Everything's going wrong. And you know, if you spend too much time dwelling on what's going on around about you and the world around about us, you can be filled with despair and negativity. You sometimes wonder where God is, sometimes wonder what the future's gonna hold.

I spent a bit too much time the other day just going through all the posts on Facebook. I can't believe that Christians just seem to find the most negative and soul-destroying bad news to post on their Facebook page. You know, I don't even need to go and read the news.

I just need to go and read Facebook and find out all the bad things, all the countries that are wrong, all the governments that are wrong, all the everything that's wrong. You know, by the time you're finished, you think, you know, is there any purpose even serving the Lord? Why do we try so hard? Satan is winning on every count. It becomes very discouraging.

And you know, I pull myself up and shake myself and say, hey, don't allow this negativity to destroy what God has put in you. And as I meditated on it, an old, old scripture came to my mind. One that I read years ago and really ministered to me, one that I've probably memorized and could quote.

And it just kept burning in me and burning in me. And I felt that's the scripture I must preach on. The next time I get a chance to preach.

Title of my message is Let Your Light Shine. And I'm sure you all know the scripture. It's found in Isaiah chapter 6, reading from verse 1. It says, Arise, shine, for your light has come.

And the glory of the Lord Yahweh is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness will cover the earth and gross darkness the people. But the Lord Yahweh will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you.

And the nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. Everywhere you look today, everybody's turning away from God. Governments that were once considered righteous or at least moral in some way are turning away from God.

Even in this country of South Africa in times past, where the government was supposed to be religious and committed to God. We see a trend away in the nation of America, which is supposed to be God's own country. We see the government turning away from all godly principles and all even moral principles that any good living person would embrace.

The whole world has gone mad. We see the gay parade, the LGBT. And I see somebody's added a Q on the end of that.

I'm not sure what that stands for. You know what LGBT stands for? Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite. And I see some people put a Q on it.

It probably stands for queen. I don't know. They become a force in their own right.

A small percentage of the population that are now dictating to the world. We must bow to their desires. And the governments are submitting to it, passing laws to keep these people happy.

What a mess this world is in. Never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Then we got the rise of Islam.

And this new group, ISIS, is going out and murdering Christians and killing them. Even children. This world is in a mess.

Gross darkness is coming upon the people. And there's a temptation to be filled with fear. And we can sit complacent in our little country or our little place.

You say, well, at least it's not touching us. But there's the fear that it's coming closer. Could touch us too.

Could affect our future. And then we foolish enough to go on to the news to find out what's happening. And there's no such thing as good news.

Good news doesn't sell. An old saying which is always used in the media, has been for years, is if it bleeds, it leads. Just don't hear the good news.

Who wants to hear that somebody's happy? Who wants to hear that everything's going well? Who wants to hear that people are prospering financially? That they're walking in health? No, we want to hear of murder, killing and strife. That's the news. Surrounded by it all the time.

And you go on this wonderful social media, Facebook. Or even YouTube. Where we're going to go and mix with at least believers, not the world, right? We're going to mix with some believers.

And we're going to share about the Lord. Well, I've been trying to do that on our Facebook page because God told me to. It frightens me.

Frightens me when I see what people call themselves Christians. Posting on their Facebook pages. Yes, this video is going to be made available for everybody to listen to.

You people who are friends with me on Facebook. I hope you're listening to this. How can we allow the enemy to control our thinking that all we think about is what Satan is doing? I don't care what Satan's doing.

What Satan's doing today, he's been doing from the beginning. He hasn't changed. I don't know if we hear some news about what God's doing.

Now, the only news that we hear about what God's doing is about churches bickering and fighting. About Christians bickering and fighting. About all the negativity of how bad Christians are.

About how preachers are just trying to take your money. It's all that gets promoted. You know, God is doing something in this earth.

And you know, you know why you don't know about it? Because nobody's publishing it. I subscribe to this charisma. Now charisma stands for the word gifts, charismata.

The gift to the spirit. A magazine that's supposedly run by a charismatic group. And I went on there expecting to see the latest of what's happening in the fivefold ministry, and the gift to the spirit, and the power of God moving through the earth.

And mostly all I read there is how the gays are winning. And how things are so bad in the world that Jesus is coming is imminent. There's blood moons and all sorts of signs out there, that prove that the second coming is around the corner.

