Tonight, we are going to be in
Proverbs chapter four. And we're going to read part
of the text that we had last week. And I do apologize for
that it was muted. So the sound didn't record. And
so it was just meant for us. It was here, I guess that's the
only way you can say it, right. But I'm thankful that the Lord's
Word does not return void and The message really doesn't change.
It really doesn't change. But I was encouraged by last
week and trust those that were here, the Lord blessed it to
his purpose. Proverbs chapter four. Let's
read this together. Verse 18 and verse 19. But the
path of the just is as the shining light that shine us more and
more into the perfect day. The way of the wicked His darkness,
they know not at what they stumble. We're gonna stop right there.
Now I'm not gonna preach the same exact message I preached
last week. But the text last week was, what path are you on? That's the way of the just and
the path of the wicked here that talks about what path are you
on? Tonight, I've titled the message,
The Light of God. The Light of God, notice he says,
The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more
and more under the perfect day. Now we have a stark contrast
here between the just and the wicked. And we see the Lord,
whenever He was upon the earth, and looking in the Old Testament
at all the prophets, all the Lord's preachers, from the priests
to the apostles to the disciples, everyone preached. It was straightforward. It was black and white. There's
no gray area with God. It was straight and to the point
on everything that they said. What did the Lord tell the Pharisees?
You will not come to me that you have life. You're not my
sheep. You're not of my sheep. That's pretty straightforward,
isn't it? He didn't sugarcoat it. The offense of the gospel
is to the flesh. The flesh hates the idea of not
having any power, not having any control, not having any ability,
but we really don't have control, do we? If we're honest with ourself,
what do we really control? Are you controlling your heartbeat
right now? No. We can kind of start concentrating
on our breaths and maybe control that for a little bit. Pretty
soon we'll forget about that too, won't we? Can't even control
our thoughts, can we? Half the time, it just, mind
just goes out the window. Here I am. Two years ago doing
something whenever I should be present. You know what I'm talking
about. We don't have control, but yet men want control. And it's a false control. It's
part of the lie, isn't it? So what is the hope? Not that
the Lord gives us an opportunity for salvation, but that he takes
us in our dead, depraved state, and he puts our feet upon the
path of light that points to the Lord Jesus Christ, that leads
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the most glorious truth about
It shined brighter and brighter, he says. Well, that's growing
in grace. We see more of him and we see
less of ourself. We have no confidence in the
flesh. More and more, we lose hope in what we do and we hope
more in what he does. We see that these two contrasts
are light and darkness, and that's what the Lord preached. That's
what his preachers preach, light and darkness. In between, there is no in between.
It's God's chosen people and those left to themselves. It's
those who the Lord loves and those whom he loves and those
who he leaves to themselves. There are those who've been made
to see God and believe him because he caused them to see him and
there's those that make up a useless God that doesn't really exist,
a figment of imagination. The good news is it's not mine
and your choice in the matter, it's the Lord's choice. John
chapter one, we were in first John chapter one, but the gospel
of John chapter one says that we were born not of the will
of man, nor of the will of flesh, nor of blood, but of God. God did the choosing, God did
the saving. He makes it very clear, if he
does not shine his light into our cold, dead, dark hearts,
and illuminate his son to us, revealing his son to us, we will
die in that state. All that the Lord has to do for
someone to go to hell is just leave them alone. Just leave
them alone, that's all. But the good news is this, God,
who is rich in mercy, rich in mercy, we're in with his love,
his great love that he loved us. And in his time, he tells
us this in 2 Corinthians 4, for God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There's the light of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It always points to him, doesn't
it? If our gospel, if the light that we are saying that we believe
and preach, if it points to us in any way, that's not God's
light, that's our light. But if the gospel that we're
preaching points to the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished
work, if it gives God all the glory, that's the light, isn't
it? That's the true light. Now last
week we answered the question, what path am I on? And we made
it very clear, and I'll reiterate this again, there's only two
paths. Two paths, the just path and the wicked. And who maketh
thee to differ? Nobody left here last week comforted thinking,
yes, I chose the right path. Nobody did that, did they? Why?
Because I didn't say anything of the such. No, I said God picked
us up, and he put us on that path. Now, the good news with
that, we can't get off the path if he's put us on it. Isn't that
glorious? We can't mess it up. I can't
abandon ship. He's not going to let me. He
said, all that the Father will give to me shall come to me.
