Invasion of Light is a spiritual handbook for every Christian who longs to make a difference in the world.
I've found that many modern believers feel discouraged by the darkness in society. In this book, My Dad and I seek to impart fresh hope, faith, and zeal to believers who long to impact our world for Christ. We do this by unveiling the reality of Jesus's victory on the cross, pointing to God's promises of harvest, and showing how God has used the church to transform the world through the centuries. Then we give each reader the biblical tools they need to start impacting their world today, pulling from the Bible, church history, and our personal experience as itinerant missionaries. I believe the Lord will use this book to impart fresh faith, passion, and zeal for His call!
Everyone who has spoken to us about the book has been tremendously stirred. We sought to write with contagious fire and passion, instructive doctrinal clarity, and razor-sharp gospel focus.
The first section of the book, An Invasion of Darkness; An Invasion of Light. In this section, we show from the Bible and history that believers can make a radical difference in the world. We tell the story of how Christianity changed the world, and show the biblical reasons why such impact was (and still is) possible. The narrative is gripping, inspiring, and deeply stirring.
This section will quickly draw readers in and deeply stir their faith!
CHAPTER ONE
Two Kingdoms Clash
You are living in one of the greatest spiritual collisions in history. As we speak, Hell’s hordes are fighting tooth and nail to shipwreck the church, sabotage the lost, isolate the unreached, and destroy society as we know it. And you know what? Only we, Christ’s ambassadors, can stem the tide.
That sentence may shock you. You may see it as hyper-spiritual, self-important, or man-centered—but both scripture and history confirm it with undeniable clarity. Whenever society has sunk to new lows, only Jesus’s disciples have been able to turn the tide for righteousness. We alone have received Christ’s special anointing “to proclaim liberty to the captives,” “trample on snakes and scorpions,” and “overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 4:18 nkjv, Luke 10:19 niv). As Paul declared, “We are . . . Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20). And today, the world needs our influence more than ever because Satan has invaded culture with worse darkness than we’ve known in centuries.
Have you considered the decay of our society lately? Take a moment to think about it. How would you feel if you had fallen into a coma in the early 1950s and awoke to today’s morning news? Wouldn’t you feel terrified by the ways culture has fallen? Might you wonder if you had entered a dystopian movie? You might have fallen asleep in a fairly stable world (though unstable enough)—but this era you woke up in is the most sexualized, depressed, violent, polarized, and confused time in modern history. It seems impossible the world could have changed this much in a single generation. To be honest, it even seems impossible the world could have changed this much in a decade. But it has—and legions of demons lurk behind the decline.
In the shadow of such awful darkness, many modern believers have lifted their arms and accepted defeat. Look at the average American Christian, and what do you see? Most are discouraged. Many lazily await the Rapture, hoping it will save them from the madness. Plenty hide behind the protective bubble of Christian company, rarely stretching out a helping hand to the victims of the dark invasion. Most of us live shackled by fear and timidity. We’d never say it aloud, but our spiritual inaction shouts our true conviction: “The Kingdom of Darkness has won—retreat!” Yes, more than ever, the church of Jesus Christ desperately needs to hear the call to victory in spiritual battle. In this book, we want to announce that call.
Fellow disciple, it’s no time to retreat—it’s time to go to spiritual war for God’s kingdom. It may seem to you that God’s cause has lost in the world, but that’s mere satanic sleight of hand. We may feel like underdogs, but Satan has already been defeated! We must stop groveling, remember Jesus’s victory, and enlist in God’s mission with joy! Have we forgotten that Jesus has already won?
How Jesus Defeated the Darkness
Colossians 2:15 declares Jesus’s blowout win over Satan and his soldiers of evil: “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, [Jesus] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” As soon as Jesus died on the cross, the temple veil tore from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). In one sacrificial act, God removed the separation between Himself and mankind. A mediator had now come between God and man—Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus declared His victory as king: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). At that moment, Satan was already vanquished, God’s spiritual kingdom established, and our salvation secured.
The work of redemption completed, Jesus descended into Hell and took the “keys of Hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18 kjv). Then He rose from the dead and sat at the right hand of God the Father where He reigns as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Now, as Charles Spurgeon declared, “Nothing in Heaven, or Earth, or in places under the Earth, is left to itself to engender anarchy. Everywhere, serene above the floods, the Lord sitteth King for ever and ever.”
And while it may seem hard to believe, Jesus’s ultimate, final victory is on its way, too. At the end of this age, Jesus will return in power and glory—not as a baby in a manger, nor as a gentle carpenter, but as a king on a white horse to execute judgment and set everything right again. At that moment, King Jesus will at last utterly destroy the Kingdom of Darkness, casting Satan and every agent of evil “into the lake of burning sulfur [where] they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). In a moment, all their plans will fall to the ground, God’s plans will win the day, and Jesus will establish a new Heaven and new Earth without any sin, separation, or sadness. Bottom line, Jesus wins. If you’re on His team, you’re going to win with Him.
These truths may leave you a bit bewildered. If Jesus has already won, why does it look like Satan is winning? In a word: Satan is the sorest loser in the Universe. Simply put, Satan is like a prisoner in his cell furiously awaiting execution day. His sentence has been given. He knows his time is short. He knows execution day is coming. He knows Jesus will soon undo all he has worked for—and he’s hot with rage. He’s absolutely blistered about the coming kingdom, and he doesn’t want us to carry Jesus’s message of liberation and salvation to the rest of the world—so he’s working overtime to steal, kill, and destroy everything in his path with the little time he has left. It’s time to ask ourselves: “Am I just going to let him kill without a fight?”
