Isaiah chapter 60. You'll remember
in the preceding chapters we've looked at that Isaiah has promised
Israel that in the coming years, they'll go into bondage in Babylon.
And that's going to be such a dark time of trial and suffering for
that nation. But in this prophecy, God has
also promised them that in He's got a specific time, He'll come
and deliver them from that bondage. And in chapter 60 of Isaiah,
our Lord likens the deliverance of Israel from their bondage
to the sun rising and the nation being set free from such a dark
time of trial and suffering. And when that light comes, when
the sun arises, the nation is going to enjoy a time of great
joy because they've been finally set free from this time of darkness
and suffering. But now also remember this, always
remember this about the scripture. that the main reason, the main
meaning of every scripture is to show us what Christ has accomplished
for his people. The primary meaning of these
verses that we'll look at this evening is this. It's a picture
of telling us what God's elect will enjoy when Christ the light,
the light of the world comes and sets us free from our darkness
of sin and darkness of unbelief. Now the title of the message
is When Light Comes. I want us to look at these verses
not exactly in the order that they're given so that we can
see this first. First, our need of Christ the
light. Look in verse two of Isaiah chapter
60. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and gross
darkness the people, but the Lord shall rise upon thee and
his glory shall be seen upon thee. Isaiah says darkness shall
cover the earth. And we know that's exactly what
happened when Adam sinned, didn't it? Darkness came on all men. This word darkness has several
meanings. First, it means destruction. And that's exactly what happened
to the whole human race when Adam sinned, wasn't it? Destruction. We were destroyed. And you know,
something that's destroyed can't be fixed. If it's destroyed,
it can't be repaired. That's human nature. It's been
destroyed. You can't fix it up. You can't
repair it. You can't pump some sort of religion
into it. It's been destroyed by sin. So
if we're going to be made whole, we've got to be made new, don't
we? Second, this word darkness means death. Again, it's just
exactly what happened when Adam sinned. The moment Adam sinned,
the whole human race died spiritually. Now we're dead. So we don't have
any ability to please God. We don't have any ability to
do anything to save ourselves from our sin, to get ourselves
out of this mess that we're in because we're dead in sin. That's
why we've got to be born again. God's got to give us new life
and a new birth because the first time we were born, we were born
dead. We've got to be given new life. And thirdly, this word
darkness means ignorance. Again, that's just what happened
when Adam sinned. When Adam sinned, He became ignorant. I mean, the proof of that is
when God came to him, calling to him, walking in the garden,
Adam's hiding in the bushes, like he thinks that's gonna hide
him from God, you know. He lost all of his intelligence. And you and I did too. When we're
born in this world, we don't know who God is. We don't know
the lost condition that we're in, the lost condition of our
sinful nature. We don't have any idea how to
come back to God. It's told to us plainly in the
word of God, but we lack spiritual intelligence to see it. We don't
know the way back to God. Man's natural mind is ignorant
and it cannot be taught. It can't be taught anything spiritual,
no spiritual truth. We just can't be taught. If we're
going to see, if we're going to have light, if we're going
to know Christ, We've got to be given a new mind. We've got
to be given the mind of Christ. We're given a new mind and a
new burden. And Isaiah says this darkness is gross darkness. It's darkness that's so thick
you can feel it. It's darkness that has just a
weight to it that's crushing you. It's a thick, cold darkness
that's just dripping off of you. This is exactly why we need Christ
to light. We have to have Him to give us
life and warmth. We have to have Him to relieve
the pressure of this darkness that's crushing us. And here's
the last meaning of this word darkness is misery. Now that
fits with this gross darkness that's crushing us. It puts us
in such misery. Our sin has brought death, it's
brought ignorance, and it's brought misery. And the only comfort
that's to be found for the soul is the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is what we need. He's the light that we need.
And thank God he has determined he's going to send Christ the
light of the world to his people. Not only will he send him in
time to fulfill our righteousness, to work out a perfect obedience
to the law and be our sacrifice for sin, but he's also going
to send him to the hearts of each one of his people to give
us light. Look over in John chapter 1.