And all that come to me, he said, I won't lose one of them. That's his
word, isn't it? That's his word. The revelation of Jesus Christ
is ordained of God. God shines his light into our
hearts. And oh, I can't describe the
darkness that we really are. We read over in 1 John 1, in
him is light and in him is no darkness at all. But you can
flip that around and say in us is darkness by nature. No light at all, no light at
all. Until he, see, he must give the
light. He must bestow it. He must give
faith to believe him. This is what salvation is, is
us being illuminated. You hath he quickened, you were
made alive. You came forth into the light. I think of a baby
often being in the womb and it's dark in the womb. And it comes
out and it sees everything for the first time. And it's never
had seen that before. It came into the light, right?
Well, what did they have to do to do that? Nothing. No, that
was between the mom and the doctor and the Lord's grace, wasn't
it? And that's exactly how it is. Exactly how it is now. The mother is the church. The
doctor is the great physician. And it's all by the Lord's grace
that we're born. That's just how it is, isn't it? I mean,
that's the only way anybody can be born. He shines that light.
The Lord doesn't shine it from a distance and say, okay, I need
you to walk this way. No, He penetrates to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit and joints and marrows, the thoughts and
discern, thoughts and discerner of the intents of the heart.
It's the sword of the Lord. That's the same thing, isn't
it? It pierces. It accomplishes exactly what He's purposed for
it to accomplish. His light goes forth and who can stop it? I
love that our gospel, our scriptures, It begins Genesis chapter one,
verse three. God said, let there be light.
I love that. First thing he said, let there
be light. It's a picture of Christ, isn't it? Before anything was,
Christ was. And without light, without the
sun, who can live? Who could survive? Vegetables
can't grow. We can't grow. So the Lord said,
let there be light. And it's the same thing spiritually.
We physically can't live without the S-U-N, but we spiritually
can't live without the S-O-N. Can't live without the sun. I've
got to have him. He's got to give me his light. I can't produce
it. And you know what he does? He does just that. He doesn't
wait for you to do something. He's not dependent upon me and
you to do anything. He's not looking for us to give our 1%
or whatever it may be that people think. No, he does it all. He
does it all by coming to where we are in the state that we're
in. He's not waiting for us to get, I remember one time I heard
a man say, you gotta get your life cleaned up and then you
can get right with God. No, if the Lord comes to you
and illuminates your understanding of who God is, your life's been
made right with God. That's just, that's how it is.
That's the only way it'll be made right. I'm for morals, but that
ain't gonna save anybody. No, the Lord's the one that's
gonna save us. And he does by grace alone. The Lord's gospel is the means
It's the means, what did he say? We're gonna turn there in a minute,
but I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also the Greeks, Romans 1, 16. The gospel is the light that
goes forth in little places like this. Why is it light? Well,
because of the sum and substance of the gospel. Some in substance
of the gospel has nothing to do with me other than I'm the
sinner. I need a savior. That's all it has to do with
me. Everything else is God has to fix all of it. I can't fix
it. I can't do anything to make it
right, but he can. He did. He did. And so the gospel goes
forth as the light pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
If you want to know if a man's a gospel preacher, listen to
who he's preaching closely. And if he preaches Christ alone,
Christ alone, Christ's finished work. If he preaches election,
if he preaches predestination, he can preach those things and
still not preach that Christ is all. Understand what I'm saying?
Man can get called up preaching Calvinism. I've been in a Calvinistic
church before and they did not preach the gospel. They preached
the doctrine of Calvinism. Now I will say this, you can't
preach Christ without preaching total depravity and unconditional
election and the Lord only dying for his people. Is that not true?
So we, we believe these things, but we don't get up here and
just talk about doctrine. The Lord is the one that needs
to be seen. The Lord is the one that needs to be talked about.
