Paul says, but the things that were assets to me, those I counted losses for Christ. I would rather consider everything just losses for the superiority of the full knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of everything and consider them junk that I may gain Christ. Second is a verse I'm sure all of you know by now.

This is the GBM version. We know that all things are working together towards something good for those that love God, who are the called according to his purpose. All over the world right now, people are experiencing something that we've probably never faced before.

It's called the coronavirus or the COVID-19. It's a pandemic, a disease, which is attacking people in every nation around the world. And it's creating fear and panic everywhere.

Now, last week, I addressed the subject of fear and panic, and I gave some teaching on how to deal with this attack spiritually. So I'm not going to repeat that here today. If you didn't watch my message last week, please go to our GBM television site.

It is still up there for you to watch. You can catch up on it. What I would like to look at today is some of the effects that this has created in our lives and how we are to respond to these changes.

Hence the title of my message, how to deal with change. We are being forced into circumstances that are limited and restricted. To stop the spread of this virus, governments around the world began to introduce restrictions and lockdowns on the populations.

You're no longer free to gather together in public. Most forms of entertainment have been affected. Sporting events have been cancelled.

Going out for dinner is considered dangerous and even forbidden in places. Going out to public places to watch a movie or to have a party is considered dangerous and forbidden in many places. Churches have been forced to cancel their meetings.

Particularly churches that have large congregations. Here in South Africa, for now, they have limited gatherings to a maximum of 100 people. So churches that have more than 100 members have had to close their doors and not have their Sunday meetings.

In some extreme cases, people are not even allowed to leave their homes. They're totally confined to quarters, as it were. Try and stop the spread of this terrible disease that's destroying lives daily.

I understand that yesterday in Italy alone, over 700 people died in one day. Throughout the world, it's spreading. Some countries haven't felt it yet, but it's getting there.

Here in South Africa, we've only started to see the beginning. We haven't seen any deaths yet. Nobody's really had to go into intensive care yet, but we've only been going for a very short while since the first appearance.

Each day, the numbers grow. As these numbers grow and as the panic increases, time's going to come when there's going to be even tighter restrictions on our freedom and on our movement, and the lockdown is going to be like a noose around our necks. Now, this has produced mixed reactions from people around the world, and Christians, especially, I think, kind of feel caught between two choices.

Do we obey the ordinances of man, which are based largely on fear, or do we ignore them and obey the Lord who says, fear not? Now, most churches have had the common sense to realize that even if the leaders have got the faith with the same, the members may not, and not to place them in a dangerous situation, and they have complied with these arrangements. Except for one major church organization in South Africa, I understand that the leader has spoken out and said, our people will gather together for Easter in the large numbers like we planned. I don't care what the president said, and the excuses, we obey God before we obey man.

Isn't that what the disciples said? When they told them you must stop preaching, they said, who must we obey, God or man? So, Christians are kind of caught between these two things. What are we to do? Well, we need to obey the words, and the word says that we must obey the ordinances of man and those who are placed over us. These restrictions were not put to stop the word of God from being presented.

They were not designed to kill the work of God. We're designed to protect the people, but I believe God is about to turn all things for our good, and instead of panicking, why don't we try and look beyond this whole situation and see what good can come from it, and instead of allowing ourselves to get all frustrated and angry and filled with fear and panic, why don't we look at this thing objectively and say, how can we change the way we've been doing things in a way that will actually bring even greater blessing than there was before? Let's speak first on the pressure of change. Now, whether we'll admit it or not, we live in a rat race.

You know what a rat race is? I think we all know that life is a rat race. You get up in the morning and you run full speed, come home and collapse into bed and get up the next day and run full speed again. Our life is a total push, a total stress, a total striving and effort and fights.

We spend a large part of our day trying to earn a living, because if we don't, we'll starve. Now, that might mean getting up very early in the morning. If you work a fair distance from your home, you're going to spend time traveling there.

And back. Sometimes you work long and you get home late at night. We're spending all our energy just trying to survive.

And if that's not bad enough, we have thrown in this whole new scenario, which just turns this whole thing upside down. And how do we get around this in the natural, this life of stress? Well, we like to take time off. When we have time off, we try and make up for it.

We need some kind of recreation, don't we? We need some kind of social interaction. We need a time to chill out and have fun. It's all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, they say.

We need more than work in our lives. And we like to cater to the desires of these old bodies of ours, which take priority. Ah, some of us turn to food.

It's so nice to go out for a meal. Just the atmosphere. You don't have to cook.

Somebody else cooks and they even serve you. And they wash the dishes afterwards, too. Oh, man.

That is so wonderful, isn't it? Don't you love going out for meals? Now we can't do that anymore because it's dangerous. We like to exercise the defense mechanism of the body, which is to protect ourselves from harm. But we like to express that in challenge, getting into sports activities and challenging activities where we compete with others.

And oh, what a thrill it gets when you can compete and win. Now, sporting is such a huge thing, especially in this country, the top TV channels and the ones you pay the most for, the ones that carry all the sporting activities. That's not only in this country, throughout the world, sporting activities, millions and millions are spent on them.

Now suddenly all the sports activities are too dangerous. They've been cancelled. Oh, boy.

So now my body desire of nourishment is frustrated. My need for expressing my defense mechanism is frustrated. And then the reproduction side of the body needs sexual stimulation.

I need to get out there, have some romance, mix with members of the opposite sex. You're not allowed to do that anymore either. You've got to stay home.