Isaiah tells us that Christ is coming to bring light, to reveal
himself to his people so that they can see. And the apostle
John tells us the same thing. Isaiah was saying he's coming
and John says here he is. John chapter 1 verse 6. There
was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came
for a witness to bear witness of the light. that all men through
him might believe. Now he was not that light, but
he was sent to bear witness of that light. Now this just shows
you, when we talk about our darkness, how dark and blind our nature
is. God had to send a witness to
tell us the light's on. God had to send somebody, we're
so blind, we didn't know the light was shining. He had to
send a witness to tell us. And it also shows you how our
darkness is such ignorance. When John the Baptist said, the
light's here, He had to tell people, I'm not the light. Christ
is the light. Now you don't have to tell that
somebody who's ignorant. You ought to be able to know
which one is the light, which one's the sun, which one is the
earth. John had to say, I'm not the
light. Christ is the light, because this is the gross darkness that
we're in. Read on, verse nine. That was
the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world. He was in the world and the world was made by him, and
the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. Now those who believe on Christ,
they're just like these others. He came unto his own, his own
received him not. He was in the world, the world
didn't know him, but somebody believed him. Why did they believe
him? Because God gave him the power
to believe. He gave them faith to believe. He gave them light.
to see Christ. That's why they believe. Look
here, verse 13, which were born, not of blood, nor the will of
the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Now remember, darkness
means dead. We're dead in Adam, but Christ
came to give his people life. And that doesn't happen by the
will of man, does it? It happened by the will of God.
Men are totally passive in this thing of salvation. It's just
like at night. You go out in the field at night
and you're in darkness. And there you sit. And there's
nothing you can do to make the sun rise. You can't make it rise
one second earlier than God says it's going to rise. You can't
make the sun. You just got to sit in darkness
till God is pleased to make the sun come up. Well, the same thing
is true spiritually. We're dead in sin. Here we sit
in our gross darkness, our deadness, our ignorance, our blindness,
this awful misery. And we're helpless to make Christ
the light shine to us. We cannot make him shine to us.
We've just got to wait. We're totally helpless. We've
got to wait until God's plea to shine the light and give his
people life. And thank God that's his will.
His will is for the light of Christ to shine in the hearts
of his people by the new birth. He's going to send his son, he's
going to send light into the hearts of his people. And when
God gives us light, now we'll see, but not until then. And
when he gives us light, what is it that we see? We see Christ. Everybody that God gives light
to sees Christ, verse 14. And the word was made flesh and
dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the
only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. When
God gave us light, we saw Christ. Now, if you look over in John
chapter nine, we have an example of our savior doing just that.
Coming and giving light, giving sight so that one of his dear
children, one of his lambs, one of his sheep can see him. In
John chapter 9, verse 5, our Lord says, as long as I'm in
the world, I am the light of the world. Now, what did he mean
by that? I am the light of the world.
Well, he meant that he's the light. He gives his people light.
He gives his people eyes to see him. And then he does exactly
that, verse 6. And when he had thus spoken,
he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed
the eyes of the blind man with clay. And you know what happened
here. The Lord gave this man eyes to
see. He'd been blind from his birth.
He'd never seen a blooming thing. Our Lord made this clay and put
on his eyes and the man saw. He gave him eyes to see. Now,
what did he see? Of all the things, I mean, he
saw so many things, but what did he see? He saw Christ the
Savior. Look here at verse 35. You know
how this story unfolded. But look here at verse 35. Jesus
heard that they had cast him out. And when he found him, he
said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he answered
and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus
said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh
with thee. He saw. Because look what he
said. Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. And Jesus
said, for judgment I've come into this world, that they which
see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.
And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words
and said unto him, are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, if
you're blind, you should have no sin. But now you say we see,
therefore your sin remaineth. See, this being blind has to
do with having sin, doesn't it? If you're blind, he said, if
you knew you were blind, you'd have no sin. I'd take it away. I'd give you light. But the Pharisees,
they didn't want anything to do with Christ the light because
his righteousness, his perfection revealed how wicked that they
really were. But this poor sinner, he loves
Christ the light. He runs to Christ the light because
it's Christ who takes away our sin. who takes away our darkness
and gives us light to see Christ as our Lord, as our Savior. He
gives us light to see Christ as our all. We see the light
of the glory of God where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
In the face of Christ our Lord and Savior. But now our nature
is darkness. It's not just that we're in darkness.
