Michael Germi: Well, good afternoon. I’m so glad to be here with you. And I’m going to speak about light out of darkness.

Because in the world we have darkness, as you know. Nighttime you have darkness, and in the morning you have light. But also we have spiritual light.

And God is the one. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. And we have spiritual darkness.

That is Satan. And Satan and demons, they work. They are rulers of the darkness of this world.

And they try to deceive people. And they try to destroy you and me. And they are against you.

They are against God’s work. And we need to know that we are in a spiritual battle. So I’m going to speak about light out of darkness.

You know, Satan was a beautiful creature. God created him, but he rebelled against God. And he said that, I am God in heaven. And third, part of the angels believed in him,

and they were kicked out of heaven. They became demons and rulers of darkness of this world. And so God created man in Genesis 1, 27. So God created man in his own image,

not in the image of angels, but in his own image. In the image of God created he, him. Male and female created he, them.

So God created man in his image. That means God wanted man to reflect his characters. For example, God is light.

Light is purity, holiness. So God wants us to be pure and holy, to reflect God’s character to the world. God is love.

And in this world, there are so many people unlovable. They need your love. So we need to love people.

God is righteous. A lot of people are wicked. They do unrighteous things.

So God wants us to reflect God’s righteousness. So that’s what God wants us to do. That’s what he created man to reflect that attribute that God has to this world. In Exodus chapter 19, you know, when you come to the Noah’s time,

all the earth was full of violence. People were killing each other and raping, and it was evil. People were so wicked, and God destroyed them all, right?

All people, animals perished. Only eight souls got saved. And then God wanted to do something.

Because men, on their own vision, they didn’t want to follow God. So God wanted to choose a man to teach him his ways. That was Abraham.

So God chose Abraham and he wanted to give him a nation. So he wanted to bless him and also his children. God knew that Abraham is going to follow him.

He’s going to be obedient. He’s going to teach his children after him to follow God’s ways. And so from Abraham, the nation of Israel was formed.

And God made a covenant with this nation. And he said, now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant. So God makes covenant always with people.

Why? Because he wants to bless them. When you make covenant or agreement with somebody, that means you want to do something for them, something good.

And God is good and he wanted to do something good for his people. He said that then ye shall be a peculiar treasure. It means valuable.

I’m going to value you. I’m going to love you. Unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine.

And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and holy nation. Kingdom of priests. Priests in the Old Testament, what did they do?

They served God. They represented God to man and man to God. So children of Israel, they could not come to God and worship God on their own.

They couldn’t do sacrifice on their own. They needed a priest. Priest was like a mediator in the Old Testament.

So he had to help people to worship God, to get closer to God. God said, “If you obey my voice, if you keep my covenant, then I’m gonna choose you.” To be kingdom of priests, that means you’re gonna be a blessing to all the nations around the world. So God wanted to choose this nation from Israel that God would send His word and salvation to all the nations.

This is the map of Israel. You see that little country of Israel. and this is the world, all the countries. And God wanted to choose this nation and send them to all the countries that they would be blessing, that all the nations that worship false gods,

that they would come to true God and get saved. And we go to the next slide. Israel was commanded to do what?

Number one, they had to destroy the Canaanites. God could not use Israel unless they could be holy first. Destroy the Canaanites.

Why? Because Canaanites were so evil. They were so wicked.

They killed their own babies. They passed them through the fire. And so God wanted to destroy them so they could stay in that land, the promised land, and live for God and serve the Lord. Number two, and regarding that destroying Canaanites,

you might ask the question, why God commanded them to destroy Canaanites? This is what Archer said. He said, in the view of corrupting influence of the Canaanites’ religion, especially with its religious prostitution and infant sacrifice, it was impossible for pure faith, means faith of Israel, they believed in Jehovah, and worship to be maintained in Israel except by the complete elimination of the Canaanites themselves, at least in those areas which the Hebrews were able to occupy. So if they lived among Canaanites,

it would have been so difficult for Israel. Why? Because they could be influenced by them, and they did many times, that they could worship their gods, and they could pass their children through the fire, and that’s what they did later on.

So God wanted to destroy those nations. And in Genesis, we read that God was patient with those nations. For 430 years, God waited for them that they could repent.