But how am I ever going to meet my life partner at home? And you see the frustration that people are facing. Well, you know, the Bible speaks about walking in the flesh as being opposed to walking in the spirit. And there's nothing wrong with these bodily desires, but when they dominate our lives, when they come first, where does the Lord fit? Second place, doesn't he? Now we each set our own lifestyle, don't we? Everyone has two basic drives.

We need to interact with others so that they will accept us. We need to do something that'll get other people to recognize us. And we need to do it in a public place, in a way that everybody sees what we're doing.

Basic human needs of acceptance and recognition. These are the things that drive us. These are the things that keep us going.

Unfortunately, it usually means putting yourself first in everything, doesn't it? Your interactions with others are to get your own needs met first. Can you switch the fan on for me, please, John? It's getting a little warm here. I don't know if it's just because I'm getting fiery in my preaching or whether it's the weather.

Those of you who are watching in cold climates, you won't understand, but I'm getting on fire! Hallelujah! You know what happens when we get so busy getting our needs met? We tend to neglect those closest to us, and we start to ignore our family relationships. Our relationships with our spouse, our siblings, our children, all begin to suffer because we're in this rat race, driving, driving, driving to get our needs met. Where does the church fit into all of this? So, well, you know, you're speaking about unbelievers here, not Christians.

Oh, no, I'm not. I'm speaking about Christians. You think you're so spiritual that you don't have these drives in you? Well, where does the church fit in it? The church helps us to meet some of those needs.

You know how exciting it is to get together with a huge crowd of people? Oh, man! You know what? You don't have to go and pay to watch a big band play and enjoy a music gig. These days, you've got professional bands playing, and they call them the worship team. Worship sometimes is just a second thought.

The music! Hey, I can go to my big church, and we've got this professional band. Just see all of them, the guitarists, the drums, the bass, and the trumpets, and all so many. Wow, professional music! I tell you what, and it's free.

You don't have to pay tickets for this one. Wow, I just love going to church and just soaking up that awesome music, especially when we've got that band that plays the modern style that I like. Church meets that need, and then we can go and get entertained by the good preaching of the words.

You know, our pastor, he's got such a good sense of humor. Man, he's so motivational and inspiring. I just love going to listen to him.

He just stirs me up and gets my emotions going, and wow, and that atmosphere that it's created when everybody laughs together at the joke. Oh, it feels so good to be part of that. You get caught up in the moment.

You get to interact socially with a whole pile of people. All of those natural needs are being met, and then God calls you to go beyond just being a church member, and he calls you to be in ministry. What a goal to aim for.

What an accomplishment. I'm not just the ordinary believer anymore. I'm the apostle.

I'm the apostle, and I'm the prophet. That's the biggest one these days, especially in this country. If I can take the title of prophet, I have arrived.

The prophet will stand up, minister to the crowds, show what a mighty man or woman of God they are. You get to stand up and perform on the stage. You get to have your own stage.

No competition here. You're the star. Wow.

Don't you want to be in ministry? Well, if you think that's all that ministry is, you got a shocking surprise coming to you, but I will leave you in your fantasy for now. See, it helps you to meet your needs for acceptance and for recognition, and I'm afraid to say a lot of these great big-name preachers, if you took away their crowds, there would be nothing. They wouldn't thrive.

If they were to preach to just a small little group, they would feel immobilized. Again, ministry has a danger. You get so tired of ministering to others, you don't have time to minister to those that are closest to you.

See that beautiful lady there, really has so many spiritual needs. She blinks her eyes. She says, Pastor, please can you help me? Sure thing.

I'll drop what I'm doing and I'll counsel you. I'll pray with you. He gets home.

His wife says, I really am not feeling so good. He says, I'm tired. He's just, I've been ministering hard, praying, ministering and preaching and praying for people.

I've got nothing left. Sorry. I'm tired.

Can we just give it a miss for now? You think that doesn't happen? Why do you get into ministry? The time you finish ministering to the crowds and to the individuals who need counsel, their life is sucked out of you. As for your children, well, it's the wife's responsibility to take care of them. Daddy, can you do that? Man, I'm busy.

Can't you see? Busy doing what? Ministering to other people's kids, maybe. Ministering to other people's needs that your family begins to suffer. And you know, you promise yourself that I will take time out to minister to their needs.

Nobody lets you do that because there's too many people out there wanting to suck the life out of you because they want their needs met first. Takes a while before you finally wake up and realize that your children have been neglected. You heard the term PK? Pastor's kids.

They're the most rebellious of all because the pastor has been so busy ministering to everybody else that he has no time for them. And you know what their impression is? Well, you know what? If that is what God does, I don't want God in my life. Pastor's kids are the most rebellious.

They go off the rails. Why? Because the church system has put us in a place where we're so busy. Don't kid yourself.

You're always just busy ministering to the needs of the people because ministering to the needs of the people meets your needs as well. Now suddenly, you can't do any of this. You know that resistance to change is a very huge thing in human experience.

They even got a term for it. It's called the RC factor. Resistance to change.

Some temperaments are worse. Analyticals hate change. Expressives thrive on change.

But they still want to be in control of the change that they make. When that change is imposed on them, they too are frustrated. Now suddenly, gathering in large groups is forbidden.

All public activities and sporting are cancelled. Public church services are cancelled. And immediately, we feel the lack.

Oh, I was so looking forward to going to church, enjoying the good music. I really needed somebody to uplift me. It's been a tough week.

I was hoping the preacher would give me something powerful, motivate me. Now there's no church. Where am I going to get it from? In extreme cases, government takes a stand in a decision called lockdown.

