Thank you, Tom. Good morning. I want to try to bring a message
this morning on the Lord Jesus Christ as our light. And I appreciate that choice
of hymn that we just sang. Let's ask the Lord to bless our
time together and bless his word to our hearts. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
what great hope we have in knowing the Lord Jesus as our light. Lord, the world in which we live
is a dark place. So much of our old man that we
bear is in a dark place. Lord, we've
come to this place that the light of your countenance might shine
upon us. Lord, that our affections would be set on
Christ and that you would reveal to us the truth, the truth of
who we are and who you are, the truth of how
it is, Lord, that you're pleased to save sinners. Lord, thank you for your word.
Bless it to the light of our understanding. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen. Let's open our Bibles together
to 2 Samuel chapter 22. 2 Samuel chapter 22. We've been looking at this prayer
of thanksgiving that David offers toward the end of his life. And this morning I'd like for
us to look at verse 29. David says,
Thou art my lamp, O Lord, and the Lord will lighten my darkness. For by Thee I have run through
a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, His
way is perfect. of the Lord is tried. He is a
buckler to all them that trust in him. For who is God, save
the Lord? And who is a rock, save our God? God is my strength and power,
and he maketh my way perfect. At the very beginning of the
Bible, Genesis chapter 1, the Lord reveals to us his power
in creation. And what we see in the creation
of the physical world is a picture of exactly the same thing that
the Lord does when he recreates us in Christ. The scripture says
in Genesis chapter 1 at verse 2, I think it is, the earth was
without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And just as the created world
was without form, without any order, without any direction,
And void, empty, that's the condition in which we come into this world. As a result of our father Adam's
sin, we're born blind. We're born spiritually dead. And we are without form and void. And darkness, darkness, that's
all we have is darkness. is upon the face of the deep. And then the next verse says,
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. Now we
know that all throughout scripture the water is a picture of the
Word of God. The washing of the water of God's
Word. And we have here in the very
beginning a a revelation, if we're able to see it and believe
it, of how it is that God, by His Spirit, breathes upon the
face of the water and says, let there be light. Let there be light. And if God
didn't say that, we would remain in darkness. But here's our hope. that the Lord, the Spirit of
God, would breathe upon the face of the deep, which is by nature
dark, and that he would say effectually, irresistibly, let there be light. And there was light, and God
saw the light, and he saw that it was good. And he divided the light from
the darkness. And he called the light day.
And he called the darkness night. And the creative world in which
you and I live every day, every 24 hours reveals the stark contrast
between light and darkness. We know that it is the Lord.
that makes us to differ. That there's no light that we
have that wasn't given to us. We didn't earn this light. We didn't deserve it. We didn't
work for it. The Lord made us to differ. We
have nothing to boast in. One of the verses of scripture
that was referenced in that hymn that we just sang was in 1 John
1 where the Lord says, walk in the light as he is in the light. And the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. When the Bible speaks of walking,
it speaks of our life, our life. The Bible says that we walk not
by sight, we walk by faith. This light is not a physical
light, it's a spiritual light. We look not on the things which
are seen, for the things which are seen are temporal. But we
look upon those things which are not seen. And the things
which are not seen are eternal. And only as God enlightens the
understanding of our eyes can we look upon those things which
are eternal. In John chapter 8 we have the
story of the woman that the Pharisees brought before the Lord as he
was teaching in the temple. And I can just see them casting
her down to the ground and saying to the Lord, This woman was caught
in adultery in the very act. What do you think we should do?
What do you say we should do? And the scripture says they were
testing him to see if he would be faithful to the law of Moses.
For they said the law of Moses says that she deserves to be
stoned. Interesting that There was no man brought before the
Lord, just the woman. Interesting that she was caught
in the very act indicating that this was a setup all for the purpose of trying
to entrap the sovereign God of the universe. Oh, how foolish men are. How
foolish they are. Do you remember the story? The Lord stoops down to the ground
and he begins to write on the ground. What he wrote we don't
know except that there's other times where the finger of God
wrote. Perhaps he was writing the Ten
Commandments as he wrote those commandments on the stones on
Mount Sinai. Perhaps he was writing as he
wrote on the wall when he told the king you've been weighed
in the balance and you've been found wanting. But whatever it
was he was writing, he said to those Pharisees, he that is without
sin, let him cast the first stone. And beginning with the eldest,
down to the youngest, they all began to walk away one by one.