The Amorites, they did not repent. And in right time, God said, now it’s time to go to that land and destroy them. And so they had to destroy them.

And in the New Testament, there is application for that. That means you have to destroy the enemy, the flesh, the world, and Satan. You have to be holy if you want to serve the Lord.

So number two, they had to obey God’s commandment and surrender to his will. God said, if you obey my commandment, then you shall be unto me a peculiar treasure. And in Deuteronomy 4, verse 5 to 8, we read that God, this is what Moses said, Behold, I have taught you statues and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land, whether ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them,

for this is your wisdom. The Bible is your wisdom, the word of God, and your understanding in the sight of the nations. Which shall hear all these statues and say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. The people around them, they will say,

wow, these people have wise wisdom. They are people of understanding and wise people. For what nation is there so great who has God so an eye unto them?

They could see that their God is so an eye, very close to them. God led them in the pillar of fire, cloud. God was leading them.

Well, I grew up as a Muslim, and Allah, who is the God of Islam, is so far away. They say that he is sitting in heaven so far away, and we Muslims are just slaves. We have to bow down five times a day and worship and do our obligations.

So we don’t have friendship with God, no relationship with Allah. As a Muslim, if you’re a Muslim, you can’t call God or Allah Heavenly Father. That’s a blasphemy because he is almighty, so great, sitting in heaven, But you can’t have relationship with him. But when nations saw Israel, they could say,

Wow, what nation is that that their God is so an eye unto them? As the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for. And what nation is there so great that has statues and judgment so righteous?

As all this law which I said before you this day. The neighboring countries, all nations will say their law is so righteous, so true, holy, because they had their own books, their own religious practices, which were wicked. They had to kill their own babies. Imagine you had to kill your little brother and sister because you want to worship your God,

and your God wants you to please Him by killing your brother and sister. That was their religion. But the religion of Israel was so pure.

Their statues and judgments were so righteous. We go so quickly. So Israel was commanded to destroy the Canaanites.

And number two, obey God’s commandment and surrender to his will. And then be a light to the Gentiles. If they did this tree, then they could serve the nations.

Be a light. And they had candlestick and everything, religious things that they were practicing, but they did not worship God in their hearts. They had all outward things that they were doing, but their hearts were so far away from God.

So they could not fulfill that commission that God gave them. And then Isaiah gave them prophecy about the true servant. somebody who’s going to be a true light. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob

and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. So Isaiah prophesied that Jesus, he’s going to be God’s servant. He’s going to be a salvation unto the end of the earth,

to America, to Europe, and to Iran, and India, and so many countries. Because Israel failed. They could not be the light to the Gentiles.

So God said, I’m going to send my servant, Jesus. So Jesus came, and in John 8, 12, he said, I respect Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

So Jesus fulfilled that. He was light, wasn’t he? He was pure.

He was righteous. He never did wrong. He loved sinners.

He was a friend of sinners. So Jesus fulfilled that. I’m going to speak about two countries that they are in darkness.

And Jesus has given us commission. He said, you are the light of the world. So we need to take that light, glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, to that dark countries.

The first one is India, and the second one I’m going to speak, that’s Islamic country, country of Iran, my country where I grew up. So in India, there is a caste system. That’s so wicked.

What is caste system? So you’ve got gods. Gods, they believe in polytheism, means many gods.

They have thousands or millions of gods. They say that there are three million gods in India. So they are gods above all people.

And then there’s Brahmin. Brahmin, they are priests and academics. Those religious people who are closer to God.

They are better than you, holier than da. And then you have Kshatriya. They are warriors and kings.

They are kings of tribes. They have so many different tribes. They call it Khan, like Shahru Khan.

And they are the next level. And then there is Vaishya. They are merchants, landowners, businessmen. And the next one, you’ve got Sudra, which are commoners, peasants, and servants,

like average people. And then lastly, you have untouchable. These people are outcast people.

Nobody cares for them. They can’t touch anybody. They’re like lepers in the Old Testament.

They could not, they can’t in India, they can’t touch anybody. If they touch you, you can sue them and you can punish them. They are untouchable.

Nobody loves them. And they have been punished by average people on this street. They just sweep the floors and everything.

They are so outcast. Imagine somebody goes to India and nobody touches them. They despise these people.