Our nature is darkness. And that's why I said we can't
be educated into salvation. We can teach people the fundamentals
of the gospel. The gospel is extremely simple. Any child can understand how
God saves a sinner, but we can't be educated into salvation. Understanding
it up here is not salvation. God's got to put it in the heart.
We don't, our nature is darkness, so we don't have the ability
to learn, be taught anything spiritual. So the light that
Christ gives is not natural light, is it? It's not natural understanding,
it's spiritual understanding. But back in our text, Isaiah
chapter 60, verse 19, this light that God gives us, the light
of Christ is not natural, it's spiritual. He says in verse 19,
the sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness
shall the moon give light unto thee. But the Lord shall be unto
thee an everlasting light and thy God, thy glory. This is what
Isaiah is talking about is the exact same light the apostle
John saw in New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. John said, I saw
that city. That city didn't need the sun.
That city didn't need the moon because Christ the lamb is the
light thereof. That's the light that Isaiah
is talking about here. And we'll be thrilled to see
that light someday, won't we? We'll be thrilled to see Him
face to face someday. But you know, you don't have
to wait until glory to see that light. God gives His people that
light in their heart in the new birth, right now, here on earth. And that's the only way we can
have this light we so desperately need. Well, here's the second
point. What are we supposed to do when
God gives us light? When He gives us light to see,
what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to preach Him.
Verse 1 of Isaiah chapter 60. Arise, shine, for thy light has
come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee. That word
shine, it means to be enlightened. It doesn't mean you shine, it
means you come and be enlightened. And that's what happens when
Christ comes to us, isn't it? He enlightens us. We don't give
ourselves light. We don't give ourselves life
or understanding. Christ comes and he gives it
to us. He enlightens us. You come to Christ and be enlightened. But yet we're also told you arise
and shine. Believers, you go out into this
world and you shine as lights in this world. How do we do that? By preaching Christ. That's it,
by preaching Christ. The church is the candlestick
in the world. Remember the candlestick with
the candles that John saw Christ was in the midst of them? That's
the church. That's the pastors who are out
preaching, declaring Christ the light of the world. And this
is our message of light to the world. All men are in gross darkness
because of our sin. But the Lord Jesus Christ has
come, and he took the sin of his people away. He took their
sin away from them by taking it into his own body on the tree
and by suffering and dying for it and putting it away by his
sacrifice. That's what happened to Calvary.
That was the whole purpose of Calvary. The father made his
son sin for his people. Christ, our substitute, suffered
in gross darkness. Oh, the darkness that he suffered
in. The son refused to shine on the
Creator suffering and dying. Darkness came on the whole earth.
But that's not the darkness, the crushing, gross darkness
that our Savior suffered in. He suffered in such darkness
because He was suffering our darkness. Because He was suffering
for our sin that brought us into such darkness. Christ suffered
in darkness. And I think largely that that
happened so that we can understand this. That we can understand
we can't fully understand. We can't fully understand what
was happening at that time. All we understand is this. In
that darkness, Christ suffered for the sin of His people. He
suffered the just for the unjust. And the sin of God's elect is
gone because of that sacrifice. The Father accepted that sacrifice
And he sees his people as justified without any sin because of the
sacrifice of Christ. And now I know that sacrifice
is accepted because Christ is risen. Christ is risen. And because he's risen now in
the glory of resurrection light, we see. Now I see how God saves
sinners through the sacrifice of a substitute. Now I see how
it takes the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ
our Savior to save a poor sinner like me. Now that's the message
that we preach, the message of light that we preach. And that's
the only message that God will use to call his people out of
darkness. That's the only message God will
use to call his people out of the darkness of their sin to
Christ our righteousness. It's the only message God will
use to call his people out of the darkness of our idolatry.
call us to Christ our Lord. It's the only message God will
use to call us out of the darkness of our shame to Christ our glory. And it's the only message God
will use to call His people out of the darkness of our death
to Christ our light. That's the message that we preach.
That's the message God uses to call His people to Christ. And
if you look in Luke chapter 15, our Lord gave us a parable to
teach us just that. Luke chapter 15 verse 8. Either what woman, having ten
pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle,
and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors
together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I found the piece which
I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there's
joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented. Now here's the picture, the teaching
of this parable. The Holy Spirit blesses the preaching
of the gospel to reveal Christ's delight to one of his lost sheep.