One by one. And the Lord looked up And he
said to this poor woman, where are they that condemn you? No
man condemn you? No man, Lord. No man, Lord. Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Now tell
that story in order to get to the next verse. For the next
verse, the Lord said, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. So when John tells us in 1 John
chapter one that They that walk in the light as
he is in the light. The Lord's answering what it
means to walk in the light. It means to follow Christ. It
means to look to Jesus. It means to follow after him
and to set your affections on him and to look to him. He that followeth after me shall
not walk in darkness, but he shall have the light of day. Only in the Lord Jesus can we
have the light of day. Only in him can he reveal to
us the truth of who we are, who
we are left to ourselves, nothing but sin, and who we are in him,
perfectly righteous, only in the Lord Jesus. And these revelations
are made most clearly at the cross, aren't they? They're made
most clearly at the cross. What do we see happening at the
cross? Well, before we even answer that question, let us consider
what happened in Egypt when the ninth of the 10 plagues was darkness. You remember that? For three
days, there was utter, complete darkness upon the face of the
earth. The Bible says that the darkness was so dark that it
could be felt. This was not just a physical
darkness that affected the eyesight. This was a darkness that struck
fear and confusion and panic in the heart. The scripture says that no man
saw one another. You couldn't see a person next
to you, it was so dark. And for three days, no man got
up from the place where he was to move about. No man dared try
to navigate through that utter darkness. And then the Bible
says this, but all the children of Israel
had light in their dwellings. The Lord made a difference between
the Israelites and the Egyptians in all these plagues. But this
one fits our text because David is telling us that the Lord is
my lamp. He is the one who lightens my
darkness. I would be in utter darkness
concerning myself, concerning who God is, and concerning how
it is that God is pleased to save sinners. If the Lord wasn't
my light, if he did not make a distinction, if he did not
make a difference. And then we see the Lord Jesus
hanging on Calvary's cross. The number three is extremely
important in the Bible. It is a number that represents
completeness. And we see it in the Trinity,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We see it in the
three years of our Lord's public ministry. We see it in the three
days of utter darkness in Egypt. We see it in the three hours,
noon to 3 p.m. when complete darkness fell upon
the earth at Calvary's cross. And we have the Lord Jesus Christ
suspended between heaven and earth. And this darkness represents
not only the forsaking of the father, but the forsaking of
all men of the earth. The Lord Jesus, all by himself,
hanging in utter darkness. In order to do what? Well, Satan
is called the prince. of the power of the air. And
here we have the Lord Jesus in the air, if you will, defeating
the darkness of the devil. He's called the power of darkness.
He's called the ruler of darkness. What the Lord Jesus accomplished
on Calvary's cross was the defeat of darkness on behalf of his
people. And David is expressing what
every believer expresses. The Lord is my lamp. The Lord is the one who lightens
my darkness. In him is light. In him is light. And in him is
no darkness at all. He is the light of the world. The only hope that I have of
being able to see anything of any truth and value in this world
is to be following after the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with
me to 2 Peter chapter 1. and look at verse 19. I'm sorry, 2nd Peter chapter
1 verse 19. Now Peter is recounting prior
to verse 19 the experience that he and James and John had on
the Mount of Transfiguration. When the veil of our Lord's humanity
was taken away and the radiance of his glory shined forth as
the noonday sun, they could not look upon him. Their faces were buried in the
dirt. The radiance of his glory was
so glorious. And this was truly what we would
call a mountaintop experience in every way. And then Peter
says this in verse 19, we have also a more sure word of prophecy,
where unto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that
shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star
arise in your heart. Who's that day star? It's Christ. And so where do we go? David
in our text, if you go back with me to our text, he goes on to
say, knowing this first that no prophecy came of private interpretation,
but holy men wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. So
we have a revelation of Christ given to us in his word. David
says in our text, not only is the Lord, the Lord lightens my
darkness, But he says in verse 31, as for God, his way is perfect
and the word of the Lord is tried. It is a buckler unto all them
that trust in him. So this looking to Christ is not some sort of emotional
experience whereby we just kind of look up into the ether and
try to find the Lord Jesus Christ, we are looking into God's word. Where the Lord gives us a revelation
of himself. And by faith, we just believe
God. Whatever God says, we believe
it. And so we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing comes by the word
of God. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians. This goes all the way back to
creation. And it goes back to the distinction
that God made between day and night. And it goes back to the
distinction that God made in Egypt between the Israelites
and the Egyptians. And it goes to the cross. It
goes to the cross where the Lord Jesus Christ himself as the light
of the world is defeating the powers of darkness that we might
have the light of life. Look what he tells us in first
Thessalonians chapter five at verse four, but you brethren,
are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a
thief. Now, prior to this verse, the
Lord's telling us about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
he's gonna come as a thief in the night, when men least expect
it. They knew a thief was coming
to be prepared for it, but when men least expect it, that's when
he's coming. That's why believers are always
expectant. And when the world says, when
someone in the world, someone in man-made religion predicts
the second coming of Christ, one thing I know for sure is
that's the day he's not coming. This day is not going to overtake
you as a thief. Why? Because you're not walking
in the darkness. You're not walking in the lie of believing that
somehow you can make a contribution to your salvation, that somehow
that God is dependent upon you to do something in order for
him to be able to save you. You're not walking in that lie.