Lockdown means you are confined mostly to your home. Now every person who has manifested any symptoms or has proved to be positive on this virus are immediately confined and quarantined. And sometimes, you actually don't even need to have the symptoms of the sickness.

They just need to show that you have the virus in you. Sometimes, you're just a carrier, but it's actually not even affecting you physically. You don't even have any signs of sickness, but you're carrying the disease.

That means you can carry it to other people and they can get it from you. So the only way to stop it is lockdown. It's what they did in China.

They locked it down that people were only allowed to leave their homes in emergency situations, limited times to go shopping and for emergency services. Nothing else was permitted. People were sitting at home, getting frustrated.

If you live in a flat or an apartment, as they say in America, that's even worse. Because all you've got is your little few walls. There's no garden you can at least go for a walk in.

You can't go for a run around the yard. You're stuck. People are getting frustrated.

Frustrated and angry. And many of them become rebellious and say, I don't care. I'm going out there anyway.

Well, if you are given that liberty, you can get away with it. But in a lot of cases, they're actually policing it. They won't allow you to even leave your home.

So now what do you do? Schools are cancelled. Other children are also at home. You're stuck with them all day.

Lord, did you know how active those kids can get? They get bored in five minutes. It's so awesome just to send them off for some school teacher to take care of for most of the day. Thank the Lord for schools.

Now I've got these kids nagging me, bugging me. Oh, I'm bored. Dad, can't we go out? What can we do? You've got to find some way of keeping them busy, entertained.

And then you probably have a job that says, we don't want you to come into the office. Stay home and work. Have you tried sitting at home to do your work? Every now and then your wife's interrupting you and saying, sweetheart, can't you see I'm busy? The kids are running and saying, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

Can't you see I'm busy? You see some of the problems that people are facing as a result of this pandemic. Your life was pretty organized before. Get up at such and such a time, shower, shave, whatever you do, get dressed, get in your car, go off to work, get to work on time, spend your day at work, come back home again, fight the traffic, your usual thing.

All laid out. No, it's not laid out for you, so who's going to schedule you? Who's going to tell you when to work and when not to work? Who's going to say, get the work done by 12 o'clock? You decide to sleep until 12 instead. Who's going to be there to check on you? Nobody.

It's creating a total upheaval in our society, this. It's changing everything that we're used to. And then this, all this emphasis on hygiene, wash your hands, wash your hands, put on sanitizer, wear a mask.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sick of washing my hands. You know, in Bible days, it was a lot worse.

We got it easy today. In the Bible, you had to wash more than your hands. They're saying you must wash your hands and keep your distance at least one meter from the nearest person because if they cough, it's going to go all over you.

If they cough on a surface and you touch it, you know, don't tell me not to touch my face. I do it every five minutes. I can't help it.

It's itching. Man, man, it's difficult. You know, in the Old Testament, if you just touched someone or something that was contaminated, you had to go and wash yourself completely and wash your clothes and you had to keep yourself quarantined for the rest of the day.

It was only for a day. That's bad enough. The only thing was touch.

If you touch the dead body, that was really, really bad. You touch somebody that was sick, same thing. And if a woman was on her period, Lord, she is totally unclean.

Don't you come close to her. So while my wife's on her period, I'm not allowed to kiss her. If I do, I got to go and have a shower, wash my clothes, and keep away for the rest of the day.

Wow. Paranoid. That was God's commandments, folks.

It was the law. It was the law. You weren't allowed to break it.

If you got something as serious as leprosy, you had to wear special clothes so people could recognize you. Put something over your mouth, and you shout, unclean, unclean. You came to somebody, somebody said, unclean, and they're, I'm not getting you.

Then they go and live outside the camp, all by themselves. Total quarantine. Not for a week, not for a month.

Maybe for the rest of their lives. Until that disease cleared, and they could be accepted back into the fold again. So who are we to complain about using hand sanitizers and washing our hands? You know, we've got it too easy these days.

God set very strong laws for the children of Israel. Even told them what they were allowed to eat, what they were not allowed to eat. Thank the Lord we're not bound by that.

But you see, God had to make it a law. You know why? Because otherwise nobody would have done it. If there wasn't a punishment with it, nobody would have done it.

And what would have happened? Disease would have spread throughout the nation of Israel. But the Lord promised them, he said, I will put none of these diseases on you that's been on the Egyptians. You will be protected.

God kept his people protected. How? That was before he even showed his power of healing. He gave them common sense, natural ways of avoiding sickness and disease and contamination.

And you know, if this pandemic has done nothing else, it's probably taught us a bit of cleanliness. Do us good. Keep us healthy.

Oh, how dare the government tell me? You know, in Old Testament, God told you. The government was there to enforce God's law. Don't get all arrogant about this.

Change your habits, change the way you live, change your lifestyle. It's all designed to stop spreading of the disease. That's it.

All of these things. Now, if you haven't faced this yet, it might come. In this country, we're not too limited just yet.

But there's already been a few waves, a few rumors floating around that if things get worse, the president is going to stand up and give a lockdown command. They had to do that in China. And as a result, now they say they could dismantle the hospital that they built because there's no new cases in China.

At least that's what it was until they decided to bring back all the people in other countries that were from China. All the students, the people that finished, had to come be repatriated back home again, and they came and brought the virus back again. China's now started to get some new cases from all the people coming back from the other countries.

But they proved that that quarantine and limitation actually stopped the disease. But you know, it's done far more than that. And if you'll open your eyes to see the possibilities, it's going to do far more than that for you.