He comes, Christ's delight comes and enlightens them, and now
they're found. I was lost, now I'm found. How were you found? Christ's
delight. revealed who he is, revealed
who I am. He gave me light and I was found
all through the preaching of Christ. Now, that's number one. First way we shine as lights
in the world is through the preaching of the gospel. Second, look in
Matthew chapter five. We also arise and shine by telling
people about Christ and by living our lives following Christ. Matthew
chapter five. Verse 14 You are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men
light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick,
and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your
light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now God's given
you light. He's revealed His Son to you.
Don't put that under a bushel. Don't put it under, you know,
don't put the light on a candlestick and hold it out there so people
can see the light. So they'll see Christ. So they'll
come to Christ. He says, let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father, which is in heaven. You know, good works are not,
it's not a four letter word, not two four letter words. Good
works are not works that a believer does to make us good in God's
sight. Good works are not something
a believer does to make God accept us more, love us more, think
more highly of us. The Father cannot think more
highly of you than he thinks of you in Christ, than he sees
you in the person and the work of Christ. So good works are
works of faith. They're works of love. They're
works for the benefit of others. Not for your benefit, but for
the benefit of others. We don't do works of faith and
acts of love so that we'll get any praise for it. Who's supposed
to get the praise from your works of faith and acts of love? Our
Lord says that they may glorify your Father which is in heaven.
You live that way. You do these good works. You
look for ways to be helpful and kind and beneficial to other
people so that God will get the praise. So people say, That doesn't
come natural. God must have put something in
me. So God will get the glory for what he's done for you and
what he's done in you. That's how believers shine as
lights in the world. We live reflecting the light
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now third, I want to give you
three reasons why we should be faithful to preach this gospel,
why we should be faithful to support it, why we should be
faithful to live for Christ in the world. The first reason is
this, we should be faithful to preach this gospel because God
uses this gospel to say, he uses this gospel to give light to
the very worst of sinners. There's no lost causes for this
gospel. Verse three, Isaiah chapter 60. And the Gentiles succumbed to
thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Now he makes,
clear point here, the Gentiles succumb. You know, God didn't
just purpose to save Jews. God purposed to save Gentiles
too. And he's done exactly that through the preaching of the
gospel. And he's done it through the preaching of the gospel,
not just in that little nation, but over the entire globe. Last
month, from this pulpit, the gospel was heard in 33 different
countries. When you think of that, it's just a little podunk
place, it's a little nothing. Via sermon audio, the gospel
was heard in 33 different countries. Just like the light of the sun
shines to every corner of this globe, the gospel of Christ the
light has gone to every corner of this globe. You know why?
Because God's got a people in every corner of it, from every
nation, from every kindred, in every tongue, and he sends his
gospel there. You know, God doesn't just say
good religious people who've got a good family background,
they've got a good religious background. That's what the Jews
are a picture of, a good religious person. God doesn't just say
Jews now. God saves sinners. Sinners who
are in gross darkness. And He comes to them and He gives
them light. That's who the Gentiles are a picture of. Idolaters,
people who are sacrificing their own children and eating their
own children, just what gross darkness and God comes and gives
those sinners, those sinners, gross sinners in gross darkness,
he gives them light. That's what God has done for
us. Every one of us here is a Gentile. God sent his gospel to the Gentiles. God sent his gospel to this little
corner of the world so that he could save sinners who sat in
gross darkness and give us light in Christ. And you know what? He may be pleased to do it for
somebody else. And if he's going to do it, he's going to do it
through the preaching of this gospel, the same gospel that saved you,
the same gospel you believe. So let's be faithful to preach
it. Second, the second reason we ought to be faithful to this
gospel. If our children are going to be saved, it's going to be
through the preaching of this gospel, preaching of Christ.
Verse four, lift up thine eyes round about and see. All they
gather themselves together, they come to thee. Thy son shall come
from far, and thy daughter shall be nursed at thy side. Here he's
talking about thy sons coming to Christ. Thy daughters being
nursed at thy side. Nursing, being fed the sincere
milk of the word. There is no greater prayer in
the heart of a parent than God do that for our children. That
is the prayer of every parent. That has been my constant prayer. as a father. That was my prayer
before I became a father. That was my constant prayer.
