all good news. You’ve got control of the money in and the money outflow, it’s more stable. But what’s happened is everything has increased in price. They never go back to what the lower price used to be. So, the cost of living starts to get higher and higher all the time because there’s a problem.
Who owns the money? The government can’t just have the money be somewhere. What happens is the money goes to the people who’ve got to keep it where? In banks. Who disperses money for growth? Banks. Financial institutions. So, now there’s got to be a strong cooperation between financial institutions and government. I’m getting to my point here. Government and financial institutions are now beginning to cooperate together because when there was a big crisis some years ago the world nearly had the biggest depression ever because people were borrowing money from each other’s banks. This bank was lending this bank 20 billion or whatever the case and that bank was lending to another bank 20 billion. They were all buying into the housing markets and then the housing market collapsed. So, where did all those houses go? Back to the banks. So, now the banks are getting more and more asset control and the average human beings are getting less and less control.
What happens to a globalist mentality and a financial economic mentality is that the more powerful governments get, the more powerful economic institutions get, one of them is going to start to flex their muscles more than the other. Because eventually, the economic system is going to be so strong that they’re going to say to governments, “Hey! We have the power here, the real power belongs to us who control the money. Not you, who think you have the voice of the people.” So, what happens to governments? Well, you have the emergence of a system which is called the World Economic Forum and they literally talk about a globalist elitism where there are a few people who are going to reset the whole world. They’re going to reset the whole green agenda for the world, and they’re going to reset the whole economic system of the world. If you think those are just words that are being spouted by a few people that meet at Davos every year, and they just have no influence, then just look at the people that come to Davos and how much influence they have on your and my everyday life.
So, now we get down to a point where we are saying, “Okay. Who’s running our lives here?” We vote for a party in South Africa, and we vote that the party in South Africa will give us the right kind of government we want. Meantime there are other people in the world that have borrowed or lent money to South Africa and they want us to have a particular outcome in our economic system because they want money to be paid back to them. Can I bring to you an example like Greece? Do you remember the great Greece debacle where Greece ran out of money, and they ran out of ability to pay the government and all that stuff? So, they went to the European Union and said to the Central Bank of Europe, and they said, “Will you lend us so many billion euros?” And they said, “We’ll give you the euros if you will do what we tell you to do, and run your country the way we tell you to run your country so that you are fiscally more responsible. So, that we know we will get our money back.” So, who was in charge of the Greek people’s lives then? Their government or the Central Bank of Europe? That’s who was in charge.
So, if you and I think that this notion of money is a small matter, that the Church shouldn’t be talking about and that we as a people shouldn’t be focused on money, we are mistaken. We are going to be left in the dust because the system out there is all about the control of money. It is all about the control of money because it wants to control everybody’s energy, everybody’s gifts, everybody’s talents. Because if I can consume your energy and your gifts and your time then I’m consuming your worship. You might not think of it in those terms but I am. I’m consuming your thoughts, I’m consuming your words, I’m consuming your cares, I’m consuming your worries, I’m consuming all of it into the worship of a system but it’s actually spirits. So, I go back to what I said in the first session. You have centres of financial control, New York, London, different places around the world. There are centres of power that are economic power, they manage money, they accumulate money and they pay people that know how to increase their money. Large amounts of money to incentivize them to keep growing the money control that they have. Okay, are you with me still?
I guess I’m trying to say to you that the world’s way of keeping the world in control is how they manage the money supply. There will be bubbles and there will be bursting bubbles and then there will be bubbles and there will be bursting bubbles. All of these things are designed to control the resources of the earth. The fewer people that have the control, they will all say “The better.” I’ll tell you what, people say, “I don’t mind being wealthy and I’m okay to have wealth as long as I can give some of my wealth away to help the world.” So, Bill Gates, for example, he says, “I’ll give a lot of billions away to help the world.” But all he’s giving away is to pharmaceutical industries that ultimately ended up controlling everything and so while he may put himself as a big philanthropist, he’s not, he’s just increasing his power.
So, now I’m going to go to John chapter 14, verse 10. I’m reading from the Amplified Bible. 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? What I am telling you I do not say on My own authority and of My own accord; but the Father Who lives continually in Me does the (His) works (His own miracles, deeds of power). 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the sake of the [very] works themselves. [If you cannot trust Me, at least let these works that I do in My Father’s name convince you.] 12 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. 13 And I will do [I Myself will grant] whatever you ask in My Name [as presenting all that I Am], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son. 14 [Yes] I will grant [I Myself will do for you] whatever you shall ask in My Name [as presenting all that I Am]. 15 If you [really] love Me, you will keep (obey) My commands. Now Jesus says, 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever— 17 The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you. John 14:10-17 (AMPC).