You're looking to Christ, you're walking after him. You're seeing
that all of your salvation is of him. and that as David said,
he is the lamp. His word is a lamp unto my feet,
it is a light unto my path. But you are the children of light
and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of
the darkness. God's made us to differ. He's
made a distinction. He's shined the light of the
gospel in our hearts in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. They that sleep, sleep in the
night. And they that be drunken are
drunken in the night. They that be intoxicated with
the things of this world and with a works freewill gospel,
and how intoxicating that is. We're not talking about alcohol
here. It's interesting that alcohol is referred to as spirits because
this is another spirit that would intoxicate the heart of a man
to walk in darkness and God looks at him and says he's a blind
man groping for a wall. And the Lord calls those religious
leaders, the blind leading the blind and they shall all fall
into the ditch. And the Lord said, leave them
alone. Just leave them alone. You're not children of the night.
You're children of the light. And let us who are of the day,
verse eight, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and
love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. It's the breastplate of love.
It's the breastplate of faith. It's the helmet of salvation.
The helmet protecting the head. Our minds being set on Christ. Who died for us. that whether
we wake or sleep we should live together with him. Now in verse
10 when he's talking about waking or sleeping he's talking about
whether we are physically alive at his coming or whether we have
already departed from this body. Whether we wake or we sleep we
have the hope for God hath not appointed us to wrath but to
obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us
Whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
Wherefore, comfort yourselves." Comfort yourselves. Oh Lord,
I was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. Lord, I was listening to the
opinions of men and drawing my own conclusions. In darkness
was I walking. I had no understanding. I had no hope. I had no truth,
it was all a lie. But you made me to differ. You
were the one. Another illustration in the Bible
that we looked at a week or two ago was that cloud that came
when the children of Israel were leaving Egypt and they got to
the Red Sea and they could go no farther and by this time Pharaoh
had amassed his army and sent them out to gather and bring
them back. And the Bible says that the army of Pharaoh was
on one side of them and that the Red Sea was on the other
side. And they were between a rock and a hard place. And God came
down in the pillar of a cloud. And the Bible says to the Egyptians
that cloud was darkness and to the Israelites that cloud was
light. And there we have the gospel. It is utter darkness. to the unbeliever, to the Egyptian
it is darkness, they can't understand it. But to those for whom the Spirit
of God has spoke, let there be light, let there be light. Oh Lord, I see, I see John chapter
nine. When the Pharisees were interrogating
that man that was born blind, he was born blind, there we are,
born blind. All our lives, couldn't see a
thing from day one. And the Lord miraculously healed
him. And he couldn't answer, he couldn't answer their theological
questions. He could not compete with them
to debate over the Bible. And we see that oftentimes in
our relationships, especially with our religious family members
and friends. They'll throw up stuff and we'll try to explain
to them things. And maybe at the end of the day,
all we're able to say is, you know, I don't know about your
objections. All I know is that once I was
blind and now I see, now I see, I see by the grace of God, the
Lord, is my lamp. He's my lamp. He is the light
of my darkness. He is the one who made me to
differ. There is a very clear evidence
of the darkness of this world that we've seen Most clearly
in the last couple of weeks are the... Before we do that, let me ask
you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 5. We have to look at
this verse first. Isaiah chapter 5, look at verse
20. Verse 20. Woe. Now, the word woe, particularly
in the book of Isaiah, is a declaration of judgment, the judgment of
God, eternal damnation. So when Isaiah saw the Lord,
he said, woe is me, I'm undone, I'm gonna die. And he wasn't
just worried about physical death, he was worried about being cast
into the lake of fire, to hell, woe. Woe unto them that call evil
good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light
for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Now, unless a man's conscience is seared, And that does happen. A man can lie to himself until
he calls that which is good evil and that which is evil good.
He calls the bittersweet and sweet bitter. And I fear that
we're living in a time of social searing, if you will.
Whereas a society where we're celebrating things that not very
long ago we would have known were evil. But you know what? Most people that have any conscience
left in their heart of hearts, they know what God calls good
and what God calls evil. and they may lie to others and
they may lie to themselves and if you do that, as I said, long
enough, you will sear your conscience so that you can't discern right
from wrong. You can violate your conscience
to the point to where it no longer works. But most people who have a semblance
of conscience left, even those who might join their voices in
celebrating evil, in this world know that if they stood before
God what God would think about it. And so I want us to look at verse 20
not in consideration of the moral degradation that we might see
in the world but in consideration of what we've had to endure taking
place in Rome and across the world these past couple of weeks. And I make no apology for this
because I think, I do believe that if there's anything that
shows evidence in our world that the devil has not yet been chained
and bound and cast into the lake of fire. It is not the moral
degradation of this world, but it is the celebration of what
we watched take place in Rome. Only those who are completely
spiritually blind would be able to celebrate the mother of harlots,
making her proud display of her fornications and her filthiness
without shame in the full light of day. Can you tell a difference? Now, the mother of harlots, Revelation
chapter 17, is the Catholic Church. But make no mistake about it,
she's got a lot of children. She's got a lot of children.