That's been my constant prayer as your pastor. That God will
save our children. And we're, just like I said a
minute ago, we're completely dependent on the Lord to save
sinners. And brethren, that includes our
children. It does now. You children, Brother
Henry, Jonathan and I were talking about this last night. Brother
Henry said, I don't know how often he said it, but it sure
made an impact on me. You're not better than anybody
else now. You're better off, but you're not better. And we
can't save you. Your mom and daddy, your pastor,
we can't save you. We cannot save our children.
I'll tell you what we can do as parents. We can be sure they
hear the gospel. We can be sure we get them in
here to hear the gospel of Christ. And if I give you a commercial,
let me give you a commercial. Sunday mornings, we have Bible
classes, three of them for our children. If my children were
the ages of one of those classes, I'm telling you, they'd have
to be mighty sick for I wouldn't have them in there. We've got
three of the best teachers you can find anywhere. It's a pretty
good commercial. This is where we're going to,
our children, be taught. Bring them in here to hear the
preaching of the gospel. I try not to talk over your head.
I try to talk so you can understand what I'm saying. If our children
are going to be saved through the preaching of this gospel,
then let's be faithful to preach it to them. And let me say this
about being a parent too. If our children are saved, it
will not be because of our good parenting. It will not be because
of our faithfulness. If our children are saved, it's
because God's merciful to them. That's the only reason. But Please
don't use that as an excuse not to be a good parent or to be
a faithful parent. As parents, we must be faithful
to the souls of our children, to parent them, to teach them.
Don't just look at being a parent to keep them alive till they're
18. Teach them, raise them, give them the things that they need
to go out in this world and live. And above all, do everything
you can to point them to Christ. Because of everything they need,
and we all think our children need all these things, I'm telling
you they can do without it all, except Christ. I'm telling you
the truth. And that holds true to us as a church. If you're
not a parent, we are still responsible. As a church, we must be faithful
to provide our children a place where Christ is preached, where
they can be taught the scriptures. Because if they're going to be
saved, it's going to be through the preaching of Christ. That's
the only way they can come to know him is if he's preached.
Here's a third reason to be faithful to preach this gospel. This is
the gospel that God uses to call his people to him from both near
and far. Verse five. Then thou shalt see
and flow together and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged because
the abundance of the sea shall be converted into thee. The forces
of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. They'll come from across
the sea. And he says the same thing in
verse nine. Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships
of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and
their gold with them, under the name of the Lord thy God, and
to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. Here
Isaiah's talking about you and me again. He's talking about
people from across the sea. That's us. We're across the sea
from where he was. And he says, those Gentiles,
in seemingly a lost situation, are going to be converted. God's
going to give them light and life when they hear the gospel
of Christ. Their hearts will be enlarged
when they hear about the riches of God's grace to sinners. Look
at verse 6. The multitude of camels shall
cover thee, and the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah. All they
from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and incense,
and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. Now one
way they measured something of great wealth was the number of
camels and dromedaries. All these camels, all these measures
of wealth are pictures of God's grace, the richness, the fullness
of His grace to His people. And this did actually happen
when Christ was born, didn't it? Kings came, they brought
their whole caravan coming to Him, bringing Him gold and frankincense
and myrrh and all those things. And that is actually what Christ
gives his people. That's something better than
gold. It's the riches of his grace. It takes grace to save
a sinner. When God gives us the riches
of his grace, our heart will be enlarged. These people are
going to come across the sea. You know why? They'll come from
everywhere when they hear of Christ being lifted up. When
they hear of Christ crucified for sinners to put their sin
away, Christ lifted up, Christ crucified, will draw his people
together. They'll come from many different
nations, many different backgrounds, but they'll all come together
as one flock, with one shepherd, all around one sacrifice, our
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse seven. All the
flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee. The rams
of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee. They shall come up with
acceptance on mine altar. and I will glorify the house
of my glory. They'll all come to Christ, all
come to gather together around that sacrifice, and not one of
them will be lost. Not one. So that God will be
glorified. His house, or his gospel's priest
is gonna be glorified, because that's how God saves sinners
from their sin. I want you to look how they come
to Christ. Look here at verse eight. I think this will be a
blessing to you. Who are these that fly as a cloud
and as the doves to their windows? All these Isaiah is describing
is coming to Christ. They're going to come to Christ
like clouds. I don't know much about clouds.