And we talk about him. We preach him. as he is to men
as they are. We preach him as high and lifted
up. We preach him as the successful redeemer of his people. We preach
that he is all in salvation to sinners, to men and women as
they are. That's what we do. That's the
command the Lord's given us. That's the only way the light
will shine forth. Now he has to do it. If he don't do it,
that's why we beg him. Every time we gather together,
we're begging him, Lord, send your spirit. Lord, if you don't
send your spirit, we've met in vain. We've met in vain. You
know, I love the Lord's promises, don't you? We had a message several,
well, it might've been a long time ago. Well, it can't be that
long. I've only been here two years, but it was a while back.
was the promises of the Lord. And we went, I started studying
that and I got up to like 12 and I thought I can't do all
this in one message so I had to dial back to just three or
four because it was too much information. His promises are
too wonderful. Everything that He's promised
you and I, not only the adoptions of son and daughters but made
us heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ by the sacrifice
of His Son. I mean what a Savior. What a
Gospel. Now something important, all
of this is important, but this particular point's important.
Without him, there is no light. Men talk about having an opportunity
of salvation, but understand something, if he doesn't manifest
himself, by his spirit and blow upon us first, we're never gonna
come to the light. There's nothing in us that can
come to the light. He has to give that which we
need in order to come to him. That's exactly what he does for
his people. That's why the calling is irresistible. If you see him as the great physician,
as the savior, and you see yourself as a leprous sinner, oh, I've
got to have him. I've got to have him. From the very beginning, he said,
let there be light. And that's exactly what he does
to every one of his children in time. According to his purpose,
according to his will, he does it through the gospel. I know
I read this or quote it a lot, but 2 Timothy 1, 9 and 10 says,
God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. but is
now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. Through the gospel. He brings
life and immortality to light through the gospel. This is how
God brings his people to the truth, to the light. It's God's
gospel. Paul said, he referred to it as his gospel, but he,
He was, how you say, it was placed upon him. The burden of the gospel
was placed upon him. So what he was preaching, he
took ownership of it. But Paul would agree, it's God's gospel.
It's God, even the salvation, David said in Psalm 51, restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. We know that all good gifts come
down from the Father of light. So it's his gospel because it's
such good news. Can't come from us. There's no
substitute for it. No substitute for the finished
work of Christ. The salvation that God, accomplished
for his people. There's no substitute for it.
People want to have programs, and they want to have recreational
things, and give me Christ. I get asked, I've been asked
several times since being the pastor here, what do you do for
the young people? I say, well, we have a How old are they? And they told me, I said, well,
we have a little like Sunday school service that they have
out there where they learn a lesson and they get to. But Bobby and
I go over that lesson and they're learning the gospel also on top
of just a little lesson that's important. It's very important
that everything points to him. And they said, well, what else
do you have? And I said, that's it, just the
gospel. And he lost interest. He lost interest. And I thought,
You're the one that the Lord's talking about here and being
in darkness. And I don't say that pridefully like I have arrived. I say that that's us if left
to ourself. The darkness that's within us
would be the same way. And they sit here, they don't
know what they stumble at. They stumble at Christ. Oh, you
just have the Lord Jesus Christ, that's all you have? Well, that's
not enough. Yes, it is. He's everything. He's everything. If we ain't got him, we don't
have nothing. If we have him, we have everything, don't we? Gospel is about the finished
work of salvation. That's why we preach it. It's
about all the glory of the Lord and salvation, all the glory
going to him. It's about how God saved his elected sinners. That's why it's good news. If
you're a sinner, that's why it's good news. It's about how Christ
bore their sin upon the cross and how he died in their stead.
He became their substitute, their surety. That's my hope, that
I'm one of his. Not that I chose him, but that
he chose me into eternal life. Not because of anything good
in me, but just by grace alone. By grace alone. You know, the glorious part of
him dying the death do his people, he now has taken our dead works
away. and given us good work. So when
the Father sees us, he sees the Son. He sees the works of the
Son and he is pleased. He is pleased with the faith
of Christ given to us, looking to his Son as all of our righteousness,
of all of our wisdom, of all of our justification before God. The Father's pleased with that.
He's made us accepted in the beloved. Accepted. See, there's only those that
can do the works of darkness and there's those that can do
the works of light. What is the work of light? Knocking on doors. I had somebody come to my house
two weeks ago knocking on my door wanting me to, I didn't want to talk, so I just
kind of ended it pretty quick. I don't want to get into a debate.
I'm not out to, I don't want to fuss. I'm not interested in
that. If they were asking me questions,
I'd be glad to answer it, but they wanted to tell me, and I
was like, I don't have time for this. The point I'm making is
that's not working the light. We're not working in the, what
is working in the light look like? It's also walking in the
light. What does that mean? Looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. That is working in
the light. That is living in the light. What does the believer's walk
look like? Like a bunch of dead dog sinners
that's looking to Christ for everything, for their salvation.