Instead of looking at this as an inconvenience and a frustration and a change you have to face, why don't you stop and look and change your focus. Realize that God's given you a perfect opportunity to spend more time with your family. He's given you an opportunity to spend more time in his word and in prayer.

Well, you know, my life is so busy. So tell me, how much do you pray? How long do you pray every day? And how much time do you spend in the word? Well, you know, if you saw my life, man, things are so hectic. I would really love to spend time in prayer and get into the word.

Man. So that television, favorite television program of yours takes an hour and a half. Where did you find the time for that? Where did you find the time for your sporting activities and all the other things that you love to do? Where did you find the time for that if time is so tight? Now, we all have the same amount of time, but our priorities have got messed up.

Why don't you stop and look at this and say, I'm going to take this opportunity to change in my life some of the things that I've missed, some of the things that I've got wrong. Let me tell you, it's not easy to face change. But I want to brag now a little bit.

You see, none of this has affected us in any way. Daphne and I have decided to stay home until the thing blows over because we're in the older age gap, which is the one that's more susceptible. I love going to the shops.

I love walking the shops. It's my only exercise, really. I love walking up and down the aisles and finding something to buy that I didn't need.

The Lord said to me, I'm giving you a gift to make you safe. So now I have to send the young'uns to the shop to go and get the stuff that I need. And you know what? The money's going around.

The food, we're not buying junk. Isn't that amazing? But you see, it didn't affect us for another very important reason, because God began to prepare us for this many years ago already. Many years ago.

I'd like to share with you quickly some of my personal experiences in this and how God has used this to prepare us and to put us into a situation where, instead of being influenced by these things, we've been able to devote ourselves completely to the kingdom of God and to extending his kingdom in the earth. The first time this happened to me, I was given a job. Well, I applied for a job to sell life insurance, largely because I was starving as a clerk.

Somebody showed me how much money I could make selling life assurance. So I went and got a job selling life assurance. That was great.

They gave us an office, but they said, we don't want to see you in the office because you don't make sales in the office. You should be out there. You can come into the office once a week, or if you have a sale, you can bring the paperwork in and then get out there again.

So I was working from home. Isn't that great? If I went to sleep until 10 o'clock, my boss wasn't there to say, why aren't you at work? Isn't that wonderful? Yeah? You know how wonderful it was that at night time while my family was sitting down watching TV, chilling out and having a good time, I was out there knocking on doors, trying to make a living. Oh, it was tough.

I had to learn to discipline myself. I learned to kick my own backside. And so a lot of the time, my only motivation was fear because if I didn't do it, we're going to starve.

If you don't work, you don't eat. I'd like a normal job where you go, then the work's all handed to you, and you get paid your salary at the end of the month. No, no, no.

It all lies in your hand. You're running your own business now, they said. We'll help you get started.

After that, you earn a commission on what you sell, and that is your income. So back there already, I faced a frustration, a real tough frustration. And quite honestly, I only held it out for a couple of years, and I just couldn't keep it up.

Because I like to be the nice guy. I like to go to people and have them like me. You walk to somebody's door and say, I'd like to sell you insurance.

They don't like you. They want to kick you out. I don't need it.

You're a salesman, bug me. Try to force your stuff down my throat. Hard work being a salesperson.

Very hard work. For a season, I had to get pulled back into a normal job, and that was great. And then the Lord said, okay, I'm calling you to ministry.

Leave your job. Leave the church. But Lord, I'd been in ministry already.

In Zimbabwe, came down here, they didn't have a church for me. So I sat down in a local church, began to get involved, waiting for them to put me back into the work. The Lord said, leave it.

I said, Lord, how am I ever going to go in ministry? He said, leave it. Then he said, leave your job. And I said, Lord, I can't pay my debts with a job.

How am I going to do that? Well, I've shared my story before. I'm not going to go into detail, but I spent nine months waiting on God. Just me and my family at home.

No going to church, no going to work, no going to shops much either because there was no money. Lived off the fruit trees for a while that were on the plot that we lived on. It was tough.

And I said, oh, you know, God doesn't call people normally to do that. Why did he call me to do that? He was preparing me for something bigger. And eventually the Lord took me and put me in a situation that was even worse.

It sounded such a good promising thing. My relatives overseas said, you're an expert in computers. I'd like you to come and work for me in the Caribbean, holiday paradise.

Set up a computer system for my business and I'll pay you a very good salary. That was so exciting. I couldn't wait to just pack up and move.

When we got there, the whole thing fell through and I ended up getting stuck in Mexico. Good old Mexico. Yeah, if you've never been to Mexico, you see all the stories of the old Mexican lying there under the cactus with his sombrero over his head.

It's pretty accurate. But that's not all. And it's like everybody thinking that, you know, lions and tigers are walking through the streets here everywhere you go.

Yes, they are here, but not everywhere. So yes, it's a normal society there. We ended up there and it was wonderful because I was being supported financially by the person who put us there until he couldn't support us financially anymore.

Now we were stuck in a foreign land. We were not allowed to work in that country. It was illegal.

Our visas did not permit us to work. If we got an income, it had to come from outside. The people there did not speak English unless they really had to.

And most of the old people refused to speak English. So if you wanted to communicate, you learned to speak Spanish. Otherwise, you don't.

Well, you know, you can pick up language pretty quick. You know, I learned Afrikaans in school when I was still in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. So I knew a bit of Afrikaans.