You go and hug them and love them and share the gospel with them. They could be amazed. They could say, why you are so different?

You are so different than all people, even Indian. Their own people hate them. This odd cast called untouchable, they are hated by their own people.

So they need your love. Would you go there to India to reach out to those untouchable, odd cast people? That’s what God is calling us.

So we need to go to many countries. There are so many different countries that have so darkness there. Their religions are so darkness.

And this is an untouchable family in India. You see they live in a tent, no bathroom. You see that’s probably their shower.

They get water out of that and they wash their bodies maybe once a month. So it’s not an easy place. And they are hated by their own people.

And they need your love. And we go to the next one. This is Aghori, another religious group.

Aghoris, who are they? The meaning is Aghori is the one who is fearless and does not discriminate. So we’re going to learn about them. Aghoris are devotees of Shiva, manifested as Barawa and Monis, I can’t pronounce them,

who seek moksha from the cycle of reincarnation or samsara. And they must learn from their teachers and do what they say. They have their own pastors or priests that they learn from. And then they believe that God exists in everything,

therefore nothing is unholy. That’s called pantheism. God is everywhere.

God is on the chair. God is in my shoes. I can stand on God.

God is everywhere. In microphone and clicker, God is everywhere. Therefore, nothing is unholy because God is everywhere.

Everything is holy. Therefore, what do they do? Part of their ritual is eating of rotten human flesh.

Why? Because nothing is unholy. Everything is holy.

God is in the dead body, so they eat rotten human flesh. That’s part of their rituals. That’s part of their religion.

Would you do that? I don’t think you would, and I don’t want to do that either. So let’s go to the next one.

They also look for rotten or leftover food on the streets to eat. They drink animal urine. That’s part of religion.

Why? Because nothing is unholy. Everything is holy.

God is in everything, so they eat everything. Nothing is unholy. That’s why they have a lot of diseases.

A lot of people get sick. They die because their God is a demon and Satan deceives them. They burn the dead bodies and use the ashes to apply on their bodies during meditation.

They use the skull of the dead body as a food bowl to eat food from them. You see that picture he was holding a skull? They use it as a bowl, so they make some cereal in it.

I don’t think they would. They can’t find that. I don’t know what they eat.

They collect some food from the street and they put it into that bowl and they eat from. And intoxication and smoking is part of the rituals that help them to come out of this world, to connect to the spirit world. They think that by getting drunk and smoking, you connect to the spiritual world.

You can get closer to God better. And then lastly, which is so bad, one of the rituals is sexual intercourse with dead human bodies. Imagine that religion.

That’s part of your religion if you are a gory. You see this is Satan. Satan deceives them.

They are in darkness, and they need light. And we have the light, don’t we? And we’re going to go to next.

This is one of those, the priest of Agoris. He said, this body and this life is not mine. It all belongs to goddess Kamkaya.

This is the only piece of the goddess. And he said, we come here to offer everything to her. If we don’t offer her anything, we won’t receive anything from her.

We come here to offer peace to the goddess, and in return, she grants us prosperity and well-being. They not prosper, I promise you. And they are not well-being.

They are sick, most of them. They believe that if you offer things to those goddesses, they’re going to prosper you. They’re going to keep you healthy.

So they’ve been deceived. They don’t see that it doesn’t work. My religion doesn’t give me prosperity.

Why then India is a poor country? And then next country is Iran, my country where I grew up. There is a day in Iran called Ashura Day.

This is the day when third successor of Muhammad. You know, you have Allah, who is the God of Islam, and then you have Muhammad, who was the founder of Islam. And after Muhammad, three people, three successors.

The third one is called Hussain. Hussein died in a battle, fighting with enemies, and he died. So because they believe that he died for the cause of Islam, he sacrificed his life. So they go on the street, they cry, they pray to Imam Hussein, this third Imam, that they think that by praying to Hussein and asking for mercy,

Hussein is going to have mercy on them, and he’s going to forgive their sins. and they pray for healing. They bring their dead, not dead, disease, like sick children or whatever, loved ones.

And I remember our neighbor. We had a neighbor and they had a son who was, like he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t hear. He was deaf and everything.