Have you heard it? You seen it? So we've got our thinking all warped. Not only warped to think like the world, because it filled our minds so much with what the world is doing. But we got our thinking warped with theology that is questionable.

Even though it's been taught through the years. I grew up in churches. Hearing them preach, Jesus should come tonight.

And you're not ready. Would you go up in the rapture? We see these movies like Left Behind. Are people suddenly disappearing? And oh, I was left behind because my life was not right before God.

And we calculate according to when Israel became a nation, and how long the generation is, that Jesus will return by the year such and such. You'll never hear me preach that stuff. For a very good reason.

I don't believe it. Here's this young couple. Just got married.

Thinking about starting a family. But if Jesus is coming next week, why should we bother? Here's a person embarking on a new career. Why should I bother studying? Because by the time I'm qualified, Jesus may have come, and I'll waste my time.

Why should I bother? Preaching like that takes away people's goals and ambitions, and everything that they have to look for. Now I don't believe Jesus is coming around the corner. Too much that needs to happen before Jesus comes.

This world, and this church, is nowhere near ready for Jesus to come. And our job, and my mandate, is to help make this church ready for Jesus to come. It's probably not going to happen in my lifetime.

We should have two attitudes. We should be ready if Jesus were to come today. But we should be planning and working as though he's never coming.

Do you know the world's in a state, and Jesus needs to come and rescue us before this world is totally destroyed. Jesus has got to come rescue us from this mess, because he's not capable of doing it, and his body, the church, is not capable of doing it. We all missed it.

So he's coming to snatch us away, and call it quits, and say, okay Satan, you won. And then he's going to come and do the job that we failed to do, by himself. That's not the church I read about in the book of Acts.

That's not the church I read about that's going to all the world. And let's sabotage the nations. Our job is to prepare the body of Christ, and this world for the coming of Jesus.

That when he comes, we can hand over to him a victorious church. It's living in power and victory. But we put our hope in man, don't we? Instead of in God.

We see our hope in the country. Over 17 years ago, I left this country. Not like most people who were running away, because they didn't like the way it was going, but God led us.

But I was also running away, because things weren't good for us here. I didn't think I'd ever come back again. And when God said come back, I still had the picture of what I came from.

And I thought, how can I go back there? And I looked at the place I was living. I looked at this wonderful hub of the world, the United States. And I thought, I don't want to live there either.

What's good about it there? What is better? Go and check the countries of this world. And you know, people in these countries are complaining and thinking if I could only emigrate and go to a better land, things will be better for me. Now Satan's reigning there too.

People put their hope in politicians. If we could just get the right man in government, I've seen the right man go right at the top and do nothing. Because this world system is being controlled and manipulated by Satan's powers.

Now I'm a little bit older than most of you. So I've lived a little bit. And I've seen a few things.

So you can't quote Les, chapter one, verse two. But I want to share some of my experience. Because you see, many years ago when I was young, the world was not much different.

Yes, it wasn't the same. It's a lot of things we have today we didn't have back then. See, we didn't have ISIS and Islam about to conquer the world.

But you know, we had something worse. We had communism. And those who lived before my time, probably looking back to the era of Hitler and the Holocaust.

And this man who was going to take over the world. But he came to an end. I remember being so indoctrinated on communism that we were just waiting for it to take over our country.

As a youth leader, I did a little skit, a little play the one night to try and illustrate what it would be like to be behind the Iron Curtain. And in our youth meeting, we had everything in darkness, just candles. And as people came in the door, we took their Bible away.

You're not allowed to bring a Bible in here. Shh, be quiet. This is a secret meeting.

We were trying to portray what it would feel like to have a secret underground meeting in a communist country. We were going to try and worship the Lord not too loudly in case they hear us. And then, of course, at the right moment, there was loud noise and in came the soldiers to arrest us.

Worshipping God illegally. And we thought one day this could happen. This could happen.

What is going to happen if we were to face that situation? But you know, every time I read about the Christians behind the Iron Curtain, you know, we sometimes pray for the Christians behind the Iron Curtain. And one day, somebody went in and found out that the Christians behind the Iron Curtain were praying for us. Because they were victorious.