I had some Afrikaans relatives. But when we came down to South Africa and suddenly everybody's protting the tile, you realize you don't know too much of it. But, you know, after listening for a while, watching the news in Afrikaans, I got a bit better at it.

Now, I thought I could do that in Mexico. But in Mexico, they do not speak a normal place. They speak a little bit like the auctioneers.

What the heck did he say? That's how Mexicans speak. Now, you can speak to a Mexican in a phrase, you know, and he'll answer you. I recognized one of those words.

It's just impossible to learn the language. So here we were. We're stuck in Mexico.

We have this language barrier. So can we start a ministry with you? But the Mexicans, I didn't know any of them could speak English. Not a chance.

You know, we had income, but now suddenly the money stopped. Well, I'll go and get a job. No, you're not allowed to work in Mexico.

And who's going to employ you anyway? It's a country with millions of poor people. It's just like South Africa in many ways. No chance of me getting a job there.

So what are we going to do? How am I going to make money? Well, I thought, you know, if I could at least preach, because I was a preacher after all, maybe I could sell my tapes. Audio tapes those days were the big thing. Maybe I could sell my tape.

Who do I preach to? Who do I preach to? Well, I managed to get my family there. Originally, it was just Daphne and John and I and my younger daughter was with us still. Well, that's not a huge church.

Later, I got my eldest daughter and her husband and a couple of kids to come. We had six adults. You know, I wasn't used to preaching to five adults.

I was saying I couldn't. Well, I lied. I did have a time in my ministry where sometimes I'd have two people in the church and that was it.

Tell you what, preaching to empty chairs is a soul-destroying experience. So who do I preach to? In any case, they're my family. How do I preach to them? Well, we talked about it and I thought, well, I need to somehow produce something I can sell.

And we bought this old camera, the old-style video cameras. We didn't have a tripod, so we put it on a tripod that had a telescope. We took the telescope off and shot the camera under the tripod.

And so there it was. My youngest daughter was pretty good at the camera, so she was the camera lady. I was the preacher and that left me four people to preach to.

Change. Change. Oh, I tell you what, it's lovely when you preach to at least 100, 200 people.

I can still handle 50, but when it gets smaller than that, it gets tough. Preaching to a lot less than that today, but you see, I'm used to it. Sometimes half of you don't come and I still preach.

Because I learned that behind that camera is a whole crowd, huge crowd. Just look at them, filling the stadium. And I stood there and I preached to that camera, hey, you people out there, thus says the Lord.

And I preached like I was preaching to a crowd. We captured it on tape. Those days, the internet wasn't good enough to put videos up, so we managed to extract the audios out of it and we made audio tapes.

I didn't have the equipment to duplicate tapes, so we'd have two of these slow tape recorders running one into the other. We couldn't afford pre-printed labels, so we bought labels and glued them on with glue stick. We made tapes.

We started to go onto the internet. It was the only access we had to the outside world was the internet. I decided I would produce a daily Bible study and send it out to everybody I knew, which was about three or four people.

So that was my first mailing list. All my family members and relatives, they wouldn't tell me it was awful. And that started our ministry in Mexico.

Oh, you know what? We weren't charging a lot for our tapes, and quite honestly, after paying for them, we wouldn't get much money out of it either. And how could we survive? We couldn't even afford to buy our water, because you couldn't drink the tap water. You had to buy water.

Here we had three families living together in one home. What were we to do? Now, I look back now and I see the wisdom of God. He put us in a limited and restricted situation.

And because of that, we were forced to do something that we would not normally have done. We would have gone the easy route like everybody does, but we had to learn to do it the hard way. All we had was our little group, our little bit of equipment, and the internet.

Daphne began to take my messages and transcribe them into text so that we begin to send those out and publish them online on the internet. And we began to send out ministry. And I started preaching different series of teachings, just like that, into camera.

In our lounge, ugly floral curtains in the background. That's all we had. Sometimes I was wearing a semi-floral shirt in front of the floral curtains.

And the lighting was just a couple of fluorescent lights were really bad. So the lighting wasn't terribly marvelous. And we were using this old analog camera.

But you know what? We took what we had and we began to produce. If you've ever watched the Way of Blessing original, it was recorded right there. And I stood up there and I preached like I was preaching to a real church.

And you know what? God anointed and God gave wisdom and we began to put together powerful materials that we're still using today in our training schools. And we found that the only way we could do it was via the internet. And the internet was very limited.

When we first went to Mexico, we had to pay per minute for telephone connections. So if you phone somebody, you paid so much per minute for the call. If we had a chat online with somebody, you paid per minute for the duration of that chat.

Our phone bill began to get into the region of about $800. Multiply that by 1500 for Rand per month. That's the difficulty we face.

And you're complaining about your little limitation with the coronavirus. God was preparing us, you see, for something greater. What we're facing now is peanuts compared to what we had back there.

But you know, it did something to us. It changed us. We learned to get online into the internet.

And now we've got children, three, four of them eventually, in the home. We couldn't put them in school because it's all Spanish. Our kids can't speak Spanish.

We tried to get John in a school where they claimed they were going to be partly English, partly Spanish. And he took one look and he said, Mommy, I don't want to go there. So John never had a day schooling in his life, ever.

So how could he get trained? We went onto the internet. And we took the knowledge that we had and we began to instruct the children ourselves. And I began to teach him.

And as he learned, he couldn't even read or write, yet we had to teach him that ourselves. And then he got onto the internet and he began to find things there. And he learned.

Anybody think John's stupid? I tell you what, he's one of the most intelligent here. He knows stuff I don't know. And he gets most of it off the internet.