That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. I
love that he's taken our works of darkness and he's transformed
us and our works into by bestowing Christ's works upon us. He's
given us good works. He's given us good fruit, the
fruit of the spirit. It's everything required God
has given to his people so that we can have fellowship and communion
with him. That's why There's no substitute
for the gospel. Turn with me to Romans chapter
one. I mentioned we were going to turn there. Look at verse 16 and 17. For I, Paul, am not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. That's what we're talking about.
How do we live? Live looking to Christ. We live
by faith. The faith of the Son of God who
loved us and gave himself for us. The ones that hear, they're
unable to see the light and the Lord's placed them on the path
of light. Everybody's born on the path
of darkness. Everybody's born dead and trespasses in sin. And
unless the Lord chose to take their sin and put it away, And
he leaves them in that state, that's how they're gonna die.
No, he must come to where we are and he must shine the light
of the glorious gospel, the power of God into salvation and to
them and reveal his son, reveal his son to them in order for
them to believe. And then he has to give them
faith so that they believe it. And he does just that, doesn't he?
He does just that. Now we've been robed in his righteousness,
not having our own righteousness which is of the law, but having
the righteousness which is by the faith of the Son of God. But here we have the same contrast
in Romans 1, we have the same contrast as we do our text, the
path of the just and the path of the wicked. The difference
is God choosing. And that's so important that
men live In a day and time where they believe they have choice
or they have power, they want to exit. They want glory of some
kind. And the only, the Lord's people, we just, we just bow
before him and say, truth, Lord, I am a dog truth. Lord, what
is that servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as
I am. That's what Mephibosheth said. saw his impotency and he
saw that he was guilty of being a threat to the throne. And David
was, he thought David was going to kill him, but David showed
him mercy. And that's the point for Jonathan's sake. That's what
the Lord does is in mercy. He shows grace to his people
on behalf of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in time he
comes to where we are by the gospel and he illuminates our
hearts. He illuminates our minds. We're
a new creature in Christ. The scripture says a brand new
creature. Now, we still have this old dead
corpse strapped to our back, walking around. You ever had
the moment where you're actually like, this is actually not really
me. It is me, but it's not really
me. You know what I'm talking about?
Anybody know what I'm talking about? I'm not talking crazy. It's like,
okay, well, this is the shell that the Lord's given me, but
one of these days, this is going to go back to dust. and I'm gonna
be made just like Him. That's the real me, that's the
real me. That's what I desire, that's what I can't wait for,
is to see Him made just like Him, because we see Him as He
is. So here we have the path of the
just and then the path of the wicked, and the difference only
being that God chose to save some sinners. That's the only
difference. It's Him choosing to say, let there be light. But notice the state here of
these wicked ones and the description of these wicked ones right here.
Those that God have given over to themselves, left them to themselves.
Look at verse 18 through 25. He says, For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has
showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,
so they are without excuse." What is he saying right there?
He's saying you can go look at the trees and the fruits and
the bees. You can go look at nature and
see the Lord's handiwork and it all points to Him. Take the
butterfly, for example. It starts out as a caterpillar
and it goes into a cocoon and it comes out a brand new creature.
Well, that's what the Lord has to do. We don't have the power
to do that, but that's what He does for His people. There's so many
examples in nature. You take a dead seed and you
bury it, what does it need? It needs water and it needs sunshine,
does it not? And that's the washing of water
by the word and that's the son, the Lord Jesus Christ that comes
to this cold dead heart and we're birthed by his seed into the
family of God. Let's read on. Verse 21, because
that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither
were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and
their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like a corruptible man, into birds, into four-footed
beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness, through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor
their own bodies between themselves who changed, now here it is,
what does the wicked do in darkness? They change the truth of God
into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the creator
who is blessed forever, amen. They change the truth of God
into a lie. Now I have to remind you, last week I've said this
enough times where you guys will remember this, but Satan only
changed one word from what God actually said in order to make
it a lie. That's all. That's all he did. He just added
the word not. Thou shalt not surely die. That's
all that has to happen for us to take the truth and make it
to a complete lie. A little change like that. That's
what Satan did. So how did these individuals
take and change the truth of God into a lie, they could have
just add one thing to the finished work of Christ. Yes, it's all
by grace that you're saved, it's all that the Lord did the work,
it's all this, and then they'll put a but at the end of it. And
it's something else, just something little. It doesn't have to be
nothing big. And they negated the whole thing, right there.