They were growing. They were filled with the glory and the power of God. And the rest of the church was dead.

You know, communism came and went. Who knows how? Just vanished almost overnight. Yeah, there's still elements of it there.

But the whole threat from Russia and even China now, it's abated. Came and went. So if you're so afraid about Islam and ISIS taking over the world, let me tell you, the moment will come when it'll burn out and it'll be over.

And Satan will have to think of something new. To try and fill us with fear as believers and just destroy the church. But you know what? Even the church that is suffering, being persecuted, being beheaded for their faith, right there, right now, you hear the reports coming.

They're victorious. They're rejoicing. They're full of the power of God.

Wow. And then we look at the guys and think, wow, what a mess. Eventually, you know what? With all the same-sex marriage and everything, what a mess the world's going to be.

Kids being brought up imbalanced. Every child's going to grow up gay. Amazingly enough, we keep seeing stories of children that were brought up in a gay relationship who rebelled against it and said, I don't like this.

I want a real daddy. I want a real mommy. It's unnatural.

Way back in the Old Testament, we read about Sodom and Gomorrah with its wickedness. Yeah, and that time, God stepped in and destroyed it. See, the gay thing's nothing new.

And they're from the beginning. And you know what? It's going to come and go. The people finally realize, when they've got all their rights and their liberties, that actually it's unnatural and it never can create happiness.

And we're worrying about these things. But you see, it's coming upon us. Christians are being forced.

In America, Christians are being sued and taken to court because they won't do it. They won't do business with the gay person. I believe the time's coming when God's going to move by his spirit.

And he's going to set homosexual people free and take away their wrong orientation and make them normal. Because the Bible says it's abnormal. And I don't believe in slamming these people and say, it's sin.

Let's judge them. Yes, it's sin to commit adultery and fornication too. But how can you help a person when they have an orientation that's warped and twisted? Need God to reach in and reverse it.

And he can. And I believe we're going to see it even in this ministry. Because I know how to deal with that.

We're going to pray for people. They're going to be set free. They're going to be transformed.

And they're going to suddenly change their desire for the opposite sex. Overnight. Without any heavy counseling.

You know, David, way back there, gave us a little scripture which is just so much like this whole thing of getting taken up by what the wicked are doing. He said in Psalm 37, wait on the Lord Yahweh and keep his way. And he will exalt you to inherit the land.

When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. And then he says this. He says, I've seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree.

Yet he passed away. And look, he was not. I looked for him.

But he could not be found. His time will come. Let's stop getting all riled up and uptight about what Satan's doing.

Because Satan's power is limited. And he knows his time is limited. But our power is unlimited.

Because we receive the power from God's spirit, which is unlimited power. We have a glorious future as believers in the Lord. You see, we have become members of the kingdom of God.

And he has made us kings. And kings reign. He's called the king of kings.

Well, who's the king that he's king over? You and I. Well, if you're a king, why are you groveling to this world? A king normally gives orders and commands. A king normally stands regally strong. And he's not moved.

Because he has authority. Now, Satan's kind of attacked even this, on the kingdom of God. And we have people out there teaching all sorts of flavors of kingdom teaching.

Now, subject to order and so on. Maybe one of these days I'll cover it in detail. Every time I hear the people use this word kingdom, I get nervous.

But there's some weird ideas out there on the kingdom. You see, God's kingdom has a future orientation. And when Jesus comes to take up his throne and to reign as king of kings and Lord of Lord, and we with him for eternity, it'll all be over.

See, but there's also a present orientation to the kingdom of God. The kingdom is also now. Kingdom is now.

And we live in God's kingdom, which is the kingdom of light. Well, there's another realm there. It tries to call itself a kingdom, but it doesn't have a king.

It only has a prince. It's actually just a little principality trying to fight this big kingdom. And he's roaring so loud that everybody in this kingdom is trembling.

What for? Stupid little prince. We're a king. Oh, but Satan is strong.

You mustn't mess with him. No, he's a prince and you're a king. You stand in the name of the king of kings who defeated him a long time ago.

Satan will not win in the end. Now, we have these two extremes. People have believed that the kingdom is only coming one day when Jesus returns.

So we're going to hold on so long as we can. Please, Lord, return and rescue us. And then we got people who strung to the other end of the extreme and said, we're going to take over the world.