And all the man-made religions of this world are just as evil
as they are, but she's the one who represents them all. She's
the one that all the kings of the earth get behind and rally
their support to. And she's the one that the religious
of this world are celebrating her fornication. They're celebrating
her blasphemy. And they're proud of it, they're
excited about it. They think that it's godly. Now
that, that is calling light, a darkness light, an evil good. And I bring that out because
this is the distinctive characteristic that God gives to his people
when he enables us to look to Christ as our light and realize
that the religions of the world and
all the works of man and all the Efforts to earn one's salvation is not light, it's not light,
it's darkness. It's darkness. My heart has been
grieved. Just the little bit that I've
had to endure to watch this. Back to Genesis chapter 1 after
the Lord separated light from darkness, here's what he said.
And the sun shall rule over the day and the moon over the night. Now you're not of the night,
you're of the day. If you know Christ, if he's revealed the
light of his glory to you, then he's ruling over you. There's another place where the
Lord Jesus is referred to as the son, S-U-N, of righteousness,
the son of righteousness. And David in one of the Psalms
speaks, I think it's Psalm 19, speaks of the Lord Jesus as the
sun that rises in the day. And the sun rules over the day. He rules over us. Now what does
the moon do? The moon doesn't generate light.
The moon only reflects light. That's all it does. And what
is it that determines the phases of the moon? Is it not the earth
that gets between the sun and the moon that determines its
phases? And sometimes the earth is completely
between the sun and the moon and the moon is incapable of
reflecting any light at all. It's up there but you can't see
it. And other times there's a sliver of a moon and other times it
shines bright. The sun rules over the day. The moon, that's the church. That's the child of God. And
he rules over the night. And he reflects the light of
the glory of Christ in this world. You are the light of the world. And the light is not hidden in
a basket. No, it's set on a hilltop. Sadly, brethren, we find that
light is often diminished by how much of this world gets between
us and the Lord. Is that not our experience? Lord David said in Psalm 4, lift
up thy countenance upon us. Lift up thy countenance. I give light to them that sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death. He guides our feet into the way
of peace. David, in our text, is confessing what every believer
confesses. The Lord is the only one that
can lighten my darkness. He is light and in him is no
darkness, no darkness whatsoever. And if I'm gonna have any understanding,
if I'm gonna have any life, if I'm gonna have any truth. The Lord told Nicodemus, light
has come into the world. But men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Their deeds were evil. And that's not just speaking
of the moral deeds that men perform that God looks at and calls evil. Men won't come to Christ because
they're engaged in lifestyles that they don't want to, you
know, they love their sin. We would be right there. Only
by the grace of God that the Lord, we see enough affection
for our sin to know that we could fall headlong into it if the
Lord didn't stir our hearts and make us hate it. But the unbeliever won't come
to the light because his deeds are evil. But he's not just talking
about them, he's also talking about what I've already illustrated
with the Catholic Church and with all of her children. Men won't come to Christ because
their glory in their righteousness which God calls evil. And they're
not going to give up that righteousness. They're not going to bow. They're
not going to confess that all of their righteousness are filthy
rags. They're not going to come. They won't do it. But then the Lord says, in closing,
let's turn to that passage, John chapter 3. John chapter 3. Verse 20, everyone that doeth
evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved. Now that word reproved means
discovered. It doesn't mean to be rebuked
or to be shamed, it means to be revealed or to be uncovered
or to be discovered for what it is. Men won't come to the
light because they don't want their evil deeds to be uncovered. Now here's the truth. Whatever we're able by God's
grace to uncover in the presence of God, he covers it by the blood
of Christ. And whatever we try to cover, he will one day uncover. But he, verse 21, that doeth
truth. What is it to do the truth? I
am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness but have the light of life. To do the truth
is to follow Christ, is to believe on Christ, is to look to Christ,
is to rejoice in Christ. He that doeth truth cometh to
the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they were
wrought of God. He's talking about the deed of
faith. It's manifest that it was wrought
of God. I didn't just decide I was going
to believe one day, I didn't make a decision, I didn't No,
this deed of believing on Christ and coming to the light was wrought
of God. And he gets all the glory. He
made me to differ. I had no ability to come, but he made me. Oh, I rejoice. All right, let's take a break.