What did the Lord tell the Pharisees? A little leaven, leaveneth the
whole lump. A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. See,
the Lord required them during the Passover time to have unleavened
bread. Leaven represents sin in the
Scriptures. It represents sin. And the Lord
said, no, you cannot have any sin whatsoever. We cannot have
leaven, a little leaven, leaven at the whole lump. And if we
add to it or we take away from it, we're adding to the finished
work of Christ. We're changing the truth of God
into a lie. We're taking the beautiful light of the Lord's
gospel and we're turning it in. We're going to the darkness.
That's what we're doing. We're going back towards the darkness. Thanks
be to God, he keeps his people. He doesn't allow us to return
to the darkness. He doesn't allow us to have those thoughts as
well. I need to. I need to do this in order for
God to be happy with me, or I need to do this in order for God not
to be angry with me, or I need to. I need to work a little bit
harder and oh. We plead the blood. We look to
Christ alone. We say, Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner. Lord, compel me by your love to do that which would
be pleasing unto you. Cause me to live the life that
would be pleasing unto you, looking unto your Son. O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? How do men change the truth of
God into a lie? How do they take it from light to darkness? By
simply adding one thing or taking one thing away from the truth. Now in Jude, they're described,
Jude chapter one, I'll just read this to us. It says, woe unto
them for they have gone the way of Cain and ran greedily after
the error of Balaam for reward and perished in the Gansing of
Korah. Now I'd remind us that Cain was the one that offered
the works of his hands. Cain was the one that the Lord
said, I do not, he was not pleased with Cain nor his sacrifice.
He was not, he didn't accept it, did he? And what did Cain
do? Well, he took matters into his own hand and killed his brother
and said, well, maybe, I don't know if he thought that would
fix it. I don't know exactly, just rage and anger that God rejected
him. He was angry at God and would have killed God, could
he had of. And that was, that was proof on the cross, wasn't
it? When men had the opportunity. But we see Balaam was a false,
he had to prophesy unto the king and, We see he was more interested
in having popularity with the king and not getting in trouble
than he was telling the truth. And Lord told him, he said, no,
the only thing you're going to be able to say is what I tell
you to say. But that's what men do. They're people pleasers,
aren't they? They're people pleasers. And then you have Korah, who
stood up in front of all the children of Israel. And he was
saying, well, if you can offer sacrifices, we can offer our
own sacrifices. We don't need you to be a priest.
And it's all just a, All this is, all these three right here,
are simply men that are substituting Christ in one way, shape, or
form. Cain was saying, I can offer up something other than
the blood. And Balaam was saying, well, I can still be, I can have
this relationship with him and still worship these gods and
have this God too, and it's not gonna work. And then the same
thing with Korah, I don't need the high priest. And they're
taking the place of the prophet, priest, and king there, aren't
they? That's the whole point. That's what these men and these
women do when they change the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like corruptible man. And you know what that image
is? Now I understand that it talks about birds and four-footed
beasts and things like that. But you know what that image
really is? Go look in the mirror. That's the image. That's the
image that we desire to worship in our flesh. That's the darkness
that's within us. We desire self-praise, self-affirmation. We desire glory from birth. Well, Jude goes on to say about
these individuals, these are spots in your feast of charity.
When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear clouds,
they are without water carried about of the wind trees whose
fruit wither with without fruit twice dead, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots twice dead, raging waves of the sea foaming out
of their own shame, wondering stars to whom has reserved the
blackness of darkness forever. Oh Lord, don't let that be me.
The blackness of darkness, we can't enter into what that means.
But it's reserved for those who will not have this man reign
over them. Who says, away with this man.
No, it's not God that chose me, I chose God. Or adding one thing
or taking one thing away, it's blackness and it's darkness. What a state to be in, hopeless,
helpless, yet believing you have all the power. That's terrible,
isn't it? Thank God that he delights in showing mercy to his people. He came to where we were, and
whether we had ideas or not at that time of these individuals,
whether we had whatever we had, he said, no. And he turned the
light on. And that's the simplest way I
can put it. And when he turned the light on, we see all these false gods.