But what if my kids don't go to school and end up stupid? You see, you become too dependent on the system. Many places, the kids are homeschooled. And we have folks in this ministry who brought their kids up entirely on homeschooling.

There's one sitting behind the camera now. Annalena was brought up homeschooled by her mom. Is she stupid? Is she limited? Not by any means.

Sometimes the greatest stresses and hurts that take place in the lives of children happen at school. We're going to minister any healing in later years to heal all those bad experiences where they were bullied and treated badly and abused by teachers and fellow pupils. See, but we've got ourselves locked in what is the normal right way of doing things.

And now suddenly the apple cart is turned over and we say, oh, but what are we going to do? We learn to do it without any of that. And we succeeded. I'm not saying that you should do that.

But I'm saying if you're forced into a situation where you have to, you can. And you can come out highly successful in the process. We took our materials, we began to put them online.

We began to produce courses through our transcripts. We began to upload video and audio and transcripts onto the internet. We began to set up websites.

But how did you do that? We learned. Who taught you? Us. We asked questions.

We went online. We looked up stuff. We bought books.

We left no stone unturned to find out how can we do this? I found out what the skills were in each member of my family. They became my team. One was good at graphics.

So she would do the graphics. Another was good at another aspect. Each one became an expert in the little field.

A little team of six. We accomplished what often takes highly skilled employees to accomplish. None of us have any qualifications.

We set it up. And we succeeded. And we began to reach the nations of this world while being stuck, confined, if you were, to our little home.

It was a big home. We were all living in the same home. In a foreign land where we couldn't even speak the language of the people.

Are you still feeling limited and restricted by your little restrictions of the coronavirus? We created mailing lists. And eventually we started to make our own books. We tried to find out if somebody would publish our books.

And they said, okay, we want a list of contacts and proof that you have somebody you can sell it to. And we need so many thousand dollars up front to publish your book. Well, we didn't do that.

There'd be enough money to eat. So we looked up online and found out how to make books. We found out how to print books ourselves on our little laser printer.

Print our books out. Print them so that this side of the page is that way around. The other side is upside down.

So that we can make two books on one page. And we print them all. And then we'll cut it in the middle so we have two books.

Then we made our own little presses to squeeze that paper together. And we bought contact glue and a paintbrush. And we painted the, what do you call it? The spine of the book.

We designed our own covers and printed them on cardstock. And then we folded them and put glue on them and we glued them onto the book. Then my one son-in-law found a place in the States where he could take them where they would cut it to size for us.

And we had a book. We were making our own books. And I tell you what, they were better quality than some of the stuff you buy in the shop.

What did it cost us? Our time and our effort. And our resources. Oh, you'd be amazed what resources you've got.

You'd be amazed what abilities you've got. If you'll stop long enough to dig inside of you and say, Lord, give me wisdom. How can I do this? You'll be amazed what you can do.

But you don't do it because somebody else is doing it for you. It's too easy for you to pass it to them and pass the buck and just get on with life. And then you complain and say it's not fair.

How come some people are so successful and they rise up? You know, when I was very young, I learned to play a musical instrument. It didn't happen overnight. I pushed and pushed until I could play it.

And then I learned another one and another one. I see people complaining and saying, well, you know, those guys in the worship band, it's OK for them. They know how to play.

They didn't learn it overnight. Well, you know, I wasn't born with a guitar in my mouth, you know. Either was I. You know, if you're sitting at home doing nothing, you might have time to pick up that guitar and learn a few chords.

But while you're going out doing your socializing and running the rat race all the time, now you're not going to have time. But before you know it, your life's going to be over and you've accomplished nothing. God has given you a gift, folks, in the coronavirus.

He's given you a gift. I thought it came from the devil. Now, the devil is so stupid, he doesn't realize that every time he tries something, God turns it for good.

If you let him. If you let him. We started making our own books and then we found out we could do them online.

We found that Amazon.com would actually allow us to upload all the text and the graphics and they would make the book for us and sell it on their bookshop. We get money in every month from Amazon.com, from people that are buying our books all over the world. And we never see them.

We never touch it. All we did was put it up there on Amazon, make an arrangement with them. Yeah, they take a huge cut.

We only get a small portion, but it's money coming in every month without us making any effort towards it. Another group called Lulu, which handles all the e-books, and they put our books on all the main bookshops. You don't get a lot of money, probably about $50 a month from Lulu.

Oh, could you use an extra 50 times $1,500 a month? Just money for jam. See, these things didn't come and fall on us. We had to work towards it because we made the effort to do it.

You know why? Because we had the time and we had the restriction that we couldn't do what everybody else was doing. Now, I want to end on looking at the churches that are out there right now. Almost, I must go on.

So many of these big churches now have been told you can't have your meetings anymore and they're shutting down. Many of them have already learned to use technology and they already started to stream their meetings. Some of them are continuing their services with just the preacher and the musicians and nobody in the congregation, but they're broadcasted live, kind of like we're doing today.

And that's great, but people need to get together. People do need to get together and there is a way around it. It's called the church in the home.

In the early church, they had two options. They gathered together in the large group in the temple and they met in their homes. They ate meals together.

They shared the word together. They invited people. They led people to the Lord.

In the home, you can have simple worship. You can either sing without music or somebody can have a guitar and you can have a simple little time of worship. Won't disturb the neighbors because it's not that loud.

You can have simple little Bible studies and you can pray for one another. Well, you know, how am I going to minister to my 300 people if I can only have 10 at a time? That means 30 different meetings. I'm going to wear myself out.