And he was like demon possessed as well. He was like hurting himself and others. and every day of Ashura, they brought him, his mom brought him on the street so that this Muslim would pray for him in the name of Hussain that he would be healed. So people, you see this little teenager,

he’s like crying, begging Hussain to forgive his sins. Genuinely, can you see, many of them are crying. Genuinely, because they think that it’s going to happen.

They are in darkness. They have been deceived. And then they do self-harming.

You see they use chains. They hit on their back. And some people are even, they go beyond that.

They put some knives and sharp things on the end of that chain to cut their back. So you see the blood everywhere. And the next picture is, I’m going to go so fast because it’s not good.

Not this one. So you see that’s mud. People put mud on themselves, like sitting in sackcloth and ashes. So they put muds on themselves

as a sign of mourning and repentance. And they seek Hossein to have mercy on them. The next picture, I’m going to go so fast because it’s not good.

Okay, you see they use swords. They step on their heads, or self-harming. That religion was around 3,000 years ago.

You know Elijah in Mount Carmel? He challenged the prophets of Baal, and they prayed to Baal for so many hours, from morning till noon, and there was no answer. And they started to cut their bodies, cut their bodies that Baal might have mercy on them, to answer, to send fire from heaven.

Nothing happened. So still Muslims do that. They cut their bodies. They think that by doing that, Hussain, the third successor of Muhammad,

will forgive their sins and heal their bodies. They are in darkness. They have no light.

They have been deceived by Satan. And Ephesians 4, verses 17 to 18, Paul said, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk, not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened. Their understanding is Gentiles that they worship these things, that they cut their bodies and they do all the agoris.

We learn about them. Why do they do that? Because their understandings are darkened.

Being alienated from the life of God. They don’t have the life of God through the ignorance. They are ignorant. That is in them

because of the blindness of their heart. So they are blinded. They are ignorant.

Their understanding is darkened. Why? Because they don’t have the word of God.

They don’t have this. They don’t read it because they don’t know. They don’t have any pastors or missionaries to tell them that Jesus is the light of the world.

And so we have duty and great commission to tell them about Jesus Christ. Psalm 119, verse 130, it says, The entrance of thy words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple.

The entrance of thy words. When God’s word, the word of God, enters into your mind, it gives light. You can see, I remember when I started reading the Bible about 11 years ago, As a Muslim, when I read it, I just knew that there is something different about the Bible.

It was giving me light. I read hours and hours every day. I read so many chapters, and in one month, I finished the entire book because it was giving me light.

It gave me understanding. When I read the Bible, automatically, I just knew that my religion was false. Just praying in Arabic towards Mecca was false.

Self-harming was fake and false, not true. I just knew that. Why?

Because I was receiving light into my mind, into my heart. So I rejected Islam, and I got saved. So in terms of thy words, giveth light.

It giveth what else? Understanding. You can understand that that religion is false, and you should not cut your body.

You should care for your body. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you. And 2 Corinthians 4, verse 46, we read, In whom the God of this world, that Satan has blinded the minds of them which believe not.

Those people who believe not the gospel, they have been blinded by Satan. Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts,

that the light of God has shined in our hearts. Why? To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So God has given us light. We understand that Jesus is God. We understand that by trusting Jesus Christ, We can receive eternal life.

So we need to give that light. Pass on that light to Indians, to Iranians, to Muslims, to all people who are ignorant and they do wrong things. In America, even, a lot of people do so wickedly, and they have no light.

So we need to tell them about the light of God, Jesus Christ. And so Israelites, they had to destroy the flesh and obey God’s commandment and surrender to God’s will and then be a light. What about us as a Christian?

What do we have to do? So to shine in darkness, you need to, number one, destroy the works of the flesh, the same as Israelites. They had to destroy Canaanites, but we don’t go about to destroy our enemies, to destroy Muslims, to fight with them, to kill them.

That means put away sins. Destroy the works of the flesh. You need to be holy, for I am holy, God said. So we need to first destroy that flesh,

otherwise God is not going to use you. If you live in sin, God will not use you, I promise you. You have to put away sin, be holy, and number two, obey God’s commandment, and surrender to His will.

Total surrender, total dependence. You need to depend on God. Obey His commandment.