Who is the Father going to send? Who is Jesus going to ask the Father to send? The Holy Spirit. He is going to live in you, He’s going to be with you, and He is going to be your Guide. Who can’t receive Him? The world can’t receive Him. So, the systems I’ve just described to you, these economic systems that I have just described to you. They do not represent Jesus Christ. The world’s economic system represents who? [Congregation answers – The devil] Come on. I mean, if we don’t say it, then this thing is going to blind us. This world’s economic system, the systems of this world don’t belong to Jesus, they belong to who? They belong to the authority that man has given to the devil, and he is controlling the system.
So, we think, “Oh no, we will just use the system to our advantage”. Really? Really? Wow. I wonder how light gets to use darkness for its advantage. I wonder what authority that the church has as the ecclesia that says, “We’ll just use darkness so that we can promote ecclesia.” You see, when I put it this way it just doesn’t make sense. But in the meantime, we’ve allowed ourselves to be duped. I am among them. I am not saying I have had all of this revelation all of this time. As I have grown in Christ, so is my revelation, and the more I get revelation, the more I have to speak to you about that. Ja ne.
So, 18 I will not leave you as orphans [comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless]; I will come [back] to you. 19 Just a little while now, and the world will not see Me any more, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 At that time [when that day comes] you will know [for yourselves] that I am in My Father, and I [am] in you. 21 The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love Him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.] (John 14:18-21 AMPC)
This is so good news to me because He will show Himself to us, whatever it is that we want Him and trust Him in. Where He is not showing Himself to us is because we don’t trust Him. I need to read this to you out of the Passion Translation, so please bear with me. 10 Don’t you believe that The Father is living in me and I am living in The Father? Even my words are not my own but come from my Father for He lives in me and performed His miracles of power through me. 11 Believe that I live as one with my Father and that my Father lives as one with me – or at least, believe because of the mighty miracles I have done. 12 I tell you this timeless truth: The person who follows me in faith, believing in me, will do the same mighty miracles I do – even greater miracles than these because I go to be with my Father! (John 14:10-12 TPT)
What are the mighty miracles that Jesus did? I am just talking economics now. Did He not turn water into wine? Did He not cause His disciples to have a number of big catches of fish, from nothing? Did He not get to pay the tax man back from a fishing expedition? Did He not feed thousands of people from just a little? What was He demonstrating? He was demonstrating His power over scarcity. The control of resources in other people’s hands, He was demonstrating there is nothing on this earth that can control Me. Even though I don’t live in a house where I can call that My house, where I put My head and keep My clothes. I don’t live in one single house, I’m here to do the will of the Father. I don’t need to own a house to prove that I have control over the financial realm or the assets of the earth. I have all that I need, when I need it my Father will provide it.
This is a timeless truth.12…The person who follows me in faith, believing in me, will do the same mighty miracles that I do—even greater miracles than these because I go to be with my Father! What are the greater miracles? That we will all do it. Jesus was the only One who could do it when He was here, now we all get to do it. 13 For I will do whatever you ask me to do when you ask me in my name. What was He saying? You see Me now and you see Me asking My Father to do these things, when I go to be My Father you’ll ask Me the same thing I ask My Father, you’ll ask Me and I’ll do it for you. Same thing.
And that is how the Son will show what the Father is really like and bring glory to him. 14 Ask me anything in my name, and I will do it for you!” 15 “Loving me empowers you to obey my commands. 16-17 And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Savior, the Holy Spirit of Truth, who will be to you a friend just like me—and he will never leave you. The world won’t receive him because they can’t see him or know him. But you will know him intimately because he will make his home in you and will live inside you. 18 “I promise that I will never leave you helpless or abandon you as orphans—I will come back to you! 19 Soon I will leave this world and they will see me no longer, but you will see me, because I will live again, and you will come alive too. 20 So when that day comes, you will know that I am living in the Father and that you are one with me, for I will be living in you. Man, if Jesus is living in us, do we not have the solutions provided, the Holy Spirit and Jesus, for every problem we could ever face? 21 Those who truly love me are those who obey my commands, whoever passionately loves me will passionately be loved by my Father and I will passionately love you in return and will manifest my life within you (John 14:12-21 TPT).
Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 says, in the New King James it says, verse 20, just the one portion of that verse says, 20 … For our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20 NKJV). So, we have a visitor here, Drew is a visitor, he’s from America, USA. Drew, where’s your citizenship? USA. So, the fact that you’re living here doesn’t change your citizenship. I mean he is a citizen of America, the fact that he’s actually residing here and doing stuff here, that’s just where he is at the moment. But he’s actually a citizen of America which means that because his father and mother are there, his potential economic help can come from that country. Where’s our Father? What are we citizens of? Heaven. Where does our hope come from? Heaven. “Oh no, it comes from Absa Bank.”