We said you meant to run the home meetings. We're people in charge. Start doing yourself out of a job.

You should have been doing that a long time ago. You know what? The church will begin to grow right there in the homes. You can still have your live ministry, but you know that people can start to fellowship with one another.

They can continue to fellowship and grow spiritually and you can be there to help some of the leaders and to train others to do that. And I'm afraid some of the old style churches, they haven't even thought about that. I shared recently the vision God gave me 18 years ago of the coming storm, where all these big ships crashed in the storm because they tried to continue.

Instead, the little boats weathered the storm. And the church is only going to survive in the little boats folks, not in the big ocean liners. Yes, there's a place for that.

We're not going to get rid of that. But don't depend on that. The real church actually is in the home.

You say, well, you know what? I really don't know too many people. I've just got my family. My wife and me and my three kids.

We go to church. Jesus said, the two or three are gathered together in my name. There I am.

You mean I've got a running church in my home? Yeah, you're a pastor. You're going to preach to four people. I can't preach to four people.

I did and highly successfully did. Of course you can. Start there.

You know, you're going to have up to 10 people in your home comfortably. And if it gets bigger, split it into another home. You don't have to worry about church buildings.

You know, I don't like to be critical. But sometimes I can't avoid it. And I see people raising millions for church buildings.

There's a huge one being erected down there on the coast. The old building burned down and now they're making a bigger, better one. And they've been appealing for millions just for the sound system along the building.

Do you know what it's costing? They've had plans to launch it this coming month, but you know what? They're not going to be doing that. You know how much money, how much of that money could have been used to extend the gospel to those who can't afford all that money, to those who can't afford to gather in these huge numbers? See, but you know how good it feels to stand up and be the pastor of a church of thousands with this huge, big auditorium. You know, I honestly don't think that that pleases the Lord.

I think the Lord is more pleased when you can open your heart to one person and go and pour into them the love of the Lord. And that doesn't cost you anything. But be that as it may, I'm not the one to stand and judge.

A judgment is coming, folks. It's happening. And all these big ships, they're going to crash and sink.

What if you have such a ministry? Are you online? If you've got a ministry, are you online? No, it doesn't cost much to set up a website these days. It costs you nothing to advertise online. You can reach beyond your local area even.

You can reach even internationally as we did from Mexico and as we do so from here. You can make a Facebook page and you can post on there several times a day. It's free, folks.

You know how many people you can minister to. You can collect new contacts. You can get a YouTube account and upload all of your videos there for people to watch.

Preach to your family and get one of them to video you. So I don't have a camera. See what we're doing our live stream on today.

We're doing it on an iPhone. Yeah, it may not be the best, but you're going to watch the video after it. You'll see it's going to be pretty good.

You can do that. Sure you can do that. And then you can take it and transcribe it and convert it into text and make yourself an e-book and upload that on your website and get people to download the e-book and read your message.

It costs nothing but your time. Or maybe you don't have a great big ministry already. Maybe it's just you and your family and you'd like to start your own ministry.

Well, I'm not qualified. What does it take to be qualified? If you want to study, we've got plenty of that to offer you. You can start your own ministry right now.

Now, start in your home, have fellowship with your family and start inviting some friends over. You say, but we've got lockdown. That's fine.

You're locked down in your home. That's where you stay. Easy enough to do.

Well, I'm going to preach to camera, but you know, I don't have a great big meeting hall. Find a room that has a nice curtain in it. Blue is always a nice one.

We always use blue curtains. It makes a nice background. Find something plain.

You know what? If you don't, go and buy some. As long as it's not too bright in the background, otherwise you can't see the person. At one stage, we actually put curtains against the wall just for a background.

We use that. Then you go stand there. Well, I don't have a pulpit.

Use one of these music stands. They're quite cheap. I don't have a camera.

Use your ordinary mobile phone. They've all got cameras on them. Tripods are not too expensive.

Otherwise, just mount it on something and hold it tight. You can do it. We did it with our little camera and our wonky little tripod from the telescope.

You can do it. We're still using those materials today. You know, God is offering us a gift.

Now, I'm not saying this is going to go on forever. No, I'm not saying it should. I'm not saying it's normal.

For us, it was not normal. In Mexico, we were living with three families in one home. That's not normal.

Time had to come and it came to an end. For a season, we took the restriction and the limitation that we had and we used it to advantage, to build a ministry which has now lasted well over 20 years, which has now been extended as we came back to South Africa, has poured into our training schools and continues. But who qualified me? Yeah, I was ordained once and in ministry, but I left the whole denomination.

I was on my own. So who qualified me to stand up and preach? The Lord qualified me. If God's called you, he's qualified you.

You don't need any organization to qualify you. Get going, moving. Now, we've learned how to make the best of restrictions and we've built an international ministry.

We can show you how to do it. And actually, we've produced a lot of materials that will help you to prepare for it. We can help you put your ministry online.

We can make websites in minutes and we can program the website to make it do what you want it to do. So, folks, instead of looking with fear and panic and frustration at all these restrictions that have been put on us, why don't we make the most of this difficult time and see it as a blessing? Why don't you let the Lord help you to turn around your life and your ministry? To maybe do what he's been calling you and nagging you to do for a long time. He's taken away all the distractions now.

And you know, once it becomes a habit of doing things this way, once it becomes a habit to spend more time with your family, when these things open up again, we would have learned our lesson and we won't let those things go because we'll know that they're precious and they're important to us. If you need help with us, we're here for you. Please feel free to talk to us anytime.