And we have this verse in 1 Peter 2, verse 9. But ye are a chosen generation. Remember in the Old Testament, God said, If you obey my commandment, you shall be my peculiar treasure and the kingdom of priests. But in the New Testament, Apostle Peter said, You are, you Christians are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him

who has called you out of darkness. I was in darkness before I got saved. I didn’t know why I was cutting my body.

I was using chain, hitting on my back. I didn’t know that I was in darkness. He said, God has called you out of darkness. What a privilege that God has called us

out of darkness of sin into his marvelous light. That’s Jesus. He has given us light.

The light of God is found in the Bible. That means people, Indian, Iranians, old people, Americans, so many students in America, they don’t know who Jesus is. Did you know that?

They don’t know who Jesus Christ is. So they have no light. And that’s our job to tell them that Jesus is the light of the world.

So number one, we need to destroy the works of the flesh and obey God’s commandment. Number three, be a light. That means we need to take the gospel to people.

Matthew 5, verse 14 to 16, you are the light of the world, Jesus said. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hit, neither do man light a candle and put it under a bushel. You don’t hide it.

You can’t hide your light. God has given you light. It’s in your heart.

You understand that Jesus is the light of the world. You can’t hide it. But on a candlestick.

And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. In the house means in the world. So you need to do what?

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. And glorify your Father which is in heaven. So the time is almost up. Just at the end, I’m going to give you this illustration of this couple,

Mohammed and Behnaz. This couple, they are married. They were in Iran as a Muslim.

And my brother was looking for a job. They had kind of Uber business, something like Uber business, taxi. And my brother found a job in their Uber business.

And my brother told him about Christianity. And he said to them, if you want to learn about Christianity, you can join my brother’s class online. So they joined my class, and I taught them.

And they were, especially, Muhammad was very religious. And I shared the gospel with them for a few months. I taught them, discipled them, and both of them got saved.

They got saved, and Behnaz was in trouble. She was sharing the gospel with her customers. She had hairdressing salon and getting hair cut.

And when customers came, she was telling them about Jesus Christ. She was, you know, she was light. And somebody reported her, one of the Muslims, evil.

They told, you know, police station that this lady is telling people about Christianity. So two ladies came and they took her to police station for interrogation to see if it’s true. And she was so worried.

She went there and then her father came to see what’s going on. Her father had somebody who was an official. So by his help, she was able to release, not to go to jail, but she had to go to court in 10 days.

So she called me. She was crying, like so troubled. she said this is what happened they they took me to police station and I have to go to court in 10 days what should I do and I said look don’t go to court if you go to court you’ve got two options number one you either have to confess that Jesus is God and you have received him as your savior

if you do that they’ll take you to jail and they’ll kill you I know what they do to Christians in And number two, if you deny Jesus Christ, and I don’t want to deny Jesus, that’s not a good option. I don’t want to deny my Lord who saved me. So I said the best option is to flee, go to Turkey.

So that’s what they did. They left, they went to Turkey, and they served the Lord in Turkey about a year and a half. And they grow so much in their faith.

They love the Lord. They witness to Iranians who live in Turkey, and they bring new people to our class online. and so many people have been saved through this couple. And she told me once when she went back home with her father on the way, so she went back home and her father said,

is it true that you converted to Christianity? She said that before that, it was about five, six months, she never told her father that she was a Christian because she was so scared. But on that day, she said she brought a knife.

She said, “Dad, take this knife and if you want to take my life, you take my life. I don’t want to go to jail to be killed by Muslims there. If you want to take my life, you do it.” And her dad was speechless, didn’t know what to say.

She said before that, “I was so scared, but on that day I was, I don’t know what happened to me. I just brought a knife and I told her that, look, I’ve been praying towards Mecca, in Arabic all my life, but I never chose to obey Allah or to be a Muslim. But I’ve been reading the Bible for five, six months, and when I read it, I cry.

It speaks to me. It has changed my life, and I don’t want to become a Muslim and stay as a Muslim. I want to stay as a Christian.

Jesus has changed my life. I’m going to be a Christian. I don’t want to go to jail to be punished by Muslims.

If you want, you kill me. So I’m going to go to heaven. So you see God used this lady to be a light.

And so many people have been saved. So what about you? I spoke about India and Iran.

Muslims have been deceived. Indians have been deceived. They live in darkness.

Would you be a light? Jesus said, you are the light of the world.