Listen. It’s time for us to stop fearing that deranged prisoner. Jesus is the victorious king, and we’re on His team. Now, until He returns, we need to believe His ultimate victory and work to see His kingdom transform our world. No smaller goal is appropriate to our glorious Savior, for Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Let us live to spread the influence of His reign, knowing His “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!” (John 1:5).
Advancing Until He Returns
Now, don’t get us wrong—we understand Jesus could come back in our generation. If He does, much darker times lie ahead—still, we anticipate His return just like you. We don’t believe we can change the day of His appearing, and we never want to hamper your eager expectation for it (see 2 Peter 3:12). Instead, we want to call you to hope and prepare as if Jesus will return in this generation, but to pray, minister, and strategize as if He’ll give us centuries more to advance His kingdom. No longer can we use Jesus’s return as an excuse for our powerless Christianity! No longer can we afford to assume God is done moving in the world! The fact is, no one truly knows when the Lord will come back (Matthew 25:13)—so we have no biblical right to abandon the harvest, crying, “It’s all downhill from here!”
Besides, Jesus explicitly commanded us to disciple entire nations until the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20). He likens the last days to a harvest (Matthew 13:39)—and reveals that heavenly fruit and satanic apostasy will “grow together until” He returns (Matthew 13:30; see also 13:24-29, 36-43). In simpler words: no matter what age we’re in—and no matter how dark it gets—we can trust Jesus for a great harvest of souls (Matthew 9:37)! He desires that His spiritual kingdom would begin breaking in now, radically impacting societies—person by person, soul by soul. Yes, Jesus commands us to trim our lamps and advance His restoration project, bearing exponential fruit until His glorious appearing (see Matthew 25:1-30)! “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when He comes!” (Matthew 24:46 ESV).
How God Heals the World
That leads to the vital question this book sets out to answer—one of utmost importance to every follower of Jesus. How can Jesus bring healing in our broken world? What method has He chosen to put the broken pieces of humanity back together? How can He redeem your mission field, your home country, your family, your friends, your workplace, and your school? The answer is simple but startling: God wants to transform the world through you and me, Christ’s ambassadors. God’s kingdom restores lives when we stand up, step out, and invade our world with Jesus’s light through godly words, actions, and prayers. As Paul declared: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God!” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
This ambassadorial call is a high one; perhaps much higher than you ever dreamed for yourself. But if you submit to this lofty call, God can change you from an idle bystander into a weapon of mass salvation. With time, you won’t even believe the miracles He’ll perform through you (we say this from surprised experience). The most amazing things come to pass wherever God’s kingdom visits Earth through Heaven’s ambassadors.
When God's Kingdom Visits Earth
Yes, when God’s kingdom visits Earth, sinners see the light of the gospel, repent, and receive forgiveness. The weight of guilt is removed. Addictions are broken. Evil is conquered. The sick are healed. The demonized are delivered. Fears are vanquished. God’s heavenly love comes to live in our hearts. The fruit of the Spirit flourish. Nominal Christians experience the King’s glory, becoming radical disciples. Churches are revived. Zeal for God’s mission is ignited. God is glorified!
And there’s no reason that transformation can’t happen on a massive scale today. After all, Jesus appointed us as “a light for the [nations], that [we] may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47). God could very well still reshape whole societies if we live out our calling! But much of that good invasion must take place through everyday ambassadors in everyday situations.
Think about it: if every Bible-believing Christian won one person to the Lord, countless millions would surge into the Kingdom. That alone would turn the tide in a society (and, let us add, that alone can turn the tide). And with darkness lurking in the open, it may be more apt to happen now than before. As the darkness gets uglier, the light will seem more wonderful when the Holy Spirit draws hearts. If we speak up, God’s Word can have a genuine effect in countless souls to convict of sin, reveal Jesus, and draw to repentance.
You see, to live as Heaven’s ambassador, you don’t need a famous ministry. Nor do you need a mass evangelism plan. You just need to ask, “God, where do I begin? Who can I reach? How can I engage in Your mission?” To invade with light, the only ability you need is availability.
An Invasion of Light; A Flood of Kingdom Life
The message of this book is simple. When Jesus died on the cross, the prison doors opened wide. His resurrection declared the captives can now run free. Now, we must go into all the world and proclaim the gospel of liberation. We must lift our voices and say: “The enemy has been defeated. The good King is enthroned. Step out of dark captivity into God’s marvelous light of salvation!”
The invasion of light will never succeed until we do. If we refuse to stand up for Jesus, the lost masses can only continue racing toward the fiery judgment of God. But if we humble ourselves, call on His name, and faithfully live and preach the gospel, God will unleash the Kingdom’s restoring power upon many in our world. The Kingdom will come—not only to revive Christians, but to flow like a river of light into dark societies. His river of light will flood the darkest parts of the world, giving hope through Jesus Christ—the King who remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. As Ezekiel 47:9 promises, “Wherever the river flows, everything will flourish” (BSB). The only question is—will you join the counter-invasion?
If you answer “yes” to that question, we want to help prepare you to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). In the following chapters, you’ll rediscover
· the kingdom you serve,
· the enemy you face,
· the character you’ll need,
· the message you must preach,
· the spiritual weapons at your disposal,
· the example you must follow (Jesus Himself),
· how to find your place in God’s kingdom,
· and much, much more.
Are you up for the challenge? If so, read on, ambassador of Heaven. Together, let’s start the invasion of light.