We see all of our sin. We see all the ugly that we are. And the Lord said, you'll surely
die. We know the law says you'll surely
die. And we're like, we say with David, I've sinned against the
Lord. But oh, we hear the sweet voice of the savior shepherd
that says, fear not. I have put away your sin. You
shall not die. Now we're walking in the light.
We're looking to him. We're not looking to the left.
We're not looking to the right. We're not looking at self. We're not
looking at each other. We're looking to Jesus Christ as all in salvation. back in our text, those who don't
believe the truth, back in our, I'm not going to go back to the
text just yet. Hang on. I'm saying back in our text, it says that
they don't know what they're stumbling at. You remember that
part? They don't know where they stumble. They don't realize,
hell, we wouldn't realize it either. We don't preach a way
that's like we have done something to get to this point. The Lord
gets all the glory. We don't look at other churches
and say, well, we are so much better than you are because we
have arrived at some knowledge or some information. We don't
look down to others. We don't support other churches
that don't preach the true gospel. But you understand, this isn't
something that's prideful for us. He gets all the glory. And
if it hadn't been for him, it would be the same way where he
says, they don't know what they stumble at. What does he mean?
Is Christ not called the chief cornerstone, the rock of offense?
They're stumbling over the Lord Jesus Christ. They're stumbling
over the one that they're declaring that they believe in. It's too
simple. God did it all, salvations of
the Lord, and he successfully redeemed his people. That's too
simple. There's gotta be more to it than that. No, there's
not. Now there was a lot of details
that took place in that, but none of them was you and I contributing
anything ever. They're stumbling over the one,
the only one that can save them. They're in darkness, the darkness
of sin, the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of error, the darkness
of pride, the darkness of self-righteousness, darkness of unbelief. Their works
are the works of darkness. And those works, that's the way
it leads all the way down to the pit, those works of darkness. It ends in eternal darkness,
ruin, and misery. Scripture says, who is reserved
forever the chains of darkness. Job described it like this. A
land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of
death without any order, and where the light is as darkness. That's somewhere I never wanna
go. That's somewhere that I never
wanna go. But I don't come to Christ just to escape the place
of darkness. I come to Christ, well, he has
to give us the need, first of all. He has to give us the need
to come to him. But the need is, I need the light. I need
the Lord Jesus Christ. I need his salvation because
I have no hope in saving myself from this place of darkness. Even the light is darkness there,
complete and utter separation from God. There's no sun, there's no life,
because there's no light. But look at the rest of this
result here, verse 26 through 32. He says, for this cause God
gave them up into vile affections, for even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burning their
lusts one toward another, men with men working that which is
unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error
which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do
those things which are not convenient. look at what they are filled
with just being left to themselves. God just left them to themselves
that's it. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity, whisperers, back biters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God, that they
which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." Lord, don't
leave me to myself. Don't leave me to myself. Somebody
says, well, he's talking about homosexuality here. Well, yeah,
he is. He is. That's what he's writing about.
But don't doubt for one minute ever that if the Lord does not
keep his hand upon us, we would be a Sodom and Gomorrah. Don't
ever doubt that. Don't have confidence in your flesh. No, have confidence
in Christ. We don't preach against one sin
here. We look at the sin that we are. I don't have time to
talk about everybody else's sin. I see my own. I can't get over
my own. I don't have time to worry about
yours. No, we live looking to Christ, don't we? We know that
these sins are grotesque. The Lord calls some of them an
abomination, which is disgusting. We know this. We understand all
that. But we don't look at these other
individuals and say, well, I know that I'm a believer because I'm
not like this or I'm not like that. No, you're a believer because
God has got his hand on you and he's put you on the path. He's
put you on the path of light. He came to where you were and
he saved you. If you're a believer, that's how it happened. He didn't
leave you to yourself. He didn't turn you over to yourself.
It's not that And this is, he just, the Lord left him to the
darkness. Oh, what a wretched state to be in. Lord, don't leave
me in the darkness. Give me the light. All God has to do is leave us
to ourself or we'd be like Sodom and Gomorrah. But here's the
good news. Here's the good news. Go back
to our text. Look at verse 18, but the path
of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more
into the perfect day. How did you become just? God
had to justify you. And if he justified you, that
means your path is now the path of light because he's placed
you there. He's placed me there. If he's
shined the light, he's placed us there. The good news of the
gospel is because the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sin of his people
on the cross and put them all away, because he actually redeemed
his people, he's never gonna leave us and he's never gonna
forsake us. He will not leave us to ourself.