The Passion Translation uses that scripture and says 20 … But we are a colony of heaven on earth as we cling tightly to our life-giver, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20 TPT). We are a colony. The Message translation of the same verse says, 20 But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! (Philippians 3:20 MSG). Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Okay, I’m going to establish our next session with this next scripture. Ephesians 4 verse 11, 11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13 NLT). I’m beginning to enter this next session after we take a break for about an hour, I’m going to be talking to you about the Kingdom and about Ecclesia. I had to set this all up for you because I need you to understand that there’s an economic system out there that you and I take for, we very seldom think about it like this because, you know, you live every day saying, “I’m going to go to work. I must make money because I’ve got to pay this and I’ve got to pay that and I’ve got to pay the next thing. So, I have to just keep doing this daily, weekly cycle. I’ve got a job, I’ve got to keep my job going, I’ve got to have a vision for what’s next and I’ve got to think about what’s next and I’ve got to keep the cycle going.” We get entrenched in a cycle of daily economic activity and what we’re actually doing is living in a cycle of scarcity. So, what we’re trying to do is manage the limited resources that we have so that we can best continue to live with the resources that we have. Hey?
If we just keep running, it’s like we’re a mouse on a wheel and so we just keep running on a wheel and we’ve got to get to work and we’ve got to make our money and we’ve got to pay our bills at the end of the month and we’ve got to get to work. So, okay, you might think that because you’re a visionary and you’re thinking about investing money in different things and because you’ve got a goal for the future that you’re not on that wheel. You are. You’re on the same wheel as everybody else that’s thinking the same as you. All you’re doing is you say, “I’ve got to think of creative ways of getting more resources to me rather than someone else having them.” It’s still the same limited resources that we’re all trying to manage.
So, the Holy Spirit and what the Lord is doing to us, He says, “You want to crossover? I’m going to give you something that you can think about and chew on to crossover.” Because what does it help us if we all just say we’re going to crossover and we’re repenting from things in our own lives and we’re kind of making sure that our hearts are pure and our lifestyles are strong and we’re getting rid of bad habits that have held us back. Those are wonderful things, right? We’re creating new wonderful things that are good things in our lives. The Lord’s all over that. His favour is on that. His blessing is all on that. But that’s not going to fundamentally change the way we actually crossover. We’ve got to get a citizen of Heaven mindset. We have to get a mindset that is both Kingdom and Ecclesia. And you’re going to see when I talk in the next session and tomorrow morning that there is a Kingdom mindset which is about how you and I live individually with our King and then there’s an Ecclesia economics – again that’s not the right word – but an Ecclesia resource management system which is about us and about how God will use an Ecclesia in a city, in a town, in a nation to change and to be what He needs them to be for His glory.
Just a note, God the Father didn’t have to send 10 Jesuses to the whole earth. He only had to send one to make a difference. I’ll tell you what, if we are the one church that makes a difference because we are prepared to go there with God, His favour is going to be all over us. His blessing is going to be all over us – individually and corporately. When I talk to you about the Kingdom and about Ecclesia, I’m going to talk to you about individual and corporate. I’ve tried to do the best that I can and not try to feel like, and I did at one stage feel like I was lecturing you on economics and I really didn’t want to do that. There’s more that I can say on the subject, then I kind of cut myself short because I didn’t want to do too much of that. But we have to understand that there is an agenda out there that is after our energy and our talent and our gifts and our worship. If we just say, “Eh, don’t talk to me about that, Pastor John, I’m happy just to go to work every day and earn my money and pay off my bond and pay off my car so that I’m free from all that stuff. Eventually, I’ll get to that eutopia where I don’t have a care in the world and everything’s paid for and I’m good.” No. You’re never going to get there. Never. Maybe you pay off your house, maybe you pay off your loan, maybe you pay off everything and you say, “Now, I’m in eutopia.” That spirit of mammon is going to drive you to do the next thing. “Oh, now I’ve paid off everything, let’s build another house, let’s do another thing, let’s do another thing, let’s do another thing.”
Don’t judge me yet. If you want to judge me, judge me after tomorrow because I’ve still got half of my session still ahead to tell you about good stuff. Amen. Hallelujah. We’ll break until 13:10. Let’s make it 13:15. Is that good? I’m committing to you that we’ll be finished by 14:15. I will preach for an hour 13:15 to 14:15. Then we’ll break for the afternoon and I’ll finish tomorrow. Hallelujah. What? It’s an hour’s break. Is an hour good? It gives you a chance to get to Woolworths and back. Or wherever. Alright. One hour. 13:15 I’ll see you.
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