Christians are going to take over the world. We're going to take over all the different realms of society. And we're going to rule and reign.

See, you ever heard of the seven mountain concept? Everybody's using it out there, OK? If you don't know it, I'm going to give it to you. Because you're going to meet it sooner or later. Everybody out there is teaching it.

It originated first by Bill Bright, I believe. And then the guy who started YWAM. And these guys, they came up with this concept.

It's a good thought. OK, what they did is they divided the whole of human existence into seven categories, which they called mountains. And they said, we need to conquer those mountains in this world as the body of Christ in order to overcome the world system.

OK, and the mountains are religion, family, education, government, the media, arts and entertainment, and business. Now, how do we overcome? See, unfortunately, they get to thinking, we need to get involved in those. See, we're going to form a bigger religion and control things.

See, we're going to take over the education system. We're going to put Christians in government so that Christians can rule instead of unbelievers. We're going to get Christians in the media.

Christians are going to rise up and take over the media instead of unbelievers. We're going to put Christians in art and entertainment and displace unbelievers. We're going to put Christians in business and displace unbelievers.

Sounds good, doesn't it? I almost fell for it myself at one stage. And then the Lord reminded me that some years ago, He actually gave me something very different. He gave me my own ones.

I didn't call them mountains. So I'm going to give you my revelation, not these other guys' revelation everybody's harping on right now. Because I believe there's a tendency to have this idea that we as Christians must become militant.

We must become militant and take over the world. No, no, our power is not with worldly fleshly weapons. Our power and authority is spiritual.

See, the strongholds in this world are not in the world system, they're in the minds. Scripture says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. See, that's where the battle is being fought, in the mind of man, not in the world system, not in the form of government, not in the racism, not in everything that the world's trying to offer.

We need to overcome the negative, something positive. And the most positive thing we have to offer is the word of God, the gospel, the good news. Good news, no more bad news.

Gospel means good news. Stop reading the bad news and stop speaking the bad news and start publishing the good news. Oh, what's the good news? So many Christians, they're so busy reading the bad news, they don't even know what the good news is.

They think they had to give up so much to become a Christian. You know, why should I impose this on some other poor guy out there? You know, I've suffered and had such a bad time since I became a Christian. How can I go to somebody and say, hey, become a Christian like me and mess your life up? Huh? I used to feel that way at one time.

I'm very honest. We've forgotten what the good news is. Again, let me give you my version of the seven mountains.

It's better. There aren't seven, there's five. But I've got all the seven incorporated.

Some years ago when I preached in the book of Joshua and covered the Joshua apostle, the Lord showed me that Joshua faced five kings. And since at that time God was giving me an allegory and showing me the symbolism in the whole thing, and particularly in the ministry of the apostle at that time, I saw that these five kings represented Satan's counterfeit to the fivefold ministry. You want to see where your mountains are? They're right there.

You see, and how do we overcome the mountains? With the fivefold ministry. What is the five opposing forces? Satan's counterfeit of each of the fivefold ministry. The fivefold ministry of the evangelist, Satan counterfeits that with the false cults.

Bringing their good news, coming to your door to knock and give you their so-called gospel. Satan's answer to the pastor who's there to counsel and bring people and heal them. Psychology and psychiatry.

And it's got such a control of this world now that it becomes against the law for you to do what God tells us to do in the word. What's Satan's answer to the teacher? It's the thing that we consider the most important thing in our life. In fact, we work hard to save up enough money to make sure that our kids get a good education.

We send them into the jaws of the lion to be educated by this world system, to teach them how not to trust God. The educational system is ruled and controlled by Satan. And your kids are programmed, programmed to think like the world, to think like the rulers of the country, to think like whoever's controlling that education system.

You dare and try and bring God or the Bible in there and you're in trouble. Not that bad in this country yet, but in America, the child just needs to bring a Bible to school or quote a scripture or say something. A teacher just dares to share something or pray with a pupil and there's trouble.

Don't ever, ever think that getting your kids educated is a good thing. I didn't say, I was keeping stupid, I didn't say anything wrong with knowledge. But you see, education is not knowledge, it's a system.

And it's controlled by this world system. And as soon as you send your kids into that system, you've got trouble on your hands. Getting there, mixing with their peers and with the teachers who are programming sorts into them.