He will drive us to Christ. He will drive us to Christ. I
was talking to somebody about trials and they were having a
difficult time and I said, Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.
And I said, he must love you a whole lot. Going through trials,
some of those trials are heavy. He must love you a whole lot.
I don't think that they understood exactly what I meant by that.
I wasn't being sarcastic. I was really being serious, but
it's true. It's true. The scripture calls them light
afflictions because it really is compared to what the Lord
had to endure. But at the same time, sometimes it's grievous,
isn't it? Chastening can be grievous. What is he doing? Well, he's
doing it for your good and for his glory, my good and his glory,
if I'm his. If He loves us as His children,
He's going to chasten us. He's going to drive us to Christ.
He's going to cause the light to shine brighter and brighter.
Now understand something, that light never changes. We change.
The Lord changes us. It's called growing in grace.
Now, we're sanctified right now. The new man, we've already been
glorified. That was past tense. We just
haven't experienced it yet. When it comes down to the light itself,
we just see less and less of ourself and more and more of
him. Some of you that's been on the
way, does he not sweeter now than he's ever been, Linda? It's
true, isn't it? Is he not sweeter now, Al, than
he's ever been? He just gets sweeter and sweeter,
doesn't he? It's that light that he allows us to see more and
more of. And you know, the part that I'm excited about, I guess
I should say, is when we see him face to face, his full majesty,
the full light. We're looking through a glass
darkly right now. One of these days, we're going to look at
him face to face. Get to see him face to face. Because Christ is in us, we have
hope and eternal life. That's the good news. When he
sees his people, he sees the blood and he's satisfied. Satisfied
with that blood. He accepts the faith that he's
given them. He accepts the blood that he's given them. That blood
will never expire, never runs out. Not a single sin will ever
be able to rear its head back up. Our adversary is always accusing,
saying, well, do you see what Caleb did today? Did you see
what he did last night? Do you see this? Do you see that?
Lord said, all I see is the blood. All I see is the blood. Perfectly
righteous. He did that. He did that. Lord is well pleased with his
son, and if we're in him, he's pleased with us. John 8, 12 says,
Then spake 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. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness. The light never changes. We do. We grow in grace.
The way up for the believer is down. I remember people talking
about how they like to brag on one another and about how, oh,
he's really wise and he's really this. And they all like to get
puffed up over the knowledge that they had. That's not growth.
That's pride. No, growth actually is humility,
genuine humility, love. That's growth. It's seeing more
of Christ. And the more you see of Christ,
the less you see about yourself, the less you exalt yourself.
You realize, I don't want to be exalted. I don't want any
glory in this. No, he gets it all. He gets it
all. We have no confidence in the
flesh. All our confidence is in him. To the elect now, we go to God,
looking to Christ for grace, for mercy, for fresh grace, for
pardoning. for forgiveness, for justification,
for everything. We come to him boldly to the
throne of grace. Boldly means confident, with
complete confidence that whenever he said it is finished, it is
finished. We believe that. We believe that. Somebody said,
do you believe you're a believer? And I said, well, I believe the
Lord Jesus Christ and I believe that he saved his people from
their sin. I have no doubt about that. But as soon as I start
looking at myself, I think, oh no, Believer wouldn't do something
like that. You ever heard that before? Oh,
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of
death? The things which I would do I do not, but that which I
would not do, over here I'm doing it. I'm doing it again. We come
back like the prodigal to our Lord. Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner. I love the thought of him saying, what sin? It's
all gone. It's all well, it's been paid
for. It's been paid for. We desire to commune with our
Lord as all of our wisdom, all of our righteousness, all of
our sanctification and redemption. Made to see that he alone is
the way of salvation, internal life. This path that we're on
is the path that leads to him and he is eternal life. He is
salvation. He is the light of God. Thanks be to God. He shines forth
his glorious person and truth into our heart according to his
appointed time and gives us faith to believe in the light of God. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful
that you are all to your people and you continue to reveal yourself
Lord, please don't leave us to ourself. The frightening part
about that blackest, darkest place we heard was not that we
would be in darkness, but we would be without you. Lord, give
us Christ, lest we die.