I don't look up at the sky sometimes. Clouds are there, sometimes they're
not. Where they come from, where they go, I have no idea. But
I do know this. Clouds go where God sends them.
They fly where God sends them. Clouds can only come and go by
the power of God. Try as man, as hard as we try,
we can't make clouds come and go. Places that are in drought
cannot make rain clouds come where they are. And places that
are getting flooded can't make the rain clouds go away. Those
clouds only come where God sends them. The same thing is true
about people coming to Christ. Sinners come to Christ by the
power of God. Because He calls them. Because
He draws them. That's something man can't do.
Now they come one at a time. God saves His people. He calls
His people one at a time. But they come together as one
body. You know, we look up in the sky
and we say, there's a cloud. But truth be told, that's several
different clouds. It's just all mashed together
so we can't tell the difference. We can't tell where one cloud
stops and another cloud, you know, begins. But there's many
different clouds. We just can't tell them apart.
That's a believer coming to Christ. You can't tell apart the believer
and Christ because they're one with Him. They're part of His
body. And that makes all of us one too. All part of one body
with Christ as the head. And then Isaiah says, God's elect
come to Christ like doves to their windows. Doves are often
used in scriptures as a picture of believers. And they're a good
picture. Doves are clean animals. just
like a believer, been made clean, washed clean in the blood of
Christ. When we think of doves, we think about those doves mourning.
That's a believer. We constantly mourn over our
sin. And doves, this is interesting,
doves are faithful to one spouse all their life. They're faithful
to one spouse. That's the believer. We're kept faithful to Christ
our husband. And these believers all come
to Christ like doves come to windows. I looked and looked
and looked at that. I got a little bit of help from
Matthew Henry. They all come to Christ because they don't
have anywhere to go. And they come back to these windows.
What's that window? Well, Matthew Henry pointed out
Noah's Dove. Remember when Noah was in the
ark and it was raining and raining and raining? Remember that ark
had one window, didn't it? Just one. And the rain stopped. And the water started going down.
And Noah thought, I wonder if we can get off this thing yet.
And he sent out a raven and a dove. Well, that raven flew off and
it didn't come back. It could go out and feed, live on those
floating dead carcasses all around, you know. The dove couldn't.
What did that dove do? It came back to the window. That window was the only source
of light in the whole Bible. It's the picture of Christ. That dove came back to Christ,
because that's the only place he could live. And that's what
the believer does. We don't just come to Christ
once, do we? No, Peter said, to whom coming?
Constantly coming back to the window, coming to roost on the
window, the window of Christ that gives us life. And in closing,
let me give you this. This light that God's given his
people, no believer can ever lose it. You know, I love it
when, at this time of year, we say the days are longer. All
the days are still 24 hours, aren't they? But light is longer. It's more daylight. And I just,
I love that. I love going out and it's, you
know, almost 9 o'clock at night. Still, you know, a pretty good
amount of light out. But pretty soon, the days are going to start
to get shorter. The number of daylight hours
is going to get shorter. That's natural light for you.
You just can't depend on it, can you? But a believer will
never lose our spiritual light. Never lose light in Christ. Now,
that light, it's not as bright as we wish it was right now,
is it? We only see it through a glass of dark. But we do have
light. And one day, we're gonna enjoy
a never-ending day. where there's light so bright,
we couldn't stand it now. We gotta lay these bodies down
and get a new body to go be able to stand that light, but there's
coming a day where we're gonna enjoy that light forever, one
eternal day. Look here at verse 20. The sun
shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself,
for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning
shall be ended. That's what we think about those
doves mourning, and the believer mourns. Well, one day, there's
going to be no more mourning, no more. Perfect joy and peace
because we have perfect, never-ending life with Christ face to face.
Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your purpose and grace to send Christ, the light of the
world, into the hearts of your people. How we thank you for
our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came to dispel our darkness,
the one who came to deliver his people from all of their sin
by suffering and dying for it, putting it away through the sacrifice
of himself. And how we thank you for your
goodness to your people, that through the preaching of your
word, you sing Christ the light into each heart, each one of
the hearts of your people, to give us light and life faith
and understanding and sight to see and look to and love and
depend upon our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray you'd use the
word as it's been preached this evening to bring glory to your
name, to comfort and assure the hearts of your people, and to
call those who are in darkness to the light of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is in his precious