You can get us on the phone. You can WhatsApp us. You can send us emails.

We're here to help. And yes, we're there to minister to those that are becoming victims to these things. And I just want to end on this note.

And that's why I prayed for the sick at the beginning. The Lord has given me an anointing specifically to minister not only to the COVID-19, but to all viruses. Most of the time when I minister to the sick, God shows me in the spirit what is wrong with the person.

I will often see their bodily parts. Sometimes they'll tell me they've got a pain in their head and I'll see something down here. I don't have to go for MRIs and CGIs and who knows what else.

It costs a fortune which nobody can afford because the Holy Spirit will show us. And then he gives his power to heal. As I waited on the Lord, trying to avoid the panic myself, and I said, Lord, how do we handle this? We're not on medical aid.

I can't even afford to go for a test if it should hit me. I get colds and flu frequently. How do I know if this is the new one or not? The Lord said, I've given you a new instrument to use.

It's kind of like a taser gun. You aim it at the virus, it just obliterates. He said, now I'll show you what virus is involved when you pray.

He said, when it's a certain color, it's a normal flu virus. When it's another color, you know that's the COVID-19 and you can deal with it. He said, but it takes the same power to deal with both of them.

It doesn't make any difference. I started practicing on me because I get a cold at the drop of a hat. At least I have in the past.

He shared my last message that there are three demons associated with flu because there are three stages that we go through. I made the mistake of thinking that once the first stage kicks in, it's too late, it's going to run its course. And sure as nuts, after the cold comes the flu, and after the flu comes the lungs, and the pneumonia, bronchitis, and the heaving, and difficulty of breathing, and the coughing, the phlegm.

The Lord said, you don't have to follow through all the stages. You can nip it in the bud right at the beginning. The Lord gave me a chance to test on me just recently.

I started to get a cold. You get that burning in the back of your nose, a little bit sore in the throat. Oh, there it comes.

Oh, here it is. Too late, too late, she cried. I've gone over the edge.

It's on me. I've got it. Now it's going to follow through.

Oh, it takes so long to follow through. And the Lord said, no, you don't have to. And I stopped right there, and I said, ah, ah, ah.

I'll do everything in the natural. I'll bomb myself with the vitamin C, and gargle with salt, and whatever else I can do. But I'm taking authority over this thing in the name of Jesus.

And as I took authority over it, it disappeared. Wow. I was just standing up here, sniffling, and trying to preach with a cold.

And it was great. I had victory. And just after that, I've got this pain in my chest.

Oh, dear. And I realized I was battling to breathe. Here it comes.

Ah, ah, ah. You've been there? I've been there many times. I had it so bad last year.

I figured there must be a new strain of flu in the air. Maybe I got an advanced COVID-19. I don't know.

And I thought, oh, no. I managed to get rid of the cold. What do I do with this? And Daphne said to me, I thought the Lord gave you something new to deal with this.

Why don't you use it? I thought, really? Do you use it in other people? And I held it up and said, you flu virus, in the name of Jesus. Ouch. You hear me wheezing today? I can pass the test.

I can hold my breath for 10 seconds. They said that's one of the ways of testing to see whether you've got it or not. It's gone.

Well, I believe the battle's not over. We'll try again. But you see, what do most people do? At the first time, they run to the doctor.

Don't infect the doctors. I hope you're being safe, Sister Mipre, from all these people that are panicking. I must have the COVID-19.

Please test me. You're not sick enough. But I might be dying.

Come on, you're a child of God. You have the authority of the name of Jesus. Why don't you use it? Don't you dare, Satan.

Don't you dare. You take your sickness back to hell where it came from. If you're struggling, come, we'll pray for you.

We'll stand in agreement with you and use whatever anointing God's given us. We don't need to fear. Don't need to fear because the Lord is there to take us through these things.

Okay. I felt I needed to end on that note because up until now, I haven't really spoken, maybe much spiritual stuff. I've been speaking more natural stuff.

But I want you to see that God wants you to take this whole thing and cause it to bring you to a place of greater commitments, to where you're ready to stand in faith, first to overcome these things yourself, and then to stand in faith, to minister to others who are suffering and are contracting these things. To use common sense, to not kick against the restrictions. And when you're placed in those restrictions, to see God's hand of opportunity, to take that restriction and turn it into something greater.

What's God's purpose in your life? What's the calling God's placed on your life? What is it that you want to accomplish so? Why don't you see how the current limitation could be a doorway to you moving finally into the very thing that you've been desiring from the Lord? Ask the Lord to show you how and he'll give you wisdom. I think we're all going to look back on this in time and say, wow, it seemed like it was such a terrible thing. But I thank God for it.

And the devil's going to stand there and say, I don't understand. I gave them my biggest shot and they came out stronger. You're such a stupid devil.

You'll never learn, will you? Some of us are stupid too. Let's learn. Amen.

Hallelujah. Father, I thank you for the word. I thank you for the opportunity you've given me to minister to your people, Lord.

I pray for each one that's watching this right now. I pray, especially for those who are in fear that you will bring peace to their hearts now. You bring assurance that you'll give them protection and covering from these things.

For those that already begun to face some attack, I thank you, Lord, that you drive these things out of their bodies. And for those that are forced into limitations and restrictions that they're not used to, give them the wisdom, Lord, to see beyond those, to see the opportunities that you may be offering them right now to rise up and fulfill your purpose in their life. May you take this word, Lord, and use it as you choose.

May you use it to be a blessing to your people. I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

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