And their spiritual values go out the window. Well, how do we, how do we overcome that one? Well, it's a bit difficult because in most countries it's a law. You've got to send your kids to school.

Fortunately, in some countries you can now homeschool and train your kids separately. My son John has never had a day's schooling in his life. Not one day's schooling his entire life.

I consider him one of the most intelligent young adults. I'll set him up against anybody who's got their degrees out there in this world system. But he's learnt the right stuff.

Well, God gave us that, not to set as a model for everybody, but circumstances forced us as we went into a foreign land which didn't speak English. And we couldn't put him in a normal school. So he stayed home, learnt by himself.

He's not incapable of anything. And if he wants to study anything, if anybody wants to study anything, just go online. It's all there.

We don't need to put our children into an educational system that is designed to program their thinking. It's not just knowledge, it programs their thinking. Maybe it's not so bad in this country yet.

But it will be. We need an alternative. It's the teaching ministry.

What's Satan's counterfeit of the prophet? The psychic. Go and have your fortune read. Go and have the psychic tell you your future.

Today, many Christian prophets have become psychics. Some of them are not even prophets. They're just psychics calling themselves prophets.

They don't even use the power of God. Getting revelation and predictions. We need the correct thing.

Okay? Want to guess what's Satan's counterfeit to the apostle? Politics. See, the apostle is the highest level of leadership. He's the one who organizes and controls everything.

These are the five areas that we've got to overcome. We're not going to overcome them by getting involved in them. We're going to overcome them by using fivefold ministry anointings that God's given us.

We're going to teach people the truth. They don't get led astray by false cults. We're going to give them the good news of the evangelist should be doing.

We're going to teach them as pastors how to take the word of God to overcome their problems. We're going to teach them as teachers how to learn for themselves. How to absorb knowledge themselves and to mix that knowledge with the word of God and with the spirit of God and build a life in this world.

For that have to subject themselves to the programming that comes from the educational system of the country you're in. God's prophets need to start standing up and being what prophets are meant to be. Instead of just being like psychics.

The apostles need to stand up and set things in order. Show people how to rise up and find their place in this world and in the body of Christ. I've gone on a bit and come to an end now.

Bear with me. We have the real thing. You say what about the other mountains? Well the Lord added three more things to me later on.

He showed me that there are three roads that we must walk as we fulfill these fivefold ministry. And the one is the road of ministry. The other is the road of Christian business.

And the third is the road of Christian social which includes the arts. So between the five kings and the three roads, I've covered the seven mountains quite adequately. Far better than what is presented out there.

You're welcome to differ with me. If you have embraced the seven mountain and it's blessing you and it's motivating you and causing you to rise up for God, the Lord bless you. I'm not going to take it away from you.

You see we have the real thing. Learn to identify your ministry. Train for your ministry.

And do it effectively in this world. And we'll start to displace Satan's counterfeits. Stop looking at the darkness.

Stop trying to fight the darkness. It's just one simple way to get rid of the darkness. Shine the light.

Shine the light. We live in the kingdom of light. We are the children of light.

And the scripture says, let your light so shine before men. And may glorify God. If they may be drawn like moths to what we've got inside of us, instead of us regurgitating and promoting what the world's already telling them.

What have we got that's new? Arise, shine, for your light has come. Glory of the Lord has risen. And when you'll stand up, God says the nations will come to your light.

The nations. Not only the people around about you. Not even the people in the surrounding areas.

But the nations will come to your light. When you'll dare to have the courage to stand up and shine that light. In this world, they'll come to the brightness of your rising.

Somebody said once, if you'll just get fire, get on fire for God. Somebody will come and watch you burn. Let's overcome the darkness with the light, shall we? Let's stop filling ourselves with the darkness that's around about us.

Let's rise up and move into the calling God's place in our lives. And take the light that he's given us. And amplify it until we are like radiant beam.

The darkness will flee automatically. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the power that you've given us in this world.

Hallelujah. Lord, I've just delivered my heart. What you put in me.

I pray that it won't offend, but that it will motivate. I ask you to take it and use it for your glory. You'll challenge your people, Lord.

To rise up now. Be what you've called me to be. Thank you for it, Lord Jesus.

Post A Review For This Book